E Pluribus Unum

“ Accordingly the real mystery of union is the knowledge and will of God, while separation is the manifestation of that which He commands and forbids: e.g., He commanded Abraham to behead Ishmael, but willed that he should not do so; and He commanded Iblís to worship Adam, but willed the contrary; and He commanded Adam not to eat the corn, but willed that he should eat it; and so forth. Union is that which He unites by His attributes, and separation is that which He separates by His acts. ”

“ You are well aware that we have been taught, for these many years, the great necessity of establishing a union in the midst of this people. Although we are the most united people upon the face of the earth, of which we have any knowledge, yet we are far from that perfection of unity which should characterize the Saints of the Most High God. ”

“ Let the people in Wards live their religion; let every man and woman be filled with the power of the Holy Ghost, and you will burn out an unfaithful Bishop, without being obliged to complain of him and quarrel him out of the Ward. If you are not one, you cannot be Saints. How can we be one? Shall we seek to establish a perfect oneness by means of the order God has instituted upon the earth? or shall we set up our individual judgments against that order?
If my individual judgment must be the standard, then farewell to union—farewell to oneness. God can never save us upon any such principle. ”

“ For, just as to separate properties of separate beings, plurality is not attributed, since they are not properties of two things, so, what is common to both preserves an indivisible unity, although it belongs, as a whole, to them taken separately. ”

“ His decree that a man shall pronounce Him to be one, and the creation of unification in his heart; (3) men’s unification of God, i.e. their knowledge of the unity of God. Therefore, when a man knows God he can declare His unity and pronounce that He is one, incapable of union and separation, not admitting duality ”

“ If anyone after the uniting divides the subsistences in the one Christ, only joining them in a union of dignity or authority or power, and not rather in a concourse of natural union, let him be anathema. ”

“ If more acceptable to you, we should gladly form a union on the basis of either the second or the third proposition already stated. Our chief desire is for a complete and hearty union, in which, acknowledging the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, we may live and work together in the love of Christ, the Elder Brother of us all. That our Heavenly Father may graciously help us all in perfecting and maintaining such a union, is our earnest prayer. ”

“ Wherefore I pray thee, by the reverence due to that union wherein thy manhood is united to the adorable Trinity in order to our glorification, that thou wouldst deign to unite my will to thine, and so to strengthen and secure it, that it may be unable to rebel against thee. In union with thy most sinless limbs, I commend to thee all the members of my body, with all their movements, that they may throughout this day move for thy glory alone, for thy praise and thy love. ”

“ Once more this unity, whereof the apostle speaks, consists in submission to one single influence or spirit. Wherein consists the unity of the body? Consists it not in this,—that there is one life uniting, making all the separate members one? Take away the life, and the members fall to pieces: they are no longer one; decomposition begins, and every element separates, no longer having any principle of cohesion or union with the rest.
There is not one of us who, at some time or other, has not been struck with the power there is in a single living influence. ”

“ He has given to them but one Book, and therein exhorts and commands them to be one family. A union such as we plead for—a union of God’s people on that one Book—must then be practicable. Every Christian desires to stand complete in the whole will of God. ”

“ When the true Eve unites with her Adam, they become one, and their union is bliss. When so united, no man shall put them asunder. The union is founded directly on natural and, not on moral or religious laws. ”

“ It is an attempt to ignore the very act by which we enter into union with the Father and with the Son, as, also, the “whole family in heaven and on earth,”—immersion into Christ, into the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, under the sham pretext of a union meeting, a union communion. There is no Christian union in any meeting that intends to ignore the clear law of induction into the kingdom of God. It is only a union in disloyalty to the Great King—ignoring his law. ”

“ When I set myself to achieve a veritable union with God, — a union wherein the only initiative I keep is the initiative of surrender — a union wherein God becomes the actual dynamic source of all I am — a union wherein the separateness of my personality is used only to secure its unity with God's, — then I shall prize the more warmly all those ringing words and ideas of the New Testament which tell me how God himself, knowing all the obstacles and gloriously conquering them in his wisdom, love, and power, has made it possible for that union to be achieved. ”

“ Again, where the purpose of the union is to live the pure life, then the union belongs to the higher plane. But the highest plane of all is where the two, at the time of marriage, consecrate themselves to each other and to the service of the Lord in His humanity, keeping their bodies, as the temples of God, pure and sacred; where both live above all lustful desires for each other, keeping the life forces for making the mind and body strong, and fitting themselves to be instruments of the Divine. ”

“ It is to our union alone, imperfect though it may have been, that we may attribute our success in the past, under the blessing of God. If we have any name or prestige in the earth, if there is anything attached to the name of Latter-day Saint or "Mormonism" that conveys the idea of power to the minds of the people, it has its origin in our union, obedience, concentration of effort, and our oneness of action, and the more this oneness increases the more marked and distinct we will be among the nations of the earth. ”

“ For essence and that which is in want of union externally derived, are unadapted to be conjoined with that which is super-essential, and with the first union, and are far distant from it. But the unities of beings, since they derive their subsistence from the imparticipable unity, and which is exempt from the whole of things, are able to conjoin beings to the one, and to convert them to themselves. ”

“ What if our physical frame, the soul's house and vehicle, be only the feebler counterpart of that great Organism in which the exalted Christ unites and animates His saints? That union is no mere aggregation, no mere alliance of so many men under the presidency of an invisible Leader. It is a thing of life. Each to the living Head, and so each to all His members, we are joined in that wonderful connexion with a tenacity, and with a relation, genuine, strong, and close as the eternal life can make it. ”

“ And hence in this respect the union of the Incarnation is higher than numerical unity by reason of the unity of the Divine Person, and not by reason of the human nature, which is not the unity of the Divine Person, but is united to it. ”

“ I feel rejoiced in one principle that I see manifest among the Saints in these days, and that is, the principle of union. Of course we have; as a community, always been more united than any other people ”

“ Father, says he, keep them in thy name, that they may be one, like as we are! Observe, I beseech you, what a wonderful union Christ requires in his followers; he does not pray that they may be of one mind, but that they may be one; nor does he mention this union in a vague manner, but says, "That they may be one, as we are," who are one and the same in a most perfect, yet unspeakable and inexplicable manner. ”

“ We should be bound together by essential union—a union of heart and soul. How can this be brought about? By being true and honest one towards another, that there may be real confidence in our midst. Because one man may differ from another, even though with one called to preside over him, is that to say that such a man is rebellious? ”

“ A system of oneness among any people, whether former-day Saints, middle-day Saints, eleventh hour of the day Saints, last hour of the day Saints, or no Saints at all, is beneficial; but I wish the brethren to give us their views for and against union in a family, whether that family consists of the parents and ten children, or the parents, ten children, fifty grandchildren, or a hundred and fifty great-grandchildren, and so on until you get to a nation. ”

“ When, of many full brothers, some live united and others separate, those united will have the preference. If there be half brothers, as well as full brothers, in the union, the former take nothing; but all full brothers, living separate, share with one or more united half-brothers. ”

“ That true liberty, which infringes not the freedom of my brother; that equality which recognises no noblemen but the men of noble thoughts and noble deeds; that fraternity which links the weak arm-in-arm with the strong, and, teaching humankind that union is strength, compels them to fraternise, and links them together in that true brotherhood for which we strive. ”

“ The doctrine of a plurality appears in the very first words of inspiration. God would not record the history of creation, without informing the Church that the character of Creator was by no means to be confined to one person. It has often been observed, that this is taught in the words rendered God created, where we have a noun in the plural joined with a verb in the singular number, plainly expressing a plurality in unity. ”

“ There may, perhaps, also be obscure workmen, or humble citizens—perhaps, also, alas! great criminals.
“‘However, this may be, my most earnest desire is that my descendants should combine together, and, reconstituting one family, by a close and sincere union, put into practice the divine words of Christ, “Love ye one another.”
“‘This union would have a salutary tendency; for it seems to me that upon union, upon the association of men together, must depend the future happiness of mankind. ”

“ Union and similitude are the ground of fellowship and communion. That union was gracious,—that communion would have been glorious, for grace is the seed of glory. There was a twofold union between Adam and God,—an union of state, and an union of nature, he was like God, and he was God's friend. All the creatures had some likeness to God, some engravings of his power and goodness and wisdom, but man is said to be made according to God's image, “Let us make man like unto us.” Other creatures had similitudinem vestiga, but man had similitudinem faciet. ”

“ We must try to establish real harmony; the head must be in harmony with the feet, and the spirit that is in the head should flow to the extremities of the body. We must try to establish an essential union. Not merely a grasp of hands and a tying together by rules, but the binding of heart to heart, that the spirit may have free course, run, and be diffused among the people. ”

“ THE ONENESS OF THE BRANCHES 'This is My commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.'—JOHN xv. 12, 13.
The union between Christ and His disciples has been tenderly set forth in the parable of the Vine and the branches. We now turn to the union between the disciples, which is the consequence of their common union to the Lord. The branches are parts of one whole, and necessarily bear a relation to each other. ”

“ Christians hold the doctrine of The Union in three different ways. The Jacobites believe that the union was of the Person and the Nature by mixture and confusion; so that the Eternal Word and the human nature taken from Mary became One Nature and one Person. The Melchites believe that the union was of the Person and not of the Nature,—a union of construction and fabrication,—so that God the Word and the Man taken from Mary became two Natures and One Person. ”

“ There is an essential union and there is an apparent union. I would not give a fig for the last, but the first is worth all we possess. If we only appear to be united and bound together and the bands should once be broken, separation would ensue, all would be confusion and the strength we possess would be wasted; but if we take such a course as will enable us to see alike and act alike, we will have veritable strength. Then let us try to establish such a union by being free and frank with and true to each other. ”

“ But it would be an incomplete presentation of the position of Jesus to stop at this point. If we attempt to arrange his thought in any system, the union of two persons in marriage becomes one factor in the union of the race; a union which appears at once natural for mankind, and also a symbol of that divine social order which is to come, when all men are to be sons of God and society thus a brotherhood. ”

“ Many modern notions of Christian unity seem to proceed on the same line. The assent to a certain credal basis, the meeting in great Catholic conventions, the exchange of pulpits—these seem to exhaust the conceptions of large numbers, and to satisfy their ideal. But surely there is a bond of union deeper, holier, more vital and more blessed than any of these, which shyly reveals itself, now and again, in one or more of them, but is independent of all, and when all of them are wanting, still constitutes us one. ”

“ I know that God requires this union at our hands, and by the help of God I am determined, with all the influence and power that he has given me or that he may give me, to use my endeavors with the people to organize in a manner to resist every encroachment made against them. All hell is arrayed against us, and the powers thereof are bound to destroy this work if they can, and it is our duty, as Latter-day Saints, to band ourselves together in the power of God. ”