Quotes from The King Follett
Discourse
The being and kind of being god is;
the immortality of the intelligence of man
By Joseph Smith Jr., the Prophet
The King Follett Discourse was
delivered by Joseph Smith President and Prophet of the
Mormon Church before about twenty thousand Latter Day Saints
at the April Conference of the Church, 1844, as the funeral
sermon of Elder King Follett
Pg 4 - Every man has a
natural , and in our country, a constitutional right to be a
false prophet, as well as a true prophet.
Pg 5 - I am going to tell you
how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed
that god was God from all eternity. I will refute that
idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see.
These are incomprehensible ideas to some, but they are
simple. It is the first principle of the gospel to
know for certainty the character of god and to know that we
may converse with him as one man converses with another, and
that he was once a man like us, yea, that God himself the
father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus
Christ himself did; and I will show it from the Bible.
These Quotes are contradicted in
the Book of Mormon Moroni 8:18 and Mormon 9:9-10
Page 6 - 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,
namely by going from one small degree to another, and from a
small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from
exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the
resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in
everlasting burnings, and to sit in glory, as do those who
sit enthroned in everlasting power.
Page 7 -...but they shall be
heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. What
is it? To inherit the same power, the same glory and
the same exaltation, until you arrive at the station of a
god, and ascend the throne of eternal power, the same as
those who have gone before. My Father worked out His
kingdom with fear and trembling, and I must do the same; and
when I get my Kingdom, I shall present it to my Father, so
that he may obtain kingdom upon kingdom, and it will exalt
him in glory. He will then take a higher exaltation,
and I will take his place, and thereby become exalted
myself.
Page 9 - In the
beginning, the head of the gods called a council of the
Gods; and they came together and concocted a plan to create
the world and people it.
Page 10 - Now, I ask all who
hear me why the learned men who are preaching salvation, say
that God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing?
The reason is, that they are unlearned in the things of God,
and have not the gift of the Holy Ghost;
Page 12 - The mind or the
intelligence which man possesses is co-equal with God
himself. I know that my testimony is true;
Page 13 - That which has a
beginning may have an end. There never was a time when
there were not spirits; for they are co-equal with our
Father in Heaven.
Page 14 - I might with boldness
proclaim from the house-tops that God never had the power to
create the spirit of man at all. God himself could not
create himself.
Quotes from The Gospel
Principles
Ch. 2 -Page 13 - Our
Heavenly Parents Desired to Share Their Joy with Us - They
wanted us to develop the godlike qualities that they have.
To do this, we needed to leave our celestial home to be
tested and to gain experience.
Ch. 2 -Page 17 - We
learned that if we followed his plan, we would become like
him. We would have a resurrected body; we would have
all power in heaven ad on earth; we would become heavenly
parents and have spirit children just as he does (D&C
132:19-20)
Quotes from Three Degrees of Glory
Pg 8 - We have frequently said
that perhaps the grandest thought that has ever been brought
forth to the children of men is the Mormon truism, namely:
"As man is God once was, and as God is man may
become....Then I wish to say to you that there are three
degrees of glory in the celestial kingdom and only those who
attain the highest degree of celestial glory will be
candidates to become what God is.
"In the celestial glory there are
three heavens or degrees: And in order to obtain the
highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood,
(meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage); And
if he does not, he cannot obtain it. He may enter into
the other, but that is the end of his kingdom; he cannot
have an increase.
Pg 10 - the eternity of the
marriage covenant ought to be understood by Latter-day
Saints clearly to be the sealing of at least one woman to
one man for time and for all eternity.
Pg 22 - Now, my brothers and
sisters, I would like you to understand that long before we
were born into this earth we were tested and tried in our
pre-existence and the fact that of the thousands of children
born today, a certain proportion of them went to the Hotten-tots
of the south sees, thousands went tot the Chinese mothers,
thousands to Negro mothers, thousands to beautiful white
Latter day Saint mothers. Why this difference?
You cannot tell me that the entire group was just
designated, marked, to go where they did.
Why is it in the Church we do not
grant the priesthood to the negroes? It is alleged
that the Prophet Joseph said - and I have no reason to
dispute it - that it is because of some act committed by
them before they came into this life. It is alleged
that they were neutral, standing neither for Christ nor the
devil. But, I am convinced it is because of some
things they did before they came into this life that they
have been denied the privilege. The races of today are
very largely reaping the consequence of a previous life.
Pg 23 - Our particular
branch is the House of Joseph through his son Ephraim.
That is the group from whence shall come the majority of the
candidates for Celestial Glory. That is why we are
doing the work for our ancestors and not for theirs (baptism
for the dead). Let us not imagine that in this
dispensation we shall do the work for the dead Chinese or
Hindus.
Pg 35 - Our status and
condition will be like our Heavenly Father's. He sent
His only begotten Son to save and redeem mankind, but unless
we accept the atonement and act in conformity tot he laws
and requirements laid down for us, even god cannot save us.
