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 LL.I-— .-! > - -^.J— U-l: ■ ■ ' I " ' 
 
 
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 OR, 
 
 NIETHODISNI HDD THE CHURCH OF ENGLAIID, 
 
 HY THE 
 
 KEV. /£. //. DEIVART. 
 
 Mtcoiul Ediiloii, Btvi««Ml nnd Kiilai-»«i«l. 
 
 TORONTO : 
 
 MKT-HODlsr BOOK ROOM, 8o KINC; STREET EASl 
 
 iB77- ./, 
 
VICTORIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 TORONTO, ONTARIO 
 
 
 SOURCE: 
 
 The Library of 
 Rev. Salem Goldworth Bland, 
 B.A., D.D. 
 
 .;.*;■ 
 
 
liglj Cljudjf atensbns gisprobttj; 
 
 OR, 
 
 METHODISM AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ffc BY THE 
 
 REV. EDWARD HARTLEY DEWART. 
 
 SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED. 
 
 But in vain do they worship me. teaching for dcctriveB the commandments of 
 
 men.— Thk Redebmbr. 
 To the law and to the testimony ; if they speaU no. according to this wora, it is 
 
 oecause 
 
 there is no light in them. -Isaiah. 
 
 TORO^'TO : 
 
 METHODIST BOOK UOOM. 80 KING STREi'.T EAST. 
 
 1877. 
 
V\V\L't 
 
 SlACK 
 
 PREFATORY ^OTE. 
 
 Union It M,'°" '"' increasing good feeling between the Churches. 
 Un on „ doing the work of the Master is doubtless better than hostile controversy 
 
 fht ''^""'^■'"^'*"'^'""' '■^'''' ^^"^ ""'' liberal, merely because they think 
 
 wha twlTr 'Vr '°"' ''''"^'^ condemning what is false, and defending 
 what «e bel.eve to be true. We should " earnestly contend for he faith whlet 
 
 lr« n , . '" ? ^ '"■'°"' '^•^''"'•^"'•c from the Simplicity of the Gospel. They 
 
 P^.utly lepudiated. A system that teaches for doctrine the commandments of 
 men, and p ates matters of Church ritual above the personal experience of for- 
 giveness and regeneration, deserves severe condemnation. 
 
 •• £. H D. 
 
 WaV I 3 1950 
 
HIGH-CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 I. 
 
 Introductory Remarks. 
 
 This Httle tract is not written to provoke controversy. 
 It is no part of its design to assail a sister denomination. 
 It is written in self-defence, against the frequent attacks of 
 Episcopalian ministers, wlio seek to unsettle the faith of 
 Methodists by representing Methodism as an unauthorized 
 and schismatic organization, without a valid ministry, genu- 
 ine sacraments, or the characteristics of a true and Scriptural 
 branch of the Christian Church. The main points dwelt 
 upon by these clerical proselyters are,— that John Wesley 
 lived and died " a clergyman of the Church of England ;"— 
 that the separation of Methodism from the- National Church 
 and its becoming an independent Church were wrong, and in 
 open violation of Wesley's principles and injunctions ;— that 
 modern Methodists have abandoned Wesley's principles, so 
 that if he were now living he would disown them ;— that as 
 the Methodist Church has been constituted in an irregular 
 and unscriptural manner, neither its ministry nor sacraments 
 are valid ;— that all Methodists who desire to be the true 
 followers of John Wesley, should leave the Wesleyan com- 
 munion and join the Church of England. The numerous 
 recent appeals to Methodists to allow themselves to be ab- 
 sorbed by ** the Church " are well known to the public. 
 
4 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 The men who pursue these tactics are generally strongly 
 tinged with semi-popish views of the elHcacy of the sacra- 
 ments, as the main channels of grace and salvation. They 
 have ffreat faith in the value of an unbroken succession of 
 Episcopal ordinations fi-om the apostles to the present time, 
 which they regard as essential to a valid ministry. They 
 are generally very exclusive and supercilious in their atti- 
 tude towards ministers of other Churches, while cherishing 
 a respectful regard for the Romish Church as a true, though 
 en-ing branch of the Church of Christ, They do not gene- 
 rally apply to themselves the terms Presbyters or Ministers ; 
 but love to call themselves "priests." — a name never api)lied 
 to designate Christian pastors in the New/ Testament. Their 
 sermons are much more largely occupied with talk about the 
 Church and the sacraments than with Christ and his salva- 
 tion from the guilt and power of sin. Many of them speak 
 with contempt of conversion, the witness of the Spirit, and 
 spiritual peace and joy, as taught and experienced among 
 the Methodists, as if these things were unscriptural delu- 
 sions. They deem such outward things as the reception of 
 the sacraments from priestly hands, and membership in a 
 Church with a ministry in " the succession," a better proof 
 of Christian manhood than " righteousness and peace and 
 joy in the Holy Ghost." Indeed, the Church is commoidy 
 spoken of as if it was in some sense the instrtiment of salva- 
 tion — a sort of ship, in which all who take passage may rest 
 satisfied that they shall be brought in safety to the desired 
 haven. 
 
 I give this brief description of these Anglican " priests " 
 in order that they may be recognized by the people whom 
 they seek to disturb ; and also, that it may be clearly under- 
 stood that I am not writing against the godly and liberal 
 ministers and laymen of the Church of England, many of 
 
Wesley's views not a supreme law. 5 
 
 whom I cordially recognize as l)rethren and fellow -workers 
 in Christ, who find better employment than proselyting from 
 other Churches, or unchurching Christians of other denomi- 
 nations ; but against the teaching of a sect in that Church 
 which, however sincere in their convictions, I firmly l)elieve 
 cherish unscrijjtural views of the Church of Christ, and are 
 sadly wanting in the charity and liberality of New Testa- 
 ment Chiistianity. 
 
 In this brief essay, I undertake to show that those High 
 Churchmen who charge the modern Methodists with having 
 al)andoned John "Wesley's principles, and being schismatic 
 and unscriptural organizations, base these allegations on as- 
 suni]>tions respecting Methodism that ai'e not historically cor- 
 rect, and on theories respecting the Christian Church and the 
 ministerial office that are neither sustained by Scriptiire nor 
 sound reason. - 
 
 / wish at the oiUset to repudiate as unwarranted the com- 
 mon assiomptioit of our Anglican assailants that Mr. Wesley's 
 expressed sentiments respecting the relationship of Methodism 
 to the ChurL\ of fi^ngland, or against separation, should irre- 
 vocably settle the whole qviestion for all time. Our Episco- 
 palian friends may save themselves the trouble of multiply- 
 ing proofs of John Wesley's attachment to the Cliurch of 
 England ; or of his having on several occasions declared that * 
 the Methodists ought not to separate from it. From time to [ 
 time, quotations from old letters or other writings are pub- I 
 lished by " Churchmen," as if they were startling discoveries | 
 that should fill the whole Methodist world with dirmay. | 
 They reveal the ignorance of those who make such ado about I 
 them, rather than of those whom they are intended to en- I 
 lighten. All intelligent Methodists will freely admit that f 
 Mr. Wesley was at first a very High Churchman, that he / 
 
 frequently expressed strong attachment to the Church of J 
 
 3 
 
t 
 
 6 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 England, and his judgment that his people should not sepa- 
 rate from it. But we should not isolate these expressions 
 from his life. We must take into consideration the modify- 
 ing sentiments expressed at other times, his own deliberate 
 acts of separation, tiie principles that guided his whole public 
 life, and what he himself called "the vehement prejudices 
 of his education," in order to rightly estimate the true value 
 of these expressions of sentiment and o])inion. 
 
 We admit, without dispute, Wesley's expressions at dif- 
 ferent times against separation from the Church of England. 
 We cherish a high regard for his opinions and counsels on 
 any matter where all the facts were known to him. But it 
 is a mistake to suppose that we regard him as an infallible 
 pope whose judgment on a matter of expediency, expressed 
 a hundred years ago, we dare not criticise or reject. We 
 claim the same right to exercise our deliberate judgment, as 
 to what is most for God's glory and for the good of our own 
 branch of the Church, that Wesley claimed for himself in his 
 day. The true followers of Wesley are not those who accept 
 with unquestioning faith everything that he believed and 
 taught ; but those who seek to know what is right and true 
 with the same earnestness with which he sought ; and who 
 adopt new methods of usefulness, which they believe to be 
 best, with the same decision and independence that distin- 
 guisiied him. As Mr. S. D. Waddy recently said in the 
 Methodist. Recorder : " Wesley shaped our history during his 
 own lifetime j but not for all time. He had not tlie gift of 
 prophecy. If any man could tell us exactly what Wesley 
 would have said or done under existing circumstances, it 
 would be entitled to respectful consideration ; but after all, 
 it would not be authoritative. But v^e ask not what he did 
 say then, biit what he would say now. The rest is idle." 
 There can be no doubt that if Mr. Wesley was living to-day, 
 
SEPARATION JUSTIFIED BY RESULTS. 7 
 
 when gross popery and gross intidolity are openly taught by 
 the paid clergy of the Established Church, which seems 
 nearly helpless to remove the evil, he would not have the 
 slightest sympathy with those who think Methodism should 
 dissolve her organization, arrest her operations, call home 
 her missionaries, and forever disappear from sight among 
 the heterogeneous elements of the Established Chvirch. He 
 could not sanction such a movement, without being recreant 
 *to the jninciplos and motives that governed his course dur- 
 injr his whole life. 
 
 With th(^ whole experience of over a century of Methodist 
 history to teach them, the Methodists of to-day claim to be 
 in a far better position to judge of the expediency, or inex- 
 pediency, of separation from the Established Church, than 
 Mr. Wesley was in when he expressed these opinions against 
 separation. Tt is true, that under the influence of the pre- ; 
 judices of his education he unguardedly said that if the 
 Methodists left the Church of England, he feared God would 
 leave them. But the past history of Methodism proves, be- , 
 yond all question, that he was wrong in saying this. His 
 fear was groundless. The grandest successes of Methodism, 
 both in England and America, were achieved after his death. 
 The one year, in which the sacraments were not adminis- 
 tered, was the first in which there was a decline in the num- 
 ber of members. After the settlement of the sacramental 
 question in England, the Wesleyan Church witnessed glori- 
 ous ingatherings, such as had never been seen duiing the » 
 life of Wesley. There can now be no doiibt, that the delay I 
 of Mr. Wesley, to allow his' Societies to enjoy the full rights 
 and privileges of an independent C^hurch, operated unfavor- f 
 ably to the progress of Methodism. This delay was the 
 greatest mistake of his life. In view of these facts, it is the j 
 weak resort of a weak cause, for High Churchmen to quote, 
 
8 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 as an infallible prophecy that should confound the Metho- 
 dists, an opinion that time has amply proved to be an eiTor 
 and a mistake. 
 
 As Wesley selected some of his writings to be a standard 
 of doctrine for his Societies, all appeals to Wesley's views 
 should be made to these standard works, and not to what he 
 himself deliberately excluded from that standard. Yet 
 Anglican priests constantly pick out from Wesley's early and 
 miscellaneous writings certain expressions that seem to favor 
 their views, as if all his opinions were accepted by both parties 
 as an infallible standard of appeal. But when he says any- 
 thing that does not suit them, he is no authority at all with 
 them. It is more adroit than honest to play ''fast and 
 loose " with Wesley's views in this manner. If the Anglican 
 contemners of Methodism do not accept Mr. Wesley's ac- 
 tions as a reformer, and his opinions on questions of Church 
 oi'der, as a standard that cannot be repudiated, they have no 
 riglit to hurl them, as iinanswei'able arguments, at those who 
 claim the same riglit of independent j udgment as themselves. 
 If they fully accept Wesley, it would be easy to show that 
 his principles and teachings utterly condemn their unscrip- 
 tural theories and pretensions. They should also remember, 
 that if the course of modern Methodism is clearly wrong, 
 Wesley's favorable opinion could not make it right ; and if 
 in harmony with God's word, the want of his endorsement 
 cannot make it wrong. But, though we claim for ourselves 
 as Methodists, the liberty of judgment and action which 
 every living Church must possess, we are far from being dis- 
 posed to admit the correctnes's of Anglican allegations re- 
 specting Mr. Wesley's views, and the historic position of 
 Methodism with relation to the Church of England, before 
 and since his death. 
 
' ( 9 )^ 
 
 11. 
 
 The Relationship of Wesley and of Methodism 
 
 TO THE Church of England. 
 1 In all these attacks on modern Methodism, it is \ 
 strangely taken for granted, as something that scarcely re- | 
 quires proof, that during Mr. Wesleg's life Methodism teas an . 
 organic part of the Church of England, and that after his \ 
 death, contrary to his injunctions, there roas a formal separa- | 
 tion or secession, hy loUch the Methodist Societies assumed a | 
 relationship to that Church wholly different from what they j 
 had sustained during his life. 
 
 Neither of these assumptions is true. While High 
 Churchmen are eagerly catching at anything in Wesley's 
 writings that seems capable of being turned against modern 
 Methodists, Anglican priests have never had the manlmess • 
 and candor to state the whole facts of the case fully and ^ 
 fairly They keep back and suppress everything that does | 
 not help their assumptions. But it must not be forgotten | 
 that many of the early preachers, and during Mr. Wesley s | 
 life thousands of the members in the Societies, had never be - <^. 
 longed to the English Church. Dr. Etheridge says that only 
 a minority had been members of the National Church ; 
 "others were accustomed to hear the gospel among the Non- 
 conformists, but the greater mass of them belonged to no 
 Church." How then could such people be said to secede 
 from a Church to which they never belonged ] At a later 
 period, in a similar manner, through the labors of Bourne 
 and Clowes the Primitive Methodist body began. It had 
 its birth in revivals of religion, that had not the slightest re- 
 semblance to a secession from the National Church ; it grew 
 up wholly outside of the Establishment. 
 
 And of John Wesley's connection with the Established 
 
10 HIGH CnUR(;i^ PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 Church of" England, a great deal more has been made, 
 for proselyting purposes, than the plain facts will justify. 
 He did not " remair. all his life a clergyman of that Church," 
 ■ in any sense that can help the cause of those who 
 desire to use his example for the condemnation of modern 
 ; Methodists. He was disowned by the Cliurch as a minister, 
 ;; and treated with contempt by the clergy for a generation, 
 I until some men found their way into her puli)its, whose 
 j religious life was a result of the great Methodist refor- 
 »f mation, in which he was the chief instrument. He com- 
 I pletely broke away from submission to the authority of the 
 ;| Church. He organized Societies, which had no organic 
 '" connection with it ; and over which it had not the 
 slightest control. He ordained preachers to administer the 
 sacraments, where he thought this necessary or exjiedient ; 
 and made legal provision for the independent organized 
 existence of the Methodist Connection after his death. He 
 prepared a constitution for an independent Methodist 
 Church in America ; ordained Coke a superintendent, and 
 appointed him and Asbury to ordain ministers to meet the 
 requirements of the American Church. He ordained Alex- 
 ander Mather to be a similar superintendent of the English 
 \ Connection. Except that he had been ordained by Bishop 
 ■( Potter, and never was expelled, he had little claim to be 
 I called " a clergyman of the Cliurch of England." He held 
 I no pastoral chai'ge, nor appointment of any kind, under the 
 1 authorities of that Church ; and acted in all things independ- 
 i ently of its ecclesiastical sanctions or authority. If any one 
 of Wesley's preachers had taken up such an independent 
 position in relation to Methodism as he took in respect to 
 the Church of England, and still claimed that he had not left 
 the Methodist body, would Wesley have admitted his claim 
 to be in good standing in the Methodist Society ] Certainly 
 
WESLEY AN INDEPENDENT WORKER. H 
 
 not Wesley's relation to the Church cannot possil)ly sus- 
 tain what it is cited to prove. Every Methodist minister in 
 England to-day might hold a similar kind of relationship to 
 the" English Church to what Wesley held, without his 
 doing so interfering with the separate and independent exist- 
 ence of the Wesleyan Church. In the face of these facts, 
 how can it be maintained that up to Wesley's death the 
 Methodist Societies remained connected with the National 
 Church ] Some of its founders had been ordained by bishops 
 of that Church ; and many of its members had been baptized 
 in it, and continued to attend its services ; but the Methodist 
 Societies, as an organization, never had any connection with j 
 the Church of England, and therefore could not secede from it. | 
 Why are these important facts of Wesley's history studiously | 
 ignored by Bishop Wordsworth and other High Churchmen, 
 who profess to admire Wesley 1 
 
 Though quoting the strong language sometimes used by 
 Wesley" against separation, without explaining what he 
 meant by separation, or what he said and did at other times 
 on the other side of the question, may mislead those who are 
 ignorant of the whole facts, it is not a candid method to pur- 
 sue. A full and impartial examination of all Mr. Wesley's 
 ntterances on this point will show, that while from educa- 
 tional prejudices, and the strong pressure of his brother 
 Charles and other High Church clergymen, he held out j 
 against a formal separation in England, he nevertheless sy in- ; 
 pathized with those who urged the need of assuming all the l 
 rights and privileges of a Christian Church— that he was | 
 deeply in^^ressed by their arguments, and clearly foresaw \ 
 that such a develQimient was inevitable, and yet took no 
 action to prevent it. I can only cite a few of his deliver- I 
 ances on this question, to substantiate what T have he.e 
 asserted. 
 
12 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 As early a« 1755 the question of separation and independ- 
 ence was debated in the Conference for three days ; and 
 the conchision arri/ed at was, that whether it was lawful 
 or not, it was not ex})edient to separate fi'om the Church. 
 Of those who argiied in favor of independence, Wesley 
 himself admitted, that though he " did not fluctuate, yet he 
 could not answer the arguments." He afterward wrote, " I 
 I have no fear about this mattei-, I only fear the preachers' 
 or the people's leaving, not the Church, but the love of God 
 and inward or outward holiness." '' Church or no C!hurch," 
 he again says, " we must attend to the work of saving 
 souls." The same year, 1755, after forcibly stating, in a letter 
 to the Rev. Samuel "VValkei-, the arguments urged against 
 continuing to attend the services of the Church, or receiving 
 the sacraments from men " who neither lived the gospel, 
 ■ taught it, nor knew it," he says : " I will freely ac- 
 knowledge, that I cannot answer these arguments to my 
 oimi satisfaction, so that my conclusion that I cannot 
 yet give up ' that it is lawful to continue in the Church," 
 stands almost loithout any pi'emises that can bear its 
 '• weight.''^ 
 
 In the same letter, after speaking of open air preaching, 
 the formation of Societies, preaching by lay preachers, and 
 extemporaneous prayer in public worship, he goes on to say : 
 " And were we pushed on this side, were no alternative 
 .. allowed, we should judge it our hounden duty, rather wholly 
 ' to separate from the Church, than to give up any of these 
 points. Therefore, if we cannot stop a separation, without 
 ' stopping lay preachers, the case is clear, we cannot stop it at 
 all." These things could not have been maintained without 
 . independence of the National Church. In the Minutes he re- 
 cords the opinion, that there is no Scriptural authority for a 
 National Church, which he designated "a merely political 
 
WHAT WESLEY MEANT BY SEPARaTICN. 13 
 
 institution;" and also says, "If any bishop wills that I should 
 not preach the gospel his will is no law to me." 
 
 The Minutes of 1786 contain a sort of apology, or 
 defence of his " ii-regularities," in which, after referring to 
 his ordinations for Scotland and America among other 
 things, he says, " Q'hese are the steps which, not of , 
 choice, but of necessity, I have slowly and deliberately ^ 
 taken. If anyone is pleased to call this separating from | 
 the Church he may ; but the law of England does not call it • 
 so ; nor can anyone be properly said so to do, unless out ol 
 conscience, he refuses to join in the service and partake of j 
 the sacraments administered therein." This and other . 
 statements show that Mr. Wesley and modern " Church- ' 
 men" do not mean the same thing by separation. After 
 the ordination of Pawson, Hanby, and Taylor by Mr. 
 Wesley at the Conference of 1785, Charles Wesley wrote 
 to him, reminding him that he had been reading over again 
 his "Reasons against Separation," and entreating him, 
 with the most solemn appeals, "to stop and proceed no 
 farther." He says, " You told me they would separate by- 
 and-bye. The Doctor (Coke) tells us the same. His Metho- 
 dist Episcopal Churdi in Baltimore is intended to beget a 
 Methodist Episcopal Church here. You know he comes 
 around with your authority to make us all Dissenters. One 
 of your sons in London told me, that not a preacher in London 
 would refuse orders from the Doctor," and more in the same 
 fault-finding, alarming style. In his reply to this and other 
 letters in the same vein, Wesley tells his brother, " For forty 
 years I have been in doubt what obedience is due to 
 ' heathenish priests and mitred infidels.' " He further says 
 that the most pious and sensible clergymen he had consulted 
 were as nrach '^ ..^z.ied about it as himself; that he felt under 
 no obligation to obey the bishops further tht! . the laws of the 
 
14 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 land required ; tliiit he l)elieved himself to be a Scriptural 
 bishop, lis much as any man in Europe, and having therefoi'c^ 
 a right to ordain ; that the uninterrupted succession he knew 
 to be a fable, which no man ever did or can prove; Init that 
 he had declined to exercise that right, merely in obedience to 
 the laws of the land ; that he still acknowledged the au- 
 thority of " mitred infidels," but sometimes with a doulting 
 conscience ', that by separation he meant not going to the 
 Church any more — and then adds, " all these ' Reasons 
 against a Separation from the Church' hi this senne, I sub- 
 scribe to still." Charles still pressed him with the statement 
 of Lord Mansfield to himself, that ''ordination was se))aration," 
 which coixld hardly be denied. John replies : " You say I 
 separate from the Church. I say I do not. If you cannot 
 or will not help me yourself, do not hinder those who can 
 and will. I must and will save as many souls as I can while 
 I live, ivithoiU heing careftd about what may lyossihly he when 
 I die" Still later, he maintains that his ordinations do not 
 mean separation, and he replies to the objection : — " But for 
 all this is it not possil)le there may be such a separation after 
 you are dead," in these words : " Undoubtedly it is. But 
 what I said at our first Conference about forty years ago, I 
 say still, ' I dare not omit doing what good I can while I 
 live, for fear of evils that may follow, when I am dead." In 
 this correspondence he quoted a line, in which Charles had 
 called the National clergy " heathenish priests and mitred 
 infidels." Charles hastened to disown and renounce the 
 sentiment. Wesley replies, " Your verse is a sad truth. I 
 see fifty times more of England than you do ; and / find 
 few exceptions to it," This is a dark picture. 
 
 On several occasions he defended the propriety of holding 
 service in Dublin, London, and other places, in the hours of 
 Church service. And in all his chapels, even before he 
 
Wesley's preachers licensed as dissenters. 16 
 
 ordained any of his own preachers, the sacraments were ad- 
 ministeerd as frequently as he and the limited staff of 
 ordained clergymen available could supply them ; though he 
 inconsistently persisted in maintaining that this was not 
 separating from the Church. Methodist congi-egations, which 
 had regular preaching and regular s^acraments, cannot be 
 regarded by modern Anglicans, as congregations of the 
 Established Church ; nor could they have been so regarded ' 
 by Mr. Wesley himself. Neither should it be forgotten, | 
 that during his life, most of the preachers received licenses i 
 to preach under an Act passed in the reign of William and ^ 
 Mary, " for exempting their Majesties' Protestant subjects, f 
 dissenting from the (jlmrch of Englmul, from certain penalties. " | 
 
 Charles Wesley does not agree with those High Church- 
 men of our day who maintain that John Wesley and 
 Methodism remained during his life in close and satisfactory 
 connection with the Church of England ; for he believed, that 
 in ordaining ministers and providing for the administrations 
 of the sacraments, " his brother had acted contrary to all his 
 declarations, protestations, and writings." Charles also wrote 
 in 1760 to Grimshaw, " Our preachers are mostly licensed, 
 and so are Dissenting INIinisters. They took out their i 
 licenses as Protestant Dissenters." Grimshaw replied : " The 
 Methodists are no longer members of the Church of England. 
 They are as real a body of Dissenters from lier as the Pres- 
 byterians, Baptists, Quakers, or any body of Independents." 
 These are witnesses that shoiild not be repudiated by Epis- 
 copalians. - 
 
 The following statement of Mr. Wesley — quoted very per- 
 tinently by the Rev. W. Hudson in his reply to the Bishop 
 of Lincoln as referring to a place in the diocese of Lincoln — 
 shows clearly that he was fully aware that complete separa- 
 tion from the Established Church was inevitable. He 
 
16 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 says : "I fain would prevent the members hero from 
 leaving the Chni'ch ; but I cannot do it. As Mr. G. is not 
 a pious man, but rather an enemy to piety, who frequently 
 preaches against the truth, and those that hold and love it, 
 I cannot with all my influence i)ersuade them either to hear 
 him, or to attend the sacrament administered by him. If 
 I cannot carry this jwint even ivkile I live, ivho then can do it 
 when I die ? And the case of Epworth is the case of every 
 Church, where the minister neither loves nor preaches the 
 Gospel. The Methodists will not attend his ministrations. 
 What then is to be done V (Wesley's Works, vol. iv., p. 
 413.) ^ 
 
 Even Charles Wesley saw what was coming, for he wrote 
 to one of the preachers, " after our departure you must 
 become either^^Church or Dissenting ministeis. " Yet, it is 
 most significant, that though Mi-. Wesley knew the convic- 
 tions of many of his preachers on the subject — though he 
 saw and felt the necessity of more ftdly providing the sacra- 
 ments for the Societies that were left without them, unless, 
 in most cases, they received them from profane and ungodly 
 men, some of whom would not admit Methodists to the 
 sacraments ; and though he evidently foresaw that the Con 
 nection must either be broken up, or assume fully all the 
 functions of a Chi;rcli, yet in these standards, by which he 
 limited and defined the powers of the Conference, he left not 
 a sentence that could be construed, as intending to prevent 
 the Connection taking upon itself all the rights and obliga- 
 tions of an independent Church. 
 
 In his address to the candidates at the Newcastle Confer- 
 ence of 1873, that point was well brought out by Rev. Luke 
 H. Wiseman. He said : " Look, then, at the trust deeds of 
 the Wesleyan chapels. These are all (with rare exceptions) 
 framed on Wesley's 'Deed of Declai'ation' ; an instrument 
 
THE POLL-DEED AND STANDARDS. 17 
 
 the validity of whicli, thanks to resolute opposition, has been 
 established by the highest legal authority. There you find 
 an elaborate definition of the powers of the Conference ; 
 there by a single line Wesley could have prevented the mem- 
 bers of that Conference from administering the sacraments. 
 But that line was left unwritten. The omission could not 
 have been accidental ; for he was at that time in the midst of 
 controversy on this very subject. A single line in that deed 
 has limited our ter-m of residence in a circuit to three years, 
 and you know how rigidly the rule is still maintained. A simi- 
 lar restriction with regard to ordination or the administration 
 of the sacraments would in law have been equally binding ; 
 biit the line was left unwritten. By the most solemn act of 
 his public life, John Wesley left the preachers and people / 
 free to act upon their own judgment with reference to the j 
 Church of England. The same may be said in regard to the ? 
 Sermons and Notes on the New Testament, and the collection \ 
 of Hymns prepared by Mr. Wesley for public worship. One | 
 clearly-worded sentence in the standard sermons could have 
 deprived us of the right of attaching Wesley's name to this 
 
 day's ceremonial, but no such sentence can be found. 
 
 ******* 
 
 It is true that he frequently exhorted both preachers and i 
 people not to leave the Church of England, and that in one l 
 published sermon (not in the standard series) he employs ; 
 strong language on this subject. But we must remember ^ 
 what he himself called ' The vehement prejudices of his 
 education ' — we must I'eraember his protestations that it was 
 ' for peace sake ' he gave such coimsel. And personal pre- : 
 ferences, or considei'ations of expediency a century ago, 
 cannot oiitweigh the great facts I have mentioned. Occa- . 
 sional exclamations attested the strength of his personal feel- 
 ing on this subject. But in no i:)ublished document of anj 
 
18 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 autlioritative character, neither in tlie Sermons, nor in the 
 
 Hymns, nor in th(3 Expositions, nor, above all, in the Deed 
 
 of Declaration, did he insert a word which could restrain 
 
 the free action of his Societies in regard to tlio Establish- 
 
 ment. Ho saw the inevitable direction of tlie current, and 
 
 J he religiously abstained from interference. If ho were now 
 
 ) amongst us ho would doubtless apply to English Methodism 
 
 j the language which, during liis lifetime, he applied to 
 
 I America : ' As our American brethren are now totally disen- 
 
 J; tangled both ft-om the State and from the English hierarchy, 
 
 I we dare not entangle them again, either with the one or the 
 
 I other. They are now at full liberty simply to follow th(i 
 
 f Scriptures and the primitive Church. And we judge it best 
 
 \ that they should stand fast in that liberty wherewith God 
 
 I has so strangely made them free.'" These facts, whicli 
 
 ■ cannot be gainsayed, show that Wesley's i)rofessions of 
 
 attachment to ''the Church " did not prevent him taking a 
 
 course which rendered an independent Methodist Church 
 
 inevitable. 
 
 2. Another baseless assumption commonly made by the 
 Sacramentarian opponents of modern Methodism is, that if 
 Wesley was now living he would condemn the present Metho- 
 dist Church as an unauthorized and schismatical organization, 
 and not a true Church. Bishop Wordsworth recently told the 
 Methodists of Lincolnshii-e, that if Wesley could come back to 
 us, he would tell us " that the essence of schism is to make 
 a separation or rent in a Church, or from a Church." Mr. 
 Wesley's known views respecting schism, and respecting 
 what constitutes a Scriptural Church, amply prove that he 
 could not consistently regard the Methodist Church of to-day 
 as either schismatic or unscriptural. Mr. Wesley most cer- 
 tainly did not hold that the peaceable and conscientious 
 separation of any number of persons from a Church of which 
 they disapproved, is a wicked and schismatic division, 
 
Wesley's views op schism. 19 
 
 In his note on 1 Cor. xi. 18, he has the following: — " In 
 the Church — in the public assembly — 1 hear there are schisma 
 among yon, and I partly believe it. — That is, I believe it of 
 some of you. It is plain that by nchisms is not meant any sepa- 
 ration from the Church, but uncharitable divisions in it ; for 
 the Corinthians continued to be one church ; and notwith- 
 standing all their strife and contention, there was no separa- 
 tion of any one l)arty from the rest, with regard to external 
 communion. And it is in the same sense that the word is 
 used, 1 Cor. i. 10 ; xii. 25 ; which are the only ])laces in the 
 New Testament beside this, where Church schisms are men- 
 tioned. Therefore the indulging any temper contrary to the 
 tender care of each other is the true Scrij)tural schism. This is, 
 therefore, a quite different thing from that oi'derly separation 
 from corrupt Cliurches, which latei- ages have stigmatized 
 as schism, and have made a pretence for the vilest cruelties, 
 oppressions, and murders, that have troubled the Christian 
 world. Both heresies and schisms are here mentioned in 
 very neai- the same sense ; imless by schisms be meant, 
 rather, those inward animosities which occasion heresies ; 
 that is, outward divisions or parties ; so that whilst one 
 said, ' 1 am of Paul,' another, * I am of Apollos,' this im- 
 plied both schism and heresy. So wonderfully have later 
 ages distorted the words heresy and schism from their Sciij)- 
 tural meaning. Heresy is not, in all the Bible, taken for 
 ' an error in fundamentals,' or in anything else ; nor schism 
 for any separation from the outward communion of others. 
 Therefore, both heresy and schism, in the modern sense of the 
 i^iords, are sins that the Scripture knoios 'nothing of ; but 
 were invented mere',^ to deprive mankind of the benefit of 
 j}rivate j^idgment and liberty of conscience." This sound and 
 reasonable view of the Scriptural meaning of " schism" will 
 be seen to apply much more pointedly to the discordant par- 
 
20 HIGH CHUROH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 ties iiiid (liviHions wliich oxist within th«! K.stablisliod Cluirch 
 to which tho Wesleyiins are 80 patronizingly invited to 
 " return" than to anything that distinguislies the origin oi- 
 present condition of the Methodist Churches in Europe and 
 America. 
 
 Neither do Wesley's published views, as to what consti- 
 tutes a Scriptural Churcli, give any countenance to the 
 exclusive views of High Church priests, or to their efforts 
 to make it appear that he would condemn the Methodist 
 Church of to-day, as not being a true, Scriptui'al Church. 
 In his sermon, " Of tho Church," in answer to the question, 
 "What is the Church T' he says: "The Catholic or uni- 
 versal Churcli is all the persons in the universe, whom God 
 hath so called out of the world, as to entitle them to the 
 preceding character ; as to be * one body,' united by * one 
 apirit ; ' having ' one faith, one hope, one bai)tism ; one God 
 and Father of all, who is above all, through all, and in 
 them all.' That part of this great body , of the Universal 
 Church which inhabits any one kingdom or nation, we may 
 |)roi)erly tei'm a National Church ; as, the Church of France, 
 tho Church of ICngland, the Church of Scotland. A smaller 
 part of the Universal Church, are the Ciiristians that 
 inhabit one city or town; as the Church of Ephesus, 
 and the rest of the seven Churches mentioned in the 
 Revelation. Two or three Christian believers united 
 together are a Church in the narrowest sense of the word. 
 Such was the Church in the house of Philemon, and that 
 in the house of Nymphas, mentioned in Col. iv. 15. A par- 
 ticidar Church may, therefore, consist of any number of mem- 
 bers, whetJier two or three, or tioo or three millions. But still, 
 whether they be larger or smaller, the same idea is to be pre- 
 served. They are ' one body ;' and have 'one Spirit,' one 
 Lord, one hope, one faith, one baptism ; one God and Father 
 of all." 
 
 ! 
 
Wesley's idea op a church. 21 
 
 He was not willing to accoi)t without modification the 
 definition of a Church in the Articles of the Engl inli Church. 
 Because ho could not consent to exclude from the Church all 
 congregations, in whicli any heretical doctrines were 
 preached, or in which the sacraments were not regularly ad- 
 ministered. 
 
 " According to this definition," says Dr. Abel Stevens, 
 " Wesley nuist have considered his own congregations, or 
 Societies, as real Churches. If * two or three Christian 
 believers united together are a Church;' if 'several of 
 those whom Cod hath called of the world, uniting together 
 in one congregation formed a larger Church ;' if a 'particular 
 Church may consist of any number of members, whether 
 two or three, or two or three millions,' what were his 
 Societies but Churches?" He must certainly have so re- 
 garded them ; for they fulfilled all the conditions of his own 
 definition of a Church, Accordingly, in his sermon on 
 "Schism," he uses the terms "Church" and "Society" j 
 interchangeably, as he had done in the Minutes. And in • 
 ins sermon on " The Ministerial Ofiice," in which he takes t 
 such High Church ground about ordination, after stating : 
 that the condition of admission to the Methodist Society was 
 to " fear God and work righteousness," he asks, " In what 
 Church or congregation beside, throughout the Christian • 
 world, can members be admitted upon these terras, without ) 
 any other conditions 1 " Does not this imply that he regarded '" 
 his Society as a Church 1 On what other supposition would 
 he have provided a distinct standard of doctrine for the 
 Methodist Societies ? If they were to belong to the Anglican | 
 Episcopal Church, this was wholly superfluous. f 
 
 -• It is also very significant, that when he prepared a consti- 
 tion for American Methodism, as an independent Church, 
 which had no connection whatever with the Episcopalian 
 
22 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 Church, he prescribed the same conditions of admission to 
 
 membership, the same rules of life, and the same discipline 
 
 for the administration of the internal affairs of the Church, 
 
 that were already in force in the English Societies. How 
 
 5 could he regard these American societies as a Church, and 
 
 1 deny that character to the English Societies. His Societies 
 
 ^ embraced thousands of Dissenters and others, who had 
 
 j joined the Methodist Connection because they were dissatis- 
 
 ■. fied with their previous Church relations, as well as for 
 
 other reasons. They lived and died without belonging to 
 
 any other Church. Can it for a moment be supposed that 
 
 Mr. Wesley regarded them as belonging to no Church, as 
 
 Anglicanism unwarrantably assumes 1 Not so, he evidently 
 
 regarded them as Churches within the National Church 1 As 
 
 Dr. Stevens justly remarks, " The chief difficulty among 
 
 ' Chiirchmen,' respecting Wesley's view of his United 
 
 Society, arises from the fact that they have not appreciated 
 
 his distinction between a simple spiritual Ch\irch and a 
 
 National Church." 
 
 Though Wesley in one sermon maintains that the call to 
 preach does not imply a right to administer' the sacraments, 
 he did not hold those views of Episcopal ordination, by 
 which the Anglicans condemn the ministry of modern 
 Methodism as invalid. In his address " to Dr. Coke, Mr. 
 Asbury, and thd brethren in North America," in which he 
 justifies himself for ordaining mmisters for America, pre- 
 paring a ritual, and constituting American Methodism an 
 independent Church, he says : " Lord King's account of the 
 primitive Church convinced me many years ago, that bishops 
 and presbyters are the same order, and consequently have 
 the same right to ordain. For many years I have been im- 
 portuned, from time to time, to exercise this right by ordain- 
 ing part of our travelling preachers. But I have still refused ; 
 
HIS VIEWS OF SEPARATION MISUNDERSTOOD. 23 
 
 not only for peace" sake, but because I was determined, as 
 little as possible, to violate the order of the National Church 
 to which I belonged." But the position of the Church in 
 America removed these scruples, and made it his duty to pro- 
 vide for '' these poor sheep in the wilderness." So far from 
 thinking it desirable, even if p}'acticable, to have these mis- 
 sionaries ordained by the Bishops of the National Church, in 
 the same document he says, " If they would ordain them 
 now, they would expect to govern them, and hoio grievously 
 would this entangle us !" There is not much desire for union 
 with " the Church " in this sentiment. It flatly contradicts 
 the Episcopalian theories about Wesley's views. 
 
 From all this we ai-e forced to the conclusion, that when 
 Wesley so earnestly warned the Methodists not to separate 
 from the Chui'ch of England, he could not mean all that 
 modern Episcopalians suppose him to mean. He could not 
 in fact mean anything, that would serve the purposes of 
 their argument against modern Methodists. He could not 
 possibly mean that the Methodist Societies were to be under 
 the control and direction of the " Church ; " for this 
 they had never been, and he fully provided that they never 
 should be. He could not mean that under no circumstances 
 they should assume the fimctions of an independent Church ; 
 for this had already been accomplished, with his full consent, 
 in the case of American Methodism, He could not mean 
 that all the Methodists should attend the services of the 
 Chiirch of England ; because for forty years in London, and 
 afterwards in other places, Methodist service was held at the 
 same hour as in the National Churches, with his consent. He 
 could not mean that to separate from the National Church 
 was unscriptural and schismatic ; for his " Reasons against 
 Separation " were all_ against its inexpediency — not its law- 
 fulness. He could not mean that in no case were they to 
 
 /- 
 
1 
 
 24 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 celebrate the sacraments out of the National Churches ; for by 
 the employment of ordained ministers, (sevei'al of whom had 
 for years acted indei)endently of the Church and its authori- 
 ties), and afterwards by the ordination of preachers for Scot" 
 land, and in some cases for England, he provided for the ad- 
 ministration of the sacraments, in Methodist chapels to 
 Methodist congregations. He could not mean that none but 
 episcopally-ordained ministers had a right to administer the 
 sacraments ; fo i- he had long held that bishops and presby- 
 ters were +he same order in the primitive Church and had 
 the same right to ordain. And in this matter he showed his 
 i faith by his deeds. He could not mean that the Conference 
 ( after his death were to be irrevocably bound by theories in 
 ' which they had no faith, rather than by their convictions of 
 what would be best for uhe prosperity of the work of God ; 
 I for he himself had sacrificed his strongest prejudices, when 
 he felt convinced that by so doing he could accomplish more 
 I good. Though he desired that, if practicable, his people 
 I should maintain the same kind of connection with the 
 I National Chiirch as during his life ; yet, surely the relation- 
 ; ship of Methodism to that Church at Mr. Wesley's death 
 •f was not such as could be satisfactory to either ancient or 
 s modern High Churchmen. Have they ever paused to ask 
 'j themselves what that connection was 1 As we have already 
 I said, it consisted solely in the fact that a part of the mem- 
 '\ bership were communicants, and that some of the helpers 
 and Wesley himself had foi'inerly been ordained in that 
 Church. This was all. As a society, and as a denomination, it 
 had no connection whatever with the National Church. Arid 
 it was John Wesley himself ivho, hy legal provision, made it 
 certain that it never should have any such connection / 
 
 3. Equa'ly baseless is the allegation that modern Methodists 
 have departed from Wesley's principles. This charge is rather 
 
METHODISTS HAVE KEPT THE FAITH. 25 
 
 general, but from whatever point of view we regard it, it is 
 utterly uusupported by facts. It cannot meon that we have 
 renounced the doctrinal system of Wesley. Amid defection 
 and heresy, Methodism has nobly " kept the faith." The 
 doctrines of Justification by Faith alone, the New Birth, the 
 Witness of the Spirit, Christian Perfection, and all the great 
 verities of the gospel which distinguished Wesley's teach- 
 ing, are faithfully and fully proclaimed from our pulpits. 
 Wherever a representative of Methodism stands up to 
 address the people, they hear no uncertain sound, and are 
 perplexed by no strange gospel. It cannot mean that 
 we have changed the General Rules, or the Discipline ; 
 as these are still religiously maintained. Neither can it 
 mean that the modes of worship are changed, or that class 
 and prayer-meetings, love-feasts and watch-nights, have been 
 abandoned; this would be obviously incorrect. Neither 
 can it be truthfullv said, that the zeal and fire of early 
 Methodism have declined. In spite of the complaints of 
 croakers and scorners, Methodism never wielded so great 
 and widespread a spiritual influence as to-day. Neither in 
 doctrine nor discipline, in the form or spirit of our wor- 
 ship, nor in our guiding principles, have we departed from 
 Wesley's principles. He was no theorist. All the methods 
 he adopted were to meet practical wants. They were not 
 planned beforehand. Most of them, such as the employ- 
 ment of lay preachers— the building of chapels— the giving 
 of the Connection an independent legal existence— the hold- 
 ing of service during Church hours— the administration of 
 the sacraments in Methodist congregations-the ordination 
 of ministers for Scotland and America— and the organiza- 
 tion of an independent Methodist Church in America, were 
 things that he, at one time of his life, would have strongly 
 opposed. These changes were all adopted at the sacrifice of 
 
26 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 strong educational prejudices, in obedience to the higher 
 law of doing, at all times, what in his judgment most pro- 
 moted God's glory and the salvation of men. This principle 
 was to him far above any theories of Church order, however 
 venerable. We hope it may never be otherwise with " the 
 People called Methodists." 
 
 The necessary modifications, in things non-essential, that 
 have been adopted since Mr. Wesley's day, have all taken 
 place in obedience to the same principle of Christian expedi- 
 ency, by which he was governed in the adoption of all the 
 deviations from established usage, that he introduced 
 during his life. If that principle was safe and right for 
 Wesley, as we believe it was, it could not be evil and wi-ong 
 ^ for those who succeeded him. The changes in Methodism 
 •f since his death are not so great as those that he himself in- 
 / troduced during his life. It is most absurd and unwarrant- 
 I able to assume that if he liad been living in mature man- 
 I hood, during the last eighty years, he would have conceded 
 1 no further modifications to give increased efliciency to the 
 working machinery of the Church j or that no further in- 
 roads would have been made upon the prejudices of his 
 ecclesiastical education. Yet tliis absurd assumption is the 
 basis of the Anglican allegation, that modern Methodists 
 have abandoned Wesley's principles ! 
 
 4. The assumption, ivhich is constantly taken for granted hy 
 
 " Churchmen," that after the death of Weshy there was a 
 
 schism in the Church of England, made by the Methodist 
 
 Societies separating from that Church, is not sustained by the 
 
 facts of history. No such secessiooi really took place, 
 
 \ It has been already clearly shown, that notwithstanding 
 
 i Mr. Wesley's strong expressions against separation from the 
 
 /! Church of England, he left Methodism practically and 
 
 1 1 organically independent of every other Church. The only 
 
THE WESLEYANS FULLY JUSTIFIED. 27 
 
 connection it had with the Estahlishment was the personal 
 connection of some of its members, which has been ah-eady 
 mentioned — a state of things that continued long after Mr. 
 Wesley's death. There was no disruption or seccession. 
 The question to be solved by the Conference was not 
 whether the Connection should be independent of the 
 Church ; but whether the numerous congregations, which 
 God had raised up by the labors of these self-denying men- 
 and to whom they regularly preached the word of life, 
 should be left without the sacraments, which Christ had 
 ordamed to bo observed in his Church. A few of the \ 
 preachers, and some of the people, who had probably been | 
 influenced by Charles Wesley's High Church theories j 
 opposed any extension of the administration of the sacra- 
 ments ; and would probably have approved of giving them 
 up, even in those cases where Wesley had allowed them. 
 But the great majority of preachers and people believed! 
 that they were neglecting a Scriptural duty, and seriously | 
 impeding the progress of the work of God by not giving thej 
 sacraments to the members of the Societies. As the Kisen! 
 Redeemer, in giving the great gospel commission to his di»^^ 
 ciples, had directly joined the work of "teaching" with 
 " baptizing," if they believed themselves to be divinely ap-t 
 pointed teachers and pastors, they had no more right to; 
 refuse to administer the sacraments, to those whom they 
 regarded as proper recipients, than they had to keep back :^ 
 the message of tnith which the Holy Ghost had called ^ 
 them to preach. The one, as well as the other, was included I 
 in their commission. 
 
 It was a crisis in the history of Methodism. They must 
 either go forward and carry out consistently the principle of 
 Christian expediency that had governed Wesley's life; or 
 else go backward, and arrest and cripple the great religious 
 
28 HIGH CHURCH PRETEFSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 movement in whicli God had so signally honored them. 
 Wesley's expressed sentiments against separation could not 
 be expected to restrain his followers, to a, gi-eater extent 
 than ever they had restained his own freedom of action. 
 
 Yet, no hasty measures weie adopted. The state of the 
 Connection elicited much pniyer, deliberation, and discus- 
 sion. The Conference, at its first meeting after Wesley's 
 death, resolved to adhere fully to the plan and directions 
 
 ^ which Wesley had left for its guidance. The next year, for 
 the sake of peace, by mutual agi-eement, they agreed to 
 abstain for one year from administering the sacraments in 
 the congregations ; and had that year a decrease of several 
 hundreds in the number of members. The next year, it was 
 wisely agreed that no preacher should be ordained except 
 with the consent of the Confei'ence. The year following, 
 the Conference agreed that, in those places where the 
 Societies unanimously desired the admmistration of the 
 sacraments by their own preachers, they should be so given ; 
 and that all who had been received into full connection 
 
 J with the Conference should be authorized to administer the 
 sacraments, without imposition of hands. This decision 
 practically solved the great question which Wesley left un- 
 solved at his death, and saved the Connection from disin- 
 tegration. "The plan of pacification" of 1795 was an ex- 
 pansion of this principle. It provided, in a judicious way, 
 for accomplishing several necessary things for which no 
 previous provision had been made. This plan had no :liing 
 schismatic in it. It neither recommended nor compelled 
 any one to leave the Church of England. It made no prac- 
 tical change in the relationship of Methodism to the Estab- 
 lishment. It gave a bond of unity to Methodism. It was 
 not the assiimption of independence. It simply made such 
 provision for the internal management of the affairs of the 
 
METHODISM NEVER FORMALLY SECEDED. 29 
 
 Methodist Church as its previous independence had ren- 
 dered necessary. It was tlie natural and inevitable result of 
 Wesley's guiding principles and personal practice. Nor was 
 it a small virtue in this plan, that it wisely and manfully re- 
 pudiated the false assumption, that one man, because he 
 happens to be an ordained minister or bishoy), has a right to 
 ordain and invest with ministerial authority anyone whom 
 he chooses. 
 
 Like the origin nnd growth of Methodism, the adoi)tion 
 of " the plan of pacification " took place outside of the 
 Church of England, not within it. This could not be called 
 a schism or separation, because it was the act of a religious 
 denomination, already wholly independent of the National 
 Church. But if the more complete organization of Metho- 
 dist agencies from 1790 to 1795 was not a separation, then 
 there has been no such secession since Wesley's death, as 
 has been frequently alleged. Just to test the truth of the 
 allegation, that there was such a secession, let us take the 
 history of one congregation, say that of City Road, as a 
 sample of the whole Connection. Was the congregation of 
 City Road Chapel, during Wesley's life, a congregation of "' 
 the Church of England, acknowledged as such by the j 
 authorities of that Church 1 or was it not 1 If it was, when \ 
 did it cease to be such 1 If it was not, as must be admitted ; 
 by all who know the facts, then how can it have separated 
 since Wesley's death 1 
 
 The only withdrawal that ever took place was that of 
 individuals ; and the only blame that can, with any show of 
 justice, be awarded, is to those who Avithdrew from the 
 parish chiu'ches, because they could not remain without 
 defiling their consciences. That they were amj^ly justified in 
 ceasing to attend these services will be admitted by all who 
 impartially consider tlieir circumstances. Dr. Stevens says : 
 
30 HIGH CHURCH PRETKNSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 " In many cases the national clergy, u})on whom tlie Societies 
 were dependent for the means of grace, were flagitiously im- 
 moral ; they had been often found at tlio head of mobs 
 attacking the .Methodists, who were to receive the Eucharist 
 from their hands the next Sal)bath. In not a few instances 
 the Methodists were denied the right of communion. Wes- 
 ley himself had been expelled from the sacramental altar by 
 the drunken curate of Ji^pworth ; his brother had been 
 treated in like manner in Wales ; his adherents were so 
 treatet" in Bristol, Leeds, and parts of Derbyshii-e." i^'rom 
 these facts it is clear, that, even if we were to admit, which 
 we do not, that there was a deploi-able schism at that time, 
 the sin and blame of it must be charged to the clergy of the 
 Establishment, and not to the Methodists, who had really 
 no alternative but to sacrifice the interests of the Connec- 
 tion, and pollute tjieir consciences, by sinning against their 
 own convictions. 
 
 It is utterly unfair and futile for " Churchmen " to con- 
 demn the course of the Wesleyan Conference, in the years 
 succeeding Wesley's death, as if its members must be judged 
 by certain High Church theories of ordination, the truth of 
 which they utterly repudiated. These Methodists are con- 
 demned, when judged by a certain standard. But they 
 would reply, that the standard itself is a false, human 
 theory, witliout divine authority. The motives, principles, 
 and views of truth and duty, that inspired their course of 
 action, must be shown to be wrong before they can be con- 
 demned. I have no hesitation in saying, they would have 
 been recreant to theii" great trust, and unworthy of the posi- 
 tion God had given them, as leaders of the grandest religious 
 movement of modern history, if they had acted in that crisis 
 as High Churchmen think they should have done. Their 
 commission, as divinely-appointed ambassadors of God, had 
 
SEPARATION AND INDEPENDKNCK A NECESSITY. 31 
 
 been ratified from on higli. Mr. Wesley, by his own 
 agency, and that of others, partially provided for supplying 
 the Methodists with the sacraments dnring his lif(^ ; bnt 
 even this source of supply woidd not be available in the 
 future. The necessity for such a provision had increased 
 with the extension of the work. The })artinv concession of 
 the sacraments, by Wesley, could only have the effect of i-en- 
 floring their general administration necessary at the last. 
 Very few of the preachers shared Wesley's j)rejudices about 
 separation fi-om the State Church ; or those views respect- 
 ing the priestly office which Henry Moore frankly told him 
 were " not found in 'niK book." Even had they deemed it 
 right, they could not compel the i)eople against their own 
 convictions, to go for the sacraments to profane clergymen 
 who despised and persecuted them. 
 
 The dissatisfaction of many Societies was so great, that 
 already signs of division and secession had made their 
 appearance. They felt bound in these circumstances to do 
 what they believed was most in harmony with the teaching 
 of God's word, and the dictates of unprejudiced reason, and 
 best adapted to promote the salvation of men. To make 
 Wesley's prejudices, in which they did not believe, the rule 
 of their action would have been an unworthy course. Even 
 if the clergy of the Establishment, and the people and 
 preachers of Methodism, had both desired that in future 
 the Methodist Societies should exist in the Church, and 
 under its control there cannot be a doubt, that to take the 
 movement out of the hands of those who had conducted it 
 thus far, and to place it under the charge of those who had 
 no sympathy with it, and no qualification to direct it, would 
 have resulted in its speedy arrest and final overthrow. But 
 there were no such feelings on either side. The clergy of 
 ' that day, with few exceptions, were either indifferent or 
 
32 HIGH CHURCH PRKTENfilONR DISPROVED. 
 
 bitterly hostile to the Methodist preacliers. And, on the 
 other liand, the great majority of the Methodists were dis- 
 gusted at the general ignorance, ungodliness, and iin-Chris- 
 tian bitterness of the clei'gy ; and felt that they could not 
 with a good conscience ap[)ear to sanction such men, by 
 attending their ministry, or receiving the sacraments at 
 their hands. In favor of the course finally adopted were 
 the examj)le of Wesley in similar dithculties, the plain com- 
 mand of the Risen Saviour, and their strong conviction 
 that this was best for the wprk of God. To deter them from 
 adopting that course, apart from local and personal opposi- 
 tion, there was nothing but certain sentiments expressed by 
 Wesley, not in harmony with his own actions, and based on 
 opinions which they did not share ; .md the theory of a 
 necessary physical Episcopal succession, which they repudi 
 ated as unscriptural, and injurious and misleading to those 
 who embraced it. 
 
 III. 
 
 Episcopalian Objections against the Methodist Church 
 
 SHOWN to be based ON HUMAN THEORIES, THAT ARE 
 
 contrary TO Scripture and unprejudiced Reason. 
 
 The sectarian allegation of exclusive Episcopalian priests, 
 that the Methodists and other Protestant Churches are noj; 
 true branches of the Church of Christ, is based upon the 
 theory that an unbroken succession of episcopally-ordained 
 ministers is essential to constitute a true ani Scriptural 
 Church. And as the Methodists are declared to be without 
 such a ministry, and to have unjustifia^ W separated from 
 what is claimed to be the only true bi nch of the Holy 
 Catholic Church in Britain and America, our ministry and 
 sacraments are pronounced not valid, and our Church mem- 
 bers assumed to have only such uncovenanted mercies as 
 
A TRUE HISTORIC CONNECTION. 33 
 
 the Diviiu) hoiiiity may Ixistow upon tlioso wJio nro outsido 
 
 « 
 
 of the palo of tlio true ( 'liurch, Tlie actual (li.sadvantagos of 
 all this are not clear, however, so long as men are saved in 
 this way. 
 
 We might reply to this, that even if tlio theory of the 
 Apostolic snccessipn were true, we are just as directly and 
 as logitimatoly connected with the histoi'ic Christian Church 
 of the })ast as they are. We can trace our ecclesiastical 
 pedigree back, through Jclin Wesley, to the very same 
 source of whicii they boast. He was a duly ordained pres- 
 byter of the l<]nglish Church, a Scriptural bishop, and a true 
 aml)assador l>y divine appointment. For our oj^ponents to 
 say that the succession to be of value must l)o episcopal, in 
 the modern .sense, and not merely i)res])ytorial, is an un- 
 authorised assertion, that has no support either in Scripture 
 or in the history of the primitive Church. We are histori- 
 cally connected with the Church of Apostolic times as well 
 as they. Our succession is therefore just as good as that of 
 our Episcopalian oi)ponents. But this I deem a small 
 matter, as I wholly repudiate, as false and unscriptural, the 
 dogma that mysterious ministerial grace and divine authority 
 to ordain others are conveyed from one man to another by 
 ordination. 
 
 1. TJie theory of the necessity of an tinbroken A'postolic, or 
 Bpiscojxd siLCcession of ordinations is ivhoUy loithout sanction 
 or support in the New Testament. It has never been main- 
 tained by any one, that this theory is explicitly stated in the 
 Holy Scriptures. Neither Christ nor his Apostles any- 
 where declare that ordination bestows the exclusive right to 
 ordain others without the sanction of the Church ; or that 
 such an unbroken succession is essential to a true Church. 
 There is not one word, even, referring to a liceal succession 
 of bishops from the Apostles, or to a lineal succession of 
 2* 
 
34 HIGH CHUHCn PRETENSIONS OISIMIOVED. 
 
 ininiHtcirH of any kind. If this doctriuo wore true, tlio New 
 Testament would never have been silent respecting some- 
 thing essential to a true Church. The fact that Timothy 
 and Titus are exhorted to a})[)oint bisliops in Ephesus and 
 Crete, cannot hel[) the succcissionists, as long as the i)articular 
 manner of such apj)ointments is not specified. The })ishops 
 ordaincid by these pastors would doubtless be appointed, in 
 a way similar to that in which other bishops, and the seven 
 deacons were ajipointed. They were first chosen and ap 
 proved by the (Jluu'ch, and then set apart to the oiUce of the 
 ministry by laying on of hands and prayer. Indeed, the 
 fact that pastors and evangelists, like* Timothy and Titus, 
 had the right to ordain bishops, during the lives of the 
 Apostles, shows clearly that the Apostles claimed no exclu- 
 sive right of ordaining bishops, and, therefore, there could 
 have been no belief in the succession theory in the Apostolic 
 Church. The language of St. Paul to Timothy, reminding 
 him of the gift he had received by the laying on of his hands, 
 demands no theory of succession to enable us to comprehend 
 its meaiJng. All the attem])ts at adducing Scri})tiiral proof 
 for this theory, consist in far-fetched and strained interpre- 
 tations of passages that cannot fairly bear any such con- 
 struction. We know that in the Apostolic Church men 
 were set apart to any special Christian work by laying on of 
 hands. But this no more proves the modern doctrine of 
 Apostolic Succession, than ordination to ministerial work 
 among Methodists and Presbyterians proves that these 
 Churches hold that dogma. 
 
 An examination of the Scripture references to the Apos- 
 tolic office proves conclusively that it v as extraordinary and 
 temporary. They were the chosen witnesses of Christ's 
 resurrection, appointed diiectly by Christ himself, and en- 
 dowed with the powei- of working miracles, to attest the 
 
APOSTOLIC SUCCESHION UNSCRIPTURAL. 35 
 
 truth of their apostloship. From tlie very nature of tho 
 Apostolic olfice, and the qualiHcatioriH it ihMuauded, tho 
 A])0stles could have no succesHors. None since have pos- 
 sessed the marks and (jualillcatious of tho Ajmstles. Indeed, 
 80 evident is it that the New Testament gives no counten- 
 ance to this modern invinition, that such Anglican divines 
 as Hammond, Dodwell, Beveridgo, and others, while main- 
 taining this theory, have confessed that sui)port for it nuist 
 be found in later writings, rather than in the New Testa- 
 ment. Jiecause the Apostles had power by the laying on of 
 their hands to impart the Holy Ghost, this surely can b(; 
 no justification for those, who [jossess no siich j)ower, to 
 attempt to magnify their own importance, by pretending to 
 a gift of which they are destitute. Such men may more 
 fitly be said to l)e the successors of Simon Magus than of 
 the Apostles. He also desired the power of bestowing the 
 Holy Ghost by imposition of hands, that it might give him 
 special honor and importance in the eyes of the people ; but 
 he had neither lot nor part in the matter. 
 
 Though we rei)udiate this false and unfounded dogma of 
 succession, we believe in a true and Scriptural Apostolic suc- 
 cession ; " made, not according to the law of a carnal com- 
 mandment, but after the power of an endless life." Wo 
 fully endorse the following sentiments of the Kev. Henry 
 Bleby : — " All faithful ministers of the word of life, possess- 
 ing the spirit of the Apostles, preaching the doctriiies which 
 the Apostles preached and no other, and imitating the zeal 
 and devotedness of the Apostles, are their true successors in 
 that ministry of the Gospel which they were the first to 
 exercise, and which is God's instrumentality to enlighten 
 and save the world, — but not in the Apostleship, This 
 is the only sen,'e in which any can succeed them. And 
 those who are • destitute of the piety and zeal and devoted- 
 
36 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 ness of the Apostles, or depart in doctrine from their teach- 
 'ing, are in no sense whatever the successors of those men of 
 God. Call them what yoii may, — Popes, Bishops, Priests, 
 or Deacons, — they ai-e but intruders into an office to which 
 God never called them, the duties of which they are not 
 qualified to fulfil, and the assiim})tion of which will end only 
 in exposing them to shame and everlasting contempt. * If 
 any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of 
 His.' " — {High Church Glainns Investigated.) 
 
 2. The High Church theory of Episcopacy and Siiccession, 
 is contrary to the belie/ and j^ractice of the Christian Church, 
 in the period immediately succeeding the Apostolic age. 
 Mosheim says : " The rulers of the people were either 
 presbyters or bishoi)s, — titles which in the New Testament 
 are undoubtedly applied to the same order of men." De 
 Pressense says : " The bishopric in the primitive form was 
 identical with the office of elder." And again, " Eegarded 
 from the stand-point of Episcopal theories, it is imjiossible 
 to harmonize the evidence of the Fathers as to Clement's 
 (Romanus) entry upon his office." Lord Chancellor King 
 shows, by unanswerable arguments, that in the primitive 
 Church bishops and presbyters were of the same order ; and 
 that presbyters took i)art in ordaining bishops and deacons, 
 and performed all the official acts of bishops. Mosheim 
 warns us against confounding the primitive bishojis with 
 those of later time who were called by that name. He .says, 
 ** A bishop, diiring the first and second century, was a per- 
 son who had the care of one Christian assembly, which at 
 that time was, generally speaking, small enough to be con- 
 tained in a private house." Many similar testimonies might 
 be quoted, but this will suffice to shoAV, that the modern 
 type of Episcopacy, and the theory of three distinct orders 
 of ministers were unknown in the Apostolic Church. 
 
CONTRARY TO PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY. 37 
 
 The theory, thrit it is the prerogative of a bishop alone to 
 receive and ordain men to tlie office of the ministry, finds 
 no support in the practice or belief of the primitive Church. 
 Lord King says : " When the bishop of a Church was dead, 
 all the people of that Church met together in one place to 
 choose a new bishop." He quotes several examples from the 
 fathers, in proof of the prevalence of this practice. After 
 the bishop was chosen by the people, a number of pastors or 
 bishops met and ordained him in the presence of the congre- 
 gation. He quotes Bishop Cyprian us writing from his exile 
 respecting his own habit of consulting the people, " therein 
 imitating the example of the Apostles and Apostolic men, 
 who ordained none but with ' the approbation of the whole 
 Church.' " Mosheim says ; " It Avas therefore the assembly 
 of the people, which chose rulers and teachers, or received 
 them by a free and authoritative consent, when recom- 
 mended by others." Lord King also quotes Clement of 
 Rome as stating that, in the planting of the Churches, the 
 Apostles and the Apostolic men " ordained bishops and 
 deacons, with the consent of the whole Church." So far 
 from one prelate being invested with exclusive authority to 
 ordain. King tells us, " the more bisho^js there were present 
 at an instalment, the more did its validity and unquestion- 
 ableness appear." He cites cases in which three, five, six- 
 teen, and even twenty-five bishops (pastors) took part in the 
 ordination of a bishoj). WicklifFe, the great Reformer, says : 
 " I affirm that in the time of Paul, the presbyter and bishop 
 were names of the same office." This view is maintained by 
 Calvin, Erasmus, Beza, Melant;thon, and most of the divines 
 of the Reformation period in England. Though the early 
 fathers are anxious to trace their authority for doctrines to 
 the Apostles and their companions, I know of no case where 
 any of them appeal to an unbroken lineal succession of ordi- 
 
38 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 nations as the proof of their ministerial authority. Space 
 will not allow me to pursue this argument. The difterence 
 in this matter between th'> practice of the primitive Church, 
 and that of modern Romanists and Episcopalians, is as 
 great as it well can be. Yet tliPSvj two sects would fain per- 
 suade us that they are the only Churches that properly re- 
 gard the example of Christian antiquity ! But their theories 
 are a much more modern invention. The Apostolic Church 
 knew them not, and could not, therefore, sanction them. 
 
 3. TJds theory of Apostolical Succession, and exclusively 
 Episcopal ordination, is not the doctrine of the Church of 
 U/igland, as presented in her standards, or expounded by Iter 
 noblest sons. Mr. Bieby pertinently says : " It is not so 
 much as named in the Articles, the Liturgy or the Homilies 
 of that Church, and it is strongly and plainly i-epudiated by 
 many of the Reformers." In the controversy that arose re- 
 specting the Dean of Canterbury and the late Bishop Cum- 
 mins partaking of the Lord's Supper in a Presbyterian 
 Church, it was conclusively shown, that the Church of the 
 Reformation in England did not, either in her practice or 
 teaching, maintain that Episcopal orders alone were valid. 
 Some of her greatest divines maintained the validity of non- 
 episcopal orders. For many years after the Reformation, 
 Presbyterian divines were received in England and admitted 
 to parishes without reordination, as Peter Martyr and 
 Martin Bucer, who held seats as professors of theology in 
 the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Though the 
 theory may have been held by some divines, it was not till 
 the time of Charles I. that it was acted upon as the law of 
 the Church. As Professor Fisher recently showed in an 
 able article in the JV. Y. Imlependent, '* the doctrine of 
 apostolical succession, in the sense that Churches without 
 bishops are destitute of a lawful ministry, had no consider- 
 
NOT A DOCTRINE OF THE REFORxMATION. 39 
 
 able number of adherents in the English Church until, in 
 the reigns of James I. and Charles I. the contest with Puri- 
 tanism drove a portion of the Episcopal party to this ex- 
 treme." The change in the practice of the Church was 
 caused, mainly, by the bigoted and intolerant Bishop Laud ; 
 of whom Macaulay says, that " of all the prelates of the 
 Anglican Church, he had departed farthest from the 
 piinciples of the Reformation, and had drawn nearest to 
 Rome." 
 
 Cranmer, the mai*tyr-Archbishop, though educated in 
 Romish ideas, wholly rejjudiated this doctrine of succession. 
 He maintained that ceremonies of induction, however appro- 
 priate, were not necessary. His own words are : "In the 
 New Testament, he that is appointed to be Bishop or Priest 
 needeth no consecration by the Scripture ; for election or 
 appointing thereto is sufficient." And as Dr. Fisher says, 
 even ** Whitgift, the great oj)ponent of Puritanism, never 
 impeaches the validity of the ordination practised in the 
 foreign churches. He recognizes them, as Cranmer, Parker, 
 and Grindal had done before him. Hooker, the repre- 
 sentative and champion of Episcopacy, and Dean Field, his 
 distinguished associate, explicitly allow Presbyterian ordina- 
 tion in the case of the reformed churches on the Continent." 
 Bishop White, quoted by Mr. Bleby, says : " Personal and 
 local succession only, and in itself, maketh not the Church 
 apostolical," " Wheresoever the true faith contained in the 
 Scriptures is professed and embraced, there is the whole and 
 full nature of an apostolic Church ; for the external succes- 
 sion we care not." Bishop Jewell says : " The grace of God 
 is promised to pious souls, and to those who fear God, and 
 is not affixed to Bishops' chairs and succession." In the list 
 of great divines who denied the succession theory in the 
 seventeenth century stand the illustrious names of Bishop 
 
40 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 Stillingfleet and Archbishop Usher. As to our own times, 
 it is only necessaiy to mention the names of Whateley and 
 Arnold, ' 
 
 Stillingfleet, Bishop of Norwich, was one of the noblest 
 men the English Church ever produced. He not only 
 oi)posed this unscrijitural dogma himself, but in his cele- 
 brated Irenicum he classifies the views of eminent English 
 and foreign divines resjjecting Episcopacy. He shows 
 that most of the English divines, since the Reformation, 
 had held that the form of Church government was mutable, 
 depending on the wisdom of the magistrate and of the 
 Church. He quotes Cranmer approvingly, as to ordination 
 not being at all essential. Ai'chbishop Whitgift, Bishops 
 Bridges, Hooker and others, it is shown, advocated the same 
 general view. Secondly, he refers to the divines who had 
 believed in the original parity of the clergy, yet con- 
 sidered Episcopacy lawful. Here are placed Calvin, Beza, 
 Melancthon, and others. Thirdly, he enumerates those who 
 judge Episcopacy to be the primitive form, yet look not on it 
 as necessary. Here come Bishops Jewel, Fulk, Field, and 
 many more. All these men who are named under the three 
 heads, whatever their views respecting the origin and 
 antiquity of episcopacy, considered it neither necessary on 
 the one hand, nor wrong and intolerable on the other. 
 Cranmer explicitly declares that bishops and priests were 
 " one office at the beginning of Christ's religion ;" and a state- 
 ment to the eflect "that in the New Testament there is no 
 mention made of any degrees or distinctions in orders, but 
 only of deacons or ministers, and priests or bishops," was 
 subscribed by thirteen bishops with a great number of other 
 ecclesiastics. So that these High Churchmen, who so recklessly 
 charge the Methodists with deserting Wesley's principles, 
 are themselves recreant to the great Protestant principles of 
 
SUCCESSION NOT HISTORICALLY TRITE. 41 
 
 the illustrious Reformers to whom England owes so much. 
 It is no part of my design to condemn those who prefer the 
 Episcopal form of government. But these facts are sufficient 
 to show beyond question, that the views of R})iscopal ordina- 
 tion, now maintained by High Churchmen, are a departure 
 from the simpler and more Scriptural faith of the Reforma- 
 tion — a long stride back toAvards Rome. 
 
 4, TJte alleged succession is not historically true. T mean, 
 that there has been no such unbroken succession of ordina- 
 tions in the past. Such a succession cannot be proved. And 
 it is morally certain that such an unbroken chain never ex- 
 isted. The world recently saw that the champions of popery 
 in Rome could not even prove that St. Peter was ever at 
 Rome, to say nothing of his ordinations. The facts already 
 mentioned, that in the primitive Church several pastors took 
 part in each ordination, and that the modern popish view of 
 ordination was unknown, would naturally render it impossi- 
 ble to trace each ordination to any one bishop or presbyter. 
 The " Church " curate who comes with a printed list of his 
 ecclesiastical pedigree, up to the Apostles, must have 
 wonderful confidence in the ignorance of those whom he ex- 
 pects to accept his list with unquestioning faith. Many 
 eminent ministers and laymen of the English Church, who 
 have made this subject a special study, have confessed that 
 the historical succession is utterly untenable. Chillingworth 
 said, " I am fully persuaded there hath been no such 
 succession." Lord Macaulay says : " Even if it were possi- 
 ble, which it assuredly is not, to prove that the Church had 
 the Apostolical orders in the third century, it would be im- 
 possible to prove that those orders were not in the twelfth 
 century so far lostt that no ecclesiastic could be certain of 
 the legitimate descent of his own spiritual character. 
 We see no satisfactory proof of the fact that the Church of 
 England possesses the /Vpostolic succession." 
 
42 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 Bishop Hoadly says : " It hath not pleased God in his 
 providence to keej:) iij) any proof of the least probability, or 
 moral possibility, of a regular uninterrupted succession ; but 
 there is a great appearance, and humanly speaking, a cer- 
 tainty to the contrary that the succession hath often been 
 intermitted. Dr. Comber, an eminent divine, quoted by Mr. 
 Bleby, says, " There is neither truth nor certainty in the 
 pretended succession of the first popes." Bishop Stillingfleet 
 says : " Come we therefore to Rome, and here the succession 
 is as muddy as the Tiber itself. . . . The succession so 
 much pleaded by the writers of the primitive Church, was 
 not a succession of persons in Ai)Ostolic power, but a succes- 
 sion in Apostolic doctrine." Archbishop Whately says : 
 " There is not a minister in all C*hristendom who is able to 
 trace up, with approach to certainty, his spiritual pedigree." 
 John Wesley, whom " Churchmen " are so fond of quoting 
 for the benefit of Methodists, says : " The uninterrupted 
 succession I know to be a fable which no man ever did or 
 can prove." Let it be remembered that these testimonies 
 are from " Churchmen " whom it Avould naturally gi'atify to 
 find evidence of an unbroken succession, whatever might be 
 their estimate of its value. Yet this is the dogma 
 on the assumed truth of which High Churchmen dis- 
 franchise all non-Episcopal Chiirches of their Christian birth- 
 right ! 
 
 5. The dogma of a necessarij jEpiscopal Succession and the 
 sacramentarian tlieories that restdt from it, are imreasonable 
 and absurd, and baneful in their influence on those churches 
 tJiat accept them. 
 
 I make this charge advisedly, as my deliberate conviction. 
 At a time when these notions are misleading thousands, it 
 would be recreancy to truth to speak of them with any 
 mawkish leniency. We have too long acted merely on the 
 
SUCCESSION ABSURD AND BANEFUL. ' 43 
 
 defensive against men deei)ly tainted with Romish heresies ; 
 as if we had done our whole duty when we disproved their 
 disparaging allegations against oiirselves, and showed that 
 onr Church rested on a Scriptural foundation. Not so : we 
 should unmask their unscriptural pretensions, and show the 
 people that to follow these blind leaders of the blind is 
 to renounce the essential principles of Protestantism and 
 embrace irrational, unscriptural, and pernicious theories, 
 invented by the Church of Rome to minister to priestly 
 pride and intolerance. 
 
 What can be more absurd, than for men to pretend to be 
 the direct successors of the Apostles, whose special office and 
 gifts show that they could have no successors 1 Is it not un- 
 reasonable to assume that God would appoint conditions of 
 the genuineness of his Church in the world that were almost 
 certain to be broken and obscured 1 It is most unreasonable 
 to suppose that God, who desires to be worshipped in spirit 
 and in truth, would make an outward ceremony of greater 
 importance than that personal holiness of character which it 
 is the object of all religion to promote, and which God de- 
 lights to honor. It is absurd, when the English Church at 
 the Reformation l)roke away from the authority of the 
 Church of Rome, and its clergy forfeited the conditions on 
 which they had been ordained, and were excommunicated as 
 heretics, to assume that still their ministerial authority rested 
 on their previous ordination by the popish bishops. It is 
 both revolting and absurd, to maintain that a God in whose 
 sight the wicked are an abomination, would choose ungodly, 
 profane, vicious and heretical men, such as many of the 
 Romish bishops and popes notoriously were, as the only 
 persons authorized to appoint his messengers to call men from 
 sin to holiness and from the power of Satan unto God. 
 Platina says the Popes " left no wickedness unpractised." 
 
44 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 The description given of their character by Prideaux, Bishop 
 of "Worcester, is simply horrible. Many of the English 
 bishops before the Reformation were unprincipled plotters, 
 purchasing their offices in the most corrupt manner. St. 
 Paul explicitly declares, that no such ungodly and profane 
 persons " have any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ 
 and of God." Yet through this polluted stream, the modern 
 Anglican claims that he has received priestly authority. 
 Well may Mr. Bleby say, " No wonder that there are so manj' 
 infidels, when this is gravely proposed to be believed as a part 
 of the Christian religion!" It is absurd for High Churchmen 
 to claim that their sacraments are sjjecial and divinely ap- 
 pointed channels of grace, when those who use them fre- 
 quently have far less faith and charity, humility, forbearance 
 and brotherly love, than many "Dissenters," who have only 
 uncovenanted mercies. It is absurd^to think that God wo\ild 
 richly bless with spiritual prosperity, people whose course 
 was in open violation of his will and law — yet he blesses and 
 rewards what " Churchmen " regard as ** the deadly sin of 
 schism." They dare not deny that a man may get to heaven 
 without being a member of their Church. Yet there is a 
 strange contradiction in the idea of any one being a good and 
 useful man in life, enjoying God's favor, and being received 
 into heaven's eternal rest at last, withoiit being a member of 
 God's Church — or living in harmony with the divine arrange- 
 ments and conditions for the salvation of men ! But the 
 greatest absiirdity of all is to believe that a dogma that 
 brings forth such bad fruit as unchai'itableness, bigotry, 
 pharisaic pride, formality and popish heresy, is of God's 
 planting. The blessed Redeemer says, " A good tree cannot 
 bring forth evil fruit ; neither can a corrupt tree bring 
 forth good fruit." Unquestionably, this dogma of priestly 
 succession is the baneful root from which the main 
 
IT BRINGS FORTH BAD FRUIT. 46 
 
 corruptions of Romanism have grovn. It is not harmless. 
 It is sonl poison. 
 
 " The whole history of the Komish Church proves this ; for 
 from this usurpation of Apostolic jjower has proceeded all 
 that is corrupt, and despotic, and destructive in Romanism ; 
 all the darkness, and superstition, and idolatry, and the 
 cruelties and bloodshedding with which an anticlnistian sys- 
 tem has overspread and cursed the world for ages. It is the 
 fundamental princii)le of antichrist. Examine, and you will 
 find this to be the very corner-stone upon which the Papal 
 throne is erected ; it is the band which binds the triple crown 
 upon the head of ''the Man of Sin," who has so long usurped 
 a false authority in the Church, and plundered the world of 
 its rights and liberties. And give it room to exert its baneful 
 influence in the hands of its present claimants, — let it have 
 full scope, — and it will work out similar results. It will 
 banish all spiritual religion from the Church, overturn the 
 liberties of nations, and fill the world, so far as it can reach, 
 with spiritual darkness, and superstHion, and moral death. 
 Its tendency is always, and only, to produce mischief and 
 ruin. The arrogance, bigotry, and intolerance of modern 
 High-Churchism, the superstitious forms and Popish prac- 
 tices which the Ritualists have introduced into many 
 Churches, and the gross corruption of sound doctrine and 
 grievous heresies which are so often making their appear- 
 ance in the Anglican Episcopal Church, ai"e only the early 
 developments of this evil principle, — the fruits of the same 
 poisonous root, which has already produced a dreadful 
 harvest of evil to the humanrace." — {Rev. U. Blehy.) 
 
 6. Anglican High Church ideas of the conditions that deter- 
 mine the validity of tJie Ministerial office, and of the relation 
 of the sacraments to salvation, are contrary to the spirit and 
 teaching of the New Testament, 
 
46 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 I have already shown that there is no sanction given in 
 the Holy Scriptures to the theories and pretensions of 
 ritualistic Episcopalian j)riests respecting ordination and 
 Episcopal succession. Biit I go furtlior than this, and 
 say that the idea of religion which these theories present, 
 and the spirit which they generate in those who receive 
 them, are neither Apostolic nor Christian. These priestly 
 assailants of Metliodisni assume the existence of three di- 
 vinely ai)pointed ministerial orders; but the New Testament 
 clearly shows us, that bishops and presbyters were names 
 applied to designate the same order of preaching pastors ; 
 beside whom there was no other order, but that of deacons, 
 who were stewards appointed to manage the secular and 
 financial affairs of the Church. (See Acts vi.) They as- 
 sume, also, that it is the prei'ogative of a single bishop to 
 select and ordain ministers : but the New Testament shows 
 us that Timothy was ordained by the laying on of the hands 
 of the presbytery, or com})any of pastors ; and the most au- 
 thentic records of the primitive Church show that several 
 pastors generally took part in ordaining those who had been 
 previously selected by the whole Charch. The successionists 
 declare that none but bishops, in the modern sense, have 
 any right to ordain ; but we learn in the thirteenth 
 chapter of the Acts, that it was " cei-tain prophets and 
 teachers" that ordained Barnabas and Paul ; and the best 
 authorities show, as we have seen, that the practice of 
 Christian antiquity gives no countenance to this theory. 
 Their theory also compels them to maintain the a-evolting 
 doctrine that a man may be ungodly and profane in life, and 
 heietical in his belief, and yet be an authorized minister of 
 Christ, with authority to appoint and ordain others to the 
 work of the ministry. But the Apostle Peter declares that 
 Judas fell from his Apostleship " by transgression " ; the 
 
HIGH CIIURCIIISM NOT APOSTOLIC. 47 
 
 Apostle John tells us, " he that committeth sin is of the 
 devil"; and the Apostle Paul declares, "if any man hath 
 not the Spirit of Christ, ho is none of his." The Psalmist 
 says : " But unto the wicked God saith, what hast thou to do 
 to declare my statutes, or that thou shouldest take my cove- 
 nant in thy mouth ; seeing thou liatest instruction and castest 
 my words behind thee," (Ps. 1. 10.) 
 
 The test of the successionists is lai-apostolic. They make 
 each minister's status and authority depend ui)on the ecclesi- 
 astical standing of those who baptized and ordained him. The 
 Apostles test all teachers by their gifts — the soundness of 
 tlieii' doctrines — the holiness of their lives — the manner in 
 which they fulfilled their ministry — and the success of their 
 labors in bringing sinners to a saving knowledge of Christ. 
 To this " more sure word of })ro])liecy " we appeal from 
 the unauthorized and unjust judgment of priestly egotism. 
 The Master himself, when warning his disciples against false 
 teachers, said : " By their fruits shall ye know them." The 
 authority and validity of the ministry of every Church must 
 be tested by a Scriptural and Apostolic standai-d, and not by 
 an unauthorized human test that sets aside the divine 
 standards. Paul, throughout his epistles, frequently vindi- 
 cates the claims of himself and his fellow-workers, as ambas- 
 sadors of Christ. And he always does this by proofs and 
 evidences, not only different from those which are appealed 
 to by all who lean towards Pomanism, but by such as are 
 condemnatory of the Romish and Tractarian theories. My 
 space will only allow me to give a few examples from the 
 Apostolic writings, out of numerous passages that might be 
 quoted in proof of this assertion. 
 
 In all the vindications of himself and fellow-ministei'S 
 Paul gives special prominence to their being called of God, 
 and being therefore divinely appointed. " Paul an Apostle, 
 
48 IIIUII CIIURCIl PRKTKNHIONS DISPROVED, 
 
 not of men, neither by man, but by Johus CliiiHt and God 
 the Father." {Ual. i. 1.) " Wlio also hath made us able 
 ministers of the New Testament ; not of the letter, but of 
 the spirit." " For necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is 
 me if I preach not the gospel." (1 Cor. ix. IG.) The 
 doctrines they preaclied are also mentioned in proof of their 
 claims as messen<,'ers of Christ. " For I determinetl to 
 know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ and him 
 crucified." (Cor. ii. 2.) " For other foundation can no 
 man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." (1 Cor. iii. 
 11.) " For we liave not followed cunningly devised fables, 
 when we made known unto you the power and coming of 
 our Lord Jesus Christ." (2 Peter i. 16.) "He that 
 abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father 
 and the Son." (2 John 9.) The manner in which they 
 performed the work which God gave them to do, is also 
 cited in token that they were divinely called and qualified. 
 " For the love of Christ constraineth us." (2 Cor. v. 14.) 
 " For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, 
 and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake." (2 Cor. iv. 4.) 
 " Are they ministers of Christ 1 I am more ; in labors 
 more abundant," «kc. (2 Cor. xi. 23.) The gifts with 
 which God had endowed them were another evidence that 
 their ministry was according to the will of God. " Which 
 things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom 
 teacheth ; but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." (2 Cor. 
 ii. 13.) "And my speech and my preaching was not 
 with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demon- 
 stration of the Spirit and of power." (1 Cor. ii. 3.) 
 " Truly the signs of an Apostle were wrought among you, 
 in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds." 
 (2 Cor. ii. 12.) 
 
 This claim to be ambassadors from God, was recognized 
 
ST. Paul's proofs and tests. 49 
 
 and ratified by the Church. " By manifestation of tho truth, 
 commending ourselves to every man's conscience in tlio siglit 
 of God." (2 Cor. iv. 2.) " Wo have been thorougldy made 
 manifest among you in all things." (2 Cor. xi. 6.) " As ye 
 know what manner of men we were among among you, for 
 your sake." (1 Thess. i, 5.) "Ye are witnesses, and God 
 also, how holily, and justly, and unblamoably wo behaved 
 ourselves among you that believe." (1 Thess. iii. 10.) "And 
 they glorified (Jod in me." (Gal. i. 24.) " But received me 
 as an angel of God." (Gal. iv. 14.) But that which is most 
 frequently referred to as the token of God's aj)probation, the 
 seal of his approval, by which tho divine authority of their 
 commission was ratified before the world, is the success of 
 their labors, in the conversion and salvation of sinners. Hear 
 the great Apostle of the Gentiles : *' Now, thanks be unto 
 God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and 
 maketh manifest the savor of his knowledge by us in every 
 place." (2 Cor. ii. 14.) " If I be not an Apostle to others, 
 yet doubtless I am to you : for the seal of mine apostleship 
 are ye in the Lord." (1 Cor. ix. 2.) ** Ye are our epistle, 
 written in our hearts, known and read of all men." 
 (2 Cor. iii. 2.) " For ye are our glory and our joy." 
 (1 Thess. ii. 20.) " For our gospel came not unto you in word 
 only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much 
 assurance." (1 Thess. i. 5.) From the defensive tone of 
 these declarations, especially those in both epistles to the 
 Corinthians, it is evident that Paul's apostleship, if not his 
 ministerial " orders," was questioned by sticklers for regular 
 order in that day. It is therefore highly instructive to study 
 the arguments by which he vindicated his ministerial charac- 
 ter and authority. ' ''-■■'' - 1 i; ; *: - 
 . . We maintain, without any feeling of self-complacent de- 
 nominational pride, but with gratitude to God, that the 
 8 
 
50 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 same argiiment and evidences used by the Apostle Paul may 
 be justly and successfully applied to demonstrate the Scrip- 
 tural validity of the Ministry of the Methodist Church. All 
 branches of Methodism have firmly maintained the inward 
 call of the Holy Ghost as an essential qualification for the 
 ministiy. And, as far as human fidelity and wisdom could 
 prevent, none have been introduced to this work among us, 
 but those who have been so called. The evil custom of 
 educating boys for the ministry, without regard to their 
 religious or intellectual character, simply that they might 
 get a living, has never prevailed among Methodists. 
 Nor can it be denied, that the Methodist Church has 
 faithfullj-^ guarded and maintained purity of doctrine. 
 Amid opposition and reproach, we have held fast the 
 faith " once delivered unto the saints." Whatever any 
 minister's gifts may be, if he preach what our Church 
 deems unscriptural and dangerous doctrine*, he cannot 
 preach it from a Methodist pulpit. Hence, wherever a 
 Methodist preacher stands up to instruct a congregation, 
 the people hear an explicit exposition of the same doctrines 
 the Apostles taught, A faithful testimony has been borne 
 by the Methodist pulpit against both the ritualism and for- 
 malism of Puseyism and Popery, and the plausible specula- 
 tions of popular infidelity. We have reason for gi-ateful 
 pride, in th« gifts and piety of the men whom God has raised 
 up among is to be the messengers of life to dying sinners. 
 In godly self-sacrifice, abundant labors, unfaltering faith, 
 true Christian eloquence, and Christly sympathy for the un- 
 saved, the ministry of no Church since the Apostles presents 
 a brighter record. 
 
 The success of this ministry has been wonderful, " even 
 our enemies themselves being judges," Methodism has 
 swept like waves of blessing and salvation over England 
 
SIGNS OF DIVINE APPROVAL. 61 
 
 and America. Hundinds of thousands, who were once igno- 
 rant and guilty rejectors of Christ and his salvation, through 
 Methodist instrumentalities have been converted from the 
 erroi-s of their ways, and lifted up to sit together in heavenly 
 places in Christ Jesus. Not in Britain and America only 
 have these results followed Methodist labor ; but in Asia, 
 Africa, Australia, and the islands of the Pacific, have 
 Methodist missionaries won such glorious victories for Christ 
 as forever vindicate, against all the petty cavils of sectarian 
 bigotry, their claim as divinely-appointed ambassadors from 
 a Risen Savioiu' to a pei'ishing world. It is not too much to 
 say, that all the ends, for which Christ instituted ministers 
 and pastors in his Church, have been successfully accom- 
 plished by the agency of the Methodist ministry. These 
 Scriptural evidences of Divine approval may be unworthy of 
 the regard of High Cliarch priests, who cherish a comfoi-t- 
 able sense of their superiority, derived from being ordained 
 by a bishop who is in this imaginary and un-Apostolic Suc- 
 cession ; but they must have weight with all who do not 
 discard the teachings of God's word and the conclusions of 
 common sense. These Apostolic qualifications have been 
 gratefully recognized and ratified by the Church. We re- 
 pudiate the theory of one man, by virtue of his ordination, 
 having a right to invest any one he pleases with ministerial 
 authority, without the consent of the Ch irch. No man is 
 even taken on trial for the Methodist Ministry, till he is re- 
 commended by the representatives of the laity, in the Quar- 
 terly Meeting of the othcial members. Those who know 
 him best must testify to the gifts, grace, and usefulness of 
 each candidate. In the words of the late Bishop Janes, of 
 the M. E. Church : — " We do not claim that the judgment 
 of the Church is infallible in this matter. But we do believe, 
 that when a man professes to be called of God to this holy 
 
62 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 ministry, whose Christian character is a guarantee of his sin- 
 cerity, and the Church finds in him the gifts, grace, and fruit 
 which a true minister must have, they can decide the ques- 
 tion more certainly and safely than any other persons or 
 authorities. So that the ministry of the Methodist Church 
 do not hail from John the Baptist, or from Peter, or from 
 \ John Wesley. We seek no investiture from prelate or 
 primate. We have succeeded to no dead men's places ; we 
 I derive authority from no dead men's credentials ; there is 
 I no smell of the sepulchre about us; our call is direct 
 f from our risen and living Lord, recognized and authenti- 
 i cated by a living Church, made valid and vital by the 
 ) living God. We are the living ministers of to-day by Divine 
 i appointment." .....••• 
 " If the Corinthian Church was a Christian Church, then 
 is the Methodist Church a Christian Church. If the 
 ministry by whose planting and watering the Corinthian 
 Church was raised up and edified was a Christian ministxy, 
 then is the Methodist ministry a Christian ministry. We 
 know this from the concurrent consciousness of the ministry 
 and the Church. We know it from the sameness of their 
 spiritual endowments and divine qualifications. We know 
 it from the similarity of the spirit and manner of executing 
 their ministry. We know it from the equal devotedness of 
 the ministry. We know it from the oneness of the doc- 
 trines taught. We know it from the same legitimate 
 results — the same soul-saving issues. We know it, because 
 we see everywhere our letters of commendation in the 
 handwriting of God. We see everywhere the seals of 
 our apostleship on the hearts of the people. No ministry 
 ever knew it more certainly, or rejoiced in it more 
 divinely, or labored in it more Scripturally. 'Doubtless 
 thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of 
 
NOTHING TO GAIN BY UNION. 53 
 
 US, and Israel acknowledge us not. Thou, Lord, art 
 our Father, our Redeemer ; thy name is from everlast- 
 ing.'" 
 
 The frequent references, made in Anglican convocations 
 and periodicals, to the possible incorporation of English 
 Wesleyan Methodism with the National Church, however 
 well meant, betray a surprising ignorance of the feelings 
 and views of Wesleyan Ministers and people. It is gener, 
 ally assumed that the Wesleyans view the matter from the 
 Episcopal standpoint — that they have some secret mis- 
 givings about the legitimacy of their present position, which 
 Episcopal ordination would remove. All this is the natural 
 mistake of men, who live so much in the narrow circle of 
 their own thoughts and prejudices, that they are unable to 
 comprehend the views of those who differ from them. Unless 
 this be so, it is unaccountable that at the present time, when 
 Romanism and infidel rationalism are flourishing in the high 
 places of the Anglican Church, and men of liberal views 
 and catholic sympathies are being forced by the unscrip- 
 tural intolerance of her assumptions, to withdraw from 
 her communion, Methodists should be expected to tamely 
 renounce the liberty wherewith Christ has made them 
 free, and become absorbed by the Episcopal Church. 
 Even if such a union were practicable, what advantages has 
 that Church to offer Methodists 1 Would they by such a 
 change gain a more Scriptural, godly, and successful min- 
 istry? Would they secure a Church whose doctrines are 
 more Scriptural, or whose administration of godly discipline 
 is more efficient] Would they gain more simple and 
 spiritual forms of worship, or be better provided with means, 
 adapted to promote growth in grace? Would they se- 
 cure greater unity of doctrine, or greater harmony of 
 Christian worship and work, thj|,n they now possess 1 Only 
 
64 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 ono answer can be truthfully given to these questions. I 
 know that those who believe that Clmstians, uniting to 
 worship God according to their consciences, are guilty of 
 " the dreadful sin of schism," think great sacrifices should 
 be made for " the unity of the Church." They should, how- 
 ever, remember that the unity which the Scriptures com- 
 mend, is not mere unity of name and organization; but one- 
 ness of faith and spirit. It can hardly be questioned, that 
 the position of the different English Nonconformist Churches, 
 which are standing side by side, doing the work of the 
 Master in a spirit of true Christian brotherhood, comes far 
 nearer the Scriptural idea of unity, than the nominal unity 
 of one denomination, in which Popery and Protestantism, 
 Calvinism and Arminianism, infidelity and orthodoxy, all 
 surge in ceaseless collision. The Episcopalian priests who 
 sneer at the glorious Protestant Reformation, and craftily 
 apply their energies to introduce ritualistic practices, which 
 symbolize Popish doctrines, are the real schismatics, dis- 
 turbing the peace of the Church with their papal novelties, 
 and creating schisms and parties within her bosom. " Hav- 
 ing a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof; 
 from such turn away." 
 
 The dogma of Succession leads its adherents intolerantly 
 and unjustly to oppose, disparage, and denounce, as schismat- 
 ics and enemies of the truth, all who repudiate those human 
 inventions which they teach as divine doctrines. Our Lord 
 and his Apostles, on the contrary, displayed a liberal and 
 catholic spirit towards all who were sincerely seeking after 
 God. Christ rebuked the narrow zeal of his disciples for 
 forbidding the man that followed not with them to cast out 
 devils in his name. Peter declares " that in every nation, 
 he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted 
 of him." John declares, without any reference to baptismal 
 
PROMOTES BIGOTRY AND INTOLERANCE. 55 
 
 regenerati(Jn, that ** every one that loveth is born of God." 
 Paul rejoiced in whatever way Christ was preached ; and 
 prayed that grace might " be with all them that love our 
 Lord Jesus Clirist in sincerity." The spirit that breathes in 
 these divine declarations is utterly opposed to the sectarian 
 intolerance of modern sacramentarians. It is bad enough 
 when Chi'istians fail to conform to the guspel which they 
 own as a standard of duty ; but these despisers of better 
 men than themselves make a virtue of bigotry and intoler- 
 ance ; and would have us believe that they are doing God 
 service, when they pour their petty contempt on some of the 
 holiest and most useful of his saints. 
 
 But in nothing are the succession and sacramentarian 
 theoi'ies of the Ritualistic school more clearly contrary to 
 the Holy Scriptures, than in their marks and tests of time 
 Christian discipleship. Soundness of faith, and inward and 
 outward godliness are thrust out of sight ; and the main 
 question is whether one has received the sacraments from a 
 duly ordained " priest " of what is alleged to be the true 
 Church. But in the New Testament such a test is never 
 named. On the contrary, a personal experience of the 
 saving power of God, producing the fruits of holiness in the 
 life, is the invariable test of Christian character. Love to 
 each other is the Master's own sign of true discipleship. The 
 Apostle John says, "Ye know that every one that doeth 
 righteousness is born of him." The Apostle Paul says, 
 " Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God 
 through our Lord Jesus Christ." " For in Christ Jesus 
 neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision ; 
 but faith which worketh by love." " For as many as are 
 led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." 
 
 This popish theory of Succession also prompts those who 
 accept it to disparage the preaching of God's word ; as if 
 
56 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 this were altogether secondary to the administration of the 
 sacraments, which are regarded as the main instruments of 
 regeneration and sanctification. Not so thought Paul. He 
 counts it his highest honor and joy to he a preacher of the 
 gospel. He says, " Unto me, who am less than the least of 
 all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among 
 the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ." Very far 
 from believing the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, in 
 the first Epistle to the Corinthians, he thanks God that he 
 had baptized none of them, but Crispus and Gains, and the 
 household of Stephanas ; and then adds, " For Christ sent me 
 not to baptize, but to preach the gospel." To these same 
 Corinthians, concerning whom he rejoices that he had not 
 baptized them, he says in the same epistle, (1 Cor. iv. 15,) 
 *' For though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, ye* 
 have ye not many fathers ; for in Christ Jesus I have be. 
 gotten you through the gospel." This clearly implies that 
 he claimed to be the spiritual father of many, by the preach- 
 ing of the gospel, whom he had not baptized at all. "Will 
 the sacramentarians explain how, on their theory, he could 
 be the instrumental cause of the regeneration of those he 
 had not baptized 1 And Peter, some of whose words have 
 been compelled to do service as proofs of baptismal regene- 
 ration, says : " Being born again, not of corruptible seed, 
 but of incorruptible, by the word of God that liveth and 
 abideth forever." So also the Apostle James : " Of his own 
 will begat us with the word of truth." Not the sacraments, 
 however Scriptui-al and important in their own place, but 
 the Gospel, Paul declares to be the " power of God unto 
 salvation to every one that believeth." For, "it pleased 
 God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that be- 
 lieve." 
 
 In short, the New Testament constantly magnifies the in- 
 
MORE LIKE PHARISEES THAN APOSTLES. 57 
 
 temal and spiritual — the fruits of the Spirit ; the succession- 
 ists strenuously magnify the outward and ceremonial, and 
 obscure with their puerile inventions the great central 
 truths of the gospel. It is a perversion to connect the 
 word ** Apostolic " with this dogma of succession ; for noth- 
 ing can be more t*?i- Apostolic. There was, however, a class 
 of men in the days of our Saviour whose successors these 
 priestly sacramentarians might, with much greater show of 
 justice, claim to be, I mean the Pharisees, with whom they 
 have certainly much more in common than with the Apostles. 
 These ancient Pharisees were proud that they could trace 
 their pedigree up to Abraham, and felt a self-complacent 
 satisfaction that they belonged to the race to whom God had 
 deigned to stand in covenant relationship — all very much 
 after the manner of our modern Tractarians. They " trusted 
 in themselves that they were righteous," and despised Gentiles, 
 publicans and others, who had nothing but uncovenanted 
 mercies to depend upon. In this also the modern exclusion- 
 ists are clearly in the Succession. The Pharisees were dis- 
 tinguished by a love for a showy and ceremonial style of 
 worship, that had very little heart in it. Those who attend 
 at the ritualistic Anglican Churches of the present day know 
 that many of the Episcopal priests are faithfully copying 
 this ancient model. The Pharisees were specially distin- 
 guished by exalting and magnifying the importance of small 
 things, relating to external rites and observances, v/hile they 
 overlooked matters of weighty import. The Saviour rebuked 
 them for this error, when he said, " Ye pay tithe of anise, 
 mint, and cummin, and have omitted the weighter matters 
 of the law, judgment, mercy and faith." This feature is 
 also strikingly characteristic of their modern successors, who 
 also make so much of the outward signs in the sacraments, 
 and mere matters of ceremonial in worship, that there is 
 3* 
 
68 HIGH CHURCH PRETENSIONS DISPROVED. 
 
 grave reason to fear that the most essential things are for- 
 gotten. It is deemed very important that a Christian 
 should have the right man to baptize him ; but whether he ' 
 ever really experience that renewal of the Holy Ghost, of 
 which baptism is only the sign, is often wholly overlooked. 
 It is deemed a vital matter that a minister be ordained to 
 the work of the ministry, by some one that he believes can 
 indtict him into a direct lineal succession from the Apostles ; 
 but anxiety to possess the spirit, faith, zeal, holiness, and 
 success in the conversion of sinners, that distinguished the 
 Apostles, is sometimes " omitted " from consideration, as if 
 it was by no means so important. " The traditions of the 
 elders ^' and '' Fathers " are referred to, as if any departure 
 from these were a fatal error ; but the doctrines of justifica- 
 tion by faith, sanctilication by the Spirit, the assurance of 
 hope, and brotherly kindness towards all who love Christ, 
 are obscured, or omitted as unworthy of special regard. 
 Truly they make the word of God of none eifect by their 
 traditions, I need not pursue the analogy further. It is 
 certainly not merely fanciful. The family likeness is indis- 
 putable. The contrast with the spirit of New Testament 
 Christianity is equally indisputable. Christianity is a spiri- 
 tual religion. In this it is in bold contrast with the cere- 
 monial religion it superseded. To the Jews it came as a 
 deliverance from cai-nal ordinances, "imposed upon them 
 till the time of the Reformation." If then, according to the 
 Succession theory, an outward physical act, like ordination 
 by imposition of hands, is a vital and essential thing, there 
 is nothing else like this in the whole Christian religion — a 
 proof that the theory is false. 
 
 No candid and unbiased seeker after truth can study the 
 precepts, doctrines, and examples of the New Testament, 
 without being convinced that the pretensions and distinc- 
 
SACRAMENTARIANISM NOT CHRISTIANITY. 59 
 
 tive teaching of the sacramentarian school are antajronistic 
 to tlie simplicity and spirituality that distinguish alike the 
 Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles and the Epis+les. The 
 external, priestly, and ritmilintic type of relvjlon, beyond all 
 question, is not the religion of Jesus of Nazareth, as taught 
 in his discourses, and expounded and exetnplijied by his holy 
 Apostles. 
 
 In view of all these considerations, the Methodist people 
 can afford to calmly despise the intolerant assumptions of 
 their High Church assailants; remembering the words of 
 the Aj)ostle : «* Let not then your good be evil spoken of; 
 for the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but 
 righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."— 
 (Rom. xiv. 16, 17.) 
 
 TORONTO : PRINTBD AT TUB GUARDIAN OFFICE.