Latter Day Saints; United States -- Description and travel
caused some who had come to the tree to be filled with shame, and to fall
away. He saw continual multitudes pressing forward towards the tree, and
others towards the great, and spacious building. With all his persuasion
Lehi could not induce his two eldest sons to come and partake of the fruit
of the tree, therefore he had great fears in relation to them.
After relating this vision, Lehi began to prophecy in relation to the
Saviour, and told very distinctly what is related in the New Testament
about him. Nephi, however, became very anxious to see the tree of which his
father had told, and at length he was gratified. The same vision was
repeated to him, and he obtained also from the spirit of the Lord the
interpretation thereof. The spirit commanded him to look. He did so, and
first he beheld Jerusalem--then Nazareth--and "in the city of Nazareth, a
virgin exceeding fair and white." And then he saw the heavens open, and an
angel came down, and stood before him, and said, "the virgin which thou
seest, is the mother of God, after the manner of the flesh." She was
carried away in the spirit, and after awhile she returned bearing a child
in her arms, and the angel said to him, "Behold the Lamb of God, yea even
the eternal Father! Knowest thou the meaning of the tree which thy father
saw? And I answered him, saying: Yea, _it is the love of God_." Afterwards
he looked and saw the son of God going forth among the children of men. He
then saw in succession all the miracles of Christ--all the events of his
life--the scenes that followed his crucifixion--and the whole history of
the Christian Church up to the _present_ time--_beyond which_ the deponent
Nephi sayeth not.
The tree was the love of God in Christ--the rod of iron leading to it was
the word of God--the mist and darkness, that blinded the eyes of those
going to the tree, were the temptations of the devil--the large and
spacious building was the pride and vain imaginations of the children of
men.
After this protracted vision, Nephi returned to the tent of his father, and
found his brethren disputing about the allegorical sense of the vision of
their father Lehi. He of course was now prepared to enlighten them. They
asked him "what meaneth the river of water which our father saw?" and he
replied, "The water was filthiness. So much was my father's mind swallowed
up in other things, that he beheld not the filthiness of the water, and I
said unto them, that it was an awful gulf which separateth the wicked from
the tree of life, and also from the saints of God--a representation of
hell."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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