This theocratic system, patterned after the order and system that prevailed in heaven, was the government of God. He himself, though dwelling in heaven, was the Lawgiver, Judge, and King. He gave direction in all things both civil and ecclesiastical; there was no separation of church and state as we now know it. All governmental affairs were directed, controlled, and regulated from on high. The Lord’s legal administrators on earth served by virtue of their callings and ordinations in the Holy Priesthood and as they were guided by the power of the Holy Ghost. (New Witness, p. 35.)
“Desiring to Know Their Will Concerning Who Should Be Their King”
Mosiah’s counsel was that since “it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right,” the Nephites should, in his language, “observe and make it your law-to do your business by the voice of the people” (verse 26). Though the judges were to be selected “by the voice of the people,” the Nephites were to be governed “according to the laws which have been given you by our fathers, which are correct, and which were given them by the hand of the Lord” (verse 25). King Mosiah knew from personal experience the loneliness and the bitter burdens of a monarch-he had felt “all the trials and troubles of a righteous king, yea, all the travails of soul for [the] people, and also all the murmurings of the people to their king.” He sensed that “these things ought not to be; but that the burden should come upon all the people, that every man may bear his part.” (Verses 33-34.)