Joseph Smith on Ethics

Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith

“

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.

”
History of the Church, B. H. Roberts, ed., Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1902

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That is what He did during His mortal life; it is what He would be doing if He were living among us today; and it is what we should be doing as His disciples and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As we emulate His perfect example, our hands can become His hands; our eyes, His eyes; our heart, His heart.

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More from Joseph Smith

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.

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.

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.

Here, then, is eternal life—to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all gods have done before you.

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.