Successive Ordination - Godbeite Transcription

 I haven't quite had time to write a commentary for these next two articles or to transcribe them into the Deseret alphabet, but I decided to publish them early for people to access. Hopefully the commentary and apisizations will be coming soon!

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

Is Successive Ordination Necessary?

A Discourse by Elder W. H. Shearman

The idea prevails among the Latter-day Saints that no man has any right to receive revelation pertaining to the interests of the church or for the instruction of its members excepting the First Presidency, or some one ordained by them for this purpose, and that, if any other persons assume this prerogative, it is conclusive proof that they are in league with the devil and that their revelations emanate from him. It is assumed that God has no right to reveal anything  for the reproof, correction or guidance of the church or its leaders except through its presiding priesthood; and some orthodox brethren have gone so far as to say that, if He (the Lord) did ignore his own priesthood; and set aside his own appointed channel of communication by revealing His will to another while President Young lived, they would have nothing further to do with Him. This being a very important point and a barrier in the way of the acceptance by our people of the mission of those who have been called by the authorities of heaven to advance some ideas which are opposed to the teachings of the presiding Priesthood in Utah, it is worthy of examination by the light of reason as well as by past revelations and usages in this respect.

We are not disposed ourselves to allow either our faith or our conduct to be circumscribed and governed in every particular by what even admittedly inspired and holy men said and did in ancient times; because they only received such truths as were adapted to the circumstances and capacities of the people to whom they were sent, and their consciences and lives were shaped by their limited views of divine truth: hence, many practices which they believed to be right, and which were right to them, we view as inhuman and debasing, and should be sorry to see society dragged back to the social conditions of the Mosaic or any other period. Therefore, we are not prepared to accept as binding upon us to-day every custom or law which may have been sanctioned or given by divine authority in past ages. But, if we can trace the operation of any principle in the dealing of God’s providence with His children through all ages, we may reasonably conclude that it is part of a grand, general policy which is adapted to this as well as to former times.

An examination of those records accepted by the Latter-day Saints as authoritative upon these matters will prove that the Lord has not been controled [sic] by the narrow and arbitrary ideas of Priesthoods upon this subject, but has reserved and exercised the right to speak through whom he would, whether these chosen mediums had received any priestly ordination at the hands of their fellow-men or not, and that if such choice has been made from among presiding priesthoods it has been the exception and not the rule. The doctrine of the divine right and succession of priesthoods has ever been the parent of despotism, and is as much the enemy of human progress and liberty as is its twin doctrine of the divine right of kings, - both are powerful engines of oppression. It is, therefore, no wonder that ambitious and selfish men should seek to rivet them upon the minds of their ignorant followers.

As Abraham is called the father of the faithful and is so constantly held up to us as our pattern in all things, let us enquire how he obtained his calling or appointment. It did not satisfy the minds of Joseph Smith’s early associates in the ministry to know that Abraham was called of God and favored with divine communications. They felt that human ordination was necessary to confirm the divine endowment; and in order to satisfy this morbid desire, in the lectures on Faith in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants an unbroken succession of ordinations is traced, by which the priesthood is presumed to have been transmitted from father to son by the imposition of hands, from the days of Adam down to the time of Abraham. But, in the Book of Abraham translated by Joseph Smith, we are told that Abraham “sought for his appointment unto the priesthood,” but that his fathers had “turned from their righteousness and from the holy commandments into the worshiping of the gods of the heathens” and utterly refused to grant his request. In the previous paragraph he says the right to this priesthood “was confirmed upon me from the fathers,” but the actual ordination itself they appear to have denied. But, even admitting that he had been ordained to the priesthood, according to the Mormon ideas of the order of patriarchal priesthood Abraham had not right to receive revelations that conflicted with the views and teachings of his father who, notwithstanding he was an idolater, certainly held the nominal presidency over his son according to the literal order of succession; neither, according to the same standard, had God any right to communicate with Abraham to the neglect of Terah. According to the present orthodox idea, if Terah had become an idolater, it was the Lord’s business to set Terah right through Terah, and Abraham was a doubly presumptuous rebel and apostate for daring to differ from his father, setting his priestly authority at naught and asserting that God has communicated with him direct. But, it appears that the Lord did not choose to be dictated in his course by men’s ideas of propriety, and, therefore, he ignored mere position and ordination and communicated his will through the man whose physical and mental organization were such that he could be reached by spiritual influences. Here, then, is one instance wherein, if the order of literal succession was not broken (which is by no means clear) at least such exclusive rights as are now claimed for the president priesthood were set aside.

Abraham, however, all admit to have been an inspired man who did, undoubtedly, receive a divine ordination from the heavens and enjoy spiritual communication or revelation. This priesthood, at least so far as externals go, he certainly transmitted to his children and they to theirs, so that there must have been many who held it among the Israelites while in Egypt, and there was, without doubt, a High Priest or Presiding Head. When God, however, wished to deliver his people, He revealed Himself to Moses, instead of calling upon the High Priest of the nation. To meet this difficulty, it may be assumed that Moses was that High Priest; but of this there is no proof, while there are many very strong reasons for concluding it was not so. It is by no means reasonable to suppose that Mose could retain the Presidency of the Priesthood during the forty years that he was separated from the children of Israel, having little or no communication with them during that time. Here, then, was another instance wherein God ignored, as it were, the Priesthood then existing upon the earth, and stepped over their heads to choose another man to lead his people. But as Biblical history is not very clear in regard to those things, let us glance at succeeding ages in regard to which there is so [sic] such dubiety.

It is admitted that Moses established, by divine command, a regular order of priesthood among the children of Israel, which was transmitted in regular succession to the days of Jesus. Yet it is a well-known fact that most of the prophets who were raised up from the time of Moses to the time of Jesus were actually sent not only to reprove the king but the Presiding or High Priests of that people. The burden of most of their messages was denunciation against the political and spiritual rulers of the nation for their wickedness in leading the people astray, and for abusing their kingly and priestly prerogatives by tyrannizing over their fellow men. Were these men true prophets who spoke by the inspiration of heaven, or were they impostors, apostates, and spiritualists?

We now come, however, to the clearest and strongest case of all. Jesus certainly was not one of the presiding Jewish priesthood; the Jews do not recognize him as having borne any portion of the priesthood. Yet God chose him as the special vehicle through whom to reveal himself to humanity above all other men, whether they held any priesthood or not. To him was communicated the divine will more clearly than to any before him. He rebuked the Presiding Priesthood; he presumed to change customs, to correct evils, to expose corruption in high places, to set at naught the vain traditions of the Priesthood, and to institute a new order of religious faith and practice. For all this he had no human authority. The Apostle Paul labored to prove to the benighted people of that age that Jesus held a Priesthood superior to that of the Jews. The question of authority evidently troubled the people then as it troubles our people now; they said to him as they say to us - “By what authority doest thou these things?” As the hands of no human High Priest had been laid upon his head he was denounced as a blasphemer, an impostor, a man who held communion with devils, a deceiver of the people, and as such he was condemned to die. And were he to come again again in our midst, unless he would present himself in humility before our Great High Priest and receive his sanction and authority, a similar rejection of his mission would await him. It is claimed that Jesus received his priesthood and authority from Moses and Elias in the mount. If so, then the Lord stepped right over the heads of all who held the priesthood from the days of Moses in the flesh until that time, and acted as though there had never been any recognized priesthood on the earth. If the doctrine be true which is taught by our brethren to day, that the Lord has no right to reveal his purposes through any one but President Young, then He had no right to communicate his will to Jesus without first asking permission of the Jewish High Priests, and getting them to ordain Jesus, for the lapse of a few centuries cannot change the nature or force of what is claimed to be a divine and eternal order.

We will presume no believer in the divine mission of Jesus will dispute has [sic] having conferred upon his Apostles the Priesthood and authority which he held. Orthodox Mormonism, in order to preserve an appearance of consistency with its own doctrines and assumptions, declares that all who held any portion of this Priesthood, by successive ordination from the Apostles, had been killed off, and thus the Priesthood had been driven from the earth. But the Roman Catholic Church claims, and can to-day prove, an unbroken chain of succession or external ordination from the Apostles and Jesus himself. It will not avail our orthodox friends to urge that the Romish clergy and church had become so corrupt as to disqualify them for receiving spiritual manifestations and revelations of the divine will. In the first place there are members of their priesthood who, to-day, enjoy to a remarkable degree the spiritual gifts promised by Jesus to his followers, and there have been men in the church in nearly all ages who have received visions, inspirations and revelations from the invisible worlds. In the second place, according to Mormon theory, if the Romish Pope and clergy fell into error and became corrupt it was God’s duty to set Pope and Church through the Pope and not through Joseph Smith. But here, again, the heavens entirely ignored the legally ordained and successive priesthoods of nearly two thousands years and, according to our faith, chose a man to be their medium of communication who not only was not a member of any presiding Priesthood, but who had not received any human ordination to minister in divine things. No wonder that neither the Protestant nor Catholic world could receive Joseph Smith. Do we not see that our own fundamental doctrine concerning priesthood shuts their ears and hearts against him? Can we not perceive the inconsistency of anathematizing Roman Catholics and others who refuse to give up this dogma of the infallibility of literal succession, as they are required to do if they forsake their own faith and priesthood for the Mormon faith and priesthood, and yet at the same time denouncing as vile and apostate those who decline to make that dogma an essential part of their religious belief after having become Mormons?

Thus we see that history, both ancient and modern, proves that priesthoods, no matter how divine their origin, have in all ages, sooner rather than later, become corrupt. It also proves that, as a rule, the heavens have ignored existing priesthoods and have chosen men, regardless of their birth or position, who were adapted to the work to be performed. Now as this has always been so in the past why may it not be so in our day? The Mormon doctrine asserts that the human race has been gradually growing more corrupt and depraved from the foundation of the world; is it not, then, very absurd, according to this theory, to suppose that a priesthood composed of men born in this wicked age should be so much better and more infallible than any who have ever preceded them? If divinely appointed men in the best ages of the world became corrupt and led the people astray in so many instances, is it so very unreasonable to suppose that divinely appointed men in the world’s so-called worst age may do the same? And if, when such men did so err in the past, God found it necessary to correct their evils through others raised up for that purpose, is there anything wicked or presumptuous in expecting that He will adopt the same course to-day?

We thus see that, so far as precedents, revelations and the history of God’s dealings with his people are concerned, there is nothing to justify the position assumed by our orthodox brethren to-day, that God has no right to give, nor any many the right to receive, revelation for the guidance, reproof or comfort of the church or its presiding authorities except through Brigham Young or the man he may ordain to succeed him.