The Peacemaker

[_grindael]

This little booklet has been much maligned by Mormon Apologists, but it is fascinating and I believe is of great significance in the development of Joseph's theology and instigation of his Spiritual Wifeism. From my research files...

The Peace Maker https://archive.org/details/extractfrommanus00jaco

On March 21, 1840 Udney Hay Jacob wrote a letter to the President of the United States Martin Van Buren, and claimed that he had the manuscript of a book that would ensure Van Buren’s reelection because it outlined

“…a system of religious, as well as political truth, supported by irresistable and admitted Testimony, calculated to cut its own way to the very center of every rational mind…compelling them to believe verily, that by their coming votes their own destiny, not only for time but for an endless eternity…would produce a tremendous effect.”

In the same letter Jacob also wrote that

I now reside in Hancock Co, Illinois, in the vicinity of the Mormons who have by their deligates visited you that winter past. These Mormons know but very little of me; but Sir, I know them, and I know them to be a deluded and dangerous set of fanatics. Dangerous I say, as far as their influence goes. Smith has returned home, and I am informed is determined to throw his weight with all his deluded followers into the scale against you. They are at this time in the United States a large body rapidly increasing, and Smith and Rigdon hold their consciences.

In the summer of 1840, Udney’s son Norton was converted to the church after he read one of Parley P. Pratt’s pamphlets. He later wrote that “My father, mother, brothers and sisters opposed me violently, and my father said he had rather heard I was dead than that I was a Mormon.” (“The Life of Norton Jacob”)On the 15th of March 1841 Norton Jacob was baptized by Zenos Gurley.

By the fall of 1841 Norton had built a home in Nauvoo while Udney and his wife Elizabeth still resided in Pilot Grove, about twenty miles east of Nauvoo. Sometime in the Summer of 1842 Udney had some "excerpts" from his book published by Joseph Smith, which was called The Peace Maker or The Doctrines of the Millennium Being a Treatise on Religion and Jurisprudence or a New System of Religion and Politicks.

In 1851 Udney would explain to Brigham Young that he “…wrote a pamphlet some years since entitled the Peace Maker—…I was not then a member of this church and that pamphlet was not written for this people but for the citizens of the United States who professed to believe the Bible. At the same time it was an apology for this people [the Mormons] who were accused by them [the citizens of the US] of Polygamy.“

Jacob himself claimed that the Peace Maker was used as “an apology for … Polygamy.” There are many interesting concepts contained in the excerpts that Udney Jacob had published from his book. Lawrence Foster in his article A Little-Known Defense of Polygamy wrote that,

Evidence summarized in this paper suggests that the Peace Maker probably was published with the sanction of the leaders of the Church, even though it was later denied by them because of the controversy it aroused. (pg. 31, Joseph Smith quote, T&S)

The Peace Maker begins by quoting from the Book of Malachi:

Behold I will send you Elijah the Prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord; and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

The author then makes the claim that he “professes to be the teacher here foretold,” and that “[s]ome may object that John the Baptist was the character there alluded to,” but even though “Christ should have a forerunner when he came to this world as a servant only” that it was only requisite “that he should be thus honored” again, “when he comes in his glory and majesty, to be king over all the nations of the earth.”

This is the very claim that Joseph Smith was to make in 1843 when he taught that he would be the forerunner who would receive the fullness of the priesthood and the sealing power that would avert the curse predicted in the book of Malachi.

The Peace Maker claims that “the character spoken of … shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children; and the hearts of the children to their fathers; (nothing is here said of the mothers,) lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.”

According to the Peace Maker,

The law must be restored in all things; for it is written, that the times of the restitution of all things spoken by the mouth of all God's holy prophets since the world began, shall come. That is, all the true principles both of the law (or civil governing power), and of the gospel, for these are the things which have been spoken by the mouth of all the prophets. And in the times of the restitution of these things, shall Jesus again come.

The Peace Maker also speaks about marriage and in particular polygamy:

But if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife. And if the man refuse to marry her, he shall suffer death. Such is the perfect law of God. And David by the holy spirit of truth declares, that the law of God is perfect. This penalty may appear unreasonably severe to Gentiles, educated as they are. But when we consider attentively the circumstances in which the man is placed by the law of God, why should he desire to put away the kind hearted wife, or the affectionate maid which he has thought proper to woo to his embrace? Especially when the law not only permits him to retain them both, but requires it, at the peril on his life; and a disobedient one he can discharge….

The liberty of marriage to persons of every description according to the law of God reads thus: 1st, A maid who has not been given in marriage; and who hath a father, is not at liberty to be married without the consent of her father: but with his consent she is at liberty to be married to whom she will. 2d, The maid who has not been given in marriage and has no father living is at liberty to be married to whom she will. 3d, The woman who has been married, and is legally free from her husband, or husbands, by death or otherwise; is free to be married to whom she will. 4th, A man is at liberty at all times, to marry any free woman or maid he pleases. Certain degrees of consanguinity in all cases excepted. And a woman is not bound to live with any man contrary to her own free will and choice; but if she desire it, she must be freed. The law of God protects completely the rights of women from all oppression; so far as they have any rights that can be of use to them, or the world of mankind. And it protects the rights of men in like manner. It also defines the rights both of men and women, and grants full protection to all.

So, according to the Peace Maker a man may “entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her,” but then must “endow her to be his wife.” Even though the Peace Maker stresses that a man may not take a woman who is already married, Joseph Smith had other ideas about that, but then changed up to "marry" only "virgins" or those without husbands after the Peacemaker was published.

May God add his blessing upon your heads and lead you in all the paths of virtue, piety & peace, that you may be a presidentan ornament unto those to whom you belong… (Smith, 1842 Epistle to Relief Society)

For more information, here is the link to Foster's article which has all the background on it... https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-cont ... N04_23.pdf

[_Maksutov]

Interesting. So I can see why someone who was a more or less covert polygamist would relate to "peacemaker". What a co-inky-dink.