Let every person be the friend of God. 4:372.
But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.
And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.
The expression friend of God for Abraham, suggested by Isa 41.8, became popular in later Jewish writings and is used by other early Christian authors.
As it stands, the admonition to be a "friend of God" is an admirable one. But when read in its original Journal of Discourses context, it is clear that being a "friend of God" means keeping His revelations to oneself, and more to the point, keeping secrets from one's spouse.
I'm really not sure what I think about that. On the one hand, Alma 12:9 makes the same point -- God gives revelation to individuals with the "strict command" not to "impart" those revelations. On the other hand, John 18:20 seems clear to me that God (or at least Jesus) has no secrets that He needs His disciples to keep for Him.
Meanwhile, I have difficulty believing that keeping secrets from one's spouse is a desirable state of affairs. I have always believed that a partnership must be honest if it is going to be strong, and it must be open if it is going to be fulfilling. I'm not entirely sure what Brigham is advocating in this paragraph, but if it is what it looks like, I'm sure I don't like it.
If nothing else, Brigham's last sentence in that paragraph -- about "proving" to God that we are His friends -- strikes me as a classic example of Pharisaism, too much to sit well with me.