THE GOSPEL. AN EXPOSITION OF ITS FIRST PRINCIPLES. BY ELDER B. H. ROBERTS, Author of Life of John Taylor; Outlines of Ecclesiastical History; New Witnesses, Etc. Revised and Enlarged Edition. PUBLISHED BY GEORGE Q. CANNON & SONS CO., Salt Lake City, Utah. 1893. "Religion, my honored friend, is surely a simple business, as it equally concerns the ignorant and the learned, the poor and the rich." --Burns. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. This work has been written for the purpose of instructing the youth of Zion in the first principles of the gospel. For the most part our parents have been converted to the gospel while living in the various States of this country, or in foreign lands, by the preaching of the servants of God sent forth of him to proclaim the ushering in of the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times, and to call mankind to repentance. They carefully and thoroughly examined every principle advanced by them; for notwithstanding the doctrines taught by the Elders were older than the earth, and in various dispensations have been expounded by prophets and apostles whose testimony is recorded in the Bible, yet something in the spirit by which they were proclaimed, and the manner in which they were combined, made them a new gospel--a new religion. Not only did our parents hear the public discourses of the servants of God, but in the home circle--to which they invited the teachers of the seemingly New Faith--the gospel, the harmony and beauty of its principles, the consistent blending in it of justice, and mercy, its sanctifying influence upon the human character, its spirit and powers, were all common topics of their conversation; until they not only intellectually assented to it as a grand system of truth, but also became imbued with its spirit, and felt and enjoyed its powers. With the youth of Zion it has been different. Being removed from the errors of the sectarian world, it has been thought they would accept the gospel as a matter of course. It may be stated as a general truth, that too much in this respect has been taken for granted; and in too many instances our youth have not been instructed so thoroughly in the things of God as they ought to have been. Many have grown up in lamentable ignorance of even the First Principles of the gospel--which ignorance is often confounded with unbelief, or mistaken for infidelity. To such the gospel has only to be presented intelligently, and in its native simplicity, to be accepted. "Whoever examined our religion," said one of the Fathers of the early Christian Church, "but what he accepted it?" So now: the Gospel has only to be understood to be admired and believed.