the right to differ from other men

 

Brigham Young, "SAINTS SUBJECT TO TEMPTATION".

A Discourse by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 17, 1853.

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We talk about true riches—about the eternal attributes of the Deity—and about that which He has given to the children of men. I also heard something said the other day about sanctification. This doctrine I heard taught many years ago, and I perceive that men do not fully understand these  principles; even the best of the Latter-day Saints have but a faint idea of the attributes of the Deity.

Were the former and Latter-day Saints, with their Apostles, Prophets, Seers, and Revelators collected together to discuss this matter, I am led to think there would be found a great variety in their views and feelings upon this subject without direct revelation from the Lord. It is as much my right to differ from other men, as it is theirs to differ from me, in points of doctrine and principle, when our minds cannot at once arrive at the same conclusion. I feel it sometimes very difficult indeed to word my thoughts as they exist in my own mind, which, I presume, is the grand cause of many apparent differences in sentiment which may exist among the Saints.

What I consider to be virtue, and the only principle of virtue there is, is to do the will of our Father in heaven. That is the only virtue I wish to know. I do not recognize any other virtue than to do what the Lord Almighty requires of me from day to day. In this sense virtue embraces all good; it branches out into every avenue of mortal life, passes through the ranks of the sanctified in heaven, and makes its throne in the breast of the Deity. When the Lord commands the people, let them obey. That is virtue.

The same principle will embrace what is called sanctification. When the will, passions, and feelings of a person are perfectly submissive to God and His requirements, that person is sanctified. It is for my will to be swallowed up in the will of God, that will lead me into all good, and crown me ultimately with immortality and eternal lives.

(1850s1853, Brigham Young, Saints ¶13–16 • JD 2:122–JD 2:123)