LDS Living wrote:even striking expressions like “to endure the crosses of the world” and “to sing the song of redeeming love”. And some of these are truly archaic expressions that died out of English prior to 1600 and would not have been used by Joseph Smith in his own language
Okay, let's back up a bit. First of all, if a perfectly comprehensible phrase isn't common in the 19th century, but was a common expression in the 16th century, it doesn't follow that a ghost committee from the 16th century put the words into the 19th century person's head who thought of the phrase.
Waxing poetic over religious nonsense makes it certain that many will independently invent phrases like the one about enduring crosses and "to sing a song of redeeming love." Presumably, the Ghost Committee theorists have some more archaic stuff. If the Book of Mormon has lengthy and pointed expressions such as "I bite my thumb at thee," but not so well known, then these will be mildly interesting. But, for now, we go with the examples revealed, and these are quite simple to exorcise.
On the possibility of semi-direct literary pressures at work, consider the hymn from the English poet William Cowper, "There is a fountain filled with blood," which, by the way, was included in the 1841 LDS Hymnal. Imagine, for anyone familiar with this popular hymn, the great difficulty of re-inventing the old-English idiom, "to sing a song of redeeming love." Here are some of the lines (including the famous last one):
There is a fountain filled with blood
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Redeeming love...
Redeeming love...
When this poor lisping, stammering tongue
Commenting on "hymns of the cross", Pastor Theodore L. Culyer writes, expressively, in the late 19th century:
Culyer wrote:Although Cowper was immeasurably the greatest living poet then in Britain, he confesses that his is but a "poor lisping, stammering tongue" to sing the song of redeeming love. He promises to himself " a nobler, sweeter song" when he gets his well-tuned harp in the grand oratorio of heaven.
Did a Ghost Committee dictate Culyer to write "to sing the song of redeeming love"? Given this phrase was allegedly popular in the 16th century, how else can it be explained? The apologists might suspect Culyer had accidentally read Alma instead, but the point is that direct influence is entirely unnecessary with this kind of immediate poetic pressure at work.
While plausible, a phrase so religiously kitschy as "to sing the song of redeeming love" hardly requires something like the above to explain it; it even feels conspiratorial to suggest it. Here are examples of the phrase magically appearing in throes of creative religious delusion. These are from late 18th and mid 19th century, and I'm just citing chunks because some of this stuff is difficult to determine who actually wrote it.
"We are now at school, learning to sing the song of redeeming love, and, before long, we shall be translated to sing it before the throne of God!"
John Newton-13 Oct. 1781.
"She loved the songs of the church below,
And now, we trust, in the choir above,
Her voice breaks forth in a sweeter flow.
To sing the song of redeeming love.
Who knows the joy of a ransomed soul,
When loved ones meet on the lieavenly shore."
"Or, take her in thine arms, and carry
her safely to the mansion Thou hast prepared
for her, there to sing the song of redeeming
love forever, and forever I"
"as there is no reason to doubt, the sentiments of her
heart, this utterance may well give a sweeter satisfaction, than the enjoyment
and remembrance of her unequalled melody, for it may lead us to believe, that,
while receiving the bewildering applauses of two continents, God kept her
spirit humble, and that by his grace he has attuned her soul to sing the song
of Redeeming Love forever. "
People write predictable poetry all the time, even when not directly stealing phrases from other sources.