Book of Common Order

“ The system has grown up without any reference to abstract principles or symmetrical plan. The legal order supposes a traditional common law, as the ecclesiastical order a traditional creed, and the organisation is explicable only by historical causes. The system represents a series of compromises, not the elaboration of a theory. If the squire undertook by way of supererogation to justify his position he appealed to tradition and experience. ”

“ Speaking of the origin of civil power and the objects of law, he lays down these principles: "The law, strictly speaking, is directed primarily and principally to the common good; and to decree anything for the common benefit belongs either to the whole body of the people, or to some one acting in their place." ”

“ A young commonwealth requires a written constitution, and a strict one. Moreover, the document, which becomes a political bible, is an instrument of no small power in educating the citizen, and has a conservative influence of the best sort over his mind. ”

“ In the abstract, this is absolutely so; civil order is a God-given law, as truly as the most explicit precepts of the Decalogue, in whose Second Table it is so plainly implied all along. And in the concrete, the civil order under which the Christian finds himself to be is to be regarded as a real instance of this great principle. It is quite sure to be imperfect, because it is necessarily mediated through human minds and wills. ”

“ But it may be said that we have changed, have undergone a political regeneration as a nation, and in the process of transformation have thrown out all religion from our organic constitution as a republic. By our organic constitution and the laws of our republic I intend not merely the federal constitution and laws which bind together the United States, but also the laws and constitutions of the states, the tout ensemble of our common and statute laws of every kind, which form the regulating code of our whole society as one political people. ”

“ Now the Laws of our Country are of two Kinds in this Case; the Common or Statute Law, and the Divine Law, which we call Conscience; the first makes what we call Constitution, and is founded upon what our Legislature supposed to be the meaning and design of the Laws of God; for the legislative Authority of our Country never are intended to contradict either the Law of Nature or the Divine Law. ”

“ How much better are modern Pagan nations? These evils have been extinguished in the ratio of the circulation and influence of the Bible. The relation between the state and its citizens the Bible recognizes as of divine appointment; the foundation of civil government is the will of God. Government is an ordinance of God. “The powers that be are ordained of God.” The great author of our rights, life, liberty, peace, order, public morals and religion, has not left these interests to chance, anarchy or the social compact. ”

“ Let us be obedient to Christ as to our King, as having authority to change several constitutions, and having, as a legislator, wisdom to make new constitutions in different circumstances; yet so that everywhere the laws of nature be immutably preserved. ”

“ Here they appeal to one of the communes notitiæ—to a settled and acknowledged maxim in the law of nature, that if men's commands and God's interfere God's commands must take place. It is a rule in the common law of England that if any statute be made contrary to the law of God it is null and void. ”

“ What is government? The reverend gentleman who occupied this platform asserts that governments are divine, when all history teems with their sacrilegious proceedings. Or does he mean simply that this government is divine? If so, where is its sign-manual? The proper function of law as applied to society, is the protection of the rights of the individual. When it fails in this it is no longer binding on the conscience, according to the authority of one of the brightest lights in jurisprudence, whence this nation borrowed its common law. ”

“ Ordinary law-givers offer us laws to regulate society--laws, subject to change like the minds of those who make them, and of the people who obey them: those talk only of general, immutable, and eternal laws, which, without exception, are obeyed with order, regularity, and absolute exactness in the immensity of space. ”

“ As the prime and sole universal legislation belongeth to Jesus Christ, so the final judgment, universal and particular, belongeth to him, which only will end all controversies, and from which there is no appeal. ”

“ But where a constitution asserts a certain right, or lays down a certain principle of law or procedure, it speaks for the entire people as their supreme law, and is full authority for all that is done in pursuance of its provision. ”

“ Who does not see that there is no empire, kingdom, dukedom, republic, state, or household, that is not established by laws, which constitute the order and so the form of its. government? In each of them the laws of justice are in the highest place, political laws in the second, and economical laws in the third. ”

“ The people of this Commonwealth, in their declaration of rights, have recorded their own opinion, that the Legislature ought frequently to assemble for the redress of grievances, correcting, strengthening and confirming the Laws, and making new Laws, as the common good may require.—The Laws of the Commonwealth are intended to secure to each and all the Citizens, their own rights and liberties, and the property which they honestly possess. ”

“ We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. ”

“ A Constitution, as we often say, will march when it images, if not the old Habits and Beliefs of the Constituted, then accurately their Rights, or better indeed their Mights;—for these two, well understood, are they not one and the same? ”

“ The discipline of the Church reigns by an universal common law which seldom needs a change, and by local laws which are provided on the spot. Nevertheless, the legislation of the Church, the Corpus Juris, or Canon Law, is a creation of wisdom and justice, to which no Statutes at large or Imperial pandects can bear comparison. ”

“ A civil government must either be the ordinance of God or not. It cannot be viewed as acting, in some things, in the character of a power ordained of God, but in others, as not possessed of authority from him. ”

“ If the Church has been constituted by her divine founder a true and perfect Society distinct from the civil power and independent of it, with a plenary threefold authority, legislative, judicial, and coercive, no confusion will arise in the movements of human society, or in the exercise of the rights of the two powers. ”

“ The resolution passed in our Convention, "that a just government and a true church are alike opposed to class and caste, whether the privileged order be feudal baron, British lord, or American white male," ought to be true, and will be true at a future day. ”

“ That it shall be administered with prudence and equity, and so as to answer the great end of government, which is the establishment of the kingdom: He shall order it, and settle it, with justice and judgment. Every thing is, and shall be, well managed, in the kingdom of Christ, and none of his subjects shall ever have cause to complain. ”

“ The rules of a society, in a majority of cases, may be conveniently divided into these four classes, though in some societies all the rules are found under one of these heads, being called either the constitution, or the by-laws, or the standing rules. ”

“ The Constitution is a declaration of general principles, mutually agreed upon, and of the method by which the will of the whole people shall be deliberately crystallized into law, and the law be impartially enforced. It is a pledge which we made with one another at the start, that, whatever happens, the lives, the liberty, and the possessions of the whole people and the rights of every individual shall be sacred, under law. ”

“ And to visit, reform, redress, order, correct and amend all such Errors, Heresies, Schisms, Abuses, Offences, Contempts and Enormities whatsoever, which by any Manner of Spiritual or Ecclesisastical Power, Authority or Jurisdiction, can or may lawfully be reformed, ordered, redressed, corrected, restrained or amended, to the Pleasure of Almighty God, the Increase of Virtue, and the Conservation of the Peace and Unity of this Realm ”

“ And when we say that we believe that the constitution of our country was established by a divine inspiration, working through the men who formulated it, we should remember that we stand committed to this doctrine of government by the people; and to such of us who hold to a divine inspiration in our constitution, that principle of our government is God-ordained. ”

“ The law itself is prescribed for the government of all men and nations, by God himself as supreme law-giver, or the end or final cause of creation, and binds equally states and individuals, churchmen and statesmen, sovereigns and subjects. ”

“ To this we say, that forasmuch as we repute and take our authority of making of laws to be grounded upon the Scriptures of God and the determination of Holy Church, which must be the rule and square to try the justice and righteousness of all laws, as well spiritual as temporal, we verily trust that in such laws as have been made by us, or by our predecessors, the same being sincerely interpreted, and after the meaning of the makers, there shall be found nothing contained in them but such as may be well justified by the said rule and square. ”

“ Now I want to give you these few words—the kingdom of God will protect every person, every sect and all people upon the face of the whole earth, in their legal rights. I shall not tell you the names of the members of this kingdom, neither shall I read to you its constitution, but the constitution was given by revelation. The day will come when it will be organized in strength and power• Now, as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we work our way along the best we can. ”

“ I have never contended that the whole of the common law attached to the constitution, but only such parts as were consonant to the nature and spirit of our Government. We have nothing to do with the law of the Ecclesiastical Establishment, nor with any principle of monarchical tendency. What belongs to us, and what is unsuitable, is a question for the sound discretion of the judges. ”

“ Then the commonwealth, being formally the same with the church, is, as a commonwealth, the mystical body of Christ. 7. Then the officers of the church are the officers of the commonwealth; the power of the keys gives them right to the civil sword: and consequently, the ministers of the gospel, as ministers, are justices of the peace, judges, parliament-men, &c., all which how absurd, let the world judge. ”

“ Of Civil Affairs they teach that lawful civil ordinances are good works of God, and that it is right for Christians to bear civil office, to sit as judges, to judge matters by the Imperial and other existing laws, to award just punishments, to engage in just wars, to serve as soldiers, to make legal contracts, to hold property, to make oath when required by the magistrates, to marry a wife, to be given in marriage. ”

“ It is irresistibly certain that He who ordains government has, alone, the right to alter or abolish it,--that He who institutes the powers that be has, alone, the right to say when and how the people, in whole or in part, may resist. ”

“ In the formation of the law, regard should be often had to the convenience, to the faculties, to the interests, and to the habits of the citizens, sometimes even to their prejudices, but in the interpretation of it, nothing but justice should be regarded. ”

“ But during the Middle Ages these conceptions gradually yielded to the classical idea of the legal order as a means of preserving the social status quo, the more since the latter was fortified by the unassailable authority of texts of scripture and of the Roman law. Moreover, from the thirteenth century on, philosophers more and more sought to sustain authority by reason, and in this way they prepared the way for a new conception which developed in the seventeenth century. ”

“ I believe in law and order; but I believe, as a condition precedent, that law and order should be predicated upon right and justice, pure and simple. Law is, intrinsically, a written expression of justice; if, on the contrary, it becomes instead written injustice, men are not, strictly speaking, bound to yield it obedience. ”

“ But since the days of the Ten Commandments it has been recognised that statute law, carefully considered and simply expressed and written down on tables of stone or otherwise, is a better-class article for ordering the affairs of a modern community. ”

“ The bill of rights which it promulgates, is of rights that are older than human institutions, and spring from the eternal justice that is anterior to the state. Two political theories divided the world: one founded the commonwealth on the reason of state, the policy of expediency, the other on the immutable principles of morals; the new republic, as it took its place among the powers of the world, proclaimed its faith in the truth and reality and unchangeableness of freedom, virtue, and right. ”

“ New dignities, new organizations, new institutions for the government of the Church successively arose. All societies must have a government. This is a law recognized in the nature of things. So Christian society must be organized and ruled according to the necessities of the times; and the Scriptures do not say what these shall be,--they are imperative and definite only in matters of faith and morals. To guard the faith, to purify the morals according to the Christian standard, overseers, officers, rulers are required. ”

“ The laws incorporated in the book of Leviticus, etc., consisting in the regulation or government of the nation, appointing communities or families, dealing with food, dress, sacrifice, crime and its punishment, trade, commerce, domestic affairs, marriage, and above all church affairs, were mostly adoptions from other nations with certain modifications, written up in the manner we find them. ”