Job 11:10

In the early council of the elders there resided the potential of all governmental functions: executive, legislative, and judicial. When the council interpreted the current mores, it was a court; when establishing new modes of social usage, it was a legislature; to the extent that such decrees and enactments were enforced, it was the executive. The chairman of the council was one of the forerunners of the later tribal chief.

When these administrative and jurisdictional difficulties have been placed in the hands of the conciliators for study and adjudication, they are supreme in authority. But they will not formulate a decision until all the evidence has been heard, and there is absolutely no limit to their authority to call witnesses from anywhere and everywhere. And while their decisions may not be appealed, sometimes matters so develop that the commission closes its records at a given point, concludes its opinions, and transfers the whole question to the higher tribunals of the realm.

In all other matters the courts of Salvington are final and supreme. There is no appeal and no escape from their decisions and decrees.

When we speak of executive and deliberative branches of the Uversa government, you may, from the analogy of certain forms of Urantian civil government, reason that we must have a third or judicial branch, and we do; but it does not have a separate personnel. Our courts are constituted as follows: There presides, in accordance with the nature and gravity of the case, an Ancient of Days, a Perfector of Wisdom, or a Divine Counselor. The evidence for or against an individual, a planet, system, constellation, or universe is presented and interpreted by the Censors. The defense of the children of time and the evolutionary planets is offered by the Mighty Messengers, the official observers of the superuniverse government to the local universes and systems. The attitude of the higher government is portrayed by Those High in Authority. And ordinarily the verdict is formulated by a varying-sized commission consisting equally of Those without Name and Number and a group of understanding personalities chosen from the deliberative assembly.

In all matters not requiring trial, the submission of evidence, the Ancients of Days or their associates render decisions, and these rulings are always unanimous. We are here dealing with the councils of perfection. There are no disagreements nor minority opinions in the decrees of these supreme and superlative tribunals.

With certain few exceptions the supergovernments exercise jurisdiction over all things and all beings in their respective domains. There is no appeal from the rulings and decisions of the superuniverse authorities since they represent the concurred opinions of the Ancients of Days and that Master Spirit who, from Paradise, presides over the destiny of the superuniverse concerned.

But if this universe rebel against the reality of truth and goodness refuses to approve the verdict, and if the guilty one knows in his heart the justice of his condemnation but refuses to make such confession, then must the execution of sentence be delayed in accordance with the discretion of the Ancients of Days. And the Ancients of Days refuse to annihilate any being until all moral values and all spiritual realities are extinct, both in the evildoer and in all related supporters and possible sympathizers.

The roving commissions of conciliators serve and supplement the planetary tribunals, and both spirit and physical controllers are subject to the findings of these conciliators. But no arbitrary execution is ever carried out without the consent of the Constellation Father, for the “Most Highs rule in the kingdoms of men.”

Whenever and wherever a Universal Censor is present, then and there is the judgment of Deity. And since the Censors always render their verdicts in liaison with Perfectors of Wisdom and Divine Counselors, such decisions embrace the united wisdom, counsel, and judgment of the Paradise Trinity. In this juridical trio the Perfector of Wisdom would be the “I was,” the Divine Counselor the “I will be,” but the Universal Censor is always “I am.”

1. The Judge-Arbiter. The one unanimously designated by the other three as the most competent and best qualified to act as judicial head of the group.