ART. V. THE PORTICO TO OUR BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.

FOR several quadrenniums I have been waiting for some person more competent and less overworked than myself to call attention to the unsatisfactory character of the opening sentences of our Book of Discipline and to propose something better. As thus far my waiting has been in vain, and as there are many and weighty reasons why some change should be made at the fastapproaching General Conference of 1892, I feel constrained to put aside other duties long enough to pen myself a few words upon the subject. We do not undertake this suggestive work in the spirit of criticism, but in conformity to veritable history, and in the interest of Methodism.

Very properly our Book of Discipline opens with a section entitled, "Origin of the Methodist Episcopal Church." This is so brief that for the reader's convenience I here reproduce it entire. It is as follows:

The Preachers and Members of our Society in general being convinced that there was a great deficiency of vital religion in the Church of England in America, and being in many places destitute of the Christian Sacraments, as several of the clergy had forsaken their Churches, requested the late Rev. John Wesley to take such measures, in his wisdom and prudence, as would afford them suitable relief in their distress.

In consequence of this, our venerable friend, who, under God, had been the father of the great revival of religion now extending over the earth by the means of the Methodists, determined to ordain ministers for America; and for this purpose, in the year 1784, sent over three regularly ordained clergymen; but, preferring the episcopal mode of church government to any other, he solemnly set apart, by the imposition of his hands and prayer, one of them, namely, Thomas Coke, Doctor of Civil Law, late of Jesus College in the University of Oxford, and a Presbyter of the Church of England, for the episcopal office; and having delivered to him letters of episcopal orders, commissioned and directed him to set apart Francis Asbury, then General Assistant of the Methodist Society in America, for the same episcopal office, he, the said Francis Asbury, being first ordained deacon and elder. In consequence of which the said Francis Asbury was solemnly set apart for the said episcopal office by prayer and the imposition of the hands of the said Thomas Coke, other regularly ordained ministers assisting in the sacred ceremony. which time the General Conference, held at Baltimore, did unanimously receive the said Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury as

At

their bishops, being fully satisfied of the validity of their episcopal ordination.-Discipline, 1792.

Now, ever since as a young man I first read this account it has impressed me as strikingly inadequate.

1. It is altogether too brief. Thousands of persons receive their first direct and authentic information respecting the origin of our Church from this little compendium of our doctrine and law. Many of these have had the book put into their hands in order that after examining it they may determine whether or not they would like to assent to the doctrines and submit to the rules. Others are ministers or laymen of other communions who procure the book as the one official declaration of the most important facts relative to the Church. In both cases it is highly important that these persons, unacquainted with our origin and history, prejudiced possibly against us, should find in this opening section the essential facts, and find them so stated and correlated with other facts as to produce a just impression. But how is this possible within the limits of the above paragraph? Who can duly set forth the origin of the Methodist Episcopal Church in four ordinary sentences? It cannot be done.

2. The above account is not a history of the origin of our Church at all, but merely of the origin of our holy orders. Even as such it is far from satisfactory.

3. The opening sentence is adapted to give needless offense to all persons coming to America from the mother-country or from any part of the world where the Church of England is in the ascendency. To persons unacquainted with the original relations of Methodism to the Church of England the sentence is simply incomprehensible. How much more favorable would be the impression on all classes were the simple historic fact brought out that the liberation of the American people from the power of Great Britain terminated the existence of the Church of England in the United States, and led to the organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church as eldest daughter of the Church of England, and in important respects her historic successor in America?

4. The second sentence is, if possible, worse than the first. It wholly ignores the free choice and authoritative action of the men who at the famous Christmas Conference actually organized the new American Church. It misleads the reader, giving

63 him to understand that our episcopal form of organization was a result of Wesley's predilection alone, and that Asbury's consecration to the episcopal office was ascribable solely to Wesley's choice. The fourth and final sentence confirms this misconception, for it seems to represent the total action of the American preachers as a mere acquiescence in what had been done in their behalf. The fact that should have been brought out is that nothing that Wesley provisionally did or proposed had any validity for or in the new organization until adopted and enacted by the General Conference of 1784 as the primary constituent assembly of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

5. It is certainly desirable that this opening chapter of the Discipline should give the uninstructed reader some just conception of the significance of our Church as the eldest of our national ecclesiastical organizations, and the largest embodied expression of the nation's religious life.

6. It should also inform him as to the attitude of the Methodist Episcopal Church toward other particular Churches, and state its view of its own relation to the Church universal.

Finally, considering the fact that the Methodist Episcopal Church possesses the unity and high efficiency of organization which characterize the Church of Rome, yet in perfect evangelical freedom; the heroism of the best Calvinistic Churches without their cold necessitarianism; the inwardness and warmth of the best Lutheran Churches without their bent to sacramentarianism; the choicest rituals and traditions of the Anglican Churches without their narrow and prelatic exclusiveness-it certainly would seem fitting that this portico to our Discipline should convey to every beholder some idea of the unprecedented evangelical comprehensiveness and catholicity of our own Church, and its consequent adaptation in the hand of God to further the blessed cause of ecclesiastical intercommunion and universal Christian fraternity.

Of course, to prepare within the necessary limits a new chapter avoiding all the fore-mentioned mistakes, and meeting all the fore-mentioned requirements, is a task of no small difficulty. I hope, however, that many of our best qualified writers will make the trial, so that by a kind of competitive effort we may secure the best possible result. To encourage others I venture to present a tentative sketch of my own:

THE ORIGIN OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

Our Lord Jesus Christ taught that his kingdom among men was to be like a grain of mustard-seed, almost invisibly small at its planting but steadily unfolding into a tree with a multitude of living branches. So has it been. Century by century his living Church has grown and spread until, in this age, its branches overshadow the continents and its fruits are found in every nation. All these branches, great and small, have a common origin; all are dependent upon a common root; all in one degree or another are exhibiting a common life. For any one of these to disown the others and to claim to be itself the sole legitimate Church of Jesus Christ is at once an offensive arrogancy and a denial of the truth of history.

But while the essential doctrines, discipline, and very life of each of the successively appearing branches of the true Church are thus historically and continuously derived from Christ, and as such are as old and as new as Christianity, it has pleased God in his wisdom and love to grant to each particular Church a distinct local and temporal calling, dependent in important respects upon the local and temporal conditions amid which it is brought into being. Particularly interesting and important is this calling in the case of all Churches called into being in consequence of the birth of new nations, and destined to develop and express upon a national, and even more than national, scale the religious life of a young and growthful people. In such cases the vigor of the wakening national life favorably affects the life of the Church, and this latter in turn strengthens and heightens the life of the nation.

On the 4th of July, 1776, the English colonies of North America declared their independence of Great Britain, and entered upon the defense of their liberties. The treaty that terminated the war and secured the international recognition of the ecclesiastical and political independence of the people of the United States was signed September 3, 1783. Fifteen months later, at the memorable Christmas Conference of Methodism held in Baltimore, the first step in the ecclesiastical reconstruction of the new nation was auspiciously taken. Sixty lay preachers, who before and during the War of the Revolution had been members of the Church of England, and who under the personal direction and government of the apostolic John Wesley had most successfully toiled to spread scriptural holiness over the American continent, assembled to consummate measures already prayerfully devised for the con

servation and enlargement of their evangelizing work. Assisted by the advice of their venerated spiritual father, who had expressly pronounced them and their people "totally disentangled both from the state and from the English hierarchy," and "at full liberty simply to follow the Scriptures and the primitive Church," these American preachers formally organized the Methodist Episcopal Church, adopting for its use Articles of Religion and a Book of Common Prayer both abbreviated from those of the Church of England, together with a form of discipline based partly upon that of the Methodist societies in Great Britain and partly upon the Anglican canons. Among the Articles of Religion they inserted a new one containing a recognition of the new civil government, and in the ritual there was placed a "Prayer for the Supreme Rulers of the United States."

Three extraordinary clerical commissioners from England, appointed by John Wesley, were present at the Conference: the Rev. Thomas Coke, Doctor of Civil Law, of Jesus College, Oxford University, the Rev. Richard Whatcoat, and the Rev. Thomas Vasey. The first of these had been provisionally appointed and consecrated a general superintendent of the American Church about to be organized, the other two provisionally appointed and ordained to be, with him, its earliest presbyters. All were joyfully received by the American brethren, and the unanimous election of the three to their respective offices under the provisions of the new American Discipline consummated the initiatory action of Wesley and his associated presbyters, and gave to the Methodist Episcopal Church organic form and liberty of independent ecclesiastical action. At the same time the apostolic Francis Asbury was unanimously elected to exercise episcopal supervision conjointly with Coke, by whom, with the assistance of co-presbyters in the imposition of hands, the said Francis Asbury was duly and canonically consecrated to his holy office, he having been regularly ordained on preceding days, with fitting public solemnities, first a deacon and then an elder in the Church of God. Others of the preachers were ordained deacons in accordance with the ritual, and from among these, twelve, as elders, to meet the necessities of the infant Church. Two missionaries were at the same time ordained for Nova Scotia and one for Antigua. The members of the Conference further showed their far-sighted comprehension of the needs and opportunities of the time by voting to establish at once a Christian college, and by adopting rigorous measures for the extirpation of American slavery.