THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. I believe with all my soul in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and in the law of God, and I do not think any honest and intelligent man or woman could help but believe in the justice, the righteousness and the purity of the laws that God wrote upon the tablets of stone. These principles that I propose to read to you are the foundation and basic principles of the Constitution of our country, and are eternal, enduring forevermore, and cannot be changed nor ignored with impunity:
"And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
That is what it means now, and what it meant to the Latter-day Saints, and what the Latter-day Saints understood it to mean, when they embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ.
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me." He is the Father of our spirits, the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who is our God; and we shall not have any other before him.
"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
"Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments." (Exodus 20:1-6.)
Infidels will say to you: "How unjust, how unmerciful, how un-Godlike it is to visit the iniquities of the parents upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate God." How do you see it? This way: and it is strictly in accordance with God's law. The infidel will impart infidelity to his children if he can. The whoremonger will not raise a pure, righteous posterity. He will impart seeds of disease and misery, if not of death and destruction, upon his offspring, which will continue upon his children and descend to his children's children to the third and fourth generation. It is perfectly natural that the children should inherit from their fathers, and if they sow the seeds of corruption, crime and loathsome disease, their children will reap the fruits thereof. Not in accordance with God's wishes, for his wish is that men will not sin and therefore will not transmit the consequences of their sin to their children, but that they will keep his commandments, and be free from sin and from entailing the effects of sin upon their offspring; but inasmuch as men will not hearken unto the Lord, but will become a law unto themselves, and will commit sin, they will justly reap the consequences of their own iniquity, and will naturally impart its fruits to their children to the third and fourth generation. The laws of nature are the laws of God who is just; it is not God that inflicts these penalties, they are the effects of disobedience to his law. The results of men's own acts follow them.
"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain."
This is an eternal principle; it is not one that we may obey today and disobey tomorrow, or that we may espouse today as a part of our faith, and abandon tomorrow with impunity. It is a principle that is inherent in the plan of life and salvation, for the regeneration of mankind.
"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates," etc.