JOSEPH SMITH
1st President of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
April 6, 1830 – June 27, 1844

Reported Addresses

• King Follett Discourse
  • Journal of Discourses, 6:001, April 6, 1844
    • “It is necessary for us to have an understanding of God himself in the beginning. If we start right, it is easy to go right all the time; but if we start wrong, we may go wrong, and it will be a hard matter to get right.”
    • “If men do not comprehend the character of God they do not comprehend themselves.”
    • “If any man does not know God, and inquires what kind of a being he is, if he will search diligently his own heart – if the declarations of Jesus and the apostles be true – he will realize that he has not eternal life; for there can be eternal life on no other principle.”
    • “Meddle not with any man for his religion; and all governments ought to permit every man to enjoy his religion unmolested. No man is authorized to take away life in consequence of difference of religion, which all laws and governments ought to tolerate and protect, right or wrong. Every man has a natural and, in our country a constitutional right to be a false prophet as well as a true prophet.”
    • “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted Man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens. That is the great secret. If the vail was rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by his power was to make himself visible, I say if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form – like yourselves, in all the person, image and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image, and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked, and conversed with him, as one man talks and communes with another.”
    • “The scriptures inform us that Jesus said, “As the father hath power in himself even so hath the Son power” – to do what? Why what the Father did. The answer is obvious – in a manner, to lay down his body and take it up again. Jesus, what are you going to do? To lay down my life, as my Father, did and take it up again. Do you believe it?”
    • “When you climb a ladder you must begin at the bottom and ascend step by step until you arrive at the; and so it is with the principles of the Gospel: you must begin with the first, and go on until you learn all the principles of exaltation. But it will be a great while after you have passed through the vail before you will have learned them. It is not all to be comprehended in this world: it will be a great work to learn our salvation and exaltation even beyond the grave.”
    • “I have got the oldest book in my heart, even the gift of the Holy Ghost.”
    • “When his commandments teach us, it is in view of eternity; for we are looked upon by God as though we were in eternity. God dwells in eternity and does not view things as we do.”
    • “All sins shall be forgiven except the sin against the Holy Ghost; for Jesus will save all except the sons of perdition. What must a man do to commit the unpardonable sin? He must receive the Holy Ghost, have the heavens opened unto him, and know God, and then sin against him. After a man has sinned against the Holy Ghost, there is no repentance for him. He has got to say that the sun does not shine while he sees it; he has got to deny Jesus Christ when the heavens have been opened unto him, and to deny the plan of salvation with his eyes open to the truth of it; and from that time he begins to be an enemy. This is the case with many apostates of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
    • “When a man begins to be an enemy to this work he hunts me; he seeks to kill me, and never ceases to thirst for my blood. He gets the spirit of the Devil – the same spirit that they had who crucified the Lord of Life, the same spirit that sins against the Holy Ghost. You cannot save such persons; you cannot bring them to repentance; they make open war like the Devil, and awful is the consequence.”
    • “The baptism of water, without the baptism of fire and the Holy Ghost attending it, is of no use: they are necessary and inseparably connected. An individual must be born of water and the spirit in order to get
      into the kingdom of God.”
• The Constitutions of the United States and Illinois – Nauvoo Charter and Municipal Court – Writ of Habeas Corpus
  • Journal of Discourses 2:163; June 30, 1843
    • “Be not the aggressor – bear until they strike you on the one cheek; then offer the other, and they will be sure to strike that; then defend yourselves and God will bear you off, and you shall stand forth clear before His tribunal.”
• The Priesthood – The Second Advent – The Gathering – Spiritual Ministrations and Manifestations
  • Journal of Discourses 6:237; June 2, 1839
    • “The priesthood was first given to Adam. He obtained the first presidency and held the keys of it from generation to generation. He obtained it in the creation before the world was formed, as in Gen. i. 20, 26, 28. He had dominion given him over every living creature. He is Michael the Archangel, spoken of in the scriptures. Then to Noah, who is Gabriel: he stands next in authority to Adam in the Priesthood. He was called of God to this office, and was the father of all living in his day, and to him was given the dominion. These men held keys first on earth, and then in heaven.”
    • “The spirit of man is not a created being: it existed from eternity, and will exist to eternity. Anything created cannot be eternal; and earth, water, &c., had their existence in an elementary state from eternity.”
    • “Salvation cannot come without revelation: it is in vain for any one to minister without it. No man is a minister of Jesus Christ without being a prophet. No man can be the minister of Jesus Christ, except he has the testimony of Jesus and this is the spirit of prophecy. Whenever salvation has been administered, it has been by testimony. Men of the present time testify of heaven and of hell, and have never seen either; and I will say that no man knows these things without this.”
    • “We ought to have the building up of Zion as our greatest object. When wars come, we shall have to flee to Zion. The cry is to make haste.”