A DISCOURSE By Prest. Joseph Smith, being the fu-Hj fu-Hj ncral sermon of! elder King Po'.lttt ; from the Millennial Siar. (CONTINUED ) The Scriptures inform us that 'This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only truo Goa, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.' IP any m m does not know God, and enquires what kind of a being he is,-Hfl is,-Hfl if he will search diligently his own Hflj heart if the declarations of Jesus and the Apostles be true, he will realize that he has rot eternal life; for there can be eternal life on no other principle. HI My first object is to find out the char- H actcr of the only wise and true .God, and what kind of a being he is; arid HB if I am so fortunate as to be the man to comprehend God, and explain or convey the principles to your hearts, so that the Spirit seals them upon you, then let every man and woman henceforth hence-forth sit in silfn.ee, put their hands on their mouths, and never lift their hands or voices, or say anything a-gainsl a-gainsl the man of God or the servants of God ap-ain. But if I f..il to do it. it becomes my duly to renounce all further pretensions to revolutions and inspirations, rr to be a Prophet; and I should be like the world a false teacher, be. haikd as a friend, and no man would seek my life. But if all religious teachers were honest enough to renounce their pretensions to godliness god-liness when their ignorance of the knowledge of God is made manifest, they will all be as badly eff as 1 am, at any raJe; and you might just ns well txke the lives of other lalse tf achers as that of mine, if I am false. If any man is authorized to take away my life I because ho thinks and says I am a false J teacher, then, upon the same principle, I we should be justified in taking a-I a-I way the life of every false teach e1.. and where Would be'the end oT blood ? and who would not be the sufferer ? But meddle not with any man for his religiorj and all governments ought to permit every man to enjoy his religion unmolested. No man is authorized to take away life in consequence conse-quence of difference of religion, which ail laws md governments ought to tolerate and protect, right cr wren;. Every man has a natural and, in our country, a constitutional right to be a false prophet as well as a true prophet. It I show, verily, that I have the truth of God, and show that ninety-nine out of every hundred professing religious ministers are false tenchprs, having? no authority, while they pretend to hold the keys of God's kingdom on earth, and was to kill them because they are false teachers, it would deluge del-uge the whole world with blood. I will prove that the world is wrong, by showing whal God is. I am going to inquire after God; for I want ou all to know him, and to be familiar with him; and if I can brin you to a knowledge of him, all persecutions a-gainst a-gainst me ought to cease. You will thpn know that I am hia servant; for I speak as one having authority. I will go back to the beginning before be-fore the world was, to show what kind of a being God is. What sort of a being was God in the beginning? 0-pen 0-pen your ears and hear, all ye ends of the earth; for I am going to prove it to you by the Bible, and to tell you jH the designs of God in relation to the human race, and why he interferes with the affairs of man., jH God himself was once as we are now, and is an exulted Man. aud sits en- jH throned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the vail was rent to-day. and the Great God who holds j this1 world in its oi bit, and who up- WM ho'ds all worlds and all things by hia H power, was to make himself visible, . MB I say, if you were to see him to-day, you would see him like a man in form 1 1 ke yourselves in all the person, image, 'H and very form as a man; for Adam jH was created in the very fashion, image, and lik cess of God, and received in- H struc'ion from, and walked, talked, and iH conversed with him, os one man talks and communes with ano'hf r. In order to understand the subject of the dead, i r the consolation of thoe vt who mourn for the loss of their friend, it is necessary we should understand the character and being of God, , mt and how he came to be so; lor I am H going to U 11 you how God came to be MB liod. We have imagined and sup- JH posed that "God was God Vom jdl e- 7 """"""""'B (crnify. I wiJi refute that idea, and H will take away and do away the vail, B so that you may spp. It rIhese are incomprehensible ideas H to some; but they are simple. It is H the first principle of the Gospel to JK know for a certainly the character of !H God, and to know that we may con- verse with him as one m.n converses with another, and that he was once a manlike us; yea, that God himself, JH the Fallur of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did; H and I will show it from the Bible. I , H wish I was in a suitable place to tell )Jt it, and that I had the trump of an arch-angel, arch-angel, so that I could tell the story in such a manner that persecution would. cease for ever. What did Jesus eay ? !H (Mark it, Elder Kigdon.) The Scrip- H tures inform ua that Jesus naid, As the Father hath power in himself, H even so hath the fc'on power' to do what? Why, what the Father did. ;H The answer is cbiou in a man-ner man-ner to lay down his body and take it up again. JesuG, what are you going to do ? To lay down my life as my H Father did, and take it up again, Do H you believe it ? If you do not believe H it, you do not believe the Bible. The H Scriptures say it,' and 1 defy all the 'H learning and wisdom and all the com- H bined powers of earth and hell to- H gether to refute it, TO HK CONTINt'KD.