The World’s Religions

131:5.1Zoroaster was him­self di­rectly in con­tact with the de­scen­dants of the ear­lier Mel­chiz­e­dek mis­sion­ar­ies, and their doc­trine of the one God be­came a cen­tral teach­ing in the re­li­gion which he founded in Per­sia. Aside from Ju­daism, no re­li­gion of that day con­tained more of these Salem teach­ings. From the rec­ords of this re­li­gion Ga­nid made the fol­low­ing ex­cerpts:

131:5.2“All things come from, and be­long to, the One God—all-wise, good, righ­teous, holy, re­splen­dent, and glo­ri­ous. This, our God, is the source of all lu­mi­nos­ity. He is the Cre­ator, the God of all good pur­poses, and the pro­tec­tor of the jus­tice of the uni­verse. The wise course in life is to act in con­so­nance with the spirit of truth. God is all-see­ing, and he be­holds both the evil deeds of the wicked and the good works of the righ­teous; our God ob­serves all things with a flash­ing eye. His touch is the touch of heal­ing. The Lord is an all-pow­er­ful bene­fac­tor. God stretches out his benef­i­cent hand to both the righ­teous and the wicked. God es­tab­lished the world and or­dained the re­wards for good and for evil. The all-wise God has prom­ised im­mor­tal­ity to the pi­ous souls who think purely and act righ­teously. As you su­premely de­sire, so shall you be. The light of the sun is as wis­dom to those who dis­cern God in the uni­verse.

131:5.3“Praise God by seek­ing the plea­sure of the Wise One. Wor­ship the God of light by joy­fully walk­ing in the paths or­dained by his re­vealed re­li­gion. There is but one Su­preme God, the Lord of Lights. We wor­ship him who made the wa­ters, plants, an­i­mals, the earth, and the heav­ens. Our God is Lord, most benef­i­cent. We wor­ship the most beau­teous, the boun­ti­ful Im­mor­tal, en­dowed with eter­nal light. God is far­thest from us and at the same time near­est to us in that he dwells within our souls. Our God is the di­vine and holi­est Spirit of Par­a­dise, and yet he is more friendly to man than the most friendly of all crea­tures. God is most help­ful to us in this great­est of all busi­nesses, the know­ing of him­self. God is our most adorable and righ­teous friend; he is our wis­dom, life, and vigor of soul and body. Through our good think­ing the wise Cre­ator will en­able us to do his will, thereby at­tain­ing the re­al­iza­tion of all that is di­vinely per­fect.

131:5.4“Lord, teach us how to live this life in the flesh while prepar­ing for the next life of the spirit. Speak to us, Lord, and we will do your bid­ding. Teach us the good paths, and we will go right. Grant us that we may at­tain union with you. We know that the re­li­gion is right which leads to union with righ­teous­ness. God is our wise na­ture, best thought, and righ­teous act. May God grant us unity with the di­vine spirit and im­mor­tal­ity in him­self!

131:5.5“This re­li­gion of the Wise One cleanses the be­liever from ev­ery evil thought and sin­ful deed. I bow be­fore the God of heaven in re­pen­tance if I have of­fended in thought, word, or act—in­ten­tion­ally or un­in­ten­tion­ally—and I of­fer prayers for mercy and praise for for­give­ness. I know when I make con­fes­sion, if I pur­pose not to do again the evil thing, that sin will be re­moved from my soul. I know that for­give­ness takes away the bonds of sin. Those who do evil shall re­ceive pun­ish­ment, but those who fol­low truth shall en­joy the bliss of an eter­nal sal­va­tion. Through grace lay hold upon us and min­is­ter sav­ing power to our souls. We claim mercy be­cause we as­pire to at­tain per­fec­tion; we would be like God.”