Читать книгу The Articles of Faith - James E. Talmage - Страница 8

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Article 1.—We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.

1. The Existence of God.—Since faith in God constitutes the foundation of religious belief and practice, and inasmuch as a knowledge of the attributes and character of Deity is essential to an intelligent exercise of faith in Him, this subject claims first place in our study of the doctrines of the Church.

2. The existence of God is scarcely a question of rational dispute; nor does it call for proof by the feeble demonstrations of man's logic, for the fact is admitted by the human family practically without question, and the consciousness of subjection to a supreme power is an inborn quality of mankind. The early scriptures are in no sense devoted to a primary demonstration of God's existence, nor to attacks on the sophistries of atheism; and from this fact we may infer that the errors of doubt developed in some period later than the first. The universal assent of mankind to the existence of God is at least a strongly corroborative truth. There is a filial passion within human nature which flames toward heaven. Every nation, every tribe, every individual, yearns for some object of reverence. It is natural for man to worship; his soul is unsatisfied till it finds a deity. When men through transgression first fell into darkness concerning the true and living God, they established for themselves other deities; and so arose the abominations of idolatry. And yet, terrible as these practices are, even the most revolting idolatries testify to the existence of a God by declaring man's hereditary passion for worship. Plutarch has wisely remarked of ancient conditions: "If you search the world, you may find cities without walls, without letters, without kings, without money; but no one ever saw a city without a deity, without a temple, or without prayers." This general assent to a belief in the existence of Deity is testimony of a high order; and in this connection the words of Aristotle may be applied:—"What seems true to some wise men is somewhat probable; what seems true to most or all wise men is very probable; what most men, both wise and unwise, assent to, still more resembles truth; but what men generally consent in has the highest probability, and approaches so near to demonstrated truth, that it may pass for ridiculous arrogance and self-conceitedness, or for intolerable obstinacy and perverseness, to decry it."48

3. The multiplicity of evidence upon which mankind rest their conviction regarding the existence of a Supreme Being, may be classified, for convenience of consideration, under the three following heads:

I. The evidence of history and tradition.

II. The evidence furnished by the exercise of human reason.

III. The conclusive evidence of direct revelation from God Himself.

4. I. History and Tradition.—History as written by man, and tradition as transmitted from generation to generation prior to the date of any written record now extant, give evidence of the actuality of Deity, and of close and personal dealings between God and man in the first epochs of human existence. One of the most ancient records known, the Bible, names God as the Creator of all things,49 and moreover, declares that He revealed Himself to our first earthly parents and to many other holy personages in the early days of the world. Adam and Eve heard His voice50 in the Garden, and even after their transgression they continued to call upon God and to sacrifice to Him. It is plain, therefore, that they carried with them from the Garden a knowledge of God. After their expulsion they heard "the voice of the Lord from the way toward the Garden of Eden," though they saw Him not; and He gave unto them commandments, which they obeyed. Then came to Adam an angelic messenger, and the Holy Ghost inspired the man and bare record of the Father and the Son.51

5. Cain and Abel learned of God from the teachings of their parents, as well as from personal ministrations. After the acceptance of Abel's offering, and the rejection of that of Cain followed by Cain's terrible crime of fratricide, the Lord talked with Cain, and Cain answered the Lord.52 Cain must, therefore, have taken a personal knowledge of God from Eden into the land where he went to dwell.53 Adam lived to be nine hundred and thirty years old and many children were born unto him. Them he instructed in the fear of God, and many of them received direct ministrations. Of Adam's descendants, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, and Lamech the father of Noah, each representing a distinct generation, were all living during Adam's lifetime. Noah was born but a hundred and twenty-six years after the time of Adam's death, and moreover lived nearly six hundred years with his father Lamech, by whom he was doubtless instructed in the traditions concerning God's personal manifestations, which Lamech had learned from the lips of Adam. Through the medium of Noah and his family, a knowledge of God by direct tradition was carried beyond the flood; and Noah held direct communication with God,54 and lived to instruct ten generations of his descendants. Then followed Abraham, who also enjoyed direct communion with the Creator,55 and after him Isaac, and Jacob or Israel, among whose descendants the Lord wrought such wonders through the instrumentality of Moses. Thus, had there been no written records, tradition would have preserved and transmitted a knowledge of God.

6. But even if the accounts of the earliest of man's personal communion with God had become dimmed with time, and therefore weakened in effect, they could but give place to other traditions founded on later manifestations of the Divine personality. Unto Moses the Lord made Himself known, not alone from behind the curtain of fire and the screen of clouds,56 but by direct face to face communication, whereby the chosen high-priest beheld even "the similitude" of his God.57 This account of direct communion between Moses and God, in part of which the people were permitted to share,58 as far as their faith and purity permitted, has been preserved by Israel through all the generations of the past. And from Israel the traditions of God's existence have spread throughout the world; so that we find traces of this ancient knowledge even in the most fanciful and perverted mythologies of heathen nations.

7. II. Human Reason, operating upon observations of the things of nature, strongly declares the existence of God. The mind, already imbued with the historical truths of the Divine existence and its close relationship with man, will find confirmatory evidence in nature on every side; and even to him who rejects the testimony of the past, and assumes to set up his own judgment as superior to the common belief of ages, the multifarious evidences of design in nature appeal. Every observer must be impressed by the proofs of order and system among created things, and by the absence of superfluities in nature. He notes the regular succession of day and night providing alternate periods of work and rest for man, animals, and vegetables; the sequence of the seasons, each with its longer periods of labor and recuperation, the mutual dependence of animals and plants, the circulation of water from sea to cloud, from cloud to earth again, sustaining the fertility of the soil. As man proceeds to the closer examination of things, he finds that by study and scientific investigation these proofs are multiplied many fold. He may learn of the laws by which earth and its associated worlds are governed in their orbits; by which satellites are held subordinate to planets, and planets to suns; he may behold the marvels of vegetable and animal anatomy, and the surpassing mechanism of his own body; and with such appeals to his reason increasing at every step, his wonder as to who made all this gives place to inexpressible admiration for the Creator whose presence and power are thus so forcibly proclaimed; and the observer becomes a worshiper.

8. Everywhere in nature is the evidence of cause and effect; on every side is the demonstration of means adapted to end. But such adaptations, says a thoughtful writer, "indicate contrivance for a given purpose, and contrivance is the evidence of intelligence, and intelligence is the attribute of mind, and the intelligent mind that built the stupendous universe is God."59 To admit the existence of a designer in the evidence of design, to say there must be a contriver in a world of intelligent contrivance, to believe in an adapter when man's life is directly dependent upon the most perfect adaptations conceivable, is but to accept self-evident truths. These axioms of nature ought to require no demonstration; the burden of proof as to the non-existence of a God ought to be placed upon him who questions the solemn truth. "Every house is builded by some man, but he that built all things is God." So spake the Apostle of old,60 and plain as is the truth expressed in these simple words, there are among men a few who profess to doubt the evidence of reason, and who deny the Author of their own being. Strange, is it not, that here and there one, who finds in the contrivance exhibited by the ant in building her house, in the architecture of the honey-comb, and in the myriad instances of orderly instinct among the least of living things, a proof of intelligence from which man may learn and be wise, will yet question the operation of intelligence in the creation of worlds and in the constitution of the universe?61

9. Man's inborn consciousness tells him of his own existence; his ordinary powers of observation prove the existence of others of his kind, and of uncounted orders of organized beings; from this he concludes that something must have existed always, for had there been a time of no existence, a period of nothingness, existence could never have begun, for from nothing, nothing can be derived. The eternal existence of something, then, is a fact beyond dispute; and the question requiring answer is, what is that eternal something—that existence which is without beginning and without end? The skeptic may answer, "Nature; matter has always existed, and the universe is but a manifestation of matter organized by forces operating upon it; however, Nature is not God." But matter is neither vital nor active, nor is force intelligent; yet vitality and ceaseless activity are characteristic of created things, and the effects of intelligence are universally present. True, nature is not God; and to mistake the one for the other is to call the edifice the architect, the fabric the designer, the marble the sculptor, and the thing the power that made it. The system of nature is the manifestation of that order which argues a directing intelligence; and that intelligence is of an eternal character, coeval with existence itself. Nature herself is a declaration of a superior Being, whose will and purpose she portrays in all her varied aspects. Beyond and above nature, stands nature's God.

10. While existence is eternal, and therefore to being there never was a beginning, never shall be an end, in a relative sense each stage of organization must have had a beginning, and to every phase of existence as manifested in each of the countless orders and classes of created things, there was a first, as there will be a last; though every ending or consummation in nature is but the beginning of another stage of advancement. Thus, man's ingenuity has invented theories to illustrate, if not to explain, a possible sequence of events by which the earth has been brought from a state of chaos to its present habitable condition; but by those hypotheses, this globe was once a barren ball, on which none of the innumerable forms of life that now tenant it could have existed. The theorist therefore must admit a beginning to earthly life, and such a beginning is explicable only on the assumption of some creative act, or a contribution from outside the earth. If he admit the introduction of life upon the earth from some other and older sphere, he does but extend the limits of his inquiry as to the beginning of vital existence; for to explain the origin of a rose-bush in our own garden by saying that it was transplanted as an offshoot from a rose-tree growing elsewhere, is no answer to the question concerning the origin of roses. Science of necessity assumes a beginning to vital phenomena on this planet, and admits a finite duration of the earth in its current course of progressive change; and in this respect, the earth is a representative of the heavenly bodies in general. The eternity of existence, then, is no more positive as an indication of an eternal Ruler than is the endless sequence of change, each stage of which has both beginning and end. The origination of created things, the beginning of an organized universe, is utterly inexplicable on any assumption of spontaneous change in matter, or of fortuitous and accidental operation of its properties.

11. Human reason, so liable to err in dealing with subjects of lesser import even, may not of itself lead its possessor to a full knowledge of God; yet its exercise will aid him in his search, strengthening and confirming his inherited instinct toward his Maker.62 "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God."63 In the scriptures, the word fool64 is used to designate a wicked man, one who has forfeited his wisdom by a long course of wrongdoing, bringing darkness over his mind in place of light, and ignorance instead of knowledge. By such a course, the mind becomes depraved and incapable of appreciating the finer arguments in nature. A wilful sinner grows deaf to the voice of reason in holy things, and loses the privilege of communing with his Creator, thus forfeiting the strongest means of attaining a knowledge of God.

12. III. Revelation gives to man his fullest knowledge of God. We are not left wholly to the exercise of fallible reasoning powers, nor to the testimony of others for a knowledge of the Divine Creator; we may know Him for ourselves. Instances of God manifesting Himself to His prophets in olden as in later times are so numerous as to render impossible any detailed consideration here; moreover, we will have opportunity of examining many examples in connection with our study of the ninth of the Articles of Faith; for the present, therefore, brief mention must suffice. We have already noted, as the foundation of many traditions relating to the existence and personality of God, His revelations of Himself to Adam and other ante-diluvian patriarchs; then to Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. An example but briefly mentioned in the Jewish scriptures is that of Enoch, the father of Methuselah; of him we read that he walked with God.65 From the "Writings of Moses" we learn that the Lord manifested Himself with special favor to this chosen seer,66 revealing unto him the course of events until the time of Christ's appointed ministry in the flesh, the plan of salvation through the sacrifice of the Only Begotten, and the scenes that were to follow until the final judgment.

13. Of Moses we read that he received a manifestation from God, who spoke to him from the midst of the burning bush in Mount Horeb, saying: "I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God."67 Unto Moses and assembled Israel God appeared in a cloud, with the terrifying accompaniment of thunders and lightnings, on Sinai: "And the Lord said unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven."68 Of a later manifestation we are told:—"Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel: And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness."69

14. On through the time of Joshua and the judges to the kings and the prophets, the Lord declared His presence and His power. Isaiah saw the Lord enthroned in the midst of a glorious company, and cried out, "Woe is me, for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."70

15. At a subsequent period, when Christ emerged from the waters of baptism, the voice of the Father was heard declaring "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."71 And on the occasion of our Lord's transfiguration, the same voice repeated this solemn and glorious acknowledgment.72 While Stephen was suffering martyrdom at the hands of his cruel and bigoted countrymen, the heavens were opened, and he "saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God."73

16. The Book of Mormon is replete with instances of communication between God and His people, mostly through vision and by the ministration of angels, but also through direct manifestation of the Divine presence. Thus, we read of a colony of people leaving the Tower of Babel and journeying to the western hemisphere, under the leadership of one who is known in the record as the brother of Jared. In preparing for the voyage across the great deep, the leader prayed that the Lord would touch with His finger, and thereby make luminous, certain stones, that the voyagers might have light in the ships. In answer to this petition, the Lord stretched forth His hand and touched the stones, revealing His finger, which the man was surprised to see resembled the finger of a human being. Then the Lord, pleased with the man's faith, made Himself visible to the brother of Jared, and demonstrated to him that man was formed literally after the image of the Creator.74 To the Nephites who inhabited the western continent, Christ revealed Himself after His resurrection and ascension. To these sheep of the western fold, He testified of His commission received from the Father; showed the wounds in His hands, feet, and side, and ministered unto the believing multitudes in many ways.75

17. In the present dispensation, God has revealed, and does still reveal himself to His people. We have seen how by faith and sincerity of purpose Joseph Smith, while yet a youth, won for himself a manifestation of God's presence, being privileged to behold both the Father and Christ the Son.76 His testimony of the existence of God is not dependent upon tradition or studied deduction; he declares to the world that both the Father and Christ the Son live, for he has beheld their persons, and has heard their voices. In addition to the manifestation cited, Joseph Smith and his fellow servant, Sidney Rigdon, state that on the 16th of February, 1832, they saw the Son of God, and conversed with Him in heavenly vision. In describing this manifestation they say: "And while we meditated upon these things, the Lord touched the eyes of our understandings, and they were opened, and the glory of the Lord shone round about; and we beheld the glory of the Son, on the right hand of the Father, and received of His fulness; and saw the holy angels, and they who are sanctified before His throne, worshiping God and the Lamb, who worship Him forever and ever. And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of Him, this is the testimony last of all which we give of Him, that He lives, for we saw Him."77

18. Again, on the 3rd of April, 1836, in the temple at Kirtland, Ohio, the Lord manifested Himself to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, who say of the occasion:—"We saw the Lord standing upon the breastwork of the pulpit before us, and under His feet was a paved work of pure gold in color like amber. His eyes were as a flame of fire, the hair of His head was white like the pure snow, His countenance shone above the brightness of the sun, and His voice was as the sound of the rushing of great waters, even the voice of Jehovah, saying—I am the first and the last; I am He who liveth; I am He who was slain; I am your advocate with the Father."78

19. These are a few of the testimonies establishing the fact of direct revelation from God unto men in ancient and modern times. The privilege of communing with our Maker is restricted to none; true faith, sincerity of purpose, and purity of soul will win, for every one who seeks the boon, the blessing of God's favor and the light of His presence.

20. The Godhead: The Trinity.—Three personages composing the great presiding council of the universe have revealed themselves to man: (1) God the Eternal Father; (2) His Son, Jesus Christ; and (3) the Holy Ghost. That these three are separate individuals, physically distinct from each other, is very plainly proved by the accepted records of the divine dealings with man. On the occasion of the Savior's baptism before cited, John recognized the sign of the Holy Ghost; he saw before him in a tabernacle of flesh the Christ, upon whom he had performed the holy ordinance; and he heard the voice of the Father.79 The three personages of the Godhead were present, manifesting themselves each in a different way, and each distinct from the others. The Savior promised His disciples that the Comforter,80 which is the Holy Ghost, should be sent unto them by His Father; here again are the three members of the Godhead distinctly referred to. Stephen, at the time of his martyrdom, was blessed with the power of heavenly vision, and he saw Jesus standing on the right hand of God.81 Joseph Smith, while calling upon the Lord in fervent prayer for wisdom to guide him in his religious professions, saw the Father and the Son, standing in the midst of light which shamed the brightness of the sun; one of these declared of the other, "This is my beloved Son, hear Him."82 Each of the members of the Trinity is called God,83 together they constitute the Godhead.

21. Unity of the Godhead.84—The Godhead is a type of unity in the attributes, powers, and purposes of its members. Jesus, while on earth85 and in manifesting Himself to His Nephite servants,86 has repeatedly testified of the unity existing between Himself and the Father, and between them both and the Holy Ghost. By some this has been construed to mean that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one in substance and in person, that the names in reality represent the same individual under different aspects. A single reference to prove the error of this view may suffice:—Immediately before His betrayal, Christ prayed for His disciples, the Twelve, and other converts, that they should be preserved in unity,87 "that they all may be one" as the Father and the Son are one. It is absurd to think that Christ desired His followers to lose their individuality and become one person, even if a change so directly opposed to the laws of nature were possible. Christ desired that all should be united in heart, and spirit, and purpose; for such is the unity between His Father and Himself, and between themselves and the Holy Ghost.

22. This unity is a type of completeness; the mind of any one member of the Trinity is the mind of the others; seeing as each of them does with the eye of purity and perfection, they see and understand alike; under similar conditions and circumstances each would act in the same way, guided by the same principles of unerring justice and equity. The one-ness of the Godhead, to which the scriptures so abundantly testify, implies no mystical union of substance, nor any unnatural and therefore impossible blending of personality; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are as distinct in their persons and individualities as are any three personages in the flesh. Yet their unity of purpose and operation is such as to make their edicts one, and their will the will of God. To see one is to see all; therefore said Christ when importuned by Philip to show them the Father: "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me."88

23. Personality of Each Member of the Godhead.—From the evidence already presented, it is clear that the Father is a personal Being, possessing a definite form, with bodily parts, and spiritual passions. Jesus Christ, who was with the Father89 in spirit before coming to dwell in the flesh, and through whom the worlds were made,90 lived among men as a man, with all the physical characteristics of a human being; after His resurrection He appeared in the same form;91 in that form He ascended into heaven;92 and in that form He has manifested Himself to the Nephites, and to modern prophets. Now we are assured that Christ was in the express image of His Father,93 after which image man also has been created.94 Therefore we know that both the Father and the Son are in form and stature perfect men; each of them possesses a tangible body, infinitely pure and perfect, and attended by transcendent glory, yet a body of flesh and bones.95

24. The Holy Ghost, called also Spirit, and Spirit of the Lord,96 Spirit of God,97 Comforter,98 and Spirit of Truth,99 is not tabernacled in a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of spirit;100 yet we know that the Spirit has manifested Himself in the form of a man.101 It is by the ministrations of the Spirit that the Father and the Son operate in their dealings with mankind;102 through Him knowledge is communicated,103 and by Him the purposes of the Godhead are achieved.104 The Holy Ghost is the witness of the Father and the Son,105 declaring to man their attributes, bearing record of the other personages of the Godhead.106

25. Some of the Divine Attributes.—God is Omnipresent: There is no part of creation, however remote, into which He cannot penetrate; through the medium of the Spirit the Godhead is in direct communication with all things at all times. It has been said, therefore, that God is everywhere present at the same time; but it is unreasonable to suppose that the actual person of any one member of the Godhead can be in more than one place at one time. The senses of God are of infinite power, His mind of unlimited capacity; His eye can penetrate all space, His ear can comprehend every sound; His powers of transferring Himself from place to place are not limited; plainly, however, His person cannot be in more than one place at any one time. Admitting the personality of God, we are compelled to accept the fact of His materiality; indeed, an "immaterial being," under which meaningless name some have sought to designate the condition of God, cannot exist, for the very expression is a contradiction in terms. If God possesses a form, that form is of necessity of definite proportions and therefore of limited extension in space. It is therefore impossible for Him to occupy at one time more than one space of such limits; and it is not surprising therefore to learn from the scriptures that He moves from place to place. Thus we read in connection with the account of the Tower of Babel, "And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower."107 Again, God appeared to Abraham, and having declared Himself to be "the Almighty God," He talked with the patriarch, and established a covenant with him; then we read "And He left off talking with him, and God went up from Abraham."108

26. God is Omniscient.—By Him matter has been organized and energy directed. He is therefore the Creator of all things that are created; and "Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world."109 His power and His wisdom are alike incomprehensible to man, for they are infinite. Being Himself eternal and perfect, His knowledge cannot be otherwise than infinite. To comprehend Himself, an infinite Being, He must possess an infinite mind. Through the agency of angels and ministering servants, He is in continuous communication with all parts of creation, and may personally visit as He may determine.

27. God is Omnipotent.—He is properly called the Almighty. Man can discern proofs of the Divine omnipotence on every side, in the forces that control the elements of earth, and that guide the orbs of heaven in their prescribed courses; all are working together for the common good. There can be no limits to the powers of God; whatever His wisdom indicates as fit to be done He can and will do. The means through which He operates may not be of infinite capacity in themselves; but they are directed by an infinite power. A rational conception of His omnipotence is power to do all that He may will to do.

28. God is kind, benevolent, and loving, tender, considerate, and long-suffering, bearing patiently with the frailties of His wayward children. He is just, yet merciful in judgment,110 showing favor to all alike, and yet combining with these gentler qualities a firmness, almost amounting to fierceness, in avenging wrongs.111 He is jealous112 of His own power and the reverence paid to Him by His children; that is to say, He is zealous for the principles of truth and purity, which are nowhere exemplified in a higher degree than in His personal attributes. This Being is the Author of our existence, Him we are permitted to approach as Father. Our faith will increase in Him as we learn of Him.113

29. Idolatry and Atheism.—From the abundant evidence of the existence of Deity, the idea of which is so generally held by the human family, there would seem to be little ground on which man could rationally assert and maintain a disbelief in God; and in view of the many proofs of the benignant nature of the Divine attributes and disposition, there ought to be little tendency to turn aside after false and unworthy objects of worship. Yet the history of the race shows that theism, which is the doctrine of belief in and acceptance of, God as the rightful Ruler, is opposed by many varieties of atheism;114 and that man is prone to belie his boast as a creature of reason, and to render his worship at idolatrous shrines. Atheism is probably a development of later times, whilst idolatry asserted itself as one of the early sins of the race. Even at the time of Israel's exodus from Egypt, God deemed it proper to command by statute, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me;"115 yet even while He wrote those words on the stony tablets, His people were bowing before the golden calf which they had fashioned after the pattern of the Egyptian idol.

30. It has been stated that man possesses an instinct for worship, that he craves and will find some object of adoration. When man fell into the darkness of continued transgression, and forgot the Author of his being, and the God of his fathers, he sought for other deities. Some among men came to regard the sun as the type of the supreme, and before that luminary they prostrated themselves in supplication. Others selected for adoration earthly phenomena; they marvelled over the mystery of fire, and, recognizing the beneficent effects of that phenomenon, they worshiped the flame. Some saw, or thought they saw, in water the emblem of the pure and the good, and they rendered their devotions by running streams. Others, awed into reverence by the grandeur of towering mountains, repaired to these natural temples, and worshiped the altar instead of Him in whose honor and by whose power it had been raised. Another class, more strongly imbued with a reverence for the emblematic, sought to create for themselves artificial objects of adoration. They made images and worshiped them; they hewed uncouth figures from tree trunks, and chiseled strange forms in stone, and to these they bowed.116

"Nations, ignorant of God,

Contrive a wooden one."

31. Idolatrous practices in some of their phases came to be associated with rites of horrible cruelties, as in the custom of sacrificing children to Moloch, and, among the Hindoos, to the Ganges; as also in the wholesale slaughtering of human beings, under Druidical tyranny. The gods that human-kind have set up for themselves are heartless, pitiless, cruel.117

32. Atheism, as before stated, is the denial of the existence of God; in a milder form it may consist in the mere ignoring of Deity. But the professed atheist, in common with his believing fellow-mortals, is subject to man's universal passion for worship; though he refuse to acknowledge the true and the living God, he consciously or unconsciously deifies some law, some principle, some passion of the human soul, or perchance some material creation; and to this he turns, to seek, in contemplation of the unworthy object, a semblance of the comfort which the believer finds in rich abundance before the throne of his Father and God. I doubt the existence of a thorough atheist—one who with the sincerity of a settled conviction denies in his heart the existence of an intelligent Supreme Power. The idea of God is an essential characteristic of the human soul. The philosopher recognizes the necessity of such an element in his theories of being. He may shrink from the open acknowledgment of a personal Deity, yet he assumes the existence of a "governing power," of a "great unknown," of the "unknowable," the "illimitable," the "unconscious." Oh, man of learning though not of wisdom! why reject the privileges extended to you by the omnipotent, omniscient Being to whom you owe your life, yet whose name you will not acknowledge? No mortal can approach Him while contemplating His perfections and might with aught but awe and speechless reverence; regarding Him only as Creator and God, we are abashed in thought of Him; but He has given us the right to approach Him as His children, to call upon Him by the endearing name of Father! And even the atheist feels, in the more solemn moments of his life, a yearning of the soul toward a spiritual Parent, as naturally as his human affections turn toward the father who gave him mortal life. The atheism of to-day is but a species of idolatry after all.

33. Sectarian View of the Godhead.—The consistent, simple, and authentic doctrine respecting the character and attributes of God, such as was taught by Christ and the apostles, gave way as revelation ceased, and as the darkness incident to the absence of authority fell upon the world, after the apostles and their priesthood had been driven from the earth; and in its place there appeared numerous theories and dogmas of men, many of which are utterly incomprehensible in their mysticism and inconsistency. In the year 325 A.D., the Council of Nice was convened by the emperor Constantine, who sought through this body to secure a declaration of Christian belief which would be received as authoritative, and be the means of arresting the increasing dissension incident to the general disagreement regarding the nature of the Godhead, and other theological subjects. The Council condemned some of the theories then current; among them that of Arius, which asserted a separate individuality for each member of the Trinity; and promulgated a new code of belief known as the Nicene Creed. A statement of this doctrine, supposedly as announced by Athanasius, is as follows:—"We worship one God in trinity, and trinity in unity; neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is all one; the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate, and the Holy Ghost uncreate. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet there are not three eternals, but one eternal. As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three uncreated; but one uncreated, and one incomprehensible. So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Ghost almighty, and yet there are not three Almighties, but one Almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God, and yet there are not three Gods, but one God." It would be difficult to conceive of a greater number of inconsistencies and contradictions, expressed in words as few.

34. The Church of England teaches the present orthodox view of God as follows:—"There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness." The immateriality of God as asserted in these declarations of sectarian faith is entirely at variance with the scriptures, and absolutely contradicted by the revelations of God's person and attributes, as shown by the citations already made.

35. We affirm that to deny the materiality of God's person is to deny God; for a thing without parts has no whole, and an immaterial body cannot exist.118 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proclaims against the incomprehensible God, devoid of "body, parts, and passions," as a thing impossible of existence, and asserts its belief in and allegiance to the true and living God of scripture and revelation.