Orson Pratt

“ Now I admit that it is necessary for the human family to be thus adopted; there would, however, have been no need of this adoption if mankind had never become wicked and corrupt. If there had never been any sin in the world, I do not think that adoption would have been necessary. According to my views, and I believe, according to the views of the Latter-day Saints, and also of the ancient Saints, we were at one period legitimately his sons and daughters independent of adoption, and this will carry us to the first ideas manifested by revelation, in regard to the origin of man. ”

“ If we turn to the first and second chapters of Genesis, we shall find it clearly indicated that man had an existence before he was placed in the Garden of Eden. In the first chapter of Genesis we are told that God made the earth, and the seas, and the grass, and the herbs and the trees in about six days of time. We also read that on the fifth day of the creation he made the fish and fowls; that on the sixth day he made the animals, and last of all that he made man, male and female created he them. This seems to have been the last work of creation on the sixth day. ”

“ I cannot, for my part, see that there is any more absurdity in believing that he made them thousands of years before they came here, than to suppose that he made them just before they came here, and entered into the tabernacle. One can certainly not be more unreasonable than the other.
Because we can not recollect our former existence is no proof whatever that we did not have one. ”

“ Here were two beings united who were as immortal as you will be when you come forth from your graves in the morning of the first resurrection. Under these conditions Adam and Eve were married. I do not believe that the Lord used the ceremony that is now used—I marry you until death shall separate you. By what means did death come into the world? After this marriage by partaking of the forbidden fruit, they brought death on both male and female, or as the Apostle Paul says, "By one man sin and death entered into the world, even so shall all be made alive, and every man in his own order. ”

“ There are many Scriptures in the New Testament that have relation to the previous existence of man, which I do not at this time feel disposed to quote. They can be searched up by the Latter-day Saints, and by all who are curious enough to enquire into these things. There are some other things however, which I feel anxious to bring forth in connection with the pre-existence of man. One thing is our origin more fully. ”

“ This is a promise which God has made by revelation to his Church, hence the Latter-day Saints believe in the eternity of the marriage covenant. This is one of our fundamental doctrines. We consider that a marriage for time alone is after the old Gentile order, and they have lost all knowledge of the true ordinances and order of heaven. They marry until death separates them. I believe that almost every religious society, in their marriage ceremony, use this phrase, "I pronounce you man and wife until death shall part you!" This sort of a marriage never origin-nated with God ”

“ It seems then, that if there had been no sin death never would have come upon Adam and Eve, and they would have been living to-day, immortal, nearly six thousand years after being placed in the Garden of Eden, and would they not still be husband and wife? ”

“ That is, man here on the earth is in the image of that spiritual body or personage of Jesus, so far as we are not deformed. "Seest thou that thou art created in mine own image, yea even in the beginning created I all men after mine own image." This is about the only place that refers pointedly to the pre-existence of man in the Book of Mormon. ”

“ I know that the objection will immediately arise in the minds of individuals who have not reflected on this subject, if we were intelligent personages thousands of years ago, and dwelling in the presence of God, and of Jesus, our elder brother, how is it that we have no remembrance of anything that transpired in our pre-existence? ”

“ He has power to beget and bring forth sons and daughters in the spirit world; and after he has brought forth millions and millions of spirits, he has power to organize worlds, and send these spirits into these worlds to take temporal bodies to prepare them in turn to be redeemed and become Gods, or in other words, the sons of God, growing up like their father, possessing all his attributes, and propagating their species through all eternity. ”

“ Certainly, and so they would continue if millions and millions of ages should pass away, and you could not point out any period in the future, when this relation would cease; no matter how many myriads of ages might pass away, unless they by sin brought death into the world. All will admit, who reflect on the subject, that this marriage was for eternity, and that death interfered with it only for the time being, until the resurrection should bring them forth and re-unite them. ”

“ They retained many of their ordinances, their Temple worship, and so on, but written copies of the Bible had so nearly disappeared, that on repairing the Temple at a certain time they found a copy of it hid up, but they did not know whether it was true or not. They had nothing to compare it with, and the only way they could ascertain whether it was a true copy of the Bible was to send for a man of God—a Prophet—and get him to inquire of the Lord whether it was genuine or not. Thus we see that the people in those early ages were not favored as we are in these days with copies of the Bible. ”

“ They all believe that within man's body or tabernacle of flesh and bones there dwells an immortal spirit. All Christian societies, with perhaps very few exceptions, believe that this human spirit, which dwells within the tabernacle, will exist after the dissolution of the body. There may be some few Christians who believe that the spirit is disorganized or dies between the time of death and the resurrection. ”

“ His descending from the presence of God his Father and descending below all things, his judgment was taken away, that is, his remembrance of things that were past, and that knowledge which, while in the presence of his Father, enabled him to make worlds, and he had to begin at the first principles of knowledge, just the same as all his brethren who came here in the flesh. We read that Jesus, as he grew in stature, grew also in wisdom and knowledge. ”

“ I contend that we had the promise of eternal life before the world began on certain conditions—if we would comply with the gospel of the Son of God, by repenting of our sins and being faithful in keeping the commandments of God. ”

“ Because marriage is essentially necessary to qualify them to propagate their species throughout all eternity, that they in their turn may have worlds created on which these sons and daughters of their own begetting may receive tabernacles of flesh and bones as we have done. ”

“ They have no hope when they marry outside the Church, but when they marry in the Church according to this order, and the persons who officiate in declaring them husband and wife, being commissioned of God and having authority to administer in all the ordinances of his kingdom, that marriage is not only for time, but for all eternity. ”

“ The views of the immaterialist are that the spirit, occupies no space, and has no relation to matter, something entirely separate and distinct from matter. There are however, but few in the Christian world who have worked themselves so far into the depths of these mysteries, as they term them, as to believe in such absurdities as these. ”

“ When a person does this we really consider them weak in the faith; indeed it is equivalent in my estimation not only to being weak in the faith, but since these revelations were given on the subject, if people with their eyes wide open will still reject these important things, and marry a person outside the Church, it shows to me very clearly that he or she has no regard for the word of God, nor for their own salvation. They are lacking not only in faith but in the principle of obedience. ”

“ One dwells as an angel, without any power to increase their species, family or dominions, without the power to beget sons and daughters. This class will be angels. Perhaps many of them will be worthy of obtaining a degree of power, glory, and happiness, but not a fullness. ”

“ In order to try the children of men, there must be a degree of knowledge withheld from them, for it would be no temptation to them if they could understand from the beginning the consequences of their acts, and the nature and results of this and that temptation. ”

“ Hence, according to their ideas, God has all the time been creating about one person every twenty seconds, which I believe is about the average rate that persons are born into the world; in other words, about three a minute, and according to their ideas the Lord is engaged in making spirits with this rapidity, and sending them here to this world. ”

“ This is the order by which all worlds are peopled by spirits that have been born in the eternal worlds; and these worlds are organized expressly for them that they may go and have another change, another state of being different from their spiritual state, where they may possess bodies of flesh and bones, which are essentially necessary to the begetting of their own species. Spirits can not bring forth, multiply and increase. They must have bodies. ”

“ But they not only did believe it, they also believed it possible for man to sin in that pre-existence, and that the penalty of that sin might be carried down to this state of existence, and be the cause of blindness at birth, and with that belief they put the question to the Savior. ”

“ But they have made a very good translation notwithstanding, especially the forty-seven who labored under the appointment of King James. Different parts of the Scriptures were portioned out among six different classes of translators, and they, I believe, have given us the very best copy of the Bible in existence, so far as translations by human wisdom are concerned. ”

“ In regard to this present existence, what person is there in this congregation who can remember the first six months of his or her infancy? There is not a man nor a woman on the face of the earth, I presume, who can remember this ”