hearts

145:2.6“Have you not read these promises? Do you not be­lieve the Scrip­tures? Do you not un­der­stand that the prophet’s words are ful­filled in what you be­hold this very day? And did not Jeremiah ex­hort you to make re­li­gion an af­fair of the heart, to re­late your­selves to God as in­di­vid­u­als? Did not the prophet tell you that the God of heaven would search your in­di­vid­ual hearts? And were you not warned that the nat­u­ral hu­man heart is de­ceit­ful above all things and of­ten­times des­per­ately wicked?

153:3.5Je­sus then di­rected his re­marks to all pres­ent. He said: “But hear­ken to me, all of you. It is not that which en­ters into the mouth that spir­i­tu­ally de­files the man, but rather that which pro­ceeds out of the mouth and from the heart.” But even the apos­tles failed fully to grasp the mean­ing of his words, for Si­mon Pe­ter also asked him: “Lest some of your hear­ers be un­nec­es­sar­ily of­fended, would you ex­plain to us the mean­ing of these words?” And then said Je­sus to Pe­ter: “Are you also hard of un­der­stand­ing? Know you not that ev­ery plant which my heav­enly Fa­ther has not planted shall be rooted up? Turn now your at­ten­tion to those who would know the truth. You can­not com­pel men to love the truth. Many of these teach­ers are blind guides. And you know that, if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the pit. But hear­ken while I tell you the truth con­cern­ing those things which morally de­file and spir­i­tu­ally con­tam­i­nate men. I de­clare it is not that which en­ters the body by the mouth or gains ac­cess to the mind through the eyes and ears, that de­files the man. Man is only de­filed by that evil which may orig­i­nate within the heart, and which finds ex­pres­sion in the words and deeds of such un­holy per­sons. Do you not know it is from the heart that there come forth evil thoughts, wicked projects of mur­der, theft, and adul­ter­ies, to­gether with jeal­ousy, pride, anger, re­venge, rail­ings, and false wit­ness? And it is just such things that de­file men, and not that they eat bread with cer­e­mo­ni­ally un­clean hands.”

145:2.5“But even this is not a new idea. Many of the spir­i­tu­ally minded among you have known this truth, inas­much as some of the proph­ets have so in­structed you. Have you not read in the Scrip­tures where the Prophet Jeremiah says: ‘In those days they shall no more say, the fa­thers have eaten sour grapes and the chil­dren’s teeth are set on edge. Ev­ery man shall die for his own in­iq­uity; ev­ery man who eats sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge. Be­hold, the days shall come when I will make a new covenant with my peo­ple, not ac­cord­ing to the covenant which I made with their fa­thers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, but ac­cord­ing to the new way. I will even write my law in their hearts. I will be their God, and they shall be my peo­ple. In that day they shall not say, one man to his neigh­bor, do you know the Lord? Nay! For they shall all know me per­son­ally, from the least to the great­est.’

180:3.4“Let not your hearts be trou­bled. You be­lieve in God; con­tinue to be­lieve also in me. Even though I must leave you, I will not be far from you. I have al­ready told you that in my Fa­ther’s uni­verse there are many tar­ry­ing-places. If this were not true, I would not have re­peat­edly told you about them. I am go­ing to re­turn to these worlds of light, sta­tions in the Fa­ther’s heaven to which you shall some­time as­cend. From these places I came into this world, and the hour is now at hand when I must re­turn to my Fa­ther’s work in the spheres on high.

181:1.5“And now, as I am about to leave you, I would speak words of com­fort. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I make these gifts not as the world gives—by mea­sure—I give each of you all you will re­ceive. Let not your heart be trou­bled, nei­ther let it be fear­ful. I have over­come the world, and in me you shall all tri­umph through faith. I have warned you that the Son of Man will be killed, but I as­sure you I will come back be­fore I go to the Fa­ther, even though it be for only a lit­tle while. And af­ter I have as­cended to the Fa­ther, I will surely send the new teacher to be with you and to abide in your very hearts. And when you see all this come to pass, be not dis­mayed, but rather be­lieve, inas­much as you knew it all be­fore­hand. I have loved you with a great af­fec­tion, and I would not leave you, but it is the Fa­ther’s will. My hour has come.

86:5.15The soul was gen­er­ally thought of as be­ing iden­ti­fied with the breath, but it was also lo­cated by var­i­ous peo­ples in the head, hair, heart, liver, blood, and fat. The “cry­ing out of Abel’s blood from the ground” is ex­pres­sive of the one­time be­lief in the pres­ence of the ghost in the blood. The Semites taught that the soul resided in the bod­ily fat, and among many the eat­ing of an­i­mal fat was taboo. Head hunt­ing was a method of cap­tur­ing an en­emy’s soul, as was scalp­ing. In re­cent times the eyes have been re­garded as the win­dows of the soul.