In Thomas Marsh, D&C 112, and contingent foreknowledge, I discussed how various promises given to Thomas Marsh were contingent in nature. Notwithstanding, early Latter-day Saints who knew both Joseph Smith and Thomas Marsh understood such promises were real and not merely hypothetical but would never be fulfilled, further supporting the contingent, not exhaustive, foreknowledge-reading of such texts. Consider the following from Heber C. Kimball in a sermon dated July 12, 1857:
Thomas B. Marsh was
once the President over the Quorum of the Twelve—over brother Brigham, me, and
others; and God saw fit to give him a revelation to forewarn him of the course
he would take; and still he took that course. We told him that if he would
listen to that revelation he had received, he would he saved; but he listened
to his wife, and away he went. His wife is now dead and damned. She led him
some eighteen years; and as soon as she died he came to Winter Quarters—now
Florence, and has written to us, pleading for mercy. We have extended it to
him, and he will probably be here this season or the next. He says that he has
sinned before God and his brethren, and is pleading for mercy; for he feels as
though our Father and God would have a little bread for him after all the rest
have eaten all they need. (JOD 5:29)
