New Witnesses for God (Volume 3 of 3)Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
Religion
New Witnesses for God (Volume 3 of 3)
Roberts, B. H. (Brigham Henry)
Book of Mormon; Smith, Joseph, Jr., 1805-1844
If ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no
sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is
no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness, there be no
happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness, there
be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not, there is
no God, and if there is no God, we are not, neither the earth; for
there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to
be acted upon: wherefore, all things must have vanished away. [63]
But as things have not vanished away, as there are real existences,
the whole series of things for which he contends are verities. "For
there is a God," he declares, "and he hath created all things, both the
heavens and the earth, and all things that in them is; both things to
act, and things to be acted upon." [64]
After arriving at this conclusion, Lehi, proceeding from the general to
the particular, deals with the introduction of this universal antinomy
into our world as follows:
To bring about his [God's] eternal purposes in the end of man,
after he had created our first parents * * * it must needs be that
there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition
to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter;
Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for
himself. Wherefore man could not act for himself, save it should
be that he was enticed by the one or the other. [65] And I, Lehi,
according to the things which I have read, must needs suppose that
an angel of God, according to that which is written, had fallen
from heaven; wherefore he became a devil, having sought that which
was evil before God. And because he had fallen from heaven, and
had become miserable forever, he said unto Eve, yea, even that old
serpent, who is the devil, who is the father of all lies; wherefore
he said, Partake of the forbidden fruit, and ye shall not die, but
ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil. And after Adam and Eve
had partaken of the forbidden fruit they were driven out of the
garden of Eden, to till the earth. And they have brought forth
children; yea, even the family of all the earth.
Then follows Lehi's treatise upon the reason for the fall, the purpose
of man's existence, which have already been noticed.
Summary of the Foregoing Doctrines.
This then is the order of things--(though in this summary the order
in which the various doctrines have been presented is not strictly
followed, but one more in harmony with the proper order of the related
things; but which order could not well be set forth until the foregoing
discussion of them was had):--
1. The intelligent "Ego" in man, which we have called an
"Intelligence," meaning, however, not a quality but the "Ego" itself,
is an eternal entity; uncreate and uncreatable--an essential, a
necessary, self-existent being.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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