Interpretations to have authority must end somewhere, and the standard itself is the interpretation that stands until something else is legally substituted.

The standards of doctrine, no matter how they may have legally become such, are entitled to respect, in the denomination to which they belong, and the standard is entitled to conformity by its clergy and laity as long as they remain in its membership.

I

III

THE METHODIST MOVEMENT

N the year 1517, Martin Luther publicly began the Protestant Reformation in Germany, by nailing his ninety-five theses on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg.

That act challenged the claims of the papacy, and elevated the Scriptures to a position of supremacy in the determination of religious doctrine.

From that time more generally than for long centuries before the appeal has been to the Scriptures and there has been a greater effort to ascertain what the Scriptures really taught.

The Protestant doctrine rapidly spread throughout Germany and into other lands, including England and adjacent countries.

Henry VIII, of England, at first did not welcome the new faith, but, in the year 1521, the very year Luther appeared before the Diet in the City of Worms, vigorously opposed Protestantism by issuing his book on the Seven Sacraments, for which work Pope Leo X gave King Henry the title of "Defender of the Faith.”

Naturally, with the King in the lead, there was strong opposition, in England, to the Reformed Religion, while similar bitterness was found also in Scotland.

In that part of the island, however, there arose a

reformer named Patrick Hamilton. He was born in 1503, and, after being educated at Saint Andrews, went to Germany where he imbibed the views of Luther, and became a professor at Marburg. Returning to his native land, he was made Abbot of Ferne, in the shire of Ross. There he promulgated the Reformed doctrines, and with such zeal that he was arrested, tried, and condemned to death, and on the first of March, 1527, in his twenty-fourth year, he was burned to death at the stake. His noble bearing during this ordeal made such an impression that many were led to inquire into the principles of Protestantism, and, as a result, abjured the papacy, so that a Roman Catholic said: "The smoke of Mr. Patrick Hamilton infected as many as it blew upon." So Patrick Hamilton of Scotland stands out as the first Protestant martyr in that country.

Henry VIII, the one time "Defender of the Faith," broke with the Pope, and gradually large numbers of the English people espoused the views of the Reformers on the Continent.

Thus the Protestant Reformation began to permeate the British Islands, and ultimately secured control.

In seven years after the burning of Hamilton, that is to say, in 1534, the English Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy which severed all connection with Rome.

The clergy in Convocation had already declared the King to be the supreme head of the Church of England, and now, in 1534, this act made the fact and title part of the law of the land, thus proclaiming the independence of the nation from any foreign jurisdiction, ecclesiastical or civil.

Through such events "The Protestant Reformed Religion," "Established by law," became the religion of England.

In the next hundred years there were many fluctuations in the political and ecclesiastical affairs of Great Britain.

Under Edward VI, Protestantism made progress and was getting a firm grip on the country, and, under the leadership of Archbishop Cranmer, was produced the English Liturgy, called the Book of Common Prayer. Under Queen Mary, the Roman Catholic, there was a reaction, and Romanism again wielded its power, and Protestants greatly suffered from its persecution, many being burned at the stake. When Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne of England Protestantism became supreme and so continued during her reign. It was in this period that Puritanism began to assert itself, and in course of time came Oliver Cromwell and The Commonwealth, and the execution of King Charles I. During these commotions many institutions were overturned. Then there came another reaction, with the recall of Charles II, and the restoration not only of the monarchy, but also of much of the old ecclesiasticism, which was followed by the Act of Uniformity and the persecution of non-Conformists.

Almost two centuries after the events of Henry VIII's time, another Reformation began in England, which reformation was needed to complete the reform of Henry VIII's time. That reformation in the sixteenth century was largely intellectual and external, while this of the eighteenth century was to be more spiritual and internal, although its results were to be seen in the external also but in a different sense.

The religious and moral condition of England had become most deplorable.

Referring to the early part of the eighteenth century, Isaac Taylor has said: "There was no philosophy abroad in the world-there was no thinking that was not atheistical in its tone and tendency."1 This thinking of the age must have affected its morals and its religion, for in both these spheres conditions corresponded to the prevalent thinking.

Formality and spiritual deadness were only too common in the Churches. Says Green, the English historian: "Never had religion seemed at a lower ebb." Intrigue and corruption dominated politics, vice was brazen, and crime was rampant, while infidelity was popular.

In 1736, Bishop Butler, in one of his charges, lamented "the general decay of religion in the nation."

Montesquieu said: "There is no religion in England. In France I am thought to have too little religion, but in England to have too much."

Archbishop Leighton confessed: "The Church is a fair carcass without a spirit," and Bishop Burnet said: "I cannot look on without the deepest concern when I see the imminent ruin hanging over the Church." Bishop Burnet also said he had observed, "Papists, Lutherans, Calvinists, and Dissenters, but of them all our clergy (of the Church of England) is much the most remiss in their labors, in private, and the least severe in their lives," and Voltaire, who was in England in 1736, says: "The Anglican clergymen frequent the taverns, because custom sanctions it, and if they 'Taylor's "Wesley and Methodism," p. 33.