President Brigham Young declared, "The Priesthood of the Son of God is . . . the law by which the worlds are, were, and will continue for ever and ever." President Joseph F. Smith, expanding on this theme, advised, "It is nothing more nor less than the power of God delegated to man by which man can act in the earth for the salvation of the human family, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and act legitimately; not assuming that authority, nor borrowing it from generations that are dead and gone, but authority that has been given in this day in which we live by ministering angels and spirits from above, direct from the presence of Almighty God."


President Thomas S. Monson, "Our Sacred Priesthood Trust" General Conference April 2006 [Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe (1954), 130. & Gospel Doctrine, 5th ed. (1939), 139–40.]