Divine government

“ 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. ”

“ All this he has done for his name's glory; therefore we acknowledge the hand of the Lord in controlling all the governments and kingdoms of the earth. But where is that heavenly, divine authority that comes down from above? Where is it to be found in the present generation, among all the nations and kingdoms in the four quarters of our globe, except it be in these mountains? Where has it been in ages that are past, since the Apostles fell asleep? You may traverse our earth from one side to the other to find a government established by the Almighty, and you cannot do it. ”

“ The Divine government of the world, he owns, is monarchical, but then it is a government which cannot be copied by sinful men, and therefore cannot have been meant as a pattern for them. But God, he says, has established His Church on earth as a visible type of His own invisible providential government, and the Church is a "republic under an eternal President, sitting by free choice of the people, Jesus Christ." ”

“ So entirely have political ideas and jealousies infected our mode of judging of spiritual things—to such a degree is our peculiar civil liberty made the standard of Church government—that it is necessary to insist again and again on what to Christians ought to be a first principle, viz., that "all power and jurisdiction in the Church, like the Church herself, ought to rest not upon natural and human authority, but on the divine authority of Christ. ”

“ The power or authority of church government is a spiritual power. Spiritual, not so perfectly and completely as Christ's supreme government is spiritual, who alone hath absolute and immediate power and authority over the very spirits and consciences of men ”

“ How can it stand with the justice of God to encourage them only unto well-ruling, by commendations, promises, rewards, &c., or to deter them from ill-governing by dispraises, threats, &c., &c., to whom the power of government doth not appertain, as to the only subjects thereof? 3. What strange apprehensions and distractions would this breed in the hearts of Christ's officers and others, should those that have not the power of church government committed to them by Christ, be yet directed by his word how to govern, encouraged in governing well, and deterred from governing ill? ”

“ The State {126} exists to embody and represent in the world the divine justice, which is to be the basis of the government of men. Its ministers—magistrates, legislators, officers of justice—are 'God's ministers': laws which are passed by the State in fulfilment of its divine mission—laws intended to maintain the health and prosperity of the people as a whole—have a divine sanction ”

“ 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. ”

“ But that government that is not consonant to the divine institution, and those governors, that are not advanced to the place of supreme rule, in a Christian land, by the people, regulating themselves by the divine law, cannot be said to be the powers ordained of God. It is not merely the conveying the imperial dignity by men unto any particular person, that constitutes the power to be of God; but because, and in so far as this is done by virtue of a warrant from God and in agreeableness to his law that the action has the authority of God upon it. ”

“ And this sacrilege creeps among us, because they cannot measure their office with certain and lawful bounds, but are of opinion they cannot reign, unless they abolish all the authority of the Church, and become the chief judges both in doctrine, and in the whole spiritual government. At the beginning they pretend some zeal; but mere ambition drives them, that so solicitously they snatch all things to themselves. ”

“ The foundation of all lasting, true government is to be found only in moral wisdom, in other words, in holiness. That king or ruler will in the long-run have the firmest hold upon his subjects who is himself ruled by Divine wisdom. His strength will be found in the fact, that he rules himself before he attempts to rule others. ”

“ This persuasion is part and parcel of the tenet which it is believed they have embraced, that as Christians have the precepts of the gospel of Christ, and the spirit of God to guide them, all human governments, as necessarily including the idea of force to secure obedience, are not only superfluous, but unlawful encroachments on the Divine government as ascertained from the sources above mentioned. Therefore they refuse to do anything voluntarily that would be considered as acknowledging the lawful existence of human governments. ”

“ So that we argue from the enumeration of several kinds of church officers affirmatively: here is an enumeration or roll of divers kinds of church officers of divine right; governments are one kind in the roll, distinct from the rest; therefore governments are of divine right, consequently ruling elders; for none but they can be these governments, as hath been proved in the assumption. ”

“ By God's bounds we understand such laws and their administrations and enforcements as do not conflict with, oppose, or violate any precept or command contained in the Divine Word which he has given for the moral and spiritual government of his people. By government, to which we as a body acknowledge and teach our obligations of duty and obedience, we understand rightful human authority. And by this, again, we understand, as the Apostle Paul puts it, "the power that protects and blesses the good, and punishes the evildoer." ”

“ Wholly in God, and in God alone, must help be sought. By his divine power God must uphold the Church. He has, from the beginning, always and wonderfully preserved it in the world, in the midst of great weakness, in disunion occasioned by schismatics and heretics, in persecution by tyrants. And the government is wholly his, though he commits the office and service to men, whom he would summon and use to administer his Word and sacrament. ”

“ Whoever lives to see the kingdom of God fully established upon the earth will see a government that will protect every person in his rights. If that government was now reigning upon this land of Joseph, you would see the Roman Catholic, the Greek Catholic, the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, the Methodist, the Baptist, the Quaker, the Shaker the Hindoo, the Mahometan, and every class of worshippers most strictly protected in all their municipal rights and in the privilege of worshipping who, what, and when they pleased, not infringing upon the rights of others. ”

“ The Civil Authority may interfere in matters relating to religion, morality, and Spiritual Government: hence, it can pass judgment on the instructions issued for the guidance of consciences, conformably with their mission, by the pastors of the Church. Further, it has the right to make enactments regarding the administration of the Divine Sacraments, and the dispositions necessary for receiving them. ”

“ The principles of government, of all government, are catholic, and lie in the moral or spiritual order, as do all real principles. These the church teaches and insists on always and everywhere with all her divine authority and energy; but their practical application, saving the principles themselves, she leaves to the wisdom and prudence of each political community. The principles being universal, eternal, and unalterable, are within the province of the Catholic theologian ”

“ We have now completed both the spiritual and the temporal government, that is, the divine and the paternal authority and obedience. But here now we go forth from our house among our neighbors to learn how we should live with one another, every one himself toward his neighbor. Therefore God and government are not included in this commandment nor is the power to kill, which they have taken away. For God has delegated His authority to punish evil-doers to the government instead of parents, who aforetime (as we read in Moses) ”

“ But although the divine will as revealed in the Scriptures, is a perfect rule or law for all mankind, and although human laws ought to conform to the divine law, yet it would be impossible to govern the people of a state by that law alone. The divine law is broad, and comprehends rules to teach men their whole duty ”

“ At all events, it is difficult, for minds impressed by the influences of free popular government, to appreciate either the force or merits of his arguments, when he attempts to make the temporal indispensable to the spiritual power, and asserts the divine right to maintain it when possessed, and the duty of acquiring it when not possessed, as equally indispensable parts of religious faith. ”

“ The kingdom of God is an order of government established by divine authority. It is the only legal government that can exist in any part of the universe. ”

“ God has endowed man with inalienable Proper self-government rights, among which are self-government, reason, and conscience. Man is properly self-governed only when he is guided rightly and governed by his Maker, divine Truth and Love. ”

“ I can govern and control the Latter-day Saints, not by the iron hand, but by the principles of true government—the principles of our religion, which, in their very nature, are bound to make those who will be guided by them healthy, wealthy and wise. ”

“ In a word, do we claim too prominent a place for religious principle in the administration of public affairs, when we avow our desire that the rulers of a people, who are the nominal, and in a free government the real, representatives of the people, should be daily and practically aware, that they are accountable to a higher Power, thus realizing, if not in the highest and most Christian sense, yet in the literal signification, the picture of a good ruler drawn by the prophet, who, in the name of the almighty Ruler, declares, "He that ruleth over men, must be just—ruling in the fear of God!" ”

“ Every good, ignorant, orthodox Christian places his Bible above laws and constitutions. Every good, sincere and ignorant Catholic puts pope above king and president, as well as above the legally expressed will of a majority of his countrymen. Every Christian believes God to be the source of all authority. I believe that the authority to govern comes from the consent of the governed. Man is the source of power, and to protect and increase human happiness should be the object of government. ”

“ But it behoves us Churchmen, not only to assert the spiritual liberties of the Church, but also to realize a great deal more fully than we do, the divine authority of the civil ministers and civil laws in their own department. ”

“ If no man is bound, against his own judgment and will, to obey the law of God, how can any one be bound in conscience to obey the law of the state? and if the people may subvert the constitution of the church, and trample on her divine authority, why may they not subvert the constitution of the republic, and trample under foot the human authority of the civil magistrate, whether he be called king or president? ”

“ If it is said the powers that be are Christian rulers, then we say, let them govern only by the laws of the Mediator’s kingdom, and we will bow with reverence before them, and not teach for commandments the doctrines of men, as we cannot receive human laws for divine precepts. ”

“ God has established his kingdom; he has rolled back that cloud that has overspread the moral horizon of the world; he has opened the heavens revealed the fulness of the Everlasting Gospel, organized his kingdom according to the pattern that exists in the heavens; and he has placed certain keys, powers, and oracles in our midst; and we are the people of God; we are his government. The Priesthood upon the earth is the legitimate government of God, whether in the heavens or on the earth. ”

“ Civil power in its battles against spiritual power, having at length gained the advantage, and the priests being compelled to yield, recognized the Divine right of kings and preached it to the people, reserving to themselves the right to change opinions and to preach revolution, every time that the divine rights of kings did not agree with the divine rights of the clergy. ”

“ They are sound and liberal, and based on the great principle of the public good being the end of all government—the principle that kings reign, not for themselves, but for their people; while, in all their administration, they ought to be swayed and regulated by the laws of an authority higher than their own, by a regard to the Will of God as their rule, and the Glory of God, to which all else must ever be subordinate, as their supreme aim. ”

“ This is the character of the religion we believe in.
Our ecclesiastical government is the government of heaven, and incorporates all governments in earth and hell. It is the fountain, the mainspring, the source of all light, power, and government that ever did or ever will exist. It circumscribes the governments of this world; and when men and women are filled with the power of God, they can comprehend what the Prophet means when he speaks of the Lord's weighing the earth as in a balance ”