Sunday, December 27, 2020

Heber C. Kimball on the Promises Given to Thomas Marsh in the Doctrine and Covenants

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)