He little dreamed that in these utterances he was sealing his own political doom, and leaving on record an event that was to stand as a monument to the inspiration of Joseph Smith.
Footnotes:
[1]. For the consideration of the fulfillment of this prophecy the reader is referred to the writer's "New Witness for God," ch. XXIII.
[2]. Vol. xix, page 630.
[3]. The speech is published in the Missouri Republican for June 18, 1857. For a more complete consideration of the prophecy, the reader is referred to the author's "New Witness for God," chapter xxii.
CHAPTER XXIX.
DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT AT NAUVOO—OF THE BEING AND NATURE OF GOD.
WHEN Joseph Smith in 1820 declared that he had in open vision seen God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ standing together above him in the air, surrounded by a glorious brilliancy of light which defied all description, and that God the Father pointed to Jesus and said:
"Joseph, this is my beloved Son, hear Him"—
it is quite evident that new ideas pertaining to God were about to be promulgated among men. The facts of this vision were quite at variance with the orthodox notions entertained about the Godhead. It is quite true that Christians talked about the Father and the Son, and as for the latter they had to concede that He was in the form of man, and remains so to this day, as they have no reason to believe that the all-glorious resurrected body of flesh and bones with which Jesus ascended to His Father has been dissolved and become incorporeal; but no orthodox Christian believed that the Father and the Son of the Scriptures were two distinct and separate individuals—a conclusion which this very first vision of the Prophet's forces upon the understanding if it is believed. The anthropomorphism of the vision is also too emphatic for the orthodox conception of God; for notwithstanding the Scriptures teach that man was created in the image of God;[[1]] and that Jesus Christ was the express image of His Father's person[[2]]—and certainly Jesus was in the form of man—yet the Christian orthodoxy gave such explanations of these facts of Scripture that they accepted not at all the idea that God the Father was a personage like unto man in form and as distinct as to His person from His Son Jesus Christ as is any father and son among men. The orthodox creed of the Godhead is as follows: