ings, and to sit in glory as do those who sit enthroned in ever lasting power.” This Adam-god teaching of the Brighamites was expressed in the well-known, oft-quoted couplet by Lorenzo Snow: “As man now is, God once was, As God is now, man may be come.” Plurality of gods is taught in The Pearl o f Great Price, authori tative textbook of both branches of Mormonism: “And they [the gods] said: “ Let there be light, and there was light. And they [the gods] comprehended the light . . . and they divided the light.” Brigham Young added his blas phemous interpretation o f God the Father to that o f those who had gone before: “When our fa ther Adam came into the Garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one o f his wives, with him. He helped to make and organize this world. He is Michael, the archan gel, the Ancient of Days, about whom holy men have written and spoken. He is our Father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do . . . God Himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted Man . . . All you have to learn is how to be gods your selves, the same as all gods have done before you” ( Journal o f Dis courses, Vol. 1, p. 50; 6 :4 ; comp. 283). Other prominent Mormon theo logians write: “ There never has been a visible idol worshipped among men which was so power less as the God [o f the Nicene Creed], without body, passions, or parts . . . Jesus Christ and His Father are two persons in the same sense as Peter and John are two persons. Each of them has an organized, individual tab ernacle embodied in material form, and composed of material substances in the likeness of man, and possessing every organ, limit and physical part that man pos sesses” (Parley P. Pratt, Key to Theology, pp. 28-29, 34). “ Re
great and important things per taining to the Kingdom of God.” Thus all the revelations of Smith and others become binding upon those who are followers of this cult, deceived into thinking it is a Christian Church. In a funeral oration of a promi nent Mormon, known as the King Folett Discourse, delivered by Jo seph Smith in 1844, to 20,000 peo ple, the “ prophet” set forth the blasphemous Adam-god doctrine which is a leading tenet o f the Salt Lake City Branch. It has been rejected by the Missouri branch who claim the speech was fabricated by Brigham Young. However, outstanding Mormons Richards, Woodruff, Bullock and Clayton attribute it to the proph et ; it reads: “God was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits en throned in yonder heavens . . . I say, if you were to see him to day, you would see him a man in form like yourselves in all the per son, image, and very form of a man . . . I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute this idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see. It is the first principle o f the Gos pel to know for certainty the character of God and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ did: — Here is eternal life — to know the only wise and true God; and you have to learn to be gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all gods have done before you, name ly, by going from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to exalta tion, until you attain to the resur rection of the dead and are able to dwell in the everlasting burn MORMON ISM AND COD THE FATHER
member that God our heavenly Father was perhaps once a child and mortal as we are, and rose step by step in the scale o f prog ress, in the school o f advance ment; has moved forward and overcome until he has arrived at the point where he now is (Orson Hyde, Journal of Discourses, Vol. 1, p. 123). These few quotations from hun dreds are sufficient to prove that the God of the Mormons is not the God of the Bible. There is no understanding in Mormonism of that Holy One who dwells on high, and who will dwell with him who receives His Son as his Saviour; o f the God o f love who gave His Son for our salvation; of God who is a “ Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.” There is no conception in Mormonism of God the Father who is “the light,” “ in whom is no darkness at all,” who is righteous, just and loving, worthy o f being worshipped and adored. The Mormon God is man made, a being that never existed, an imaginary Adam-man-god who in no respect resembles the God revealed in the Word o f God. Nowhere in Mormonism can one find more blasphemous state ments than those relating to the Lord Jesus Christ. As God the Fa ther is brought down by this cult to the level o f sinful man, so the Saviour is reduced to the status o f a polygamous man. Wrote Or son Hyde, top Mormon theologi an: “Jesus was the Bridegroom at the marriage o f Cana o f Gali lee . . . Jesus took unto Him, Mary, Martha, and the other Mary . . . before the Saviour died, He looked upon His own natural children, as we look upon ours . . . We saw it was Jesus Christ who was married . . . When Mary came to the sepulchre, she saw two an gels and she said unto them ‘They have taken away my Lord (or husband)’ ” (Journal of Dis- MORMON ISM AND THE LORD JESUS CHRIST
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