Adam was the door into this world, and Christ says he is the door into the kingdom or the next world (as in Adam so in Christ) and Christ says if any man climbs up any other way he is a thief and a robber. Let us see. The devil and those who followed him from heaven came down here, without bodies, some other way, and is considered to be the father of lies and everything that is bad. So if any get into the celestial kingdom of our God, any other way than the one symbolized by baptism he will be counted a thief and a robber, and will be cast out from the marriage supper.

There must be a compound in one. I take it to mean male and female, as he says there would be no creating of anything if there should be but one body, but all things would be dead without further progress and remain as they were. Thus as it takes male and female to have the creative power, he must have meant by the word compound, more than one body, at least two bodies, one to act and one to be acted upon, one of the positive and one negative; the male is positive and the female is negative, and the one entices the other, and by the power of love (God is love) we are. So with all things, love is the attraction of the male and female, in all things the creative power; then we can truly say God is love, as God created all things. “I created all things in heaven and earth.” We have got to go back to God who gave us, then again come form him as at first.

If the resurrection could be any other way than by a birth, then it would not be necessary for Christ to have been crucified; and as Amasa Lyman said, God could have given some other plan and it have been just as effectual if He (God) choose to do so; but if God should have chosen any other plan for Adam to have peopled the earth there would have been a failure and there would have been no creation of anything, and he would have ceased to be God. But God is God, and his eternal purposes go on and are one eternal round, without beginning of days, or end of years. The atonement gives the creature a chance, and time to repent, and justice asks that he who committed the sin should pay the penalty. Adam committed the sin and it required his blood which in the son was shed. Here justice and mercy has met together, and mankind has a chance to be saved by obedience to the principles of the gospel of Christ, and all men will be raised from the dead, as also all things, and get their rewards according to their deeds, whether they be good or evil.

Eternal laws must be obeyed, or by them we will be condemned and punished. There is no getting around these things

O, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and mercy, for he is good and he is merciful to his children in the sending to them a plan whereby they can be forgiven of all their transgressions, wherein they have transgressed before him.

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So with the gospel, if God wished to establish a gospel of justice, He would lay the foundation of justice and erect a building of justice tempered with mercy upon said foundation; let us see what has been the case: Adam committed a sin in the garden of Eden, for which all men have to die. Then he killed the whole human family, a homicide in enormity not committed by any one else on this earth, that we have heard of; and, not only that, but also suicide. “Of the tree of good and evil you must not eat; if you do, that day you shall surely die.”

If our father or anyone should see poison in a man’s hand, and tell him if he should eat it it would kill him, and he would go deliberately and eat, we would say it was suicide.

Now let us see what is the generally accepted idea of what follows: God sent his Only Begotten Son to die on the cross a volunteer, to pay for that seeming great crime of Adam. Now, if one’s blood in an ordinary case of homicide, according to a just law, can not pay for another man’s sin, then what would you say in the great sin of Adam. Would you, if you were sitting as a juror in the courts of justice, in a common criminal case, say that if any one else should offer to pay the penalty of the real criminal, that he could do it by any principle of justice, and justice must and will claim her own. Yes, but the volunteer would say, I offer in the spirit of mercy. Would you not say mercy cannot rob justice? If so, our law would cease to be a law, especially of justice.

Alma says, Mercy cannot rob Justice. If so, God could cease to be God; but God does not cease to be God, because Justice claims her own; and if God continued to exist, and the gospel is a gospel of Justice, then Adam must come and pay for his own sin. If a man owes a dollar, and he pays his det, he pays the dollar. So, if Adam killed the whole human family, he must owe them their lives, for he has taken theirs. Then if he pays this debt, he must restore their life. As in Adam, the first man, all die, so in Christ, the second Adam, all are to be made alive, here would be a gospel of rewards and punishments, so far as this sin and its consequences as far as death and the resurrection is concerned. Mercy can temper justice, but cannot take its place and rob the cross of its proper criminal, if criminal we call him.

Jesus says “I am the first (Adam) and also the last,” (Christ). One brought death (the first) the other brought life or is to, (the second.) At the bugle call of Michael the dead are to rise. Michael fought with Lucifer in Heaven, was the first man on earth, is to be the man who is to lead the armies of God against Lucifer at the great last battle ,called the battle of our God, and is to overcome him, and present this kingdom to his God (our grand-God) pure and white, having washed it clean and white in his own blood, at which time he will receive a title to the earth and all things connected, which is to be an everlasting deed, which will make of him a King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and in said office he will again, in his paradise, with our beloved mother Eve, gloriously by his side, live and reign in the celestial paradise.