We have no need to argue, we have not need to cast epithets at others, **and we have no **need to condemn. Through us the Holy Spirit is able to touch who we come into contact WHEN we are acting as his instrument. The moment we are an instrument of anger or abuse in any way of others, we cease to be instruments of the Holy Spirit at that moment.
Maybe you don’t have the need to condemn other faiths, but this Mormons prophet/seer/revelator didn’t see it that way:
LDS Church Publication “The Seer,” January, 1854. No. 1., Page 204-206
DOCTRINE QUESTIONS
Q. Have the Roman Catholics authority to baptize?
A. No: for they have no inspired Apostles and Prophets among them: neither have they any new revelations, and without these things no one ever was or ever can be called to the ministry?
Q. Is the Roman Catholic Church the Church of Christ?
A. No: for she has no inspired priesthood or officers, without which the Church of Christ never did nor never can exist.
Q. How long since the Roman Catholic Church lost the authority and ceased to be the Church of Christ?
A. She never had authority, and never was the Church of Christ; and consequently she could not lose that which she never was in possession of.
Q. If the Roman Catholics are not the Church of Christ, where has the Church of Christ existed since inspired men ceased from the earth:
A. She has existed in heaven where the gates of hell never can prevail against her, because she is built upon the rock; and the inspired Apostles are in heaven with her whom the Saviour promised to be with always, even unto the end of the world.
Q. What has become of the Apostles’ successors?
A. The Apostles had no successors after those died off who were called by inspiration and new revelation.
Q. After the Church of Christ fled from earth to heaven, what was left?
A. A set of wicked Apostates, murderers, and idolaters, who, after having made war with the saints, and overcome them, and destroyed them out of the earth, were left to follow the wicked imaginations of their own corrupt hearts, and to build up churches by human authority, and to follow after the cunning craftiness of uninspired men; having no Apostle, Prophet, or Revelator to inquire of God for them: and thus, because of wickedness, the Church, and Priesthood, and gifts, and ordinances and blessings of the everlasting Gospel, were taken from the earth, and reserved in heaven until the fulness of times, when it was predicted that they should again be restored among men to continue until the end should come.
Q. Who founded the Roman Catholic Church?
A. The Devil, through the medium of Apostates, who subverted the whole order of God by denying immediate revelation, and substituting in the place thereof, tradition and ancient revelations as a sufficient rule of faith and practice.
Q. Did the great Protestant Reformers restore the Church of Christ to the earth?
A. No: for they had no inspired Apostles, Prophets, or Revelators among them, without which the Church could not be restored.
Q. But did not any of the Protestant Reformers have authority to Baptize and Confirm?
A. Not any of them: for they pretended that ancient revelation was a sufficient rule of faith; and, therefore, that no new revelation was needed: and without new revelation no man could be called and authorized to administer Gospel ordinances.
Q. But did not the first Protestant Reformers receive their ordination and authority from the Catholics?
A. Yes: and in this manner they received all the authority that their mother church was in possession of; and the mother having derived her authority from the Devil, could only impart that which his Satanic majesty was pleased to bestow upon her. If thorns could bear figs–if a bitter fountain could send forth sweet water–or a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit, then the whore of Babylon could confer divine authority upon her harlot daughters. But whatever authority the mother might have pretended to confer upon the daughters, she afterwards was very careful to take from them by excommunication. Therefore, unless the Reformers received fresh authority from heaven by new revelation, they had no authority at all.
Q. Are all the Baptisms administered by the Catholics and Protestants, and the different sects which have, from time to time, dissented from them, illegal, because the ministers were not authorized?
A. They are, every one of them, illegal, and null, and void, and without effect; and will not be considered baptism in the day of judgment any more than the acts of unauthorized men in human governments are considered legal.
Q. Was not the Protestant Reformation a great benefit to the world?
A. Yes: it served to weaken the power of the mother church, and produced a great division in Satan’s kingdom–the mother being opposed to her harlot daughters, and the daughters against their most abominable mother: and in this family war, the harlot daughters became also sorely displeased with each other. And in the midst of the contending elements, wise men became convinced that the civil government could not safely be entrusted with any of the contending parties: hence arose governments supporting religious freedom: whereas, if it had not been for the divisions in Satan’s kingdom, freedom of conscience would have been wholly unknown in the nineteenth century. The iron yoke of Romanism would have sorely galled the necks of all nations upon whom she had power to place it. It was to weaken this corrupt, soul-destroying power; and to stir up contention, division, and war in all her borders, preparatory to the establishment of religious liberty, that God moved upon the hearts of the great Protestant Reformers of the sixteenth century.
How can faithful Mormons today honestly claim that their church and God not not have issues with the Catholic church?!
