Heber C. Kimball
Bless
my soul, look at the unbelieving world, that is a great many of them,
they now believe in spiritual knockings, spiritual communications, and
spiritual rappings, and they will ask the same spirit for this, and for
that; to know this, that, and the other; and, “Won’t you cause that
table to kick up its legs, and that chair to dance, and cause a knocking
here, and a knocking there?” They believe all this, still they do not
believe that God can communicate. And at the same time those that they
communicate with are corrupt spirits, and they might know it, and still
they say they can speak from the heavens, and communicate this, that,
and the other, and tell them where their friends are. If wicked spirits
can do this, I want to know, on the same principle, if the righteous
have not power to communicate to the children of men? And has not God
power to do it? (Journal of Discourses, 2:222-223)
Parley P. Pratt
Who
communicated with Jesus and his disciples on the holy mount? Moses and
Elias, from the invisible world. Who bestowed upon the Apostles the
commission to preach the Gospel to every creature in all the world? He
that had passed the vale of death, and had dwelt in the spirit world,
yea, he that had ascended far on high above the realms of death, and far
beyond all the principalities and powers of the spirit world, and had
entered, and been crowned, in the mansions of immortal flesh.
Who
communicated with the beloved disciple on the Isle of Patmos, and
revealed those sublime truths contained in his prophetic book? He that
liveth and was dead, through his angel, who declared to John--Behold, I
am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the Prophets, that have the
testimony of Jesus. Who communicated with our great modern Prophet, and
revealed through him as a medium, the ancient history of a hemisphere,
and the records of the ancient dead? Moroni, who had lived upon the
earth fourteen hundred years before. Who ordained Joseph the Prophet,
and his fellow-servant, to the preparatory Priesthood, to baptize for
remission of sins? John the Baptist, who had been beheaded! Who ordained
our first founders to the Apostleship, to hold the keys of the kingdom
of God, in these the times of restoration? Peter, James, and John, from
the eternal world. Who instructed him in the mysteries of the kingdom,
and in all things pertaining to Priesthood, law, philosophy, sacred
architecture, ordinances, sealings, anointings, baptisms for the dead,
and in the mysteries of the first, second, and third heavens, many of
which are unlawful to utter? Angels and spirits from the eternal worlds.
Who revealed to him the plan of redemption, and of exaltation for the
dead who had died without the Gospel? and the keys and preparations
necessary for holy and perpetual converse with Jesus Christ, and with
the spirits of just men made perfect, and with the general assembly and
Church of the first-born, in the holy of holies? Those from the dead!
Again--How do the Saints expect the necessary information by which to
complete the ministrations for the salvation and exaltation of their
friends who have died? By one holding the keys of the oracles of God, as
a medium through which the living can hear from the dead. Shall we,
then, deny the principle, the philosophy, the fact of communication
between worlds? No! verily no! (Journal of Discourses, 2:44)
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