Groundwork for Government and Leadership

GROUNDWORK FOR GOVERNMENT AND LEADERSHIP. BY BISHOP CHRISTIAN A. MADSEN.

III.

DISCIPLINE.

"As the Father gave me commandment, even so I do." (Jesus, John 14: 31.)

According to divine discipline, and in the premises and introduction to the science of government and leadership, the Son, the great Master of Nazareth must be acknowledged as the ideal executor and perfector of unfailing discipline; and that in all his

practice known there is to be found a perfect affirmation of the same; the Church with its gifts and powers from on high bearing witness to that effect.Therefore, the candidate for true government and leadership will follow the great prototype; and in the office ofthe great high priest, Melchizedek, he will exercise the authority, and accept the responsibility of that great office to the best of his ability, unswayed by wrong motives and with unerring discipline. The iron discipline of divine government and leadership is peremptory; nevertheless it not alone extends the time of training in keeping with the students' ability to advance, but it also watches with the utmost gentleness and tender care, every approach to the soul of the free agent, to nourish the immortal germ of individuality, inherited from immortal parents.

As far as our frail scrutiny reaches, the great Nazarene wilderalways proved his divine calling, both before his stay in the

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ness and after his return, and as he testified: he always did as he had seen his Father do; and his Father manifested his approval of the Son, with celestial order and discipline, both at the river Jordan and afterwards on the mount. And the Son proved his mastership in discipline from the first until at Calvary. And no mortal being could stand test as he did; both before and after his initiation; for instance, at the river Jordan, when calling for baptism, he named it "to comply with, or fulfill all righteousness'^ —as a perfect disciplinarian. In his dealing with the Jews, it was their great misfortune, being steeped in sin and unrighteousness, that the Lord had temporarily forsaken them, as it appears, they could not be initiated, and they did not know their Lord and Master. They had transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, and broken an everlasting covenant. Had they been able to break the incognito of the Savior they would most likely have desired to make him their king. But as it was they were doomed, most of them, to destruction; and a remnant miserably to be scattered, as a standing reminder to the nations of how terrible it is to fall as reprobates into the offended and avenging hand of their God and Master! He permitted them to slay his body, appointed again to be raised up in order to atone for, and settle the account of fallen man, with eternal justice, and at the same time, when he opened the door to the resurrection, he let judgment fall on a forlorn people, the Master himself paying for them and all mankind the eternal price of atonement. Only through the exercise of such perfect, all-enduring discipline could be made manifest divine evolution, in both handling forfeited earthly existence, and provide for their restoration in time to come, for a morally bankrupt and woe-begone people. At Mount Sinai, Israel once before were offered the privilege of initiation, on certain conditions; but the discipline and obedience were not there; they declined, and were put back under the government and leadership of a Mosaic dispensation; but under which they also failed to come to the stipulated conditions of discipline.

The necessary training and discipline to be acquired in obtaining initiation, consecutively must necessarily be of a character that the pupil can not know the end from the beginning of the

GROUNDWORK FOR GOVERNMENT AND LEADERSHIP. 619 same (John 14: 30); hence a given attachment to such discipline, to cause submission to the necessary training, is a needful adjunct to attain acceptance in the high school of Israel. There is therefore within or connected with this grand training, in many instances, under divine protection and mercy, such a thing as being imbued with an inclination— a desire to be under this divine discipline and influence, a congeniality with, a prophetic longing after what is faintly in view: to reach the goal, an inspired promise of blessings to be obtained, by which the disciple joyfully submits, humbly and intensely, in fear of missing the opportunity, in fasting and prayer seeking God for light and strength. In this the high school of the gods, the children of the promised seed, are to be found the most apt scholars, humble, obedient and weft disciplined. While the mixed blood and its untutored beginners in the school of Israel are the unfortunate ones, generally coming out deficient. To conclude, pure harmony can not be related to anything less than eternal truth; and as purity and harmony are qualities of good music, for instance, awakening memories from heavenly mansions, during the first estate, likewise the Holy Spirit; its

resonances from heavenly spheres, drawing the attention of inspired listeners, to the seraphic strains of heavenly music (as was heard

by hundreds of people in the Manti Temple) its influence on souls ready for initiation, refines and purifies the candidates longing for victory over sin, and striving for perfection. When in this state the free agent returns from the cleansing sanctuary, if enduring faithfully, will advance and improve his qualifications and discipline

for initiation into divine government and leadership. Correct understanding then, of events in their more or less necesmanifest connected links, of the past, present and future, communion with, and submission to God's living sarily require oracles. There never was, is, or ever will be, any true, successful conforming to and enduring government and leadership, without this fact. And such is the iron discipline of divine evolution, that nor leaders of the the great Master never acknowledges governors voice of the prophets sanction their acts. people, without the prophets will know their Master, (John 15: 15,) And the true friends. But to all not initiated, under his dis- being his initiated cipline, he remains incognito. (John 14: 17.)