strong and pure-minded, and even they must isolate themselves in self-idolatry, and be 'alone with the alone,' and seek converse with the spirit of man's spirit.
"But this prophet was educated by passion, and sought to be social with the weak; he therefore baptized spiritually in the waters of materialism. Instead of evolving the godlike nature of the human spirit, he endeavored to prove that humanity was already divinity by investing Deity with what is manlike—men were to be like gods by making gods men."
The form of Mormon government is not new: it is the theocracy of the Jews, of the Jesuit missions in Brazil, Paraguay, and elsewhere, and briefly of all communities in which, contrary to the fitness of things, Church is made to include, or, rather, exclude State. In opposition to El Islam, they maintain that a hieratic priesthood is necessary to the well-being of a religion. They divide it into two grand heads, of which all other officers and authorities are appendages. The first is called the Melchisedek priesthood, "because Melchisedek was such a great high priest."[1] The second, which is a supplement to the former, and administers outward ordinances, is the Aaronic or Levitical, "because it was conferred upon Aaron and his seed throughout all their generations." To the Melchisedek belong the high priest, priests, and elders; to the Aaronic the bishops, the teachers or catechists, and the deacons.
"The power and authority of the higher, or Melchisedek priesthood, is to hold the keys of all the spiritual blessings of the Church, to have the privilege of receiving the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, to have the heavens opened unto them, to commune with the general assembly and Church of the first-born, and to enjoy the communion and presence of God the Father, and Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant.
"The power and authority of the lesser, or Aaronic priesthood, is to hold the keys of the ministering of angels, and to administer in outward ordinances the letter of the Gospel—the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins—agreeable to the covenants and commandments."
The apex of the Mormon hierarchy is the First Presidency, now Messrs. Young, Kimball, and Wells, who have succeeded to Peter, James, and John in the Gospel Church, and who correspond on earth to the Trinity in heaven—numero Deus impare gaudet. The presiding high priest over the high priesthood of the Church—par excellence, "the" President, also ex-officio seer, revelator, translator, and prophet, is supreme. The two sub-chiefs or counselors are quasi-equal: the first, however, takes social precedence of the second. This quorum of the presidency of the Church, elected by the whole body, is the centre of temporal as of ecclesiastical
- ↑ These and the following quotations are borrowed from sections 2 and 3 of "Covenants and Commandments."
