In
a previous post, I demonstrated that early LDS leaders did not believe that
one had to be engaged in plural marriage to be exalted; I came across the
following which adds further food for thought:
Of the nine who received the endowment on 4 May 1842, neither William Law,
William Marks, nor Hyrum Smith had accepted the doctrine of plural marriage. In
fact, with the possible exception of Heber C. Kimball, not one of the nine had
entered the practice of plural marriage. Moreover, at the time, Newel K.
Whitney, George Miller, John Smith, Reynolds Cahoon, Orson Spencer, Wilford
Woodruff, George A. Smith, William W. Phelps, Isaac Morley, and Orson Pratt
received the fulness of the priesthood ordinances (where, in the case of this
the highest temple ordinance, they were told that they had passed the test of
obedience and were worthy of an unconditional assurance of their eternal
salvation), not one of these men had entered the practice of plural marriage.
Perhaps this is why Brigham Young later said that a “man may
embrace the Law of Celestial Marriage in his heart & not take the sec[o]nd
wife & be justified before the Lord” (Wilford Woodruff, Journal, 24
September 1871)
Andrew
F. Ehat, Joseph Smith’s Introduction of
Temple Ordinances and the 1844 Mormon Succession Question (M.A. Thesis;
Brigham Young University, 1982), p. 268 n. 224.