In her journal entry for March 19, 1848, Mary Haskin Parker Richards (1823-1860) recorded the following doctrinal comments from Orson Pratt:
at 12 oclock I went
to meeting at the Stand where we were addrest by Bro O Pratt upon the Plurality
of Gods he proved from Scripture that we are the Sons & daughters of God
(and that Jesus Christ was our Elder Brother’ who through his birth right has
become our Saviour and our God and as a Child grows up and be comes like his
father. so we grow up like our Heavenly Father and pertake of all his
Attributes’ and in time shall become just like him Even Gods. He said that God
himself was once Man like unto us. who was amenable to a higher Power for his conduct.
And had a Father &C &C
the question said he
will naturally arrise in your mind’ where did the first God come from’ and how
he was Created. The Christian world in geen general’ admit that he
existed from all Eternity and there is only 2 ways
he must either have
existed’ from all Eternity. or otherwise have had a creation, and how could he
have been Created as there was no living being. Or Spirit in Existence. This would
naturaly be soposed to be impossible I will tell you what my Cogitations are’
but do not wish to consider that I teach it as doctring or beleve it as such.
he then gave us a
view of what the World must have been E’er the Earth, and &C &C was
formed said the matter then Existed out of which all things were made that now
exist. And he sposed that there was a kind of Intelligent Matter; that had the
Power of self Movement, and as Intelegence cleaveth to Intellgence' so one
particle of intellegent Matter cleaveth to another' and at last a combination
of this Matter' formed an Intelegent Spirit &C &C Bro Woodruff
said he beleved what Bro Pratt had said was true. and that he had been well
pleased with his remarks &C &C after which a Hymn was sung. and he
dismissed the meeting. (Maurine Carr Ward, ed., Winter Quarters: The
1846-1848 Life Writings of Mary Haskin Parker Richards [Life Writings of
Frontier Women Volume 1; Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1996], 195-96)