--- title: Times and Seasons description: Issues of 1844 to 1845. authors: - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints editors: - Ebenezer Robinson - Don Carlos Smith - Smith, Joseph, Jr. - Taylor, John collections: - periodicals tags: - newspaper - times-and-seasons - nauvoo - nineteenth-century periodical: Times and Seasons volume: 5 number: 8 published: 1844-04-15 publisher: E. Robinson and D. C. Smith; later John Taylor publisher_place: Commerce and Nauvoo, Illinois language: en type: article reference: "β€œTo the Editor of the Times and Seasons,” *Times and Seasons* 5, no. 8 (April 15, 1844): 502–503." printed_title: To the Editor of the Times and Seasons. source: url: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1844-04-15_5_8 transcription: Text from the Centerplace.org transcription (https://www.centerplace.org/history/ts/v5n08.htm), with its page breaks; this Internet Archive scan is the reference copy (its OCR was used only as a witness for OCR repair) identifier: per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1844-04-15_5_8 start_page: 502 end_page: 503 curator_note: A Mormon newspaper published by the church in Nauvoo; included for historical study. Inclusion does not imply endorsement. rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1844 (Nauvoo, Illinois); published before 1931, so public domain in the United States source: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1844-04-15_5_8 publication_year: 1844 --- # To the Editor of the Times and Seasons Sir:-It may not be uninteresting to some of your readers, or bad policy to the world at large, to extract a few ideas from the writings of Dr. Isaac Watts, concerning "the glory of Jesus Christ." He lived and flourished in the latter part of the seventeenth century, and had not become so much enveloped in spiritual mysticism, but what he could read the Bible literally, and write plainly. The Doctor says:- "Since the Socinian doctrines have been effectually refuted by many learned writers, especially in the last century, it is now, I hope, confessed universally, that our blessed Savior had a real existence long before he appeared in flesh and blood, and dwelt among men. It is also generally acknowledged, that he often appeared in a visible manner under the patriarchal and Mosaical dispensations, assuming the names, and sustaining the character and person of the great and blessed God.-Yet it has been a matter of contest in these latter years, as well as in the ancient days of Arius, whether Christ, in his complex person, include Godhead or not: or whether he being nothing else but a creature or a mere contingent being, and is only called God, as sustaining and representing the character and person of one who is infinitely above him, even great and eternal God. This is the great and important question of the age. Now that this matter may be determined with more evidence and certainty, let us first trace out the account which the old testament gives us of the various seasons and occasions on which God the Lord,* the Lord God Jehovah, the Almighty, the God of Abraham, &c., is said to appear amongst men, with a few remarks on them in passing; and afterward we shall be enabled to draw more particular inferences from these scriptures, concerning the Deity of Christ and his appearance before his incarnation. Whoever will read the first four chapters of Genesis with due attention, will find a very plain and easy representation of the great God, first creating all things, and afterwards appearing to Adam, Eve, and Cain, and conversing with them with a human voice, and very probably in a human shape too. I am well assured that any common reader, who begins the Bible without prejudices or prepossessions of any kind, would naturally frame this idea under the words and expressions of Moses, the sacred writer. *Let the unlearned reader take notice, that there are two Hebrew words, viz: Jehovah, and Adon or Adonai, both of which our translators render Lord. The first, viz: Jehovah, signifies the Eternal or unchangeable, and has been sufficiently proved to be the proper name of the great God, the God of Israel, peculiar to him and incommunicable to creatures; and it is written always in capital letters, LORD, for distinction's sake. Thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth.-Psal. lxxxiii; 18. Though it had been much better if the Hebrew name, Jehovah itself, had been always written in our English Bibles, that the hearer might distinguish it as well as the reader. The other name, viz: Adon or Adonai is also translated Lord, and written in small letters, because it is not the proper name of the great God; it signifies his lordship or dominion, and is not so peculiar or incommunicable. Now let it be observed, that in almost every place which I have cited to show the various appearances of the Lord to men, it is the name Jehovah is used, which the reader will find distinguished by capital letters in the English Bible." Such was the language of the learned Dr. Watts, more than a century and a half ago; and it plainly indicates, that the light, which ought always to shine on the pages of revelation, had not then entirely disappeared. Hear him upon the 18th chapter of Genesis. "'And the Lord,' Jehovah, 'appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre; as he sat in the tent-door in the heat of the day, and lift up his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood before him; and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground; and said, my Lord, if now I have found favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant.' His first address was made to one of the three, who seemed to bear superior glory; afterward he invites them all to eat, and 'he took butter and milk,' ver. 8, 'and the calf which he had dressed, and set before them; and he stood by them under the tree, and they did eat. And he said, Sarah thy wife shall have a son:' at which tidings, when 'Sarah laughed within herself, the Lord,' or Jehovah, 'said unto Abraham, wherefore did Sarah laugh?' ver. 13. 'Is any thing too hard for the Lord,' or Jehovah? Now I think it is evident that one of these three men was expressly called Jehovah: two of them went on toward Sodom, but he that is called Jehovah seemed to stay behind; ver. 16, 17, and 22, 'the men,' i.e. the two men, 'turned their faces from thence, and went towards Sodom, but Abraham stood yet before Jehovah.' And a long dialogue there ensues between Abraham and the Lord, or Jehovah, about the sparing of Sodom, wherein Abraham addresses him as the true God, in ver. 33. 'The Lord,' Jehovah, 'went his way as soon as he had left communing with Abraham, and Abraham returned to his place.' And, Gen. xix;l. 'There came two angels to Sodom at even,' which most probably were the two men which left Abraham while Jehovah tarried and talked with him.-Now it is evident in the conversation, that neither of these two angels assumed the name of Jehovah; for, ver. 13; they say, 'the cry of the men of Sodom is waxen great before the face of the Lord,' i. e. Jehovah, 'and Jehovah hath sent us to destroy it.' This narrative gives us a plain account of the great God appearing to Abraham, and conversing with him in the form of a man; for it is said, He 'appeared to Abraham,' or was seen of him, talked with him,' and 'went up from him.' This is certainly very fair for a person without the priesthood. If he had just added that the Lord and the angels dined with Abraham upon the fatted calf, he might richly have merited the epithet of Mormon. As it is, his views of Jesus Christ, must be a rather heavy stumbling block to the divine clergy of this century; they believe in such a nondescript "God without body parts or passions." I shall examine the Doctor's writings further, and perhaps I shall discover some more fragments of Mormonism. NOT THE PROPHET S. T. P.