In this chapter I present a collection of "Mormon" utterances on the subject of Deity, of man, and of his relationship to God. They are selected from discourses and other writings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, from the Book of Mormon, the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, some of the earlier Church publications, and last of all, I give, by permission, a recent discourse by President Joseph F. Smith. These utterances are arranged in an order, and with the view of establishing the fact that from the beginning of what the world calls "Mormonism," the views contended for in the body of this work, have been the doctrine of the Church.
The Father and the Son are Represented as Distinct Persons, and also as Being in the Form of Men, in the First Vision of the Prophet of the New Dispensation.
It is well known that while the Prophet Joseph Smith was a lad, but fourteen years of age, he became much exercised on the subject of religion, and very much perplexed in consequence of the division and strife existing among the religious sects, by which he was surrounded. And now his own account as to how he sought wisdom and obtained a very important revelation, in which he learned very important truths, both concerning God and the state of the religious world:
In the midst of this war of words and tumult of opinions, I often said to myself: What is to be done? Who of all these parties are right; or, are they all wrong together? If any one of them be right, which is it, and how shall I know it? While I was laboring under the extreme difficulties caused by the contests of these parties of religionists, I was one day reading the Epistle of James, first chapter and fifth verse, which reads:
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did; for how to act I did not know, and unless I could get more wisdom than I then had, I would never know; for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible.
At length I came to the conclusion that I must either remain in darkness and confusion, or else I must do as James directs, that is, ask of God. I at length came to the determination to ask of God, concluding that if he gave wisdom to them that lacked wisdom, and would give liberally, and not upbraid, I might venture.
So, in accordance with this, my determination to ask of God, I retired to the woods to make the attempt. It was on the morning of a beautiful clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty. It was the first time in my life that I had made such an attempt, for amidst all my anxieties, I had never as yet made the attempt to pray vocally.
After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me, as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.
But, exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me; and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being—just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. It no sooner appeared than I felt myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound.
When the light rested upon me I saw two personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name, and said, pointing to the other: "This is my beloved Son, hear Him!"
My object in going to enquire of the Lord, was to know, which, of all the sects, was right; that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects, was right—and which I should join.
I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong, and the personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.
He again forbade me to join with any of them; and many other things did he say unto me, which I cannot write at this time.[A]
[Footnote A: Pearl of Great Price, pp. 83-85. Also History of Church Vol. I, pp. 4-6.]
Of the importance of this vision, and the effects growing out of it, I have elsewhere said:
First, it is a flat contradiction to the sectarian assumption that revelation had ceased; that God had no further communication to make to man.
Second, it reveals the errors into which men had fallen, concerning the personages of the Godhead. It makes it manifest that God is not an incorporeal being without form, or body, or parts; on the contrary he appeared to the Prophet in the form of a man, as he did to the ancient prophets. Thus, after centuries of controversy, the simple truth of the Scriptures, which teach that man was created in the likeness of God—hence God must be the same in form as man—was re-affirmed.
Third, it corrected the error of the theologians respecting the oneness of the persons of the Father and the Son. Instead of being one person, as the theologians teach, they are distinct in their personality; and there is a plurality of Gods, for the Father and the Son are two individuals, as much so as any father and son on earth; and the oneness of the Godhead referred to in the scriptures, must have reference to unity of purpose and of will; the mind of one being the mind of the other, and so as to will and other attributes. In other words, the oneness of the Godhead is a moral and spiritual union, not a physical one.
The announcement of these truths, coupled with that other truth proclaimed by the Son of God, viz: that none of the sects and churches of Christendom were acknowledged as the church or kingdom of God, furnish the elements for a religious revolution that will affect the very foundations of modern Christian theology. In a moment, all the rubbish concerning theology, which had accumulated through all the centuries since the gospel and authority to administer its ordinances had been taken from the earth, was grandly swept aside—the living rocks of truth were made bare upon which the Church of Christ was to be founded—a New Dispensation of the gospel was about to be committed to the earth—God had raised up a witness for himself among the children of men.[A]