When we reflect and rightly understand, we learn how easy of comprehension the Gospel is, how plain it is in its plan, in every part and principle fitted perfectly to the capacity of mankind, insomuch that when it is introduced among the lovers of truth it appears very easy and very plain, and how very ready the honest are to receive it.
But send it abroad and give it antiquity, and it is at once clothed with mystery. This is the case with all the ancient revelations. Those which were received and understood by the ancients are shrouded in mystery and uncertainty to this generation, and men are employed to reveal the meaning of the ancient Scriptures. 3:335-6.
CHAPTER XII
THE PRIESTHOOD
The Priesthood—All ye inhabitants of the earth, hearken and hear! God has, in our day, spoken from the heavens; he has bestowed his holy Priesthood on the children of men; he has called upon all people to repent. 8:136.
Let us submit to him, that we may share in this invisible, almighty, God-like power, which is the everlasting Priesthood. 3:259.
The Priesthood of the Son of God, which we have in our midst, is a perfect order and system of government, and this alone can deliver the human family from all the evils which now afflict its members, and insure them happiness and felicity hereafter. 13:242.
If anybody wants to know what the Priesthood of the Son of God is, it is the law by which the worlds are, were, and will continue for ever and ever. It is that system which brings worlds into existence and peoples them, gives them their revolutions—their days, weeks, months, years, their seasons and times and by which they are rolled up as a scroll, as it were, and go into a higher state of existence. 15:127.
When we talk of the celestial law which is revealed from heaven, that is, the Priesthood, we are talking about the principle of salvation, a perfect system of government, of laws and ordinances, by which we can be prepared to pass from one gate to another, and from one sentinel to another, until we go into the presence of our Father and God. This law has not always been upon the earth; and in its absence, other laws have been given to the children of men for their improvement, for their education, for their government, and to prove what they would do when left to control themselves; and what we now call tradition has grown out of these circumstances. 2:139.
The Priesthood of the Son of God in its operations comprises the Kingdom of God. 11:249.