"I will make a comment on the very first sentence of the history of the creation in the Bible" (i.e., "in King James's version;" he had probably never seen even the Douay translation). "It first read, 'The head one of the gods brought forth the gods.'[1] If you do not believe it, you do not believe the learned man of God. And, in farther explanation, it means, 'The head god called together the gods, and sat in grand council. The grand councilors sat in yonder heavens, and contemplated the worlds that were created at that time.' The Bible is, therefore, held to be the foundation book." Mr. Joseph Smith's inspired translation or impudent rifacciamento is believed to exist in MS.: in due time it will probably be promulgated. But the Word of God is not confined to the Bible; the Book of Mormon and the Doctrines and Covenants are of equal authority, strands of the "three-fold cord," connecting by the Church God and man. If these revelations contradict one another, the stumbling-block to the weak in faith is easily removed by considering the "situations" under which they were vouchsafed: "heaven's government is conducted on the principle of adapting revelation to the varied circumstances of the children of the kingdom"—a dogma common to all revelationists. Additional items may be supplied to the Mormons from day to day, a process by which a "flood of light has poured into their souls, and raised them to a view of the glorious things above." The present seer, revelator, translator, and prophet, however, shows his high wisdom by seeing, revealing, translating, and prophesying as little as possible. Yet he even repeats, and probably believes, that revelation is the rock upon which the Church is founded.
IX. "We believe all that God has revealed, all that he does now reveal, and we believe that he will reveal many more great and important things pertaining to the kingdom of God and Messiah's Second Coming."—Much of this has been explained above. The second coming of Christ is for the restoration or restitution of all things, as foretold by the prophet Isaiah. When the living earth was created, the dry land emerged from the waters, which gathered by command into one place. The "Voice of Warning" draws an interesting picture of a state of things hitherto unknown to geologist and palæogeographer. "There was one vast ocean rolling around a single immense body of land, unbroken as to continents and islands; it was a beautiful plain, interspersed with gently rising hills and sloping vales; its climate delightfully varied with heat and cold, wet and dry; crowning the year with productions grateful to men and animals, while from the flowery plain or spicy grove sweet odors were wafted on every breeze, and all the vast creation
- ↑ I need hardly say that in the original the words are "at its head (beginning) the gods (he) created the earth and the heaven."
