Minutes, 12 February 1836
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Source Note
Minutes, [, Geauga Co., OH], 12 Feb. 1836. Featured version copied [between ca. 4 Apr. and ca. 16 May 1836] in Minute Book 1, pp. 137–138; handwriting of ; CHL. For more complete source information, see the source note for Minute Book 1.
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Historical Introduction
Since fall 1835, JS had talked of a to be held in the in which men to the in the would be with divine power for their ministry. In anticipation of such a meeting—planned to be held in spring 1836, after the dedication of the House of the Lord—JS began in early 1836 to organize and prepare the priesthood . On 30 January 1836, the church’s unanimously passed a resolution that “no one be ordained to an office in the Church in without the voice of the several quorums when assembled for church business.” In early February, JS continued to attend to the business of “organizing of the quorems of — — & ,” beginning with meetings prior to the one featured here. At a meeting on 6 February that included the of Kirtland and (), elders, high priests, seventies, the of Kirtland and Zion, the , and the church’s presidency, JS “laboured with each of these quorems for some time to bring [them] to the order which God had shown to me.” At the same meeting, JS reprimanded the elders for “evil deeds” and for having failed to observe “the order which [he] had given them,” and he instructed them concerning the proselytizing work they would commence after they received the endowment of power. JS stated, “This night the key is turned to the nations; and the angel John is about commencing his mission to prophesy before kings, and rulers, nations tongues and people.” On 11 February, the instruction continued in a meeting of the elders quorum. According to the elders quorum record, “president gave some instructions respecting the duty of the officers, and made some confession and was followed by president Joseph Smith jr. in giving instruction to the quorum.”In the on 12 February 1836, JS met again with the council comprising the several quorums of the priesthood, to whom he presented some specific problems and possible solutions on the subject of ordinations. The church leaders discussed regulating the “manner and power to ordain” men to various priesthood offices and quorums. After those in attendance rejected a preliminary set of resolutions, the council asked JS alone to compose new governing measures, which he did. As a part of this discussion, JS then offered two resolutions that further clarified the 30 January 1836 resolution on ordinations.There are two extant versions of the minutes: one was recorded in JS’s 1835–1836 journal and the other in Minute Book 1. The version in Minute Book 1 is featured here as the official minutes; footnotes detail differences between the two versions. was both the clerk for the council meeting who wrote the original minutes (no longer extant) and the scribe for the copy found in JS’s journal. Parrish also recorded JS’s instructions and the resolutions presented on 12 February 1836 into the 14 February 1836 entry of JS’s journal. recorded the minutes in Minute Book 1 in the spring of 1836. Both the Minute Book 1 version and the version in JS’s journal may have been copied from the original minutes, or Cowdery may have relied solely on JS’s journal when he penned his version a couple of months later.
Footnotes
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2
JS, Journal, 1 Feb. 1836.
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3
JS, Journal, 6 Feb. 1836.
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4
JS, Journal, 6 Feb. 1836; Kirtland Elders Quorum, “Record,” 6 Feb. 1836; see also Revelation 10:11; and Answers to Questions, between ca. 4 and ca. 20 Mar. 1832 [D&C 77:14]. According to the Kirtland elders quorum record, at least ninety-seven elders had been anointed with oil from 28 January to 4 February 1836. The elders quorum minutes for 6 February record that JS and his counselors in the presidency “came and sealed our anointing by prayer and shout of Hosanna” and then “gave us some instructions and left us.” Alvah Beman then addressed those present, and “several spoke and there seemed to be a cloud of darkness in the room.” After Oliver Cowdery and Hyrum Smith came into the room to resolve the problem, “the cloud was broken and some shouted, Hosanna and others spake with tongues.” (Kirtland Elders Quorum, “Record,” 28 Jan.–6 Feb. 1836; see also JS, Journal, 3 Apr. 1836.)
Kirtland Elders Quorum. “A Record of the First Quorurum of Elders Belonging to the Church of Christ: In Kirtland Geauga Co. Ohio,” 1836–1838, 1840–1841. CCLA.
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5
Kirtland Elders Quorum, “Record,” 11 Feb. 1836.
Kirtland Elders Quorum. “A Record of the First Quorurum of Elders Belonging to the Church of Christ: In Kirtland Geauga Co. Ohio,” 1836–1838, 1840–1841. CCLA.
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6
Cowdery, Diary, 12 Feb. 1836.
Cowdery, Oliver. Diary, Jan.–Mar. 1836. CHL. MS 3429. Also available as Leonard J. Arrington, “Oliver Cowdery’s Kirtland, Ohio, ‘Sketch Book,’” BYU Studies 12 (Summer 1972): 410–426.
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7
JS, Journal, Minutes, 12 Feb. 1836.
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8
See JS, Journal, 12 and 14 Feb. 1836.
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9
JS, Journal, 12 and 14 Feb. 1836.
Document Transcript
Footnotes
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1
The copy of the minutes in JS’s journal specifies that JS “met in the School room in the chapel in company with the several quorums.” The “several quorums” likely included those entities listed in the first resolution in the featured text. These several quorums also constituted the church’s “grand council,” which met regularly during the months when Missouri church leaders were in Kirtland to prepare for the March dedication of the House of the Lord. (JS, Journal, 13 Jan. 1836, and Minutes, 12 Feb. 1836; Minutes, 13 Jan. 1836.)
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2
The minutes in JS’s journal state the following: “I then arose and made some remarks upon the object of our meeting, which were as follows— first that many are desiring to be ordained to the ministry, who are not called and consequntly the Lord is displeased.”a This may have been connected to the ongoing difficulties and questions raised about ordinations to the elders quorum.b It is also possible that JS suggested here that the Lord was displeased that so many who desired ordination had not adequately prepared for the ministry and were, therefore, not properly called and ordained to the work. As a February 1829 revelation stated, “If ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work.”c The journal continues: “Secondly, many already have been ordained who ought [not] to hold official stations in the church because they dishonour themselves and the church and bring persecution swiftly upon us, in consequence of their zeal without k[n]owledge— I requested the quorum’s to take some measures to regulate the same.”d The “official stations” likely referred to various priesthood offices. Church leaders had cautioned local leaders two years earlier to be “exceedingly careful” when they ordained an elder to the ministry. “Let it be a faithful man,” they counseled, and they admonished the local authorities to instruct those ordained to “avoid contentions and vain disputes.”e In a 2 October 1835 letter instructing the “elders, traveling through the world,” JS cautioned against those who had a “zeal not according to knowledge” and who “in the heat of enthusiasm, taught and said many things which are derogatory to the genuine character and principles of the church.”f
(aJS, Journal, Minutes, 12 Feb. 1836.bSee Letter from the Presidency of Elders, 29 Jan. 1836.cRevelation, Feb. 1829 [D&C 4:3].dJS, Journal, Minutes, 12 Feb. 1836.eLetter to the Church, not after 18 Dec. 1833, italics in original; see also Romans 10:2.fLetter to the Elders of the Church, 2 Oct. 1835.) -
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According to the minutes in JS’s journal, JS “proposed some resolutions and remarked to the brethren that the subject was now before them and open for discussion[.] The subject was taken up and discussed by President’s S[idney] Rigdon O[liver] Cowdery Eldr. M[artin] Harris and some others, and resolutions drafted, by my scribe [Warren Parrish] who served as clerk on the occasion— read and rejected— it was then proposed that I should indite resolutions which I did as follows.” (JS, Journal, Minutes, 12 Feb. 1836.)
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4
This restated and clarified a resolution passed by a conference of the church presidency on 30 January 1836. (Minutes, 30 Jan. 1836.)
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5
The following day, 13 February, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles proposed an amendment to this part of the second resolution that named themselves, instead of local leaders presiding at outlying church conferences, as “having authority to ordain and set in order all the Officers of the church abroad,” in accordance with the Doctrine and Covenants published the previous year. The Twelve’s amendment was discussed at a meeting ten days later. (Minute Book 1, 13 Feb. 1836; Doctrine and Covenants 3:12, 17, 30, 1835 ed. [D&C 107:33, 39, 58]; Minutes, 22 Feb. 1836; see also Minutes and Discourse, 2 May 1835; and Record of the Twelve, 2 May 1835.)
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6
This resolution modified the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants regarding ordinations for the church by adding the clause that ordinations were to be approved at a general conference of the church “and from that conference receive their ordination.” The 1835 Doctrine and Covenants stated, “No person is to be ordained to any office in this church, where there is a regularly organized branch of the same, without the vote of that church; but the presiding elders, travelling bishops, high counsellors, high priests, and elders, may have the privilege of ordaining, where there is no branch of the church, that a vote may be called.” (Articles and Covenants, ca. Apr. 1830, in Doctrine and Covenants 2:16, 1835 ed. [D&C 20:65–66].)