The Rise and Fall of Nauvoo

by B. H. Roberts

BY THE PHILOSOPHY OF ABRAHAM.

I want to reason a little on this subject. I learned it by translating the papyrus which is now in my house. I learned a testimony concerning Abraham, and he reasoned concerning the God of heaven. "In order to do that," said he, "suppose we have two facts; that supposes another fact may exist—two men on the earth, one wiser than the other, would logically show that another who is wiser than the wiser one may exist. Intelligences exist one above another, so that there is no end to them. If Abraham reasoned thus: If Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and John discovered that God, the Father of Jesus Christ, had a Father, you may suppose that He had a Father also. Where was there ever a son without a father? And where was there ever a father without first being a son? Whenever did a tree or anything spring into existence without a progenitor? And everything comes in this way. Paul says that which is earthly is in the likeness of that which is heavenly. Hence, if Jesus had a Father, can we not believe that He had a Father also? I despise the idea of being scared to death at such doctrine, for the Bible is full of it.

BY THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS.

I believe all that God ever revealed, and I never hear of a man being damned for believing too much; but they are damned for unbelief. They found fault with Jesus Christ because He said He was the Son of God, and made Himself equal with God. They say of me like they did of the Apostles of old, that I must be put down. What did Jesus say? "Is it not written in your law, I said, ye are Gods? If he called them Gods unto whom the word of God came, and the Scripture cannot be broken, say ye of him whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest, because I said I am the Son of God?" It was through Him that they drank of the spiritual rock.

Of course He would take the honor Himself. Jesus, if they were called Gods unto whom the word of God came, why should it be thought blasphemy that I should say I am the Son of God?^[[3]]

HOW GOD CAME TO BE A GOD.

We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and will take away the vail, so that you may see. * * * The Scriptures inform us that Jesus said, "As the Father hath power in Himself, even so hath the Son power"—to do what? Why, what the Father did. The answer is obvious—in a manner to lay down His body and take it up again. Jesus, what are you going to do? To lay down My life as My Father did and take it up again. Do you believe it? If you do not believe it you do not believe the Bible. Here then is eternal life, to know the only wise and true God, and you have got to learn to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done before you, namely, by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the resurrection of the dead and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings, and to sit in glory as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power.

THE APPOINTMENT OF GODS.

The Scriptures are a mixture of very strange doctrines to the Christian world, who are blindly led by the blind. I will refer to another Scripture. "Now," says God, when He visited Moses in the bush, (Moses was a stammering sort of a boy like me,) God said, "Thou shalt be a God unto the children of Israel." God said, "Thou shalt be a God unto Aaron, and he shall be thy spokesman." I believe those Gods that God reveals as Gods to be sons of Gods, and all can cry, "Abba Father!" Sons of God who exalt themselves to be Gods, even from before the foundation of the world and are the only Gods I have a reverence for.

THE APPOINTMENT OF OUR GOD.

The head of the Gods appointed one God for us; and when you take a view of the subject, it sets one free to see all the beauty, holiness and perfection of the Gods. All I want is to get the simple, naked truth, and the whole truth.