Simply the best book I’ve found, to date, written about our Father in Heaven’s plan of salvation. This comprehensive coverage of the topic is absolutely breathtaking. Would you like to know how Adam and Eve came to be, according to the prophets? Br. Brown has done extensive research and shared it in the book. Do you understand what occurred in the councils in heaven which precipitated the creation of the earth and our sojourn into mortality? Do you understand the fate of children who die too early? Do you realize the hope, the promise and the beauty of the plan which was laid out before us in our heavenly home that gave us the opportunity to progress, yet one step closer to that ultimate reward?
I have never hidden the fact that Matthew B. Brown is one of my favorite theologians. I own every single book he has published: All Things Restored, Plates of Gold, Plan of Salvation, Gate of Heaven, Symbols in Stone, Joseph Smith: The Man, The Message, The Mission and Receiving Gifts of the Spirit. You can’t go wrong with any of them.
But this book, Plan of Salvation, is so comprehensive in its coverage of gospel doctrine as it relates to so many questions people have about who we are, why we are here and where we are going. Questions, I have had for more than twenty years, to which the answers were found within the pages of this book.
For instance, I have a sweet little sister who is mentally incapacitated. Although 24 or 25 years of age, she is mentally about four or five. I have always known that her place in the eternities was assured. But it was nice to find this quote by Joseph Fielding Smith inserted by Br. Brown:
“The Lord has made it known by revelation that children born with retarded minds shall receive blessings just like little children who die in infancy. They are free from sin, because their minds are not capable of a correct understanding of right and wrong . . . Therefore The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints considers all deficient children with retarded capacity to understand, just the same as little children under the age of accountability. They are redeemed without baptism and will go to the celestial kingdom of God, there, we believe, to have their faculties or other deficiencies restored according to the Father’s mercy and justice.” Improvement Era, February 1959, p. 80-81
Br. Brown has included dreams and visions of prophets, apostles and saints, culling from them nuggets of pertinent information. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Matthew B. Brown also has a website dedicated solely to the prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr., http://josephsmithstudies.com, which I find to be an invaluable resource.
Pick up the Plan of Salvation, it will be a valuable addition to your religious library and a source for answers to many, many questions.