Orson Pratt

“ But these persons who hear the Gospel, as the nations of the present dispensation are doing, can not go to prison, it is not their place. They fall below a prison, into outer darkness or hell, where there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. There they have to remain with the devil and his angels in torment and misery until the final end, then they come forth. Can they come where God and Christ dwell? No, worlds without end they cannot come there. Can they go into the presence of the heathen where the glory is that of the moon? ”

“ Is the Lord less just than man? Is he not filled with the great principles of justice far beyond that which any man ever did receive? From him have emanated all our ideas of justice, consequently we cannot look upon him as a being who would consign the poor heathen who died without a knowledge of the law, and others who have led moral lives but who have not obeyed the Gospel of the Son of God, to the same punishment as the murderer and him who sheds innocent blood. ”

“ If we do not wish to be placed in their society for all eternity we must abide in the covenant that we have made. If we do this, Latter-day Saints, glory and honor and immortality and eternal lives, and thrones and kingdoms and dominions and creations and worlds will be given to us, and our posterity will increase until, like the sand on the sea shore, they cannot be numbered. ”

“ Now persons among the Latter-day Saints who do not enter into this covenant of marriage but prefer to lead a single life can not enjoy all that fullness of exaltation which will be possessed by those who have had this covenant sealed upon them. They might not have forfeited the blessing of celestial glory altogether, but they have forfeited the right to have wives by which only they could have a posterity in the eternal worlds. Who will be the subjects in the kingdom which they will rule who are exalted in the celestial kingdom of our God? Will they reign over their neighbors' children? ”

“ God has revealed to this people what is needful for an exaltation in his kingdom. He has revealed to us, as we heard from Elder Hyde this afternoon, that marriage is destined for eternity as well as time,—that the marriage covenant between male and female must be entered into in this life, and the ordinance performed here by those whom God has appointed and ordained to hold the keys and authority to seal on earth that it may be sealed in heaven; for in heaven there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage ”

“ Again, when we look upon those twinkling stars in the firmament of heaven, we see some shining with a much greater brilliancy than others, and they are divided into classes by astronomers, and ranked according to their magnitude, or according to the intensity of the light they shed forth upon our world, not according to the real nature of the stars, because they are too far off for us to judge of that, only we know that they are suns, the centres of systems, and that they shine by their own radiance ”

“ Until the "little season" has passed away after the end of the thousand years, and then when the final end shall come and the trump of God shall sound, and the great white throne shall appear and the heaven and the earth shall flee away; when that time shall come, the sound of the trump shall call forth those sleeping millions of all ages, generations and nations who have heard the sound of the Gospel and have not obeyed it, but until then their bodies must sleep. They are not worthy of the first resurrection." ”

“ There is no halfway business with us—we have got to remain faithful to this covenant, for if we turn away from it we can not even claim the glory that the world will have when the last resurrection shall come, but our doom is fixed—we have to dwell with the devil and his angels to all eternity. ”

“ It would look inconsistent to us, even here in this life, to see a person guilty of but a small crime against the laws of our country thrust into the same dungeon with the murderer. It would be unjust, for instance, according to our notions, for a person who has committed but a trifling offence against the law to be thrust into the darkest and deepest dungeon along with him who has shed innocent blood. We have sufficient justice in our own bosoms to classify these individuals and to point out to each the apartment in which he is to dwell. ”

“ We read that God is the Father of our spirits, the Father of the spirits of all flesh Moses calls him. The Apostle James tells the Saints in his day, that we have fathers in the flesh who have corrected us, how much more ought we to be obedient to the Father of our spirits and live?
What will become of the old bachelor who refuses to obey the ordinance of marriage? We have preached to the young men of this Territory, and laid before them the sacredness of the marriage covenant. ”

“ Sometimes a subject will open to my mind while I am listening to the singers, and sometimes I rise without having the first thing before my mind to speak to the people, and I trust in God to give me what is needful at the very moment. This is the case with me this evening, and I do humbly pray to my Father in heaven, in the name of his beloved Son, that he will grant unto me the Spirit to discern what to say and what would be most adapted to the wants of those who are present. ”

“ There will never be any such thing there as being from under their father's rule, no matter whether twenty-one or twenty-one thousand years of age, it will make no difference, they will still be subject to the laws of their Patriarch or Father, and they must observe and obey them throughout all eternity. There is only one way by which children can be freed from that celestial law and order of things, and that is by rebellion. They are agents, and they can rebel against God and against the order of things he has instituted there, just as Satan and the fallen angels rebelled and turned away. ”

“ We should regard it as unjust if all these classes were to be thrust into one place, there to welter under the same conditions of punishment throughout the endless ages of eternity without any hope of redemption. I could not look upon this as just, and I presume that no other reflecting being could, especially if he was acquainted with the Scriptures. Jesus, in speaking upon this subject, says—"He that knows his master's will and does it not shall be beaten with many stripes;" while he who is ignorant of his master's will and does things that are worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few. ”

“ Some who will inherit a portion of that glory will have no families, they will be deprived of that blessing to all ages of eternity, while others will receive an exaltation and kingdom, and will have wives, children, dominion, greatness and power far above those I first referred to. ”

“ Who are these angels? Some of them have never yet come to take upon them bodies of flesh and bones, but they will come in their times, seasons and generations and receive their tabernacles, the same as we have done. Then there are others who were resurrected when Jesus was, when the graves of the Saints were opened and many came forth and showed themselves to those who were then living in the flesh. Besides these there are angels who have been to this world and have never yet received a resurrection, whose spirits have gone hence into celestial paradise, and there await the resurrection. ”

“ Sometimes strangers attend our meetings who would be glad to have us dwell upon certain subjects, which they think would greatly interest them. We are willing to do so, but still we study to have the Spirit to edify all, whether they be in the Church, or whether they be strangers who are here on a visit.
Among the peculiarities which God has revealed directly to the Latter-day Saints may be mentioned the various degrees of happiness and glory which exist in the eternal world, also the various degrees of punishment upon the different classes of individuals. ”

“ The increase of those who are exalted in that kingdom will endure for ever; and the bringing forth of children will not be attended with sorrow, pain and distress as it is here: these evils have come in consequence of the fall of man and the transgression by him of God's holy laws. But when men are redeemed to immortality and eternal life there will be no pain, sorrow or affliction of body, and yet children will be brought forth, and to their increase there will be no end. ”

“ Because God has revealed to us that persons who have this light and knowledge, and shed innocent blood, cannot be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come, and we should not ask him to do that which he has decreed that he will not do. ”

“ The word "converted" has been construed to be born of God," or to become a new creature; but the true meaning of the word is to reform our lives converted from doing that which is evil to do that which is good—turning from sin and transgression to that which is righteous before God. If those Jews would repent and turn or be converted from their sins to do that which was right they had a hope of having their sins blotted out when Jesus should be sent from the presence of the Father in the times of restitution; but until then they must remain in torment suffering for their sins. ”

“ There was a man in ancient times named David, and because he was a man after God's own heart, the Lord chose him to be king over Israel. The Lord also greatly blessed this man, and poured out richly upon him the spirit of prophecy and revelation, and many of his psalms, which we now sing with so much pleasure in our meetings contain prophecies relating to the most remote generations of the human family. This man was a Prophet and Revelator, he was filled with the Holy Ghost and spoke as he was moved upon by that Spirit. God loved him, and said that he was a man after his own heart. ”

“ Such a person commits the unpardonable sin—he sheds innocent blood after having the light of the Holy Ghost, knowing that in so doing he is not only sinning against God the Father and against his Son, but against the convictions of the Holy Ghost. ”

“ We are what the Lord calls Latter-day Saints—we have received light and knowledge to that degree from the heavens that will, if obeyed, exalt us to these high privileges of which I have been speaking. ”

“ We all know that the sand on the sea shore is innumerable to us. If we take a handful it numbers its tens of thousands of grains, and if Abraham's seed are to become as numerous as the sands on the sea shore they will fill a great many worlds like this of ours. ”

“ A prison is designed for those who never heard the Gospel here in the flesh, but yet have committed a few sins without the knowledge of the revealed law, and who have to be beaten with few stripes in prison. ”

“ They will be of the same class and nature, and they will have to take their position in worlds that will be created for them the same as we came from heaven to this world, that we might gain knowledge and experience that we could not gain in any other way. Thus will the Lord continue his work and purposes, and there will be one eternal round in creation, and redemption, in the formation and redemption of worlds, and bringing them back into his presence. ”

“ Why he had taken his neighbor's wife, a person he had no claim upon, and he not only committed adultery by thus taking the wife of another, but by his order her lawful husband was placed in front of the battle that he might be destroyed, and he was destroyed, hence, though he himself did not thrust a dagger to his heart, he became a murderer in the sight of heaven by having this man placed where his blood would be shed. ”

“ This plainly indicates to us that certain classes of sins can not be forgiven in that world, while other classes of sins may be forgiven on certain conditions. He that sins against the Holy Ghost, we are told, shall not receive forgiveness. Men can sin against God the Father, and if they repent in this world, they may be forgiven; if they sin against Jesus his Son, and repent and work the works of righteousness, these sins may be blotted out ”

“ Then this angel went on to explain to our first parents why these offerings were made and why they were commanded to shed the blood of beasts, telling them that all these things were typical of the great and last sacrifice that should be offered up for all mankind, namely the Son of the living God. ”

“ We are also told in the Scriptures that there is a great variety of punishments as well as glories—these punishments differing in nature according to the works of the children of men. For instance we read of some persons who are to be punished for sins they have committed without; any chance of forgiveness either in this world or in the world to come. ”

“ There is to be no end to the increase of the old Patriarch, and, as his posterity increases, world on world will be created and brought into existence, and those children will be sent forth from the presence of the Patriarch to take upon themselves bodies, as we have done here in this world. ”

“ Because they are not prepared for it. I do not say but what they may in some future age, according to the purposes of God, be led along from one step to another, until, finally, some of them attain to celestial glory. ”

“ He told David, the king, that a certain poor man had but one ewe lamb, and his rich neighbor, close by, had a great flock, and there came along a stranger, and the rich man went to this poor man's fold and took the only sheep he had and dressed it in order to make a sumptuous feast for the stranger. ”