Divine ordinance

“ It was requisite that a divine ordinance should be subject to divine rules and restraints, especially because it concerns a thing wherein the corrupt nature of man is as apt as in any thing to be wilful and impetuous in its desires, and impatient of check. ”

“ The ordinance has a tendency to draw our minds from the things of the world and to place them upon things that are spiritual, divine, and heavenly; and that are in accordance with the nature, desires, and attributes of man. It is a great privilege to have one day in seven set apart for the worship of the living God. Men differ in their opinions as to what day it ought to be. ”

“ But the Word of God, in its Wisdom, teaches this also--that it came to us through Angels, as though the Divine regulation were laying down this rule, that, through the first, the second are brought to the Divine Being. For not only with regard to the superior and inferior minds, but even for those of the same rank, this Law has been established by the superessential supreme ordinance, that, within each Hierarchy, there are first, and middle, and last ranks and powers, and that the more divine are instructors and conductors of the less, to the Divine access, and illumination, and participation. ”

“ To this one might reply that the objection rests upon an assumption which the Christian believer cannot admit, that the ordinance was merely a product of the human mind. But if, as our Lord constantly taught, and as the chapter explicitly affirms, the ordinance was a matter of Divine, supernatural revelation, then naturally we shall expect to find in it, not man's estimate of the guilt of sin, but God's, which in all ages is the same. ”

“ What obstinacy is that, or what presumption, to prefer human tradition to divine ordinances, and not to perceive that God is displeased and provoked, as often as human tradition relaxes and sets aside the divine command. ”

“ But some seriously inclined people are objecting, perhaps, and saying we wish to enjoy divine ordinances, but you have made the way too strict, more so, than God has made it, in his holy word.—Consider a moment, before you draw up a conclusion so unfounded, and so much to your disadvantage. All that is required of you, is to give yourselves up to God and the duties of Religion.—Can less be required? ”

“ Regularly a precept is limited in time and expires with the death or removal from office of him who gave it.
3. Laws are divine or human. Divine law is either natural or positive. The natural law is promulgated in the rational nature of man, and is a participation in human reason of the eternal law of God, which bids us observe right order, and forbids its disturbance. Positive divine law is made known by revelation.
Human law is ecclesiastical when made by the authority of the Church; municipal or civil when it is the ordinance of the civil ruler. ”

“ Let all Christians feel a due and unshaken attachment to public worship, the Sabbath—and all divine ordinances. All of them ought to be dear to Christ’s disciples. We should esteem them. We should love them. We should diligently and constantly attend unto them. We are, at the same time, to take care that we do not place our hope in, or dependence on them, instead of the God of ordinances, the Saviour’s all-cleansing blood, and the spirit’s sanctifying operations. Means and ordinances are the helps provided by a wise, gracious, and holy God. ”

“ That if any circumstantials indispensably necessary to the observance of Divine ordinances be not found upon the page of express revelation, such, and such only, as are absolutely necessary for this purpose should be adopted under the title of human expedients, without any pretense to a more sacred origin, so that any subsequent alteration or difference in the observance of these things might produce no contention nor division in the Church. ”

“ It concerns us all rightly to understand the meaning of those holy ordinances wherein we worship God, what is the nature and what the end of them, what is signified and what intended, what is the duty expected from us in them and what are the advantages to be expected by us. Every ordinance has a meaning; some ordinances, as sacraments, have not their meaning so plain and obvious as others have; therefore we are concerned to search, that we may not offer the blind for sacrifice, but may do a reasonable service. ”

“ It is an ordinance pertaining to this state of existence, and by those dwelling in the flesh upon the earth have all these ordinances to be performed. If they are not by ourselves during this life they must be done by some one acting for and in our behalf still existing in the flesh, and in the authority of the holy Priesthood, which has come down from heaven. ”

“ To make that a sin which God's law does not make sin, is only the next step to ecclesiastical regulations to the level of divine commands, we lower divine commands to the level of ecclesiastical regulations. ”

“ Examples of authorized rites in the Christian Church are the laying on of hands in ordination, and the giving of the right hand of fellowship. 3. An ordinance is a symbolic rite which sets forth the central truths of the Christian faith, and which is of universal and perpetual obligation. Baptism and the Lord's Supper are rites which have become ordinances by the specific command of Christ and by their inner relation to the essential truths of his kingdom. No ordinance is a sacrament in the Romanist sense of conferring grace ”

“ The fact that certain laws must be observed, and ordinances complied with, is not the ruling of the Latter-day Saints, but the divine mandate of the Author of our salvation, who has said he will judge all men according to their works and opportunities. We are merely complying with the teachings of the Master which we have received, and which are requisite to salvation. ”

“ So that you see, whosoever makes a jest of Church Discipline, makes a jest of an ordinance of God; and a man may as well despise the whole Christian Religion, as this power, which is as much the ordinance of Jesus Christ, as preaching, or the use of the Sacraments. ”

“ Those duties, which are of moral and natural obligation, are to take place even of those divine laws which are positive and ritual, much more of those impositions of men, and traditions of the elders, which make God's law stricter than he has made it. ”

“ The general principles on which her action is based are the maxims and precepts of our divine Lord himself, the character of the holy sacraments which he established in his church to be the channels of grace, the institutions which came to her from the apostles, and which she will ever preserve, and those principles of right and morality which God has planted in the heart of man, and of which her divine commission makes her the highest and the most authoritative exponent. ”

“ Gentile christianity! thy lineage takes hold of the mother of abominations, clothed in scarlet! How great will be the severity of God's judgments upon all that are accessory to modern christianity, except they repent and obey the gospel!
She has also changed the ordinances. Where is now the ordinance of anointing with oil? Where the ordinance of imposition of hands? The healing of the sick is given up to medical men, whose reliance is on anything but the power and established ordinance of God. ”

“ He charges them to keep God's commandments (v. 2) , to do them (v. 5, 14) , to keep and do them (v. 6) , to perform the covenant, v. 13. Hearing must be in order to doing, knowledge in order to practice. God's commandments were the way they must keep in, the rule they must keep to; they must govern themselves by the moral precepts, perform their devotion according to the divine ritual, and administer justice according to the judicial law. He concludes his discourse (v. 40) with this repeated charge: Thou shalt keep his statutes and his commandments which I command thee. ”

“ These institutions concur to proclaim the {72} great law of the spiritual world, that the heavenly grace which reforms the soul operates constantly in conjunction with second causes and ordinary means. In an accommodated, yet legitimate sense of the words, it may be affirmed of every such cause, that the "powers that be are of God;" there is no power but of his ordaining; and "whosoever resisteth (or would supersede) the power, resisteth the ordinance of God." ”

“ For if he who transgresses the law dishonours God by his transgression, and he who treads under foot the word treads under foot the Son of God, it is evident that he who keeps the law honours God, and that the worshipper of God is he whose life is regulated by the principles and precepts of the divine word. ”

“ To reveal the universal and perpetual law of grace, which God's common beneficence to the children of men, such as puts them into a better state than that of devils, gives us some ground to expect. The divine authority likewise, which in this book commands our belief and obedience, is universal and perpetual, and knows no limits, either of time or place ”

“ But what right have we, I would ask, to choose, among the essentials of the mysterious Ordinance, one which, as we conceive, we may dispense with, while we condemn others who select for themselves another? And yet, what do we? what is our practice? the practice so universally adopted throughout our Church, that the exceptions are few, and but of yesterday; so that those who contend for and practise the contrary are deemed visionary and righteous over much? ”

“ 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 ”

“ To that rule we should always adhere; and hence it is obligatory on all to observe the ordinance who are trusting in Christ for salvation. They should do so, as a visible expression of their subjection to his authority, and of their gratitude and love to him for his marvellous loving-kindness in shedding his blood for the remission of their sins, and for giving his life a ransom for their redemption. ”

“ For you will bear in mind that we read all these decrees of Divine law with our eye fixed on our own life and not on our neighbour. They are meant to help us to judge ourselves, and not some other person; they lead us to penitence and not to criticism, so that our readiness or our unwillingness to meet and to weigh them, and to respond to them with definite prayer and penitence, may be taken as an index of our religious sincerity, and of our readiness to consecrate our lives to the service of our Saviour Christ. ”

“ Here one of the Apostle's words is very significant. He says, not holy commandments, but holy commandment, telling us thus that the Divine law is all comprehended in the right ordering of the heart. In principle all God's laws are one. If that inward source of all our right and wrong be kept pure, from it are the issues of life; and every action flowing from it will then have a righteous aim. Thus men lead holy lives; thus they keep God's commandments in every relation. [321] They do not in this life become free from offence; they stumble, because they are compassed by infirmity. ”

“ It was before remarked, that the Divine commandments are all of them laws of Divine and heavenly order, and that man is required to live in obedience to them, that so his spirit may be brought into a heavenly state, and thus be fitted for heaven. ”

“ Did the church give power to the pastors and teachers, she might make the sacrament and preaching which one doth in order, no sacrament, no preaching; for it is the order instituted of God that giveth being and efficacy to these ordinances; and if the power of ruling, feeding, and dispensing the holy things of God do reside in the faithful, the word and sacrament, in respect of dispensation and efficacy, shall depend upon the order and institution of the society. ”

“ I allude to the entire law of God, to all that the Lord our God has revealed, whether it pertains to the building of tabernacles or to the building of temples, or to faith, repentance, baptism, or the laying on of hands, or to the matrimonial relations, or to any doctrine or principle which relates to the salvation and glory of man.
I say as one, that I have no fellowship for that man who will permit any person, over whom he has any rightful control, to ridicule the law, or any portion of the law, of God. ”

“ An observance has more than a formal obligation, reaching or approaching a religious sacredness; a stated religious observance, viewed as established by authority, is called an ordinance; viewed as an established custom, it is a rite. The terms sacrament and ordinance, in the religious sense, are often used interchangeably; the ordinance derives its sacredness from the authority that ordained it, while the sacrament possesses a sacredness due to something in itself, even when viewed simply as a representation or memorial. ”

“ Which I prove thus: a worship enjoined by, and performed in obedience to a law, establishing a human ordinance in the church, besides and against the institution of Christ, is a worship not according to Christ's appointment; but the hearing of curates is a worship enjoined by, and performed in obedience to a law establishing a human ordinance, to wit Diocesan Erastian prelacy, with the curates their substitutes. ”

“ Yet it is true that here and there in religious affairs some ecclesiastical man still claims Divine right to dictate to the people, setting his authority above their reason, and magisterially telling what they must take for piety, theology, and morality. ”

“ The nature of that church government which is of divine right according to Scripture, comes next to be considered; (having so fully seen what the nature of a divine right is, and how many several ways matters in religion may be said to be of divine right.) ”

“ The importance ascribed to this particular ordinance is not consistent with the spirit of Christianity. The general object and effect of the ordinance is unexceptionable. It has been, and is, I doubt not, the occasion of indefinite good; but an importance is given by Christians to it which never can belong to any form. My friends, the Apostle well assures us that “the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” I am not so foolish as to declaim against forms. Forms are as essential as bodies ”