If children have sinned against their parents, or husbands against their wives, or wives against their husbands, let them confess their faults one to another and forgive each other, and there let the confession stop; and then let them ask pardon from their God. Confess your sins to whoever you have sinned against, and let it stop there.
If you have committed a sin against the community, confess to them. If you have sinned in your family, confess there.
Confess your sins, iniquities and follies where that confession belongs, and learn to classify your actions.—J. of D., Vol. IV., p. 79.
Nothing less than the privilege of increasing eternally, in every sense of the word, can satisfy the immortal spirit. If the endless stream of knowledge from the eternal fountain could all be drunk in by organized intelligence, so sure immortality would come to an end, and all eternity be thrown upon the retrograde path.—J. of D., Vol. I., p. 350.
God is our Father, and Jesus Christ is our elder brother, and both are our everlasting friends.—J. of D., Vol. VII., p. 193.
The only true believers are they who prove their belief by their obedience to the requirements of the gospel.—J. of D., Vol. I., p. 234.
A flock of sheep consisting of thousands must be clean indeed if some of them are not smutty.—J. of D., Vol. I., p. 213.
The gospel of salvation is perfectly calculated to cause division. It strikes at the root of the very existence of mankind in their wickedness, evil designs, passions and wicked calculations. There is no evil among the human family, but at the foundation of which it strikes effectually, and comes in contact with every evil passion that rises in the heart of man. It is opposed to every evil practice of men, and consequently it disturbs them in the wicked courses they are pursuing.—J. of D., Vol. I., p. 235.
The God Mr. Baptist believes in is without body, parts or passions. The God that his "brother Mormon" believes in is described in the Bible as being a personage of tabernacle, having eyes to see, for he that made the eye shall he not see? Having ears to hear, for his ears are open to hear the prayers of the righteous. He has limbs that He can walk, for the Lord God walked in the garden in the cool of the day. He conversed with His children, as in the case of Moses at the fiery bush, and with Abraham on the plains of Mamre. He also ate and drank with Abraham and others. That is, the God the Mormons believe in, but their very religious Christian brethren do not believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which is the God the Bible sets forth, as an organized corporeal being.—J. of D., Vol. I., p. 238.
It is a mistaken idea to suppose that others can prevent me from enjoying the light of God in my soul; all hell cannot hinder me from enjoying Zion in my own heart, if my individual will yields obedience to the requirements and mandates of my heavenly Master.—J. of D., Vol. I., p. 311.