Erastus Snow

“ It is almost impossible for them to arrive at any other conclusion, and where, in the history of the world, is it chronicled of any great astronomer that he was an infidel? any one that has the mind, and whose researches have enabled him to stretch out and begin to comprehend and fathom the greatness of the works of creation, that has not in the most humble and reverential manner acknowledged God? ”

“ That which we see before our eyes, and which we are experiencing from time to time, day to day, and year to year, is an exemplification of Deity.
"What," says one, "do you mean we should understand that Deity consists of man and woman?" Most, certainly I do. If I believe anything that God has ever said about himself, and anything pertaining to the creation and organization of man upon the earth, I must believe that Deity consists of man and woman. ”

“ In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him, male and female created he them, and blessed them and called their name Adam in the day when they were created."
All mankind feel instinctively that there is a God. I admit that many people try to reason themselves out of the idea and into a state of infidelity, or into atheism, but it is very hard for them to do it, or to satisfy themselves that they are correct when they think they have done it. ”

“ He marks a round ring to give an illustration of his views of eternity. You may start anywhere on that ring and undertake to find the end, and you cannot, for it has none. You may have a starting point any place on the ring, but you cannot have any stopping place, and so the Scriptures in another place, more expressly use the term, that the course of God is an eternal round, and therefore it is called eternity. But this course of God being "one eternal round," is marvelous in our eyes, and who can comprehend it? But we see, yes, we see right before us to-day, his image, man—male and female. ”

“ Paul, "the man is not without the woman, nor the woman without the man in the Lord." In other words, there can be no God except he is composed of the man and woman united, and there is not in all the eternities that exist, nor ever will be, a God in any other way. ”

“ This incorruptible is free from the coarser elements that enter into these mortal tabernacles, and free from these seeds of dissolution and decay, and those things that wear out, and destroy this tabernacle, that perish with their using. Herein then is life. We eat and drink and live, and yet that very eating and drinking destroys us. We partake of the fruits and elements of the earth, and that build up these mortal tabernacles, and when they have been built up to a certain stage, the very process by which we build them up destroys them again, and they perish with the using. ”

“ Yet the true philosopher is not an infidel. He is only infidel to those vague ideas and theories that are in themselves monstrosities. Yet in the absence of true religious teaching, and being taught by the Christian world that the Scriptures do not mean what they say, and must be taken in some mysterious sense, they come to the conclusion that they do not know anything about the true character of the Deity, and it is not their province to teach him, only as they learn to know him in scanning his works. ”

“ But if there is any truth in the history given us by Moses this being we call man, is only God in embryo. And Moses tells us that the Creator conversed with this man whom he called Adam, consisting of male and female. ”

“ It is simply the spirit within us enjoying a higher privilege of conversing with spirits, seeing spiritual things and conversing with spirits or immortal beings; but they neither converse through these organs of speech, nor see through these natural eyes, but they see through the eyes of their spirit, and converse with the organs of speech that belong to the spirit, and if the spirits of men did not possess the faculties and power of communication, and conversing and carrying on conversation with each other before they came into this tabernacle they never would speak in this tabernacle. ”

“ And may God enable us to grow in this chain, and climb higher and higher, onward and upward, and work ourselves up to the eternal power and godhead. I repeat to you what the Apostle Paul said to the Ephesians, in his epistle to them; says he, "Brethren, let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, when he found himself in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with him." But, says the narrow-minded bigot sectarian, What blasphemy! for man, in the form of God, to aspire to be equal with him! ”

“ And if the revelations that God has made of himself to man, agree and harmonize upon this theory, and if mankind would be more believing, and accept the simple, plain, clear definition of Deity, and description of himself which he has given us, instead of hunting for some great mystery, and seeking to find out God where he is not and as he is not, we all might understand him. ”

“ But others, and this embraces all of us, are more or less influenced by evil spirits, that prompt and lead to passions, and the lusts of the flesh; and to do many things in violation of the true laws of life and health, and of peace and glory and exaltation, and these evils to which we are prompted through the influence of these spirits are designed, little by little, to bring us into bondage, to sin and death, and to him who has the power of death, which is the devil. ”

“ But the scriptures tell us that time only is measured to man, that is to say, time as a term is used in reference to the short period belonging to mortality, while eternity is used in the measure of the time of the Gods, from one period to another, and the vastness of eternity none can comprehend. ”

“ So far as the history of this earth is known, whether written or unwritten, or whether written in volumes of books, whether engraven upon metallic plates, or whether found impressed in rocks, neither geologists, nor any other scientists have ever been able to show us any great exploits of any of these inferior grades of being to indicate that there was any such vitality in them, as to develop in their future progress, the present order of beings we call man. ”

“ Those shallow drafts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.
It is those that gain a little knowledge, and begin their researches in various branches of science, but do not fathom them, who are bewildered in their imaginations, and they tend to infidelity. ”

“ There never was a God, and there never will be in all eternities, except they are made of these two component parts; a man and a woman; the male and the female. Some of those who are disposed to cavil will say, how will you explain the idea of a plurality in the female department? Here opens a subject involving philosophy and the philosophical propagation of our species, and it involves the great principles of virtue, and the laws that govern, or should govern through all eternity the commerce of the sexes ”

“ But all these are but representations of Deity. And no nation has been found upon the earth, tribe or tongue, but what have some mode of worship, or some faith in the Deity, and feel the need of honoring a superior Being.
This craving of the human heart is universal; and education does not remove it. It is not confined to barbarous tribes and less cultivated people. All nations may have their sceptics, and in many enlightened nations of modern times, there is an evident tendency to infidelity ”

“ There is a theory in the human mind—I will say with a certain school of modern philosophers—to satisfy themselves and justify their infidelity; the bent and tendency of their inclinations is that way. But it is probable that the crude, undefined devices and erroneous notions and ideas of modern Christianity touching the Deity leads to this infidelity, as much as anything else. The advocates of Christianity are in a great measure to blame. ”

“ Now the term devil we use also as a term representing a power that is at the head of the rebellion against God our Father. A power that stands at the head of that organized rebellion. A power that governs all evil spirits. ”

“ We read about material and immaterial things, and such terms are used by men for the want of more suitable language to correctly represent ideas; but in truth there is no such thing as immaterial substance. Though we are told that God is an immaterial substance, and you read the philosophic descriptions of the Deity by some of these learned divines, and it is all simmered down to an immateriality or nothing at all. But there is no such thing as immaterial substance in the strict sense of the word; and immateriality when rigidly defined is another definition for nothing at all. ”

“ The old Catholic Church, who call themselves the Holy Mother Church, the English Church and the Lutheran Church, the two most extensive branches of dissenters from the Catholic Church, and the most of the lesser Protestant denominations, all declare to their followers that God is a spirit, without body, parts and passions. ”

“ When we begin to scan the teachings and enquire into the views of the leading divines of modern times, and examine their articles of faith and their discipline, the teachings of different Christian denominations on the subject of the Deity, we do not wonder that the reflecting, careful thinker, should repudiate their crude notions. ”

“ Whether the minutest atoms that are examined under powerful glasses in the molecular world, that are scrutinized by the aid of the microscope, or whether we study the works of God in the vast unnumbered worlds that are rolling in the midst of the power of God, we find the same order. "All things are governed by law." ”

“ The Scriptures tells us that God, in bestowing blessings, loses nothing. In giving it does not impoverish him, and in withholding it does not enrich him. He can impart light, truth, knowledge, power, wisdom, understanding, ability, lift up and exalt his creatures, and make them like unto himself, and instead of losing anything he is greatly enriching himself. ”

“ And when he was raised from the dead he was quickened by the spirit, by the spirit and power of the Father, and the life that was in him was not the life infused by the circulation of the blood, it was not that that kept the machinery of this organism in motion, it was the element called spirit. ”

“ The thorough scientist is forced to recognize the existence of the Great Supreme. They cannot get around it, or arrive at any other conclusion, than that the great wheel of nature is moved by an over-ruling hand, and the regularity and uniformity that is found in all her laws, are traceable to that Supreme Being, and unaccountable upon any other principle. ”

“ The spirit dwelling within the outer tabernacle, answering to the spirit what our clothing answers to this body, as a covering and shield and protection. The spirit is also an element. It is not an immaterial nothing as some imagine. ”

“ But we find nothing on the earth, or in the earth, nor under the earth, that indicates that any of these monkeys or apes, or any other orders of creation below man have ever accomplished any great exploits. ”

“ Heathen nations, as they are termed by Christians, have less definite ideas of their Creator, though all of them entertain the common notion of the Deity, and seek to worship him, though it may be in a crude way, and very undefined. Sometimes they are accused of worshipping the work of their own hands—images made of wood, of stone, iron and brass, and various other materials, and other nations, tribes and tongues are accused of worshipping animals of various kinds. ”

“ The name of Jesus has power over all these evil spirits, Lucifer and all the hosts of hell who are cast down to the earth, and have set up their abode in the tabernacles of men, and in many instances they have succeeded. ”

“ If we study physiology or anatomy, we are led to exclaim with the Psalmist of old, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made,' and see a beautiful harmony in all the parts, and a most exquisite design. This is proven by an examination of the various parts of the human form. ”

“ The Jews were in possession of many laws and regulations given to their fathers, and they were taught the true and the living God, but darkness covered their minds, and many of them walked in darkness at noonday, and enjoyed not the true light, as it was in Christ, pertaining to themselves and to their heavenly Father. ”

“ Ye worship ye know not what, but we (speaking of himself and his disciples and followers) know whom we worship, and we speak the things we have heard of him, and we know what we speak, and yet you receive not our testimony. ”

“ He has provided the resurrection, a period when the spirits which are unclothed in death when the natural death comes, and which is the separation of the spirit from the tabernacle, when this natural death comes which unclothes this spirit, and leaves it in its native state unclothed, he has appointed a time when it shall be clothed upon the second time, and then in immortality, with tabernacles incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not away. ”

“ But we use these terms only comparatively to compare one thing with another, and we say that one thing is material because we can touch it with these hands, and we can handle it with these mortal bodies, we can see it with these mortal eyes, and it is visible to the sight, touch and so on, and hence we call it material ”

“ Time means temporal—short lived. Immortal means that which reaches forward into eternity? And what is eternity? Why it is another term which we use—a comparative term to measure time, and we say time and eternity. And then the scriptures use other terms, eternities, and from eternity to eternity ”