ORDINATIONS AND COVENANTS - Godbeite Transcription

As found in the Mormon Tribune on April 2nd, 1870

ORDINATIONS AND COVENANTS.

By Joseph Salisbury

All ordinations should be made with strict reference to the natural qualifications of the person to be ordained. A misconception of this fact has led to an innumerable list of evils in the old organization. It had been foolishly supposed that ordination gave qualification, hence when Joseph Smith was murdered there arose aspirants for the leadership from many quarters, each basing his claims on the supposition that it was his right by virtue of the office he occupied at the time of the Prophet’s death, without ever taking into consideration whether Nature had endowed him with those qualities pre-requisite in the leader of the Church of Christ. But judging from the outcome of the whole affair, none of those who aspired to the successorship to the presidency possessed either the prophetic or the seer qualities in their natures. The bulk of the Church which survived the martyrdom of the Seer–instead of becoming, as designed by the heavens, a highly inspirational people–have, from the fact of their presiding head lacking those necessary qualifications, been led in the direction of his intense practical nature and as a consequence have become thoroughly materialized.

Ordination simply gives a person authority to act in the name and on behalf of any organization to which he may belong, and if he is wisely ordained, (in harmony with the inborn qualities of his nature) he will be able to discharge his official duties with ability and honor to himself and the cause he represents. Ordination added not one particle of inspiration to the animalized nature of Pope Alexander VI, neither could it detract one iota from the high spiritual developments of the Nazarene. An administration of this ordinance under the hand of all the priesthoods that ever lived could not have made Voltaire a religious enthusiast nor John Wesley a sceptic, hence the necessity of calling men to fill certain positions because of their fitness by nature. A Utopian dreamer would be as much out of place in the capacity of bishop as a Brigham Young is in assuming the position of Prophet, Seer and Revelator, and no more. Ordination has been interpreted to imply conferring absolute power; thus, to judge from their subsequent course, when men have been set apart by the laying on of hands to fill certain positions, they have seemed to think that an extra amount of brainpower had been imparted to them by which they were qualified to dictate their follows in all the petty details of life, as well as in those duties that are of a more public character; and they have assumed the position that no policy is sound except it originated in or was reflected through their brains, on the supposed ground that their particular brains were dictated by God; no doctrine could be accepted as true unless it came through their inspirations; in a word, nothing is right except “I” counsel it.

In all this of course they have acted conscientiously, but, the moment a man transcends the bounds of friendly suggestion, that very moment he infringes on the rights of his neighbor. That man has never lived who possessed the right, either human or divine, to control by didtatorial [sic] power the entire action of his fellows. To such an extent, however, has this misconception been enforced that the whole people–more or less, according to the natuaral [sic] kindness or austere dispositions of those who have presided over them–have been brought into bondage to their leaders. I say bondage, in contradistinction to enjoying the right–without suffering loss socially or religiously–to do as they saw fit so that their actions were compatible with morality. 

Parley Pratt says in his Key to Theology that three things are necessary to make any vow, covenant, contract, marriage or union valid or binding: first, they must be made by direct revelation, secondly, they must be sealed for time and for all eternity by an holy and eternal priesthood administering both sides of the vail, and then be recorded in the holy archives of earth and heaven. 

Supposing this to be true, can we admit for one moment that all who have entered into the marriage relation and been “sealed” by the Priesthood, were commanded to do so by the voice of divine revelation? If so we must admit another truth, that in many marriage unions the heavens have manifested a lack of judgment that a mortal endowed with good common sense would be ashamed of, judging from the unhappiness produced and the number of divorce cases growing out of such relationships, which appear to be of as frequent occurrence in Utah as in any place where no profession of guidance by revelation is made. If such contracts were made, sealed and recorded, as prescribed by Parley Pratt, and were consequently thus indissoluble, who dare, for the sum of ten dollars, declare them null and void, and by so doing virtually assert the ignorance of the holy priesthood behind the vail, by whose revelation such parties were brought together; and whose incorrect guidance has rendered an erasement necessary in the archives of earth and heaven?” If man and woman were brought together by the interposition of the world above, as we believe they often are, their union would be harmonious. No two positives would meet in the marriage relations, neither would two negatives; but the union would be made because the qualities of their nature adapted each for the companionship of the other. Then, if the marriage covenant can be broken or dissolved, when proven to have been unwisely made, by the parties interested, what reason is there to suppose that covenants of any other nature cannot be disregarded when practical experience or growth of intellect shall have demonstrated their entire unfitness to more advanced conditions of spiritual and mental development? Unconditional obedience can never be accepted and kept inviolate in this age of free thought: the inference must always remain that those to whose guidance the person or persons have submitted themselves must dictate them in harmony with their sense of rights and in consonance with the light of God inborn and developed in their own natures. Spiritual covenants are based on certain conditions existing in the mind at the time of their being made and in harmony therewith. If those conditions are not fulfilled on either side, the [contr]acting parties are free. And as the minds of mor[tals are] ever undergoing a series of changes, and the soul ever [expa]nding in its grand unfoldment for the acquisition of higher truths, the stipulations adapted to his lower and undeveloped state are entirely unsuited to his more enlightened and advanced condition.

All human beings who are endowed with the characteristic faculties of the race are free and inherit the inalienable right to choose their own God and mode of worship independent of the dictum of any other mortal on earth, whether he be pope, priest or layman. And no man or set of men can prove their right to dictatorial power except that obtained by assumptions (enforced in the name of divinity upon the credulity of the unsuspecting religious enthusiast) that they are the special favorites of heaven, delegated as the absolute controllers of the world, when the fact is they are mortals, nothing more, and are just as fallible and as liable to do wrong, naturally, as those whom they seek to bring into subjection. Doubtless our leaders are as much the slaves of false conceptions of absolute power as the people themselves. Humanity under these conditions are to all intents and purposes mentally and physically enslaved, because they have to obey without the right to question. They are literally acting out the policy of salvation ascribed by our orthodox brethren to Satan, for they say that Lucifer’s philosophy of salvation was to save man by destroying his agency.

When we were sectarians it was accepted by our orthodox authorities as a manifestation of manly independence to break through the shackles of stereotyped creeds and disavow all allegiance to the powers which our newly enlightened conscience told us were dogmatic priesthoods, and declare ourselves converts to and advocates of advanced truths as taught by them–but they have now adopted a policy the reverse of this. They practically say, once a believer in certain old Mormon ideas forever a believer in the same. No matter how thoroughly convinced we may become that many principles which we in our ignorance believed to be true, because they were associated with some we had demonstrated to be facts, we have no right to discard them as long as they are held by our ecclesiastical rulers as articles of faith. On the other hand, we are bound to accept any and every doctrine enunciated by them, however false or absurd such doctrines may appear to us as individuals. If we dare cast off the trammels and set our minds free to soar out in the broad expanse of thought and drink of truth from heavenly fountains, the excommunicating edict goes forth accompanied with the direct anathemas, and the most unblemished characters are assailed as hypocritical and corrupt.

Unfolding before us is an age in which neither creed nor covenant can bind the daring intellect of man; an age, too when such priesthoods as stand in the pathway of advancement must either move on or be overwhelmed by the mighty flood of human progress and, like Lot’s wife, become “pillars of salt” surrounded by stagnant pools impregnated with the bigotry and superstition of past ages.

The world has outgrown the domination of Popes and Cardinals, and has learned to treat their threats of inquisitorial punishment with as much unconcern as though they merely said,--”Old Bogey is coming.” This is an age of revelation and of light, a period of moral and spiritual power, an epoch in the world’s history in which men dare to doubt and investigate, and , throwing off the yoke of kingcraft and priestcraft, stand forth in the dignity of freemen, yielding no allegiance to any power on earth except that which they feel to be necessary for the preservation of fraternal friendship and good order in society, recognizing what God and mode of worship they please, holding themselves accountable to none but the Great Creator for their spiritual growth while passing through their rudimentary conditions of earth life.