societies, with the special enactments of the American Conference superadded. The "Large Minutes" were a compilation made by Wesley from the Annual Minutes of the British Conference. In the preliminary deliberations at Perry Hall they were revised. and adapted to the new form of the American Church, and being adopted by the Christmas Conference, were incorporated with the "Sunday service" and hymns, and published in 1785 as the Discipline of American Methodism. In this volume, therefore, we find the enactments of the Christmas Conference." * But Wesley's Sermons and Notes "were never legally accepted" as standards of doctrine, Dr. Curry insists. What there was that was illegal in the acceptance of them by the Conferences of 1773, 1781, and 1784 he fails to point out. The legality of these Conferences and of their actions has not hitherto been impeached. The words of Asbury about the Conference of 1792, which he styles "the first regular General Conference," are construed by Dr. Sherman to mean that "the Conference of 1784 was irregular, partaking of the nature of a convention rather than of an established body. It was convened for the purpose of organizing the Church, and its recurrence not anticipated." Irregular and unconventional as those assemblages might be, their decisions had all the binding force of law, and have received the sanctions of the great Head of the Church. They were not composed of constitutional lawyers, but of godly, sincere Methodist preachers, who knew what they intended and what they were doing, although comparatively unlearned in the science of ecclesiastical jurisprudence. Their actions have been acknowledged as legal by the tacit consent and by the uniform procedure of their successors. Their enactments in relation to the essentials of Methodist doctrine and discipline have neither been repealed nor virtually annulled by antagonistic legislation. All laws imposed by rightful authority are valid until repealed by rightful authority; and as the law repeatedly accepting certain specified writings of Wesley as the doctrinal standards of American Methodism has never been repealed, it follows that they must be such at the present day. It was in all probability with this view, as well as from the manifest impropriety of transferring Wesley's English "Model Deed" from the "Large Minutes" to the American Discipline *Stevens' "History of the Methodist Episcopal Church," vol. ii, pp. 196, 197. "History of the Discipline," p. 27. FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXXV.—3 that it, though containing the clause requiring all Methodist preaching to be in concord with the doctrine of his Notes and Sermons, was left out by the revisers at Perry Hall. That the primary doctrinal standards of Methodism were wholly unchanged when the American societies formed themselves into an Episcopal Church is obvious in the light of the minutes of the Christmas Conference of 1784. Quest. 2 reads: What can be done in order to the future union of the Methodists ? Ans. During the life of the Rev. Mr. Wesley we acknowledge ourselves his sons in the gospel, ready, in matters belonging to Church government, to obey his commands. And we do engage, after his death, to do every thing that we judge consistent with the cause of religion in America, and the political interests of these States, to preserve and promote our union with the Methodists in Europe.* Could the pledge, unwise as it was in relation to Church administration, have been voluntarily made by those heroic and truthful men if they had not intended to embrace doctrinal matters within its scope? Could their engagement "to preserve and promote union with the Methodists in Europe" be construed in any other sense than that of continuous adherence to "our present existing and established standards of doctrine?" The subsequent lives of the itinerant fathers demonstrated their own understanding of this solemn and artless pledge. They persisted in preaching the distinctive Wesleyan doctrines of prevenient grace, the salvability of all men, the direct witness of the Holy Spirit, and Christian perfection; none of which are incorporated with the articles, although always enumerated among the most precious possessions of Methodism, and as such very carefully discussed in the "Large Minutes," Notes, and Sermons. Again, the venerable Wesley himself, who never ceased to display the keenest interest in the Church indirectly organized by himself to spread Scriptural holiness over these lands, and who was not a little grieved when his name was left off its minutes for prudential reasons, never suspected-what in fact did not exist that his expositions of Christian doctrine had ceased to be the primary doctrinal standards of American Methodism. *Emory's "History of the Discipline," p. 27. In a letter to the Rev. Ezekiel Cooper, written only twentynine days before his death, after mentioning his growing infirmities, he says: Probably I should not be able to do so much, did not many of you assist me by your prayers. See that you never give place to one thought of separating from your brethren in Europe. Lose no opportunity of declaring to all men that the Methodists are one people in all the world, and that it is their full determination so to continue, "Though mountains rise, and oceans roll, This proves that he did not consider us [in any thing essential to The same sentiment has been since officially avowed both by the British and American Conferences. . . Of this state of unity and affection every friend of this great work will cordially say, May it be perpetual.* The notes to the Discipline appended to the edition of 1796, and which received the implied sanction of the General Conference of 1800, contain the following statement, which certainly implies the doctrinal unity of universal Methodism: "We are but one body of people, one grand society, whether in Europe or America; united in the closest spiritual bonds, and in external bonds as far as the circumstances of things will admit." + The conclusion reached by this review of our Church history is, that the primary doctrinal standards of the American Methodists were not revoked, altered, or changed in any particular when they passed from the status of societies in a Church to that of distinct and independent churchhood. When the American Methodists were organized into a separate and distinct Church, they did not cease to be what they had previously been, namely, Methodists; but they did become what hitherto they had not been, namely, the Methodist Episcopal Church. As persistent Methodists, they retained the old doctrinal standards; and, as newborn ecclesiastical Episcopalians, added to them twenty-four other standards abridged by Wesley from the standards of the Anglican Church, and purified from every vestige of Popery and Calvinism; and "Emory's" Defense of our Fathers." p. 132. +Sherman's "History of the Discipline," p. 369. also a twenty-fifth standard, fabricated by themselves, and suited to the national relations of the new Church. * Thenceforth the doctrinal symbols of the Methodist Episcopal Church have consisted of the old beloved standards common to Methodism plus the articles supplied by Wesley and the Church-organizing Conference. Had the American Methodists remained in a mere societary relation to the Anglican Church, or assumed such relation to the Protestant Episcopal Church, its claimant successor in this country, it is in no wise probable that the articles would ever have been formally adopted into the number of our "established standards of doctrine." Their verbal primacy in the legal enumeration of the first Restrictive Rule is due to the suffrages of the General Conference, that is to say, of the Church which placed them there. In the "Discipline," the Americanized form of the "Large Minutes," we find the following among other references to the old Methodist doctrines: Are you going on to perfection? do you expect to be made perfect in this life? are you groaning after it? "Let us strongly and closely insist upon inward and outward holiness in all its branches." Let all the preachers carefully read over Mr. Wesley's and Mr. Fletcher's tracts. We have received as a maxim, that a man is to do nothing in order to justification. Nothing can be more false. Whoever desires to find favor with God should cease from evil and learn to do well. So God himself teacheth by the prophet Isaiah. We are every moment pleasing or displeasing to God according to our works; according to the whole of our present inward tempers and outward behavior. If preachers and exhorters cannot attend, let some person of ability be appointed in every society to sing, pray, and read one of Mr. Wesley's sermons. "At the organization of the Church, in 1784, it was the first religious body in the country to insert in its constitutional law (in its Articles of Religion) a recognition of the new government, enforcing patriotism on its communicants." In 1800 the General Conference, by a motion of Ezekiel Cooper, "struck out all allusion to the Act of Confederation,' inserting in its stead the Constitution of the United States,' etc., and declared that the said States are a sovereign and independent nation, Methodism thus deliberately, and in its constitutional law, recognized that the 'Constitution' superseded the Act of Confederation,' and that the Republic was no longer a confederacy but a nation, and, as such, supreme and sovereign over all its States.'" Stevens' "History of M. E. Church," vol. iv, pp. 180, 181. Be active in dispersing the books among the people. From four to five in the morning, and from five to six in the evening, meditate, pray, and read the Scriptures with Mr. Wesley's Notes, and the closely practical parts of what he has published. Let us strongly and explicitly exhort all believers to go on to perfection. Whoever will advance the gradual change in believers should strongly insist on the instantaneous. * There is no evidence to prove the theory that "our fathers " ever imagined that the Articles of Religion, superadded at Mr. Wesley's suggestion to the recognized standards, either superseded or in any way took precedence of them. If such a thought every entered their minds, they were singularly careful not to voice it in word or written document. The assertion of the Rev. J. Pullman, that Wesley designedly procured the substitution of the Articles of Religion in place of his own Notes, Sermons, and the "Large Minutes" as the authoritative doctrinal standards of the Methodist Episcopal Church, unintentionally charges that great divine," whose genius for government was equal to that of Richelieu," with the commission of a great absurdity. "It is true," writes Mr. Pullman, "that prior to the organization of the Church in 1784, "The Notes, Sermons, and Minutes of Mr. Wesley' were, by special enactment, (Annual Minutes of 1781, and April, 1784,) declared the standard of doctrine; but it is equally true that at the Christmas Conference, in 1784, when the Church assumed an organic form, the Articles of Religion were adopted, at the request of Mr. Wesley, as the authoritative doctrinal standard of the Church, and ever since they have had a conspicuous and sacred place in the Book of Discipline; and it is also true that from the time of their adoption there has been no mention of Mr. Wesley's Notes and Sermons; "-from which he infers that the Methodist doctrinal standards, universally binding up to that epoch, ceased thenceforth to possess any constitutional force. In other words, Mr. Pullman maintains that John Wesley deliberately substituted the purified and abbreviated doctrinal symbols of the Anglican Church for the "existing and established standards of doctrine" hitherto obligatory on Methodist preachers, exhorters, and stewards; and that the pious * Bangs' "History of the Methodist Episcopal Church," vol. i., pp. 182–211. |