Sign-seekers Are Adulterers (July 2, 1839)
. . . Jesus put forth in saying that he who seeketh a sign is an adulterous person. & that principle is Eternal undeviating & firm as the pillars of heaven. for whenever you see a man seeking after a sign you may set it down that he is an adulterous man.
Discourse, 2 July 1839, as Reported by Willard Richards, pp. 14-15, The Joseph Smith Papers. For the original document at the Church History Library, see: Willard Richards journals and papers, 1821-1854; Notebooks; Pocket companion, circa 1840; Church History Library, https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets/526ad919-662c-4039-b59d-1cbf2edc7b57/0/17.
Those Who Commit Adultery Cannot Receive the Highest Exaltation (Date Unknown)
We also heard him say that God had revealed unto him that any man who ever committed adultery in either of his probations that that man could never be raised to the highest exaltation in the Celestial Glory and that he felt anxious with regard to himself and he inquired of the Lord and the Lord told him that he, Joseph, had never committed adultery
This saying of the Prophet astonished me very much. It opened up to me a very wide field of reflection. The idea that we had passed through probation prior to this and that we must have been married and given in marriage in those probations or there would be no propriety in making such an assertion and that there were several exaltations in the Celestial Kingdom of our God, the highest we supposed to be the Godhead and we conclude that there are several grades of exaltations in servants to the Gods. Be this as it may, this is what he said. We will know the truth of the matter some day.
Joseph Lee Robinson autobiography and journals, 1883-1892; Autobiography and journals, 1883-1893, p. 14; Church History Library, https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets/b61a941d-fe2b-4f61-bec0-a1557fd14fe6/0/0. For a transcript of the journal, see “The Journal of Joseph Lee Robinson: Mormon Pioneer,” p. 40, Archive.org.
