Prest. Charles W. Penrose.
Universal redemption through obedience--Evil of contentions--Trinity of the Godhead--God the Father of spirit--Christ the Firstborn--Elohim, Jehovah and Michael in the creation--Adam head of the mortal human race, but not one of the Godhead--Preexistence of Jesus Christ as Jehovah, a Personage of Spirit--Personality of the Holy Ghost--Plurality of Gods--Angels bearing name of Deity--Christ the Word of God, the Redeemer of the World--God the Eternal Father to be worshiped and obeyed.
I feel very much like President Smith did this morning in arising to address the congregation--I have not language to express the emotions of my heart in being privileged to assemble with you, my brethren and sisters, in this great congregation of Latter-day Saints. I am very thankful to God, our Eternal Father, for this blessing, and for having the testimony in my soul of the truth of those principles which were so grandly placed before us this morning by our President. There is nothing in the world that I know of which is so dear to my heart as the truth which has been revealed in these last days from God through His servant Joseph, the prophet. And when I think of the goodness of God to me during all the years that I have been associated with the Saints and labored in the ministry, I feel overwhelmed with gratitude and thanksgiving and praise. Praise be unto God our Eternal Father and His Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost, and His servants who have been called in these last days to lay the foundations of the Church and Kingdom of our God!
I would that all the world could see and understand these things as we do, but that is at present--I was going to say impossible--it can not be done at present, but I rejoice in the assurance given in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, in the revelations of the Lord to us, that the time will come when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is the Lord, the Christ, to the glory of God the Father, and this will not be by compulsion or constraint, but by the willing desires of those who bow, they having been brought through sorrow and pain and suffering, penalties for their sins, into a condition of repentance and desire for the truth and a willingness to obey it. That to me is a glorious prospect. And the work of preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ which now devolves upon a few, will never be consummated entirely until that time shall come when every soul of Adam's race will have the opportunity of receiving and bowing to the truth as it is in Jesus Christ.
There is a very great work to be performed when we think of that which has to be done in this regard. The gospel must be preached to every creature in the flesh and afterwards to every person in the spirit who has not heard it, until all the millions upon millions of the race of Adam shall have had the opportunity of bowing in obedience to the commandments of God and coming, to some degree, in communion with Him. At present, as we were told this morning, the duty devolves upon the Priesthood of this Church, in both its branches, in the Melchizedek and Aaronic branches of the priesthood, to minister in the name of the Lord by divine authority, and what they do under that authority in the way that the Lord has commanded is valid, and it has power and force in the heavens. What they administer on earth in the way that the Lord has appointed is recognized on high, and is of the same force and effect as though performed by Deity.
The truth which the Lord has revealed, naturally comes into collision with error wherever it is found, and the time will come when all error, all untruth will have to give way and the truth will abound. It is by the truth that we shall be sanctified, that is, by obedience to it, as was explained to us today, not merely its reception in the mind, but its actual possession of us in all our being; that we live for the truth and by the truth and according to the truth and to the degree that we do that we become sanctified in our nature and come nearer to Him who is the fountain of truth, to us. Truth itself in the abstract is eternal, but there have been individuals who have been the embodiments of the truth and of all that is good and great, and our Heavenly Father is that embodiment, and Jesus Christ also, and the expression of it to us of all that is right and true and good. The eternal verities are embodied in them and are communicated to us as we are willing to receive them. When we do receive them, not merely in theory, but also in practice and make them ours in our lives, in our constitution, in our very being, so far we approach towards the perfection of Deity.
The very first principle of our faith, announced in what is called the articles of our faith, is that we believe in God the Eternal Father, and in His Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost. These three separate personalities are placed in the very foundation of our faith, as its first doctrine or principle, and we ought to become thoroughly familiar with that which has been revealed concerning them and we ought to understand them alike. One of the very great beauties of our Church is that we are coming to union--the unity of the faith by the knowledge of the truth. When we know the truth and see it clearly we are alike in our perceptions and our understandings, and measurably according to our obedience in the government of our own natures by the truth. Sometimes, however, even in the Church of Christ, in which we are "all baptized by one spirit into one body, whether we be Jew or Gentile, bond or free," of every race and tribe and kingdom and color, although we are baptized by water and by the spirit into one body and should be perfectly united, especially in doctrine and principle, yet like it was in the early Christian Church there are sometimes divisions among us in regard to many important things, and sometimes there are very sharp divisions upon things that are not so important. Our brethren in some of their class meeting's and quorum meetings, sometimes even in the theological departments of the Sunday schools they get divided in their opinions in regard to some very simple things--I was going to say silly things, but I don't want to be censorious--some thing's that are not worth spending time over. The reason I know about this is because I frequently personally receive letters from good friends in different parts of the Church, asking questions and declaring that there is a division of opinion among our brethren in regard to them. And the First Presidency frequently receive communications from the brethren asking for a decision on certain points that are really not worth discussing, that do not amount to anything, but there are some things which are important for us to understand aright.
It was very clearly shown to us this morning that we have one Eternal Father and that Jesus Christ is His Son, and that we also are His sons, with this difference, that we are all the sons of God in the spirit, that is in the spirit part of our nature, but Christ is also His Son in the flesh. I do not think there is any division of sentiment or opinion among our brethren an t sisters in the Church concerning this fact, that the spirit part of man--that of course means woman too--is the offspring of God, God is the Father of our spirits. We often quote the saying of Paid, who seemed to have a very good idea in regard to all these things, or rather, if you do not believe that Paul wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews as I do--(great dispute about that in the world)--in the Epistle to the Hebrews we are told told that "we have had fathers of our flesh who corrected us and we gave them reverence," and the question is asked, "How much rather should we be in subjection to the Father of spirits, Hebrews 12:9. There are many other texts in the old scriptures, in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, that I will not take time to quote this afternoon, because, as I have said, I think we are all agreed in regard to this one very important fact, this very encouraging truth, this thing that lifts up the soul of man above earthly things to the realization that his origin is not from the dust but from the Eternal God, the Creator, the Ruler; the Architect of the universe. He who made the worlds, and as we heard today, controls and governs and directs them, is actually our Father, not in some mystical sense, not in some mere theory, but we were begotten of Him. In the revelation contained in the 76th Section of the D&C we are toll that the inhabitants of the worlds are "begotten sons and daughters unto God." There may be more in that than we see at the first glance, but the result of it all is in our minds, if we are at all logical, that the great Eternal God is our Father and we are begotten of Him or UNTO Him and to Him we owe allegiance, to Him we owe obedience, because He is our Father and our God and our King. We should obey Him because of His parentage to us; we should obey Him because we are His children and He has the right to our obedience, and being so high and exalted and lifted up, He understands us better than we understand ourselves and He has our destiny in His hands and He has power over life and over death and we should be obedient to Him because of our relationship to Him. That seems clear to me and I believe it is to you and to the great body of the Latter-day Saints, the Church.
There still remains, I can tell by the letters I have alluded to, an idea among some of the people that Adam was and is the Almighty and Eternal God. He is the father of his race, of course, the great patriarch over the human family, and being begotten unto him, he is the father of us in our earthly condition, in our mortality, and stands as the primal patriarch. But God says He put him there. Now, so far as that is concerned that is all right. In the 107th Section of the D&C, you will read about that. Three years before his death we are told Adam gathered together the majority of his posterity who were righteous into the valley of Adam-Ondi-Ahman, and they rose up and blessed him and called him Michael the prince, the arch-angel; and the Lord appeared unto them. Now, mark you, there was Adam and his posterity, so far as they were brought forth at that time, and the Lord appeared to them--that wasn't Adam, was it? "And the Lord administered comfort unto Adam and said: I have set thee to be at the head"--the head of his race, the head of the human family in their mortal condition--"I have set thee to be at the head; a multitude of nations shall come of thee and thou art a prince over them forever" (verses 53-55 ).
Here is Adam with his posterity, they recognizing him and acknowledging him as their patriarch and father and prince, and recognizing the fact that in his first estate he was Michael, recognizing also that the Lord appears and declares He places Adam at the head. Now, Adam had transgressed a law and because of that he had to pay the penalty, and because of that, death came upon his posterity on natural principles, (as we will understand better when we comprehend fully how these things occur, and how our tendencies and traits and taints are handed down from the fathers to the children to the different generations that come). But although he had transgressed, that had been foreseen, and, according to the revelations that we have, a plan had been prepared before this transgression took place whereby the results of it might be removed and whereby a blessing might come in that very thing that was called "the curse." That the knowledge of good and evil might come to mankind, that they might have an opportunity of showing whether they loved the truth and loved the good or loved the evil and the untruth, and that they might be judged according to their works, and that their different capabilities and their different degrees of worthiness or unworthiness might be exhibited and developed and showed forth so that justice might be done and that mercy might be extended where it was needful, that mercy should not rob justice and justice should not rob mercy, the Lord, in view of the fact that a Redeemer had been prepared from the foundation of the world for the redemption of the whole human family, in their different degrees, smiled upon Adam and blessed him and placed him at the head of his posterity as the great patriarch of the race, as a prince over them forever.
Now, because of that and some other little matters that might be mentioned, the notion has taken hold of some of our brethren that Adam is the being that we should worship. This has been explained, I think, from this stand several times, but notwithstanding that, peculiar ideas get into people's minds, not always because they are stubborn and willful and wicked or that they desire anything that is wrong, but because it gets into their heads and it is a very hard job to get it out of their heads, like the Scotchman who asked the Lord to keep him in the right path so that he might not go "wrong, for the Lord knew that if he once got anything into his head, it would be a mighty hard job to get it out of him." That is the way it is with lots of our folks, not because they are all Scotchmen, however, the idea has obtained in the minds of some of the brethren and we ought to get right concerning it. I am sorry that has not been rectified long ago, because plain answers have been given to brethren and sisters who write and desire to know about it, and yet it still lingers, and contentions arise in regard to it, and there should be no contentions among the Latter-day Saints. It is all right for people to have their own views and express them, if they will do it in a proper spirit; it is all right for people to stand up for what they really believe to be true, but when this spirit of contention comes, then, as we are told in the Book of Mormon, it is of the devil.
Now, if Adam, as claimed by some of our brethren, is the being that we should worship, to whom we should pray, who was that person that put Adam at the head of his race? Who was the person that Adam prayed to? Adam prayed to God and we are told, as we can find in the Pearl of Great Price, which gives us a great deal of information on this matter, as revealed to Moses, and as revealed to Enoch, that Adam, after his transgression, was taught the gospel, the same gospel that we have, and the Lord said He would not suffer that Adam should die as to the temporal death until He "sent forth angels to proclaim faith and redemption through the name of His Only Begotten Son" (see Doc. and Cov. Sec. 29). So that Adam had to believe and repent and be baptized as we have to do, and we are told that he was baptized "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." So Adam was neither the Father, nor the Son, nor the Holy Ghost, was he? Then, who was he? Why, we are told he was Michael in his first estate, and as Adam he will stand at the head of his race. Daniel saw him "in the night vision"--Michael who was the archangel before he came here. Remember when you talk about Adam, that name only applies to the man Adam on the earth with a body made out of the dust, but Michael, the archangel, the Ancient of days did sit; so Daniel saw, and "ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him." And, then, we are told, "One like the Son of Man came in the clouds of heaven and was brought before the Ancient of days, and there was given Him dominion and an everlasting kingdom that all people should serve him" (Daniel 7:9-14). We will find that this will be the case; for when we learn a little more about this person--the Son of Man--we will see that this is His due--that He will be at the head of the Kingdom; He will be King of kings, and kings, and Lord of lords. He is "the first and the last," so He proclaims. You will find it in the Old Testament and in the New, and in the Book of Mormon, and in the Pearl of Great Price, that He is "The First and the last" and that all things were made by Him and they are of Him and through Him and for Him.
Now, who is this person, this Jesus Christ? Is He Adam or a son of Adam? Not at all, except in the sense that Jesus of Nazareth was born of Mary, and therein was His humanity and that is traced, right up to Adam, of course, in the scriptural genealogy. But who was the Father of Jesus Christ before He came on the earth in the flesh? We read in the Book of Mormon that when He appeared to the Nephites on this continent, He told them that He was the person that gave the law unto Moses. Who was it that gave the law to Moses ? We are told it was Jehovah. Well, was Jesus Jehovah? Yes, according to the scriptures, both ancient and modern, and that seems to be a stumbling block in the way of a few of our brethren. (See Doc. and Cov., Sec. 110:3, 4. ) We are told by revelation that in the creation of the earth there were three individuals, personally engaged. This is more particularly for the Temple of God, but sufficient of it has been published over and over again to permit me to refer to it. Elohim,--not Eloheim, as we spell it sometimes--that is a that is a plural word meaning the gods, but it is attached to the individual who is the Father of all, the person whom we look to as the great Eternal Father. Elohim, Jehovah and Michael, were engaged in the construction of this globe. Jehovah, commanded by Elohim, went down to where there was space, saying to Michael: "Let us go down, for there is space there, and we will organize an earth whereon these [the spirits that are around us] may dwell, and we will prove them herewith to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them." You can read about that in the Pearl of Great Price--Book of Abraham chapter 3. Now, when the work was done, which you read about in the Book of Genesis and more particularly in the Book of Moses and in the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price, when that was done. Michael became Adam and was placed in the Garden of Eden, as we read in ancient and modern revelations, and Eve was given to him to be his wife, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, and it is announced that no man should put asunder that which God had joined together.
You see, do you not, that Michael became Adam and that Adam was not the Son Jehovah, and he was not Elohim the Father. He occupied his own place and position in the organization of the earth and in the production of mortal beings on the earth. Jesus of Nazareth was the Jehovah who was engaged with the Father in the beginning, and we are told in the 93rd Section of the D&C that Jesus says concerning Himself, "I also was in the beginning with the Father and am the first-born." "Ye were also in the beginning with the Father, that which is spirit." That part of us which is spirit, was in the beginning with God, because we are His children and Jesus was there, the person that is called Jesus in the flesh, and lie was the first-born, that is how He is the first. "I am the first and the last. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end." He was the beginning of the spirits who people this earth, "the beginning of the creation of God," as we read in the Colossians and in the Book of Revelation, "the first-born of every creature" in the spirit. But, in the flesh He was the "Only Begotten Son" of the Father. Mary was his mother. She was of the House of David and therefore Jesus fulfilled the prediction that the Messiah was to be of the House of David, and of the seed of Abraham, and the seed of the woman who should bruise the serpent's head, as we read in the Book of Genesis, 3:15.
I want to draw a clear distinction between these individuals that we may stop this discussion that is going on to no purpose. Who is Adam? Adam is our father, certainly. He is the great father of the race, but we have had fathers that corrected us at home and we gave them reverence. Yes, that is right, but do we worship them and pray to them? Oh, no. Then why should we want to pray to Adam, who away back in the remote centuries was at the head of his race and in that sense is our father? He occupies the place that he was expected to occupy and did the work he was expected to perform, but after he transgressed and brought death into the world, "as by one man's disobedience death came into the world so by one man's obedience and righteousness life came into the world. So that "as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive," all be resurrected, every one, bad and good and indifferent, all races and colors, and sizes and ages as they were laid down, so they will come forth, and it is through the power of the resurrection in Jesus Christ that they come forth.
Let us cite the Book of John the Apostle, it is a splendid thesis. The Lord refers to it in the 93rd Section of the D&C, wherein John proclaimed that Jesus was in the beginning with God. He says: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made," and Jesus declares in this revelation, 93rd section, that He was the person called the Word. He was not merely the word coming from the mouth of God, but He was the expression of the Father, He was the expression of God's word and will. All things are of God, as Paul said, and we of Him and all things by Jesus Christ and we by Him. When Joseph the prophet received his first manifestation from God, the Father and the Son appeared. The Father did not say a great deal, but we shall find that has been His course from the very beginning, because the Son was His Word. He declared: "This is my beloved Son, hear Him." And He, the Son, was that being, as He told the Nephites, who gave the law to Moses (Three-Nephi 15:5) and He was the Being who had charge of matters from the very beginning. In the Deity there are the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and our father Adam Was baptized in their holy name and he is not either one of them. Just remember that.
In the fifth chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, Jesus speaks very clearly on matters that may seem mysterious to some people. You know there are some of our brethren who have thought that Jesus, in His first estate, as we call it, or in His former state, was a resurrected being. I do not know where they get the idea from, but it is likely from this, that He was called God by John the Revelator and by a great number of writers in the Book of Mormon and in the D&C and in other revelations. "He was in the beginning with God, and was God;" and He could not be a god, they say, unless He had a body; had passed through mortality and had been resurrected. What scripture did, they find to suggest that notion? I don't know of any revelation that declares it. I don't know of any that intimates at all that He could not be God unless He had passed through a mortal probation and had been tried and tempted and had suffered; that He could not be God beforehand; but we are told that in the beginning He was with God, and He says that the Father had shown Him all things that He Himself doeth. That is in the fifth chapter of the Gospel according to St. John. I will not take time to stop and turn to it. You read it. He was in conversation with some of the Pharisees, and they did not like His proclaiming Himself to be the Son of God. In the 10th chapter it is said they took up stones to throw at Him because He said He was the Son of God. And Jesus proclaimed the truth that there are several persons called God, just as Paul does in his First Epistle to the Corinthians. (Chapter 8:5, 6.) "Though there be many that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth," says Paul, "as there be gods many and lords many. But to us there is but one God, the Father of whom are all things and we in Him and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him." Jesus quoted the Psalms in regard to this. The Psalmist said, "I have said ye are gods, and all of you are children of the most high." (82:6.) Now, said Jesus, if he called them Gods, to whom the word of the Lord came, why do you find fault with me and desire to stone me for saving that I am the son of God? In the Psalm 82 it begins, "God standeth in the congregation of the mighty. He judgeth among the gods."
There are gods many and lords many, but unto us, for our obedience and our worship, and our adherence to His word, there is one living and true God the Creator of this and many other worlds, and we look to Him as the author of our life, by and through His Beloved Son, who was with Him from the beginning. The Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit as we are told, in the 130th section of the D&C, the Father is a person with a body of flesh and bones, and the Son also, (He is now, undoubtedly), and the Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit. Now that Holy Ghost, a personage of spirit, is also called God. Take the 20th Section of the D&C. In the laying of the very foundation of the organization of the Church it is declared most distinctly that, "The Father, Son and Holy Ghost, are one God." Just as in the presidency of a stake or of a quorum or of the Church there are three distinct and separate individuals, but one presidency of the quorum, or of the stake, or of the Church, so there are three separate and distinct persons, the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, as one Deity. Now who is the Son ? The first-born, the beloved Son of God, whom He put at the head of all things, the heir of all things "by whom also He made the worlds." I am quoting scripture. Now, when God the Father placed Jesus Christ in a position, or placed Jehovah in any position and gave Him commandments to do this that and the other. He would not tell Him to do anything that He could not do. That is one of the fundamentals of our Gospel. "Surely the Lord God will command nothing of the children of men but He prepareth a way whereby they can accomplish it." God gave full power and authority to Jesus Christ, as we call Him now, that is His name, and He was named beforehand in the revelations of God, as we can read in the Pearl of Great Price. His Beloved Son, He was with Him from the beginning. He was obedient in all things. He did no wrong when He was in that condition, nor when He was in the body. He as innocent of any transgression. He loved righteousness. He hated iniquity; and "therefore God anointed Him with the oil of gladness above His fellows."
How many millions of ages ago it was when He became the first-born, I don't know; it is not revealed. A great many things concerning our history before we came here are not revealed and will not be, perhaps, until we get into a further state of progression; but the Father placed His Son, His "Beloved Son," to look after the affairs of this world and to direct them, and He was in the creation, as I have explained and as I have quoted from the scriptures. In this 5th Chapter of John, Jesus goes on to explain to the people that He did nothing of Himself, but that which the Father sent Him to do, that He did; and He said, "The Son doeth nothing but what He seeth the Father do, for the Father loveth the Son and showeth Him all things that He Himself doeth." (verse 20.) Now, if the Father, in the course of His great experience as revealed through the Prophet Joseph, had passed through the "estate" of mortals that He might be placed in the same conditions of trial, so was Jesus thus placed, and the Lord showed to Jesus all about this. He showed to Him all about the organization of the worlds. "The Father loveth the Son and showeth Him all things that He Himself doeth, and He will show Him greater works than these, that ye may marvel ;" so we read. Then He goes on to tell, in regard to the resurrection, from the dead, what will become of all people. All being brought forth from their graves through His power as "the resurrection and the life," some to eternal life and glory and some to everlasting condemnation. That being the case, He understood all about it by sight, and the time being set when He should come to the earth and take a body, He was qualified to do that for which He was appointed in the beginning. We need not have any dubiety about His understanding all that. There is no need for the theory that He must have had a body before coming to this earth, and there is nothing that establishes it by revelation. The mere opinions of men do not count for very much.
The Holy Ghost as "a personage of spirit," whom Jesus Christ said he would send from the Father, and who would not come unless Jesus went away (John 16:7) was not and is not a "being of tabernacle," but, without a body of flesh and bones, he represents both the Father and the Son and is one of the Godhead. ( I John 5:7. ) The Holy Trinity operate by the power and presence of the Divine spirit which permeates all things and is the life and the light of all things. Thus our Father is everywhere present, while as an individual He dwells in heaven "in the midst of all things," and so with the other personages in the Godhead.
If you will read the first and second chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews, you will learn there that it became necessary, in order to lead many sons unto glory and salvation, that Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, should be in all points as they are. If that is so, then he was a spirit in the spirit world when we were spirits and He was the first-born. Therefore it says, "as the children are made partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same," so that-He might suffer temptations like the rest, that He might pass through all these conditions of mortality in His own experience, and be raised from the dead. "Wherefore in all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren." (Hebrews 2:14-17.)
One other point in regard to it: When Jesus was on the cross, what did He say just before His last, expiring moment? "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit!" and having said thus He gave up the ghost." ( Luke 23:2, 6. ) He was a spirit dwelling in a mortal body and He gave up the spirit just like we have to--"gave up the ghost." As I said, He was was the first of all and He will be the last, because when He receives the kingdom from the Ancient of Days, after it is all purified and perfected, and the earth is redeemed, and the inhabitants thereof are cleansed from their transgressions through His atonement, He will present the kingdom to the Father. "The first and the last !" He is the only begotten of the Father in the flesh, the first begotten in the spirit, a great and mighty Being. He wrought more wonders when He came on the earth than we have any understanding of. He was the Mighty God, as proclaimed by the Prophet Isaiah, the Wonderful Counselor, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, whom we can gladly adore. When we pray, we are told directly how to pray, and a sample is given to us in the blessing of the bread and of the water in the sacrament: "Oh, God, the Eternal Father, we ask Thee in the name of Jesus Christ, Thy Son," so and so; that is the pattern for our prayers. We pray to the Eternal Father, whom we have named Elohim. We pray to Him in the name of Jesus Christ, for Jesus Christ is His word, He is the expression of God's will, He was with the Father in the beginning. The Father has placed His name upon Him. God sometimes places His name in angelic beings, ministering spirits, as you can read in the first chapter of Revelation and the first verse: "The revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to Him to show unto His servant things which must shortly come to pass, and He sent by His angel and delivered it to His servant, John." In the last chapter of the Book we read about John bowing to worship that being but he told him not to do it, for he was one of his fellow servants and of his brethren, the prophets." Then the angel said, "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." (Revelation 22:13.) Well, was He? He was speaking for Jesus, the Christ, as Christ speaks for the Father when He is so appointed. See also the appointment of the angel spoken of in Exodus 23:20: "Behold I send an angel before thee to keep thee in the way. Beware of him and obey his voice: provoke him not for he will not pardon your transgressions for My Name is in him."
There isn't time for me to go any further on this matter. I have taken up a great deal more time than I had intended to do, but I have started on this point and it is for the purpose that we may avoid contentions and discussions that arise among us for no needful purpose. God the Eternal Father who made the world, by and through Jesus Christ, is our Father and our God and we worship and adore Him, and as we have been taught to do today we should obey Him. That is the great point. Take His word and live by it. Live by every word that comes from the mouth of God. Jesus taught that "a man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God." Jesus of Nazareth, born of the virgin Mary, was literally and truly the Son of the Father, the Eternal God, not of Adam. Don't think so for a moment. Christ was the Son of God, of God the Father; the Father of His Spirit was the Father of His body. He was an exalted man who had passed through all things that Jesus Christ, His Beloved Son, afterwards passed through. It was a repetition of the things that had been done from remote, eternal ages, the great plan of salvation for all the people of all the worlds that God has created. He is not a mere force or etherial immateriality, but is the embodiment in His personality of light, truth, virtue, justice, mercy, energy and all the eternal verities.
God help us to see and understand the truth and to avoid error! And don't let us be too strong in our feelings in regard to our opinions of matters. Let us try to be right. I have prayed from a boy, when I first heard the Gospel, that I might see the truth as God sees it, that I might have it as it really is, and the Lord has blessed me in answer to that prayer. I don't pretend to say that I do not make mistakes like other people do. I don't mean that, but I mean that my heart is set to find out the right and the truth: and while "God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform," I don't expect to have made known to me anything that should not be revealed, but the things that have been revealed I have studied and reflected upon and prayed about, and I know that the light of God, by the power of the Holy Ghost, has rested upon me and qualified me in my labors and lit up my soul with the light of eternity and drawn me nearer to Him. He is my Father and my God. And I venerate and rejoice in the atonement of Jesus Christ His Son and believe in Him with all my heart. Jesus of Nazareth, who was put to death on the cross, is the Son of God in the spirit and in the body. He is, therefore, our elder brother, and we should follow Him and emulate His example, embody all His virtues as near as we can, for He is our head over this Church, the living spiritual head. He made it, he organized it under the direction of the Holy One, our great Eternal Father. And now, praise and glory be unto God the Father, and to His Son Jesus Christ and to the Holy Ghost, who speaks for both the Father and the Son and is with the Church to enlighten it by the power of the Eternal spirit, even so. Amen.
A duet, entitled, "Stay Thou with me," was sung by Geneva Harris and James H. Neilson; words and music by Evan Stephens.