Joseph Smith(1805–1844)

Joseph Smith Jr. (1805⁠–1844) was the founding prophet of the Latter Day Saint movement, a religious visionary, translator, civic leader, and martyr whose theological imagination radically reshaped American Christianity. Born in Sharon, Vermont, and raised in the burned-over district of upstate New York, he reported a series of visions beginning in 1820 that culminated in the publication of the Book of Mormon in 1830 and the organization of the Church of Christ that same year. Over the next fourteen years, he led his followers from New York to Ohio, Missouri, and finally Illinois, founding the city of Nauvoo before being killed by a mob at Carthage Jail in June 1844.

Smith’s contributions extend well beyond institutional founding. He produced an expansive body of revelatory texts⁠—including the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price⁠—revised the King James Bible, introduced temple liturgy and proxy ordinances for the dead, and articulated a distinctive theology of embodied, progressing deity. He served as mayor of Nauvoo, lieutenant general of its militia, and a candidate for President of the United States in 1844, advocating religious liberty, the abolition of slavery, and prison reform. His public sermons, especially the King Follett discourse, set forth a cosmology in which God was once as humanity is now and humans may, through grace and growth, become as God is.

Smith’s legacy resonates deeply with themes of human potential, intelligence, friendship, and divine becoming. He taught that “the first principles of man are self-existent with God,” that intelligences advance from grace to grace and from one small capacity to a great one, and that eternal life consists in learning to be Gods⁠—language that anticipates a participatory and developmental account of theosis. He welcomed the inventiveness of the Gentiles as a means of building Zion, embraced truth from any source, and treated friendship as a principle designed to “revolutionize and civilize the world.” His insistence that revelation is ongoing, that prophecy belongs to all who hold the testimony of Jesus, and that happiness is the object and design of existence offers a generous foundation for those who seek to integrate faith, science, and technology in the work of human flourishing and exaltation.

Quotations by Joseph Smith

After this instruction, you will be responsible for your own sins; it is a desirable honor that you should so walk before our heavenly Father as to save yourselves; we are all responsible to God for the manner we improve the light and wisdom given by our Lord to enable us to save ourselves.

President Joseph Smith read the 14th chapter of Ezekiel—said the Lord had declared by the Prophet, that the people should each one stand for himself, and depend on no man or men in that state of corruption of the Jewish church—that righteous persons could only deliver their own souls—applied it to the present state of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—said if the people departed from the Lord, they must fall—that they…

One of the grand fundamental principles of “Mormonism” is to receive truth, let it come from whence it may.

If a skillful mechanic, in taking a welding heat, uses borax, alum, etc., and succeeds in welding together iron or steel more perfectly than any other mechanic, is he not deserving of praise? And if by the principles of truth I succeed in uniting men of all denominations in the bonds of love, shall I not have attained a good object?

The first principles of man are self-existent with God. God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge.

Friendship is one of the grand fundamental principles of “Mormonism”; [it is designed] to revolutionize and civilize the world, and cause wars and contentions to cease and men to become friends and brothers.

The first and fundamental principle of our holy religion is, that we believe that we have a right to embrace all, and every item of truth, without limitation or without being circumscribed or prohibited by the creeds or superstitious notions of men, or by the dominations of one another, when that truth is clearly demonstrated to our minds, and we have the highest degree of evidence of the same.

This day I have been walking through the most splended part of the City of New York, ... and the language of my heart is like this: “Can the great God of all the Earth, maker of all things magnificent and splendid, be displeased with man for all these great inventions sought out by them?” My answer is no. It cannot be, seeing these works are are calculated to make men comfortable, wise, and happy.

The Saints can testify whether I am willing to lay down my life for my brethren. If it has been demonstrated that I have been willing to die for a “Mormon,” I am bold to declare before Heaven that I am just as ready to die in defending the rights of a Presbyterian, a Baptist, or a good man of any other denomination; for the same principle which would trample upon the rights of the Latter-day Saints would trample upon the rights of the Roman Catholics, or of any other denominations who may be unpopular and too weak to defend themselves.

Now the doctrine of translation is a power which belongs to this Priesthood. There are many things which belong to the powers of the Priesthood and the keys thereof, that have been kept hid from before the foundation of the world; they are hid from the wise and prudent to be revealed in the last times.

A person filled with the love of God is not content with blessing their family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race.

[The Gentiles] will make wonderful improvements in machinery of every kind, especially implements of husbandry for the working of the land and raising grain, saving a great deal of labor to the saints in building up the kingdom. The Lord will inspire the Gentiles to do this, but they will not acknowledge his hand in it, nor give him the glory …

I love that man better who swears a stream as long as my arm, yet deals justice to his neighbors and mercifully deals his substance to the poor, than the smooth-faced hypocrite. I do not want you to think that I’m very righteous, for I am not. There was one good man, and his name was Jesus.

Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God. But we cannot keep all the commandments without first knowing them, and we cannot expect to know all, or more than we now know unless we comply with or keep those we have already received.

I see no faults in the Church, and therefore let me be resurrected with the Saints, whether I ascend to heaven or descend to hell, or go to any other place. And if we go to hell, we will turn the devils out of doors and make a heaven of it. Where this people are, there is good society.

This morning I read German and visited with a brother and sister from Michigan, who thought that ‘a prophet is always a prophet;” but I told them that a prophet was a prophet only when he was acting as such.

Salvation cannot come without revelation; it is in vain for anyone to minister without it. No man is a minister of Jesus Christ without being a Prophet. No man can be a 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.

‘Do you believe Joseph Smith, Jun., to be a Prophet?’ Yes, and every other man who has the testimony of Jesus. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

As concerning the resurrection, I will merely say that all men will come from the grave as they lie down, whether old or young; there will not be “added unto their stature one cubit,” neither taken from it; all will be raised by the power of God, having spirit in their bodies, and not blood.

If tomorrow I shall be called to lie in yonder tomb, in the morning of the resurrection let me strike hands with my father, and cry, “My father,” and he will say, “My son, my son,” as soon as the rock rends and before we come out of our graves. And may we contemplate these thing so? Yes, if we learn how to live and how to die.