A New Pneumatology

1. Dean C. Jessee, The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1984), 453. While in Washington, DC, Joseph Smith also dined with Judge Stephen A. Douglas and Henry Clay, according to Joseph Smith Jr., History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. B. H. Roberts, 2d ed., rev., 7 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1971), 5:393 (hereafter cited as History of the Church).

2. In the 1830s, Mormons fled from their enemies in New York, Ohio, and Missouri. On October 27, 1838, Governor Lilburn W. Boggs of Missouri issued an extermination order. The timing correlated directly to the federal government policy allowing immigrants to secure first property land status and ownership of their improved frontier lands. During the winter of 1838–39, Missouri troops and mobs drove Mormons off their properties, “more than 10,000 acres in Caldwell County alone.” Arnold K. Garr and Clark V. Johnson, eds., Regional Studies in Latter-day Saint Church History: Missouri (Provo, Utah: Department of Church History and Doctrine, Brigham Young University, 1994), 203–4; see Jeffrey N. Walker, “Mormon Land Rights in Caldwell and Daviess Counties and the Mormon Conflict of 1838: New Findings and New Understandings,” BYU Studies 47, no. 1 (2008): 4–55. Without success in the state courts, Joseph Smith sought federal assistance to regain the lost properties and monies. He and Elias Higbee traveled to Washington, DC, to personally deliver the LDS petitions of redress. Sydney Rigdon began the trip, but became ill and had to stop. Porter Rockwell and Robert Foster stayed with Rigdon in Columbus, Ohio. Jessee, Personal Writings, 448, 453.

3. Pneumatology is the study of the Holy Spirit and comes from the Greek pneuma: air, breath, wind, or spirit.

4. History of the Church, 4:42. According to the editors of the History of the Church, Smith wrote to his brother Hyrum from Washington, DC, on December 5, 1839. Jessee does not include this letter in his collection.

5. Susan Juster, Doomsayers: Anglo-American Prophecy in the Age of Revolution (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 260–70; Sydney Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People, 2d ed. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004); E. Brooks Holifield, Theology in America: Christian Thought from the Age of the Puritans to the Civil War (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003); Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet (New York: Knopf, 1971); Richard Hughes, “Two Restoration Traditions: Mormons and Churches of Christ in the Nineteenth Century,” in The Stone-Campbell Movement: An International Religious Tradition, ed. Michael W. Casey and Douglas A. Foster (Knoxville, Tenn.: University Press, 2002), 348–63; Nathan Hatch, “The Christian Movement and the Demand for a Theology of the People” in Casey and Foster, Stone-Campbell Movement, 138; Henry F. May, The Enlightenment in America (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1976); Claude Welch, Protestant Thought in the Nineteenth Century: 1799–1870 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1972); and Whitney Cross, The Burned-Over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800–1850 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University, 1950), 57.

6. Upstate New York received its nickname “the Burned-over District” from the outpouring of itinerant preachers and religious revivals that burned through the developing towns in the early nineteenth century. For example, in 1824 nearly one-fourth of the nation’s Presbyterian ministers served in the Burned-over District. More than anywhere else in the new nation, the newly opened settlements in upstate New York kindled a fire of the Spirit to new levels of enthusiasm. Whitney Cross demonstrated this extreme religious fervor by comparing 1815 to 1818 revivals held in six states with those in the Burned-over District. The numbers in table 1 are even more remarkable when looking at the sparse population in the developing area. Cross, Burned-Over District, 11–12.

7. This research is the focus of my dissertation: Lynne Hilton Wilson, “Joseph Smith’s Doctrine of the Holy Spirit Contrasted with Cartwright, Campbell, Hodge, and Finney” (PhD diss., Marquette University, 2010).

8. The Reformed tradition (Calvinist, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Dutch Reformed, and so forth) was the largest American religious tradition in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries. But by 1860 the most prominent churches in America were (1) Methodist, (2) Baptist, (3) Roman Catholic, and (4) Presbyterian. Mark Noll published the following list of early American churches to demonstrate the religious growth in early America. A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2001), 166.

Church Growth in Early USA

9. Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (New York City: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1871), 1:528.

10. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:528–29. Hodge based his definition on the Protestant creed The Westminster Confession 2.3: “In the unity of the Godhead there be three Persons of one substance, power, and eternity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father, the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.” Again in 9.1: “The Holy Spirit, the third Person in the Trinity, proceeding from the Father and the Son, of the same substance and equal in power and glory, is, together with the Father and the Son.”

11. Glenn A. Hewitt, Regeneration and Morality: A Study of Charles Finney, Charles Hodge, John W. Nevin, and Horace Bushnell (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Carlson, 1991), 53. Hodge devoted the entire sixth chapter of his Systematic Theology to the Trinity. Holifield emphasized the profound influence Hodge played in nineteenth-century theology by reporting an 1879 survey of American colleges and universities that showed “students often learned more the theology of . . . Charles Hodge than about Plato and Kant. The older theologies proved even more tenacious in churches and seminaries. . . . Old School Presbyterian theology, only slightly revised, retained a hold at Princeton Seminary until the early 1920s and . . . a traditional Calvinist theology continued to prevail even after that in many other Reformed seminaries, colleges, and churches, especially in the South and Midwest.” Holifield, Theology in America, 508.

12. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:478; see also 1:38, 40, 67–68, 457, 477, 524–28, 533; 2:244, and so forth.

13. Alexander Campbell, The Christian Baptist: Seven Volumes in One, 2d ed. (Cincinnati: D. S. Burnet, 1835), 159; see also 50, 82, 505.

14. Robert Richardson, Memoirs of Alexander Campbell: A View of Origin, Progress, and Principles of the Religious Reformation Which He Advocated, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1870), 2:616.

15. Channing spoke out against most Puritan doctrines from his powerful position as a key player in establishing the Harvard Divinity School in 1816. He and many Boston Unitarians rejected the Trinity and the Godhead. For them, Jesus was not both man and God, nor did Jesus perform a vicarious atonement. A century earlier, Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), a visionary of the Enlightenment, also rejected the Trinity. Terryl L. Givens, By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture That Launched a New World Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 73–77.

16. Compare Joseph’s teachings with William Channing, Memoir of William Ellery Channing, with Extracts from His Correspondence, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Ma.: Crosby and Nichols, 1851), 1:386. “We preach precisely as if no such doctrine as the Trinity had ever been known. . . . I might adopt much of the Trinitarian language . . . [but] the usurpation which demands such concessions is wrong” (2:379–80).

17. Oliver Cowdery included a muddled reference to the Trinity in the Lectures on Faith 5.2. James Allen and Glen Leonard explained that in 1921, “to further lessen confusion over the nature of the Godhead, the ‘Lectures on Faith’ were eliminated from the Doctrine and Covenants.” James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard, The Story of the Latter-day Saints, 2d ed., rev. and enl. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992), 489. Oliver also alluded to the Trinity in the Messenger and Advocate 2 (December 1835): 236: “The representation of the Godhead—three, yet in one, is curiously drawn to give simply, though impressively, the writer’s views of that exalted personage.” If Oliver assumed traditional Trinitarian philosophy, it adds evidence to Richard Bushman’s theory that Joseph did not speak to people about his first vision until years after the fact. Although other early Church leaders mentioned the Trinity, Joseph did not. By the time Joseph was in Nauvoo, he articulated: “Concerning the Godhead it was not as many imagined—three Heads & but one body, he said the three were separate bodys—God the first & Jesus the Mediator the 2d & the Holy Ghost & these three agree in one & this is the manner we Should approach God in order to get his blessings.” Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, eds. and comps., The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Smith (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1990), 63.

18. Filioque describes the Spirit’s procession from both God the Father and God the Son. Following the formation of the Nicene Creed, many Latin fathers and some of the Greek fathers wanted to add a phrase describing the Spirit proceeding from the Father and Son. In AD 589, the Synod of Toledo added the word filioque as clarification. This addition was hotly debated and contributed to the separation of the Western and Eastern churches.

19. Some would argue that Smith’s First Vision evolved over time, including his view of the Godhead. Yet all six full accounts directly formulated by Smith, and four of the five secondhand accounts written during his lifetime, mention that a light evolved into a vision of the Lord. In ten of the eleven accounts, two heavenly personages are described—God the Father and his Son. James B. Allen and John W. Welch, “The Appearance of the Father and the Son to Joseph Smith in 1820,” in Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, 1820–1844, ed. John W. Welch and Erick B. Carlson (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005), 63, 74 n. 27, provide a thorough analysis of the differences between accounts of this vision written in the first and second person. They examine the seeming absence of two personages in the 1832 retelling in Smith’s own hand. Welch does not see a contradiction between this and the other recordings, because the inclusion of “the spirit of god” appears to reference God’s presence. Smith’s first draft of the 1832 account especially suggests that there were two beings present.

20. Ehat and Cook, Words, 379–80. “Men say there is one God—the Far. Son & the H.G. are only 1 God—it is a strange God any how 3 in 1. & 1 in 3. it is a curious thing any how—Far. I pray not for the world but I pray for those that thou givest me &c &c all are to be crammed into 1 God—it wod. make the biggest God in all the world—he is a wonderful big God—he would be a Giant I want to read the text to you myself—I am agreed with the Far. & the Far. is a greed with me & we are agreed as one—the Greek shews that is shod. be agreed.”

21. Moses 6:57: “Man of Holiness is his name, and the name of his Only Begotten is the Son of Man, even Jesus Christ.” For a more detailed discussion, see Ehat and Cook, Words, 343–46. On the topic of spirits at large, Smith also deviated from long-established tradition by defining “spirit as matter,” and announcing an eternal history for spirits in an eternally expanding cosmos. He preached on the first point in response to a Methodist minister’s sermon, which he felt required a few doctrinal corrections: “There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter but is more fine or pure and can only be discerned by purer eyes. We cant [sic] see it but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter.” Ehat and Cook, Words, 203. The Methodist minister, Samuel A. Prior, wrote his perspective after meeting Joseph Smith: “In the evening I was invited to preach, and did so.—The congregation was large and respectable—they paid the utmost attention. This surprised me a little, as I did not expect to find any such thing as a religious toleration among them.—After I had closed, Elder Smith, who had attended, arose and begged leave to differ from me in some few points of doctrine, and this he did mildly, politely, and affectingly; like one who was more desirous to disseminate truth and expose error, than to love the malicious triumph of debate over me. I was truly edified with his remarks, and felt less prejudiced against the Mormons than ever. He invited me to call upon him, and I promised to do so.” Ehat and Cook, Words, 203–4.

22. Ehat and Cook, Words, 382. Smith’s scribe, George Laub, included the following in his notes of the sermon: “But Every one being a diffrent or Seperate persons & So is god . . . & Jesus Christ & the holy ghost. Seperate persons. but the[y] all agree in one or the Self Same thing.” The sermon is dated as being eleven days before Smith’s martyrdom.

23. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3:334. Hodge also elaborated on the immutability of the canon: “The Bible contains all the extant revelations of God, which He designed to be the rule of faith and practice for his Church; so that nothing can rightfully be imposed on the consciences of men as truth or duty which is not taught directly or by necessary implication in the Holy Scriptures” (1:182).

24. Charles Finney, Systematic Theology (reprint, Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1994), 170, 350, 479.

25. Alexander Campbell, “Sacred Literature,” Millennial Harbinger 2 (August 1852): 424; see also Alexander Campbell, “Mr. Campbell to Mr. Skinner,” Millennial Harbinger 1 (April 1837): 179. “No other witness than the Apostles and Prophets, or the Spirit of God speaking in them, can be admitted of any authority.”

26. In my dissertation, I limited this social reaction to 1839, because different reactions came to the fore from 1840 onward. We see the importance of the Bible in early Americana by the development of organizations to promote it. In 1816 the American Bible Society rose to meet the needs of distributing Bibles across the expanding nation. In 1824 the American Sunday School Union organized with the goal of keeping frontier Americans literate and studying the Bible. In 1825 “The American Tract Society” promoted “sound religion.” Edwin Gaustad and Leigh Schmidt, The Religious History of America, 2d ed. (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2004), 142.

27. For example, from Princeton University, Charles Hodge clung to the wording of the Westminster Confession by explaining: “The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and are therefore infallible, and of divine authority in all things pertaining to faith and practice, and consequently free from all error whether of doctrine, fact, or precept. They were the organs of God, because they were the organs of the Spirit. The Spirit, therefore, must be God.” Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:152. In the same vein, he believed the Bible contained all of God’s truths for humanity: “All things necessary for [God’s] own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life is . . . expressly set down in Scripture. . . . Nothing at any time is to be added whether by new revelations of the Spirit or traditions of men.”

28. Most Protestant ministers in early America claimed their authority to preach and baptize from either their education, the Bible, or directly from the Spirit of God. Lyman Beecher from Yale opposed the Pope’s claim of authority, as well as simultaneously opposing the authority of itinerate preachers. Lyman Beecher, Autobiography, Correspondence, etc., of Lyman Beecher, 2 vols. (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1864–65), 2:349, 416, 585. Like Beecher, most educated Reformed preachers claimed their authority came from their studies and ordination. Methodist itinerate preachers received authority from their superiors after a period of time testifying to their conversion experience as an “exhorter.” Peter Cartwright, Autobiography of Peter Cartwright (1856; reprint, Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1984), 51. Other itinerate preachers, like Lorenzo Dow, felt their authority came as the Spirit guided them. Charles Sellers, Lorenzo Dow, the Bearer of the Word (New York: J. J. Little and Ives, 1928), 114, 139–40; also see Leigh Eric Schmidt, Hearing Things (Cambridge: Harvard Press, 2000). When priesthood authority was discussed initially in the Old Testament, it was a birthright of the chosen, given to the firstborn or chosen son from Abraham to Isaac, Isaac to Jacob, and so forth. Following Moses and Aaron, the priestly line of authority came through the tribe of Levi. The New Testament Apostles received their authority from Jesus, not through blood lineage. Hatch described the lack of interest in religious authority in the United States. The national emphasis on political liberty created a resistance to authority and orthodoxy. During the Second Great Awakening, the trend was to diminish the role of ecclesiastical hierarchy, which lessened the role of priestly authority. Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (New Haven: Yale University, 1989), 17–46.

29. Richard L. Bushman, with Jed Woodworth, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Random House, 2005), 270. Within weeks, these newspaper articles were spread throughout New England. Within a year, the New York Morning Courier and Enquirer editor James Gordon Bennett wrote: “You have heard of Mormonism—who has not? Paragraph has followed paragraph in the newspapers, recounting the movements, detailing their opinions and surprising distant readers with the traits of a singularly new religious sect which had its origin in this state. Mormonism is the latest device of roguery, ingenuity, ignorance and religious excitement combined, and acting on materials prepared by those who ought to know better. It is one of the mental exhalations of Western New York.” Leonard J. Arrington, “James Gordon Bennett’s 1831 Report on ‘The Mormonites,’” BYU Studies 10, no. 3 (1970): 357.

30. Article of Faith 8 is a good example that suggests a supremacy of the Book of Mormon over the Bible.

31. Schmidt, Hearing Things, 41–49. Schmidt described the offensive noise from revivals, “‘the groaning, crying out, falling down and screaming’; the ‘terrible speaking’ of itinerants; the clapping, stomping, singing, roaring, and ‘hearty loud Laughter.’ It was the shouting that turned into screams and screeches that especially disgusted” (66).

32. Cartwright, Autobiography, 21. In the early 1800s, Barton Stone also illustrated the “jerks” as a religious exercise: “The jerks can not be so easily described. Sometimes the subject of the jerks would be affected in some one member of the body, and sometimes in the whole system. When the head alone was affected, it would be jerked backward and forward, or from side to side. . . . When the whole system was affected, I have seen the person stand in one place and jerk backward and forward in quick succession. . . . I have inquired of those thus affected. They could not account for it; but some have told me that those were among the happiest seasons of their lives.” He further described the other exercises—dancing, barking, laughing, and singing—that were part of the religious fervor of revivals. Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America, 1776–1990: Winners or Losers in Our Religious Economy (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1992), 95. See also Ann Taves, Fits, Trances, and Visions (Princeton: Princeton University, 1999).

33. Charles Grandison Finney, Charles Finney, an Autobiography (1876; reprint, Albany, Oreg.: Books for the Ages, 1997), 32. “There was no fire, and no light, in the room; nevertheless it appeared to me as if it were perfectly light. As I went in and shut the door after me, it seemed as if I met the Lord Jesus Christ face to face. It did not occur to me then, nor did it for some time afterward, that it was wholly a mental state. On the contrary it seemed to me that I saw him as I would see any other man.”

34. Patrick Carey, ed., Early Works of Orestes A. Brownson: Free Thought and Unitarian Years 1830–35 (Milwaukee, Wisc.: Marquette University Press, 2001), 70–71. The Catholic convert Orestes Brownson documented a night of anguish at age fifteen: “A soft, an inexpressibly sweet sensation pervaded my whole frame. There was a light around to which the day would have seemed as night; yet it was midnight. . . . All my guilt, all my grief, all my anguish, were gone and I felt as if ushered into a new world, where all was bright and lovely. . . . ‘I have tasted heaven today, what more can I contain?’ Thus was I born again.”

35. Sellers, Lorenzo Dow, 147.

36. Peter Cartwright exposed a preacher named A. Sargent who used gun powder to feign a heavenly light: “He said God had come down to him in a flash of light, and he fell under the power of God and thus received his vision.” Cartwright, Autobiography, 76. Cartwright smelled sulfur, found the powder, and exposed the sham.

37. Juster, Doomsayers, 209–10. Terryl Givens reports that Richard Bushman found thirty-two published pamphlets that described visionary experiences between 1783 and 1815. Givens, By the Hand of Mormon, 72.

38. Schmidt, Hearing Things, 231. One denomination, the Shakers, claimed to speak with the gift of tongues under the direction of the supposed female embodiment of Christ at his Second Coming, Mother Ann Lee (1736–84). Two early British Methodist leaders, Thomas Walsh (1730–59) and Adam Clarke (1762–1832), “made a place for charismatic endowments after conversion” and spoke in tongues. Donald G. Bloesch, The Holy Spirit (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 128. Yet Wesley worked to stop the expression of the gift of tongues in Methodism.

39. Taves, Fits, 349. “For more than a century and a half, Protestants viewed ‘enthusiasm’ as the epitome of false religious experience.”

40. Conservative Christians like Campbell authorized only wisdom, teaching, and peaceful sensations of the Spirit in the modern world. Richardson, Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, 2:224.

41. Finney, Autobiography, 360. Mark Noll sees Pentecostalism of the twentieth century emerging from the holiness movement of Finney and other nineteenth-century preachers who emphasized the fruits of the Spirit. Mark A. Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994), 116. Joseph Smith’s teachings on perfection hint at similar ideas.

42. Finke and Stark show that Methodism grew to the largest denomination in America and reached 34 percent of religious adherents by 1850. Churching America, 55. Methodist membership rose from 4,921 members in 1776 to 130,570 in 1806. See Mark Noll’s table in footnote 8.

43. Cartwright, Autobiography, 226; also 260–61. See examples of Cartwright’s use of: faith, 9–10, 18–19, 32, 187, 230, 264–65, 300–301, 311–12; hope, 12, 233, 249, 257, 284, 291; and charity, 271. Also see Jon Ruthven, On the Cessation of the Charismata: The Protestant Polemic on Postbiblical Miracles (Sheffield, Eng.: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993).

44. Charles Hodge, The Way of Life (Philadelphia: American Sunday School Union, 1869), 200, 268. Hodge described the Spirit’s communication as “those lovely fruits of holiness which never fail to mark his presence. . . . Love, gentleness, goodness, and all other graces, are the fruits of the Spirit” (326). Galatians 5:22 expresses the fruit of the Spirit as “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith.” Hodge’s Systematic Theology dedicates a chapter entitled “The Covenant of Grace,” wherein he stated: “Hence, all the fruits of the Spirit in believers are called graces, or unmerited gifts of God” (2:357).

45. Donald G. Bloesch, The Holy Spirit (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 127–28.

46. Ferdinand Piper and Henry Mitchell MacCraken, Lives of the Leaders of the Church Universal to the Present Time (Edinburgh: T and T Clark, 1880), 609. Between 1741 and 1790, Baptist membership grew from three thousand to sixty-five thousand. “With the crumbling of established [religious] authorities,” argues Schmidt, “God had more prophets, tongues, and oracles than before; thus, the modern predicament actually became as much one of God’s loquacity as God’s hush.” Schmidt, Hearing Things, 11. Moravians, Mormons, Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, and evangelical Congregationalists all “heard with an acuteness that was often overwhelming” (40).

47. Cartwright, Autobiography, 177, 232.

48. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:154, 300, 399.

49. Butler, Awash in a Sea of Faith, 185, also see 190, 225–32. Jonathan Edwards’s influence saturated the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as his writings circulated.

50. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1:140. Hodge further taught: “It is true that during the apostolic age there were occasional communications made to a class of persons called prophets. But this ‘gift of prophecy,’ that is the gift of speaking under inspiration of the Spirit, was analogous with the gift of miracles. The one has as obviously ceased as the other” (1:138; see also 1:140, 162, 418). Hodge also limited the gift of healing to the New Testament in 1:503, 507, 617, 618, 625.

51. Campbell, Christian Baptist, 104. Campbell also asserted that since the apostolic age, “there has been no substantive, abstract and literal communication of the Holy Spirit to any man. . . . There has arisen no prophet, no originator of new ideas, no worker of miracles, no controller of nature’s laws, no person having any manifestation of the Spirit, or showing any divine power among men.” Alexander Campbell, Delusions: An Analysis of the Book of Mormon with an Examination of Its Internal and External Evidences, and a Refutation of Its Pretences to Divine Authority (1832; reprint, Salt Lake City: Morgan-Bruce Book, 1925), 6. A few years later he again wrote: “Since the Millennium and the evils of sectarianism have been the subjects of much speaking and writing, impostors have been numerous. . . . The shakers, . . . the Barkers, Jumpers, and Mutterers of the present age.” Alexander Campbell, “The Gift of the Spirit—no. 5,” Millennial Harbinger 5 (1834): 378.

52. Doctrine and Covenants 46:29 identified the head of the Church as one who possessed all the gifts of the Spirit. It was not until the following year, 1832, that Smith completed the scriptural list by interpreting and speaking in tongues. Heber C. Kimball, an eyewitness of the event, recorded: “Brothers Brigham and Joseph Young and myself went to Kirtland, Ohio. We saw Brother Joseph Smith and had a glorious time, during which Brother Brigham spoke in tongues, this being the first time Joseph had heard the gift. The Prophet rose up and testified that it was from God. The gift then fell upon him, and he spoke in tongues himself.” Larry E. Dahl and Donald Q. Cannon, “Tongues, Gift of,” in Encyclopedia of Joseph Smith’s Teachings (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1997), 669–70.

53. Joseph Smith, “Gift of the Holy Ghost,” Times and Seasons 3 (June 15, 1842): 823.

54. History of the Church, 5:218, describes Mr. Sollars’s confrontation with Smith in 1842 about practicing the gifts of the Spirit: “May I not repent and be baptized, and not pay any attention to dreams, visions, and other gifts of the Spirit?” Smith tried to explain: “Suppose I am traveling and am hungry and meet with a man and tell him I am hungry, and he tells me to go yonder. . . . I go and knock, and ask for food, and sit down to the table, but do not eat, shall I satisfy my hunger? No. I must eat. The gifts are the food; and the graces of the Spirit are the gifts of the Spirit.”

55. Joseph Smith, “Try the Spirits,” Times and Seasons 3 (April 1, 1832): 744. “Methodists, Presbyterians, and others frequently possess a spirit that will cause them to lay down, and during its operation animation is frequently entirely suspended; they consider it to be the power of God, and a glorious manifestation from God,—a manifestation of what?—is there any intelligence communicated? are the curtains from heaven withdrawn, or the purposes of God developed? Have they seen and conversed with an angel; or have the glories of futurity burst upon their view? No! but . . . a shout of glory, or hallelujah, or some incoherent expression; but they have had ‘the power.’ The Shaker will whirl around on his heel impelled by a supernatural agency, or spirit, and think that he is governed by the spirit of God: and the Jumper will jump, and enter into all kinds of extravagancies, a Primitive Methodist will shout under the influence of that spirit, until he will rend the heavens with his cries; while the Quakers, (or Friends) moved as they think by the spirit of God, will sit still and say nothing. Is God the author of all this? If not of all of it, which does he recognize? Surely a heterogeneous mass of confusion never can enter into the kingdom of Heaven. . . . Who can drag into day-light and develope the hidden mysteries of the false spirits that so frequently are made manifest among the Latter-day Saints? We answer that no man can do this without the Priesthood, and having a knowledge of the laws by which spirits are governed.”

56. History of the Church, 2:428. George A. Smith described the outpouring of spiritual gifts in the Kirtland Temple: “On the first day of the dedication, President Frederick G. Williams, one of the Council of the Prophet, and who occupied the upper pulpit, bore testimony that the Savior, dressed in his vesture without seam, came into the stand and accepted of the dedication of the house, that he saw him, and gave a description of his clothing and all things pertaining to it. That evening there was a collection of Elders, Priests, Teachers and Deacons, etc., amounting to four hundred and sixteen, gathered in the house; there were great manifestations of power, such as speaking in tongues, seeing visions, administration of angels. Many individuals bore testimony that they saw angels, and David Whitmer bore testimony that he saw three angels passing up the south aisle, and there came a shock on the house like the sound of a mighty rushing wind, and almost every man in the house arose, and hundreds of them were speaking in tongues, prophecying [sic] or declaring visions, almost with one voice.” George A. Smith, in Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (Liverpool: F. D. Richards, 1855–86, 1851–86), 11:10.

57. Ehat and Cook, Words, 12. Smith, “Gift of the Holy Ghost,” 824, reads: “The greatest, the best, and the most useful gifts would [not] be known . . . by an observer. It is true that a man might prophesy, which is a great gift . . . [but] the manifestations of the gift of the Holy Ghost; the ministering of angels; or the development of the power, majesty or glory of God were very seldom manifested publicly, and that generally to the people of God; as to the Israelites; but most generally when angels have come, or God has revealed Himself, it has been to individuals in private—in their chamber—in the wilderness or fields; and that generally without noise or tumult.”

58. Ehat and Cook, Words, 21. Doctrine and Covenants 46:9, 32–33 teaches four prerequisites for exercising the gifts of the Spirit in the name of Christ: unselfishness, gratitude, virtue, and holiness.

59. Cartwright, Autobiography, 22, 38, 225–26, 260. Also Alexander Campbell, “Mormonism Unveiled,” Millennial Harbinger 6 (January 1835): 44, wrote that Mormonism was “a mental distemper, more incurable than the leprosy. And, that the more glaring and shameless the absurdity, the more determined and irreclaimable its dupes.” Also see Jessee, Writings, 334.

60. Cartwright, Autobiography, 226.

61. Cartwright, Autobiography, 227. Joseph Smith did not record any conversations with Cartwright in his journal (but he recorded three or four visits to Springville between 1839 and 1844, which makes the meeting plausible). Cartwright’s derogatory use of “uncle” was similar to the way that Abraham Lincoln used it against Cartwright in 1834. Robert Bray, Peter Cartwright: Legendary Frontier Preacher (Urbana, Ill.: University Press, 2005), 148.

62. Jessee, Writings, 216. In a letter dated March 1, 1842, Smith wrote John Wentworth: “On the 6th of April, 1830, the ‘Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,’ was first organized. . . . Some few were called and ordained by the spirit of revelation, and prophesy [sic], and began to preach as the spirit gave them utterance, and though weak, yet were they strengthened by the power of God, and many were brought to repentance, were immersed in the water, and were filled with the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands. They saw visions and prophesied, devils were cast out and the sick healed by the laying on of hands.”

63. From the first Church conference, June 9, 1830, until his death, June 27, 1844, Smith reported gifts of the Spirit. History of the Church, 1:84–86, 272, 323; 2:328, 428; 3:113; 4:361, 572, 580–81; 5:308–9; 6:187.

64. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3:104.

65. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3:475; see also 2:362.

66. The Westminster Confession 12.1, 3. “As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he, by the eternal and most free purpose of his will, fore-ordained all the means thereunto” (3.6). Calvin’s theology stemmed at least in part from trying to make sense of Pauline doctrine.

67. Finney, Autobiography, 152.

68. For a discussion of Arminianism as a reaction as a reaction against Calvinism, see Robert L. Millet, “Joseph Smith Encounters Calvinism,” BYU Studies 50, no. 4 (2001): 6–8, 30. Jacob Arminius (1560–1609) denounced unconditional predestination and a limited Atonement. Methodism is based on Arminianism.

69. Alexander Campbell, Views of Mr. Alexander Campbell Concerning the Doctrines of Election and Reprobation, as Embodied in the Circular Letter Addressed to the Churches in Connection with the Redstone Baptist Association in 1817 (Fulton, Mo.: T. L. Stephens, 1856), 19.

70. In Hodge’s Commentary on Ephesians he explained the elect “have obtained a portion in this inheritance, and, after having believed, have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise” (68). Similarly, I found two other nineteenth-century publications that addressed the phrase. First, Reverend Eliot, the pastor of the Church of the Messiah at St. Louis, wrote: “The Holy Spirit, or Spirit of God, was ‘poured out’ or ‘shed forth’ both on Jews and Gentiles. Believers were ‘sealed’ with the Holy Spirit of promise. Jesus ‘breathed on them,’ and said, ‘Receive ye the Holy Spirit.’” William G. Eliot, Discourses on the Doctrine of Christianity (Cambridge, Mass.: American Unitarian Association, 1855), 33. Also, Reverend Guthrie explained that one “must first believe and . . . then look for the seal and witness of the Spirit: ‘In whom, after ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,’ &c. As long as people hold fast these principles, and the like, they can hardly come to the knowledge of their gracious state, which God hath warranted people to prove and clear up to themselves, otherways than by these foresaid things.” William Guthrie, The Christian’s Great Interest (Glasgow, Scotland: Collins, 1828), 75.

71. Joseph Smith taught that through the grace of God, humans could receive their election through obediently submitting to God’s commands and revelation throughout their trials (see 2 Ne. 2:27). Receiving a permanent sealing or “calling and election” (2 Pet. 1:10) became another restored ordinance administered to the living or vicariously to the dead—this one only administered under the direction of the Prophet.

72. Ehat and Cook, Words, 334.

73. Smith recorded the phrase “Holy Spirit of Promise” in Doctrine and Covenants 76:53; 88:3; 124:124; 132:7, 18, 19, 26; and JST 1 John 3:9. Doctrine and Covenants 132 includes a sealing of proper ordinances. Ehat and Cook explain: “In a certain limited sense, a sense Joseph Smith used many times, the phrase ‘Holy Spirit of Promise’ has reference to the concept of ‘making your calling and election sure’ or ‘being sealed up unto eternal life’ (D&C 88:3–5). Thus, when the Holy Spirit (who was the one appointed by the Father to give final sanctioning authority for all priesthood blessings) receives authorization from Jesus Christ to unmistakably ‘seal’ the promise of eternal life on a worthy individual, he is placing the seals on the highest gospel ordinances in his office as Holy Spirit of Promise (D&C 132:7). The Prophet expressed this concept in his poetic rendition of D&C 76 (v. 53).” Ehat and Cook, Words, 26; see also Roy W. Doxey, “Calling and Election,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 1:248; and Lawrence R. Flake, “Holy Spirit of Promise,” in Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 2:651–52.

74. Doctrine and Covenants 76:53; 88:3; 124:124; 132:7, 18, 26.

75. Jessee, Writings, 15. “Obtain that Holy Spirit of promise—Then you can be sealed to Eternal Life.”

76. Brigham Young and Willard Richards, “Election and Reprobation,” Times and Seasons 2 (September 15, 1841): 539–42. Also see Times and Seasons 4 (November 15, 1842): 6.

77. Ehat and Cook, Words, 5. “When the Lord has thoroughly proved him & finds that the man is determined to serve him at all hazard. then the man will find his calling & Election made sure then it will be his privilege to receive the other Comforter which the Lord hath promised the saints.”

78. Ehat and Cook, Words, 334.

79. In Hodge’s Commentary on Ephesians, he explained the elect “have obtained a portion in this inheritance, and, after having believed, have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise” (68). I found only one other American publication from that era which addressed the phrase from Ephesians 1 and 5. Reverend Eliot wrote: “The Holy Spirit or Spirit of God was ‘poured out’ or ‘shed forth’ both on Jews and Gentiles. Believers were ‘sealed’ with the Holy Spirit of promise. Jesus ‘breathed on them’ and said, ‘Receive ye the Holy Spirit.’” Eliot, Discourses on the Doctrine of Christianity, 33.

80. History of the Church, 2:52. Joseph Smith expressed a “great love for the Bible.”

81. Jessee, Writings, 144–45. Joseph repeated a similar statement in 1840. “We teach nothing but what the Bible teaches. We believe nothing, but what is to be found in this book.” History of the Church, 4:78. He felt fervently enough on this subject to publish an even stronger statement in the Elders’ Journal two years later. He organized the article as a dialogue of questions followed by his answers: “First—‘Do you believe the Bible?’ If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does, for there are none of the religious sects of the day that do. Second—‘Wherein do you differ from other sects?’ In that we believe the Bible, and all other sects profess to believe their interpretations of the Bible, and their creeds.” History of the Church, 3:28.

82. To clarify this difference of interpretation, Joseph Smith added a provisional clause during a Sunday sermon on October 15, 1843. “I believe the Bible as it read when it came from the pen of the original writers. Ignorant translators, careless transcribers, or designing and corrupt priests have committed many errors.” History of the Church, 6:57.

83. Table 3 compares the four English words most often used to describe the Holy Spirit in Mormonism’s sacred texts and the Bible, but only when the Hebrew ruach and Greek pneuma refers to God’s Spirit. Since in English, Hebrew, and Greek, spirit/ruach/pneuma all have multiple meanings, each citation was evaluated. In the Old and New Testaments and in the Book of Mormon, when a spirit guide carries a prophet into a vision, or a prophet is “in the spirit,” these were not attributed to the Holy Spirit. Yet I attributed it to the Holy Spirit when prompting someone, such as when Alma “was led by the Spirit to the land of Nephi” (Alma 22:1; see also Hel. 10:16). The “spirit of prophecy” was accredited to God’s Spirit, while someone who had the “spirit of meekness” or a “contrite spirit” was not. I did not include the references in Daniel when he was told he had the “spirit of the holy gods” because of the pagan connotations of the context. I tried to be consistent, as in when “good spirit” was included from Nehemiah 9:20, it was also included from Alma 3:26. When truth and Spirit were linked, they were included, but not “true spirit of freedom” (Alma 60:25). A complete listing of usage is available from the author.

84. Alma 4:20; 5:46; 8:24; 9:21; 17:3; 23:6; 45:10; Helaman 4:23; 3 Nephi 3:19; Doctrine and Covenants 8:3; 11:25. Another observation is Alma’s dominant use of “the Spirit of revelation,” seven of the nine citations. The Book of Mormon claims multiple authors, and this singular word preference is an example of distinctive authorship. For statistical separation of authors in the Book of Mormon, see John L. Hilton, “On Verifying Wordprint Studies: Book of Mormon Authorship,” BYU Studies 30, no. 3 (1990): 89–108; also Noel B. Reynolds, ed., Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited: The Evidence for Ancient Origins (Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1997).

85. Ehat and Cook, Words, 5–6, 82, 211–12; Jessee, Writings, 216, 665; History of the Church, 4:313, 318; 5:426; Elders’ Journal of the Church of Latter Day Saints 1 (August 1838): 1:4.50. One of the best examples is from one of Joseph’s sermons: “the spirit of revelation is in connection with these blessings. A person may profit by noticing the first intimation of the spirit of revelation; for instance, when you feel pure intelligence flowing into you, it may give you sudden strokes of ideas, so that by noticing it, you may find it fulfilled the same day or soon; (i.e.) those things that were presented unto your minds by the Spirit of God, will come to pass; and thus by learning the Spirit of God and understanding it, you may grow into the principle of revelation, until you become perfect in Christ Jesus.” History of the Church, 3:381; original spelling may be found in Ehat and Cook, Words, 5–6. The phrase “spirit of prophecy and revelation” is also found in History of the Church, 1:64; 2:382, 489; 3:379; and Alma 43:2.

86. 1 Nephi 4:18; 22:2; Doctrine and Covenants 84:46, 47; 104:36; 105:36, 40. History of the Church, 1:483; 2:112, 196, 281, 363, 429. After his death, Joseph’s scribes and editors continued to reference him in 6:53 and 61.

87. Joseph first recorded an auditory revelatory process in Doctrine and Covenants 14:8: “You shall receive the Holy Ghost, which giveth utterance that you may stand as a witness of the things of which you shall both hear and see.” In June 1829, a revelation to Smith’s peers reads: “I speak unto you, even as unto Paul mine Apostle.” Doctrine and Covenants 43:23 states: “The Lord shall utter his voice out of heaven.” In Doctrine and Covenants 128:20, 23, Smith recorded hearing voices on multiple occasions: “What do we hear? . . . A voice of the Lord in the wilderness of Fayette, Seneca county, declaring the three witnesses to bear record of the book! The voice of Michael, . . . the voice of Peter, James and John in the wilderness. . . . How glorious is the voice we hear from heaven, proclaiming in our ears, glory, and salvation.” An attorney that defended Smith in New York, Mr. Reid, remembered that Smith “said that he distinctly heard the voice of Him that spake.” History of the Church, 1:96 n. 2. Ehat and Cook found that “in 1835 Joseph Smith wrote to his uncle Silas to convince him that revelation was still necessary, reasoning that the modern Saints had to hear an audible voice from the Lord by revelation.” Ehat and Cook, Words, 17 n. 6. On March 22, 1839, Smith dictated a letter that included his testimony concerning the nature of receiving revelation: “I certify to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man; for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Jessee, Writings, 423.

88. 1 Nephi 10:17, 19; 13:37; 2 Nephi 26:13; 28:31; 32:3; 33:1; Jacob 7:12, 13, 17; Alma 7:10; 3 Nephi 21:2; 29:6; Moroni 3:4, 6, 7, 9; 7:36, 44; 8:7; 10:4, 5, 7; Doctrine and Covenants 18:32; 20:35, 60; 34:10; 124:4; Romans 15:13.

89. The number does not include those references to Satan’s spirit or power, nor to Elijah’s or Paul’s power, nor to the “power of his deliverance.” It does include the Great Spirit’s association with power.

90. 2 Nephi 25:4; Jacob 4:6; Alma 3:27; 4:13; 5:47; 6:8; 9:21; 10:12; 12:7; 13:26; 16:5; 17:3; 25:16; 37:15; 43:2; Helaman 4:12, 23; Doctrine and Covenants 11:25; 131:5; Joseph Smith–History 1:73. History of the Church, 1:42, 46, 64, 71; 2:382, 428, 489; 3:28, 379, 389; and after Joseph’s death the editors compiled his notes into 5:140, 215, 231, 392, 400, 427, 516; 6:77, 194. The History of the Church also includes eleven other references to the “spirit of prophecy” by Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Sidney Rigdon, and an editorial from the Boston Bee.

91. History of the Church, 5:215–16.

92. Jessee, Writings, 6–7, 149, 152, 157; History of the Church, 1:391; 2:277, 384, 387, 392.

93. History of the Church, 2:392 (the text is unedited in Jesse, Writings, 157). Interestingly, Joseph included some of the manifestations of being “filled with the Spirit” that Paul included in his list of the gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:7–11). The second example comes after a similar meeting described in Jessee, Writings, 152.

94. 2 Nephi 31:13, 14, 17; 3 Nephi 9:20; 11:35; 12:1, 2; 19:13; Mormon 7:10; Ether 12:14; Doctrine and Covenants 19:31; 20:41; 33:11; 39:6. Helaman 5:45 discusses the baptism of fire thus: “The Holy Spirit of God did come down from heaven, and did enter into their hearts, and they were filled as if with fire.”

95. If every pair or word combination of baptism and Spirit is counted, the rate increases in the Book of Mormon to 1.5 times, and in the Doctrine and Covenants to twice as frequent as the New Testament.

96. Additional examples of the role of the Spirit include but are not limited to: (1) producing fruits of the Spirit (love, revelation, inspiration, testimony, peace, and so forth) in Galatians 5:22; Ephesians 5:9; Mosiah 3:19; 4:3; Alma 5:46–47; 13:28; (2) producing miracles through the Spirit in Galatians 3:5; 2 Nephi 26:1; Alma 23:6; 3 Nephi 7:2; (3) acting as a teacher in John 14:26; Luke 12:12; Alma 18:34; (4) assisting in repentance in Matthew 3:11; Alma 5:50–54; Moroni 8:28; (5) witnessing of truth in Romans 9:1; Moroni 10:4–5; (6) acting as the Comforter in John 14–16; Moroni 8:26; (7) detecting false spirits; and (8) giving spiritual gifts.

97. History of the Church, 1:60. The Bible describes the need for the higher apostolic priesthood in Acts 1:8; 8:15–19; John 20:22. Joseph believed that the Melchizedek Priesthood authority was absolutely crucial because it brought the gift of the Holy Ghost. His account tells of the resurrected Peter, James, and John coming to give Joseph and Oliver Cowdery power to baptize with the Holy Ghost: “The voice of Peter, James, and John in the wilderness between Harmony, Susquehanna county, and Colesville, Broome county, on the Susquehanna river, declaring themselves as possessing the keys of the kingdom, and of the dispensation of the fulness of times” (D&C 128:20). Joseph also taught that it was the gift of the Holy Ghost that brought other gifts of the Spirit: “We believe that we have a right to revelations, visions, and dreams from God, our heavenly Father; and light and intelligence, through the gift of the Holy Ghost, in the name of Jesus Christ, on all subjects pertaining to our spiritual welfare.” Jessee, Writings, 421; an excerpt from a letter written by Joseph Smith to Isaac Gallant in Liberty Jail, Clay County, Missouri, March 22, 1839.

98. History of the Church, 5:499. Scribes transcribed the sermon as Joseph delivered it. As a result, it suffers from deletions and incomplete sentences.

99. History of the Church, 6:410.