The spirits that live in these
tabernacles were as pure as the heavens, when they entered them. They came to
tabernacles that are contaminated, pertaining to the flesh, by the fall of man.
The Psalmist says, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my
mother conceive me." This Scripture has established in the minds of some
the doctrine of total depravity—that it is impossible for them to have one good
thought, that they are altogether sinful, that there is no good, no soundness,
and no spiritual health in them. This is not correct, yet we have a warfare
within us. We have to contend against evil passions, or the seeds of iniquity
that are sown in the flesh through the fall. The pure spirits that occupy these
tabernacles are operated upon, and it is the right of Him that sent them into
these tabernacles to hold the preeminence, and to always give the Spirit of
truth to influence the spirits of men, that it may triumph and reign
predominently in our tabernacles the God and Lord of every motion. We not only
have this warfare continually, day by day, within ourselves, but we also have
an outside influence or pressure to resist. Both the religious and the
political world have influences to contend against that very much resemble each
other; they are more or less exercised, governed and controlled by surrounding
influences. We Latter-day Saints have an influence of this kind to contend
against. (Brigham Young, March 8, 1863, JOD 10:105)
