First my thanks to bbell for her compliment of me being “rare”. I hope it was a compliment.

I would like to add my support to Ben There. I am a faithful LDS sealed in the Temple. I think Ben There comment is more accurate than not. God has taught the His New & Evalsting Covenant(polygamy, plural marriage) is a Celestial & Eternal Law. If you are studious LDS then you know that all blessings including exaltation and salvation are predicated on obedience to their prescribed laws.

The Church currently is a Terrestrial church at best because we are not living all the Celestial laws predicated for the Celestial Kingdom or the presence of God.

Not only are we not living the law of plural marriage but we not not fully living the law of consecration.

Our temple sealings are not final and absolute. The current temple ordinances are preliminary ordinces to greater fulfilling ordinances. Ther are very few that I know that even know about 2nd Anointing temple ordinaces. These don’t seem to be practised much in the curent church.

I believe it was Joseph Smith that first taught the parable of the talents as associated with the law of the New & Everlasting Covenant of plural marriage.

Our current temple sealings and marriages are not celestial or eternal until we have abided and obeyed the full laws predicated thereto and made sure by the Holy Spirit of Promise.

Let’s reread the first few verses of D&C Sec 132 which give greater understanding to this.

1 Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you my servant Joseph, that inasmuch as you have inquired of my hand to know and understand wherein I, the Lord, justified my servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as also Moses, David and Solomon, my servants, as touching the principle and doctrine of their having many awives and bconcubines—
2 Behold, and lo, I am the Lord thy God, and will answer thee as touching this matter.
3 Therefore, aprepare thy heart to receive and bobey the instructions which I am about to give unto you; for all those who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same.
4 For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting acovenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye bdamned; for no one can creject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.
5 For all who will have a ablessing at my hands shall abide the blaw which was appointed for that blessing, and the conditions thereof, as were instituted from before the foundation of the world.
6 And as pertaining to the new and aeverlasting covenant, it was instituted for the fulness of my bglory; and he that receiveth a fulness thereof must and shall abide the law, or he shall be damned, saith the Lord God.

I pray always that we might be permitted in this society and life to live, abide and obey God’s laws that we might enter into His glory of the Celestial Kingdom.

I hope this happens soon or we may have to wait until Christ’s mellinial reign.

Thanks and God Bless

Making a monogamous marriage covenant was the first step. If you didn’t follow it up with another along the way, it would be like if you were sealed in the temple today and then disregarded all the things you need to do to make those covenants eternal. There mere mechanics of being sealed in the temple don’t make the marriage eternal; your obedience to your covenants is what seals the deal.

If that were the case, why did they bother with temple sealings? Why make it an ordinance if they believed it was basically a temporal social contract?

I was feeling a bit attacked. We all know what current doctrine is, but is seems like people get genuinely defensive when you explain that doctrine has changed over the years. For better or for worse, 19th century Mormon doctrine was what it was. Brigham Young taught what he taught; and his people looked at him just as we look at Gordon B. Hinckley: as the prophet and mouthpiece of God on earth in his day.

While we often seem embarrassed by what Brigham taught from time to time, it doesn’t negate that his words carried a lot of weight when they were preached, and his general conference sermons were accepted pretty much as church doctrine. Just because everyone didn’t follow his counsel doesn’t make it any less important.

Just because most church members in the mid-late 19th century didn’t practice polygamy does not mean it was not a commandment, just as today’s members not tithing and holding temple recommends doesn’t mean those aren’t commandments. One can be a member of the church their entire life and never tithe or go to the temple, just as one could be a 19th century monogamous Mormon: you get whatever benefits you get out of whatever you do, but certain blessings of the gospel are without your reach when you only go so far.

Consider how many members of the church today are active temple-recommend holders. In any ward I’ve belonged to, the percentage of full tithe-payers hovers around 20% of the ward membership. Maybe 3/4 of those have temple recommends. Clearly, actual practice of the important principles we are taught today is not as widespread as we might hope or think.

So when we can’t even pay tithing or go to the temple, how we can think it so strange that polygamy was a commandment yet not practiced by the majority. We do the very same thing today: for whatever reason, we don’t all tread the strait and narrow path, and a whole lot of members pretty much put in the minimum amount of commitment they can to the Church.

That said, I do agree that this has gone way off topic….but that always seems to happen anytime polygamy, homosexuals, or the priesthood ban comes up. It’d be a shame to break tradition!

Ben There, I apologize for being this blunt, but your argument for celestial/eternal marriage being confined to polygamy is one of the most absurd arguments I have read on this blog. The quotes you provided don’t make the argument, and neither does the historical evidence of how the early Saints perceived it. This might be my opinion only, but this horse is about 30 feet under ground by now – and further discussion would constitute abuse of a corpse. You aren’t going to gain any converts here, so can we move on and get back to the original focus of the post?

When you consider that under former LDS doctrine (and current fundamentalist Mormon doctrine) being sealed to more than one wife was part of the Law of Celestial Marriage, then obeying that particular law was just one more step toward making that sealing eternal. If a man did not step up to the plate and only got sealed to one spouse, that sealing was not ratified later by the Holy Spirit of Promise, because he had not lived up to his covenant to obey all of the laws associated with it.

I think you’re dead wrong about this Ben. KL’s question went to the nature of the sealing ceremony performed in the temple. She points out a valid objection to your interpretation of the celestial marriage doctrine. If there is no such thing as celestial marriage without plural marriage, then what of all the members of the church who were sealed to only one wife,even during the time of plural marriage. There was never a time that a majority of members were practicing polygamy, nor were they commanded or expected to. Your answer does nothing to answer that objection and in fact muddies the waters considerably.