Adam and Eve could never have been the parents of a mortal posterity, had they not themselves become mortal; mortality, as before stated, was an essential element in the Divine plan respecting the earth and its appointed inhabitants; and as a means of introducing mortality, the Lord placed before the progenitors of the race, a law, knowing full well that transgression would follow.

30. Eve was fulfilling the foreordained purposes of God by the part she took in the great drama of the Fall; yet she did not partake of the forbidden fruit with that object in view, but with the intent to violate the Divine command, being deceived by the sophistries of the serpent-fiend. Satan, also, for that matter, furthered the purposes of the Creator, in tempting Eve; yet his design was to thwart the Lord's plan. We are definitely told that "he knew not the mind of God, wherefore he sought to destroy the world." Yet, his diabolical effort, far from being the initiatory step toward destruction, contributed to the plan of man's eternal exaltation. Adam's part in the great event was essentially different from that of his wife; he was not deceived; on the contrary he deliberately decided to do as Eve desired, that he might carry out the purposes of his Maker with respect to the race of men, whose first patriarch he was ordained to be.

31. Even the transgressions of man may be turned to the accomplishment of high purposes. As will be shown, the sacrifice of Christ was ordained from before the foundation of the world, yet Judas who betrayed, and the blood-thirsty Jews who crucified the Son of God, are none the less guilty of the awful crime.

32. It has become a common practice with mankind, to heap reproaches upon the progenitors of the family, and to picture the supposedly blessed state, in which we would be living but for the Fall; whereas our first parents are entitled to our deepest gratitude for their legacy to posterity.—the means of winning glory, exaltation, and eternal lives, on the battlefield of mortality. But for the opportunity thus given, the spirits of God's offspring would have remained forever in a state of innocent childhood; sinless through no effort of their own; negatively saved, not from sin, but from the power of sinning; incapable of winning the honors of victory because prevented from taking part in the battle. As it is, they are heirs to the birthright of Adam's descendants,—mortality, with its immeasurable opportunities, and its God-given freedom of action. From Father Adam we have inherited all the ills to which flesh is heir; but such are necessarily incident to the knowledge of good and evil, by the proper use of which knowledge man may become even as the Gods.