Discourse, 7 November 1841, as Reported by Willard Richards
Source Note
JS, Discourse, , Hancock, Co., IL, 7 Nov. 1841. Version copied in Willard Richards, Letter, Nauvoo, IL, to Levi Richards, Manchester, England, 11 Nov. 1841; typescript made [1965], pp. [2]–[3]; Richards Family Papers, CHL.
In my last I believe, I gave you some sketches of Joseph's Sermon on for the dead. I heard him last Sabbath, on Superstition &c.—highly interesting.
Brother had been preaching to the congregation to pursuade them to Charity, temperence and every thing that is good and lovely, &c. and without telling them what was good and lovely, &c. and Brother Joseph shewed that this was the sectarian method of preaching and by such preaching no one could learn the principles of righteousness, and the world is ignorant of those principles; and to do the people good we ought to tell them what those principles are instead of trying continually to enforce something they know nothing about. And he would tell them what virtue was, viz. to keep all the commandments of God without doubting or querying about it. God gives laws to suit the circumstances of his creatures. Laws in themselves contradictory; “Thou shalt not kill;” then to Abraham “Slay thy son Isaac.” Abraham rendered obedience, nothing doubting. This was virtue, perfecting his [p. [2]]