Different Degrees of Glory.
But they will not all be saved in the same degree of glory. That would be unjust. God is just as well as merciful. His mercy balances with His justice, and His justice with His mercy. One will not rob the other. There are eternal principles from which even He cannot swerve and still be God. God must govern Himself by the eternal principles of right. This He teaches to His children, and so far as we conform to that, so far will be our power, our glory, our joy and our exaltation in worlds to come. The Gospel is preached to men and women in the flesh; and if they repent, and are baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, by one having divine authority, and receive the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands, as a gift of God to enlighten their minds and guide them into all truth, and they abide in it and are really baptized into Christ, then when Christ appears in His glory they will be with Him, and be numbered as His jewels. They will be "Christ's at His coming." They will have part in the first resurrection. They will be clothed with glory, immortality and eternal life. They will dwell in the presence of the Father and of the Son forever. They will be crowned with the power of His might. Those who belong to them, if also faithful, will share this glory with them—the husband with the wife, the parents with the children. The beginning of their glory will be the foundation of their family government, under their Eternal Father, for ever and ever; and their increase in numbers, in power, in might, in dominion, in intelligence, in everlasting progress, in all that is good and beautiful and happifying, will have no end. This is in the celestial glory—the glory that is typified by the sun. Then there are others who receive not the Gospel of Christ in the flesh, but afterwards receive it in the spirit; they will receive a terrestrial glory, typified by the moon. There will be millions of the heathen nations, who knew not God on the earth, but who will receive the truth in the other world, and they will inherit a glory of the kind that I have here briefly alluded to. Then there is a vast number, which cannot be counted by mortal man, who will be thrust down to punishment. Justice will claim its own. Some will be beaten by a few stripes, and some by many stripes. Some will be forgiven in the next world for sins that they did not repent of in this world, and others may have to pay "the uttermost farthing." Eternal justice will deal out to every soul that which should be his; for all shall be judged according to their works. But through the power of the atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ, when they are willing to accept it and to conform to the principles of eternal life, they will be brought out of their punishment and sorrow, and they will be placed in a degree of glory suited to their capacity and condition. That glory is called the glory of the stars; and as one star differs from another star in glory, so also will be their several conditions.
Eternal justice and eternal mercy will each operate in every individual case, and a just and righteous judge will deal out that which belongs to all. He will not judge as men do, by the sight of the eye and the hearing of the ear; but He will judge according to justice and righteousness and according to the motives and intents of the hearts of the children of men. Men strive to do right sometimes and fail. God will judge them accordingly. There are people born with certain tendencies and proclivities; there are others who have environments around them which almost impel them to do that which is evil. God will comprehend all this, and judge accordingly. He will deal out to every man as his works shall be, and according to the desires of his heart and his efforts to do good or to do evil. He who wilfully does evil will reap evil. There is an eternal law of compensation, which God cannot turn aside and be God. Every tree will bring forth its own fruit. Every seed will bear of its kind. "He that sows to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life eternal."
Liberality of the Gospel.
This, I think, is a very liberal Gospel. But we do not claim credit for it, my friends. This was not invented by the boy Prophet Joseph Smith, who was proclaimed an ignoramus, a fool, an idiot, a knave. No, he did not invent this beautiful doctrine that I have been briefly proclaiming this afternoon. It was revealed from on high. It came by the voice of God from the eternal heavens. It is too good for a man to originate. It is Godlike; it is Christlike; it is broad, beautiful, and grand. It reaches the whole of the human race, from Adam, our father, down to the last person born on this globe. The heathen, the "Christian," the Jew, the pagan, the Mohamedan, the infidel, the skeptic, the agnostic, all people, all races, all tongues, all tribes—all shall hear the Gospel. Every ear shall tingle with the sound thereof. Some may say, how can an ear tingle in the spirit? My friends, perhaps you do not know much about these things that are called spiritual. The spirit of man is an entity, a personality, a substance. It is not a mere myth, a breath. True, it is a more refined substance than that which composes our body, so much so that we cannot comprehend it in our present condition. But when the spirit goes out of the body it is an individual, in the same shape and form as the body, because the body is conformed to the spirit. Sometimes the spirit is temporarily conformed to the body in deformed persons; but these are exceptional cases. The spirit of man is a son of God, made in His image and likeness. Jesus was the express likeness of the Father, and we are His brothers and sisters. He is the oldest, "the beginning of the creation of God," "the first born of every creature" in the spirit, and "the only begotten" in the flesh. When the spirit leaves the body, there is an individual, capable of progress, capable of hearing, capable of receiving or rejecting, an individual with agency, with power to do good and power to do evil. And these spirits will be gathered together in classes. Each spirit, when it leaves the body, will gravitate to its proper place, just as naturally as things gravitate on this globe towards the center thereof. It will be so in the spiritual world; for earthly things are after the pattern of heavenly things. Thus each individual will have an opportunity, at some time, of hearing and receiving the truth. And, thank God, we have the assurance that the time will come when the great mass of the human family will cheerfully bow the knee to the Great Eternal Father and accept Jesus Christ, the Elder Brother, as their Redeemer. They will receive the Gospel in the spirit, if they did not in the flesh; and then they will be judged according to their works. The Father will find a place for them all, somewhere in His great universe, where they can be happy, where they can fill the measure of their creation, where they can progress forever, learn more and more, become better, brighter and more glorious, and unite with Him in His great and glorious purposes concerning His children.
This is the Gospel of Christ as we understand it. Now contrast that, my dear friends, for a moment, with the religion that is commonly taught in the Christian world by people who say that we are illiberal. What do they tell us? "If you do not believe in Jesus Christ while you dwell in the flesh, when you die you will go to hell." What is hell? "It is a place of burning torment, where you will welter in misery so great that no tongue can tell it, forever and forever, and there will be no end to it." And some of them will tell you that God, before the foundations of the earth, in the very beginning, chose a few out of the rubbish of nature to be saved and exalted to His divine glory, and the rest were doomed to everlasting condemnation and ceaseless misery in flames and torment with the devil and his angels. Which is the more liberal doctrine of the two?
"Everlasting Punishment."
But what about this "everlasting punishment?" Does not the Bible teach everlasting punishment? Yes. If I had time I would read something from Section 19 of this Book of Doctrine and Covenants in regard to that; but I will briefly allude to it. The Lord revealed to Joseph Smith that "eternal punishment is God's punishment," because God is eternal. The meaning of that is this: An eternal Being, having eternal laws, has also eternal penalties; and those who will not obey the laws must suffer the penalties. The penalty will abide forever, because it is eternal; but a man will not suffer it forever. Each individual will receive of that punishment that which eternal justice will mark out as his due. To illustrate it in a simple way: Here we have a penitentiary. Some men go in there for six months and when their time expires they come out; but the penitentiary still abides. It is there for all transgressors. Men go in there for a year, or two years, as the case may be, and when they have served their term they come out; but the penitentiary still remains. So with the judgments of our Eternal Father. He is endless, eternal; His laws are eternal. His punishment is eternal. But He is just, and He will give to all who disobey His laws just that meed of eternal punishment which they ought to have, and no more. They will be judged "according to their works." If they are worthy of but few stripes, they will not have many; if they are worthy of many, they will not get off with a few. If they ought to pay "the uttermost farthing" without being forgiven, they will have to pay it. If there are circumstances in their case which warrant forgiveness after a certain amount of punishment, the Lord will forgive them and deliver them.
Work in the Spirit World.
The organization of His Church is for the proclamation of the Gospel, not only in the flesh, but also in the spirit. The Church on earth is united with the Church behind the veil. The Prophet Joseph Smith, who was martyred for the word of God and testimony of Jesus and who sealed his testimony with his blood, and his brother Hyrum, opened the door of salvation to the spirit world for the last dispensation, as Christ opened it for the time that He went there. Our Apostles, Elders and brethren who have followed, who have laid down their lives for the truth, who have been worn out in the service of God and in laboring for the salvation of mankind, are also laboring there among the hosts that sit in darkness. We who still remain in the flesh expect, when our earthly work is done, to follow on; and the priesthood which the Almighty has given us wherewith to labor for the uplifting and salvation of mankind in the flesh, will be our authority and power when we pass behind the veil and mingle with the spirits of the departed. The Gospel will be preached to every creature, whether in the body or out of the body, "the quick and the dead." Christ preached the Gospel to those that were dead as well as to the quick, and we expect to follow in His footsteps, according to His promise, "He that believeth in me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go to the Father."