Wilford Woodruff

“ I have often expressed my views with regard to the position we occupy before heaven and earth, before God, angels and men, and the views of Jesus and His Apostles and Elders, as they have come down to us, give a key to what I wish to say upon this subject. If there is an Emperor, a King, a President, a ruler of any nation or people, whether a monarchy, kingdom or republic—that takes away from any of his subjects or fellow-citizens the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, he deprives them of a right which the God of heaven has guaranteed unto them. ”

“ Because it was the law given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for certain purposes; that holy men might have their wives and children with them in the morning of the first resurrection in their family organization to inherit kingdoms, thrones, principalities and powers in the presence of God throughout the endless ages of eternity. Ladies and gentlemen, the Latter-day Saints are not the people you think they are; they are not guilty of the crimes and wickedness they are accused of, but on the contrary, they are as a people, free from the sins and abominations of this generation. ”

“ I have heard many men say, no ordinances are necessary, that belief only in the Lord Jesus Christ is necessary to be saved. I have not learned that myself from any revelation of God to man, either ancient or modern. But on the contrary, faith in Christ, repentance, and baptism for the remission of sins were taught by patriarchs and prophets and by Jesus Christ and His Apostles. Baptism for the remission of sins is an ordinance of the Gospel Says one, baptism is not essential to salvation. ”

“ The Gentiles followed the example of the Jews in their unbelief, and in putting to death those who bore the holy Priesthood; and instead of the Church of Christ has sprung up every kind of Church during the last 1,800 years. But in these the last days, God has again restored the everlasting Gospel; and any man who believes the Bible, must believe the fulfillment of revelation, and he cannot believe in the fulfillment of prophecy without believing that God would send again to the earth angels to deliver that Gospel. And why send an angel for this purpose? ”

“ The whole secret of our success as far as making converts is concerned is, that we preach the same Gospel in all its simplicity and plainness that Jesus preached, and that the Holy Ghost rests upon those who receive it, filling their hearts with joy and gladness unspeakable, and making them as one; and they then know of the doctrine for themselves whether it be of God or man. ”

“ We acknowledge that through Adam all have died, that death through the fall must pass upon the whole human family, also upon the beasts of the field, the fishes of the sea and the fowl of the air and all the works of God, as far as this earth is concerned. ”

“ We have not had power of ourselves to influence any man or woman with regard to these things. They have been influenced by the testimony of Jesus Christ, and by the Gospel of the Son of God. These are principles by which all men are saved. All men are saved by and through the blood of Jesus Christ, through obedience to the Gospel.
I realize our condition and the position occupied by this generation. I know we are looked upon as a bad people, and we are considered a very ignorant people. There never were more epithets heaped upon Jesus Christ and the Apostles than upon the Latter-day Saints. ”

“ And I say, if we teach any other Gospel than that which was taught by Jesus and His Apostles, we teach a false Gospel and shall be under condemnation before God, angels and men.
What is the Gospel as taught by Jesus himself? The very first principle was faith in the Messiah; this was the first principle ever taught to man. When Adam, after being driven from the garden of Eden, went to Adam-ondi-Ahman to offer sacrifice, the angel of the Lord asked him why he did so. Adam replied that he did not know, but the Lord had commanded him to do it. ”

“ All the children of Adam are redeemed from the fall by the atoning blood of Jesus, and all infants are redeemed as well as other people. There is no infant or child that has died before arriving at the years of accountability, but what is redeemed, and is therefore entirely beyond the torments of hell, to use a sectarian term. And any doctrine, such as the sprinkling of infants or any religious rite for little children is of no effect whatever neither in this world nor in the world to come. ”

“ We are represented as being a community of adulterers, and as being murderers. We are no more guilty of such crimes than were Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. What God has revealed unto us, and that which we know ourselves to be right and true, we cherish and revere ”

“ What infidel is there, no matter who he is, who does not believe in God, let him read the revelations of heaven and see the fulfillment of prophecy from the beginning of Genesis to our day, and he will see them fulfilled to the very letter. There is nothing that has been predicted by Jesus or the Apostles, but what has already been fulfilled to the very letter as far as time will admit, and what has not will be. When, I say, the Gospel was preached to the Gentiles, it went to them in all its power, its beauty and glory, Priesthood and ordinances as it was offered to the Jews. ”

“ All the children of men who arrive at the years of accountability are guilty of sin, all being inclined to do evil as the sparks are to fly upwards. "What shall we do to be saved" was the cry of the people who heard the preaching of Peter on the day of Pentecost, and the same may be said to be applicable to all men in every generation. The answer would be, obey the law of the Gospel. This is the safe means given for the salvation of the human family. The law of God, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which Gospel contains the laws of God ”

“ Our wives and children we love and respect, and we could no more deny them their claims upon us as husbands and fathers, than we could deny our God.
Another thing, there is no man that has ever lived who can claim a wife or child in the resurrection unless he and she were married and sealed by divine authority by a man delegated of heaven to perform the ordinance of marriage. ”

“ Adam fell that man might be, and men are that they might have joy; and some have found fault with that. It has been said that God commanded Adam to multiply and replenish the earth; and it has been said that Adam was not under the necessity of falling in order to multiply and replenish the earth, but you will understand that the woman was deceived and not the man; and according to the justice of God she would have been cast out into the lowly and dreary world alone, and thus the first great command could not have been complied with unless Adam had partaken of the forbidden fruit. ”

“ Since the day that sin entered into the world men have been held accountable for their own acts, and it has been known upon this earth from the day, at least, that Cain slew his brother Abel. And sin has presented itself in different grades; there are murder, blasphemy, lying, stealing, whoredom, and abominations of many different forms, which have followed man from generation to generation. ”

“ God has called men from the plow, the hammer and anvil, from the carpenter's bench, etc., unlearned and weak mortals, and they have been sent out to the world to bear record of this new and everlasting Gospel restored in our day. ”

“ For there was a power that dwelt upon the earth in the form of thousands and millions of fallen spirits, one-third of the hosts of heaven, which had been cast out of heaven with the devil in the great rebellion, who remain in that condition and who do not possess tabernacles, and they make war upon the Saints of God, wherever or whenever they are found upon the earth, and upon all men; they seek to destroy the whole human family, and have done so from the beginning until the present day, and they have not ceased their labors, nor do they intend to while Satan remains unbound. ”

“ We have preached and labored at home and abroad, and we intend to continue our labors, by the help of God, as long as we can have liberty to do it, and until the Gentiles prove themselves unworthy of eternal life, and until the judgments of God overtake the world, which are at the door. ”

“ There is a work for somebody to perform. But when we undertake to declare in all seriousness that God has anything to do with the work in which we are engaged they will laugh you in the face, and the reason is, they have departed from God and are entirely unable to comprehend his ways or his purposes ”

“ And I will here say, as I wish to be understood by all men, that our faith is, there never has been but one Gospel upon the earth, though to-day there are six hundred three score and six different; religious faiths, all more or less diverse one from another; but there is but the one true and everlasting Gospel, and never will be any more, and it is the same Gospel that was taught to Adam, to Noah, to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the Patriarchs, and which Jesus and the Apostles preached ”

“ What the Latter-day Saints have done by way of preaching the Gospel under all kinds of difficulties, building up cities and subduing waste lands, and establishing themselves in the earth, they have done by the revelations and commandments of God to them. ”

“ But it shows how weak must be the hope and faith of men who pretend to be teachers among the people when they descend to traduce the character of innocent men by wilfully lying in the hope of bolstering up and establishing their own peculiar cause. ”