Joseph Smith Jr. Quotes

I believe very confidently in the truth of Scripture, where it says that there is no authority, no power given to man except as given by God.

All Church power arises from the indwelling of the Spirit; therefore those in whom the Spirit dwells are the seat of Church power. But the Spirit dwells in the whole Church, and therefore the whole Church is the seat of Church power.

Behold how Christ is the foundation of the church and the apostles are the foundations! Christ is by a figure of speech - antonomastice - the foundation because the edifice of the church begins from him and is finished in him and through him. But the prophets and apostles are the foundations because their authority bears up our weakness.

In order to the existence of such a ministry in the Church, there is requisite an authority received from God, and consequently power and knowledge imparted from God for the exercise of such ministry; and where a man possesses these, although the bishop has not laid hands upon him according to his traditions, God has Himself appointed him.

The king is from God, the law from the king.

Crown and cloth maken no priest, nor emperor's bishop with his words, but power that Christ giveth; and thus by life have been priests known.

To bear means to support the weight of that which is held. It is a sacred trust to bear the priesthood, which is the mighty power and authority of God.

To understand the power of the priesthood, we must know its limitations.

God is the foundation of all authority, He exercises that foundation because He is the author and the owner of His creation. He is the foundation upon which all other authority stands or falls.

God is the foundation of liberty. Because if God is not, who is? The government?

There’s nothing more dangerous to the kingdom of darkness than a believer with the Word of God in their mouth.

But Christ could certainly not have established the Church. That is, the institution we now call by that name, for nothing resembling our present conception of the Church-with its sacraments, its hierarchy, and especially its claim to infallibility-is to be found in Christ's words or in the conception of the men of his time.

When the church takes affairs of the state more seriously than they do Jesus, Pax Romana becomes its gospel and the president becomes the Son of God.

The True Church can never fail. For it is based upon a rock.

In order to the existence of such a ministry in the Church, there is requisite an authority received from God, and consequently power and knowledge imparted from God for the exercise of such ministry; and where a man possesses these, although the bis.

But if the Vision was true and mighty, as I know, it is true and mighty yet;for such things are of Spirit, and it is in the darkness of their eyes that men get lost.

A man who is well grounded in the testimonies of the Scripture is the bulwark of the Church.

It is possible to pull out justification for imposing your will on others, simply by calling your will God's will.

When we touch the foundation of the reality of the good news of God, we will never bother Him anymore with little personal complaints.

Churches may decay and perish; riches may make themselves wings and fly away-but he who builds their happiness on Christ crucified and union with Him by faith, that person is standing on a foundation which shall never be moved, and will know something of true peace.

The idea of God is the type and foundation of the principle of authority and absolutism, which it is our task to destroy or at least to subordinate wherever it manifests itself.

The true Church of England, at this moment, lies in the Editors of the newspapers.

He [Peter after the resurrection] now understood that he and the church were to exercise a transcendent power that did not depend upon having a kingdom or government in any human sense, for it was literally a "God government" in which they were participants (Acts 1:6-8).

The influence of the Church does not depend on the Church, it depends on the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit will never lose its influence. He is God and He is influencing society.

A society like the Church, which claims to be Divine is perhaps more dangerous on account of the ersatz good which it contains then on account of the evil which sullies it. Something of the social labelled divine: an intoxicating mixture which carries with it every sort of license. Devil disguised.