This is one of hundreds of rhetorical connections between Joseph Smith and Jonathan Edwards that I will be occasionally adding to this blog.
Joseph Smith used a nonbiblical term in a sermon dated May 21, 1843. Levi Richards reported that Joseph said,
I love that man better who swears a stream as long as My arm & administering to the poor— & dividing his substance than the long smooth faced hypocrite, I dont want you to think I am very righteous, for I am not very righteous, God judges man according to the light he give them
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/discourse-21-may-1843-as-reported-by-levi-richards/1
Willard Richards reported it this way:
I love that man better who swears a stream as long as my arm. and administ[er]ing to the poor & dividi[n]g his substance. than the long smoothed faced hypo[c]rites
The sermon appears in History, 1838-1856,
“I love that man better who swears a stream as long as my arm, yet deals justice to his neighbors and mercifully deals his substance to the poor, than the long smooth faced hypocrite.
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It turns out that in the 1808 edition of Jonathan Edwards' works that was on sale in Palmyra in the early 1820s in the bookstore Joseph frequented as a boy, Edwards used a similar nonbiblical term when contrasting the city of Zion with Sodom.
Kindle location 60613:
'Tis you that I have been all this while speaking of under this doctrine: you are the inhabitants of Sodom. Perhaps you may look on your circumstances as not very dreadful, but you dwell in Sodom. Though you may be reformed, and appear with a clean outside, and a smooth face to the world, yet as long as you are in a natural condition, you are impure inhabitants of Sodom. The world of mankind is divided into two companies, and as it were into two cities. There is [the] city of Zion, the church of God, the holy and beloved city; and there is Sodom...
[available online at http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4xODoxNC53amVvLjk4NTEwNw== ]
In the Evans database on Wordcruncher, this usage by Edwards of the term "smooth face" is the first of seven that appear in a search. None of the other six have a connotation related to hypocrisy. The term "smooth faced" appears once in connection with an idol people put on their toilets.
In the same publication (Kindle location 56685), Edwards wrote this in a sermon on hypocrisy:
What value would you your self set upon it. if a man should seem to Carry it Respectfully to you & show you with a fair face talking smooth & making a show a friendship when you Know at the same time that he was Inwardly your mortally Enemy. would you Look on your self obliged for such Respect & Kindness yea. would you not abhor it.
[available online at http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy40OTozMC53amVvLjIyMTI5OTI=]
In a related context, (Kindle location 59134 in the 1808 edition), Edwards wrote this:
This will be the distinguishing condemnation of gospel sinners.
, "He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God." That outward smoothness of your carriage towards Christ, that appearance of respect to him in your looks, your speeches, and gestures don't argue but that you set him at nought in your heart. There may be much of these outward shows of respect, and yet you be like Judas that betrayed the Son of man with a kiss; John 3:18
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