IX

EARLY AMERICAN METHODISM AND ITS

E

DOCTRINES

ARLY American Methodism was an offshoot

from British Wesleyanism. It was a branch

from the same tree, or, more exactly, a rootlet from the same original root. There was no formal transplanting, but a shoot from the parent stock sprang up on the western shore of the Atlantic.

It started and grew, first, through individual Wesleyans who had gone to the English colonies of North America, and, on their own motion, began to introduce Wesleyan services, and to duplicate parts of the British Wesleyan organization, in the sixties of the eighteenth century, and, secondly, and later, through missionaries and officers sent by the Reverend John Wesley, the chief overseer and supreme executive of the Wesleyan movement, the first missionaries crossing the Atlantic to Philadelphia, in seventeen hundred and sixty-nine.

Early American Methodism, therefore, beginning in colonial times, when the Colonies were British, was itself British, like the Methodism in Great Britain.

In other words, American Methodism in the beginning was Wesleyanism. Wesley was its head in America as he was in England and throughout the British Isles, and so in America the English usages and government were gradually introduced, and, as rapidly as the new circumstances would permit, were duplicated and developed.

The American Methodists, for example, had the same kind of local organization with the same sort of Class System as in England. The preacher had the same duties and the same kind of authority, and he gave the people the same kind of preaching, with the very same doctrines, and in a few years there developed the Annual Conference, which, adapted to the new country, was practically a replica of Wesley's English Conference, and, likewise, was under the supreme control of John Wesley.

This type of Wesleyan organization in America existed under the English colonial government up to the American Revolution, and then continued for a number of years through the war for independence, and into the early years of the American Republic.

As with the British Colonies themselves, American Methodism had at first a religious colonial existence, like as a colony of English Wesleyanism, and as related to Wesley himself.

As already seen, this early American Methodism was actually a part of English Methodism, and the American Wesleyans were under the same ecclesiastical government as the Wesleyans in England, and, hence, being under the same government, they had the same doctrines, and the same standards of doctrine, so that, with the same government and in the same organism, they recognized the same theology.

In other words, as American Methodism was thus related to British Wesleyanism, Wesley was its supreme authority, and Wesleyan standards of doctrine were its standards of doctrine.

The American Wesleyans, at the very beginning, had The General Rules, Wesley's Fifty-two Sermons,

and Wesley's Notes on the New Testament, and also had the Minutes of Wesley's Yearly Conferences, including the Doctrinal Minutes, to which, by 1773, and thereafter, were added the Minutes of the American Conferences.

Excepting the American Minutes, these were the standards of English Wesleyanism, and these were the standards of doctrine recognized by American Methodism, but the American Minutes also recognized the Wesleyan doctrines as well as the Wesleyan polity.

These facts were legally recognized at a very early date. Thus some of the very early deeds to Methodist property in America contained the doctrinal restrictions as they were found in England.

Thus in the deed to the John Street property, in New York City, the deed for the ground recites that the ministers shall "preach no other doctrine than is contained in the said John Wesley's Notes upon the New Testament and his four volumes of sermons."

This deed was dated "the second of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy," and the Reverend J. B. Wakeley, in his "Lost Chapters Recovered from the Early History of American Methodism," says, "This is the first deed for a Methodist house of worship in America."'

This, however, seems to be an error, for the first church in Philadelphia was deeded to Miles Pennington, a member of the Society in Philadelphia, on the 14th of June, 1770, and on the 11th of September, 1770, he deeded it over to a board of trustees for the Society. So the first deed was that of the Philadelphia church.

'Dr. J. B. Wakeley: "Lost Chapters"; New York, 1858, p. 57.

The deed for the first Philadelphia church, known as Saint George's, contained the following proviso:

"Provided always that the said persons preach no other doctrine than is contained in the said John Wesley's Notes upon the New Testament and his four volumes of sermons."

These citations from the two deeds in Philadelphia and New York clearly show that at the very beginning of American Methodism the standards of doctrine in America were the same as those in Great Britain.

Other examples of this doctrinal limitation can, we think, be found in other very early deeds of a little later date. All these were copied from the British form, as the societies in America then belonged to the Wesleyan body in England. The extracts from the deeds of the two very early churches above mentioned are sufficient to demonstrate that American Methodism at its beginning legally recognized the Wesleyan doctrinal standards.

Further, the American Wesleyans a number of times officially acknowledged and formally readopted the standards of doctrine of the Wesleyans in Great Britain.

Thus the very first American Conference, which was held in 1773, in Philadelphia, formally recognized "the doctrine and discipline of the Methodists," and acknowledged "the authority of Mr. Wesley."

In that first Annual Conference in America, the Minutes show the following questions and answers:

"1. Ought not the authority of Mr. Wesley and that conference (the English) to extend to the preachers and people in America, as well as in Great Britain and Ireland?

"Ans. Yes.

"2. Ought not the doctrine and discipline of the Methodists, as contained in the minutes, to be the sole rule of our conduct who labor, in the connection with Mr. Wesley, in America ?

"Ans. Yes."

This shows conclusively that the doctrines of the English Wesleyans were the doctrines of the American Methodists.

In the American Conference of 1781, the very first question formally propounded in the Minutes is:

"Ques. 1. What preachers are now determined, after mature consideration, close observation, and earnest prayer, to preach the old Methodist doctrine, and strictly enforce the discipline as contained in the Notes, Sermons, and Minutes published by Mr. Wesley so far as they respect both preachers and people," etc.

There was unanimous agreement, and the preachers' names are appended. So that again they recognized that their doctrines and standards were Wesley's sermons and "Notes," in connection with the Minutes, as they were in Great Britain.

Then in the American Methodist Conference, held in April and May, 1784, the Minutes show the following question and answer:

"Ques. 21. How shall we conduct ourselves toward European preachers?

"Ans. If they are recommended by Mr. Wesley, will be subject to the American Conference, preach the doctrine taught in the four volumes of Sermons and Notes on the New Testament, keep the circuits they are appointed to, follow the directions of the London and American Minutes, and be subject to Francis Asbury as general assistant, whilst he stands approved by