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Few topics seem to engage the interest of the Latter-day Saints more vigorously than that of the Second Coming of Christ. Over the years, numerous books treating this topic have issued from the Mormon press. Common to most of them, though, is an ahistorical approach. Undergirding these works is the assumption that the Church has always understood adventist doctrine in the same way, that it has always been doctrinally monochrome. Thus, the authors have felt justified in citing early leaders’ elaborations to explain the modern position, or perhaps more seriously, they have assumed that present-day ideas are representative of those at any point in the past. To trace thoroughly such development across the 150-year span of Mormon history would fill a small volume.[1] My purpose, therefore, will be limited to a con sideration and comparison of Mormon millennial thought now current with that prevalent during the 1830s. Publications printed in the 1830s, both periodicals and pamphlets, provide the source material for an understanding of early thinking; the 1978 Church publication, Gospel Principles, provides a clear, concise and nearly official exposition of Mormon doctrine as it now stands at the celebration of its sesquicentennial anniversary.[2]

This comparison of millennialism during the two periods will be organized around three central issues—who will be on the earth during the millennium, what will be accomplished during the millennium, and what conditions will then prevail? Finally, significant strands of thought which defy this format will be considered separately. 

Three major ideas can be gleaned as characteristic of modern thinking on the question of who will be on the earth during the millennium. First, only righteous people, that is, only those living worthy to inherit the terrestrial or celestial kingdoms in Latter-day Saint salvation echelons, will continue to live during the millennium. Thus, nonmembers whose lives meet the terrestrial standards will survive the Second Coming. They will have their free agency, and for a time many will continue in their own beliefs. Eventually, however, everyone will accept Christ as the Savior. Second, mortals living during the millennium will continue to have children. And third, resurrected beings will visit the earth frequently, but they and Christ “will probably not live on the earth all the time but will visit it whenever they please or when necessary to help in the governing of the earth.”[3]

Each of these points would have been understood differently by first decade Latter-day Saints. It was not until 1842 that Joseph Smith suggested that people other than the Mormons would be alive during the millennium, and when he did, he initiated a complete about-face from the thinking of the thirties.[4] As will be shown, the early saints had no place for nonmembers in their conception of the millennium. Because they held a rather dismal view of the neighbors who occasionally razed their barns and ransacked their homes, they seemingly felt no qualms about damning the whole lot of the gentiles. “All who do not obey Christ,” warned Edward Partridge, “will be cut off from the face of the earth when the Lord comes.”[5] In what was probably one of the two most important treatises on the millennium in the 1830s, Sidney Rigdon said simply, “All people who are on the earth during this period will be saints.”[6] Several years later, when Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon were asked, “will everybody be damned but Mormons?” they responded, “Yes, and a great portion of them unless they repent and work righteousness.”[7]

Such a position required a unique exegesis of traditional millennial prophecies. Rigdon explained that it was only the saints to whom the scrip ture was referring when it promised a day in which all shall “know the Lord from the least to the greatest.” “Among them,” he continued: 

the knowledge of God shall cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea; and all the rest of the world will without exception be cut off; and when this is done, and all the rest of the world cut off but the saints which are gathered, then will the earth be of one heart and one mind, then men will beat their ploughshares and their spears into pruning- hooks, and learn war no more . . . then shall the time come when they shall neither hurt nor destroy in all the Lord’s holy mountain, which holy mountain is the place where the saints will be gathered.[8]

Thus, while modern Mormons tend to categorize people as either celestial, terrestrial, or telestial; the early brethren merely saw them as saints or sinners, Israelites or gentiles.[9]

A corollary to the current conception that people living a terrestrial law will abide the day of Christ’s coming is the teaching that after the beginning of, and continuing during, the millennium, the dead of all ages who have earned a terrestrial glory will be resurrected as part of the first resurrection. This is sometimes called the “afternoon” of the first resurrection.[10] While this expanded explanation of the first resurrection is based upon parts of several revelations given during the 1830s, the saints of that day did not use them in their discussion of that topic.[11] Their conception was basically Biblical and the only place in the Bible where the term “first resurrection” is used is in Revelation 20:4-6. Here John sees the faithful dead being raised to live and reign with Christ a thousand years and declares that the rest of the dead would not be resurrected till the millennium was finished. The early saints took this literally to mean that there would be no interim resurrection.[12] Of course, to have imagined otherwise would have been inconsistent with the rest of their millennial thought. If there were only saints and sinners, it naturally followed that the saints, resurrected as they all would be at the Second Coming, should constitute the first resurrection, and that the rest of mankind who would not be resurrected till after the thousand years had ended would be the second resurrection. 

Similar literal adherence to the Bible also never would have led them to the idea, later announced by Joseph, that the Savior and the resurrected saints would “not dwell on the earth” but would only “visit it when they please, or when necessary to govern it.”[13] On the contrary, early saints anxiously contemplated and energetically commented upon the privilege of enjoying a thousand years in the visible presence of Christ. He would be there to bless personally them with his love and wipe away all their tears. Indeed, one can easily sense Parley Pratt’s enthusiasm for this companionship when he exuberantly declared, “Man is to dwell in the flesh upon the earth with the Messiah, not only one thousand years, but for ever and ever.”[14] “This reign of Christ is to be an earthly reign,” emphasized Sidney Rigdon. “In all that John has said about the coming of the Saviour, he has never told us of any other object he had in coming but to reign on earth a thousand years . . . and all those of the first resurrection with him.”[15] Indeed an earlier revelation had announced that the Lord would “dwell in righteousness with men on earth a thousand years.”[16] The hymns and poems written for the Evening and Morning Star by W. W. Phelps and by Parley P. Pratt for his The Millennium gives a further glimpse of the intensity with which this millennium-long mutual association was anticipated.[17]

Discussion of the role of children during the thousand years was merely incidental to the millennial musing of the ancient prophets, so it is not surprising that it was only occasionally addressed by early Mormons. One who commented was Sidney Rigdon. A few years earlier, Rigdon had been reproved by the Lord for not keeping the “commandments concerning his children” and had been admonished to set his house in order.[18] It is under standable, then, that part of his conception of the millennium included a vision of filial piety where the conduct of children would “never wound the feelings of their parents, nor bring a stain on their characters, nor yet cause the tear of sorrow to roll down their cheek.” This, he concluded, would secure to a parent “one of the greatest sources of human happiness, to have his family without reproach, without shame, without contempt, and his house a house of peace, and his family a family of righteousness.”[19]

The notion of giving birth to children after the commencement of the millennium was not well developed in the 1830s.[20] W. W. Phelps, however, composed the following stanza as part of a poem describing the millennial Zion: 

There, in the resurrection morn,
The living live again,
And all their children will be born 
Without the sting of sin.[21]

In terms, then, of the question, “who will be on the earth during the millenium?” it is clear that a Missouri Mormon and his modern-day descendant would respond in different ways. 

Turning to the second question—what will be done during the millennium, the recently published Gospel Principles reads: “There will be two great works for members of the Church during the millennium—temple work and missionary work.”[22] Since temple work for the dead was not initiated till the Nauvoo years, the idea that such a labor would occupy them during the millennium was unknown to first decade saints. In like fashion, their conception of a millennium involving only saints precluded the need for missionary work. All were to be warned, and the elect gathered out, every last one of them, but this before the Second Coming.[23] In fact, it is unlikely that Mor mons in the 1830s would have ever even framed such a question. Their conception of the millennium is captured in one of their favorite synonymous phrases, the Sabbath of Creation. To them it was a thousand-year day of rest, not work. About the only activity they pictured themselves involved in was reigning with and otherwise enjoying the smiles of their blessed Savior. To sing his praises endlessly might seem dull to the modern Mormon, but W. W. Phelps could joyfully exclaim: 

When we’ve been there a thousand years,
Bright shining as the Sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise,
Than when we first begun.[24]

And in that classic Mormon hymn, early composed by Parley P. Pratt, he yearned for the day when the Lord would “righteousness bring in, that Saints may tune the lyre.”[25] Such pastoral bliss may seem Protestant to the saint of the seventies, but it was part and parcel of the early Mormon mind. 

As has been noted, this was all to accompany their co-regency with Christ. Even before they understood its fine theological nuances, early Mor mons were basking in the apocalyptic promise of being made kings and priests to rule and reign with Christ.[26] Since the Prophet did not begin giving a peculiarly Mormon definition to the biblical term “exaltation” until the late 1840s, earlier saints would not have caught the—as presently defined—eternal implications of this concept. In the absence of such an understanding, therefore, they projected all their enthusiasm and expectations on the millennium, rather than on the far-off future state. Whereas the modern saint anxiously awaits the day he is crowned with an inheritance in the celestial kingdom, the early saint longed for his millennial inheritance. In the 1830s, before a theology of the three degrees of glory had been clearly worked out, the millennium was their anticipated day of triumph and glory. 

In summary, then, perhaps the best way to contrast the early saint’s understanding with his modern counterpart would be on the question of what would be done during the millennium: the early Mormon pictured the millennial kingdom in much the same way that his modern counterpart conceives of the celestial kingdom as a place of rest and glorious reign, not as a place or period of missionary and temple work. 

Finally, let us consider the millennial conditions as perceived by saints in both periods. It quickly becomes apparent that in this instance similarities are more pronounced than the differences are. Modern Mormons still use the same scriptures to note that the lamb will lie down with the lion, that swords will be beaten into ploughshares, and that there will be freedom from dis ease, death and sorrow.[27] So literally does the saint of the 1970s accept the renewal of the earth to its paradisiacal glory that he has retained the early idea that the earth will again become one land mass, a sort of prophetic Panagaea.[28] Modern Mormons continue to teach that the millennium will be a day when all things shall be revealed, though they do so with perhaps less verve than their Romantic counterparts of the 1830s.[29] Sidney Rigdon said it would be an age “when every man shall be his own prophet, seer, and revelator; for all shall know the Lord alike, from the least to the greatest.”[30] And Parley P. Pratt eloquently described the revelatory bliss of Eden which he felt would be restored fully in the millennium: 

Witness the ancients conversing with the Great Jehovah, learning lessons from the angels, and receiving instruction by the Holy Ghost, in dreams by night, and visions by day, until at length, the veil is taken off, and they are permitted to gaze, with wonder and admiration, upon all things past and future; yea, even to soar aloft amid unnumbered worlds, while the vast expanse of eternity stands open before them, and they contemplate the mighty works of the Great I AM, until they know as they are known, and see as they are seen.[31]

Thus, when Joel spoke of a day in which the Lord would charismatically pour out his spirit upon all flesh, the early saints believed he was painting a perfect picture of the millennium.[32]

There are, however, two facets of the modern Mormon understanding of millennial conditions that were not included in the earliest descriptions relating to (1) what is meant by Satan being bound, and (2) the mechanics of millennial government. 

The sesquicentennial saint refers to Doctrine and Covenants 101:28 where he is told that Satan being bound means that he will have no power to tempt men. But writers in the 1830s did not use this verse or other similar Book of Mormon ones to discuss the millennium. Again, the Bible was their prime source, and its only reference to the binding of Satan was a brief mention of his being prevented from deceiving, rather than tempting, the nations.[33] That this particular feature of the millennium failed to attract much attention in the early period is also consistent with their conception of a millennium composed solely of saints. It was expected that a significant portion of the millennial population would be the righteous dead, by then resurrected, but who would have already completed their probationary state and passed be yond temptation anyway. Thus, who would have thought it noteworthy that Satan would have no power to tempt men the vast majority of whom had already passed beyond his power? 

The current position on millennial government is this: 

Jesus Christ will not only lead the Church during the Millennium, but he also will be in charge of the political government. This government will be based on principles of righteousness and will preserve the basic rights and freedoms of all people. Mortals, both members of the Church and nonmembers, will hold government positions. They will receive help from resurrected beings.[34]

This paragraph represents a significant elaboration beyond the conception of millennial government held in the 1830s. Of the political reign of Christ, they had no doubt, but the details were not clearly delineated in the scriptures, and guidelines would not be hinted at till Joseph organized the Council of Fifty in 1844. Furthermore, in light of the early rhetoric excluding the Gentiles from the millennium, it is even less likely that they would have considered sharing the reigns of government with them. 

If current thinking extends to “honorable” Gentiles the right to be guided, at least partially, by the dictates of their own beliefs during the millennium, such pluralism was not part of the early understanding. Ex pounding upon Daniel 2:44, Rigdon declared that Christ “will literally break in pieces and destroy all the kingdoms of the world . . . and so completely will he do it, that there will not, from one end of the earth to the other, be an individual found whose word, or edict will be obeyed but his own.”[35] Thus, the early idea that saints would be the only inhabitants of the millennial earth demanded a homogenized belief systems and legal codes. 

It also required some explanation of which saints would rule and which would be ruled. The only early writer who tackled this problem was Sidney Rigdon. His first attempt appeared in an 1834 exegesis of the twentieth chapter of Revelation. His conclusion was that it was not the mortal saints who would “reign with Christ a thousand years; but on the contrary, those who are raised from the dead.”[36] Within a month, Rigdon shared the pulpit with the Prophet Joseph at a conference of elders in Ohio. Echoing his earlier analysis, he explained that “the ancient saints will reign with Christ a thousand years; the gathered saints will dwell under that reign.”[37] Joseph was not averse to correcting a colleague on doctrine, and had this been a mistaken notion, one could have expected some such reproof at the time. None, however, was forthcoming. Several months later, the idea appeared again in the Evening and Morning Star: “The disembodied spirits of the saints in the paradise of God are waiting to receive their glorified bodies, and commence . . . reigning with Christ a thousand years.” Those saints “in the flesh” are waiting “to serve him a thousand years in their successive generations.”[38]

Thus, with the two exceptions noted, Mormons in both periods conceived of millennial conditions in much the same terms. This was due in large part to the fact that writings and sermons in the 1970s invoked the same Old Testament passages, or similarly worded modern revelations, as they did in the 1830s. If saints from each decade would not agree on demography, they would on geography. If they differed in their understandings of millennial vocations, at least they viewed them as being performed in the same idyllic setting. Three further strands of early millennial logic warrant special consideration. 

A prominent feature in most early Mormon treatises on the millennium was the manner in which Romans 11 was used to testify to the timeliness of their mission. Though widely discussed in the 1830s, the chapter has not been discoursed upon in General Conference for over a hundred years.[39] Toward the end of the chapter, Paul tells of a day when spiritual blindness would depart from Israel and they would all be saved, adding that it would occur when “the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.”[40] It was this phrase, in particular, that caught the attention of the saints, and it was the unique way in which they interpreted it that helped them justify their place in prophetic history. If it could be established that the “fullness of the Gentiles” had come in, then the stage was set both for the final gathering of Israel, a mission which the saints acutely felt as their raison d’etre, and for the Second Coming, an event which any serious student of the Bible knew followed immediately after that restoration of Israel. The following excerpt from the Messenger and Advocate typifies the Saints’ interpretation of this scripture: 

when will the fulness of the Gentiles be come in? The answer is again at hand.—That is, when they all shall have ceased to bring forth the fruits of the kingdom of heaven, of all parties, sects, and denominations and not one of them standing in the situation in which God had placed them . . . then is the time that the world may prepare them- selves to see the God of heaven set his hand the second time to recover the remnant of his people.[41]

Early Mormons, then, equated “the fullness of the Gentiles” with the apostasy of the Gentiles—The Gentiles, of course, being the Christian churches of the day. The prophetic chronology seemed clear—the Gentiles apostatize, the Israelites are gathered and the millennium is ushered in. “Unless the scattered remants of Jacob should be gathered from all countries whither they had been driven, no such thing as the millennium could ever exist,” declared one early writer, “and that predicated on the fact of the Gentiles having forfeited all claim to the divine favor by reason of their great apostasy.”[42] Thus, the saints invested the doctrine of the apostasy with defi nite millennial implications. To them, the apostasy was more than just evi dence that truth and authority had been lost, it was evidence that the end scene was upon them, that the Lord had begun his latter-day work. 

So central was this millennial scenario to the meaning of the Mormon mission that it even influenced the perceived value in their new scriptures. Early saints stressed that one of the prime purposes for the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and other revelations was to identify Israel and to locate the place of her gathering. “If God should give no more revelations,” asked Joseph Smith, “where will we find Zion and this remnant?” He later added, “Take away the Book of Mormon and the revelations, and where is our religion? We have none; for without Zion, and a place of deliverance, we must fall.”[43] Note that the emphasis was not “take away the restoration scriptures, and we shall have none of our distinctive truths,” but, “take away our revelations and we shall not be able to locate Zion, the one place to which Israel must be gathered to find temporal salvation in the coming day of desolation.” Such reasoning by the Prophet himself should bring into sharp focus the pervasive nature of millennialism during the 1830s. 

In this climate, the fact that Andrew Jackson’s removal policy happened to relocate the Indians just a few miles west of the revealed site for New Jerusalem was too coincidental not to be providential. For those who could read the handwriting on the wall, it was clear that Jehovah was using Jackson just as he had earlier used Cyrus the Great to gather his people.[44] Even after the saints had been expelled from Jackson county, the interpretation was kept alive. Several years later, Parley P. Pratt urged the Indians to tolerate the Removal Act “as a kind reward for the injuries you have received from [the Gentiles].” While the counsel was familiar, what he went on to say epitomizes the early Mormon ideas on Indians and eschatology combined and carried to their logical extension: 

for the very places of their dwellings will become desolate [the Gen- tiles]; except such of them as are gathered and numbered with you; and you will exist in peace, upon the face of this land from generation to generation. And your children will only know that the Gentiles once conquered this country and became a great nation here, as they read it in history; as a thing long since passed away, and the remembrance of it almost gone from the earth.[45]

Once again, it can be seen that in the early Mormon mind, the millen nium was for a rather limited group of people. Here Pratt described it in terms of Indians and Mormons only. With such sentiments in print, one can begin to understand why the Gentiles might have worried about a possible Mormon-Indian alliance. 

General Observations and Conclusions

At least four factors seem important in accounting for differences in adventist doctrine between the two periods. These are biblicism, literalism, access to the new scriptures and what might be termed the “line-upon-line” principle. By far the most easily documented explanation is the near exclusive use the early saints made of the Old and New Testaments in their doctrinal writings.[46] The saints felt comfortable and familiar with the Bible. From it, many took their first lessons in reading. It had been their lifelong associate. And now, even though new scripture contained many acknowledged insights, it was not easy to abandon their old companion. Besides, a race was on, the “winding-up” scenes were underway. Little time was available for a detached perusal of the Book of Mormon or the Doctrine and Covenants, and the elders fell back on their knowledge of the Bible not only for defense of the faith, but for doctrinal exposition as well. For these rea sons, it must be stressed that the new scriptures were then seen less as a realm of study than as an agenda for activity. 

Given the early saints’ overwhelming dependence on the Bible, it is not surprising to find that they took it at face value. The Mormons of 1830 were reticent, to say the least, ever to be caught “spiritualizing” the scriptures, and they heartily condemned contemporaries for such a practice. If modern Mormons have come to believe that some scripture is to be understood symbolically, such an admission was extremely rare in the early years. The contrast is noted by comparing Parley P. Pratt’s and Bruce R. McConkie’s exegesis of Revelation 21. McConkie, certainly not one who could be charged with scriptural spiritualization, attempts to give meaning to John’s vision of the Holy City in this way: “Here is a city, in size and dimensions, in splendor, and glory, which is so far beyond human experience or comprehension that there is no way to convey to the finite mind what the eternal reality is. Hence, expressions relative to precious stones, to streets of gold, and to pearly gates.”[47] Pratt, on the other hand, assumes no such symbolism: “We learn that it will be composed of precious stones, and gold, as the temporal city also was described by Isaiah.”[48] In his description of the temporal city he declared that “precious metals are to abound in such plenty, that gold is to be used in the room of brass, silver in the room of iron . . . and iron in the room of stones.”[49] Clearly such statements evidence a very literal hermeneutic. Though early Mormons were not as wont to delve into the apocalypse as some of their contemporaries, they did believe, as other millenarians, that the prophecies would be fulfilled exactly as given, and that they could be recognized when they were fulfilled.[50]

The argument of preference for the Bible must be balanced with a consideration of accessibility of the new scriptures. Though the Book of Mormon had been available since 1830, the Doctrine and Covenants was not published until 1835. Thus, in the years before mid-decade, when much of their millennial thought was published, the only access writers would have had to the new revelations would be either a handwritten copy, or printed excerpts in the periodicals, or, after 1833, one of the salvaged signatures of the Book of Commandments. Although the major Mormon millennialists would have had better access to the revelations because of their proximity to the prophet and the presses, than other members, (especially those in outlying branches) their writings show that they rarely took advantage of this opportunity.

The logic of the “line-upon-line” principle is well known among the saints. Mormonism did not simply spring full-blown into existence; doctrine and organization were revealed, and continue to be revealed, line upon line as a function of both human capacity and divine design. But the nature of this process is less clear because it is complex. Revelation has come in many ways and under many circumstances. Whether the revealed insight came in the midst of a doctrinal discussion in a council meeting or as an unsolicited dispensation, it is of like divine origin. In a religion in which revelation is seen as both keystone and watermark, the line-upon-line principle must be given weighty consideration, even though as a function of faith, and it is occasion ally difficult to discern. 

When early Missourians read in the Evening and Morning Star that all those who did not obey the restored gospel would be consumed at Christ’s coming, and that such a day was soon at hand, how did they feel? When the Saints emphasized that with the speedy dawning of that millennium, the only people who would be inhabiting Jackson County would be Native American Israelites and believing Gentiles (meaning baptized Mormons), should that have bothered the settlers? On one occasion, Edward Partridge interpreted Malachi 4 to mean that the saints would “literally tread upon the ashes of the wicked after they are destroyed from off the face of the earth.”[51] When such sentiments found their way into print, would the average Gentile want them for neighbors? Clearly, such exclusivism coupled with vivid apocalyptic imagery did not augur well for peaceful interaction between Mormon and Gentile. 

At least during the 1830s, it was this aspect of Mormon millennialism that must be considered a prime source of conflict, rather than the idea of political kingdomism which was not developed till the Nauvoo years. To read such ideas back into the 1830s is anachronistic. Ironically, at least from the point of Gentile perception, it was the Council of Fifty that actually began taking the exclusive edge off earlier eschatology. However historians approach early Mormon history, millennialism is an intellectual force that must be reckoned with, and one whose pervasiveness is just beginning to be plumbed. 

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[1] For a brief survey of some examples, see James B. Allen, “Line Upon Line,” Ensign 9 (July 1979): 32-39. 

[2] Gospel Principles (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1978). This book is actually a manual designed to help new members “learn the basic principles of the gospel” (p. 1). The major Mormon periodicals during the 1830s include The Evening and the Morning Star (1832-1834), Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate (1834-1837), Elders’ Journal of the Church of Latter Day Saints (1837-1838). 

It should be noted that the term “official” had a rather tenuous meaning before 1845. See, David J. Whittaker, “Early Mormon Pamphleteering,” Journal of Mormon History 4 (1977): 37, 43-45. Thus, while the present study attempts to steer as close to what might be called official doctrine as possible, it is more difficult to use that adjective in dealing with the first decade. 

[3] This paragraph is a distillation of material presented in Gospel Principles, pp. 271-272. 

[4] The earliest recorded reference to this teaching is in the “Diary of Joseph Smith,” kept by Willard Richards, under the date of Dec. 30,1842. It is also found in slightly revised form in Joseph Smith, Jr., History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2nd ed. rev., 7 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1964), 5:212. Hereafter cited as HC. The original diary is located in the Archives of the History Division of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah. 

[5] Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate 1 (Jan. 1835): 56. Hereafter cited as MA. 

[6] The Evening and the Morning Star 2 (April 1834): 147. Hereafter cited as EMS. I believe the two most important pieces of millennial thought in the Mormon press during the 1830s were Sidney Rigdon’s “Millennium,” a series of fourteen articles appearing nearly monthly in both EMS and MA from Dec. 1833 to May 1835; and, Parley P. Pratt’s A Voice of Warning and Instruction to All People (New York: W. Sandford, 1837). Pratt’s work will hereafter be cited as Voice of Warning. Unless the wording has been significantly changed from the earlier edition, quotations in this paper are from the 9th ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Steam Printing Establishment, 1874). 

[7] Elders’ Journal of the Church of Latter Day Saints 1 (July 1838): 42. Hereafter cited as EJ.

[8] MA 3 (Nov. 1836): 403-404. 

[9] At least one writer in the 1830s endeavored to make a distinction beyond the simple saint-sinner dichotomy. In Voice of Warning, Parley P. Pratt gave the Jew and Heathen special consideration. “This burning,” he explained, “more especially applies to the fallen church [the Gentiles], rather thanto the heathen or Jews, whom they are now trying to convert . . . and it will be more tolerable in that day for the Jews and the heathen than for you [Gentile sectarians]” (pp. 53-54). He did not, however, specify how it would be more tolerant. By the turn of the decade, Benjamin Winchester, in his Gospel Reflector series on the millennium, would divide mankind into three groups—saints, wicked, and heathen. See Gospel Reflector 1 (1841): 220-272. But again, there is no clear exposition of the fate of the heathen. 

[10] Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City, Utah: Bookcraft, 1966), p. 640. 

[11] This explanation is found in Gospel Principles, p. 268. The revelations are now found in The Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City, 1978) as Section 76:71-80 and Section 88:99. Hereafter this source will be cited as D&C. 

[12] See, for example, EMS 2 (April 1834): 147. 

[13] See note #5. The word “probably” was added in front of “not dwell” in the HC account.

[14] Voice of Warning, p. 137.

[15] EMS 2 (April 1834): 147. 

[16] This revelation was first published in EMS 1 (Sept. 1832): (26), but is now found in D&C 29:11. 

[17] Pratt’s work was a long poem with a series of short hymns attached (Boston 1835).

[18] D&C 93:44.

[19] MA 1 (Feb. 1835): 68. 

[20] The first real discussion of the topic was Benjamin Winchester, “Procreation in the Millennium,” Gospel Reflector 1 (June 1, 1841): 273-275. 

[21] EMS 2 (Sept. 1834): 191. There are some difficulties in assessing the exact meaning of Phelps’ words. The problem centers on what is meant by “the living live again” and what “the sting of sin” is. In the first instance, it is possible that he is talking about mortal saints living at the time of the second coming who would be changed in the twinkling of an eye to a state of partial glory, equivalent to being translated. This, in a sense, would be adding further life to the living, but there is little likelihood that he was thinking along such lines since they represent later developments. As late as 1837 and 1839, when the first two editions of Voice of Warning were printed, an astute a doctrinal scholar as Parley Pratt used the terms “translated” and “resurrected” synonymously. (See p. 131, for example.) Thus, I believe that he is speaking of resurrected instead of mortal saints procreating during the millennium. I could find no other example of such thinking, and the shift to the mortal side was clear by the time of Nauvoo. 

In the second case, the “sting of sin” could be referring to the idea advanced in what is now D&C 45:58 that since Satan would be bound, millennial children would be able to be raised without the stinging effects of sin to hinder their programs. In light of Phelps’ biblicism, though, I believe he would have been using it in the Pauline sense wherein the sting of sin is death (1 Cor. 15) thus referring to the fact that children born in that day would not have to experience death in the normal sense of the word. No matter how one understands it, it is clear that he conceived of somebody having children during the millennium, and that is the 1970s idea for which an 1830s counterpart is being sought. 

[22] Gospel Principles, p. 272.

[23] MA 3 (Nov. 1836): 401-404. 

[24] EMS 1 (July 1832): (16). A characteristic of Phelps’ hymn selection and preparation for The Evening and the Morning Star was that he occasionally borrowed doctrinally agreeable lines or stanzas from non-Mormon songs and included them in his own compositions, sometimes with slight modification. The lines herein cited are one such example. The quatrain originally formed the final stanza of a popular Protestant hymn of the nineteenth century, “Jerusalem, My Happy Home,” but is perhaps better known in its twentieth century form as the last verse in some arrangements of “Amazing Grace.” See, William J. Reynolds, Companion to Baptist Hymnal (Nashville, Tenn.: Broadman Press, 1976), p. 165. The first line reads, “When we’ve been there ten thousand years.” Phelps dropped the word “ten” and replaced it with an “a,” thus making it clearly millennial in meaning. Since he made no other modification, it is obvious that he accepted the basic idea embodied in the stanza. 

[25] Samuel Russell, ed. andcomp., The Millennial Hymns of Parley Parker Pratt (Cambridge: The University Press, 1913), p. 28. According to Russell, Pratt composed the hymn in 1840. 

[26] The scriptural reference is Rev 5:9-12; some examples of their exegesis of this passage include EMS 2 (Apr. 1834): 146; Voice of Warning, p. 51; and EMS 1 (June 1832): (8). The more developed understanding of this promise was revealed with the Nauvoo endowment. See, Andrew Ehat, “It Seems Like Heaven Began on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Constitution of the Kingdom of God,” BYU Studies 20 (Spring 1980): 254-257. 

[27] For example, see EMS 2 (Feb. 1834): 131; MA 1 (Jan. 1835): 58; MA 3 (Nov. 1836): 403-404; Voice of Warning, pp. 119-130; and EJ 1 (July 1838): 31-32. 

[28] Gospel Principles, pp. 272-273, and Voice of Warning, pp. 128-129. 

[29] Gospel Principles, pp. 273-274.

[30] EMS 2 (Feb. 1834): 131. 

[31] Voice of Warning, p. 125. 

[32] Ibid., p. 130; MA 1 (Jan. 1835): 58; EMS 2 (Feb. 1834): 131 are some examples. 

[33] The biblical reference to Satan being bound is Rev. 20:8. In the author’s unpublished manuscript entitled “Scriptural Exegesis in Early Mormon Millennalism,” a record of all scriptures cited in Latter-day Saint millennial treatises is included, whether found in periodical or pamphlet. To date no use of D&C 101:28 has been discovered for the years under study. 

[34] Gospel Principles, p. 273.

[35] EMS 2 (June 1834): 162. 

[36] EMS 2 (Apr. 1834): 146.

[37] HC, 2:53. 

[38] EMS 2 (June 1834): 162. 

[39] According to the LDS Scripture Citation Index (HBL Library, BYU, 1979), which lists all scriptures used in any conference address from the beginning through April, 1978, the last time a speaker referred to Romans 11 was Erastus Snow in April, 1880 (CR, Apr. 1880, p. 91). On the other hand, in Gordon Irving’s “The Mormons and the Bible in the 1830’s,” BYU Studies 13 (Summer 1973): 481, 485, it is noted that only six passages of scripture, dealing with any topic at all, were used more frequently during this period, Romans 11 being used twelve times. Irving’s study corresponds to my findings in “Scriptural Exegesis in Early Mormon Millennialism.” 

[40] Romans 11:25, 26.

[41] MA 1 (Nov. 1834): 18. 

[42] EMS 2 (Jan. 1834): 127.

[43] HC, 2:52. 

[44] For examples, see EMS 1 (Sept. 1832): (32), 1 (Dec. 1832): (54), and 1 (Jan. 1833): (62). 

[45] Voice of Warning, 1837 ed., p. 189. This portion of the text was deleted by Pratt in the 2nd edition (1839) and has remained deleted in all subsequent editions.

[46] Even a casual perusal of the early Mormon periodicals and pamphlets reveals that such is indeed the case. An excellent quantitative study, however, verifying this assertion is Irving’s study cited in note #39. 

[47] Bruce R. McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1973), 3: 588. 

[48] Voice of Warning, p. 149. 

[49] Ibid., p. 142. 

[50] The standard work on millenarianism in nineteenth century America is Ernest Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism, 1800-1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970). Sandeen stresses that literalism was a hallmark of any millenarian group (see pp. 42-59). 

[51] MA 1 (Jan. 1835): 58