Brother Spencer has given you most excellent doctrine. If the Father in heaven should come here and speak to us, he probably would not speak anything better to this people than what has been said this morning; for he would speak according to your capacities. The Gospel of salvation is very simple; but everything is constituted therein; everything is comprehended in the first principles of the doctrine of Christ. We have preached a great many times and used the words of Paul, where he tells us to leave the first principles of the doctrine of Christ and go on unto perfection. But if we do that we shall slide off the foundation, and would have to return and do our first works. There is the Father, and the Son, who was given up, that his blood might be shed upon Calvary, that our sins might be forgiven, on condition that we repent and forsake them.
"Well," you say, "I believe: what shall I do to be saved?" Repent, every one of you, and then go and be buried in water, like unto Jesus Christ's burial in the sepulchre, and you shall receive the remission of your sins. What next? Receive the laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost. These are some of the first principles of the Gospel.
Now, can we live our religion unless we are in possession of the Holy Ghost all the time? We cannot. First, there is the Father, then the Son, and then the Holy Ghost; and then come faith, repentance, and baptism for the remission of sins, and laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Do you not see, then, that it is just as necessary to lay aside the Holy Ghost as to lay aside any other principle of the Gospel? No man can please the Lord God, only as he is dictated by the Holy Ghost; and he will not stay with you unless you keep in view the Father and the Son. We partake of the sacrament every Sabbath to bear in remembrance the Son of God. Then, shall I say, leaving all these principles, go on unto perfection? No. They are the fundamental principles of our religion, the same as the 26 letters of the English alphabet are the roots of the written and printed form of our language.
Are these principles the celestial law? I know no other. And how can you keep the celestial law without the Holy Ghost? You cannot. When you partake of the sacrament, you do it in remembrance of Jesus Christ, and of the Father, and of the Holy Ghost, and in remembrance that you have forsaken your sins and been baptised for the remission of them. Some may say, "How long will it be before the celestial law will be put into force?" Never, until you put it into force and execute it on yourselves.
I will use a comparison. Here is the English alphabet, that you learned when in childhood, so that you were perfectly acquainted with the 26 letters: but do you leave that alphabet when you go on unto perfection in your education? No. But when you have learned those letters, you then learn. how to join them to make syllables, words, and sentences, and go on till you can read the First Reader, and then the Second, and the Third, &c, and all by means of the same letters. You also learn geography and history, and rise from one class to another, and from one grade of exaltation to another. To gain all your knowledge in English literature, you must use the first principles of the language all the time. Do I exhort you to leave the first principles of the doctrine of Christ? No: but I want you to learn them more thoroughly, that you may keep them in view continually. There are some who do not understand the alphabet of "Mormonism," and never did: Some that profess to be the smartest men and women in our midst know the least about it.
Brethren, we have all got to learn one thing, and that is, to be one with our leader; and this oneness should extend from the least member up to Prophet and Seer—every man standing in his order and place, just as the branches of a tree are one with the stock and root.
We will say there are a thousand limbs forming the top of a tree, and all have sprung out of one, or out of the body of the tree. From the main stock we will say that twelve limbs shoot out, and from them a thousand, which are dependent on the twelve limbs for their nourishment, as the twelve limbs are dependent upon the stock and roots for theirs. Should any of the twelve limbs be rotten in the pith or marrow, all the limbs receiving their sap and nourishment therefrom must be affected, more or less, with the same disorder, and they also affect the root. If the limbs are thrifty, they give to the roots a healthy action to gather more abundant nourishment for the whole tree.