Remarks

My beloved hearers, I am most deeply sensible of the folly of man undertaking to instruct and to edify God’s people, except he be filled with the words of life and faith, and is inspired by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. There has been presented to us a general review of the condition of the work of God in the earth at the present time, by which we are reminded of very many reasons we have for gratitude to our Heavenly Father for His manifold mercies unto us. I think a realizing sense of His goodness and our own unworthiness is very necessary for us to entertain, in order that we may possess that meekness of spirit and that brokenness of heart by which the Spirit shall be able to dwell freely and abundantly with us. ¶

There is a principle which is the very life and growth and existence of God’s people, which is entertained by His Saints everywhere, and against which the whole world rises up in decided opposition, that is, the principle of present and continued revelation. Without this no Saint can grow and increase in the knowledge of God. Without this the great latter-day work that has attained its present proportion would never have reached such a position. It is the life and vitality of God’s people to have the ministrations of the Holy Ghost, which takes of the things of God and shows them unto mankind. Without them, men have been left to fashion a great many forms of religion, having, as the Scriptures said they should have, the form of godliness without the power thereof. As the boy may look nice and lovely even in death, it is impotent and goes back to mother earth, except the spirit vitalizes it, gives it life and animation, fills it with its hopes and desires. ¶

When we go forth to the human family we are confronted with this opposition at once. It is said to us that there is to be no more revelation, and they try to make us believe that there shall be no more. Why, it is contrary to the spirit that all the Prophets have entertained. When men rose up in ancient Israel and began to prophesy, some of the holy folks went to Moses and said so-and-so is prophesying. What was his answer? Says he, “Would to God that all the Lord’s people were Prophets.” That has been the sense of every true, enlightened Prophet of God upon the earth. It is according to the promise which Peter set forth at Pentecost, as had been declared by the Prophet Joel, that in the last days He would pour out His Spirit upon all flesh: “and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.” Let me remind you, my brethren and sisters, that we live in the dawning of that day; and it is not only your privilege, but a duty we owe to ourselves, to God’s people, and to the honest in heart throughout the world who have not heard the Gospel, that we should nourish and cultivate this spirit of revelation within us instantly. ¶

It is the work of the Holy Spirit to quicken our spirits. If we are washed from our sins, and live holy before God and in the working of that spirit, which is unto the sanctifying of our bodies and our spirits, we become filled with that light which is to grow, and ought to grow brighter and brighter until the perfect day. As we live in a period of time when troubles, judgments, and sorrows unspeakable are to be poured out upon the ungodly, and the righteous can only escape by their faith, and by standing in holy places without being moved, it becomes everyone that professes the name of Jesus that they should cultivate this spirit within them continually. “Ye receive the spirit,” says the Lord to us in the latter-days, “by the prayer of faith.” So, then, we ought with constant prayer, diligence and devotion to kindle continually the fire on the altar of our hearts by the faithful keeping of His commandments and living by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, so that this may continue to warm and enlighten our minds, that we may become baptized by the Holy Spirit and by the fire of the Lord. ¶

But they tell us, when we talk of these things, that the Scriptures say we must not have any more revelation. By their ignorance and misunderstandings they wrest the Scriptures, not knowing the Gospel nor the power of God. They say, it is given in the last chapter of Revelations: “If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book, and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” Very true; so it is and so it will be. The Prophet Moses left it on record in Deuteronomy that there should be nothing added to that law which was given unto them. It is written twice in Deuteronomy, “Ye shall not add unto the words which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it.” Suppose that meant there should be no more revelation, what are you going to do with these great prophecies of Isaiah, of Jeremiah, of Ezekiel, of Daniel, and all the holy Prophets that came after? If that was a perpetual injunction against further revelation, how could the Savior come, in contravention of this law that He had given to Moses, and declare His whole system of salvation to us, which was from before the foundation of the world, originated in the eternities, to bring life and immortality to light, and lead us, if we will be led by it, unto the eternity that shall come after the angel shall declare that time shall be no longer? He had reference only to that book; they had no business to add to that law. The Prophets never believed, the Church of God never realized, that there was any restraint put upon the spirit of revelation. But they held, as we hold, that without it there was no life, no God. And this saying of the Apostle in Revelations, means adding to that book of Revelations. The people for a long time had many different books, or rather manuscripts, till they were gathered up and put together. Paul did not understand that all these old Scriptures were wrong. He said to Timothy, “From a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation.” These scriptures were necessary down to his time. Just so with the Savior. His inspiration and volume of eternal truth was necessary. And it is just as necessary now that the people of God should be filled with the light of revelation, and without it they can make no advancement in divine life. ¶

The Prophet Joseph, when dedicating the first Temple of this dispensation, in Nauvoo, March 1836, presented the Twelve Apostles that had been appointed and consecrated to their work, and they were upheld as prophets, seers and revelators. That is the estimate which the Prophet Joseph placed upon the holy office of the Apostleship, and that is the idea and sense that this people entertain concerning that office and calling; for twice every year they lift up their hands to sustain the Twelve Apostles as such. I testify to you, my brethren, that the Apostles improve in this principle, and increase in it, and they are becoming prophets, seers and revelators unto God’s people, if they will receive them. It should be just so with these men who are High Priests in Israel. The Presidents of Stakes and their counselors, the Bishops of wards and their counselors, should so live before God as to be prophets, seers and revelators to their people. Every man having the authority of the Priesthood—and we are a whole army of Priesthood, over a hundred quorums of Seventies existing among us—who is at the head of a family should be a prophet, seer and revelator to his household. These brethren that are sitting by me have been in obscurity. These providences of God that have been calculated to place righteous men where they would have to find their way to their God by the prayer of faith, by the light of the Spirit and by the power of the Holy Priesthood. It is necessary that these things should be so understood, and that we should grow up into Christ our living Head. As a child has to be weaned from its mother’s breast, so Elders should get knowledge and understanding of their duties to their families, their duties to the Church, their duties to the human family, so that they may stand in the light of truth and take the same food and bread of life from the table of the Lord as the child when it leaves its mother’s breast and has to sit at the table beside her and masticate its own food. ¶

It is interesting to contemplate this, and sometimes alarmingly so when we see brethren so far forget themselves in any of the pursuits of life as to indulge in anything like strife, or contention, or animosity. It looks as if we had come to times when these things were very threatening among God’s people; and as Brother Cannon has nicely put it, they are principles of danger among us. Men have no right to get so animated and over-anxious about anything, striving or contending for any matter, as that they can push down another brother to climb up on his downfall. None of us have any right to speak evil of each other in order to get a good name ourselves. We have no right to impair the character of our brethren, or their honest convictions, in order that we may get the ascendency over them. It is an abomination in the sight of God for any man to do it, and vastly more that Saints should do it, who have with their lips professed their belief that it is their duty not to speak evil of each other, nor of the Lord’s anointed. We ought to be careful of these things. I would exhort you, my brethren, in this, that while you indulge in these things which look to animosity towards your brethren who may differ from you on any question, you are taking that course that shall put out the light which should shine upon your understanding; whereas, if any man would defer to his brother, in honor preferring one another, the love of God would abound, their souls would be strengthened, and every man would go on in the growth of the principles of righteousness. And this course we must pursue if we go forward. If we do not, we cannot come to a standstill, therefore we shall retrograde. I would say to all brethren who are anywise addicted to these things, set a watch at the door of your lips and another at the doors of your hearts, and sanctify the Lord in all your ways, and not feel that the Kingdom of God is going to be upset or overthrown by your doing, or not doing. The work is the Lord’s; and if we will be true to Him and to the principles of His Gospel which we have taken upon us to do, He will bear us off triumphant. He knows how to make the wrath of men to praise Him. He knows how to build us up in our holy faith, if we will preserve ourselves by our own faithfulness from the powers of sin and Satan. ¶

Then the spirit of revelation is what we want continually. The world are astounded at the idea of revelation, when they are getting full of it themselves and they don’t know it. Ever since the time this work commenced, or thereabouts, great inventions have been coming forth concerning the use of steam. It was about this time that Mr. Watts heard the tea kettle rattle by the power of steam, and learned to use it and apply it. Others have used it in their inventions since. Just so it was with other men; Benjamin Franklin running up a kite, putting a key on it, that he might bring down the electric fluid with safety and do no harm. Men have ever since been finding out how to harness the lightning and make it convey intelligence, transport light and numerous comforts to the human family all over the earth and through the depths of the sea, until the various nations are becoming much more like one great family, and we hear from everywhere each twenty-four hours. Revelation is among them. They ought to acknowledge it and give God the praise. Some of them do. We all should. Their knowledge is knowledge of science; but the knowledge that God gives to His people by the Holy Spirit and the power of the Priesthood is the knowledge that is concerning Him, His ways and will, and what we ought to do to please Him, to bless and exalt ourselves, to love and glorify Him in all our operations. ¶

Nor have we got all the revelations we are to have. The Lord has left precious promises on the pages of holy writ that He will give us more of it. Although the human family are wrought up to their present condition of opposition against revelation, I want to remind them, if there is anybody within the sound of my voice that thinks we have all the revelations we are to have, they are greatly mistaken. If you will read the 37th chapter of Ezekiel, you will find there the Lord spoke through the Prophet and told him to take some sticks. That is curious we would think nowadays. It would seem a great deal more curious if the Lord had said to the Prophet, take a book, for they did not know anything about books. They had the law rolled up on sticks, and He told him to take two sticks, and write upon one, “For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions;” and on the other, “For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions.” “And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these? Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him , even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.” ¶

We have the Bible and the Book of Mormon, and we have the promise that we shall have another record that will come from the house of Israel. The Lord told us that when we began to spread this Gospel to the Lamanites and the house of Israel, we might know that the work of the Lord had commenced among all the branches of the house of Israel. Well, it has; but we don’t know much about it. But there are the ten tribes in the north, and messengers to them too. The Lord told the brethren once concerning the Revelator John, “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?” The last that we hear of John’s persecutors is that they put him into a caldron of boiling oil, but he came out unhurt—as miraculous as when the Hebrew children went into the fiery furnace. And that John is ministering to the house of Israel in distant portions of the earth, or wherever they are and a record is going to come from them to us—the same as the Book of Mormon and the Bible have come to us, and they three shall become one. That means they shall contain the same doctrines, the same principles, the same Gospel of salvation, and these three shall come together and be one in the hands of God’s Elders in these last days; and we or our children will live to see this come to pass. So that the human family and the Latter-day Saints need not contract their minds nor limit their faith to think we have got all the word of God we are to have. It would be a good thing for us if we would read and study more what we have got. We would then be better prepared for the rest when it shall come. ¶

The promise of this union of these records is found in the Book of Mormon, II Nephi, 29th chap: ¶

For I command all men, both in the east and in the west, and in the north, and in the south, and in the islands of the sea, that they shall write the words which I speak unto them: for out of the books which shall be written, I will judge the world, every man according to their works, according that which is written. ¶

And it shall come to pass that the Jews shall have the words of the Nephites, and the Nephites shall have the words of the Jews; and the Nephites and the Jews shall have the words of the lost tribes of Israel; and the lost tribes of Israel shall have the words of the Nephites and the Jews. ¶

I would like to explain a certain principle contained in the law. You know that it is given unto us in the Book of Covenants that in our testimonies before the tribunals of the Church, by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word must be established. That was the method that was given by Moses in his law to the children of Israel. They had to have proof, and by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word must be established. Now, then, the Lord went and planted one vine away off in the nethermost part of the vineyard; he planted another in another part of the vineyard, and that was better than the first; and he planted another in another part of the vineyard, that was the worst part of all the vineyard. When the work of the Father commences in all these branches of Israel, that will be such a work, and similar to, this among us, and they will write an account of those things, as we are writing them and keeping a history of God’s work, and when they come forth and become united as one people on the land of promise they will bring their records with them; and these three records will be three great testimonies to all the branches of the house of Israel, and the whole human family, concerning His work, and in the mouth of these three witnesses His great eternal purposes of the last days shall be established before the heavens and the earth, and all men that contend against these principles will be placed without excuse. ¶

The whole principles is life and revelation in each of us, life and revelation in the Church in these days, here among us and everywhere, in all the regions where His work is going on. We ought to understand this principle, and cultivate it, and keep the exercise and love of it growing within us. The more we get to know the more we see there is to learn, and the greater is our desire to learn. We come to know more of the things of God, both for time and for eternity. Thus by a faithful righteous life and godly conversation we can preserve our tabernacles in such condition that the Spirit can dwell with us, and we can have the ministration of the still small voice by day and the voice of dreams by night, and by other means that the Lord is willing to give to His people, that we may grow up into Christ our living head. For my part, in seeing this and looking at the work of the Lord in its progress, I feel that we have great reason to rejoice and be glad and praise His holy name for the work of His doing; to enlarge our hearts and increase our understandings by the comprehension of His will and His designs, so that we may be pliant ministers and laborers in His hands, to do according to His pleasure. He has brought us out unto this land that was a desert, and made it a choice land—a land which he promised unto Joseph, and He told him that the land should be blessed with the dew of heaven, and with the precious things brought forth by the sun, and those brought forth by the moon, and the precious things of the everlasting hills. And we are right here among them. These hills are full of nearly every kind of mineral that can benefit and bless mankind, even to the sulfur. ¶

Well, this Zion that the Lord has compassion upon us to establish, is His work. He has brought us through some little trials, we ought to be benefited, refined and profited by them, and be willing to employ ourselves, our strength, our means, and what talents the Lord may give unto us, to the advancement and progress of His holy work. This is the way I feel about it, my brethren and sisters, and this is what we want to cultivate and encourage. These works that He has commenced in all the branches of Israel, what are they? Such works as He has begun with us here, in establishing the fulness of the Everlasting Gospel among us. We are preparing Temples. Think of it! A Temple in Kirtland was dedicated. The Saints received endowments therein. A Temple was built in Nauvoo, and the fulness of the endowments was revealed just before then, and many of the Saints received their blessings therein. Then again how the Lord has blessed us to get four Temples here in Utah, the fourth almost ready for dedication, and quite ready for the top-stone to be laid, which you are all filled with interest and anxiety to see accomplished. Now then, if the work of the Father, begun among the ten tribes and among the other branches of the house of Israel is very similar to what is here, and they are receiving knowledge of God, being built up in faith, being established in righteousness, and these men that have never tasted death—the three Nephites and the Apostle John—are busy working to bring to pass righteousness and to carry out the purposes of God; it won’t be long till we or our generations after us will see them and have fellowship with them; when wickedness is moved out of the way and violators of righteousness cleansed out of the land, and the Lord’s Kingdom established, then it will be glorious. Then holy ones from on high will come and minister among us. We ought to anticipate these times with pleasure increasing with delight, because now is our salvation nearer than when we believed, and it is growing nearer continually; and if we are diligent and faithful, so will the influence thereof and the power thereof increase, until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. The dawning of that day has come, and Israel’s sons and daughters are gathering home. ¶

The Lord is refining His people, and has us in the crucible, to deal with us, and refine us, and prepare us that He may get away the dross from us, and that we may become pure and holy, acceptable before Him; for He has said, by the mouth of His prophets, that the day shall come when a man shall be more precious than fine gold. We would think if we had a lump of gold as large as the smallest man among us that it was very precious. If then, when the Lord has tried us and found that we will not sin against Him, but will walk with Him, sanctify ourselves, purge away our dress, and we become more precious than fine gold, how supremely precious a man will be in the eyes of God, and in the estimation of his brethren! We ought to try to add this interesting character to each other, and not to speak diminutively of each other, that we may be lifted up. The Lord does not delight in such things; but they who are given to working righteousness, despising the gain of the oppressors, and withholding their hands from the taking of bribes, they are the class of men that will live and dwell in the munitions of rocks, dwell in the everlasting burnings, and be counted able to stand, as the three Hebrew children did, and as Father Abraham did, and as a great many other faithful ones have done that have gone before us at one time and another. We want to live and get to that standard that we can be able to entertain these things. Why, we want to live so that the time may come of the translation—that change from mortality to immortality. The glorious promise is that children shall grow up to the age of a tree, and then they shall not die to sleep in the earth, but shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. The increasing revelation and the power of godliness is going to bring God’s people to a state of union by and by that we will look back upon these days of trial and smile over them; and be thankful for them, and bless God that we have been permitted to go through them. ¶

This is our time, to see how we will use it; to see, whether by the blessings of God we will sanctify ourselves before Him, and he prepared for something more and better in the realms of life, and light, and glory, and go into the Temples and do those things which may enter into the works of futurity and for those that have gone before us, turning the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to their fathers, so that we may rejoice with them when we go to them on the other side of the veil, and we with them come back and inherit the earth, the everlasting possession which is promised unto the faithful and the meek which Christ said “shall inherit the earth.” ¶

Brethren and sisters, I feel as though everything around us, everything above us, is inviting and beckoning us on to work righteousness, to depart from the wickedness of the human family and worship God in spirit and in truth, establish His altar in every house and habitation, and so study the laws of the Priesthood and the everlasting Gospel that we can become godly, become the sons and daughters of the living God, and be prepared for all the great eternal purposes that He has to reveal, and that He has to carry out for the regeneration of His people and the earth for them to live upon. ¶

And that we may be possessed of this Spirit, and animated by it, that we may continue in it, and that we may love and do the will of God while we dwell here, and be prepared to come with the righteous when they shall return to live and reign on the earth, is my prayer, my desire, and my constant labor with you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶