Revelation, , Seneca Co., NY, to , 5 Jan. 1831. Featured version, titled “42nd Commandment Recd Jan. 5th. 1831,” copied [ca. Mar. 1831] in Revelation Book 1, pp. 58–60; handwriting of ; CHL. Includes redactions. For more complete source information, see the source note for Revelation Book 1.
Historical Introduction
JS dictated this revelation in , New York, for , a Protestant minister, three days after the ’s third . When recorded this text in Revelation Book 1 a few months later, he wrote that Covel “ with the Lord that he would obey any that the Lord would give through his servent Joseph.”
The identity of the revelation’s recipient is not known with certainty. Two individuals living in at the time fit the general description, and no source definitively identifies either man as the recipient. The earliest extant manuscript copy of the revelation, featured below, provides only a given name. The first printed version in 1833 expanded “James” to “James (C.,)” with no additional information, and in 1835 the name was given as “James Covill” in the Doctrine and Covenants. JS’s history also uses this spelling because its editors relied on the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants for the revelation text. The history adds that Covill “had been a baptist minister for about forty years.” James Covill, a Baptist minister from Ellery, New York, who in 1831 was over seventy years old, fits this description, but he lived on the far western edge of the state, more than one hundred fifty miles away. JS and could have met Covill on their way to at the end of January, but according to this earliest copy of the revelation, it was “given at ” on 5 January 1831.
The recipient of the revelation was much more likely , a Methodist elder from Canadice, New York. The index to Revelation Book 1 describes the recipient as “a Methodist Priest,” not a Baptist. James Covel lived about twenty miles southwest of , New York, and had been associated with the Methodist church for nearly forty years. He may have heard JS or preaching in the Canandaigua area. After JS and several others preached “with great power” in ’s barn near Canandaigua in October 1830, they were invited to preach in Canandaigua. “They had promised that we should meet in the Methodist Meeting house,” Thayer later wrote, “but the Trustees could not agree.” As president of the regional Methodist conference, Covel was likely aware of the request. In December a Mormon preacher, probably JS or Rigdon, “delivered a discourse in the Town House [in Canandaigua] to an assembly of two or three hundred people.” Covel may have attended the December meeting and then traveled to , where the revelation was dictated.
Within a day after JS dictated this revelation, departed from without explanation, leaving JS and to wonder why he did not follow the commandment. A revelation on 6 January explained “why he obeyed not the word.”
Coburn, Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois, 735; 1830 U.S. Census, Ellery, Chautauque Co., NY, 317; see also 1840 U.S. Census, Ripley, Chautauque Co., NY, 271.
Coburn, A. L. Wing. Encyclopedia of Illinois Including Genealogy, Family Records and Biography of McHenry County Citizens. Vol. 2, McHenry County Citizens. Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois, edited by Newton Bateman and Paul Selby. Chicago: Munsell, 1903.
Census (U.S.) / U.S. Bureau of the Census. Population Schedules. Microfilm. FHL.
John Whitmer was likely not present when the revelation was dictated, but he did write the informative heading in this copy of the revelation within months of the event.
1830 U.S. Census, Canadice, Ontario Co., NY, 263; Stevens, Memorials of the Introduction of Methodism into the Eastern States, 119; Doughty, Life of Samuel Stilwell, 44; Seaman, Annals of New York Methodism, 227, 229.
Census (U.S.) / U.S. Bureau of the Census. Population Schedules. Microfilm. FHL.
Stevens, Abel. Memorials of the Introduction of Methodism into the Eastern States: Comprising Biographical Notices of Its Early Preachers, Sketches of Its First Churches, and Reminiscences of Its Early Struggles and Successes. Boston: Charles H. Peirce, 1848.
Doughty, Samuel Stilwell. The Life of Samuel Stilwell, with Notices of Some of His Contemporaries. New York: Brown and Wilson, 1877.
Seaman, Samuel A. Annals of New York Methodism: Being a History of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the City of New York from A.D. 1766 to A.D. 1890. New York: Hunt and Eaton, 1892.
On 13 February 1830, Covel was elected president of the Methodist regional conference that included the districts of Rochester, Conhocton, Genesee, and Oneida. (Drinkhouse, History of Methodist Reform, 243–244.)
Drinkhouse, Edward J. History of Methodist Reform Synoptical of General Methodism 1703–1898 with Special and Comprehensive Reference to Its Most Salient Exhibition in the History of the Methodist Protestant Church. Vol. 2. Board of Publication of the Methodist Protestant Church, 1899.
“Credulity,” Pennsylvania Inquirer and Morning Journal (Philadelphia), 29 Dec. 1830, [2]; see also “Testimony of Brother E. Thayre,” True Latter Day Saints’ Herald, Oct. 1862, 83.
Pennsylvania Inquirer and Morning Journal. Philadelphia. 1830–1834.
there was a man by the name of who covenanted with the Lord that he would obey any commandment that the Lord would give through his servent Joseph & <accordingly> he enquird of the Lord & he received these words as follows
given at Seneca County state New York
Saying hearken ye & listen to the voice of him who is from all eternity to all eternity the great I am even Jesus Christ th[e] light & the life of the world a light which shineth in darkness & the darkness comprehendeth it not the same which came in the maridian of time unto my own & my own Received me not but to as many as received me gave I power to become my Sons & even so will I give unto as many as Receive me power to become my Sons. & Verily Verily I say unto you he that receiveth my Gospel Receiveth me & this is my Gospel Repentance & by water & then [p. 58]
See, for example, Book of Mormon, 1830 ed., 189, 473, 477 [Mosiah 16:9; 3 Nephi 9:18; 11:11]; and Revelation, 4 Nov. 1830 [D&C 34:2]; compare John 8:12.