Sidney Rigdon

“ The world being ignorant of what the Lord was to do, after the Gentiles had corrupted the religion of the New Testament so as to deprive themselves of the kingdom of heaven, have compounded together a little of the religion of Abraham, and of Moses, and of the new testament, seasoning it pretty well with heathenism, and making to themselves thereby both a religion, and a god, which is neither the religion nor the God of Abraham, nor Moses, nor the apostles, but something widely different from them all. ”

“ The apostle Peter calls this dispensation by another name, in the 3rd chapter of the Acts of the apostles and 1st verse. He there calls it the times of the restitution of all things. Every observer of the ways of men and things knows that the present order of things in the world is not the restitution of all things. The apostle further says of this restitution of all things, that it has been spoken of by the mouth of all the holy prophets since the world began. So that it has been a matter of public notoriety among the saints of all ages and of all generations. ”

“ They will try every man's work of what kind it is. No man can live among a people whose souls are sufficiently enlarged, to undertake an enterprise of so daring a character as this, and yet be a churl: depend upon it, in those days the vile person will not be called liberal, nor the churl bountiful, for liberality and enterprise must be the motto of every saint, or so gigantic a work will never be accomplished. ”

“ There has been a notion prevailing amongst a great many people, that the nearer a man got to his God the less enterprise he should exert, that he should shew forth his righteousness by his rags, and his holiness by an utter contempt of the rules of decency: Indeed among some that would be called wise, to this day, they think that the cut of their coat and the shape of their hat is of great importance and has a considerable to do with their salvation ”

“ From this the saints may have something of an idea unto what they are called; that they are called unto glory, and virtue, or in other words, to enterprise and courage; that in order to fulfil their calling, there must not be an idler in all their ranks, but that they must cultivate the habits of industry, and of enterprise, so that they can be prepared to visit all lands, and acquit themselves like men, in the presence of all people ”

“ For though great things are to be accomplished, still those things are to be accomplished by the agency of men. It will be found to be a fact, that if the the Lord ever does fulfil the testimony of the prophets, it will be by the faith and agency of his saints. ”

“ How many may have done the will of God, and yet for want of patience to wait upon the Lord have lost the promise altogether; when if they had had patience to wait on the Lord, they might have received it to the joy and gratitude of their hearts. ”

“ So that every dispensation must have laws differing from each other, and the laws which would be good and wholesome under one dispensation, would be injurious and destructive under another; and instead of their tending to good they would tend to evil. ”

“ The saints must become notorious for this, so that all men will be willing to deal with them, and rather do it than with any others, for this is one of the ways by which they will obtain wealth, without which they will never be able to fulfill the end of their calling. ”

“ The purposes of God in relation to this world, must be accomplished, and the different dispensations necessary must be introduced, in order that they may be accomplished, otherwise the testimony of the prophets must fail, and the glory of God be tarnished forever. ”

“ It is a well known fact, that Israel is widely scattered, and that they help to people almost every division of the earth with which we are acquainted, and must people some parts with which we are not acquainted, or else the ten tribes are not in existence on the earth, and if that is the case, the testimony of the prophets is surely false ”