Spirit of Truth

“ I pray that the Spirit of Truth may find its way to each heart, that we may all love the truth more than error, and cling to that which is good that we may all be saved in the kingdom of our God. Amen. ”

“ Hath this spirit of truth been hitherto a spirit of truth for us?... Whatever profession we may make of being, as Christians, the disciples of the spirit of truth, are we really persuaded of the truths of Christianity? ”

“ And at times the `Spirit of Truth' flows all through me, and all over me, so forcibly that I feel as if I were literally `in the Truth'. At these times the Eternal Word shines through the Written Word with such illuminating power that various human theories and speculations are scattered to the four winds. ”

“ The revelations of the Lord Jesus Christ, the spirit of truth will detect everything, and enable all who possess it to understand truth from error, light from darkness, the things of God from the things not of God. ”

“ The Spirit of Truth says this: 'Acquaint yourselves with your own value, and endure no slight which is hostile to the truth.' But he who overestimates himself will have a fall, and God will not lift him up. ”

“ Without the Spirit of truth, without the Spirit of Christ, people will become hateful and disagreeable, or what the English term ugly, and the Yankees, homely; or, as others express it, ordinary-looking. The Spirit of truth beautifies and lights with intelligence an otherwise forbidding countenance. We need it to beautify both the body and mind. ”

“ Such a condition would be in harmony with the promise of the Savior that there should be "one fold and one shepherd." The Spirit of Truth is the guide into all truth, rather than to man-made theories taught by men devoid of the authority and inspiration of Almighty God. ”

“ But they could not be what they are, they could not have achieved what they have achieved, unless the spirit of truth and the spirit of love had been alive in the hearts of their founders, their first messengers, and missionaries.
The spirit of truth is the life-spring of all religion, and where it exists it must manifest itself, it must plead, it must persuade, it must convince and convert. ”

“ Every person who seeks to know right, to understand every principle of truth pertaining to the earth and the heavens, and by obedience to the laws of the Gospel to obtain the Spirit of truth from the great Fountain of truth, when he hears a truth, whether moral, religious, scientific, or mechanical, whether it pertains to God, to man, to the heavens, or to the earth, that truth is congenial to his feelings, and it seems to him that he had known it all his life. Notwithstanding the dreadful effects of the fall of man, almost all men delight in truth and righteousness. ”

“ Truth and Love literally drive error out of all selfhood; but this blesses man, and they place the cherub of wisdom at the easterly gate, at the luminous portal of thought, where the light of spiritual understanding and the two-edged sword, or radiant sense of Truth and justice, guard the life that reflects God's image and likeness. This figure is to make the distinction between the immortal and unerring mind, or Life, Truth, and Love, and the mortal and erring between Soul and sense, Spirit and matter, showing they blend not in the divine science of being. ”

“ But when the spirit of truth dwells in you it will show you the whole truth because it will not tell you a new thing of its own, but what is from God; and it will show you the way in all circumstances of life. ”

“ Yes—so to live as to have the light of the Spirit of truth abiding within you day by day, that when you hear the truth, you know it as well as you know the faces of your father's family, and also understand every manifestation produced by erroneous principles. ”

“ Our love for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, is our best evidence, when that truth is lived out in a life of obedience to the Lord's precepts, that we are walking with God in the fellowship of the Spirit. ”

“ No matter how simple the declaration of a servant of God; no matter how imperfect his language or how few his words, the Spirit of God will bear witness of its truth to the spirits of those who are ready and willing to receive it. How easy it is to live by the truth! ”

“ The Spirit of truth will do more to bring persons to light and knowledge, than flowery words. This is my experience, and I presume it is the experience of many of you, and that you can call that to mind when you first received the Spirit of this Gospel. ”

“ These are the shadowy and false, which neither think nor speak.
All Truth is from inspiration and revelation, — from Spirit, not from flesh.
We do not see much of the real man here, for he is God's man; while ours is man's man. ”

“ When a man speaks the truth in the spirit of truth, his eye is as clear as the heavens. When he has base ends, and speaks falsely, the eye is muddy and sometimes asquint. ”

“ The spirit of truth is the spirit of revelation, which we may all possess, for it is the privilege of all Latter-day Saints so to live and honor God as to receive of his attributes and nature in greater perfection, and become more like Him. ”

“ The seed of Truth and the seed of error, the seed of belief and that of understanding, yea, the seed of Spirit and that of matter, are the wheat and the tares that time and Truth arc separating, to destroy the one and bring to light the facts of the other in the spiritual Life and creation. When Truth shall bruise the head of error, to destroy the belief of intelligence in matter, this belief, or original serpent, shall bite the heel of Truth, even as it hath ever done at every period of reform. ”

“ But to create a kingdom of the truth, and to bear perpetual witness in that kingdom to the truth, is not only to state what is true. These expressions mark out an organisation in and by means of which truth is perpetuated. And further, the spirit in man is both reason and will; and that man may act, the intellect which has truth for its object must work on the will which has good for its object. And so the witness which our Lord speaks of is that action of the truth upon the will which produces a life in accordance with it: it is truth not left to itself, but supported by grace. ”

“ The letter of the law of God, separated from its spirit, tends to demoralize mortals, and must be corrected by a diviner sense of liberty and light. The spirit of Truth extinguishes false thinking, feeling, and acting ”

“ We cannot be deceived in coming to this conclusion, for whoever enjoys the light of truth and has so lived as to increase the Spirit of truth within himself can testify to the workings of that Spirit upon the hearts, the understanding and works of the Saints generally. ”

“ Discussions on such topics of practical utility, are alike pleasing to God and beneficial to the church, if conducted in a Christian spirit, and if the parties have truth and not victory for their aim. Truth is the will of God, exhibited in the diversified creations of his hand, either physical, intellectual, or moral, and the revelations of his word, correctly apprehended by the human mind. ”

“ But we must notice very specially how our Saviour says, Sanctify them, not in the word, but in the truth. Just as in man there is body, soul, and spirit, so in truth too. There is first word-truth; a man may have the correct form of words while he does not really apprehend the truth they contain. Then there is thought-truth; there may be a clear intellectual apprehension of truth without the experience of its power. The Bible speaks of truth as a living reality: this is the life-truth, in which the very Spirit of the truth we profess has entered and possessed our inner being. ”

“ In what part, then, of man may this self-evidenced, yet elusive, Truth or power be said to reside? It cannot be in the senses; for the senses can impart no more than they receive. Is it, then, in the mind? Here we are compelled to ask, What is understood by the mind? Do we mean the understanding? We can trace no relation between the Truth we would class and the reflective faculties. Or in the moral principle? Surely not; for we can predicate neither good nor evil by the Truth in question. Finally, do we find it identified with the truth of the Spirit? ”

“ Such terms as spirit, life, and power are confessedly somewhat dangerous terms to use. Especially the first is liable to misunderstanding. Yet, whatever [p.153] common usage may be, when I say that truth is not a creed but a spirit, that reality is not a thing but a power, the reference is directly to that agent or principle of validity which has been found to hold our experience, naturally so faulty, to contact and intimacy with the real world. ”

“ Nor can we doubt the correctness of this assertion, if we attend to the order of the Spirit's operations on our mind. He inclines us to believe the truth which he exhibits; and he enables us to do it. ”

“ Whether the influence of the Spirit be directly upon the soul, or mediately by means of truth, the end accomplished would be the same. The soul might be quickened to see and feel the power of the truth ”

“ Very true; but he knows little of human nature who fancies a state of spirit can be maintained without the aid of external reminders, presentations to eye and ear of central religious truths and facts. We have all of us had such views of truth, and such corresponding desires and purposes, as would transform us were they only permanent. ”

“ Man is conscious of a universal soul within or behind his individual life, wherein, as in a firmament, the natures of Justice, Truth, Love, Freedom, arise and shine. This universal soul, he calls Reason: it is not mine, or thine, or his, but we are its; we are its property and men. And the blue sky in which the private earth is buried, the sky with its eternal calm, and full of everlasting orbs, is the type of Reason. That which, intellectually considered, we call Reason, considered in relation to nature, we call Spirit. Spirit is the Creator. Spirit hath life in itself. ”

“ Such conduct clearly demonstrates that such persons are in nature’s thickest gloom, nor can those characters give the church or the world any scriptural account of the holy Spirit’s work upon their hearts. We, therefore, can never allow such unconverted persons to be proper judges of any one truth in divine revelation. ”

“ "Every scripture is to be interpreted by the same spirit which gave it forth,"—is the fundamental law of criticism. A life in harmony with nature, the love of truth and of virtue, will purge the eyes to understand her text. ”

“ There has in the different parts and ages of the world, been a multiplicity of immediate and wonderful discoveries, said to have been made to godly men of old by the special illumination or supernatural inspiration of God, every of which have, in doctrine, precept and instruction, been essentially different from each other, which are consequently as repugnant to truth, as the diversity of the influence of the spirit on the multiplicity of sectaries has been represented to be.
These facts, together with the premises and inferences as already deduced, are too evident to be denied, and operate conclusively against immediate or supernatural revelation in general; ”

“ truth in spirit, not truth to letter, is the true veracity. ”

“ Too soon did the Doctors of the Church forget that the heart, the moral nature, was the beginning and the end; and that truth, knowledge, and insight were comprehended in its expansion. ”

“ Her feeling was well expressed by the pastor of the Pilgrim Band as they departed in the Mayflower: "God hath more truth yet to break out of His word." More truth, more truth, is ever the desire of the earnest soul. ”