Sunday, July 30, 2023

Welsh Anti-Mormon William Jones in 1851: Latter-day Saints Believe Jesus's Second Coming will Happen When the Saints Move to California

William Jones, a Welsh critic of the Church, published a tract entitled, Egwyddorion Saint y Dyddiau Diweddaf yn cael eu pywso yn nghlorianau rhesymau ac ysgrythyrau (English: Principles of the Latter-day Saints Weighed on the Scales of Reasons and Scriptures) (Bethesda: R. Jones, 1851). In this work, he made the following claim about Latter-day Saint eschatology:

 

8. They believe, after they have gone to California, that Jesus Christ will come to meet them, and that they shall reign with him for 1000 years, when everyone else will be destroyed, &c. (On Trial in the Welsh Press: Latter-day Saint Missionaries Declare and Defend the Faith, 1840-1860, ed. Ronald D. Dennis [Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2023], 694)

 

I am sure this will come as a shock to those Saints from California who are flocking to Utah at the moment; little do they know that they are delaying the Parousia(!)