To enter upon our third estate, which will be glorious and immortal … Incomprehensible as this may be to our finite minds, it is a faint view of the glories of the third estate.
Anarchy shall I say, is the worst of all governments? No: Anarchy is the absence of all government; it is the antipodes of order; it is the acme of confusion; it is the result of unbridled license, the antipodes of true liberty. The Apostle Paul says truly: "For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God." At first this is a startling statement. Even the monopoly of the one man power as in Russia, or the Monopoly of the aristocracy as in other parts of Europe, or the imbecility and sometimes stupidity of a republic like our own, is far better than no government at all.
And the oppression of a king is tolerable, but the oppression of a mob, where every man is a law to himself and his own right arm, is his power to enforce his own will, is the worse form of government. The efforts of extremists clamoring for human freedom are all tending in this direction;
For the space of a thousand years [throughout the Millennium], the children that shall grow up unto the Lord shall not taste of death; that is, they shall not sleep in the earth, but they shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye … There will be a change wrought in their tabernacles, which is equivalent to death and the resurrection; but they will not sleep in the dust of the earth. Their tabernacles shall not moulder back into corruption; but they shall be like Jesus Christ's most glorious tabernacle, who never knew sin; and he is the only being we read of whose tabernacle did not see corruption, except a few who obtained beforehand the privilege of translation.
Our motto is “The Hive of Deseret,” and here is the place for the working bees, the place where they sting the drones to death.
“It is just as impossible for God to add two and two together and make ten of it as it is for me or you. Mathematical truths are as true with God and angels as they are with man. I understand that what has exalted to life and salvation our Father in heaven and all the Gods of eternity will also exalt us, their children. And what causes Lucifer and his followers to descend to the regions of death and perdition will also lead us in the same direction; and no atonement of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ can alter that eternal law, any more than he can make two and two to mean sixteen.”
“…license was never liberty nor can be. … The Gospel of Christ, and all of the revelations of God to man have sought to mark the line of distinction between liberty and license, between correct principles of government and anarchy or oppression and slavery.
To continue to hand out your food and your substance to the beggar who comes to your doors without putting him in a position to help himself and to supply his own wants is to encourage him in folly and wickedness, and is throwing away the blessings of heaven which God has placed in your hands.
“All the revelations which God ever gave to man from the beginning of the world tended to liberty. The government which our heavenly Father has exercised, or attempted to exercise over His children on the earth or in the heavens, has not in the least tended to restrain or abridge them in their liberty, but rather to enlarge it, to extend it, to insure, to preserve and maintain it.”
And again in John’s revelations it is written that He was as a lamb slain from the foundation of the world. He is called a lamb of God typically speaking, because the offering a lamb in sacrifice upon the altar was a type of the crucifixion of the Savior, and the commandment of God given to the children of men in the beginning to build an altar and offer sacrifice with a lamb upon it, was typical of the Savior of the world. Hence came the term that He was the Lamb of God which the Father sent unto the world to be an offering for sin.
We have come to the understanding that every soul of man, both male and female, high and low, is the offspring of God, that their spirits are immortal, eternal, intelligent beings, and that their entity depends upon their agency and independent action, which is neither trammeled by God himself nor allowed to be restrained by any of His creatures with His sanction and approval; that the whole theory of God's rule and government in heaven and on earth is founded upon this principle of agency—self, independent action.
“We read about material and immaterial things … but in truth there is no such thing as immaterial substance.”
And a knowledge of the only true and living God, and of his purposes concerning us and our being upon the earth, the object of our creation, and that which is designed concerning us, both in time and in eternity, is of paramount importance, and of greater value than anything that can be bestowed upon mortal man. The greatest of all the gifts of God is the gift of eternal life; and eternal life is only attainable by a true knowledge of God, through obedience to his laws and commandments.
“To continue to hand out your food and your substance to the beggar who comes to your doors without putting him in a position to help himself and to supply his own wants is to encourage him in folly and wickedness, and is throwing away the blessings of heaven which God has placed in your hands.”
Let no mother, in her misplaced sympathy and her love, and her anxiety to serve her offspring, wear herself needlessly out in waiting upon them when they are able to wait upon themselves; but make such provision as is necessary, which children are not able to make themselves, and teach them to wait upon and serve themselves, and also repay their father and mother for the labor bestowed upon them…And when they want a drink, let them understand that there is the cup and there is the pump, and teach them to help themselves, and bring a drink to mother, instead of mother waiting upon them; and so commence and so continue the practical education.
For he has had his eye upon the chosen spirits that have come upon the earth in the various ages from the beginning of the world up to this time…The Lord has sent those noble spirits into the world to perform a special work, and appointed their times…and their future glory and exaltation is secured unto them; and that is what I understand by the doctrine of election spoken of by the Apostle Paul and other sacred writers: For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren.
Those who are the Lord’s poor always prefer to provide for their own necessities than to be dependent upon others.
They who are able to provide for themselves, but would rather have others bear the burdens of life for them, are not the Lord’s poor, they are the devil’s poor.
“They who are able to provide for themselves but would rather have others bear the burdens of life for them, are not the Lord’s poor, they are the devil’s poor.”
To enter upon our third estate, which will be glorious and immortal … Incomprehensible as this may be to our finite minds, it is a faint view of the glories of the third estate.