Apparatus

I have ben requested to speak by his friends & relatives

Clayton alone records that Joseph Smith was speaking at the family's request rather than on his own initiative. If accurate it locates the discourse as a commissioned funeral sermon; Bullock's opening presents it instead as a subject the speaker has chosen. T takes Clayton's clause into the received text.

that it may enter into the ear of the Ld of Sabaoth

Clayton alone records the allusion to James 5:4. It is a scriptural warrant for the petition Bullock reports in plain terms ('let the prayers of the Saints to heaven appear'), and its presence only in Clayton suggests either that Bullock compressed it or that Clayton supplied a familiar phrase; T keeps it.

There can be eternal life on no other prinicple—

Clayton alone closes the argument with an exclusivity claim. Bullock, Woodruff and Richards all report the positive form (knowing God is eternal life) and its negative (not knowing God is to lack it) but none reports the further claim that there is no other route. T prints Clayton's sentence, so the received text makes the strongest available version of the claim.

If the vail was rent to day

Clayton alone frames the vision of God as a rending of the veil, and alone adds 'that is the great secret' just before it. Bullock, Woodruff and Richards all put the seeing in a plain conditional ('if you were to see him to day'). The image makes the claim an unveiling of something hidden rather than a hypothetical, and T adopts both of Clayton's phrases.

or I will do away or take away the veil so you may see

Woodruff alone reports the alternative Joseph Smith offers to refutation: not argument but disclosure. Smith notes the addition. It casts the whole of what follows as revelation rather than proof, which sits in tension with Bullock's 'I will shew it from the Bible' a few lines later, and no part of it reached T.

Smith, p. 289 n. 31

(mark it Br Rigdn )

Clayton alone records Joseph Smith turning to Sidney Rigdon by name at the John 5:19 argument. It is the only direct address to a named hearer in the discourse, and it matters for the April 1844 setting, since Rigdon had spoken at length earlier in the conference. T keeps it but raises 'Br' to 'elder'; Smith notes the change of title.

Smith, p. 289 n. 34

now if Jacob had the keys you might talk about James and never get the keys.

Clayton alone supplies the point of the philology: the name carries the keys, so the mistranslation costs the reader access to authority. Bullock has only 'you may talk about James thro all Eternity', which without Clayton's clause is a complaint about futility rather than an argument about priesthood. T takes Clayton's reading, so the received text has the stronger claim.

Smith, p. 292 n. 54

they account it blasphemy to contradict the idea— they will call you a fool—

Clayton alone reports the charge that the learned treat denial of creation from nothing as blasphemy. Woodruff has the milder 'they think you are a fool'. The difference is between being thought foolish and being accused of a religious crime, which is a sharper characterisation of the opposition. T places Clayton's clause immediately after Bullock's 'they are unlearned'.

which was created before.

Richards alone adds that the spirit put into man 'was created before'. Taken at face value it is in tension with the sermon's central claim, argued a few sections later, that God never had power to create the spirit of man at all. It may record a compression of 'existed before' rather than a claim about creation, but it is the only place in any report where a witness has the spirit created.

I know that my testimony is true.

Clayton alone records a testimony formula attached to the coequality claim, which converts an argument into an attestation. Its placement immediately after the most contested sentence in the discourse gives it some weight, and T carries it into the received text at exactly that point.

are revealed to us in the abstract & independant of affinity of this mortal tabernacle—

Clayton alone qualifies how revelation reaches a mortal: in the abstract, independent of any affinity with the body. Bullock, Woodruff and Richards have only the comparison 'as if we had no bodies'. Clayton's phrase makes a claim about the mode of revelation rather than an analogy about it, and T takes it into the received text alongside Bullock's comparison.

& God reveals them to us in the view of no Eternal dissolution. of the body—

Bullock alone adds that the revelations are given on the assumption that the body's dissolution is not permanent. It is the premise the whole argument needs and no other report supplies it. T keeps it.

meet Paul 1/2 way.—

Richards alone reduces the Hebrews 11:40 argument to a figure of meeting Paul half way, which makes the mutual dependence of the generations reciprocal in a way Bullock's 'you cant be perfect witht. us' does not. It is a compression, but it is a compression that adds an image, and it did not reach T.

God said he shall send Elijah &c

Bullock, Richards and Clayton all stop at the bare reference to Elijah. Woodruff alone unpacks it into the sealing of children and of the dead, the fulness of the dispensation of times, and promises made before the foundation of the world — the fullest statement of temple theology anywhere in the reports. Smith notes that T omits it, since Bullock did not have Woodruff's journal, and that it was restored to the tradition only in 1855–56.

Smith, p. 38; Smith, p. 294 n. 71

I have no fear of hell fire that dont exhist,

Woodruff alone records an explicit denial that hell fire exists. Bullock, Richards and Clayton all keep the lake of fire as a simile for the mind's torment, which implies as much without saying it; Woodruff has Joseph Smith saying it. The claim is the sharpest form of the sermon's psychologising of damnation and it is in exactly one report.

Jesus Christ will save all except the sons of perdition.

Woodruff alone supplies the outcome of the contest in the council: a universal salvation with one exception. The phrase 'sons of perdition' appears nowhere else in the reports. It names, in the technical vocabulary of the 1832 vision, the category the rest of the sermon describes without labelling, and no part of it reached T.

they go too far the spirit leaves them

Clayton alone offers a mechanism for apostasy: a point past which the Spirit withdraws. Bullock and Woodruff describe only the behaviour that follows. The clause makes the condition a consequence of the man's own progress rather than a sudden choice, and although T takes several neighbouring phrases from Clayton it does not take this one.

Say you that man is a sinner, well if he repents he shall be forgiven.

Woodruff alone attaches a clause of mercy to the warning. Bullock's version of the same passage ends by warning against evil characters for whom there is no redemption; Woodruff's holds open repentance for the ordinary sinner. Since this is the section where the two reports diverge most, the presence of the mitigation in only one of them is worth recording rather than resolving.

best men brings forth best works.

Richards alone records a proverb of discernment by fruits, compressed almost to aphorism. It is the positive counterpart of Bullock's test by bloodshed, and it supplies the criterion the other reports leave implicit in 'out of the abundance of the heart man speaks'.

I warn you agt all evil characters who sin agt. H. G. for there is no redemption. for them in this world nor in the world to come

Bullock alone closes the warning by naming those who sin against the Holy Ghost and denying them redemption in either world. The other three reports end the section without it. Coming after the test by bloodshed, it identifies the dissenters of 1844 with the unpardonable sin, which is the most pointed thing in the discourse, and it is in one report only. T keeps it.

those who have died in the faith are now in the selestial kingdom of God,

Woodruff alone places the faithful dead in the celestial kingdom already, before the resurrection. Bullock has only 'he is gone to the home of the just', which leaves the intermediate state undescribed, and Richards only that the friend has gone to wait. Woodruff's reading collapses the wait the other two preserve, and none of it is in T.

no fear of mobs—

Bullock alone names what the reunion of the dead will be free of. Woodruff has the reunion without the threat, Richards only the blessing on the bereaved. The word places the consolation squarely in the Missouri and Illinois experience of the hearers rather than in the abstract, and T keeps it.

the trump will soon be blown.

Woodruff alone makes the reunion imminent and eschatological. Bullock has the friends 'absent for a moment' and Richards 'gon for a few moments', both of which describe the dead's absence; Woodruff turns the brevity into a claim about how soon the resurrection comes. It did not reach T.

children dwell & exercise power in the same form as they laid them down

Woodruff's is much the fullest: thrones, thousands of children reigning, and 'not one cubit added to their stature', which states the no-growth doctrine explicitly. Richards has the thrones and dominions without the children's stature. Bullock has the doctrine without the vision. Smith records that this teaching was excised from the printed tradition in 1909 and again in 1952; T, which had only Bullock, prints the restrained form.

Smith, p. 41; Smith, p. 156; Smith, p. 157; Smith, p. 285

There has also been remarks made concerning all men being redeemed from Hell,

Woodruff alone records that Joseph Smith was answering remarks made by someone else at the conference, on universal redemption. It anchors the closing section of the discourse in the proceedings of 7 April 1844 rather than in the speaker's own plan, and it is the only such cue in any report. Clayton has broken off by this point and Richards is very brief, so the loss is not evidence of much beyond Bullock's selectivity; but it did not reach T.

Love all men but hate your deeds.—

Richards alone qualifies the profession of universal love with a hatred of deeds. Bullock has 'I love you all' and 'I have no enmity agst any man' unqualified. The qualification changes the closing posture from unconditional affection to a distinction between persons and conduct, and since only Bullock and Richards are present in this section there is no third report to adjudicate.