8. John Taylor, Revelation (1886)

In the 1880s, the U.S. federal campaign against Mormon plural marriage was in overdrive. Increasingly, the continued viability of the church’s temporal existence was in doubt, given the arrest of leaders, disenfranchisement of members, and federal expropriation of assets. In this climate, President John Taylor (Brigham Young’s successor) purportedly sought heavenly guidance and recorded an 1886 revelation insisting that the “law of Abraham” would never be revoked. The next year Taylor died, without having made the revelation public, and in 1890, the “Manifesto” of his prophetic successor, Wilford Woodruff, officially led to the end of the practice of plural marriage. Self-described Mormon fundamentalists, who continue to practice polygamy, believe John Taylor transferred the keys of the practice to several associates to keep it alive in the face of such an eventuality. The Salt Lake City, Utah-based church has long refused to consider the Taylor revelation authentic.10 In any case, Latter-day Saints observe that the phrase “works of Abraham” is ambiguous. Found in the revelation known as Doctrine and Covenants 132, this terminology is confusing; interconnected but not clearly differentiated principles related to the subject include eternity of the marriage covenant, plurality of wives, authority of the priesthood officiators, and the affirming seal of the Holy Spirit. To this day, no official LDS position is held on the question of what role, if any, plural marriage will have in the eternities. Regardless, the Mormon prophet as presiding authority has the keys to administer plural marriage, and he has refused to employ or authorize their use since the early twentieth century. Polygamy is today grounds for automatic excommunication from the church. The many groups who today practice plural marriage and claim affinity with Joseph Smith’s restorationist tradition generally invoke the contested Taylor revelation as the basis of their authority.

September 27, 1886

My son John: You have asked me concerning the New and Everlasting Covenant and how far it is binding upon my people.

Thus saith the Lord All commandments that I give must be obeyed by those calling themselves by my name unless they are revoked by me or by my authority and how can I revoke an everlasting covenant; For I the Lord am everlasting and my covenants cannot be abrogated nor done away with; but they stand forever. Have I not given my word in great plainness on this subject? Yet have not great numbers of my people been negligent in the observance of my law and the keeping of my commandment, and yet have I borne with them these many years and this because of their weakness because of the perilous times. And furthermore it is more pleasing to me that men should use their free agency in regard to these matters. Nevertheless I the Lord do not change and my word and my covenants and my law do not. And as I have heretofore said by my servant Joseph all those who would enter into my glory must and shall obey my law. And have I not commanded men that if they were Abraham’s seed and would enter into my glory they must do the works of Abraham. I have not revoked this law nor will I for it is everlasting and those who will enter into my glory must obey the conditions thereof, even so Amen.