Orson Pratt, in a sermon dated February 16, 1851, delivered on board the Ellen Maria and recorded by George D. Watt said the following about the necessity of continuing public revelation and its relationship to ecclesiology:
And if it were not for the spirit
of revelation, the church of God could have no existence upon the face of the
earth. It can only be continued by this principle, and when the principle of
revelation ceases from among men, then the church of Christ ceases from among
men. When the prophets, and revelators, and inspired men cease from the earth,
the [church?] of God ceases from the earth. According to this provision, there
has been no church of God in existence on the earth for many centuries. This is
the real belief of the Latter-day Saints. We believe that the church of God has
been extinct from the earth for many generations, and we believe that it has
ceased with the spirit of revelation, for surely there is no way by which we
can distinguish the church of God from the churches built up by man, through
his own wisdom, only by the principle. The Bible, any way, gives us no
information of a people called the people of God, unless [there are] prophets
and revelators among them.
We might begin away back, to the
very beginning of man, and trace the history of man and the history of the
dealings of God with man, down for 4 thousand years and upwards, and during the
whole of that period of time, we find [that when] God had a people upon earth,
he spoke with them, [sent] angels to them, unfolded the visions of eternity to
them, [and] had prophets and revelators speak by the inspiration of his Spirit
among [them]. But for about 17 hundred years past, the people opined the Great
Mover has concluded [his work, and the] gate is charged. They do not say it
directly [but] indirectly, by telling the people [that] God has Christian
churches on earth, and at same time tell the people those Christian churches
have no visions, no revelations, any prophets unknown. All these these
occur[ed] to the people 18 hundred years ago. What right have we to believe
such nonsense, to think, if we will think, the churches of God will have no
accordance with the Bible, not agreed with the Bible, no importance for them to
be the church of God. (Liverpool to Great Lake City: The 1851 Journal of
Missionary George D. Watt, ed. LaJean Purcell Carruth and Ronald G. Watt [Lincoln,
Nebr.: University of Nebraska Press, 2022], 119-20)
