also, to the District Conference, in case his application should come before the latter body. All the books belonging to the prescribed course of study are, either naturally or by adoption, included in the consensus of Methodism on the essential doctrines of Christianity; and these the candidate must have studied sufficiently to enable him to declare his enlightened acceptance of those doctrines as therein contained. * (5.) Traveling Preachers. Whenever Whenever any local preacher is received as a probationer for the itinerant ministry, it is after he has given "satisfactory evidence of his knowledge of those particular subjects which have been recommended to his consideration." He then repairs to his allotted field of labor, and employs a portion of his time in the study of the works prescribed by the Bishops, under authority of the General Conference that is to say, of the Church-and is subjected to examination by a duly appointed committee at the next annual session of the Conference. The second year's experience is a repetition of the first. During these two years he has abundant opportunity to decide whether his theological beliefs coincide with the Methodist doctrinal standards or not. But, say some, he is not questioned on this point. "Nowhere in the curriculum for admission, or orders, is a candidate in our Church asked if he believes in the doctrines taught in the standard authors. Such assent is neither asked nor given. Nowhere in the Discipline is there any record of such authors, as to who they are, or what they teach." + These statements were true in part at the time they were written. But even then the "Discipline" said: "If he give us satisfaction. . . he may be received into full connection." + The full acceptance of Methodist theology has always been ascertained or postulated; and had a probationer expressed conscientious dissent from any doctrine distinctive of the system, there is but scanty probability, if any, that he would have been received into the number of its recognized expounders and defenders. "Assent" to our doctrinal standards has uniformly been * Discipline," 148. † Rev. J. Pullman, in the "Methodist Quarterly Review," 1879, p. 344. demanded of the probationer by the common, if not by the statute, law of the Church. "All along the course there is an unvarying recognition of a system of doctrines, fairly ascertained and well understood, which the candidate cordially accepts as substantially identical with his own honest convictions, and which, therefore, he proposes to preach as agreeable to the Word of God. To this form of doctrine, whatever it may be, he is shut up by the conditions of his accepted ecclesiastical relations, and of his ordinations to the ministry; and so long as he continues to hold and occupy these relations with their legitimate obligations, he is estopped from departing from the system of faith so accepted and believed." * Since the General Conference of 1880, every preacher, before being received into full connection with the traveling ministry, is questioned about his belief "in the doctrines taught in the standard authors," whose acquaintance he has diligently cultivated while pursuing the statutory course of study. In 152 of the "Discipline" (1880) are the questions: Have you studied the doctrines of the Methodist Episcopal Church? After full examination, do you believe that our doctrines are in harmony with the Holy Scriptures; and will you preach and maintain them? To each question an affirmative reply is indispensable in order to admission. Again, in ¶155 (Discipline) we read: "Those ministers of other evangelical Churches who may desire to unite with our Church may be received" if, among other conditions, "they shall give satisfaction to an Annual Conference... of their agreement with us in doctrines," etc. The promise made by the elder, when ordained, to be ready with all faithful diligence to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God's word," and the same promise made by the bishop at the time of his consecration to office, together with the injunction of the consecrating bishop, to "take heed unto thyself, and to thy doctrine," (497,) must necessarily be interpreted in the light of authoritative Methodist doctrinal standards. The tenth rule for a "preacher's conduct" obliges him to "not mend our rules, but keep them; not for wrath, but * Dr. Curry, in "National Repository," 1879, p. 359. conscience' sake;" the eleventh, "to mind every point, great and small, in the Methodist Discipline." Were every preacher to do so, there would be no occasion to complain of heretical teaching, and, consequently, no need of prosecution for heresy, or the maintenance of doctrines contrary to the Holy Scriptures as interpreted by the Methodist standards. Although no one will claim for our elastic system of doctrine the iron-bound completeness of creeds like the Westminster Confession, it is none the less certain that Methodists have more doctrinal harmony than most followers of more clearly defined symbols. Their internal conflicts and repeated divisions have not been the results of doctrinal controversy, but of differences on matters of ecclesiastical polity. Ecclesiastical history does not, perhaps, present an instance of an equal number of ministers brought into contact so close, and called so frequently together, for the discussion of various subjects, among whom so much general unanimity as to doctrines has prevailed, joined with so much real good-will and friendship toward each other, for so great a number of years.* Adequate provision is made in the Discipline for the conservation of Methodist orthodoxy. If a member of our Church shall be accused of endeavoring to sow dissension in any of our societies, by inveighing against either our doctrines or discipline, the person so offending shall first be reproved by the preacher in charge, and if he persists in such pernicious practice, he shall be brought to trial, and if found guilty, expelled.† When a minister or preacher disseminates, publicly or privately, doctrines which are contrary to our Articles of Religion or established standards of doctrine, let the same process be observed as is directed in ¶209, § 1; but if the minister or preacher so offending do solemnly engage not to disseminate such erroneous doctrines, in public or in private, he shall be borne with till his case be laid before the next Annual Conference, which shall determine the matter.- 213. When a bishop disseminates, publicly or privately, doctrines which are contrary to our Articles of Religion, or established standards of doctrines, the same process shall be observed as is prescribed in TT 201, 202.-¶ 205. Suspension from official functions, and expulsion from the ministry and membership of the Church, may follow conviction of the accused by the court before which he is tried. *Watson's "Life of Wesley," Amer. ed., p. 240. "Discipline," ¶ 228. We now come to the third question. III. What does the Word of God require as touching those who publicly dissent from the essential and distinctive doctrines of Methodism, as defined by its authoritative standards? They have repeatedly expressed their assent to those doctrines, and pledged themselves to propagate them. But, if they have ceased to believe in them as correct representations of the teachings of the Holy Scriptures, ought they not to seek an honorable release from their obligations, and more congenial denominational associations? To willingly remain under solemnly covenanted engagements, and yet to preach and teach in antagonism to them, is not to "speak every man truth with his neighbor." (Eph. iv, 25.) It is to fall into one of the most pernicious practices of Romanism, and to profess faith in a system of doctrines, by contriving to sustain the position of its professed expositor, while disbelieving and denying it. If this be not hypocrisy, what is it? Practical obedience to Christ's command: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven," (Matt. v, 16,) will cause all such dissentients to sever the links which bind them to a public course of procedure opposed to their deliberate and mature convictions. Such separation would not be schism, but commendable adherence to the truth as they understand it. The Reformers of the sixteenth century, and numberless Methodists of the nineteenth, have willingly suffered it, and that without waiting for the disciplinary action of the Churches with whom they were formerly in fellowship. "It must be remembered," however, "that to be adjudged unsound in doctrine, however lawfully in form and correctly in purpose, is not the same with exclusion from the Kingdom of God. The flock is larger than any fold, and in any case the Chief Shepherd will know his own." * The Rock River Conference plainly expressed its opinion as to what doctrinal dissentients in the ministry ought to do by kindly requesting Dr. H. W. Thomas to withdraw from the Methodist ministry. That he should decline to do so and "court an investigation, when conscious of his utter divergence from the standard of [Methodist] belief, and when sensible of his disloyalty to the vows of ordination," said "Zion's Herald" * Dr. Curry, in the "Independent," Nov. 3, 1881. of Sept. 29, 1881, is the strongest feature in the case. The world is free; there is no shackle upon human thought or speech except that which is self-imposed by a man's subscription to a recognized system of faith. Common honesty requires him to sever himself from a communion whose tenets are no longer his own. We do not think the "Intelligencer's" comment on the trial a bit too severe : We hope that this prompt and decisive action will put a check upon the confidence game of the Liberal "Artful Dodgers." Such humiliating disclosures as that just made by the Rev. Slicer who started as a Methodist, passed into the Congregational body, and then came out all at once a full-plumaged Unitarian, and who now confesses that he was substantially a Unitarian for ten years before he avowed it, and only stayed in order to "try his new ideas" among the orthodox-ought to be made impossible by a sound public sentiment. For God's sake, gentlemen, do not play the pirate's game by staying in the Gospel ship only in the hope of demoralizing her crew, and of finally carrying her off as a prize. Professor Robertson Smith, one of the ablest and most popular teachers in the Free Church of Scotland, and but lately deprived of his chair for published opinions on the inspiration and mode of composition of the Scriptures that were held to be antagonistic to the authoritative standards of his Church, unhesitatingly avows his judgment that such dissentients ought to withdraw. As reported by Dr. J. M. Buckley in the 'Christian Advocate" of October 13, 1881, he said: It is impossible for an organization to exist without a common basis of belief. If a minister preaches contrary to the standards, he should be suppressed. If I had been guilty and proved guilty of denying the standards of the Church to which I belong, but one course would have been open to the Assembly, namely, to remove me from the ministry. Ministers, indeed, who do not agree with the recognized standards which form the bond of union, should not remain. Honesty requires them not to wait to be thrust out. As I said a few moments ago, while my opinions on some points differ widely from the opinions held thereon by some others, I claim that upon the doctrines of the Church I have uttered nothing contrary to the standards. Dr. Robert Collyer, formerly pastor of a Unitarian Church in Chicago, and now pastor of a Unitarian Church in New York, is intimately acquainted with the Methodist doctrines, and at one time proclaimed them as a local preacher. But when he |