Orson Pratt, in a sermon dated February 16, 1851, delivered on board the Ellen Maria and recorded by George D. Watt, said the following about those who shed “innocent blood” and the Jews who assented to the murder of Jesus:
There is a certain class of
creatures that I will now mention, that are out of the church, that have no
right to come into the church, the Lord would not receive them into his church.
It is those that commit murder and shed innocent blood, against law and
testimony, and [when?] wickedly and maliciously do it. As [an] example of this
transgression, we may refer you to the murderers of Jesus Christ. They have no
right to come into the church of God, [or] to be baptized it. It was instituted
for the remission of sins. Those wicked murderers could not have their sins
remitted, [or] anything to do with baptism, as Peter said when he preached to
them in the 3 or 4 chapter of Acts. He exhorts them in this manner: Repent ye
therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when in the
times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord, and he shall send
Jesus Christ. What? Are we to wait until he sends Jesus Christ, before our sins
can be blotted out? Yes, that is the language of Peter to those murderers:
repent and be converted, that your sins may be be [sic] blotted out,
when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and he
shall send Jesus Christ. IT seems [that] they had to wait a long period before
their sins could be blotted out. <Says one>, [what[ would be the use of
their repentance? It would be this: [to] get their sins blotted out when he
send[s] Jesus Christ. If they did not repent and be converted, [they] could not
be forgiven; [they would have to] wait a longer period. I thought conversion
when a man was converted and [his] sins was forgiveness (Written: forgiveness;
apparent intend: forgiven). Forgiveness is one thing, and conversion
another thing. Those person were not to be forgiven, but to be converted.
Whatsoever they had done that was evil, if he would repent, [he would]
be forgiven when Jesus Christ came, if they had not, [repented, they would have
to] wait 3 or 4 thousand years, until after the thousand years ended. (Liverpool
to Great Lake City: The 1851 Journal of Missionary George D. Watt, ed.
LaJean Purcell Carruth and Ronald G. Watt [Lincoln, Nebr.: University of
Nebraska Press, 2022], 125-26)
