Wednesday, May 29, 2024

Excerpts from Lyndon W. Cook, The Office of Seventy 1835-1845

  

Like much else in Mormonism, the doctrine governing the ministry of the seventy may properly be described as a process of unfolding in which divine revelation and necessity (or common-sense practicality) merged to produce a coherent scheme. (Lyndon W. Cook, The Office of Seventy 1835-1845 [Grandin Lecture Series 1; Provo, Utah: Grandin Book Company, 2010], 25)

 

[Parley P.] Pratt clarified the official doctrine and policy of the church:

 

“[T]he difference between the authority of the Seventies and High Priests was this: the High Priests possessed the High Priesthood, but the Seventies possessed the High Priesthood and the Apostleship which was [the] highest power on the earth or in the Church” (General Record of the Seventies, Book B, 25 January, 1846). (Lyndon W. Cook, The Office of Seventy 1835-1845 [Grandin Lecture Series 1; Provo, Utah: Grandin Book Company, 2010], 121, emphasis in original)