| 506 Joshua the son of Nun was full of the Holy Ghost; for Moses had laid his hands on him. But without the authority of this priesthood, and the ordinances thereof, the power of God is not manifest to men in the flesh. It is the channel through which the Holy Spirit flows upon the people of God. It holds the Key of the knowledge of God, or the mysteries of the kingdom, and when men render themselves unworthy of the priesthood, and God takes it from them, they are left without revelations, and the gifts of the Spirit.
To the loss of the priesthood may be ascribed most of the divisions in the Christian world at the present day, and the great doubt upon the minds of all the contending parties, which have prevailed to such an extent from the days of the primitive Christians. By a reference to Eph. iv chapter from the 9 to 15 verse, it will be seen that the officers there mentioned for perfecting the saints, for the work of the ministry, &c., were designed, first, to bring to the unity of the faith those who embraced the Gospel from all classes; second, when they were thus united in the doctrine of Christ to prevent their being divided into sects and parties, and led about by every wind of doctrine through the cunning craftiness and deceit of false teachers. That Isaiah and the apostles clearly foresaw that the Christian world would apostatize and divide, and the priesthood and its gifts and powers cease among them, is evident from what they say. Paul says, 2 Thes. ii. 3, "there shall come a falling away and the man of sin be revealed," &c.; also, 2 Tim. 3d and 4th chapters, he says, "the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but will make their own teacher such as God does not choose, who have a form of Godliness; but deny its power: and these teachers will turn away the people from the truth, and turn them to fables. Peter in his 2d General Epistle, 2d chapter, written not to a few; but to the church in general, plainly declared there should be false teachers among them, who through covetousness should make merchandise of the people, and bring in damnable heresies, or as some have more properly translated it, destructive sects and parties. But Isaiah's testimony is conclusive upon this subject: in the 24 chap. where he prophecies of a time when the whole earth will be corrupted by the people, transgressing the laws, changing the ordinances, and breaking the everlasting covenant. The covenant here alluded to was doubtless a covenant of priesthood established in the Gospel dispensation; for the covenant under the Mosaic dispensation was called a covenant of priesthood, Num xxv. 13, & the Mosaic being a type of the Gospel dispensation the everlasting covenent [covenant] was the establishment of the Melchizedek priesthood in the Christian church, by which the ordinances of God's house could be administered, and the spiritual gifts and powers of the Holy Ghost manifested to those under the covenant; and the subsequent breaking of the covenant deprived them of the priesthood, and its train of attendants.
That the foregoing predictions have been fulfilled since the apostolic age, all who are acquainted with church history can testify; but to the reflecting mind the present confused state of Christendom, is all the evidence needed. After Popery was established, and the papal jurisdiction extended to the utmost limits of the empire, and the Christian world shrouded in darkness for ages; in the forepart of the sixteenth century Luther Calvin, Melancthon, Zuinglius, and many more of the clergy of Germany, England, and other parts of Europe, began to protest against many superstitions of Catholicism, and the authority of the pope, and cried aloud for reformation: and though they succeeded in abolishing some of those absurdities, and effecting a reformation in different parts of Europe, there by diminishing the power of the pope; yet they could never agree among themselves. And the different sects which they established have since divided, and subdivided, like the branches of a tree, shooting one from another until their number in Europe, and America, is estimated by some late writers at upwards of two hundred, and though the founders of the first reformed churches were Catholic clergyman, who were ex-communicated; yet they claimed no priesthood except from the Mother Church whose authority they disavowed, and were it asserted that she had priesthood acknowledged of God, (which is altogether inadmissible,) she was sure to divest her dissenting members of that authority.
Perhaps, by this time the reader will ask if the church apostatized, if the covenant
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