refers them. All miracles are myths and legends of a credulous age. All prophecies were written after the events which they foretell. And he who ventures to assail the positions of this Corypheus among critics may expect a contemptuous handling, if indeed he is honored with any reply at all. Even the works of such a rationalist as Knobel are set down as 66 unsatisfactory and perverse," and "the opinions of such as Hengstenberg, Delitzsch, Keil, and Kurtz, stand below and outside of all science."-P. 64. With such specimens of his treatment of other critics and scholars, it is idle for the editor to attempt, as he does in the Preface, to defend Ewald against the charge of “excessive dogmatism." For critical and philological discussions, and numerous suggestions of unquestionable value, this work must long hold a high place among the most important contributions to the study of the Old Testament; but with all evangelical scholars, Ewald's methods of dislocating and re-arranging the Old Testament books will be regarded as fanciful, violent, unscientific, and worthless.

M. S. T.

Memorials of Methodism in Virginia, from its Introduction into the State in the year 1772 to the year 1829. By Rev. WILLIAM W. BENNETT, D.D., Editor of Richmond "Christian Advocate." 12mo., pp. 741. Richmond, 1871. After having, with Dr. Redford, ranged the "dark and bloody ground" of Kentucky pioneer Methodism, we are led back by Dr. Bennett to the old Virginia homestead. On the ancient field, in fuller detail, we fight the old ancestral battles over again. The dim forms of the original heroes-Williams, Asbury, Shadford, John Easter, Philip Gatch, Devereux Jarratt, etc., move before us. The early reapers gathered a rapid, golden harvest. The great body of the population were Church of England people, whose souls the shepherds did not feed; and when our preachers came among them as in fact living and earnest Churchmen, the prepossession was in their favor, and thousands of hearts that were ready for a more living religion answered at once to their call. They had not, as in New England, to encounter a field pre-occupied by a stern piety, or to fight a theological battle with Calvinistic metaphysics. It was naked, indefensible wickedness they had to encounter, and they carried the day by an onslaught.

Virginia Methodism and the great family of Methodism owe thanks to Dr. Bennett for gathering from the memories of old survivors, from accessible manuscripts, and from the journals of the Virginia Conference, the fading matter of their "memorials." Happily, the work was done before our late civil war, for an im

portant share of his material was consumed in the Richmond conflagration.

Opportunely for a pending discussion, Dr. Bennett has furnished a fuller account of the early schism in Maryland and Virginia on the subject of the ordinances than elsewhere exists. A review of its interesting events will serve to show what value was placed by our fathers on the subject of Wesley's episcopal ordination, and will aid us in deciding whether we have swerved from the primitive ground, and in ascertaining who it is that is endeavoring to introduce a new credo " into Methodism.

When, in 1772, the first Conference was held in Virginia, the entire body of preachers held themselves, under Mr. Wesley, as true members of the Church of England, simply bent on raising a "society" of zealous Christians within its pale. Had pious Devereux Jarratt been in the place of Bishop Madison, with a body of like-minded clergy, Virginian Methodists would all have been zealous "prelatical" Churchmen; but, quite the reverse, the entire clergy of that section amply showed by their abounding profligacy that the most right-lined ordination was no sure channel of the grace of God. The Methodist converts widely refused to accept the communion and baptism at their hands. The Conference of that year, therefore, unanimously agreed in prohibiting every preacher from “administering the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper," and in strictly exhorting "the people to attend the Church and receive the ordinances there." Yet in Maryland the eloquent Strawbridge, and soon after in Virginia the devoted and heroic Philip Gatch, were leaders in the popular movement. In the Conference of 1775 they were in an apparent majority, and it was with difficulty that Asbury and the other leaders could induce them to postpone action to the Conference following. It was a pressing case. In large sections there was no ordained minister, and not a child could be baptized, not a communion administered, nor even the funeral rites be performed for the dead. At each successive Conference the question arose until the session of 1779, from which Asbury was absent and the movement prevailed. A brief Methodist Presbyterian Church was extemporized.

During all this time Francis Asbury, under the title of "General Assistant," was Wesley's representative in America. Coke says he had "for many years exercised every branch of the episcopal office except that of ordination." And at this time probably Asbury and the Conference generally believed that it was perfectly competent for them, if they saw it for the best, to organize a

Church, perform ordinations, and administer the sacraments. They were perfectly competent to establish two or three grades of ministry, with or without ordination. They were competent to establish three grades, with or without ordination, and call it an Episcopal Church. All this Asbury and his comrades refused to do. They preferred to remain under John Wesley's advice, and finally determined to accept an ordained episcopacy from his hands.

At this Conference of 1779 four elders, with Gatch at their head, were selected, who ordained each other, and then ordained others, and authorized the administration of the ordinances. Asbury and a number of preachers held soon after a counter session, and a division was fairly inaugurated. The next year (1780) there were two opposition Conferences, one of the seceding Presbyterians and one of the Episcopals. To the latter, being the earlier, Gatch and Ellis came, but were treated coldly as seceders After much discussion they accepted Asbury's proposition to postpone the ordinances for one year. A delegation consisting of Asbury, Watters, and Freeborn Garrettson, visited the Presbyterian Conference, and were very lovingly received. They were good and true men, these Presbyterian Methodists. They had experienced glorious revivals meantime, and pointed to their rich successes as proofs of the blessing of God upon their secession; yet all had not been smooth. Many of the people refused their administration of ordinances. Some of their preachers, in disapprobation, left for the North, where the entire movement was condemned. Their proceedings, if successful, would have split, and perhaps ruined, the young Church. Asbury, when admitted to their Conference, read Wesley's Thoughts against Separation from the Church, and made his argument against the Presbyterian movement. For two days the seceders stood firm, and finally yielded, rather under the glow of fervent prayer than the force of argument, to compromise by ceasing the ordinances until Mr. Wesley could be consulted. Up to this time, we suppose, Mr. Asbury and his coadjutors had no other intention than to remain "prelatists" as "a society" in communion with the Anglican Episcopal Church.*

It took four years, until 1784, for Wesley to come to the "ordination" point. He had asked Bishop Lowth to confer the ordination for him, but providentially the refusal of the elegant prelate

*Traces of this fact long remained in our popular language. As late as 1830 we heard the phrases "the society," "join the society," "turned out of the society," sometimes with the definite article omitted.

saved us from being handed over to "prelacy." At length Wesley performed what we showed in our last Quarterly to be the boldest act of his life. He ordained Coke and two elders, and sent them to America with "letters of episcopal orders," and then, for the first time, the Conference was "satisfied with the validity of their ordination," and people and preachers bounded at once into a joyful unanimity. Wesley sent over his form for three co-ordinate ordinations, containing no intimation that either of the three was less an ordination, or less conferred an order, or was less life-tenured, than the other.

The Life and Times of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., Founder of the Methodists. By Rev. L. TYERMAN, author of "The Life and Times of Rev. S. Wesley, M. A.” In three volumes. Vol. I. 8vo., pp. 563. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1872.

We are not able to express a high degree of pleasure at the republication in this country of a life of Wesley, which cannot be accepted on either side of the Atlantic by Methodists as a standard. It may relieve the matter somewhat if, as we see it announced, Dr. Stevens is to furnish some corrective annotations. We could wish the corrections had commenced with the present volume, and even with the title-page. We acknowledge John Wesley as the founder of Methodism, of the Methodist Societies and Church, but never knew before that he founded "the Methodists" themselves. But Mr. Tyerman is a great revealer of new facts, and we cheerfully record that he has written a live and readable book.

We are to thank Mr. Tyerman, moreover, for bringing before us in this first volume important and decisive facts touching the pending discussion on Mr. Wesley's views of episcopacy as an "order" after his reading of Lord King's "Inquiry," and consequently his views of the episcopate he founded in America.

Mr. Wesley read Lord King's treatise in the year 1746, and thus recorded his consequent conclusions: "In spite of the vehement prejudices of my education I was ready to believe that this was a fair and impartial draft; but if so, it would follow that BISHOPS AND PRESBYTERS ARE ESSENTIALLY OF ONE ORDER, and that originally every Christian congregation was a Church independent of all others."

Consequent upon this, Mr. Wesley's Conference in the next year, 1747, records his opinion on the same subject in the following questions and answers:

Q. Are the THREE ORDERS, of BISHOPS, PRIESTS, and DEACONS, plainly described in the New Testament?

A. We think THEY ARE, and believe THEY GENERALLY OBTAINED in the Churches

of the apostolic age.

Q. But are you assured that God designed the same plan should obtain in all Churches in all ages?

A. We are not assured of this, because we do not know it is asserted in the Holy Writ.

Q. If this plan were essential to a Christian Church, what must become of all the foreign reformed Churches?

A. It would follow that they are no parts of the Church of Christ! A consequence full of shocking absurdity.

Q. Must there not be numberless accidental varieties in the government of various Churches?

A. There must, in the nature of things, for, as God variously dispenses his gifts of nature, providence, and grace, both the offices themselves and the officers in each ought to be varied from time to time.

Q. Why is it there is no determinate plan of Church government appointed in Scripture?

A. Without doubt, because the wisdom of God had a regard to this necessary variety?

These records are conclusive. They prove that, in consequence of reading Lord King, Mr. Wesley embraced and held as harmonious in his mind these two positions: "Bishops and presbyters are essentially of ONE ORDER," and "The three orders of bishops, priests, and deacons are plainly described in the New Testament, and they generally obtained in the apostolic age." We say not now (we have stated our view of it in our October Quarterly, pp. 675-677,) how his own mind reconciled these two positions. All we now affirm is, that he held them both as consistent parts of his theory of Church government. At any rate, in one aspect he held that bishops and elders are one order; in another he held they were two. He held, therefore, that an ordained episcopate is an order.

Let us, therefore, present the following harmony of early opinions :

1746-47. "Bishops and presbyters are essentially of one order."- Wesley.

1784. "Lord King's account of the primitive Church convinced me many years ago that BISHOPS AND PRESBYTERS ARE THE SAME ORDER. -Wesley's Letter to the American Conference.

1747. "The three orders of bishops, priests, and deacons are described in the New Testament," and "generally obtained in the Apostolic Church."Wesley and his British Conference. 1789. "Wesley set apart. Thomas Coke having delivered to him letters of EPISCOPAL ORDERS." "The General Conference ... did unanimously receive the said T. C. and F. A. as their bishops, being satisfied of the validity of their EPISCOPAL ORDINATION." -American General Conference.

...

"The form and manner of making and ordaining of superintendents, elders, and deacons."-Wesley's American Ritual