" " April 13, 1833.
" " May 2, 1835.
" " July 2, 1839.
" " April 28, 1842.
" " May 1, 1842.
CHRIST'S FIRST COMING.
The oldest Bible prophecy, of the coming of Christ, is in Jacob's blessing on Judah: "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come;" Gen. 49. 10.
When Christ was born, the sceptre had not wholly departed from Judah, for Herod the king, who reigned at the time of his birth, was virtually king of Judea. Christ was condemned to be crucified by Pontius Pilate, a Roman governor. The Shiloh had come and the sceptre had entirely departed, for Judah was under Gentile rule.
The records of three dispensations assert that Christ came to his own, and they did not receive him; John 1. 11. 3 Nephi 9. 16. Doc. & Cov. 6. 21. He came to his own covenant people, the house of Israel, and, though they still retained most of the forms of the Mosaic ritual, they had apostatized from the faith of their fathers, had drank deep into pagan philosophy, had become wicked and corrupt, and, when the Shiloh came, they new him not, rejected him, and were the means of his death.