The Book of the Law of the Lord
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Source Note
“The Book of the Law of the Lord,” Record Book, 1841–1845; handwriting of , , , , and ; CHL. Includes shorthand; also includes redactions and use marks.For complete source note, see Journal, December 1841–December 1842.Note: A Nauvoo-era index to the financial records found in the Book of the Law of the Lord can be viewed in the Church History Library catalog.
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Historical Introduction
Note: A Nauvoo-era index to the financial records found in the Book of the Law of the Lord can be viewed in the Church History Library catalog.The title “THE BOOK of the LAW of the LORD,” written in ornate style, adorns a ledger-style record book maintained by several of JS’s scribes in , Illinois, between 1841 and 1845. In this volume, JS’s scribes copied nine of his revelations, kept a portion of his journal, and recorded donations made by church members for the construction of the Nauvoo and the (a boardinghouse). For a detailed historical introduction to the Book of the Law of the Lord, particularly the journal portion, read the Historical Introduction to Journal, December 1841–December 1842.The journal portion of the Book of the Law of the Lord, comprising a little less than twenty percent of the volume and covering the period 11 December 1841 to 20 December 1842, is published in full in Journals, Volume 2. This material was recorded by , , , and . To view images and transcripts of the journal entries, along with detailed annotation, visit Journal, December 1841–December 1842.The revelation and donation portions of the Book of the Law of the Lord are here published for the first time. JS’s scribe, , copied nine revelations into the volume between January 1841 and his death on 27 August of that year. The record began with the 19 January 1841 revelation commanding the building of the in Nauvoo and the . Six of the nine revelations were later canonized and constitute, in order of their recording by Thompson, sections 124, 125, 105, 111, 87, and 103 in the present Doctrine and Covenants of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.The three other revelations remain uncanonized. One (dated 20 March 1841) concerns the appointment of agents for the Nauvoo House Association. The remaining two, which were received in January 1838 just prior to JS’s abrupt departure from to , deal with questions related to the sustainingof the church’s First Presidency and the protocol for removing them from office in cases of transgression. subsequently made minor revisions to the texts as recorded by . Transcripts of these revelations accompany the images for pages 3–25 of the Book of the Law of the Lord. The links below provide direct access to each of the nine revelations:Page 3—Revelation, 19 January 1841 [D&C 124]Page 15—Revelation, 20 March 1841Page 16—Revelation, ca. March 1841 [D&C 125]Page 17—Revelation, 12 January 1838–APage 18—Revelation, 12 January 1838–BPage 19—Revelation, 22 June 1834 [D&C 105]Page 22—Revelation, 6 August 1836 [D&C 111]Page 22—Revelation, 25 December 1832 [D&C 87]Page 23—Revelation, 24 February 1834 [D&C 103]The donation entries comprise approximately seventy-five percent of the record. They were recorded by and between late 1841 and 1845. Journal entries and donation records were kept concurrently in the book, alternating sometimes every other page and chronologically leapfrogging each other. This pattern was especially pronounced near the beginning of the book, where donations and journal entries occasionally appear together on a single page. Over time, however, larger and larger blocks of text were dedicated to either donations or journal entries until the journal was transferred by Richards to another volume, the memorandum book.All donation pages are here published as images without an accompanying transcript. They have been divided into chronological subsections to aid research; readers may use the table of contents button in the top left of the document viewer to navigate within the volume. Two indexes to the donation portions of the Book of the Law of the Lord were created in the period. These will be published on the Joseph Smith Papers website at a future time.The interspersing of journal entries with pages of donation records, as well as JS’s conscious efforts to record the names of people who helped him, suggests that the volume as a whole was understood in terms of a letter JS wrote in 1832 stating that “a hystory and a general church record” must be kept “of all things that transpire in Zion and of all those who consecrate properties.” That record was to be kept in a book called “the book of the Law of God”—a book whose name parallels usage in the Old Testament. (See, for example, Joshua 24:26, 2 Chronicles 17:9, and Nehemiah 9:3.)Concerning the significance of the Book of the Law of the Lord, Alex Smith, a volume editor for the Joseph Smith Papers, wrote, “For today’s researchers, the journal entries in the Book of the Law of the Lord are frequently the most primary sources for descriptions of Joseph Smith’s daily activities during 1842. Certain details about key events (e.g., the organization of the , ’s expulsion from the Church, the second attempt to extradite Joseph Smith to , the creation of the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge, and the construction of the and ) are found only in this book. . . . Its record of financial donations is a rich cultural history resource—providing valuations of common goods and services.” Smith concluded, “Perhaps the greatest importance of the book lies in its theological implications—a record decreed by revelation to record for heaven and earth the deeds and consecrations of the Saints.” (Alex D. Smith, “The Book of the Law of the Lord,” Journal of Mormon History 38, no. 4 [Fall 2012], 161.)
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A revelation given to Joseph Smith, January 19th. 1841
Verily thus saith the Lord, unto you my Servant Joseph Smith, I am well pleased with your offering, and acknowledgements which you have made; for unto this end have I raised you up, that I might shew forth my wisdom through the weak things of the earth.
Your prayers are acceptable before me, and in answer to them, I say unto you, that you are now called, immediately to make a solemn proclamation of my gospel, and of this stake, which I have planted to be a corner stone of Zion, which shall be polished with that refinement which is after the similitude of a palace. This proclamation shall be made to all the kings of the world, to the four corners thereof; to the Honorable President Elect, and the high minded Governors of the nation in which you live, and to all the nations of the Earth; scattered abroad. Let it be written in the spirit of meekness and by the power of the holy ghost, which shall be in you, at the time of the writing of the same; for it shall be given you by the holy ghost to know my will concerning those kings and Authorities, even what shall befall them in a time to come. For behold I am about to call upon them to give heed to the light and glory of Zion, for the set time has come, to favor her.
Call ye, therefore, upon them with loud proclamation and with your testimony, fearing them not, for they are as grass, and all their glory as the flower thereof, which soon falleth away; that they may be left also without excuse, and that I may visit them in the day of visitation when I shall unveil the face of my covering, to appoint the portion of the oppressor, among hypocrites, where there is gnashing of teeth; if they reject my servants, and my testimony, which I have revealed unto them. And again, I will visit and soften their hearts— many of them for your good, that ye may find grace in their eyes, that they may come to the light of truth, and the gentiles to the exaltation or lifting up of Zion; for the day of my visitation cometh speedily, in an hour when ye think not of; and where shall be the safety of my people? and [p. 3]
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Footnotes
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Robert B. Thompson handwriting begins.
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