[Footnote A: II Nephi xxxi:18.]
[Footnote B: I Cor. xii.]
"But when the Comforter is come ... he shall testify of me."[A]
[Footnote A: St. John v;26.]
These passages were relied upon to emphasize that conclusion; and to these the following may be added: "I bear record of the Father," said Jesus to the Nephites, "and the Father beareth record of me, and the Holy Ghost beareth record of the Father and me." "Whoso believeth in me, believeth in the Father also, and unto him will the Father bear record of me: for he will visit him with fire and with the Holy Ghost. And thus will the Father bear record of me and the Holy Ghost will bear record unto him of the Father and me; for the Father, and I and the Holy Ghost are one."[A]
[Footnote A: III Nephi xi:32-36.]
This chief office of the Holy Ghost established, we may now proceed to the consideration of other functions of this Divine Personage.
3. Comforter: As the time drew near for Jesus to make his great sacrifice, and then depart from the immediate presence of his disciples, he manifested a great desire to comfort them, and this he did by promising to send to them from the Father, the Holy Ghost, that he (the Holy Ghost) might abide with them forever.
"If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of Truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you."[A]
[Footnote A: St. John xiv:16, 17. It will doubtless be of interest to note in this connection another promise following immediately upon this one relative to the Holy Ghost as a Comforter, and very generally overlooked even by Christians, namely, a promise that both the Father and Son would also take up their abode with those who keep the commandments. "I will not leave you comfortless," said the Christ in the verse following the one given in the text above, "I will come unto you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? Jesus answered and said unto him. If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." When Orson Hyde gave a "spiritual interpretation" to the last statement, to the effect that it is "our privilege to have the Father and Son dwelling in our hearts," the Prophet Joseph answered: "When the Savior shall appear, we shall see him as he is. We shall see that he is a man like ourselves, and that the same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy. The appearing of the Father and the Son, in that verse (John xiv:23) is a personal appearance; and the idea that the Father and the Son dwell in a man's heart is an old sectarian notion, and is false." (Doc. and Cov., Sec. cxxx.)]