Orson Pratt

“ This world is full of sin, sorrow, affliction, and death, and mankind see nothing, as it were, but mourning and sorrow, from their birth until they go down to the grave; then why send these heavenly spirits to dwell in mortal tabernacles, corrupt, fallen, and degraded as we are in this world? It is to learn, as I have already said, certain lessons that we never could learn up in yonder mansions. ”

“ I answer that our globe will become the abiding place of all the Saints from the days of Father Adam until the time that it passes away and is renewed again and becomes glorified, after which the tabernacle of God will be with men, and he will wipe away all tears from their eyes, and this creation from that time henceforth and for ever will be free from sorrow; and from that period to all the ages of eternity there will be no more death, for death will be swallowed up in victory. ”

“ We can endure and rejoice in its present light and glory. It gives light and heat to the surrounding worlds, and thus renders them fit habitations for intelligent human beings. But were it glorified, as it will be hereafter, and as our earth will be, men such as we are, clothed with mortality, would be overpowered, we could not stand in the presence of its glory without being consumed. This earth, therefore, is destined to become one of the heavenly mansions. ”

“ When a man goes to sleep at night he forgets the doings of the day. Sometimes a partial glimpse of them will disturb his slumbers; but sleep as a general thing, and especially sound sleep, throws out of the memory everything pertaining to the past; but when we awake in the morning, with that wakefulness returns a vivid recollection of our past history and doings. So it will be when we come up into the presence of our Father and God in the mansion whence we emigrated to this world. ”

“ Is man thus capacitated? Was not Jacob the patriarch of old capable of raising posterity by all his wives? He certainly was; and were not many of the ancient prophets and inspired men capable of raising twenty, forty, fifty, or a hundred children, while the females could only raise a very limited number on an average. In the resurrection, when the four wives of Jacob come out of their graves, will he divorce three of them and only keep one? or will they all multiply and spread forth their dominions under the old patriarch while eternal ages shall last? ”

“ There is no end to the worlds that might be formed, for the materials existing in space from which to form them are infinite in quantity, and consequently can never be exhausted; for that which is infinite can, by no process whatever, be exhausted, no matter how many millions or myriads of creations may be formed out of it; and, consequently, though millions and millions, through their observance of the higher law that pertains to exaltation and glory, should be counted worthy to receive this earth as their everlasting inheritance ”

“ Well might the Jews, when considering these promises, and looking upon the bones of Jacob and their old forefathers, who were righteous men, bleaching, as it were, in their sepulchers, be ready to find fault and say: "Our bones are dried, our hope is lost, the promise is not fulfilled, and we are cut off from our portion—that is the promised land given to us for an everlasting inheritance." ”

“ The first example of marriage on record was between two immortal beings—two beings who would have lived until now if they had not sinned, and the end of that marriage covenant would never have come; but notwithstanding this, throughout the whole Christian world, when the marriage ceremony is performed the minister stands up and says: "I pronounce you husband and wife until death does you separate;" when death separates you the marriage covenant is at an end. Can they live together after the resurrection by virtue of these covenants made by uninspired men? ”

“ We might say, with great propriety, when a man is martyred or burned at the stake, his body has fled away, its present organization is dissolved, and its elements are resolved into their original condition, and perhaps united with and dispersed among many other elements of our globe; but in the resurrection these elements are brought together again and the body reorganized, not into a temporal or mortal tabernacle, but into an eternal house or abiding place for the spirit of man. So the earth will pass away, and its elements be dispersed in space ”

“ You begin to understand, strangers, what the Latter-day Saints' views are in regard to the multiplication of the human species to all ages of eternity. You begin to understand what is meant by that passage in the New Testament in the writings of Paul, that the man is not without the woman in the Lord, neither is the woman without the man. You will find it in the eleventh verse of the eleventh chapter of Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians. Here is a mystery which the whole religious world perhaps have not understood. ”

“ When we speak, therefore, of God being omnipresent we do not mean that His person is omnipresent, we mean that His wisdom, power, glory, greatness, goodness, and all the characteristics of His eternal attributes are manifested and spread abroad throughout all the creations that He has made. ”

“ If those prophets and inspired men, such as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Samuel, and others to whom the word of God came were Gods in embryo why do you find fault with the only begotten of the Father, so far as the flesh is concerned, because he makes himself the Son of God? ”

“ As our Father and God begat us, sons and daughters, so will we rise immortal, males and females, and beget children, and, in our turn, form and create worlds, and send forth our spirit children to inherit those worlds, the same as we were sent here, and thus will the works of God continue, and not only God himself, and His Son Jesus Christ have the power of endless lives, but all of His redeemed offspring. ”

“ God has formed more worlds than can possibly be enumerated or numbered by man. If it were possible for man to count the particles of this little earth of ours; if he were able to enumerate the figures that would express these particles, it would scarcely be a beginning to the number of the mansions which God has made in the eternal ages that have passed—mansions that were made, first temporal and afterwards redeemed and made eternal. ”

“ But if eternity is His house, habitation, or residence, what are the mansions referred to by our Savior, mentioned in the text? I understand them to be places that the Creator has constructed like this present world of ours; for this world, in its future history and progress, will no doubt become one of the mansions of the Father, wherein His glory will be made manifest as it is in many other redeemed worlds. I consider that this idea of mansions has reference more especially to celestial mansions, or worlds that have been redeemed and made celestial. ”

“ If the spirit returns to God, it has been there before, and we are only strangers here, having been sent forth from our Father's house to one of His mansions in its imperfect state. What for? To try us and give us experience, to place us in a school in which we may learn some things that we never could have learned if we had stayed at home, where we were at the time this earth was formed. By and by we will return home again. There is something comforting in the anticipation of returning home when we have been away for a long time; but if we never had been in heaven, in our Father's house ”

“ I understand that God is a Being who, as the Scriptures declare, inhabits eternity. Eternity is His dwelling place, and in this eternity are vast numbers of worlds—creations formed by His mighty hands ”

“ It is declared in many places that eternity is His habitation. He is not the God of one little world like ours; He is not a Being who presides over a few isolated worlds in one part of eternity, and all the rest left to go at random; He is not confined to the worlds that are made, comparatively speaking, today; but all worlds, past, present, and future, from eternity to eternity, may be considered His dominions, and His places of residence, and He is omnipresent. ”

“ It is not legal in the sight of heaven for eternity. But when a man is united to a woman by virtue of that priesthood which has power to seal on the earth and it is sealed in heaven, their marriage covenant is not dissolved, but it will stand and be good and lawful as long as eternity endures, just like the covenant entered into by our first parents. Perhaps you may think that Brother Pratt is rather enthusiastic and fanatical in his ideas to suppose that immortal beings can multiply ”

“ You might tell the blind man, who never saw the first glimmer of light about its beauties, you might speak of its various hues and colors, and of the benefit of being able to see, but what could you make him understand? ”

“ I then could not understand the description of the heaven they sang about, I could not comprehend how any place could be located outside the bounds of space, which is illimitable, and has no bounds, consequently I concluded that it was merely the poet's flight, and that it was not a scriptural doctrine, for when I came to the Scriptures I found that the heavenly place spoken of by the ancient prophets that we are to look forward to is in our land, if we can find where that is. There are a great many people, though, who will not have any land, for the Lord never gave them any. ”

“ Learn to understand by experience many things pertaining to the flesh that we never could learn there, that when we should be redeemed by the blood and atonement of our elder brother, the firstborn of every creature, and brought back into the mansions whence we emigrated we might appreciate that redemption, and understand and comprehend it by experience and not by precept alone. We might bring up many arguments with regard to experimental knowledge. Who that is born blind can know by experience, or in any other way, the nature of light? ”

“ If a man would obtain an eternal increase and eternal kingdoms without number for his posterity to inhabit, under the direction and control of Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords, he must secure the right to these blessings in this life. When Adam and Eve were married they were married for eternity, from the very fact that they were united together before they fell, before death entered into the world. Death was not considered in the marriage covenant. ”

“ When we get there we will behold the face of our Father, the face of our mother, for we were begotten there the same as we are begotten by our fathers and mothers here, and hence our spirits are the children of God, legally and lawfully, in the same sense that we are the children of our parents here in this world. ”

“ They grow up like the parents; that is a law of nature so far as this world is concerned. Every kind of being begets its own like, and when fully matured and grown up the offspring become like the parent. So the offspring of the Almighty, who begot us, will grow up and become literally Gods, or the sons of God. Here is another doctrine wherein we differ from the world, perhaps not so much differ either, for they do sometimes believe in that passage of scripture which speaks of Gods. ”

“ When this world was formed, no doubt, it was a very beautiful creation, for God is not the author of anything imperfect. If we have imperfections in our world God has had nothing to do with their introduction or origin, man has brought them upon himself and upon the earth he inhabits. ”

“ These spirits from all nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples were rejoicing in the great day when they should receive their resurrected bodies and return again to their old homestead—the earth, to receive their kingdoms, thrones, and dominions. "We shall reign on the earth!" Not come to be persecuted and driven about as the meek always have been when the wicked have had power ”

“ For the want of experience; he must experience the sense of sight or he cannot understand its worth. When his eyes are opened and the light beams forth upon the optic nerve it creates a new experience, by calling into play a new sense, and he learns something he did not before comprehend. ”

“ No man, by his own wisdom, understands the wants of his fellow-creatures in all respects, but the Spirit of the Most High understands the circumstances of all the people, and that spirit, having all power and wisdom, is capable of moving upon the hearts of His servants to speak in the very moment what is most adapted to the condition of the people. ”

“ Not personally; this would be impossible, for a person can only be in one place at the same instant, whether he be an immortal or a mortal personage; whether he be high, exalted, and filled with all power, wisdom, glory, and greatness, or poor, ignorant, and humble. So far as the materials are concerned, a personage can only occupy one place at the same moment. ”

“ Six thousand years, according to the best idea that we have of chronology, are now about completed; we are living almost on the eve of the last of the six millenniums—a thousand years are called a millenium—and to-morrow, we may say, will be the seventh ”