Brigham Young

“ Now, ask yourselves whether you believe that the Holy Ghost ever commenced to produce a work or an effect before it was in the heart and mind of that Being we call our heavenly Father. Do you think that the Holy Ghost ever thought of dictating that Being we call our God? ”

“ Have we not learned enough with regard to the character of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to at once believe, admit, and affirm that the Holy Ghost always has and always will operate precisely according to the suggestion of the Father? ”

“ We are looking forward to the period when we shall be in the presence of the Father and the Son—when we shall realize that we are indeed the sons of God, and be crowned with glory, immortality, and eternal lives. ”

“ You will be no more perfect in your sphere, when you are exalted to thrones, principalities, and powers, than you are required to be and are capable of being in your sphere to-day. The man that may be called a perfect man is perfect in every calling and sphere, as the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost are in theirs, and as the angels are in theirs, which makes a perfect order from first to last—from beginning to end. ”

“ He cannot ask amiss, for the faith of this people is concentrated through him to the throne of grace. That is a true principle—as true as the heavens.
Our faith is concentrated in the Son of God, and through him to the Father; and the Holy Ghost is their minister to bring truths to our remembrance, to reveal new truths to us, and teach, guide, and direct the course of every mind, until we become perfected and prepared to go home, where we can see and converse with our Father in heaven. That is what we want to attain—that we can all the time have the word of the Lord for ourselves. ”

“ I acknowledge that it is a masterwork to school our minds so as at all times to exercise complete power over them. If the people would so educate themselves as to control their thinking powers, they would derive a great advantage from it. ”

“ All rational beings have an agency of their own; and according to their own choice they will be saved or damned.
Inasmuch as the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one, the desire of the Saviour, as manifested in his sayings and teachings, is that his people should also be one, even as he and his Father are one. If we had the heart, feeling, and faith within us that Jesus had while here in the flesh, should we be scattering in our faith?—should we be divided in our interests? ”

“ I have uniformly exhorted the people to obtain this living witness each for themselves; then no man on earth can lead them astray. It is my calling and office to dictate in the affairs of the Church and kingdom of God on earth. That is what yea have chosen me to do for many years, with brother Heber and others for my Counsellors, two of whom have passed behind the vail; and I now have a third—brother Daniel H. Wells, who is as good a man as ever lived. You have asked me to tell the people what to do to be saved—to be the mouth of God to this people. Does your faith agree with your profession? ”

“ He knew that if they did not become one, they could not be saved in the celestial kingdom of God. If persons do not see as he aid while in the flesh, hear as he heard, understand as he understood, and become precisely as he was, according to their several capacities and callings, they can never dwell with him and his Father. That same principle stands out as the most prominent item of teaching in all the teachings and revelations that have ever been given from heaven to men on the earth. ”

“ No: we should become one. I have not time to tell you why this people are not identically one; but to the discerning mind the Holy Spirit will manifest the reason in a moment—will lay it before you like an open vision, and you will at once be able to discern thousands of reasons for it. Are they capable of being one? ”

“ You have often heard me and my brethren say that if the people in the capacity of a Ward, for instance, would let their faith be perfectly united, and their whole desires rise to the Father, through the name of Jesus Christ, and hold their Bishop in his calling between God and them, it would hardly be possible for that Bishop to do wrong, for he would be filled with wisdom. ”

“ I have frequently thought that I should be very happy if I could hear the Elders of Israel speak their feelings and impart their knowledge pertaining to their fellow-beings, to earthly things, to heavenly things, to godliness, and God. ”

“ The closer people apply their minds to any correct purpose the faster they can grow and increase in the knowledge of the truth. When they learn to master their feelings, they can soon learn to master their reflections and thoughts in the degree requisite for attaining the objects they are seeking. But while they yield to a feeling or spirit that distracts their minds from a subject they wish to study and learn, so long they will never gain the mastery of their minds. So it is with persons who yield to temptation and wickedness. ”

“ The breath of the Almighty can scatter our enemies to the four winds and blow them into oblivion, if we have the faith. You can read how the kings, prophets and mighty men in Israel used to slay their fellow-beings—required so to do, because of the wickedness of those very men who stood at the head of Israel. If they had been sanctified and holy, the children of Israel would not have travelled one year with Moses before they would have received their endowments and the Melchisedec Priesthood. ”

“ Your Bishop is laid down by the master workman as the conductor of the Holy Ghost to you. If you put that conductor out of its place, the connection is broken between you and the fountain of light. If you see a Bishop and his Ward in contention and confusion, you may understand that the pipe or conductor which conveys the light of that people is out of its place. Instead of the Bishop's being wrong, and the people right, or the people wrong, and the Bishop right, they are all wrong: there is little or no right there. ”

“ Were you to let your minds stretch out, you would learn that the whole kingdom, with its principles, powers, authority, glory, and everything pertaining to it, is combined in the organization of man ready to be developed. We must commence and school ourselves, and so bring our reflections into subjection, that we can make our minds one in faith. ”

“ If we never exhibit the knowledge within us, the people will not know really whether we have any. Interchanging our ideas and exhibiting that which we believe and understand affords an opportunity for detecting and correcting errors and increasing our stock of valuable information. ”

“ The sooner an individual resists temptation to do, say, or think wrong, while he has light to correct his judgment, the quicker he will gain strength and power to overcome every temptation to evil.
Let the people study to bring their thinking or reflecting faculties into subjection. We are preaching principles that belong to this subject every day of our lives. Last Sabbath I spoke upon the concentration of faith, of action, of feeling, of reflection. That is a matter I often reflect upon, because I am called into circumstances that bring it before me every time I hear a man pray. ”

“ If you will do that, you will find that the wicked will forsake their wickedness, and those who are inclined to think evil will cease doing so, and those who are inclined to utter evil words about their neighbours will cease that habit, and it will not be long before the people have perfect control over themselves. If you first gain power to check your words, you will then begin to have power to check your judgment, and at length actually gain power to check your thoughts and reflections. ”

“ Yes, if they will in all things bring their wills into subjection to the will of the Father.
If any are in the habit of taking the name of God in vain, cease doing so to-day, to-morrow, and throughout the coming week, and so continue, and you will soon gain strength to entirely overcome the habit; you will gain power over your words. ”

“ Do you not all firmly believe that the whole soul, heart, reflections, thoughts, and all the being of the Son of God were operated upon and did show forth that all be did manifest and bring forth pertaining to his mission was according to the word and will of his Father? ”

“ In their exaltation, one may be capable of presiding over ten cities, while another may not be capable of presiding over more than five, another over only two, and another over but one. They must all first be subjected to sin and to the calamities of mortal flesh, in order to prove themselves worthy; then the Gospel is ready to take hold of them and bring them up, unite them, enlighten their understandings, and make them one in the Lord Jesus, that their faith, prayers, hopes, affections, and all their desires may ever he concentrated, in one. ”

“ Some are quick to apprehend, while others are slow. Also while a speaker is communicating his opinions, views, and feelings, a portion of so large a congregation as this will perhaps be giving the most strict attention, while the minds of the other portion are wandering at the moment he may be advancing rich ideas, clothed in language choice and eloquent. That inattention by some leads to a difference of understanding among the people, through a misapprehension of the speaker's meaning. True, some persons may use language that a portion of the congregation are unacquainted with ”

“ We must come to the conclusion that the Son of God aid not suggest, dictate, act, or produce any manifestation of his power, of his glory, or of his errand upon the earth, only as it came from the mind and will of his Father. ”

“ If a congregation wish to be instructed so as to understand alike and alike receive an increase of wisdom and knowledge, their minds must be intent on the subject before them. They must not suffer their thoughts to be roaming over the earth; they must not permit their minds to be scanning and traversing their every-day duties and avocations. ”

“ If he continues day after day to yield himself a servant to the uncontrolled whims of his own nature and the evil influences that may be exercised upon him from without, in a few years he will be so steeped in sin as to be entirely given over to the error of his ways. ”

“ Let a presiding officer or a Bishop turn away front righteousness, and the Lord Almighty would give him the lock-jaw, if he could not stop his mouth in any other way, or send a fit of numb palsy on him, so that he could not act, as sure as the people over whom he presided were right, that they might not be led astray.
If we wish to be taught, to receive, and understand, we must train ourselves. ”

“ I am sensible that people are not gifted and capacitated alike. There is not that depth of understanding and intensity of thought in some that there is in others, neither is there the same scope of perception. ”

“ Many years ago, the Prophet Joseph observed that if the people would have received the revelations he had in his possession, and wisely acted upon them, as the Lord would dictate, they might, in their power to do and understand, have been many years ahead of what they then were. Experience has taught us that it requires time to acquire certain branches of mechanism, also all principles and ideas that we wish to become masters of. ”

“ If a man permits himself to make use of language calculated to wound his spirit and infringe upon his better judgment, and aces not try to resist that practice, when he is again tempted upon the point he is more likely to give way and to have less compunction of conscience than before. ”

“ If we are one and are concentrated in the Father, through the Lord Jesus Christ, and through the chain and thread drawn out for us to follow up, we will find the fountain head; and then, if I should ask this people to pray for a certain thing, they would pray for it. ”

“ Jesus offered up one of the most essential prayers that could possibly be offered up by a human or heavenly being—no matter who, pertaining to the salvation of the people, and embodying a principle without which none can be saved, when he prayed the Father to make his disciples one, as he and his Father were one. ”

“ By close application and study with regard to ourselves and the requirements of Heaven upon us, we shall be able to school ourselves, until, when we call upon an Elder to open our meetings, there will not be a desire, word, sentence, feeling, or impulse? ”

“ I have the same diffidence in my feelings that most public speakers have, and am apt to think that others can speak better and more edifying than I can. There are but few public speakers but what feel more or less timidity. That is probably not so much a man-fearing spirit as it is a natural delicacy or timidity. ”

“ Some are in the habit of talking about their neighbours, of vending stories they know nothing about, only that Aunt Sally said that Cousin Fanny told Aunt Betsy that old Aunt Ruth said something or other, or somebody had had a dream; and by the time the story or dream reaches you, it has assumed the semblance of a fact, and you are very foolishly spending your time in talking about things that amount to nothing, or that you have no concern with. ”

“ Unthinking persons may not fully realize the importance of these remarks; but every person who has a realizing sense of the duties devolving upon him—of the way of life and salvation—of what we are called to in the holy Gospel, must be aware of the importance of this subject to all who are determined to live their religion. ”

“ They become more and more weakened every time they yield to temptation, until they are unable to control themselves, when they are tempted either to speak unadvisedly or to run into any species of wickedness. ”

“ Let the Father reveal to you that the person you are thinking or talking about is actually wrong. Traduce no person. When you know what right is, and are capable of correcting a person that is wrong, then it is time enough for you to judge. ”