Orson Pratt

“ It is true that we have all to die by and by, and we shall be separated for a little season; but this separation is a good deal like a man's leaving his family to go on a mission: he returns after a while to his wives and children, and he has not lost the one nor has he been divorced from the other, because they have been separated. And if death separates, for a little season, those who are married according to God's law, they expect to return to each other's embraces by virtue of their former union ”

“ Marriage is an ordinance pertaining to this mortal life—to this world—this probation, just the same as baptism and the laying on of hands; it reaches forth into eternity, and has a bearing upon our future state ”

“ If you expect to have any benefits in eternity arising from your children, they must be yours legally, according to divine appointment, under a divine marriage. "What God has joined together let not man put asunder." But what has God to do with it, when a magistrate, who, perhaps, is an infidel, and does not believe in a God at all, says to a man and woman, "Join your hands together," and then, when they have done so, he says, "I pronounce you husband and wife?" What has God to do with such a marriage as that? ”

“ How happy old Jacob will be, for instance, when in the resurrection, if he has not, already been raised—a great many Saints were raised when Jesus arose and appeared to many—if Jacob did not rise then, and his four wives, and his children, how happy he will be, when he does come forth from the grave, to embrace his family, and to rejoice with them in a fulness of joy, knowing that, by virtue of that which was sealed upon him here in time, he will reign upon the earth! ”

“ We have either to renounce Mormonism, Joseph Smith, Book of Mormon, Book of Covenants, and the whole system of things as taught by the Latter-day Saints, and say that God has not raised up a Church, has not raised up a prophet, has not begun to restore all things as he promised, we are obliged to do this, or else to say, with all our hearts, "Yes, we are polygamists, we believe in the principle, and we are willing to practice it, because God has spoken from the heavens." ”

“ We can't help it; polygamy belongs to Christianity, as well as to the law of Moses.
Says one—"The children of Israel have been scattered now some 1800 years among all the nations and kindreds of the earth, in fulfillment of this curse, but if we believe that saying which you have just quoted, we are obliged to believe that the children of Israel are yet to return to attend to all these institutions, and that too while the Christian religion is in vogue, and that they are to regulate their households according to the law of God, whether those families are monogamic or polygamic." ”

“ Because the prejudice of the people is so great that they are not willing others should believe, in the whole Bible, but only in such portions as agree with their ideas. If we were instituting a practice that the Lord God never approbated, but for the punishment of which he had prescribed penalties, or if we were introducing something foreign and contrary to the Bible, then there would be some excuse for the people in saying that such a thing should not be practiced in the name of religion. But when we take the Bible as a standard in relation to crime, it is altogether another thing ”

“ In the 21st chapter of Exodus, speaking of a man who already had one wife, Moses, says—"If he take him another wife, her food, her raiment and her duty of marriage shall he not diminish." It will be recollected that this law was given to a polygamic nation. When I speak of a polygamic nation, I mean a nation that practised both plural and single marriage, and believed one form to be just as sacred as the other. Their progenitors or ancestors were polygamists; and they were considered patterns for all future generations. ”

“ I hope that they will not find fault with God for selecting polygamists to be his friends. I hope that they will not find fault with Jesus because he said, some two thousand years or upwards after the days of these polygamists, that they were in the kingdom of God, and were not condemned because of polygamy. Jesus says, speaking of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—"Many shall come from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south, and shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God." ”

“ I will tell you one way—if you will all turn infidels and burn up the Bible, and then begin to persecute, the devil will tell you that you can successfully overcome, and that God will never fulfill and accomplish his word; but if you profess to believe the Bible, by the Bible you shall be judged, for, saith the Lord, "My words shall judge you at the last day." The books will be opened, God's word will be the standard by which the nations will be judged; hence if you wish a righteous judgment I would say—Forbear, do not destroy the Bible because it advocates polygamy ”

“ The first great marriage celebrated in this world of ours—that of our first parents—is a sample of marriage that should be introduced and practiced by and among all generations and nations, so far as the eternity of its duration is concerned. ”

“ One penalty was that he should be brought before the Elders and that the widow whom he refused to marry, according to the law of God, should pluck his shoe from off his foot, and should then spit in his face, and from that time forth the house of that man should be denounced as the house of him that hath his shoe loosed, a reproach among all Israel. Instead of being a man of God, and a man to be favored by the people of God; instead of being a man such as the Christian world would now extol to the heavens because he rejected polygamy, he was a man to be scorned by all Israel. ”

“ I will go on and tell the people why polygamy was instituted in this dispensation. So far as a future state is concerned, God has revealed to us that marriage as instituted by him, is to benefit the people, not in this world only, but to all eternity. That is what the Lord has revealed. Do not misunderstand me; do not suppose that I mean, that marriage and giving in marriage are to be performed after the resurrection; I have not stated any such thing, and there will be no such thing after the resurrection. ”

“ Our first parents were immortal beings; they knew nothing about death; it was a word that had never been spoken in their ears. The forbidden fruit had never been laid before them; no law in respect to that was yet given. But Eve was brought to our father Adam as an immortal woman, whose body could not die to all ages of eternity; she was given to an immortal husband, whose body could not die to all future periods of duration, unless they brought death upon themselves. Sin entered into the world, and death by sin; death is one of the consequences of sin ”

“ I think that all things that have been prophesied by the ancient prophets will be fulfilled, and that Jacob will get, his wives, by virtue of the covenant of marriage; and that he will have them here on the earth, and he will dwell with them here a thousand years, in spite of all the laws that may be passed to the contrary. And they will be immortal personages, full of glory and happiness. And Jesus will also be here, and the Twelve Apostles will also sit on the twelve thrones here on the earth, judging the twelve tribes of Israel ”

“ I wonder if there is not some other place for me?" Oh yes, there is another place for you. Without the gates of the city there are dogs, sorcerers, whoremongers, adulterers and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. ”

“ If this great restitution does not take place, Jesus will never come, for it is written in the New Testament, in the 3rd chapter of the Acts of the apostles, that "the heavens must receive Jesus Christ, until the times of the restitution of all things which God has spoken by the mouths of his holy Prophets, since the world began." Jesus will have to stay a long time in the heavens providing that monogamist principles are the only principles that will be introduced, in fact he never can come, for the Scriptures say the heavens must retain him until all things are restored. ”

“ If the Jews should collect in any great numbers, and should say one to another—"Come brethren, we are the descendants of Abraham, let us now begin to practice according to the laws that were given to our ancient fathers, and if a brother dies and leaves a widow, but no children, let his living brother, though a married man, marry the widow, according to our law," it is doubtful whether they would be permitted to associate together and practice those laws now, if they were so disposed. ”

“ It is a subject which has been often laid before the Latter-day Saints, and it is certainly one of great importance to the Saints as well as to the Inhabitants of the earth, for I presume that no person, who believes in divine revelation, will pretend to say that marriage is not a divine institution ”

“ There is nothing in all the Scriptures that makes any distinction between a married brother who survives and an unmarried brother; the law was just as binding upon a living brother, if he had already a wife living, as it was upon a living brother if he had no wife, it being a universal law, with no limits in its application, so far as the house was concerned. This law, then, compelled the children of Israel to be polygamists ”

“ You young men and women, who are married in a manner that the Lord does not authorize or own, put yourselves to a great deal of trouble, because you will have a great deal of work to do hereafter in temples in order to get things legalized. How much better it would be for you to come to those whom God has appointed, and have your marriages solemnized as immortal beings, who have to live to all eternity. ”

“ Now if the tribe of Levi numbered in proportion to the other eleven tribes, the number of firstborn males in all the twelve tribes would probably amount to between twenty-four and twenty-five thousand souls, it could not have run over that. There might have been some of the firstborn who were dead, which would make a few more families: then there might have been other families who never had any male children, which would increase the families still more. ”

“ God has said that seven women shall take hold of one man for the purpose of having their reproach taken away, that they may be called by his name, not cast off as harlots or prostitutes; not to take away the name of the father from the children, and cast them into the streets, as the Christian nations have been doing for many long centuries that are past. ”

“ This argument is founded on Scripture, and it shows plainly, even if you should double the number of families or of the firstborn, that they could not be all monogamic families, for if we suppose there were sixty thousand families, it would make every married woman the mother of forty odd children, and if such a supposition could be entertained it would go to show that women in those days were more fruitful than they are now. These declarations are given in your Bible, which is also my Bible; that is, in King James' translation. We all believe, or profess to be Bible believers or Christians. ”

“ The Lord said to the Elders of this Church, in the very commencement as it were, "Go ye forth and preach the Gospel to every creature, and as I said unto mine ancient Apostles, even so I say unto you, that every soul who believes in your words, and will repent of his sins and be baptized in water shall receive a remission of his sins, and shall be filled with the Holy Ghost; and every soul in all the world who will not believe in your words, neither repent of his sins, shall be damned ”

“ Yes, we do believe that all persons who have these blessings sealed upon them here, by the authority of the Most High, will find that they reach forward into the eternal world, and they can hold fast to that which God has placed upon them. ”

“ No, he did not, but inasmuch as man is weak and may sin against God, and suffer himself to be overcome with prejudice and hatred to one person, and feel in his heart to love and respect another, the Lord gave laws in case any such crime should exist among them as a husband's hating one wife and loving another ”