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to engage in Celestial Marriage and Polygamy, why do Latter-day Saints reject the idea that he engaged in polygamous marriages? If I have mistated that, please correct me.

Jersey Girl

This would be a really good question to ask the LDS Apologists over on the MA&D Board there, because some of the LDS Apologists there will argue that Joseph Smith did not really engage in Polygamy. They state there that Joseph Smith was just seale to those women for eternity. (A few of them have even stated that Joseph Smith getting sealed to those women was just like the other practice back then, of sealing men to men.) And I think that even one of the LDS Apologists over there have expressed doubt about the story of the angel really coming from Joseph Smith himself, and appearing to Joseph Smith, to tell him to go and engage in Plural Marriage. However, it is well documented that the angel with a drown out sword story, really did come from Joseph Smith. The following is from a Post from Deconstructor, from the RFM Board there:

There's no need to reply to this post or explain it in any way. Since you seemed inspired by the "Miracle of Seagulls" story, I thought you might like the "Miracle of the Angel and Sword" stories too. (This was originally written for a Mormon who was trying to defend the truthfullness of the Mormon Church by writing abut the "Seagull Miracle".)

Here are some first-person testimonies of miraculous angelic visitations just like the "First Vision" and angel Moroni stories which also come from church history:

"The same God that has thus far dictated me and directed me and strengthened me in this work, gave me this revelation and commandment on celestial and plural marriage, and the same God commanded me to obey it. He said to me that unless I accepted it, and introduced it, and practiced it, I, together with my people would be damned and cut off from this time henceforth. We have got to observe it. It is an eternal principle and was given by way of commandment and not by way of instruction."
- Prophet Joseph Smith, Contributor, Vol. 5, p. 259

"When that principle was revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith ... he did not falter, although it was not until an angel of God, with a drawn sword, stood before him; and commanded that he should enter into the practice of that principle, or he should be utterly destroyed, or rejected, that he moved forward to reveal and establish that doctrine."
- Prophet Joseph F. Smith, "Plural Marriage for the Righteous Only-Obedience Imperative-Blessings Resulting", Journal of Discourses, Vol.20, p.28 - p.29

"I know whereon I stand, I know what I believe, I know what I know and I know what I testify to you is the living truth. As I expect to meet it at the bar of the eternal Jehovah, it is true. And when you stand before the bar you will know. He preached polygamy and he not only preached it, but he practiced it. I am a living witness to it. It was given to him before he gave it to the Church. An angel came to him and the last time he came with a drawn sword in his hand and told Joseph if he did not go into that principle, he would slay him."
- Sister Mary Lightner, Address to Brigham Young University, April 14th, 1905, BYU Archives and Manuscripts
See: http://www.ldshistory.net/pc/merlbyu.htm

"His brother, Hyrum, said to me, "Now, Brother Benjamin, you know that Brother Joseph would not sanction this if it was not from the Lord. The Lord revealed this to Brother Joseph long ago, and he put it off until the Angel of the Lord came to him with a drawn sword and told him that he would be slain if he did not go forth and fulfill the law." He told my sister to have no fears, and he there and then sealed my sister, Almira, to the Prophet."

"Soon after this he was at my house again, where he occupied my Sister Almira's room and bed, and also asked me for my youngest sister, Esther M. I told him she was promised in marriage to my wife's brother. He said, "Well, let them marry, for it will all come right.""
- Elder Benjamin F. Johnson, My Life's Review See: http://mormonlore.freeservers.com/johnson1.htm

"He there and then explained to me the doctrine of plurality of wives; he said that the Lord had revealed it unto him, and commanded him to have women sealed to him as wives; that he foresaw the trouble that would follow, and sought to turn away from the commandment; that an angel from heaven then appeared before him with a drawn sword, threatening him with destruction unless he went forward and obey the commandment."

"He further said that my sister, Eliza R. Snow, had been sealed to him as his wife for time and eternity. He told me that the Lord would open the way, and I should have women sealed to me as wives. This conversation was prolonged, I think, one hour or more, in which he told me many important things."

"I solemnly declare before God and holy angels, and as I hope to come forth in the morning of the resurrection, that the above statement is true."
- Prophet Lorenzo R. Snow, sworn affadavidt. See: http://www.Mormons.org.uk/celest.htm

"19 year-old Zina remained conflicted until a day in October, apparently, when Joseph sent [her older brother] Dimick to her with a message: an angel with a drawn sword had stood over Smith and told him that if he did not establish polygamy, he would lose "his position and his life." Zina, faced with the responsibility for his position as prophet, and even perhaps his life, finally acquiesced." (In Sacred Loneliness, page 80-81)

"An Angel of God Stood by him (Joseph Smith) with a drawn Sword and told him he should be slain & Cut off from the Earth and the kingdom of God if he did not obey that Law (of polygamy). George Q Cannon was of the same opinion, that a man must have more then one wife at a time in order to obey that Law."
- Prophet Wilford Woodruff, Wilford Woordruff's Journal, Vol. 8, p.235

( http://www.exmormon.org/Mormon/mormon215.htm )

Yet, we still have some of the LDS Apologists on the MA&D Board, who argue and believe that Joseph Smith did not really practice Polygamy.

Brackite,

I'm sure the issue of polygamy has been beaten to death on FAIR/MAD. Here's another "If" question.

If the angel commanded the Prophet to engage in Celestial Marriage and polygamy, and the Prophet chose not to, why does D&C 132 contain a warning to Emma Smith about accepting it?

Jersey Girl

From http://ldsfaq.BYU.edu/emmain.asp?number=145

Joseph Smith realized that the introduction of plural marriage would inevitably invite severe criticism. After the Kirtland experience, he knew the tension it would create in his own family; even though Emma, with faith in his prophetic calling, accepted the revelation as being from God and not of his own doing, she could not reconcile herself to the practice. Beyond that, it had the potential to divide the Church and increase hostilities from outside. Still, he felt obligated to move ahead. "The object with me is to obey & teach others to obey God in just what he tells us to do," he taught several months before his death. "It mattereth not whether the principle is popular or unpopular. I will always maintain a true principle even if I Stand alone in it" (TPJS, p. 332).

Although certain that God would require it of him and of the Church, Joseph Smith would not have introduced it when he did except for the conviction that God required it then. Several close confidants later said that he proceeded with plural marriage in Nauvoo only after both internal struggle and divine warning. Lorenzo Snow later remembered vividly a conversation in 1843 in which the Prophet described the battle he waged "in overcoming the repugnance of his feelings" regarding plural marriage.

"He knew the voice of God-he knew the commandment of the Almighty to him was to go forward-to set the example, and establish Celestial plural marriage. He knew that he had not only his own prejudices and pre-possessions to combat and to overcome, but those of the whole Christian world…; but God…had given the commandment" [The Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow, pp. 69–70 (Salt Lake City, 1884)].

Even so, Snow and other confidants agreed that Joseph Smith proceeded in Nauvoo only after an angel declared that he must or his calling would be given to another (Bachman, pp. 74–75). After this, Joseph Smith told Brigham Young that he was determined to press ahead though it would cost him his life, for "it is the work of God, and He has revealed this principle, and it is not my business to control or dictate it" (Brigham Young Discourse, Oct. 8, 1866, Church Archives).

Nor did others enter into plural marriage blindly or simply because Joseph Smith had spoken, despite biblical precedents. Personal accounts document that most who entered plural marriage in Nauvoo faced a crisis of faith that was resolved only by personal spiritual witness. Those who participated generally did so only after they had obtained reassurance and saw it as religious duty.

Even those closest to Joseph Smith were challenged by the revelation. After first learning of plural marriage, Brigham Young said he felt to envy the corpse in a funeral cortege and "could hardly get over it for a long time" (JD 3:266). The Prophet´s brother Hyrum Smith stubbornly resisted the very possibility until circumstances forced him to go to the Lord for understanding. Both later taught the principle to others. Emma Smith vacillated, one day railing in opposition against it and the next giving her consent for Joseph to be sealed to another wife (see comments by Orson Pratt, JD 13:194).

Teaching new marriage and family arrangements where the principles could not be openly discussed compounded the problems. Those authorized to teach the doctrine stressed the strict covenants, obligations and responsibilities associated with it—the antithesis of license. But those who heard only rumors, or who chose to distort and abuse the teaching, often envisioned and sometimes practiced something quite different. One such was John C. Bennett, mayor of Nauvoo and adviser to Joseph Smith, who twisted the teaching to his own advantage. Capitalizing on rumors and lack of understanding among general Church membership, he taught a doctrine of "spiritual wifery." He and associates sought to have illicit sexual relationships with women by telling them that they were married "spiritually," even if they had never been married formally, and that the Prophet approved the arrangement. The Bennett scandal resulted in his excommunication and the disaffection of several others. Bennett then toured the country speaking against the Latter-day Saints and published a bitter anti-Mormon exposé charging the Saints with licentiousness.

The Bennett scandal elicited several public statements aimed at arming the Saints against the abuses. Two years later enemies and dissenters, some of whom had been associated with Bennett, published the Nauvoo Expositor, to expose, among other things, plural marriage, thus setting in motion events leading to Joseph Smith´s death (see Martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith).

Far from involving license, however, plural marriage was a carefully regulated and ordered system. Order, mutual agreements, regulation, and covenants were central to the practice. As Elder Parley P. Pratt wrote in 1845,

"These holy and sacred ordinances have nothing to do with whoredoms, unlawful connections, confusion or crime; but the very reverse. They have laws, limits, and bounds of the strictest kind, and none but the pure in heart, the strictly virtuous, or those who repent and become such, are worthy to partake of them. And…[a] dreadful weight of condemnation await those who pervert, or abuse them" [The Prophet, May 24, 1845; cf. D&C 132:7].

The Book of Mormon makes clear that, though the Lord will command men through his prophets to live the law of plural marriage at special times for his purposes, monogamy is the general standard (Jacob 2:28–30); unauthorized polygamy was and is viewed as adultery. Another safeguard was that authorized plural marriages could be performed only through the sealing power controlled by the presiding authority of the Church (D&C 132:19).