EXCOMMUNICATION–JUST & UNJUST, Part 2 of Ch 9 of The Church and The Priesthood

  EXCOMMUNICATION–JUST AND UNJUST, Part 2 of Chapter 9 of The Church and The Priesthood    Pages 183 to 187    Where much is given, much is required, and in those early days of the Church, God gave great manifestations and revelations and thus expected a great deal from the members in return. In 1864 George A. Smith gave an illustration of this principle:   It was at the same Council [June 1833] that Daniel Copley, a timid young man, who had been ordained a Priest, and required to go and preach the Gospel, was called to an account for not going on his mission. The young man said he was too weak to attempt to preach, and the Council cut him off the Church. I wonder what our missionaries now would think of so rigid a discipline as was given at that time thirty-one years ago, under the immediate supervision of the Prophet. (JD 11:8)   Members who commit heinous sins are already cut off from the Spirit of the Lord even before they are brought to a Church trial. They generally continue to go downhill and fall into darkness, while those who are unjustly excommunicated feel no effect of it.   Persons sometimes say that they have enjoyed the spirit of the work as much since they were cut off as while they were in the Church. Have they enjoyed the Spirit? Yes. Why? Simply because they were wrongfully cut off. They were cut off in such a way that it did not take the Spirit of God from them. And the reason why they were cut off was because they did not come up to the particular standard of perfection of those who dealt with them, or they did not come up to their feelings. (Francis M. Lyman, Mill. Star24:100)