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gdm Digest         Saturday, October 11 1997         Volume 01 : Number 026



In this issue:

    ---> Lesson 37 Extra info D&C 125-28
    ---> Lesson 38

See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the gdm
or gdm-digest mailing lists and on how to retrieve back issues.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 11 Oct 1997 14:15:14 -0700
From: "Perry L. Porter" <[e-mail]>
Subject: ---> Lesson 37 Extra info D&C 125-28

Section 125

The History of the Church notes that Section 125 was given about 20 March
1841, but and entry for 6 March 1841 in the John Smith Journal suggests an
earlier date.

...

A major factor that permitted the saints to gather again after their
expulsion from Missouri was the liberal land offer extended to them by
Isaac Galland. ..

The settlements of Zarahemla, Nashville, Ambrosia, and Montrose were
located in Lee County, Iowa, on properties that the Church had purchased
from Galland in 1839.

Lyndon W. Cook, The Revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith: A Historical
and Biographical Commentary of the Doctrine and Covenants, (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book, 1985), p. 282.

Section 126

On Thursday, 1 July 1841, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and John Taylor
arrived in Nauvoo, Illinois, from their British Mission. Section 125,
received the following week, commended Elder Young for his service in the
kingdom and counseled him not to leave his family again during his
missionary service.

Lyndon W. Cook, The Revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith: A Historical
and Biographical Commentary of the Doctrine and Covenants, (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book, 1985),p. 28.

Section 127

1 September 1842

...

These two letters, written in the hand of William Clayton, were addressed
to "all the saints in Nauvoo" at a time when the Prophet was making few
public appearances because of threats of unlawful arrest. Governor Carlin
of Illinois, responding to a demand from the governor of Missouri, issued
a warrant for Joseph Smith's arrest as an accessory before the fact in an
assault with intent to kill Lilburn W. Boggs, ex-governor of Missouri. ...


The letters concern themselves with salvation for the dead, a subject of
much interest and discussion in 1842. Baptism for the dead was first
publicly announced on 15 August 1840 at the funeral of Seymour Brunson.
...Church members began performing proxy baptisms in the Mississippi River
and in local streams. ...the actions were not recorded; consequently the
baptisms were later repeated. ... Baptisms for the dead in the Nauvoo
Temple were first performed on Sunday, 21 November 1841. With few
exceptions, endowments and sealings for the dead were first administered
in the St.

George, Utah, Temple.

...

the Prophet emphasized that "all persons baptiz'd for the dead must have a
Recorder present, that he may be an eye-witness to testify of it."
Sections 127 and 128 both give special attention to the matter of having
witnesses and recorders for the work of the dead.

Lyndon W. Cook, The Revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith: A Historical
and Biographical Commentary of the Doctrine and Covenants, (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book, 1985), p. 284-285.

On 10 August 1840 Seymour Brunson, member of the Nauvoo High Council, died
in Nauvoo. The Prophet took the occasion of his funeral, on 15 August
1840, to deliver the first discourse on the doctrine of baptism for the
dead.

...

He read the greater part of the 15th chapter of Corinthians and remarked
that the Gospel of Jesus Christ brought glad tidings of great joy, and
then remarked that he was a widow in that congregation that had a son who
died without being baptized, and this widow in reading the sayings of
Jesus 'except a man be born of water and of the spirit he cannot enter the
kingdom of heaven,' and that not one jot nor tittle of the Savior's words
should pass away, but all should be fulfilled. He then said that his widow
should have glad tidings in that thing. He also said the apostle was
talking to a people who understood baptism for the dead, for it was
practiced among them. He went on to say that people could now act for
their friends who had departed this life, and that the plan of salvation
was calculate to save all who were willing to obey the requirements of the
law of God.

Endowments for the dead were first performed in the St. George Temple on
11 January 1877.

Lyndon W. Cook, The Revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith: A Historical
and Biographical Commentary of the Doctrine and Covenants, (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book, 1985), p. 344.

...

During the previous May, Missouri's governor, Lilburn W. Boggs, who had
issued the extermination order against the Saints, was shot and wounded.

The Latter-day Saints were immediately suspected, and Joseph Smith was
specifically accused of being an accessory to the crime. During August the
Prophet was arrested on these charges but was soon released. At this point
some Missourians threatened to take the law into their own hands by
crossing the river into Illinois and seizing the Prophet by force. Joseph
therefore went into hiding for the sake of his own and the Church's
safety.

Richard O. Cowan, "Instructions on Baptism for the Dead," Studies in
Scripture, Volume One: The Doctrine and Covenants, Edited by Robert L.

Millet and Kent P. Jackson (Sandy, Utah: Randall Book Co., 1984), p. 490.

Section 128

6 September 1842.

Lyndon W. Cook, The Revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith: A Historical
and Biographical Commentary of the Doctrine and Covenants, (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book, 1985), p. 285.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 11 Oct 1997 14:49:07 -0700
From: "Perry L. Porter" <[e-mail]>
Subject: ---> Lesson 38

Doctrine and Covenants 129-31

Lesson 38

Scriptural Highlights

1. The Godhead

2. The celestial kingdom

3. Acquiring knowledge and intelligence

4. The "more sure word of prophecy"

Prayerfully determine which scriptures to discuss in this lesson.

Discussion and Application Questions

* What did the Lord reveal about the Godhead in D&C 129 and 130? (D&C
129:1-2; 130:1-3, 22-23.) Why is it important for us to know these truths
about the Godhead?

* What did the Lord reveal about the celestial kingdom in D&C 130 and 131?
(D&C 130:6-11; 131:1-4; see also D&C 137:1-4, 10.) Why is it sometimes
difficult to maintain our commitment to be worthy of the celestial
kingdom? How can we strengthen this commitment?

* The Lord promises that the knowledge and intelligence we acquire in this
life "will rise with us in the resurrection" (D&C 130:18). How can this
promise help us understand the purposes of mortality? Why is it impossible
for a person to be saved in ignorance? (D&C 131 :6.) How can we gain the
knowledge and intelligence we need to be saved? (See D&C 93:28, 39;
130:19; and the quotation from Elder Kimball.)

* In D&C 130:20-21, what did the Lord reveal about his purpose for giving
laws and commandments? What blessings have you received that you felt were
the result of obeying a particular commandment?

* What does it mean to have eternal increase? (See D&C 131:4 and the
quotation from the First Presidency.)

* What does it mean to receive "the more sure word of prophecy"? (D&C
131:5; see 2 Peter 1:10, 19). What people in the scriptures have had their
calling and election made sure? (Mosiah 26:15, 20; D&C 132:48-49.) What
must we do to have our calling and election made sure? (See the quotations
from the Prophet Joseph Smith and the Guide to the Scriptures.)

Quotations

Elder Spencer W. Kimball: "No man can ever really find God in a university
campus laboratory.... God and his program will be found only in deep
pondering, appropriate reading, much kneeling in devout, humble prayer,
and in a sincerity born of need and dependence....

"President Joseph Fielding Smith [said] 'that a man cannot be saved in
ignorance of the saving principles of the Gospel. We cannot be saved
without faith in God. We cannot be saved in our sins.... We must receive
the ordinances and the covenants pertaining to the Gospel and be true and
faithful to the end.' . . .

"The ultimate and greatest of all knowledge, then, is to know God and his
program for our exaltation" (in Conference Report, Oct. 1968, p. 130).

The First Presidency (Joseph F. Smith, Anthon H. Lund, and Charles W.
Penrose): "Only resurrected and glorified beings can become parents of
spirit offspring. Only such exalted souls have reached maturity in the
appointed course of eternal life; and the spirits born to them in the
eternal worlds will pass in due sequence through the several stages . . .
by which the glorified parents have attained exaltation" (in Clark,
Messages of the First Presidency, 5:34).

The Prophet Joseph Smith: "After a person has faith in Christ, repents of
his sins, and is baptized for the remission of his sins and receives the
Holy Ghost, (by the laying on of hands), which is the first Comforter,
then let him continue to humble himself before God, hungering and
thirsting after righteousness, and living by every word of God, and the
Lord will soon say unto him, Son, thou shalt be exalted. When the Lord has
thoroughly proved him, and finds that the man is determined to serve Him
at all hazards, then the man will find his calling and his election made
sure, then it will be his privilege to receive the other Comforter, which
the Lord hath promised the Saints, as is recorded in the testimony of St.
John. [See John 14:12-27. ] Now what is this other Comforter? It is no
more nor less than the Lord
Jesus Christ Himself" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp.150-51).

Guide to the Scriptures ("Calling and Election"): "Righteous followers of
Christ can become numbered among the elect who gain the assurance of
exaltation. This calling and election begins with repentance and baptism.
It becomes complete when they 'press forward, feasting upon the word of
Christ, and endure to the end' (2 Ne. 31:19-20). The scriptures call this
process making our calling and election sure."

Next Week's Reading Assignment Doctrine and Covenants 132

Page 75

Class Member Study Guide

Lesson 38

Doctrine and Covenants 129-31 were recorded in and around Nauvoo during
the early months of 1843.

These sections, which are all identified as instructions, deal with a
variety of subjects.

As you study D&C 129-31, consider the following:

What did the Lord reveal about the celestial kingdom in D&C 130 and 131?
(See also D&C 137:1-4, 10.)

* How does D&C 130:18-19 help you understand the purposes of mortality?

* What blessings have you received that you felt were the result of
obeying a particular commandment? (D&C 1 30:20-21 .)

Joseph Smith's mansion home in Nauvoo, Illinois.

Page 76

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Section 129

...

Although the exact date of his receiving these principles of detecting
false spirits is not known, it can safely be set before 27 June 1839. On
that day members of the First Presidency and Quorum of Twelve met in
council in Nauvoo, and in this meeting the Prophet presented the following
instructions for the benefit of the Twelve prior to their leaving for
England:

...

When an angel of god appears unto man face to face in personage & reaches
out his hand unto the man he takes hold of the angels hand & feels a
substance the same as one man would in shaking hands with another he may
then know that it is an angel of god & he should place all confidence in
him ... but if a personage appears unto man & offers him his hand & man
takes hold of it & feels nothing or does not sens[e] any substance he may
know it is the devil, for when a Saints whose body is not resurrected
appears unto man in the flesh he will not offer him his hand for this is
against the law given him.

...

Parley P. Pratt arrived in Nauvoo from his mission to England.

...

the keys of detecting false spirits (section 129) were explained. The
Prophet's scribe, William Clayton, was present and recorded section 129,
and Clayton's account was the source for the 1876 publication of the
revelation.

Lyndon W. Cook, The Revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith: A Historical
and Biographical Commentary of the Doctrine and Covenants, (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book, 1985), p. 286.

Doctrine and Covenants 129 contains instructions given to Elder Parley P.

Pratt on 9 February 1843, on the occasion of his return from his mission
to Great Britain. Parley had remained over a year and one-half longer in
Britain than his brethren of the Twelve, to preside over the Church there
and to edit the Millennial Star.

...

The Prophet had discussed similar matter about angels with the Quorum of
the Twelve on two separate occasions in late June of 1839, prior to the
apostles' leaving for their mission to England. Parley had not been in
attendance at either of those two meetings, because he was still
incarcerated in Richmond, Missouri at the time.

Bruce A. Van Orden, "Important Items of Instruction," Studies in
Scripture, Volume One: The Doctrine and Covenants, Edited by Robert L.
Millet and Kent P. Jackson (Sandy, Utah: Randall Book Co., 1984), p.
497-498.

Far from saying that when the instructions of this discourse were
followed, the adversary's only recourse was to attempt to return the
handshake ...

Joseph Smith stated, "The Devil .... will either shrink back .... or offer
his hand." ..."certain signs and words by which false spirits and
personages may be detected from true, which cannot be revealed to the
Elders till the Temple is completed ... There are signs .. the Elders must
know ... to be endowed with the power, to finish their work and prevent
imposition".... Three day later Joseph Smith revealed these sacred keys to
nine men in accordance with his plans to as announced to the Relief
Society just six days before. To these men he taught the keys of prayer
and detection whereby all these documents, revelation, or manifestations
could be tested.

Lyndon W. Cook, The Revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith: A Historical
and Biographical Commentary of the Doctrine and Covenants, (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book, 1985), p. 344.

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In August 1840, he preached the funeral sermon for Seymour Brunson, a
respected and faithful Latter-day Saint. In the course of his remarks,
Joseph made the first public mention of the doctrine of vicarious baptism.


...

While the very moment when the Prophet envisioned vicarious baptism as a
doctrine to be instituted among the Illinois Saints may be historically
cloudy, its place in the larger view of eternal salvation is quite clear.

Not long after the Brunson funderal, Nauvoo Mormons began to act upon this
new revelation. On 12 September 1840, Jane Neyman walked into the
Mississippi and was baptized for her deceased son, Cyrus. In successive
baptisms for the dead performed at nauvoo, many women acted on behalf of
male relations or friends, and vice versa. Gender distinctions between
proxy and heir were not made until after the Prophet's 1844 martyrdom,
when Brigham Young assumed leadership of the majority of the Saints.

...

During the first two years of its practice at Nauvoo, baptism for the dead
was not closely circumscribed. Faithful Saints simply identified their
deceased relatives for whom they wished to be baptized and then performed
the rite. Local congregations were granted much latitude in the
performance of vicarious baptisms.

...

The work of these recorders shows that baptism for the dead was a major
religious activity for many Nauvoo Saints. It became necessary in 1843 for
Nauvoo Stake President William Marks to convene a special conference to
appoint recorders to keep track of all the baptisms for the dead.

...

Approximately 55 percent of the proxies were male and 45 percent female.

Most ordinance work was performed in behalf of aunts and uncles, including
great-aunts and great-uncles, followed closely by grandparents and
great-grandparents. ... Proxy baptisms for parents and siblings ... were
also a significant proportion. Other relationships included in laws,
friends, spouses, children, nieces, nephews, and grandchildren.

...

Baptisms for deceased friends often reflected personal reverence for
historical figures. ...Saints showed a fascination with saving the greats
of bygone generations such as Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, james
Monroe, William Henry Harrison.... The greater the historical reputation,
the more times proxy baptisms were performed. In 1841 alone, George
Washington, for example, benefited from proxy baptisms done by Don Carlos
Smith, Stephen Jones, and John Harrington. Many of these eminent men from
the past, including most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence
and former U.S. presidents, as well as several noted women, were again
baptized in the St. George Temple in 1877.

...

after November 1841 the temple font was the designated place for
performing the ordinance. Access to the font was granted only to those who
complied with Church dictates. William Clayton, as recorder of the Nauvoo
Temple, issued signed receipts verifying that the bearer was a full
tithepayer and thus was entitled to use the baptismal font. ... In this
respect, baptism for the dead at Nauvoo set a lasting precedent, requiring
verified worthiness for participation in temple rites.

...

When contrasted with sealings and the plurality of wives, baptism for the
dead was Nauvoo's universal ordinance.

...

M. Guy Bishop, "'What Has Become of Our Fathers?' Baptims for the Dead at
Nauvoo," Dialogue: Journal of Mormon Thought, (1988?)


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RELATES MAN AND TRUTH. -- What is true philosophy? It seems to me to be a
true principle for men to try and find out who they are. I like to examine
myself a little, and I sometimes ask who am I? where did I come from? what
am I doing here? and what will be the condition of things when I leave
here?

If there is anybody who can tell me anything about these things, I want to
know. If I had an existence before I came here, I want to know something
about it; and if I shall have an existence hereafter, I want to know what
kind of existence it will be, I do not want to be frightened about
hell-fire, pitchforks, and serpents, nor to be scared to death with
hobgoblins and ghosts, nor anything of the kind that is got up to scare
the ignorant. But I want truth, intelligence, and something that will bear
investigation. I want to probe things to the bottom and to find out the
truth, if there is any way to find it out. -- JD, 11:317, February 24,
1867.

IS MORMONISM PHILOSOPHICALLY TRUE? -- It may be asked: Are all Mormons,
then, philosophers?

To this we answer: Not in the general acceptation of the term. Mormonism
is philosophically true, but all Mormons are not  philosophers -- neither
do we consider it necessary. A man may understand first principles,
without knowing the mysteries. He may  also enjoy certain influences and
powers and priesthood without being able to define the cause of those
operations or their scientific  bearings. We have taken the pains to
investigate this subject, but the Mormons arrive at conclusions by a much
shorter route. The above may be necessary to some. The Mormons know by
obedience. They may not all be philosophers, but they know it by
inspiration through obedience. A blacksmith can heat iron in a fire, as
well as a philosopher; a lady . . . can make bread, without understanding
how wheat is raised, dressed, or ground into flour. Nor is it necessary
for an elder, who "baptizes for the remission of sins," or "lays on hands
for the gift of the Holy Ghost," to understand the philosophy of its
operations. They are God's ordinances, and he bestows the blessings
promised through obedience to his commands, The blind man might not know
much about Jesus nor, be acquainted with the mysticisms and intricacies of
Jewish theology; but one thing he knew as well as any theologian, that he
"was once blind, but he then could see." The ancient apostles were not all
philosophers, but Jesus told them that they should heal the sick and cast
out devils in his name. They simply believed him, tried the experiment,
and found it effectual; and, when they returned from a mission, reported
that even "devils were subject to them in his name," or by his power. This
was all they understood about it at that time. They could not tell how the
Spirit operated, nor by what invisible agency the devils were subjected or
banished; they simply knew it by its effects -- just the same as a boy
would know that a ball would rebound if struck against a wall or the
ground, without knowing the properties of matter or the nature either of
resistance, elasticity, or projectile force. A man, under the direction of
another may be able to make an electrical machine and not understand its
properties nor the nature and force of electricity. So a man may receive
the gospel through faith in testimony. By yielding obedience, by baptism
administered by an authorized agent, and having hands laid upon him for
the gift of the Holy Ghost by an elder legally qualified, the blessing
will follow the administration, whether the person to whom it is
administered or the administrator be a philosopher or not. Furthermore,
God imparts his philosophy frequently to men of limited abilities. They
follow his teachings -- the result is, they confound the wise. It is not
their philosophy, but God's; but being true to law, it is always obedient
thereto. A boat with a hole in it will sink with a good man in it a sound
boat will bear up a wicked man.

Telegraphic wires will operate as they are operated upon, and might convey
either a revelation of God or of the devil. So, when the apostles were put
into communion with God, although illiterate, "they spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost." Hence they became intelligent and "a mouth and
wisdom was given to them that all their adversaries were not able to
gainsay nor resist." They had the gift of the Holy Ghost, that brought
things past to their remembrance, led them into all truth, and showed them
things to come.

They had a principle of living revelation, or a living fountain of true
eternal principles. Those principles would always overturn the puerile
principles of a corrupt philosophy and the ridiculous fantasies of a false
religion and vanquish them; they might not always understand why it was
the gift of God to them; but it was philosophical. Such is Mormonism. --
The Mormon, Vol.2, No. 3, March 8, 1856.

THE COMPREHENSIVE NATURE OF MORMONISM. -- Is there a true principle of
science in the world? It is ours. Are there true principles of music, of
mechanism, or of philosophy? If there are, they are all ours. Is there a
true principle of government that exists  in the world anywhere? It is
ours, it is God's; for every good and perfect gift that does exist in the
world among men proceeds from the  "Father of lights with whom there is no
variableness, neither shadow of turning." It is God that has given every
good gift that the world  ever did possess. He is the giver of all good
principles, principles of law, of government, and of everything else, and
he is now gathering  them together into one place, and withdrawing them
from the world, and hence the misery and darkness that begin to prevail
among the nations; and hence the light, life, and intelligence that begin
to manifest themselves among us. -- JD, 10:57, May 18, 1862.

THE ENIGMA OF MORMONISM. -- Mormonism is an enigma to the world. . . .
Philosophy can not comprehend it; it is beyond the reach of natural
philosophy. It is the philosophy of heaven; it is the revelation of God to
man. It is philosophical, but it is heavenly  philosophy, and beyond the
ken of human judgment, beyond the reach of human intelligence. They cannot
grasp it; it is as high as heaven; what can they know about it? It is
deeper than hell; they cannot fathom it. It is as wide as the universe; it
extends over all  creation. It goes back into eternity and forward into
eternity. It is associated with the past, present, and future. It is
connected with  time and eternity, with men, angels, and Gods, with beings
that were, that are, and that are to come. -- JD, 15:25, April 7, 1872.

THE STRENGTH OF MORMON DOCTRINE. -- I have traveled to preach these
doctrines in most of the United States and in the Canadas; I have preached
them in England, in Scotland, in Wales, in the Isle of Man and the
Jerseys, in France, Germany, in the principal cities of America and
Europe, and to many prominent men in the world; and I have not yet found a
man that could controvert one principle of Mormonism upon scriptural
grounds. -- JD, 5:239, September 13, 1857.

There is a spirit in man, possessed of so much "divinity, that it will
discover truth by its own light; no matter whether it is covered  with a
"sectarian cloak," or thrown among the rubbish of scoffers. -- TS, 6:855,
April 1, 1845.

John Taylor, The Gospel Kingdom, p. 3-6.

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One of the most important things in the world is freedom of the mind; from
this all other freedoms spring. Such freedom is necessarily dangerous, for
one cannot think right without running the risk of thinking wrong, but
generally more thinking is the antidote for the evils that spring from
wrong thinking. More thinking is required, and we call upon you students
to exercise your God-given right to think through on every proposition
that is submitted to you and be unafraid to express your opinions, with
proper respect for those to whom you talk and proper acknowledgment of
your own shortcomings.

You young people live in an age when freedom of the mind is suppressed
over much of the world. We must preserve it in the Church and in America
and resist all efforts of ernest men to suppress it, for when it is
suppressed, we might lose the liberties vouchsafed in the Constitution of
the United States.

Preserve, the, the freedom of your mind in education and in religion, and
be unafraid to express your thoughts and to insist upon your right to
examine every proposition. We are not so much concerned with whether your
thoughts are orthodox or heterodox as we are that you shall have thought.

One may memorize much without learning anything. In this age of speed
there seems to be little time for meditation.

Dissatisfaction with what is around us is not a bad thing if it prompts us
to seek betterment, but the best sort of dissatisfaction in the long run
is self-dissatisfaction which lead us to improve ourselves. Maturity
implies the ability to walk alone and not be ashamed within ourselves of
the things we do and say.

Progress in maturity may be measured by our acceptance of increased
self-responsibility and an increased sagacity in decision-making. This
transition is not a time of calm enjoyment, but of growth and adaption.

One matures as a person by responding differently today from the way in
which one responded yesterday. We observe restraint so that restraints do
not have to be imposed upon us; we do our best to think clearly so that we
avoid chasing after false doctrines; we use deliberation so as to see
through nonsense; we realize our social duty to the honest opinions of
others while maintaining our own principles.

Self-discipline - and that is a subject which I think I have somewhat a
right to speak because of my military training and experience
- -self-discipline means doing things you would rather not do but having the
courage to do them if they are right. When a course of action shows itself
to be unprofitable, it is sensible and valorous to drop it.

There is no personal value in making a show of maturity if you do not have
it. Affectation of any sort borders on vulgarity, and at the least its is
ridiculous to pretend to feelings and beliefs that do not appeal to your
intelligence. On the other hand, no mature person will be content to sit
by the side of the road and watch the world go by. One cannot be merely a
bystander, doing nothing but criticize.

When a human being finds himself at a dead end, he is tempted to turn to
that last desperate resource of muddled mankind: lawlessness. He does not
realize the unprofitableness in delinquency and the low standard of living
to which it condemns him. He may even imagine himself a martyr in some
trivial or irrelevant cause. His hooliganism brings discredit to the
peaceful, legitimate, and often courageous protests by young people on
great moral issues.

Society is indulgent toward young people, but there are limits to
permissibility. Youth is right to repudiate sham and hypocrisy, but to
assume that disorder and chaos have merit in themselves is to assume that
we are no longer capable of reasoning together in search of the right
solution of problems.

You students have strong desires. You are not content to live a merely
miscellany life, however pleasurable it may be. You dream beyond the
actual and think beyond your fingertips. In doing so you are living up to
the great law of culture, that a man shall become all that he is created
capable of becoming.

While we speak of independence and the right to think, to agree or to
disagree, to examine and to question, we must not forget that fixed and
unchanging laws govern in all God's creation, whether it be in the
vastness of the starry heavens, or in the minute revolving universe of the
atom, or in human relationships. All is law. All is cause and effect, and
God's laws are universal. god has no favorites; none is immune from either
life's temptations or the consequences of his own deeds. god is not
capricious.

Our reactions to the ever-changing impacts of life will depend upon our
goals, our ideals. "The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal
that you enthrone in your heart, this you will build your life by, this
you will become." Every life coheres around certain fundamental core ideas
whether we realize it or not, and herein lies the chief value of revealed
religion. but while I believe all that god has revealed, I am not quite
sure that I understand what he has revealed, and the fact that he has
promised further revelation is to me a challenge to keep an open mind and
be prepared to follow wherever my search for truth may lead. You young
people have been attending a school presided over by the president of the
Church, a school established by a prophet of God, a school where your
eternal welfare is ever foremost in the minds of your professors, your
administration, the faculty, and others. Our reactions to the
ever-changing impacts of life will depend upon our goals and our ideals.
And I would like to leave that thought with you to ponder.

Again I emphasize, there is no final goal. Life must continue to expand,
to unfold, and to grow, if it is to continue to be a good life. These
things are indispensable, and in this connection age makes little
difference. There is opportunity for all to expand and to grow and to be
and to become.

There are forces at work in our society today which degrade an
intellectual quest for knowledge. These forces are nothing new. They have
always been powerful. They are anti-intellectual. Forces in this country
and in other countries are known and grappled with, but they are making
headway. The Know-Nothings of the last century in this country could be
cited as but one example. Germany in the thirties saw the burning of books
and the glorification of barbaric emotion as part of the tragedy of
Hitlerism.

We have been blessed with much knowledge by revelation from God which, in
some part, the world lacks. But there is an incomprehensibly greater part
of truth which we must yet discover. Our revealed truth should leave us
stricken with the knowledge of how little we really know. It should never
lead to an emotional arrogance based upon a false assumption that we
somehow have all the answers - that we in fact have a corner on truth. For
we do not.

Whether you are in the field of economics or political science, history or
behavioral sciences - continue your search for truth. And maintain
humility sufficient to be able to revise your hypotheses as new truth
comes to you by means of the spirit or the mind. Salvation, like
education, is an on-going process.

One may not attain salvation by merely acknowledging allegiance, nor is it
available in ready-to-wear stores or in supermarkets where it may be
bought and paid for. That it is an eternal quest must be obvious to all.
Education is involved in salvation and may be had only by evolution or the
unfolding or developing into our potential. It is in large measure a
problem of awareness, of reaching out and looking up, of aspiring and
becoming, pushing back our horizons, seeking for answers, and searching
for God. In other words, it is not merely a matter of conformity to
rituals, climbing sacred stairs, bathing in sacred pools, or making
pilgrimages to ancient shrines. The depth and height and quality of life
depends upon awareness, and awareness is a process of being saved from
ignorance. Man cannot be saved in ignorance.



An Eternal Quest: Freedom of the Mind by President Hugh B. Brown

Delivered on 13 May 1969 and printed in _Dialogue: Journal of Mormon
Thought_ (In 1983)


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Unlike those whose religious faith is uneasy and precarious in the modern
world of expanding scientific knowledge, we are at home with the most
advanced truths discovered by scientists and with all competent
philosophic thought -- with truth wherever found -- because our religion
enjoins in us a love of knowledge and education; encourages us to seek
understanding through the broadening of our vision and the deepening of
our insight. This is an eternal quest. (p. 17)

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints accepts newly revealed
truth, whether it comes through direct revelation or from study and
research.

We deny the common conception of reality that distinguishes radically
between the natural and the supernatural, between the temporal and the
eternal, between the sacred and the secular. For us, there is no order of
reality that is utterly different in character from the world of which we
are a part, that is separated from us by an impassable gulf. We do not
separate our daily mundane tasks and interests from the meaning and
substance of religion. We recognize the spiritual in all phases and
aspects of living and realize that this life is an important part of
eternal life. We aspire to the best of which we are intrinsically capable
and will think our thoughts, fashion our ideals, and pursue every task
firm in the faith that in a very real sense we are living in the presence
of God here and now. (p. 18)

For us God is not an abstraction; He is not just an idea, a metaphysical
principle, an impersonal force or power. He is not identical with the
totality of the world, with the sum of all reality. He is not an
"Absolute" that in some way embraces the whole of reality in His being.
Like us, He exists in a world of space and time. Like us, He has ends to
be achieved and He fashions a cosmic plan for realizing them. He is a
concrete, living person, and though in our finite state we cannot fully
comprehend Him, we know that we are akin to Him, for He is revealed to us
in the divine personality of His Son, Jesus Christ. (p. 21)

Peace and brotherhood can be achieved when these two most potent forces in
civilization -- religion and science -- join to create one world in its
truest and greatest sense. Continue to become acquainted with human
experience through history and philosophy, science and poetry, art and
religion. Every discovery of science reveals clearly the divine plan in
nature. The remarkable harmony in the physical laws and processes of the
universe, from the infinitesimal to the infinite, that surpasses mortal
understanding implies a Supreme Architect, and the beauty and symmetry of
his handiwork inspire reverence.

BEWARE of man's capacity for monumental mischief and his tendency to lose
sight of moral values. In these ominous times moral values are not only
desirable but they are imperative. The survival of the race depends upon
their conscious cultivation. Education is in the fullest sense the entire
process by which individuals and groups modify, redirect, stimulate and
control their native tendencies. It seems obvious then that continuing to
seek knowledge and education is the high road to salvation. A man is saved
only as he gains knowledge. But mere accumulation of facts, though they be
encyclopedic, will not save a man if he lacks wisdom.

It is not measured by knowledge or intellect alone, but will be reflected
in your search for learning, in the scientist's search for facts, the
philosopher's search for understanding, and in every man's search for
truth and the freedom which comes with it. Learn to stretch your minds by
constant preparation, enrich your spirits by constant prayer, increase
your stature by companionship with great people and great books. Thus may
your potential God-like status become real and actual through
ever-increasing intelligence, which is the glory of God. (p. 53-54)

We would like you to know we are interested in academic research. You must
go out on the research front and continue to explore the vast unknown.

You should be in the forefront of learning in all fields, for revelation
does not come only through the prophet of God nor only directly from
heaven in visions or dreams. Revelation may come in the laboratory, out of
the test tube, out of the thinking mind and the inquiring soul, out of
search and research and prayer and inspiration. You must be unafraid to
contend for what you are thinking, unafraid to dissent if you are informed
and honest.

We must combat error with truth in this divided and imperiled world and do
it with the unfaltering faith that God is still in his heaven even though
all is not well with the world. (p. 87-88. Baccalaureate Address, Brigham
Young University, May 24, 1962)

And now to you brethren who preside in the Church, I should like to say a
word -- presidents of stakes, presidents of missions, bishops of wards,
all who preside in any capacity -- we urge you to recognize and use your
counselors. You will notice through all the organization of the Church our
Father in Heaven has provided that each presiding officer shall have two
counselors. We regret that occasionally we hear of a stake president, a
mission president, a bishop or some presiding officer, who arrogates to
himself the honors which belong to the office he holds, who presides in a
"one man" dictatorial way, forgetting his counselors, neglecting to
counsel with them, and thereby assuming all the honors of the presidency
or bishopric and taking upon himself all the responsibility for decisions
in which his counselors should share. There is wisdom and safety in
counsel. Honor those with whom and over whom you preside. That we honor
the priesthood and the offices in it applies not only to our attitudes
toward those who preside over us but toward those over whom and with whom
we preside. Let us preside with kindness, consideration, and love.

But brethren, beware that you do not become extremists on either side. The
degree of a man's aversion to Communism may not always be measured by the
noise he makes in going about and calling everyone a Communist who
disagrees with his personal political bias. There is no excuse for members
of this Church, especially men who hold the priesthood, to be opposing one
another over Communism; we are all unalterably opposed to it but we must
be united in our fight against it. Let us not undermine our Government or
accuse those who hold office of being soft on Communism. Furthermore, our
chapels and meeting houses should not be made available to men who seek
financial gain or political advantage by destroying faith in our elected
officials under the guise of fighting Communism. We call upon the
priesthood of the Church to stand together with a solid front against
everything that would rob men of their God-given freedom. (p. 194-196.)

During recent months, both in Salt Lake City and across the nation,
considerable interest has been expressed in the position of The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on the matter of civil rights. We would
like it to be known that there is in this Church no doctrine, belief, or
practice that is intended to deny the enjoyment of full civil rights by
any person regardless of race, color, or creed.

We say again, as we have said many times before, that we believe that all
men are the children of the same God and that it is a moral evil for any
person or group of persons to deny any human being the rights to gainful
employment, to full educational opportunity, and to every privilege of
citizenship, just as it is a moral evil to deny him the right to worship
according to the dictates of his own conscience.

We have consistently and persistently upheld the Constitution of the
United States, and as far as we are concerned this means upholding the
constitutional rights of every citizen of the United States.

We call upon all men everywhere, both within and outside the Church, to
commit themselves to the establishment of full civil equality for all of
God's children. Anything less than this defeats our high ideal of the
brotherhood of man. (p. 233-235. Civil Rights Statement.)

On succeeding stages of your journey you will become acquainted with and
utilize various units of time and space. For a moment I shall paraphrase
Dr.

Henry Eyring, a renowned scientist. As of now you are content with such
units as seconds and seasons, meters and miles. But later you will become
concerned with the chemical world of molecules and atoms, where electrons
complete their revolutions in one one hundred million millionths of a
second (grasp that if you can -- I can't), and where one inch measures one
hundred million atoms. Then in outer space you will find the revolutions
of planets measured in years rather than in fractions of a second. The
unit of distance is the light year, which, as you know is a one-year
journey at the speed of light, 186,000 miles a second -- perhaps about
10,000 million miles. Later you will penetrate the spiritual realm where
time and space shall be no more, referred to only as eternities and
limitless. Thus in thought, and later in reality, you will be able to see
and comprehend the infinitesimally small and the infinitely large.

At the end of your stopover on this island you will jettison part of your
equipment, the mortal shell. How foolish and unrealistic it is to speak of
this necessary metamorphosis as death or think of it as the end of the
flight. On this subject I bring you word from the noted Dr. Wernher Von
Braun, the space and missile scientist. Dr. Von Braun stated:

Many people seem to feel that science has somehow made religious ideas
untimely or old fashioned, but I think science has a real surprise for the
skeptics. Science, for instance, tells us that nothing in nature, not even
the tiniest particle, can disappear without a trace. Nature does not know
extinction. All it knows is transformation.

Now if God applies this fundamental principle to the most minute and
insignificant parts of his universe, doesn't it make sense to assume that
he applies it also to the human soul? I think it does. And everything
science has taught me -- and continues to teach me -- strengthens my
belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death. Nothing
disappears without a trace.

Now I ask you, do you think it is possible that in this universe, created
and governed according to eternal law, the most intelligent creatures in
it are here by chance? Is it possible that there was no plan or purpose or
design? Did the Creator make a stairway leading to nowhere? Or did he plan
a flight leading to a certain fatal crash? Your flight is to be eternal,
and you are to be at the controls, with full responsibility and freedom to
choose your course and your conduct - - and to take the consequences. (p.
250-251. General Conference, October 6, 1963)

Hugh B. Brown, "An Abundant Life", (Salt Lake City, Utah, Bookcraft, 1965)



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Hugh Nibley, "Baptism for the Dead in Ancient Times,"

The subject of this epistle was salvation for the dead, a doctrine ...

believed in the early church to have been the main theme of Christ's
teaching after the resurrection.

...

the main weight of early Christian doctrine was not on the cross ... but
on the work of the Lord as a teacher, marking the way of eternal progress
for the living and the dead according to a pattern first followed by Adam.

...

the contemporary teaching of the Jews that "all who die hoping for the
Messiah will be resurrected to eternal life."

...

It was what the Lord said and did after the resurrection that established
his doctrine, yet we are told only what he said and did before. ... ...
"For this reason ... have I gone below and spoken to Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, to your fathers, the prophets, and preached to them, that they
might enjoy their rest in heaven." ..."He opens to us, who were enslaved
by death, teh doors of the temple, that is the mouth; and by giving us
repentance introduced us into the ... spiritual temple builded for the
Lord." ..."since he also was reckoned among the dead, while he was
preaching the gospel to the spirits of the saints...." ...Jesus "became
the evangelist of the dead, the liberator of spirits and the resurrection
of those who had died." ..."Christ went down to Hades for no other purpose
than to preach the gospel."

A great favorite with the early Christians was a passage from the
apocryphal Book of Sirah: "I shall go through all the regions deep beneath
the earth, and I shall visit all those who sleep, and I shall enlighten
all those who hope on the Lord: I shall let my teaching shine forth as a
guiding light and cause it to shine afar off." ..."The Lord God hath
remembered his dead among those of Israel who have been laid in the place
of burial, and has gone down to announce to them the tidings of his
salvation." ...

...

"Descending into the other world," ... Christ "prepared a road, and led in
his footsteps all those whom he shall ransom, leading them into his flock,
there to become indistinguishably mingled with the rest of his sheep." "I
made a congregation of the living in the realm of the dead," says the Lord
in the Odes of Solomon. ... ..."Christ ... did not ascend to the higher
heavens until he had descended to the lower regions ..., there to make the
patriarchs and prophets his compotes. The word compos ... in Tertullian
always denotes "one who shares secret knowledge....

...Christ ... "gathers together his dispersed sons from the ends of the
earth into the Father's sheepfold, mindful likewise of his dead ones who
fell asleep before him; to them also he descends that he may awaken and
save them." The philosopher Celsus, making fun of the strange doctrine,
asks Origin: "Don't you people actually tell about him, that when he had
failed to convert the people on this earth he went down to the underworld
to try to convert the people down there? ...Origen answers the question
... in the affirmative: "We assert that Jesus not only converted no small
number of persons while he was in the body ... but also, that when he
became a spirit, without the covering of the body, he dwelt among those
spirits which were without bodily covering, converting such of them as
were willing to Himself." ...

...

"What then, does not the same economy prevail in hades, so that there,
too, all the spirits might hear the gospel, repent and admit that their
punishment, in the light of what they have learned, it just?" ...

...his coming in the spirit world heralded by John the Baptist. Origen
says John "died before him, so that he might descend to the lower regions
and announce ... his coming." ..."For everywhere the witness and
forerunner of Jesus is John, being born before and dying shortly before
the Son of god, so that not only to those of his generation but likewise
to those who lived before Christ should liberation from death be preached,
and that he might everywhere prepare a people trained to receive the
Lord." "John the Baptist died first," wrote Hippolytus, "being dispatched
by Herod, that he might prepare those in hades for the gospel; he became
the forerunner there, announcing even as he did on this earth, that the
Savior was about to come to ransom the spirits of the saints from the hand
of death." Even in the medieval Easter drama, the "Harrowing of Hell," the
arrival of Christ in hell is heralded by John the Baptist.

..."these Apostles, and the teachers who had proclaimed the name of the
Son of God, after they had fallen asleep in [the] power and faith of the
Son of God preached likewise to the dead; and they gave them the seal of
the preaching. They accordingly went down with them into the water and
came out again. But although they went down while they were alive and came
up alive, those who had fallen asleep before them ... went down dead, but
came out again living; for it was through these that they were made alive,
and learned the name of the Son of God." ..."These Apostles and teachers
died in possession of his faith and power, preached to those who had died
before, and themselves gave them this seal. Hence ... they went down into
the water with them; but they who had died before went down dead, of
course, but ascended living, since it was through them that they received
life and knew the Son of god."

...

"Christ visited, preached to, and baptized the just men of old, both
gentiles and Jews, not only those who lived before the coming of the Lord,
but also those who were before the coming of the Law ... such as Abel,
Noah, or any such righteous man. ... I went down and spoke to Abraham,
Isaac, and jacob, your fathers, and declared unto them how they might
rise, and with my right hand I gave them the baptism of life and release
and forgiveness of all evil, even as I do to you here and to all who
believe on me from this time on.

...

Servants ... because they [the dead] will receive the baptism of life and
the forgiveness of your sins from my hand through you, ... and so have
part in the heavenly kingdom.

As the Apostles in all their work are simply acting for their Lord, so all
the ordinances they perform in his name are to be regarded as his own but
done vicariously.

...

(Origen) specifies that no one can be baptized in this river who has not
been "first baptized with water and the Holy Ghost on this earth." ...

...

Now if some of them are "baptized for the dead," can we not assume that
they have a reason for it? Certainly he [Paul} is maintaining that they
practised this in the belief that the ordinance would be a vicarious
baptism and as such be advantageous to the flesh of others, which they
assumed would be resurrected, for unless this referred a physical
resurrection there would be no point in carrying out a physical baptism.

...

To return to early practices, an interesting aberration of the rite if
found among the Marcionites. When a catechumen died, they would lay a
living person under his bed; then they would ask the corpse if he wished
to receive baptism, to which the living person under the bed would reply
in the affirmative; then the living person would be baptized for the dead
one.

...

It will be recalled that in his discussion with the Apostles, the Lord
promised them the keys at some future time; since this conversation took
place shortly before the crucifixion, and since this conversation took
place shortly before the crucifixion, and since Jesus himself postponed
any discussion of the mysteries of the kingdom "till the Son of Man be
risen from the dead," we can believe that nothing much was done in the
matter, during his first mission. In a passage of impeccable authority
Eusebius quotes Clement as saying: "To James the Just, and to John and to
Peter after the resurrection the Lord transmitted the gnosis; these passed
it on to the other Apostles, and they in turn to the Seventy, ... ...Peter
did no announce it to the whole church, nor the Apostles to all the world,
nor is there mention of "the gnosis" being handed down any further than to
the Seventy, .... "The gnosis" is that fulness of knowledge, which Paul
always speaks of as the highest and holiest of god's gifts, a rare,
choice, and hidden thing, reserved for but a few.



...the sudden and immense success of the Gnostics showed only too plainly,
as Neander has observed, that people were looking for something which the
church could no longer supply. Then, too, the fact that the church yielded
to the Gnostics on point after point, adopting many of their more popular
practices and beliefs, shows that she had nothing to pu in their place.
The fact that the church finally denied that there ever was a gnosis, and
defined the heresy of Gnosticism not as a false claim to possess higher
revelations, ... but the mere belief that such revelations had ever
existed--shows clearly enough that the church no longer possessed "the
gnosis" to which the New Testament repeatedly refers. When the church
fights shy of the very word and is alarmed at the mere suggestion that
there could be such a thing, it needs no argument to show how little of it
she still possessed.

...

...[St. Augustine] dared promise not only paradise but also the kingdom of
the heavens to unbaptized children, since he could find no other escape
from being forced to say that God damns innocent spirits to eternal
death.... But when he realized that he had spoken ill in saying that the
spirits of children would be redeemed without the grace of Christ into
eternal life and the kingdom of heavn, and that they could be delivered
from the original sin without the baptism of Christ by which comes
remission of sins--realizing into what a deep and tumultuous shipwreck he
had thrown himself ... he saw that there was no other escape than to
repent of what he had said.

...

Hugh Nibley, "Baptism for the Dead in Ancient Times," The Collected Works
of Hugh Nibley: Volume 4, Mormonism and Early Christianity, (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book Company and Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient
Research and Mormon Studies, 1987)

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Other information can be found at this excelent site:

http://www.srv.net/~sro/Notepad/Notepad.html

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