--- title: Times and Seasons description: Issues of 1841 to 1842. authors: - Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints editors: - Ebenezer Robinson - Don Carlos Smith - Smith, Joseph, Jr. - Taylor, John collections: - periodicals tags: - newspaper - times-and-seasons - nauvoo - nineteenth-century periodical: Times and Seasons volume: 3 number: 20 published: 1842-08-15 publisher: E. Robinson and D. C. Smith; later John Taylor publisher_place: Commerce and Nauvoo, Illinois language: en type: article reference: "“'Knowledge Is Power.,” *Times and Seasons* 3, no. 20 (August 15, 1842): 889–890." printed_title: "'KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.\"" source: url: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1842-08-15_3_20 transcription: Text from the Centerplace.org transcription (https://www.centerplace.org/history/ts/v3n20.htm), with its page breaks; this Internet Archive scan is the reference copy (its OCR was used only as a witness for OCR repair) identifier: per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1842-08-15_3_20 start_page: 889 end_page: 890 curator_note: A Mormon newspaper published by the church in Nauvoo; included for historical study. Inclusion does not imply endorsement. rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1842 (Nauvoo, Illinois); published before 1931, so public domain in the United States source: https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_times-and-seasons_1842-08-15_3_20 publication_year: 1842 --- # 'Knowledge Is Power. The truth of our text can be proved in many ways, by experience. The man of intelligence certainly possesses a power which the unlearned lacks. In the different ages of the world men have arisen and flourished, and maintained their rights in proportion to the knowledge they possessed of the country they inhabited; in proportion to the knowledge they acquired in arts and sciences; and in proportion to the knowledge they displayed in agriculture, and virtue: hence the duration, the stability, and above all, the exaltation and happiness of any community, goes hand in hand with the knowledge possessed by the people, when applied to laudable ends; whereupon we can exclaim like the wise man; righteousness exalteth a nation; for righteousness embraces knowledge and knowledge is power. From this view of the subject it will readily be perceived, that two kinds of knowledge have, from the beginning, actuated mankind; for all men have not been righteous, though they may have flourished in nations, kingdoms and countries, collectively and individually. To go on, then, with our subjuct [subject] in its true course, will be to speak of that knowledge that cometh from above-which surpasses understanding; even revelation, which unfolds the mysteries of eternity. In this course, however, we are aware that the world will not acquiesce; for, notwithstanding, literally speaking, that all knowledge comes from God, yet when it has been revealed, all men have not believed it as revelation at the time. Hence, when Abel's offering was accepted of the Lord, that knowledge must have been communicated by revelation, and that revelation though it gave Abel power with God: still Cain was offended, disbelieved and committed murder. Cain knew the Lord, and believed in his father Adam's scripture, or revelation, but one revelation was enough: he could not bear new ones, and fell. Noah was a perfect man, and his knowledge or revelation of what was to take place upon the earth, gave him power to prepare and save himself and family from the destruction of the flood. This knowledge, or revelation, like the preceeding [preceding] one to Abel, was not believed by the inhabitants of the earth. They knew Adam was the first man, made in the image of God; that he was a good man: that Enoch walked with God three hundred and sixty-five years, and was translated to heaven without tasting death: but they could not endnre [endure] the new revelation: the old we believe becauss [because] our fathers did, but away with new revelations-and the flood swept them away. Next comes Abraham with knowledge, or revelation, and what is the result? Why he becomes a pilgrim in a strange land; no body believed in his religion because he had new revelations:-Adam's, Enoch's, and Noah's uo [no] body doubted; that Adam was the first man the Lord made, none disputed; Enoch's pillar was a living monument of his faith and works; and the living Noah himself, with his ark resting upon the mountain, and the majesty of the rainbow, spanning the earth from time to time, were witnesses that the old revelations were true-but that Passover, Abraham, is an imposture, with new revelations! why he says God appeared to him in the plains of Mamre, and that he has seen angels, and eat and drink with them! O monstrous! drive him from his country and kindred-we can not abide his new revelations. Passing several others, who were conspicuous in their day, let us take Moses, for he came on fresh from God himself, with new revelations, and new calculations, and tested the wickedness of unblievers [unbelievers] by destroying them with plagues and miracles: The inhabitants opposed him as did Cain Abel; the kings and magi Abraham, because they could not bear information direct from heaven. The old priests of Egypt, as well as those of the land of Canaan, were living witnesses of the power displayed, and well stored with facts of what had transpired,-yet the same fanaticism, hypocrisy, or stupefaction seized them that did the antedeluvians [antediluvians]-and the Egyptians, like lead, sunk in the Red Sea. We might continue this subject with great effect among the children of Israel, for so soon as they began to be puffed up with self-sufficiency, they too, like the ancients, honored the old revelations in word, or profession, but they stoned the prophets which came with new ones; not because God had ever said that he had ceased to give line upon line; precept upon precept, here a little, and there a little; but because they chose darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. The same principle we have been tracing from age to age, was signally manifest among the Jews when the Savior came in the flesh. These, then religious bigots boasted of the old revelations, guarnished [garnished?] the sepulchres [sepulchers] of the dead, gave tithes of mint and annis [anise?]-made long prayers for a pretense, and crosesd [crossed] sea and land to make proselytes, but yet when the new revelation came fresh from the mouth of the great I AM himself, they could not endure ir [it]-it was too much-it showed the corruptions of that generation, as others before, and they cry, away with him; crucify him! What next? when the apostles began to go every where and preach, and some began to believe, then they could believe on Jesus, but away with your new revelation against us, and foretelling what will come to pass; hence Paul, after instructing Timothy on many important points relztive [relative] to his duty, says:- "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy. Whithout [Without] natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good. Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away." Once more, the same course and language, were used when the Book of Mormon came to this generation; the old revelation, the old patriarchs, pilgrims and apostles, were blessed; we believe in them, but the new ones we cannot abide. Why, say some, they pretend to have visions and see angels just like men in old times-they ought not to live. "Oh blindness to the future kindly given; That each may fill the circle marked by heaven!" But the grand sequel of the whole matter is, that all the saints from Adam down to 1842, having a knowledge of things past, present, and to come, by the gift of the Holy Ghost [Ghost], even the other Comforter which the world can not receive, because it knoweth him not, have had power to shut the mouth of kings and lions, to walk in the fiery furnace unscortched [unscorched]; to live hated, and die for Christ's sake, whereby they have tasted of the good word of God, and the glories of the world to come; yea and come unto Mount Zion, and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innunumerable [innumerable] company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect; and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than Abel, and know that knowledge is power.-ED.