| Show DISCOURSE rhelder Ry elden eiden Elder ORSON OR SON PRATT PR atz ATI del dei vered in the tabernacle nute Tate made salt lake city juarch iotti 1871 ai BY JULIA junia YOUNG mr aa I 1 I 1 will WILT read a portion of the word of god contained in the psalm lord tard thoa thon hast been favorable favorable unto iby thy land thou thon has haa brought back the captivity of jacob thou nast hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people thoa thon hast covered all their sin selah hoa choa thou hou hast taken away all thy wrath thou hast from the fierceness of thine anger turn tarn na us 0 god of our salvation and cause thine anger toward us to cease wilt thoa thon be angry with us forever wilt thou thon draw out thine anger to all ali generations wilt hou not revive us again that thy people may rejoice in thee shew us thy mercy 0 lord and grant us thy salvation 1 I will hear what god the lord will speak for he will speak peace unto his people and to his saints out let them not turn tarn again to folly surely his salvation if is nigh them that fear him that glory may rasy dwell in our land mercy and truth are met together righteousness and peace have kissed each other truth arnth shall spring ont out of the earth and righteousness shall look loot down from heaven yea theford the biord shall ove that which is good and our land shall yield her increase righteousness shall go before him and anil shall bet act us in the way of his steps this was a prayer and prophecy prop becy uttered by the ancient psalmist in relation to the house of israel these psalms dsalma were writ whit ten by the inspiration of the holy ghost and most moat of them were prophetic in their nature david was a man especially inspired ot of the lord not only to meigu as king over the house of israel but to utter forth many predictions in the form of psalms to DC be sung in the congregations ot of israel he clearly spoke concerning the coming of the messiah his death and the afflictions that should come upon him as the redeemer of the world and of many events even tsin tain in connection with his coming all of which were fulfilled he also spoke in many psalms in regard to the preaching of the servants of god in all nations declaring the wonderful works of god he also spoke concerning the second coming of this messiah the great glory that would be revealed on that grand occasion he also spoke by the spirit spirit of prophecy concerning the downfall of the twelve tribes of israel and the great affliction that would come upon them also that the lord would remember them in the latter times and bring them to a knowledge of the truth this psalm which I 1 have hav just ejust read contains a prayer uttered by this inspired man for the redemption of the covenant people of the lord that he would not be e angry with them forever that his anger might not be drawn out towards them to all generations that he would turn himself from the fierceness of his wrath and show mercy unto his hia people again the lord saw proper in answer to that prayer to inspire the psalmist to utter these words mercy and truth are metto met together J ether ethen righteousness and peace have kissed each other truth shall spring out of ef the earth and righteousness shall look down from heaven tea yea the lord shall give that which is good and our land shall yield her increase righteousness shall go before him and shall set us in the way of his steps the lord did not leave david in uncertainty about the blessings that should come upon his covenant people he was informed in antho inthe we words which I 1 have repeated that the lord intended again to bestow his blessings after he had sufficiently punished israel that he intended to bring them back to their own land that he intended to bless that land which was given to them as an inheritance and that that land should again yield its increase to his people but before he would do this he promised that truth should spring but out of the earth and that at the same time righteousness should look down from heaven that truth should go before his face and set uis sis people iu in the way of his steps we live latter day saints in the ago age when this prophecy is being fulfilled ful fal filled we hato have lived to behold the glorious period dawn upon this creation when god has condescended descended con to bring forth truth out of the earth and at the same time has manifested his righteousness from heaven that is his law I 1 need not fell the latter d day saints that are now before me how th this prophecy was fulfilled for they already understand it there may be strangers however in our midst who do not nott understand these things as we understand them and it may be well to briefly notice the fulfillment of this prophecy as manifested in the rise and progress of this church this church has an existe existence this day in consequence of the fulfillment of their words there never would have been any such people a zw the church of jesus christ of latter day saints unless god had a again in manifested himself in fulfillment of ts has seen proper after so many generations have lave passed to again reveal himself to the children of men although it was contrary to their opinions and ideas that god would ever again speak to the inhabitants of the earth theydon they concluded that all communication from irom the eternal worlds was shut off that although there was a god and plenty of angels and messengers in his presence he would never send them again to the inhabitants of our globe globo to reveal anything new these have been the ideas of our fathers for many generations that are past the Tho whole christian world orid orld were deluded with these ideas for some 17 or IS 18 centuries the idea took its rise in the apostate church that sprang up in the days of the apostles a church which denied the spirit of revelation and had the mick wickedness edness and audacity to proclaim in the face and eyes of the bible that it needed no new revelation that it had sufficient clent the councils that were called towards the close of the third and fourth centuries of the christain christ aln ain era concluded to introduce laws and rules among the church the greek and catholic churches excommunicated all persons that would believe in the god of revelation they collected together various manuscripts which they had picked up in la various parts of the earth which they called the fullness of the canon of scripture then they passed a decree that if any person should be found believing anything except that which was contained in their canon that he should not be permitted full fellowship in the church that lie he should be dis fellow s shipped hi ped and anathematized this wicked anT and abominable doctrine was handed down for a great many generations in the greek and roman catholic churches and will be found throughout all their writings the writings of their most noted archbishops Arch bishops they declare that they neither received nor believed in any new revelation that their rule of faith and practice was ancient scripture that the church must ie be guided by those ancient laws and by the traditions of their fathers traditions handed down from the days of the apostles to their day thus you see all communication from the heavens was cut off by their own decree they were worse than the heathen a great heath en king accustomed to worship idols all his days had not apostatized from the true god as those pro tessea christians had for he believed in the god that gave revelation we have an account in the book of daniel how the lord did reveal himself to that heathen king in a dream but he forg forgot ot the dream and sent a proclamation to all the wise men of babylon to see if he could find out an interpreter he at length found one in the person of daniel the prophet who gave the king the dream that the god of heaven bad had given him also interpretation and we have many instances on record where ancient heathen kings had not so il far fac ar strayed from the god of heaven but what they could believe in new now revelation but we have the example before us for many generations where people who have assumed the name of christ disbelieved in new revelation and persecuted those who believe in rec receiving elvIng any new communication some two or three centuries ago there was a great reformation in europe a protestation against this wicked corrupt and abominable power that had held sway away under the name of chrls chris christian tian they did reform from many of their corrupt practices and they had power given to them although perhaps they did not understand it fully and the god heaven did give power to these reformers to bring about more liberal principles piea plea but they had to do it through great persecution they succeeded however in building up denominations which they called christian that had forsaken in some measure the corruption of the mother church these reformers followed the mother church in regard to limiting their faith to ancient scripture they would tell the people that there was to be no more revelation john calvin and martin luther held the view that there was to be no more revelation from heaven that the canon of scripture was full fall they received this false dogma from the mother ginch ach they could not find it in the new U lament but it was a tradition handed down by the mother church that such was the fact now the devil did not particularly eare how many man good principles people retained so long iong as they should deny one the most important principles of heaven cut off communication from the lord shut up the heavens keep angels out of the question concerning any more new communication muni cation to be given to the children of men and the devil has his object these falsehoods were handed down after the reformers came out in all the various denominations until the present day until the time when the lord bordoy by the mouth of his holy angels called joseph smith and gave unto him a knowledge by vision of the place where the ancient records of a portion of the nation were deposited at that period of time there was scarcely a people on the face of the whole earth but what were more or less under the delusion of this apostate doctrine mr smith however was uncontaminated by these traditions as he was not a member of any church this is manifest in the prayer player offered by this young man at the time when the lord first revealed himself to him j he went out to pray being then a little dittli e over fourteen f years elir S 1 0 of 9 age i g e ln a 8 little grove not far from his bis fat fai fathers hers house the great object which he had in praying was to learn some few principles which he saw were absolutely n aces sary to know according to his understanding in order to serve the tho true and living god he desired to know which among all the denominations with which he was surrounded was the true church it is not often olten that boys of this age would be so exercised but this was the fact jact in regard to joseph smith he was uneducated he had not been to college he was not trained in the vices of all large cities but merely a country country boy accustomed to hard work with his father ather probably one reason why his mind was thus exercised was in consequence of the religious excitement existing in that neighborhood at the time some of his bis own relatives had bad joined the presbyterian church and he was earnestly sought after to join himself with some church and his hia mind being somewhat wrought upon seeing many of his young acquaintances turn to the lord he greatly greata desired to know which was the true church chuoc it was a great question he knew not ho how to satisfy his mind for he had not read the bible much he leard leara heard a great many different ferent doctrines advocated by ministers respecting the different denominations which caused him to read the bible he happened to fall upon a certain passage contained in the book of james if any man lack wisdom let him ask of god who liberally and upbraid eth not this passage when he read it seemed to sink with great weight upon his mind he thought it was his privilege to goto go to theford and ask him respecting the desired information As I 1 told you before he had not been trained up in any of the creeds oi of the existing denominations and therefore he was confiding enough to believe what was here writ written ten ton if any man lack wisdom vis dom ac he thought to himself that he did lack wisdom for he did desire to know which was the true church he went into the grove with a determination to claim this promise i when he was thus praying he saw a light which appeared to be approaching him from irom the heavens As it came nearer it seemed to grow brighter until it settled upon the tops of the trees he thought it would buld consume the leaves of the trees but it grad gradually nally descended and rested upon him his mind was immediately caught away he saw in this light two glorious personages one of whom spoke to him pointing to the other saying this is my beloved son hear ye him min 11 this was a glorious vision given to this boy when these persons interrogated him to know what he desired be answered and said lord show me which is the true church he was then informed by one of these per so nages that there was no true church upon the face of the whole earth that the whole christian world for many generations generations had been in apostasy apo stacy that they had ad denied communication and revelation from heaven denied the administration of angels denied the power that was in the ancient church that comes through the gift of the holy ghost and gave him much instruction st upon this point but did not see proper upon that occasion to give him a ruil full knowledge of the gospel and what was necessary to constitute a true church and gave um turn some few commandments to govern him in future time with a promise that if ho he would abide the same and call U upon on his name that the day would come when en the lord would reveal to him still further making manifest what was necessary to the constitution of the true church the vision withdrew the personages attending and the light withdrew he fie returned to his fathers house and told the vision not only to his parents and neighbors but to some of the preachers of the religious denominations in that place he was expressly commanded in the vision to unite himself to none of these churches when he related that which he had received in this vision the ministers immediately made light of it and said to him god does not reveal anything in our days he revealed all that was necessary in ancient times ile he has not spoken for 1800 years to any one prom from that time forth he was persecuted denominations persecuted not only by ministers but all Ne nominations in that region persecuted him there there goes that visionary boy this seemed to be the feeling manifested not only by professors but by all but yet he knew that god had manifested himself to him he could not be to the contrary any more than padd Mould when he heard jesus in his first vision when about four years had elapsed he retired to his bed one sunday evening reflecting ting upon the tho former vision praying to the lord that he might receive a fulfilment fulfillment of the promise namely that if he was faithful the true order of the church of the son of god should be revealed to him while he lay thus praying all at once the chamber was lighted up t this Is light contin aed to grow brighter and brighter until he saw a glorious personage an and d this person age revealed to him the condition of the world the apostasy apo stacy of the christ christian lan ian nations and thet darkness that reigned also revealed to him what the lord intended to accomplish upon the tho face of the whole earth preparatory to his coming he informed him that this continent had once been locce occupied |
