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He could not be a priest of the Aaronic order, for he was of a different tribe a tribe of which Moses spoke nothing concerning the priesthood. Hence all the efforts to make Him a priest of that kind are refuted by that simple fact. Many insist that Christ was inducted into His priestly office at His baptism, and many vain speculations are based thereon. But this can not be.
Shem had neither father nor mother, nor beginning of days, nor end of life, in the sense that the Aaronic priests had them; and this is all that is affirmed of Melchisedec. When God called His people out of Egyptian bondage, and gave them the law, He gave them a new priesthood. The priests were now all confined to the tribe of Levi and the family of Aaron.
And there were the Deacons and Priests of the Aaronic Order and other Elders and Bishops of the Order of Melchisedek to advise with upon the temporal and spiritual affairs of Israel; to labour and pray with Peregrine Noble, who had declared that he would no longer be as limber as a tallowed rag in the hands of the priesthood, and to deliver him over to the buffetings of Satan in the flesh if he persisted in his blasphemy; to rebuke Ozro Cutler for having brazenly sought to pay on his tithing some ten pounds of butter so redolent of garlic that the store had refused to take it from him in trade; to counsel Mary Townsley that Pye Townsley would come short of his glory before God if she remained rebellious in the matter of his sealing other jewels to his crown; to teach certain unillumined Saints something of the ethics of unbranded cattle; and to warn settlers against isolating themselves in the outlying valleys where they would be a temptation to the red sons of Laman.
Each of the three pulpits in the upper tier has upon the front the letters "B.P.A.," meaning Bishop Presiding over Aaronic Priesthood; the middle tier has the letters "P.A.P.," Presiding Aaronic Priest; the lower tier has the letters "P.A.T.," Presiding Aaronic Teacher; a smaller pulpit below is labelled "P.A.D.," Presiding Aaronic Doorkeeper.
After the establishment of the Aaronic priesthood, a descendant of Jacob could no longer build his altar and offer his sacrifice just as he had done before the change. And now a priest under the Christian dispensation can not offer acceptable worship as did either the Jew or the patriarch. The worship that once brought to one the divine blessing would now bring upon him a curse.
Its theme is the primacy of the priesthood embodied in Melchizedek over that represented by Aaron, and the bearing of this on the glory of Him who is proclaimed a priest for ever after Melchizedek's order. This theme is presented under headings, somewhat as follows. Abraham, bearing the whole Aaronic hierarchy potentially within him, defers to Melchizedek as to his greater.
The eastern cluster is devoted to the Aaronic Priesthood, which also includes the Levitical Priesthood, and administered the temporal affairs of the Church.
"Oh, I entreat your blessing, on this my bridal day!" The Bishop laid his hands upon the bright coronet of her hair, and blessed her with the threefold Aaronic blessing; then raised her, and bade her walk with him across the turf. Into the arbour he led her, beneath a cascade of fragrant yellow roses.
The point of these sermons is, that, in spite of the rigid character of the Jewish law, the formal and literal force of its precepts, and the manifest schism, and worse than schism, of the ten tribes, yet in fact they were still recognised as a people by the Divine Mercy; that the great prophets Elias and Eliseus were sent to them, and not only so, but sent to preach to them and reclaim them, without any intimation that they must be reconciled to the line of David and the Aaronic priesthood, or go up to Jerusalem to worship.
Thus, in 1829, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery received the Lesser or Aaronic Priesthood under the hands of John the Baptist, who visited them as a resurrected being the same Baptist who by special and divine commission held the authority of that Priesthood in the dispensation of the "Meridian of Time."
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