Question
Gramps,
In your answer to a previous question by someone you stated, “The practice of polygamy under the sanction of the Lord is a principle of a highly spiritual nature, as explained the D&C 132. The principle has never changed, but the practice has been terminated in order that we may be obedient to the laws of the land, as specified in the twelfth Article of Faith.” My question is, Since this principle has never changed, isn’t it more important to be obedient to the Lord? To do otherwise seems contradictory.
Genia
Answer
Genia,
You are by no means the only person to ask this question. Wilford Woodruff addressed your concerns shortly after revealing the manifesto (Official Declaration 1).
“The Lord has told me to ask the Latter-day Saints a question, and He also told me that if they would listen to what I said to them and answer the question put to them, by the Spirit and power of God, they would all answer alike, and they would all believe alike with regard to this matter.
The question is this: Which is the wisest course for the Latter-day Saints to pursue—to continue to attempt to practice plural marriage, with the laws of the nation against it and the opposition of sixty millions of people, and at the cost of the confiscation and loss of all the Temples, and the stopping of all the ordinances therein, both for the living and the dead, and the imprisonment of the First Presidency and Twelve and the heads of families in the Church, and the confiscation of personal property of the people (all of which of themselves would stop the practice); or, after doing and suffering what we have through our adherence to this principle to cease the practice and submit to the law, and through doing so leave the Prophets, Apostles and fathers at home, so that they can instruct the people and attend to the duties of the Church, and also leave the Temples in the hands of the Saints, so that they can attend to the ordinances of the Gospel, both for the living and the dead?
… But I want to say this: I should have let all the temples go out of our hands; I should have gone to prison myself, and let every other man go there, had not the God of heaven commanded me to do what I did do; and when the hour came that I was commanded to do that, it was all clear to me.”
Gramps
