who was crushed to death in a well

Richards alone records the physical cause of death, a falling tub of rock; Clayton breaks off at '&c—' and does not name the well. The difference is one of reportorial fullness rather than doctrine, but it is the only place in the discourse where the occasion's factual detail varies, and T, drawn from Bullock and Clayton, preserves neither Richards's detail nor Clayton's ellipsis.

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.

faith the instruction. of Almighty God

JSP flags Bullock's word as possibly 'inspr.', and Clayton reads 'inspiration'. What is asked for differs: instruction is content delivered, inspiration is a condition of the speaker. Woodruff and Clayton both name the Holy Ghost here, which Bullock does not; T prints both Bullock's 'instruction' and Clayton's gift of the Holy Ghost, so the received text carries a reading no single report supports.

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.

stay the winds— & let the prayers of the Saints to heaven appear

T fuses Bullock’s petition with Clayton’s purpose clause, creating a causal sequence no eyewitness records.

the great Eloe

The three reports transliterate the divine name differently, and Smith reads Bullock's form as 'Eloi' or 'Eloe'. Transliteration alone would fall below the threshold of this apparatus, but the name is the subject of the sermon's central argument and 'Eloi' would carry an accidental echo of Mark 15:34. Clayton alone locates the Eloheim in the heavens, a clause T adopts and expands to 'yonder heavens'.

but if we start wrong it is hard to get right

Bullock and Clayton report a claim about the difficulty of recovery; Woodruff reports a claim about the risk of error. The modal force differs: 'hard to get right' concedes that a wrong start can be corrected with effort, 'you may go wrong' makes going wrong a contingency rather than a condition to be repaired. Smith identifies the saying as an adaptation of a Lorenzo Dow proverb and notes that Woodruff reports its parts out of the order the other audits give.

they do not comprehend any thing that is past or that which is to come

The four reports name four different objects of human ignorance: past and future (B), relationship to God (W), the self (R), and all three together (C). Richards's contrapositive is the strongest form, tying knowledge of God directly to self-knowledge, and Smith observes that it is not equivalent to Clayton's conjunction. JSP flags Clayton's 'no' as possibly 'nor', which would not change the sense. T follows Bullock and drops the self-knowledge claim entirely.

com: but little more than the brute beast

T resolves Bullock’s abbreviation as “consequently” and selects Clayton’s comparative rather than Woodruff’s equality.

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.

never say anything against. the man of God

Bullock and Clayton report a demand made on behalf of 'the man of God' in the singular, Woodruff a demand made on Joseph Smith's own behalf ('against me'), and Richards a demand extended to 'the servants of God' in the plural. Smith notes that Richards alters the sense. The scope matters in April 1844: the plural would make the claim cover the whole leadership against whom the Nauvoo dissenters were then agitating.

if I should. be the man to comprehend: the God & I com: them to your heart

T combines Richards’s explaining with Clayton’s sealing formula into a fuller epistemic claim than any one eyewitness records.

If I do not do it I have no right to revelation. inspn.

T selects Clayton’s strongest consequence, a duty to renounce prophetic claims, and expands its objects.

every man has a right to be a false as well as a true prophet—

Bullock and Richards report the claim as a right held by the individual, including a right to be wrong; Woodruff and Clayton report it as a duty of government to tolerate. The two are not the same argument, and only the first grants a positive right to false prophecy. Bullock and Richards agreeing on the more striking formulation is some evidence that it was spoken. T carries only the toleration form, so the sharper claim did not enter the received text.

ninety nine of 100 are false prophets

Bullock has 'false prophets', Clayton 'false teachers'. The claim's target differs: prophets would indict claimants to revelation, teachers the general ministry. T follows Clayton. Smith records that the later Manuscript History expanded the phrase further, to 'ninety-nine out of every hundred professing religious ministers', without manuscript warrant, so the drift from Bullock's wording continued past T.

for I speak as one having. authority. & not as a senr.

Bullock alone carries the second half of the Matthew 7:29 allusion, and JSP flags the last word as possibly 'servt.' while noting the allusion requires 'scribe'. Smith adds that 'senr' might be an abbreviation of senator, which would make the clause a political jab rather than a scriptural one. Bullock himself dropped the phrase when he compiled T, so the received text preserves only the half that Clayton also has.

What kind of a being was God in the beginning

T splices Clayton’s next-topic question and Bullock’s later proof announcement into the conscience argument, creating the received transition.

who holds this world in its orbit & upholds all things by his power

Woodruff's plural 'worlds' extends the claim from this earth to a plurality of worlds, which is the cosmology the sermon goes on to teach; Bullock and Clayton keep the singular. Clayton's 'the planets' and 'in its sphere' are, as Smith observes, premodern images of cosmic maintenance. T follows Bullock, so the received text makes the narrower 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.

Adam walkd talked & communed. with him as one man talks & communes: with another.

Clayton alone has Adam 'received instruction', which makes the exchange didactic; Bullock's 'communed' makes it companionable, and JSP flags his word as possibly 'Comd.' Richards reports only the likeness and no conversation at all. T fuses Clayton's instruction with Bullock's communing.

I am going to tell you what sort of a being of God

Bullock announces an inquiry into what God is; Woodruff and Clayton announce an account of how God became God. The second is the far stronger thesis, and it is the one the rest of the section argues. T follows Clayton, which is why the received text opens the argument with the becoming rather than the being.

for he was God from the begin of all Eternity & if I do not refute it

Bullock's clause has no attributing verb, so it can be read as an assertion that God was God from eternity or as the opinion about to be refuted; Woodruff's 'We suppose' and Clayton's 'We have imagined' mark it unambiguously as a common belief to be corrected, and Richards's bare 'refute the Idea' agrees. Three witnesses against one on the modal frame make the refutation reading much the likelier, and T prints Clayton's.

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.

God himself the father of us all dwelt on a Earth same as J C himself did

All three reports have the Father's prior mortality, but they locate it differently: Bullock and T on 'an earth' as Christ was, Woodruff on an earth 'like us', Clayton on 'a planet' and explicitly 'in the flesh'. Clayton's is the most corporeal and, as Smith notes, reflects Nauvoo planetary theology. Smith shows the claim being deduced from John 5:19, and records that the Utah redactors later replaced the whole of it with the Snow couplet.

I wish I had the trump of an Arch Angel I cod. tell the story in such a manner that persecution: shod. cease for ever—

What the speaker says he lacks differs: an archangel's trumpet (B), a suitable place (W), the privilege (C). Bullock's is an image of amplification, Woodruff's and Clayton's are complaints about circumstance. Only Bullock's reached T. The section boundary falls before this sentence in T, which places it at the end of S09.

(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.

as the Father. hath power in himself

Clayton wrote 'hath', struck it, and wrote 'had'; Richards independently has 'Had'. The tense is not indifferent in this sermon: the present tense quotes John 5:19 as it stands, the past tense assimilates the verse to the argument that the Father's work was done in a prior mortality. Clayton's correction is evidence that he heard, or understood, the past. Bullock, Woodruff and T all keep the present.

lay down his body & take it up

T fuses Clayton’s “life” and paternal comparison with the other witnesses’ “take it up again.”

you have got to learn how to be a God yourself

Bullock and Clayton have 'be', Woodruff and Richards 'make yourselves'; the second makes deification a work performed on oneself rather than a state attained. Richards alone has the plural 'Gods'. Clayton alone supplies the motive, 'in order to save yourself', which subordinates deification to salvation. T pluralises, giving a reading no report has in that exact form.

& be a King & Priest to God

Bullock first wrote 'be a King & God', struck 'God', and wrote 'Priest to God'. Smith confirms the sequence from the manuscript. What the scribe first heard, or first expected, was the more extreme claim that the hearer would be a king and a God; the correction to 'Priest' brings the phrase back to the Revelation 1:6 formula that Woodruff, Richards and Clayton all report. The cancellation is therefore evidence about what was audible at the point where the sermon is at its most radical.

same as all have done

Bullock's 'all' leaves the antecedent open; Clayton reads it as prior Gods, and T prints Clayton's plural. The difference decides whether the pattern being followed is that of other men who have been exalted or that of a succession of Gods, which is the sermon's most contested claim. V007 records the neighbouring 'be a God' / 'make yourselves Gods' variation, not this one.

from grace to grace until the resurrection.

Three different metrics for the ascent: grace (B, from John 1:16), capacity (W, R) and exaltation (C). They are not interchangeable — grace is given, capacity is enlarged, exaltation is conferred. T prints all three in a single series, a reading no eyewitness supports and the clearest single instance of its compositive method.

& sit in everlasting power as they who have gone before

Bullock has power, Woodruff burnings, Clayton glory; Richards has burning and power together, which is some evidence that both words were spoken. 'Everlasting burnings' (Isaiah 33:14) recasts fire as the medium of God's dwelling rather than as punishment, and it is the reading that does most theological work. Bullock could not see Woodruff or Richards when he compiled T, and T accordingly prints glory and power without burnings.

that all Earthly tabernacles shall be dissolved

What is offered as consolation differs. Bullock offers only the dissolution of the body; Woodruff and Richards offer a rising into everlasting burnings, which continues the Isaiah 33 language of the previous section; Clayton offers immortal glory defined negatively, by the end of sorrow, suffering and death. T sets Bullock's dissolution and Clayton's glory side by side and again omits the burnings.

to inherit the same powers exaltation. until you ascend. the throne of Etl. power same as those who are gone before

Bullock and Clayton expand Romans 8:17 into shared power, glory and exaltation; Woodruff carries the expansion one step further to 'the station of a God', which names the terminus the others leave implicit. Richards has the bare scriptural phrase and nothing more. T follows Bullock and Clayton, so the explicit statement of the endpoint is not in the received text.

before worlds came rolled nto existence

Bullock places the Father's probation before the worlds came into existence, Clayton at the time they did. The difference sets the Father's mortal work either prior to or contemporaneous with creation, which bears directly on how the sermon's chain of Gods is to be ordered. Woodruff has no temporal marker at all. T follows Clayton's 'when'.

so that he obtains K rolling. upon K.

Four models of what the Son's finished work does for the Father. Bullock has accumulation of kingdoms; Woodruff has succession, the Father advancing and the Son taking his place; Clayton has the Father's glory increased; Richards has the Father gratified. JSP flags Richards's word as possibly 'glorified', which would move his reading toward Clayton's. T fuses Bullock and Clayton and leaves the succession out.

it is plain beyond comprehension.

Bullock, the only witness at this point, wrote 'comprehension'; the printed text reads 'disputation'. Smith records the substitution as Bullock's own, made while preparing T. The two are near opposites: 'beyond comprehension' concedes that the doctrine exceeds the hearer, 'beyond disputation' claims it is settled. The received text has the confident reading and the manuscript the diffident one.

when you climb a ladder you must begin at the bottom rung until you learn the last principle of the Gospel

The ladder is Bullock's alone. Clayton has the same sequence without the image, and Woodruff and Richards have only the claim about duration. The image is what made the passage quotable, and Smith records that the Utah redactors elaborated it further into 'step by step until you arrive at the top'. T keeps the ladder but drops Bullock's 'rung'.

I think there is so many wise men who wod. put me to death for treason

Woodruff and Clayton report a cry of treason; Bullock reports a threat to life. In April 1844, with the dissenters organising, the difference between an accusation and an execution is not rhetorical decoration. Smith notes that Clayton inverts the order of the treason and wise-men clauses relative to Bullock. T follows Bullock and prints the threat.

he did not put the 1st. pt. to it a man a Jew without. any authy. thought. it too bad to begin to talk about the head of any man

Bullock alone supplies a motive for the interpolation — the Jew 'thought it too bad to begin to talk about the head' — which turns a philological claim into a charge of deliberate theological suppression. Woodruff and Clayton report only the act. Smith records that the three reports spell the Hebrew word differently and that Bullock adopted Clayton's spelling for T; T also takes Bullock's motive clause.

Berosheet—

Clayton began to write 'Barau' immediately after 'Berosheit' and struck it out. The cancellation is direct manuscript evidence at exactly the point where Smith says the printed text inserts 'Baurau' without warrant: Clayton was on the verge of writing it here and did not, which is consistent either with his having anticipated a word not yet spoken or with a false start. Either way the surviving reports put the analysis of *bara* later, in the ex nihilo argument.

Roshed the head

T supplies a grammatical parsing of the third element of *Bereshit* that no report has: 'Sheit, gramatical termination.' The eyewitnesses stop at 'the head', and Clayton records the question 'sheet where do it come from—' unanswered. The printed explanation therefore represents editorial tidying of an argument the reports leave incomplete.

is the true meaning. of the word—

T inserts 'Baurau, signifies to bring forth' into the Genesis 1:1 analysis. Smith states flatly that this does not reflect the sources at this point, though the word does appear later in several of them. The effect is to move the argument about *bara* forward, so the received text has the creation verb glossed before Joseph Smith reaches it; Clayton's struck 'Barau' a few words earlier is the only manuscript trace anywhere near it.

thus the Head God brought. forth the Gods in the Head council—

Clayton's object is singular and identical to the subject: the head God brought forth the head God. Bullock, Woodruff and Richards all have the head God bringing forth the Gods in the plural. Clayton's reading, if not a slip, would describe divine self-generation rather than the generation of a council, which is a materially different claim. JSP flags Bullock's abbreviation here as possibly 'K'. Smith notes Bullock's 'head council' against the 'grand council' T prints.

sheet where do it come from

T turns Clayton’s question into an asserted grammatical gloss unsupported by another eyewitness.

the Head God called togr. the Gods & set in Grand Council

Clayton has 'worlds' where Bullock, Woodruff and Richards have the singular, so on his report the council planned more than this earth. Agency also differs: in Bullock and Richards a head God convenes the council, in Woodruff and Clayton the council itself is the acting subject. T prints Bullock's sentence and Clayton's together, which is why the received text has both a convening head God and a self-seated body of counsellors.

contemplated the creation of the worlds that was created at that time

T selects Clayton’s plural worlds against Woodruff and Richards’s singular world.

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.

it corespends the nearest to the revelations. that I have given the last 14 years

Bullock alone dates the revelatory career, at fourteen years, in the appeal to the German text; Clayton records the same claim of correspondence with no span attached, and Woodruff and Richards do not report the comparison at this point. T prints Bullock's figure, so the received text carries a date that rests on one report. Richards gives the same fourteen years later, of baptism rather than of revelation.

& how can we escape the damnation. of hell witht. God reveal to us.

Bullock and Woodruff make revelation the condition of escape; Clayton makes it God's presence, and adds the image of being bound with chains by men. The first is an epistemic claim about how truth is got, the second a claim about divine accompaniment. T takes Bullock's condition and Clayton's chains into one sentence.

thank God I have got this book & I thank him more for the gift of the H G.

Bullock and Woodruff have a comparison between the polyglot and the gift of the Holy Ghost; Clayton has a comparison between two books, the outward one and the one in the heart, which makes the same point as metaphor rather than doctrine. Smith notes that Clayton shifts to the third person here. T prints both versions in succession, so the received text says the thing twice in two idioms.

Greek says Jacob

Bullock first wrote a different Greek form, struck it, and inserted 'Jacob'. The correction falls inside the demonstration whose whole force depends on the four languages agreeing, so the scribe's hesitation over the Greek is evidence of how hard the polyglot passage was to take down. Clayton's 'Ichobon' preserves an attempt at the Greek that Bullock's corrected text loses.

I shod. not have brot. up this wod only to shew that I am right

Bullock makes the purpose of the polyglot self-vindication; Clayton makes it corroboration of the Hebrew argument about *rosh*. The second subordinates the demonstration to the doctrine, the first to the speaker's credit. JSP flags Bullock's word as possibly 'wo[r]d' or 'wo[ul]d'. T prints both sentences, so the received text gives two different reasons for the same digression.

The Gods came together & concocked the plan of making the world & the inhabitants,

Woodruff and Richards both return to the grand council after the polyglot argument and both describe its work as concocting a plan or scheme — a word neither Bullock nor Clayton uses anywhere. 'Concocted' makes the creation a contrivance rather than a decree. The recapitulation falls here only because these two reports take the council material out of Bullock's order; the material itself belongs with S16. Smith records the Utah redactors fusing these two clauses.

an old book in the Latin Greek Hebrew & German

T adopts Clayton’s identification of the polyglot as a New Testament, absent from the other eyewitnesses.

I shod. not have brot. up this wod only to shew that I am right

T serializes Bullock’s and Clayton’s likely parallel rationales as two distinct statements.

& he begins to unfold the heavens to us & tell us all about. it bef our prayers get to his ears

Bullock has God answering before the prayer arrives, which makes the divine response anticipatory; Woodruff has an ordinary sequence of asking and answering; Clayton has a matched readiness on both sides. The three describe different relations between petition and answer. T takes Bullock's unfolding and Clayton's mutual readiness but drops Bullock's 'before our prayers get to his ears'. The passage falls at the end of T's S17.

when we begin to learn in this way we beg to learn the only true God

Richards wrote 'the Gods', then struck both the article and the final s to leave 'God'. In a sermon whose argument is precisely that the Gods are plural, a scribe correcting the plural back to the singular at the moment of understanding is worth recording: it shows the pull of the ordinary usage against what was being said. The surviving reading agrees with Bullock and Clayton. The T counterpart falls at the end of T's S17.

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 is Element & in which dwells all the glory— that nothing can destroy they never can have an ending they exist eternally—

Two claims here belong to one witness each. Bullock alone says the glory dwells in element, which makes matter itself the seat of divine glory. Clayton alone dates element's existence to God's own — 'from the time he had' — which sets God and element on the same footing and, read strictly, gives God a beginning. Richards's 'no beginning no end' supports the eternity without the comparison. T prints Bullock's and Clayton's clauses in sequence.

same as you wod. organize a Ship

T selects Bullock’s technical “organize” over Clayton’s “build,” shaping the received creation analogy.

that nothing can destroy they never can have an ending they exist eternally

T follows Clayton’s relative-duration formulation and omits Bullock and Richards’s explicit no-beginning claim.

oh man says God created in the beging.

Woodruff and Richards attribute the doctrine of a created soul to the learned and to doctors of divinity; Bullock and Clayton attribute it indefinitely. T generalises further still, to 'All men'. Naming the learned makes the passage another round in the sermon's quarrel with the clergy; the indefinite and universal forms make it a correction of common opinion.

that God made man & put into it Adams Spirit & so became a living Spirit—

Genesis 2:7 reads 'living soul'; none of the reports has it. Bullock has 'living Spirit', Woodruff 'Human soul', Clayton 'living body'. The three name different results of the joining, and Clayton's 'body' in particular reverses the usual direction of the verse. Clayton alone supplies the material origin, 'out of the earth'. T combines Clayton's earth with Bullock's 'Adam's spirit' and Clayton's 'living body'.

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.

Make a man appear a fool before he gets through if he dont believe it

T converts Clayton’s third-person taunt into Joseph’s first-person threat.

the mind of man is as immortal as God himself—

Three reports against one: Woodruff, Richards and Clayton all have 'coequal', Bullock alone 'immortal'. The claims differ in kind — immortality asserts equal duration, coequality equal standing — and the second is much the stronger. Clayton alone specifies what is coequal, 'the intelligent part'. T prints Bullock's word at this point while keeping 'coequal' a few lines later, which is how both readings entered the tradition. Smith treats the coequal reading as the archetype.

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.

their Spirits coexisted with God

Bullock has 'coexisted with God', Clayton 'existed coequal with God'. T follows Clayton against Bullock, and so the printed text carries 'coequal' here even though it carries 'immortal' three lines earlier. This is the sentence from which the later tradition took its language: Smith traces the Utah redactors substituting 'co-equal' throughout and B. H. Roberts replacing it with 'co-eternal' in 1907–09. Coexistence asserts only that the spirits were there; coequality asserts parity.

I take my ring from my finger & liken it unto the mind of man the immortal. Spirit because it has no beging.

Bullock and Woodruff both develop the ring, and both add the cut that would give it ends; Clayton records only that the ring was used, in the third person, and Richards not at all. What the ring stands for differs: Bullock likens it to the mind, Woodruff to 'the exhistanc of man'. The image is the sermon's compact argument against a created spirit, and T prints Bullock's version.

intelligence is self existent it is a Sp from age to end & there is no creatn abt. it

Bullock has 'from age to end' where Clayton has 'from age to age'. If Bullock's reading is what he heard rather than a slip of the pen, it gives intelligence a terminus and contradicts the self-existence the same sentence asserts; every other witness, and T, has perpetuity. Woodruff reduces the claim to 'Eternal'; Richards and Clayton both add 'no creation about it', which is the negative form of the argument. Woodruff's, Richards's and Clayton's counterparts fall at the head of S22, one section later than Bullock's.

All the spirits that God ever sent into the world are susceptible of enlargement

T relocates Clayton’s S22 enlargement claim to close S21, shaping the ring argument’s received conclusion.

because he was greater

Clayton alone gives a reason for God's primacy among the spirits: not a difference of kind but of degree, 'because he was greater'. On Bullock's report God simply finds himself in the midst of spirits and institutes laws. Clayton's clause makes the whole arrangement follow from comparative greatness, which is consistent with the sermon's account of coequal intelligences and is the reading T prints.

he saw proper to institute laws for those who were in less intelligence that they mit. have one glory upon another

The end the laws serve differs by report: graduated glories (B), exaltation with God himself (W), advancement like God (C), enlargement of capacity (R). Woodruff's is the only one that states parity with God as the terminus; Bullock's is the only one that keeps the outcome graduated. T sets Clayton's purpose clause and Bullock's together.

you say honey is Sweet & so do I.

Bullock alone has the honey, which supplies the analogy that the other reports leave implicit: the taste of eternal life is self-authenticating in the way a sweet taste is. Woodruff has the taste without the honey, Clayton the shared knowledge without either. T keeps Bullock's simile and Clayton's sentence both.

given me by Inspiration of the H S.

The reports differ over the claimed source of what is being taught: Bullock has the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Woodruff the revelations of Jesus Christ, and Clayton leaves the giver unnamed. T follows Clayton and so drops the attribution altogether, which removes from the received text the one place in this passage where the speaker names the channel of his own authority.

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.

& those revns. which will save our dead will save our bodies—

Woodruff, Richards and Clayton all have the revelations saving our spirits; Bullock alone has them saving 'our dead'. The substitution turns a claim about the constitution of the living person into a claim about vicarious work for the dead, which is the theme of the sections that follow. T follows Bullock, so the received text reads the sentence proleptically.

& 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.

for all the Spirits must either obey the Gospel or be damned

The reports differ over both the scope of the requirement and what it requires. Bullock puts it on 'all the Spirits' without qualification; Clayton restricts the class to those who did not obey 'in the flesh', which leaves the mortally obedient outside the demand; Richards has the gospel condition without Clayton's mortal qualifier; and Woodruff makes the requirement baptism specifically rather than the gospel generally. T takes Clayton's scope, so the received text states the narrower claim.

to let you know I am not a fallen prophet—

Bullock and Clayton both attach a denial of the charge of fallen prophet to the wish for forty days; Woodruff has the wish alone, parenthetically. Smith records that the charge was circulating in Nauvoo in April 1844, largely over polygamy and over the doctrines of this sermon. Woodruff keeps the wish for forty days and the surrounding argument in full, so the loss of the denial is not compression of the passage but the dropping of its most personal and most topical clause.

the greatest responsibility that God has laid upon us to seek after our dead—

Clayton has 'when his commandments touch us'; T prints 'teach us'. Touching and teaching are different relations between the commandment and the hearer, and the printed reading is the likelier misreading of a longhand hand than the reverse. Woodruff and Richards both report the surrounding thought as being about God's view of time rather than about commandments at all, so no eyewitness supports T's reading.

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.

the provision. which God made from before the foundation. of the world.

Bullock and Richards date the provision before the world; Clayton characterises it instead by its fit to human need. The one locates it in the divine decree, the other in its adequacy to the case, and they answer different objections. T fuses the two, so the received text has both the date and the fit.

there is a Saln. for him or in the world to come—

Bullock and Richards have the scriptural pair 'this world or the world to come' (Matthew 12:32); Clayton has 'the world of spirit'. The spirit world is a determinate intermediate state, the world to come an undifferentiated future, and the sermon's argument about postmortem repentance turns on which is meant. T prints the scriptural pair.

& so you can see how far you can be Savior

Bullock alone applies the title 'Savior' to the living man acting for his dead; the other three have only the verb. A title claims a standing, a verb an action, and in this sermon the distinction is not idle. T follows Bullock. The earlier note on this entry attributed 'saviors on mount Zion' to Woodruff, Richards and Clayton; the phrase is in none of them, and Smith does not use it.

who hath not committed the unpardonable sin

Clayton wrote 'eternal sin', struck it, and wrote 'unpardonable sin'. 'Eternal sin' is the Mark 3:29 reading and is not the term any report otherwise uses; the cancellation shows a scribe reaching first for the scriptural phrase and then correcting to what was actually said. It is the clearest piece of evidence in the reports that 'unpardonable' is the spoken word.

those that are witht. wisdom until they get exalted to wisdom

Bullock has wisdom, the other three knowledge. In this sermon knowledge is the operative term — it is what a man carries out of this world and what makes exaltation possible — and wisdom is not otherwise used that way. Clayton alone extends the claim explicitly into the world of spirits. T follows Clayton.

a sinner has his own mind & is in his own condemner

Bullock wrote a whole clause, 'so long as man will not give acct. of his sins', and struck it out. Clayton and Richards both preserve a clause of the same shape at the same point, Clayton nearly word for word except that his condition is giving heed to the commandments rather than giving account of sins. The cancellation is therefore evidence that something was said here which Bullock's reading text no longer contains, and T prints Clayton's version of it.

a sinner has his own mind & is in his own condemner

Four words for the same interiorising of damnation: condemner (B), damns (W), disappointment (R), torment (C). Richards's is markedly the mildest — disappointment is not punishment — and Bullock's the most forensic. The common ground, that the suffering is the mind's own, is the doctrinally consequential part, and T prints Clayton's and Bullock's terms together.

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.

All will suffer untill they obey Christ himself,

Woodruff and Richards both terminate postmortem suffering — in obedience to Christ, or in exaltation. Bullock and Clayton have no such limit and leave the damned's state open. Bullock and Clayton are both full at this point — Bullock runs to the salvation wrought out for all men, Clayton to the same — so their silence about a limit is not a matter of length; either they did not hear one or none was stated. Neither clause reached T.

no man can commit the unpardonable sin after the dissn. of the body but they must do it in this world

Bullock, Richards and Clayton make the limit temporal — the sin must be committed in mortality and cannot be committed after death — while Woodruff makes it a prerequisite of knowledge, that no one can commit it until he has received the Holy Ghost. The two are not equivalent: one bounds the opportunity, the other names a qualification for it. T follows the temporal form. Woodruff states the knowledge condition again at S28, where V025 records the fuller sequence.

J. contended. that there wod. be certn. souls that wod. be condemnd & the devil sd. he cod. save them all

Bullock has souls condemned, Clayton men not saved; the first asserts a positive sentence, the second only a failure to be saved. Woodruff alone puts the devil's offer in the first person and has him claim the title savior outright, which makes the council a contest between two claimants rather than a proposal and a refusal. T follows Clayton's 'would not be saved' and Bullock's 'all'.

as the grand council gave in for J. C.

Bullock and Richards both record a decision procedure, and they describe it differently: the council 'gave in for' Jesus, or the lot 'fell on' him. Both suggest a determination rather than an appointment, and Richards's is the language of casting lots. Woodruff and Clayton have only the rebellion and the fall, with no account of how Christ came to be chosen. Smith connects Richards's phrase to council elections. T prints Bullock's.

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.

he has got to say that the Sun does not shine while he sees it he has got to deny J. C. when the heavens are open to him—

Bullock alone has the sun image. What must be denied also differs: Jesus Christ (B) or the plan of salvation (R) — a person or a scheme. Woodruff alone gives the sequence as a definition, with the receipt of the Holy Ghost as its first term, and Clayton gives only the consequence. T interpolates Clayton's 'no repentance for him' inside Bullock's sentence, splitting it, and shifts Bullock's 'are open' to 'were open'.

he has got to say that the Sun does not shine while he sees it he has got to deny J. C. when the heavens are open to him—

T shifts Bullock's present-tense 'are open' to 'were open,' making the opening of heaven narratively prior rather than standing open at denial.

for he has the same Sp. that they had who crucified. the Lord of life—

Bullock and Clayton trace the apostate's spirit to the crucifiers, human agents in a historical act; Woodruff traces it to the devil. The first makes apostasy a repetition of a crime, the second a possession. Clayton alone adds the Hebrews 6:6 consequence, 'You cant renew them to repentance'. T follows Bullock.

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.

when a man begins to be an enemy he hunts him—

Bullock's object is third person: the apostate hunts his victim, whoever that is. T reads 'me'. Woodruff and Clayton both have the first person in their neighbouring clauses, so the printed reading has support in the sense of the passage but not in the sentence Bullock wrote. The effect is to make a general statement about apostasy into a statement about the danger to Joseph Smith, six weeks before Carthage.

You cant renew them to repentance— awful is the consequence

Woodruff and Clayton both put apostates beyond recovery but name different impossibilities: Woodruff that they cannot be saved, Clayton that they cannot be renewed to repentance, which is the language of Hebrews 6:6 and closes the means rather than reporting the outcome. T follows Clayton, so the received text states the stronger form. V091 records Clayton's separate mechanism, that the spirit leaves them.

when you find a Sp. wants bloodshed murder same is not of God but is of the devil

The test of a false spirit differs: bloodshed and murder (B), bitterness (W), deception (R, C). Bullock's is a test applied to others and is about violence; Woodruff's is addressed to the hearer's own state; Richards's and Clayton's are warnings about being taken in. T follows Bullock, which gives the received text the most violent of the four in a passage spoken eleven weeks before the killing at Carthage.

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.

there is one glory of the moon Sun & Stars &c

Bullock alone brings in 1 Corinthians 15:41. It is the scriptural warrant for the degrees of glory the section goes on to describe, and without it Woodruff's report has only the many mansions of John 14:2. T expands Bullock's compressed '&c' into the full verse, which is a regularisation against the printed Bible rather than against any report.

In my Fars. mansion there are many mansions &c

Bullock has 'my Father's mansion', Woodruff 'my father's Kingdom', T 'my father's house'. Only T agrees with John 14:2. Bullock's singular mansion containing many mansions is the sort of thing a hand taking dictation produces, and he struck a false start immediately before it; but the printed correction to the King James wording is an editorial act, not a report, and it is what fixed the familiar form of the quotation in the tradition.

for your husband has gone to wait until the resn.

T inserts an editorial parenthesis identifying the death in question. No report has it, and it is not speech: it is the printed text supplying for a reading audience the context a hearer in the grove already had. It is recorded here because it is one of the few places where the composite's editorial voice is visible on the page.

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.

while their murderers shall welter for years——

Woodruff's 'until they pay the utmost farthing' (Matthew 5:26) makes the murderers' punishment terminable; Bullock's 'for years' leaves its length unstated; T prints 'for ages', which is longer than Bullock and unsupported by any report. Richards's sentence has a different subject altogether — worlds waiting for blessings, not murderers suffering — so his clause is not strictly a variant of the same words but the nearest thing his report has.

I have a Far. Bror. Friends who are gone to a world of Sp

Woodruff includes children among the speaker's own dead where Bullock has a father, a brother and friends, and T follows Bullock. In a funeral sermon the list is a biographical detail rather than a doctrinal one, and the reports do not agree on it.

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.

Mothers you shall have your Children for they shall have it—

Bullock's 'they shall have it' has no antecedent; T resolves the pronoun to 'eternal life'. Woodruff and Richards both have the promise without any such clause, so the resolution has no manuscript warrant. It is a small editorial decision with a doctrinal result: what the reports leave a dangling pronoun, the received text makes a statement about infant salvation.

for their debt is paid there is no damnation awaits them for they are in the Spirits—

Richards alone says that the child possesses 'all the intelligence of a god'. It is the strongest claim made about deceased infants anywhere in the reports, and it answers a question Bullock's 'their debt is paid' leaves open: not merely that they are safe but what they are. Smith discusses the resurrection of children at length and does not treat this phrase. Clayton's section here is a clerk's summary, not a report of words, and Woodruff's parallel is the no-growth claim recorded at the next entry.

& be living in the burng. of God—

Bullock, the only witness here, wrote 'burng.'; T prints 'learning'. Burning belongs to the sermon's Isaiah 33 language, in which God dwells in everlasting burnings and the risen enter them; learning belongs to nothing in the discourse. The likeliest account is a misreading of Bullock's own hand in the print shop, and its effect is to replace an image of glory with an image of instruction at the climax of the promise to mourning mothers.

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.

the Baptism of Water witht. the Baptism of Fire & the H G. attending it are necy

T states both that water baptism alone 'is of no use' and that the three 'are necessary'. Bullock, its source here, has only the necessity; Richards calls the three inseparably connected, which is a claim about their relation rather than about the worthlessness of one; and Woodruff, who does say John's baptism was good for nothing alone, was not used in the composite. The strengthening in the printed text therefore does not come from the reports it was made from.

when J comes who has the power

Richards grounds the authority to baptize with fire and the Holy Ghost in keys, Bullock in power, and Woodruff names no ground at all. Keys name a conferred office in this speaker's usage where power need not, so the reports differ on what kind of claim is being made. T follows Bullock, and the received text has power.

I call upon all to say I— (shouts of I)

Bullock has a call to the whole congregation and a general assent. T restricts the call to the German speakers and makes them warrantors of the translation. The narrowing converts a rhetorical appeal into a claim of corroborated expertise, and no report supports it. Richards's nearest clause has Joseph Smith calling on all men to repent, which is a different act.

Alexander Campbell— how are you going to save them with water—

Bullock alone names Alexander Campbell. Woodruff has the same argument against water-only baptism without the name, and Richards has the three baptisms without the polemic. Smith connects the apostrophe to Campbell's baptismal theology. T keeps the name and adds 'alone', which sharpens the charge into one Campbell might have recognised.

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.

but they shall die the 2nd. death—

Three terms for the final state: the second death of Revelation 21:8 (B), hell worlds without end (W), and Richards's transliterated Hebrew 'Gnolom'. Richards is the only witness anywhere in the reports to record the Hebrew term at this point, and it matters because *olam* denotes an age or a hidden duration rather than infinity, which is not what 'without end' says. T follows Bullock.

some shall rise to the everlasting burning of God & some shall rise to the dn. of their own filthiness— same as the lake of fire & brimstone—

Bullock alone sets the two senses of burning side by side: the righteous rise to God's everlasting burning, the wicked to a damnation that is their own filthiness. Richards has only the positive half, which is the Isaiah 33:14 doctrine stated flatly. The pairing is what makes the fire a single thing experienced two ways rather than two different fires, and it is in one report. T keeps it and makes the lake a simile of exquisiteness rather than an identity.

I rejoice in hearing the test of my aged friend—

Two changes in one clause. JSP flags Bullock's 'hearing' as possibly 'bearing', and T prints 'bearing'; more consequentially, T pluralises 'friend'. Smith identifies the singular as a reference to Sidney Rigdon, who had spoken at length earlier in the conference, and reads the plural as an editorial decision taken during the August 1844 succession crisis to avoid appearing to endorse Rigdon's standing. The plural is in no report.

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.

you never knew my heart no man knows my history— I can not do it I shall never undertake—

Bullock and Richards record complementary halves. Bullock has the refusal to tell; Richards has the certainty that the hearers never will know, and the concession that he would not have believed it himself. Richards's 'you never will' is the more absolute claim and his self-doubt the more humane one. T prints Bullock and drops Richards, whom Bullock did not have; the tradition combined them only in 1855–56.

when I am called at the trump & weighed in the balance you will know me then

T sides with Bullock against Richards and heightens the promise with “all” and the ark-angel.