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Roy, James,
Catholicity and mpthodisiri: Or the relation
of John -vresley to modem thought.
Montreal, 1877.

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YALE
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM

TBI MliTIOl Of Jil f ISIM

MODEEN THOUGHT.

REV. JAMES ROY, M. A.,

Examiner TO Victoria University; formerly Principal of the Cobourg Collegiatb
Institute, and Examiner to university of Toronto

Dass mehr Licht hereinkomme ,
— Djing words of GOETHB.

MONTREAL :
THE BURLAND-DESBARATS LITHOGRAPHIC COMPANY.
1877.

PREFACE.

This little work is not intended as an attack upon any man.'s
opinions. Its main object is simply to ascertain the limits within which
a minister of the Methodist Church of Canada is allowed by the legal
standards of that body to exercise his private judgment, and to show
the bearings on Protestant and Christian work of that liberty of
thought and speech which those standards sanction. It is not an
attempt to establish a system of theology foreign from those standards ;
but it is an effort, by an analysis of them, to render their own teachings
definite and harmonious, and to learn whether, when so harmonized,
they are in sympathy, or in antagonism, with the learning and spirit
of this age. It is a small contribution to the work of eliminating from
Protestantism those elements which at once prevent its unity, and
impel it towards either the form or the spirit of ecclesiastical Rome.
I have been desirous of placing before some portion, at least, of
the Canadian public, a very brief outline of certain historical facts,
without a knowledge of which a proper comprehension of many
important questions must be impossible. 'With this view, the work
has been put into a shape which, it is hoped, will bring it within the
reach of every person taking an interest in the questions therein dis
cussed. In preparing the following pages, I have had in full view the advice
of Horace : —
 Si quid tamen olim
Scripseris, in Mseci descendat judicis aures
Et patris et nostras, nonumque prematur in annum,
Membranis intus positis ; delere licebit
Quod non edideris ; nescit vox missa reverti.
— fDe Arte Poet., vv. 386-396.)
" If ever you write anything, let it be submitted to the judgment of
Mcecius Tarpa, the critic, to your father's and to mine j let it be
preserved until the ninth year, and keep your manuscript within your
own guardianship : what you have not published, you can blot out;
but a word once sent forth knows no return."
¦Were it allowed, I should gladly acknowledge my indebtedness to
more than one judex Tarpa for valuable suggestions ; and, if cir
cumstances did not demand immediate publication, I should wait the
due term of years, more fully to mature the thought and to perfect the
style of what I have written. I can only hope that any force the
argument may have will not be made to suffer for the defects of my
mode of presenting it.
JAMES ROY.
Montreal, April, 1877. ¦

CONTENTS.

CHAP. I.— 'Was Methodism EVER Catholic? . . Page 5
CHAP. II.— Hew IT CEASED TO BE CATHOLIC. . . " 7
Its'early Theology. — Its Form. — Liberties of Members,
Churches, Preachers.
CHAP. IIL— Can IT BECOME Catholic AGAIN? . . "15
Wesley's views compared. — Reconciled. — Test of Fact.
— "Orthodoxy." — .Tested by History. — Church
Authority. — Christian Consciousness. — The Bible.
— Wesley's Relation to "Orthodoxy."
CHAP. IV. — Relations of Methodism. . . . "84.
To Modern Religious Thought. — To its own future
Prosperity. — To Protestant Unity.

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.

CHAPTER I.
'WAS METHODISM EVER CATHOLIC.'
I. The term Cathohc means universal, or general.
Nothing that is necessarily local or temporary can be
catholic. In what sense may the word be predicated of
any organization.' Either in the sense of actuality or
possibility. Sometimes the term is applied to the whole
Christian Church ; but, as so applied, it cannot designate
any existing organization. There is none which actually
includes all Christians. John Wesley, in his sermon
LXXIV., 5, on Ephes. IV, i-6, thus defines the Catholic
Church : "The Catholic or Universal Church; that is, all the
Christians under heaven." In his sense, then, it could not
be predicated of any existing organization as an actuality,
as if it were the whole or only Christian Church. Yet, in
the sense of possibility, it is conceivable that an organiza
tion may be catholic. It may not actually embrace all
Christians, but it may be so constituted as to admit of
the possibility of all being comprehended within its bounds.
Catholic, in this sense, would mean capable of universal
sway without injury to the rights and interests of any
Christian. Was Methodism ever so catholic ?
2. The Methodist Society originated in 1739. Its terms
of membership were " a desire to flee from the wrath to
come," and a life of abstinence from evil and devotion to
good. Its members were men who had " the form," and
sought " the power, of godliness." This scriptural lan-
2

catholicity and METHODISM.

guage, quoted from the " General Rules " of the Society,
indicates an imperfection in the prevailing view, even of
the founder, Wesley, concerning the religious condition
of the members ; but they feared God, and wrought
righteousness. These people were bound by no ecclesias
tical or doctrinal test.
For many years, Calvinist and Arminian worked harmo
niously together in the common cause of bringing men to
God. For three years and more, there existed in England
an ecclesiastical society whose foundation was catholic^
having unity of spirit and aim, and liberty in the indivi
dual, lay or clerical, to carry out that aim according to his
own conscience, under great general principles. Even if
the will of Wesley did impose restraints, and the General
Rules were, in some points, founded on misapprehensions
of the meaning of the Bible, and of the force of prudential
motives, the Methodist Society was yet the most catholic
of any that had arisen since the days of the Apostles.
3. The language of John Wesley, in his "Thoughts upon.
a late Phenomenon,"* is fully justifiable.
" One circumstance more," he says," is quite peculiar to
" the people called Methodists ; that is, the terms upon which
" any person may be admitted into their society. They da
" not impose, in order to their admission, any opinions
" whatever. Let them hold particular or general redemp-
" tion, absolute or conditional decrees ; let them be Church-
" men or Dissenters, Presbyterians or Independents, it is no
" obstacle. Let them choose one mode of baptism or another,
" it is no bar to their admission. The Presbyterian m^ay be
" a Presbyterian still ; the Indejjpndent or Anabaptist may
, " use his own mode of worship. So may the Quaker ; and
" none will contend with him about it. They think and
" let think. One condition, and one only, is required, a real
" desire to save their soul. Where this is, it is enough ; they
" desire no more ; they lay stress upon nothing else ; they
" ask only, 'Is thy heart herein as my heart ? If it be, give
" me thy hand.' Is there any other society in Great Britain
" or Ireland that is so remote from bigotry ? that is so truly
. " of a catholic spirit .' so ready to admit all serious persons
" without distinction ? Where, then, is there such another
" society in Europe.' in the habitable world.' I know none.
" Let any man show it me that can." •¦
Methodism, then, in its terms of communion, was, at one
time, catholic. * Works, Vol. vii. Am. ed., p. 321.

CATHOLICrrT AXD METHOII-M, 7
CHAPTER IL
HOW IT CEASED TO BE CATHOLIC.
Is the implication that it is no longer catholic a mis
representation of existing facts .' Is the language appro
priate to its earlier time suitable to Methodism now .' Is
that system now adapted to universality .' Is it not simply
one of many denominations .' Are not its lines of doctrine,
ritual, custom, and character as definitely fixed, and as
distinct, as those of other sects .' Is it not ill adapted, in
its present form, to certain races, localities, and classes .'
Would not rigid adherence to some of its rules often be
disastrous to its numerical prosperity, without making its
character and zeal superior to those of other denominations.'
In the United States, where it has gained the strongest
hold it possesses anywhere upon the educated classes, has\
it not succeeded largely by relaxing much of the rigidity
yet retained by it in its native land .' Does it not reject
members and ministers whom other Churches, no less
godly, learned, and zealous than itself, are honored by
securing .' That the same remark may be applied to those
Churches, also, does not prove that it is less true of
Methodism. Whence arose the present position of that
body, as a sect, and no longer as a catholic society or
Church .' The causes are numerous ; and it is not necessarv,
here, to trace them all : a few must suffice.
I. History assures us that the first internal cause of the
loss of catholicity in Methodism was an imperfect develop
ment of its conceptions of God's love, and, consequently,
of its brotherly sympathies for men. This remark applies
not to the conceptions of the extent to which the bestowal
of God's favor is possible, but of the extent of its actual
, bestowal at any given time. The recognition by Methodists
of the wide extent of the divine favor for men has been
of slow growth. Spiritual sympathj' is the germ of eccle
siastical form and life ; but it is itself begotten of truth ;
and, if our views of truth are narrow, so will be our
sympathies. Who enjoy God's favor .' The answer to this
question makes our theology and our Churches. In the
case of Wesley, history records a constant growth of
extended sympathy. At first, this was limited 'oy the
bounds of certain organizations assuming to themselves
the title of " the Church," or the " orthodox." Next, it

CATHOLICITY ANB METHODISM.
extended to those, whether orthodox or not, who had
realized a certain subjective phase of religious experience
which he termed a state of "justification." Finally, it
rested on all who reverently yielded to the laws of Him
whom we call " God," — that Power who is the source of
moral obligation. These different views of humanity pre
vailed, at different and successive periods, in the mind of
the founder of Methodism.
In the beginning of 1738, he writes of himself, in his
Journal, as being unconverted when he went to America.
He accuses himself as having no " faith " in the proper
sense of the word, and as being "a. child of wrath." He
lived long enough to deny all this in notes at the foot of
the pages containing his self-accusations.
In 1754, he published his Notes on the New Testament.
In them, on Acts x, 4, he says : " Dare any man say
" these (prayers and alms) were only splendid sins? Or
" that they were an abomination before God .' And yet, in
" the Christian sense Cornelius was then an unbeliever. He
" had not then faith in Christ." On verse 35, he says : " But
" in every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteous-
" ness, he that, first, reverences God as great, wise, good,
" the cause, end, and governor of all things ; and, secondly,
" from this awful regard to him, not only avoids all known
" evil, but endeavors, according to the best light he has, to
" do all things well, is accepted of him. Through Christ
" though he knows him not. The assertion is express, and
" admits of no exception. He is in the favor of God,
" whether enjoying his written word and ordinances or not."
In his Journal, Dec. ist, 1767, he writes as follows: "Being
'" alone in the coach, I was considering several points of
" importance. And thus much appeared clear as the day :
¦" That a man may be saved, who cannot express himself
" properly concerning imputed righteousness. Therefore, to
" do this is not necessary to salvation. That a man may be
" saved, who has not clear conceptions of it. (Yea, that
" never heard the phrase.) Therefore, clear concepdons
" of it are not necessary to salvation : yea, it is not neces-
" sary to salvation to use the phrase at all. That a pious
" churchman who has not clear conceptions even of justi-
" flcation by faith may be saved. Therefore, clear concep-
" tions even of this are not necessary to salvation. That a
" Mystic, who denies justiflcation- by faith (Mr. Law, for
" instance), may be saved. But, if so, what becomes of
" articulus stantis velcadentis ecclesicg {the article by fldelity

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 9
" to which a Church stands or falls) .' If so, is it not high
" time for us Projicere ampuUas et sesquipedalia verba,
(To cast away high-sounding terms, and words of learned length,) *
" and to return to the plain word : ' He that feareth God,
" and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him .' ' "
In the Arminian Magazine for 1786, he writes, concern
ing Thomas Firmin, a pious and benevolent Unitarian
friend of Archbishop Tillotson : " I was exceedingly struck
" at reading the following life ; having long settled it in my
" mind that the entertaining wrong notions concerning the
" Trinity was inconsistent with real piety. But I cannot
" argue against matter of fact. I dare not deny that Mr.
" Firmin was a pious man ; although his notions of the
" Trinity were quite erroneous."
By this, he corrects the following sentence in his sermon
on the Trinity, preached in 1775: "Therefore, I do hot
" see how it is possible for any one to have vital religion
" who denies that these Three are One."
As Methodism began in 1739, it will be seen that,
from its commencement to the time when Wesley ac
knowledged the Chri.stianity of Unitarians, Methodism
had been in existence for forty-seven years. In his ser-
ijion. No. CVL, on "Faith," published in 1788, he shows
that the views and sympathies even of his preachers' had
been too narrow, during at least the early part of the
preceding half-century; and, init, he extends thepossibility
of acceptance with God even to Deists, and hesitates
about denying it to Materialists, evidently dimly seeing a
possibility of a Materialist recognizing a Power which im
poses moral obligations, and to obey which is to secure
its favors, even though that Power should appear to be
impersonal. That this is the correct view of the sermon
alluded to will be evident from the following considerations.
He has two objects in view ; flrst, to show that all faith
which leads to goodness is acceptable to God ; and second,
that all faith lower than Christian faith comes short of the
Truth. His condemnations, then, in the second part of the
discourse, are of systems, not of men. Again, in I., 2, he
says of the Materialist's faith : " If you allow a Materialist
" to have any," thus granting the possibility of it. Again,
in I., 3, we read : " Their not believing the whole truth is not
" owing to want of sincerity, but merely to want of light.''
*• Horace, De Arte Poet. 1. 97.

10 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
The connection of this shows that if, in Materialists and
Deists, sincere faith exists, the want of " light " will not
deprive them of God's favor. In I., 13, he says : " There
" is no reason why you should be satisfied with the faith of
" a Materialist, a Heathen, or a Deist ; nor, indeed, with that
" of a servant. I do not know that God requires it at your
" hands. Indeed, if you have received this, you ought not
" to cast it away ; you ought not in any wise to undervalue
" it, but to be truly thankful for it. Yet, in the meantime,
" beware how you rest here."
Further, in his sermon against bigotry, he acknowledges
that, possibly, a Deist may turn men from sin to goodness,
which supposes that his faith has been sufficient to turn
himself In Sermon CVL, I., 2, he writes : " Indeed,
" nearly fifty years ago, when the Preachers, commonly
" called Methodists, began to preach that grand scriptural
" doctrine, salvation by faith, they were not sufficiently ap-
" prized of the difference between a servant and a child of
" God. They did not clearly understand that even one 'who
" feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted of
" him.' In consequence of this, they were apt to make sad
" the hearts of those whom God had not made sad."
This passage is valuable, as it shows the importance that
Wesley, in his later life, attached to the view of saving
faith which is suggested by his Notes on Cornelius.
Thus, during this progress for half a century in Wesley's
mind, his societies were being trained by men who had not
yet fully caught the kindly charity which was only growing
in his own heart. His people, as a whole, have not, in 1877,
reached the height of that charity ; what, then, must have
been the narrowness of the earlier time .' This narrow
ness of view, and consequently of sympathy, would neces
sarily, in no long time, destroy that catholicity of which
Mr. Wesley boasted, and did destroy it.
2. History records a narrowing of the organic form of
the Societies corresponding to that of the inward thoughts
and feelings of the members of those Societies. As the
mollusc grows, so grows the shell. Let the spirit of a
system expand, and the system itself must expand, or
break. But let the spirit contract, and the system which
enshrines it will contract with it.
(a) We find a curtailment of the liberties of the individual
members of the Societies. Before the spirit of the early
Methodists had time to expand, it was cramped by narrow
rules. It was not enough to lay down for them the general

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 11
principles of abstaining from evil and of doing goo(^ ; but
the individual judgment was subjected to a prescribed
method ; and in one instance, at least, on the wearing of
gold, that method was based on a misconception of the
meaning of the Bibk.*
In 1742, a prudential regulation, which then proved
highly advantageous, which has since been of inestimable
•value, and which, if ever abandoned, will largely tend to
-destroy the peculiar religious character of the Church, was
introduced, for the first time, three years after the founding of
the Society. This was the formation of classes, which sub
sequently developed into class-meetings. At first, the leaders
visited the members of the classes at their homes ; after
wards, all assembled at one place. For three years, there
was Methodism without this regulation ; yet, in process of
time, it became compulsory to attend these class-meetings.
The institution has proved its right to live and flourish : the
compulsory rule was an infringement on previously existing
liberties. (b) We next find the liberties of the Churches not fully
recognized. Though Wesley had learned before January
20th, 1746, from Lord King's account of the " Primitive
Church," " that, originally, every Christian congregation
was a Church independent on all others," and though he
had before him the example of the apostolic " council " at
* An examination of I Peter, iii. , 3, 4, will show that two things may be
regarded as adornment, — dress, and the graces of character. Peter does not
place these as alternatives that are mutually exclusive. He does not mean
that, where "a meek and quiet spirit" exists, the "putting on of apparel"
is to be abandoned. Yet the " putting on of apparel " is quite as much for
bidden as the "wearing of gold." The true sense evidently is that, in the
exercise of that desire to be attractive of which the female sex is peculiarly
susceptible, the t^st of true adornment should be the inwarc^ character rather
than the outward appearance. In 1 Tim., ii., 9, 10, the same distinction may
be seen, though "good works " here take the place of " a meek and quiet
spirit. " If it be still urged that Paul prescribes the actual form of dress
which women must never adopt, let it be remembered that Paul himself will
then be represented as making a rule for one sex which he does not bind on
the other, thus practically contradicting his principle that, in Christ, "there
is neither male nor female." If it be urged that, in these verses, he lays
down a rule to be observed in all places and in all times, one may legitimately
ask if this is consistent with the catholic principles which he himself advanced,
that the Kingdom of God does not consist in outward observances, but in
inward character, and that, where the latter is like Christ, in the former,
every man should be "fully persuaded in his own mind," and not bedictated
to by another. Paul's test of female propriety is modesty ; and there may be
times when the wearing of gold and pearls and braided hair is' a proof of
immodesty. Who will say it is so everywhere and always ? When it is, let
these adornments be rejected : when it is not, let women and men remember
that Paul himself has said: "I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus
that there is nothing unclean of itsellL"

12 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
Jerusalem, in favor of a wide extension of liberty to par
ticular Churches, yet he sincerely believed it proper to^
enforce upon his societies a uniformity not necessary tO'
their existence. In the choice or retention of a pastor
beyond three years, except in the case of the established
" clergy," no congregation had any part. In the Confer
ence legislation which affected the interests of particular
churches, as well as those of the whole connection, the
early practice of inviting to a seat in Conference any
stranger, male or female, of piety and judgment, ceased ;
and no church was allowed any but clerical representation.*
In time, even the introduction of organs, gowns, or liturgies
became a matter too great for the decision of separate
congregations.f (c) The next phase of the decrease of catholicity is a
narrowing of the liberties of thought in the preachers. In
the early Conferences, doctrinal points were discussed in
open session. The first Conference was held in I744>
On the propriety " of thoroughly debating every question
which might arise," the decision was given as follows :
" What are we afraid of .' Of overturning our flrst prin-
" ciples .' If they are false, the sooner they are overturned
" the better. If they are true, they will bear the strictest
" examination. Let us all pray for the willingness to re-
" ceive light to know every doctrine whether it be of God." j
How far each person was to submit to the majority was
decided thus : " In speculative things each can only submit
"so far as his judgment shall be convinced ; in every prac-
" tical point, so far as we can, without wounding our several
" consciences." §
Thus Calvinists and Arminians dwelt in harmony.
Liberty produced progress. Of the Conference of 1745,
and its advancement during one year, Stevens, p. 236,
says, "it showed a decided progress of opinion on
ecclesiastical questions." In 1770, Wesley's "Minute on.
Calvinism " was the signal for a change. Lady Huntingdon
* See Smithy Hist. Wes. Meth. vol. i., p. 228. Stevens, Hist, of Meth,
pp. 238, 344, Erig. ed.
t This remark, so far as it relates to organs, is true of England In refer
ence to gowns, It IS true of Canada. In reference to gowns and liturgies, not
Conference action, but popular sentiment, seems to have decided against
them m the United States. The "Leeds organ case," in England, when
w'^ .^l w'''r?A"r'"''.'^''''l'^^' ^'3"^^''°" of Conference 7<.r. popular rights.
ronf rXfi^ ^"''Tp- ^""'^.^°''.i"'t.PP' '+9. 129. Minutes^ of CaLda
Conf., i860, p. 77. Bangs's Hist. M. E. Church, vol. i, p. 167
J Stevens, Hist. Meth., Eng. ed., pp. 157, 8. ' f /•
§ Stevens, p. 157. Smith, Hist. Wes. Meth., vob i., pp. 211-12

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 13
and her Calvinistic preachers were driven into open war
fare. The Conference henceforward became, at least theo
retically, distinctly Arminian. In 1780, when Benson was
charged with Arianism, the discussion of the case was
referred to a committee. From that time, doctrinal discus
sion in Conference became rare. Finally, a fixed code of
Doctrines was established by the " Model Deed" of 1788
in the Sermons and Notes which are now the recognized
standards of Methodist doctrine, at least in England and
Canada ; and the intellectual rights of the individual
preachers, while officially recognized, became practically
forgotten. These effects have subsequently been increased
by the practical substitution, to a great degree, of the
systematic Theology of Watson's " Institutes" for anything-
like a comprehensive analysis, and a consistent synthesis,
of the real standards of Methodist theology.
That Mr. Wesley never designed that his followers should
bow to his words, even in these standards, in the abject
manner in which men have been compelled to subscribe to
Liturgies, Creeds, Confessions, and " Disciplines," may be
learned from two letters written in 1755 and 1756, to the
Rev. Mr. Walker, and found in the American edition of his
works, vol. vii., pp. 273-7. Iri these, speaking of the' rea
sons assigned by certain persons for not -subscribing to the
book of Common Prayer, he says : " They think it is both
" absurd and sinful to declare such an assent and consent
"as is required, to any merely human composition." — " I
" will freely acknowledge that I cannot answer these argu-
" ments to my own satisfaction." — " Your general Advice on
" this head, to follow my own conscience, without any regard
" to consequences, or prudence, so called, is unquestionably
"right; and it is a rule which I have closely followed for
" many years, and hope to follow to my life's end. The
" first of your particular advices is ' to keep in full view the
" interests of Christ's Church in general, and of practical
" religion ; not considering the Church of England, or the
" cause of Methodism, but as subordinate thereto.' This
" advice I have punctually observed from the beginning, as
" well as at our late conference." — " So far as I know my-
" self, I have no more concern for the reputation of
" Methodism, or my own, than for the reputation of Prester
" John. I have the same point in view as when I set out,
" the promoting, as I am able, vital, practical religion : and
" in all our discipline I still aim at the continuance of the
" work which God has already begun in so many souls."

14 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
SuCh language is peculiarly appropriate to a time when
rigid adherence to denominational peculiarities is the peril
of Protestantism and Christianity.
In the "Model Deed " ofthe Methodist Church of Canada,
the following language occurs : " The Trustees for the time
" being of these presents shall — at all times — permit and
*" suffer the said church — to be used — and shall — at all times
" hereafter, — permit — such persons as are hereinafter men-
" tioned — to preach — therein. Provided always, that no per-
" son or persons whomsoever shall — be permitted to preach
" — in the said Church — who shall maintain — any Doctrine
" or Practice contrary to what is contained in certain Notes on
" the New Testament, commonly reputed to be the Notes of
"the said John Wesley, and in the First Four Volumes of
" Sermons commonly reputed to be written and published
"by him."
The dogmatics, then, of Methodist pulpits, and even
the " practices " of the Church, in Canada, are to be tested
ultimately by these Notes and Sermons. Dr. Stevens
assures us a rigid system of interpreting these standards is
impossible. John Wesley himself would repudiate such
rigidity. The truth of this remark will appear farther on.
What has been already presented, however, in this work
will show how utterly impossible, unjust, and impolitic, in
view of the demands " of Christ's Church in general, and of
practical religion," would be any attempt to establish this
rigidity ; and it may yet appear what Church holds in her
hands the power to proclaim liberty to the theological cap
tives of modern Christianity, and to lead the advance toward
a comprehensive union of Protestantism against her deter
mined and subtle foe. Our dogmatical systems are chiefly
attempts to arrange in order, and explain to the Reason, the
facts of Christianity. John Wesley distinctly repudiates all
authoritative or persuasive enforcement of such explana
tions, even those of the highest embodiment of the so-called
" orthodoxy," and refuses to enforce any " mystery," press
ing only the authority of facts. To elicit these is the work
of criticism, by the use of private judgment. This method
he used, recommended, and defended.
It will be evident, from this examination of a few of the
internal causes which led, during the course of years, to the
formation of Methodism into a distinct denomination, that
in Wesley's theology was the starting point of that forma
tion.

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM, 15
CHAPTER IIL
CAN IT BECOME CATHOLIC AGAIN.'
To answer this question, attention must be turned to an
examination of the theological standards of Methodism.
These must be searched, to find their own teachings, and
to ascertain their bearing on the current thought of the
-day.
§L
Wesley's Earlier and Later Views Compared.
I. The Methodist standards of doctrine contain both
Wesley's early, and his later, views, which are irreconcilably
antagonistic. As Dr. Stevens assures us, on page 14 of the
English edition of his " History," " from their number and
the great variety of subjects treated in "these standards,
" a rigorous system of interpretation has become impossible."
Wesley himself says, in a letter written in 1768, to the
Rev. Dr. Rutherforth : * " You charge me likewise, and
" that more than once or twice, with maintaining con-
" tradictions. I answer, (i) If all my sentiments were
"compared together, from the year 1725 to 1768, there
" would be truth in the charge ; for, during the latter part of
" this period, I have relinquished several of my former senti-
" ments. (2) During these last thirty years, I may have
" varied in some of my sentiments or expressions without
" observing it." He goes on to state that it could scarcely
be otherwise, and to ask for " allowance " from " men of
candor." His further abandonment of " former sentiments,"
in 1775 and 1786, has been already noticed.
It must not be forgotten that, from a single definition,
the widest differences may, ultimately, be reached ; and the
earlier, in theological investigations, a point of divergence
occurs, the farther apart must the flnal conclusions become.
A deflnition of saving faith will inevitably lead to a certain
view of the object of that faith, the " meritorious cause " of
our salvation, or " the Atonement." From the Atonement,
it is but a step to the Person of Christ which gives value to
that Atonement. From the Person of Christ we necessarily
arise to the nature of God, and thence to the nature of Spirit
as distinct from matter, thence to the connection of the two,
* Works, vol. vii., p. 494.

16 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
the origin of human souls, and the whole subject of Crea
tion, its development and laws. Thus, from what may be
called " the simple Gospel," we are necessarily led to the
grandest conceptions of the human intelligence ; and we
see how Christianity becomes an inspiration to human
thought, and the very source of our highest progress. We
can thus understand how Paul was led to represent those
who regarded the doctrines of Christianity, from repent
ance to judgment, as the end, instead of the beginning, of
our perfect development, as needing to be taught what are
the flrst sounds of the beginning of God's utterances.
These " first principles " are merely the gymnastic training
ground for fields in which more daring battles are to be
waged, and more glorious victories won.
It was forty-nine years from the commencement of
Methodism that Mr. Wesley formed his most complete
definition, of "saving faith." During those years, his
preachers preached, and his people believed, the definitions
of his earlier life. For nearly half a century, then, his
societies had been running in a certain line from which
he had been gradually diverging. His earlier views had
become identified with the popular thought, and were the
real germs whence sprang the troubles of an after-time.
The very Calvinism which he so strongly opposed arose
legitimately from what he himself had believed and taught
to be the truth ; and that he saw this is evident from his
language, first used in 1744, and repeated in 1770, — "We
have leaned too much toward Calvinism." That the
Calvinists perceived it is evident from the fact of La'dy
Huntingdon's having stigmatized Wesley as an "apos
tate."* (a) The want of harmony of the Methodist standards of
doctrine is noticed, first, in their views of Justification and
Conversion. In Sermon V., IL, 5, we read : " The plain
" scriptural notion of justification is pardon, the forgive-
" ness of sins. It is the act of God the Father, whereby,
" for the sake of the propitiation made by the blood of his
" Son, he ' showeth forth his righteousness (or mercy) by
" the remission of the sins that are past.' "
In the same Sermon, in., 5, he says : "By a parity of
Ij reason, all works done before justification are not good, in
" ^^ Christian sense, forasmuch as they spring not of faith
"m Jesus Christ; yea rather,~they have the nature of
sm. * Stevens, p. 398.

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 17
In IV., 2, he says : "Justifying faith implies, not only a
" divine evidence or conviction that ' God was in Christ, re-
" conciling the world unto himself,' but a sure trust and
" confidence that Christ died for my sins, that he loved me,
" and gave himself for me''
In IV., 3, he says : " I cannot describe the nature of this
" faith better than in the words of , our own Church, — ' The
" only instrument of Salvation ' (whereof justification is one
" branch) ' is faith ; that is, a sure trust that God both
" hath and will forgive (sic) our sins, that he hath accepted
" us again into his favor, for the merits of Christ's death
" and passion.' "
In 4, he continues : " By affirming that this faith is the
" term or condition of justification, I mean, first, that there
" is no justification without it."
In 5, he says: " He hath no righteousness at all, ante-
" cedent to this; not so much as negative righteousness, or
" innocence." From these quotations, Wesley evidently taught : (i) that
justiflcation is the act of pardon by God ; (2) that this par
don is granted only to faith in Christ ; (3) that the objective
act of God, and the subjective realization of it, are co
incident in time ; (4) that prior to this act and experience,
all man's deeds are sinful ; and (5) that, in order to obtain
pardon, we must believe that God has already pardoned us.
Compare with the foregoing quotations the following.
In Sermon XL, v., 4, preached in 1767, he remarks : "Yea,
" there may be a degree of long suffering, of gentleness, of
" fldelity, meekness, temperance (not a shadow thereof,
" but a real degree, by the preventing grace of God),
" before we are ' accepted in the Beloved,' and, conse-
" quently, before we have a testimony of our acceptance."
His remarks on his own conversion before he went to
America, and on the case of Thos. Firmin, have already
been given, and need not be repeated. His note on Acts
IIL, 19, is : " Be converted. Be turned from Satan unto
" God. But this term, so common in modern writings,
" very rarely occurs in Scripture ; perhaps not once in the
" sense we now use it, for an entire change from vice to
" holiness." On Acts XL, 18, he says : " True repentance is a change
" from spiritual death to spiritual life, and leads to life
" everlasting." Part of his Note on Matt, v., 3., is : " TJie poor in spirit.
" They who are unfeignedly penitent, they who are truly

18 ' CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
" convinced of sin ; who see and feel the state they, are in
" by nature, being deeply sensible of their sinfulness, guilti-
" ness, helplessness. Por theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
" The present inward kingdom; righteousness and peace
" and joy in the Holy Ghost, as well as the eternal kingdom,
" if they endure to the end."
His conviction that the goodness of Cornelius before
faith in Christ was not a mass of "splendid sins," and
that the case of that centurion is a model for all similar
cases the world over, whether they know Christ or not,
whether they have the "word and ordinances or not,"
has already been alluded to, and need not be repeated.
However, as the full meaning of his expressions in the
authorized standards can be gathered only oy a comparison
of them with his contemporary writings, a few extracts from
these may profltably be subjoined. In Sermon CVL, I., lo-
we read : " But what is the faith which is properly saving;
" which brings eternal salvation to all those that keep it
" to the end .' It is such a divine conviction of God, and the
" things of God, as, even in its infant state, enables every
" one that possesses it to ' fear God and work righteous-
" ness.' And whosoever, in every nation, believes thus
" far, the Apostle declares, ' is accepted of him.' "
Let it be remembered that, while Wesley shows the supe
riority of Christian faith over that of any other religious
" dispensation," he extends the possibility of possessing this
"saving faith" to Materialists, Deists, Mohammedans,
Jews, Heathen, and Christians ; yet this is the only
deflnition of saving faith consistent with his notes on
Cornelius. In the "Minute on Calvinism," which being
issued authoritatively in 1770, must be taken as an inter
pretation of the views embodied in his standards of theo
logy, Wesley says : " As to merit itself, of which we have
" been so dreadfully afraid : we are rewarded ' accord-
" ing to our works; yea, ' because of our works! How does
" this differ from, for the sake of our works ? And how
" differs this from secundum merita operum, as our works
" deserve ? Can you split this hair.' I doubt I cannot .' "
" Does not talking of a justifled or a sanctifled state tend
" to mislead men, almost naturally leading them to trust
" in what was done in one moment .' Whereas we are every
" hour and every moment pleasing or displeasing to God,
" according to our works ; according to the whole of our
" inward tempers and our outward behavior."
* Stevens, p. 387.

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 19
From these extracts the following thoughts arise : (i) The
principle on which pardon is granted is universal. Here is no
discrimination between God's method of saving a ]\Ioham-
medan, a Deist, a Materialist, a Heathen, a Jew, or a Chris
tian, — no saving of one through faith, and another on account
of " invincible ignorance." It is by faith in such features of
the divine character as are universally revealed, but chiefly
in Christ, who, as a man, was the only medium of revelation
by which the fullness of Deity could be exhibited, — and
in such features of His character as everywhere inspire
respect for God, whatever may be the source of revelation
of that character, and a desire to be like him in spirit and
life; (2) The very first dawn of this goodness, which is the
" mind that was in " Jesus, self-devotion to and for God,
is, universally, and in its feeblest forms, acceptable, and
acceptable simply because it is right, seaindiim merita
operum ; (3) Subjective and objective justification are not
necessarily contemporaneous ; and justification is not a
transition point, before which all is crime, and after which
all is virtue, but rather a sentiment of the divine mind
toward us, reflected in the satisfaction of our own conscience
and graduated according to the intensity with which we
have become imbued with the spirit of Christ ; (4) We may
see from this the logical necessity for personal righteous
ness, which, on any other hypothesis, is difficult to demon
strate; (5) This view will give to many portions of the
New Testament a life and a power before unknown ; (6)
^Ir. Wesley, even in his later views, was not yet free from
slight mental confusion in his views of justification sub
jective and justification objective, the nature of pardon
not being stated or even investigated.
ip) The want of harmony of the Methodist standards may
be seen, also, in their views of " the meritorious cause of our
salvation," or the Atonement of Christ. In the Sermon on
"Justiflcation by Faith " already quoted, Mr. Wesley, speak
ing of the Atonement of Christ, says God " treated him as
a sinner, punishing him for our sins." * His notes on Rom,
IIL, 25, 26, are as follows : " Whom God hath set forth —
" Before angels and men, a propitiation — To appease an
" offended God. But if, as some teach, God never was
" offended, there was no need of this propitiation. And if
" so, Christ died in vain. To declare his righteousness — To
" demonstrate not only his clemency, but his justice : even
* Sermons, Vol. I., p. 57, Eng. edition.

¦20 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
" that vindictive justice, whose essential character and prin-
¦" cipal office is to punish sin : by the remission of past sins. —
" All the sins antecedent to their believing. For a demon-
" stratton of his righteousness — Both of his justiceand mercy,
" that he might be just — Showing his justice on his own
" Son ; and yet the merciful jusiifier of every one that
¦" believeth in Jesus. That he might be just — Might evidence
" himself to be strictly and inviolably righteous in the
" administration of his government, even while he is the
" merciful justifier of the sinner that believeth in Jesus.
" The attribute of justice must be preserved inviolate.
" And inviolate it is preserved, if there was real infliction
" of punishment on our Saviour. On this plan, all the
" attributes harmonize."
In Sermon XX., IJ., i, he says: " There is no true faith,
" that is, justifying faith, which hath not the righteousness
" of Christ for its object." By " the righteousness of
Christ," he understands Christ's living and dying, his
" active and passive righteousness " ; and of these he says :
" And it is with regard to both these conjointly that
Jesus is called ' the Lord our Righteousness.' " *
Here we have two distinct views of what is commonly un-j
derstood as the Atonement, or the means by which Christ
promotes reconciliation between God and men. Ofthe latter
view, two meanings may be taken ; but as Wesley used it, it
is substantially the same as the former. Both views are
based on the supposition that there can be no forgiveness
without what may at least be regarded as an equivalent for
something demanded of the offender. In the first view,
we have the equivalent in the shape of the penalty due to
sin. This is put in its baldest form, leaving no room for
that compromise which has since been adopted by many
of Wesley's followers, and which regards the Atoneiftent
not as the bearing of the actual penalty incurred, but as
the endurance of suffering that derives its value from the
" infinite dignity" of the sufferer. Wesley distinctly speaks
of the "righteousness," passive, as well as active, as gaining
its value, not from Christ's divinity, but his humanity. It
is " the human righteousness of Christ." f In the second
view, the equivalent is no longer merely penalty borne, but
righteousness supplied. In both, the "scheme of salvation"
is reduced to a commercial transaction, or an expedient to
overcome a difficulty. Now, it is quite evident that either
» Serm. XX, i., 4. f Serm. XX., 11., 15.

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 21
view leads directly to Calvinism or L'niversalism. The
equivalent rendered must be for all the sins of all men, or
for all the sins of some men, if it is an Atonement for all
sin. If the first is true, then, unless a just God can demand
a second time his equivalent, all men must eventually be
saved ; and so L'niversalism must be true. If the second
alternative is the correct one, then Calvinism is true : the
few atoned for must be saved, and the rest lost. Aside,.
then, from any will on the part of either, their fate is fixed
long before they are born ; and, Antinomianism being, on
such a hypothesis, correct, Arminianism becomes a heresy.
If it be contended that the equivalent is rendered for all
the sins of men, not to secure their certain salvation, but to
put them into a position whence they can, by comphing
with certain conditions, be saved, it must follow that he
who rejects the conditions thereby commits one sin for
which no atonement has been made ; and so, by self-
destructi\"e reasoning, \\-e deny that -with which we started,
that the atonement was for all sin. This view, by making
it appear that sin is cancelled before it is committed, gives
to the government of God a mechanical air which does
not agree well with our highest conceptions of the Deity,
while the equivalent received really leaves no place for
forgiveness, and no sins to be forgiven. John Owen,*
puts " this dilemma to our Lniversalists : God imposed
" his wrath due unto, and Christ under\vent the pains of
" hell for, either all the sins of all men, or all the sins
" of some men, or some sins of all men. If the last,
" some sins of all men, then have all men some sin?
" to answer for, and so shall no man be saved. If the
¦' second, that is it which we (Calvinists) affirm. If the first,
" why then are not all freed from the punishment of all
" their sins .' '
As to the Atonement being an expedient, it must bc
said that such removals of obstacles alwa}-s argue a
want of foresight somewhere ; and, in God's government,
there is no room for expedients, but only for laws founded
in His own nature, and in that of Creation. Besides,
both theories, which, though advanced b}- Wesley," are
anti-Wesleyan, are also logically subversi\-e of all moral
ity. Why avoid sin, if it is already atoned for .' Why
tr)' for righteousness, if all that God needs has already
been provided by Christ ? Anything more is mere super
erogation. Let us be thankful that the moral sense is
* Works, .v., 259.
3

22 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
more powerful than logic, in the vast majority of theoretical
Antinomians, and that their lives are, consequently, as
pure as those of their opponents.
It is a remarkable thing that, since 1739, no distinctly
Wesleyan theory of the Atonement has ever been evolved
from the writings of the founder of Methodism. Every
theory proposed has been a subterfuge, or has run into
Calvinism. Hagenbach * states that the Methodist view,
so long held, is essentially Augustinian ; and the quota
tions from Wesley and Owen show that he cannot justly
be charged with a misrepresentation.
In the sense in which Mr. Wesley himself used the fore
going definitions, he was inconsistent with the fundamental
Arminianism of his system ; and the latent Calvinism of
his individual early views lurks in Methodism still. The
revived Antinomianism of the day may, perhaps, drive
that system into consistency. Take the obedience of
Christ, his " active and passive righteousness," however, —
his "human righteousness," — as the exhibition ofthe divine
character, and connect it with Wesley's last definition of sav
ing faith, — " such a divine conviction of God, and the things
of God, as, even in its infant state, enables every one that
has it to 'fear God and work righteousness,' " — and we have
a theory of the Atonement which is consistently Wesleyan
and Arminian. Atonement will then be used in its true
sense. Reconciliation ; and the theory of such a " procuring
cause" as may be represented as an equivalent rendered,
lovingly, as a free gift by the Almighty to himself in
order, in the midst of his wrath, to placate himself, and
obtain from himself what he could not freely give until he
was paid the full price for it, will give place to nobler
conceptions of the principles of God's character and
government ; while, by sensible men, such a theory of
confusion will be consigned, with its predecessor, the
theory of redemption by what the historians, following
Ambrose, designate as a fraud practiced upon the devil, to
the museum of discarded antiquarian theological curiosities,
Ambrose, quoted by Hagenbach,t says : Oportuit hanc
fraudem Diabolo fieri, — " It was necessary that this fraud
should be practiced upon the devil." When the brighter
day of promise arrives, men will cease to put Christian
gratitude on a heathen basis, as they will cease to illustrate
the Christian view of the work of Jesus by Iphigenia and
* History of Doctrines, Vol. n., p, 504. f Hist, of Doct., I., p. 346.

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 23
Zaleucus ; and the theological presentation of Christian
joy will no longer inevitably recall the lines of Virgil :
 qucc sibi quisque ti-mebat
Unius in -mise-ri exitium conversa tuhre.'^
— " What each one dreaded for himself, they bore con
tentedly, when it was turned over to the destruction of one
poor mortal."
The subject of Wesley's variations of views ; his
advocacy of the perpetual virginity of Mary, his open
advocacy of baptismal regeneration, &c., need not be traced
further, at present. §2.
The Reconciliation of the Differences.
In the fifty-three Sermons and the one volume of Notes
which constitute the body of Methodist standards of
divinity, there is a mass of opini,ons held, at different times,
by the individual man who wrote them. These opinions
constitute the matter of Wesleys theology. But, running
through the whole, and tested! by a comparison of the
dates at which the several parts were written, will be found
a systematic method, by the application of which the
opinions of Wesley were formed. When a man subscribes
to these standards, is he bound to the matter only, or is he
also to recognize the method, and be guided by it .' To
bind a man to the matter only is to bind, not merely one
man to the opinions of another, but the whole ministry of
a Church, during all the time of its existence, to the views
of a man like themselves. It is practically to admit that a
man, limited, as all men are, by the circumstances of his
time ; growing mentally, as all men must, by the accumu
lated knowledge and developing reflection of years; in
fluenced by constitutional infirmities and educational bias,
has, nevertheless, so completely caught the meaning of the
Bible that no education or talents of any individual, and no
progress of coming ages, can ever hope to surpass him. Is
not this practically to concede the infallibility of his
judgment .'
In the case in hand, it is to bind men to theories incon
sistent with each other, and with the general princ;iples of
the whole system of theology under which they are ranged,
and leading to consequences the most antagonistic, from
stand-points the most diverse. It is certainly, as Dr.
*^neid, Bk. IL, 130, i.

•2i CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
Stevens has shown, to open the door to a very wide com
prehension of views, but without any hope of a reconcilia
tion of them. It is to leave an independent thinker at the
mercy of whatever phase of popular opinion on the
standards may, at the time, prevail. It is to open the door
for some man of sufficient force of thought to attract fol
lowers, and of more pugnacity than meekness, to cling
tenaciously to his position, and rend the Church with some
terrible schism. It is to subject a thoughtful man of more
meekness than pugnacity to the overwhelming power of a
majority whose influence, in an itinerancy, may crush him
into humiliating and uncongenial positions in which his
talents may be wasted. It is to close the pulpit against
the highest talents, if associated with those qualities of
independence and honor which, when baptized with the
Holy Ghost, are the greatest ornaments of the preacher's
office. It is to attempt what never can be done ; for in
those standards are views which few, if any, Methodist
ministers hold ; and to expect any one to hold them all is
to expect an impossibility. Can any means be found by
which order may be brought out of chaos, by which the
opinions of the man may be made a basis for ascertaining
the truth, and yet may not become a fetter to prevent the
progress of the human mind, but may allow the same
abandonment of the untenable which was exercised by the
author of the standards himself.'
This question can be solved only by a careful observation
of Mr. Wesley's fundamental principles, and his method of
developing his views, and by the adoption of that method.
A great want in Methodism is a searching analysis, and a
scientifle classification, of the whole body of her standards-
of theology ; but this would necessarily involve the discus
sion of that method which is the only connecting bond
between the fragmentary and contradictory portions of the
whole. I . One fmdamental principle of this method is the exeixisc
of private judgment. This is observable in all Wesley's
course from the beginning. It called him out from the
mass of Oxford men by whom he was surrounded during
his life at the University. It made him refuse to follow
the Moravians even after they had been of benefit to him.
It made him risk the ruin of his influence in the Church of
his choice. It made him risk the permanence of his
societies rather than yield to see them leavened by a
theology he disliked. It made him risk the contempt of his

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 25
¦own age, and this one, by encountering the charge of super
stition. It made him violate all the traditions of his early
education when circumstances demanded their overthrow.
It made him the most consistent Protestant of all in any
so-called " orthodox " Church.
But it is not from his example alone that we learn his
method. His writings indicate it. His note, John I., 9, is :
" Who lighteth every man — By what is vulgarly termed
" natural conscience, pointing out at least the general lines
" of good and evil. And this light, if man did not hinder,
¦" would shine more and more to the perfect day."
On I Corinth. XL, 18, he says : " 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 words, are sins that the Scrip-
•" ture knows nothing of ; but were invented merely to
" deprive mankind of the beneflt of private judgment, and
" liberty of conscience."
In Sermon CXXVIIL, 26, preached in 1740, he uses the
following language : " But you say you will prove it by
" Scripture. Hold ! What will you prove by Scripture .'
" that God is worse than the devil .' It cannot be. What-
" ever that Scripture proves, it can never prove this."
^' No Scripture can mean that God is not love."
Now what have we here but an acknowledgment that there
are in man primitive tendencies to belief which, when the
Truth is presented, instinctively perceive its truth, just as
the eye sees external objects, — that the heart of man is con
vinced of the objective reality of what corresponds to these
native and necessary instincts, — and that Scripture must be
interpreted in accordance with these primitive convictions,
especially when the testimony of Scripture itself is distinct
on the point at issue .' Here, then, is a distinct acknow
ledgment of the trustworthiness of our mental faculties, of
our right and responsibility to use them, and evidence that
this use of his own brain was one feature in the method of
'the man who made the acknowledgment. So fully do the
heart's instincts respond to Christ's revelation that " God is
Love," that, wherever Scripture seems to contradict it, the
instincts of the soul must decide between conflicting
interpretations. 2. The next feature of ihis method is loyalty to fact. This,
also, is seen in Wesley's acts and writings. In Sermon LV,
which, though not within the compass ofthe legal standards,

26 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
must, from the date of its publication, 1775, be regarded as
an exposition of what was published in the Notes in I7S4»
on the subject of the Trinity, he says : "You are not re-
" quired to believe any mystery." " The Bible barely
" requires you to believe such facts ; not the manner of
"them." " Again : ' The Word was made flesh.' I believe this
" fact also. There is no mystery in it ; but as to the man-
" ner how he was made flesh, wherein the mystery lies, I
" know nothing about it, I believe nothing about it."
In section 15, he says : " I believe this fact also (if I may
" use the expression), that God is Three and One. But the
" manner how I do not comprehend ; and I do not believe
" it. I believe just so much as God has revealed, and no
" more. But this, the manner, he has not revealed ; there-
" fore I believe nothing about it."
The word " revealed " he uses as synonymous with
"unveiled, uncovered." See section 16. That this un
veiling of Truth is not confined to the Bible is evident
from what has already been quoted on Conscience ;
but further evidence may be found in Sermon CVL, I.,
4, where he speaks of "Heathens being taught of God,
" by his inward voice, all the essentials of true religion,"
evidently referring to a communication, to their minds,
of the Truth, by God, but not through Scripture, or
even the effects of antecedent tradition, and as evidently,
solving the problem of what truth is " essential," as well as
proclaiming the universality of the revelation of that essen
tial Truth. By this distinction of fact from manner, of the
comprehensible from the mysterious, he saved Joseph
Benson from the danger of falling into Arianism. Mr.
Wesley's use of the conditional parenthesis quoted above
may be explained by this, that he recognized the verses on
" the Three Witnesses " as depending for their authority
upon the correctness of Bengel's reasoning. He evidently
felt that on this rested the solution of the question whether
the text of his Sermon was a statement of a fact, or whether
the text was worthless. Hence he says, " this/arf also (if
I may use the expression)." * This, then, was Wesley's
'^ A reference to the Preface of this Sermon will show that, when it was
prepared, Mr. Wesley had at hand no books which might have aided him in
making more accurate statements ; and reference to Bengel's words even as
given m Barnes's Commentary, licet sperare codices productum iri, -liiU show
that he merely hoped some Greek MSS. might be found to support the
authority of I John v., 7, 8, thus giving no basis, but an illusive hope for
that authority. '^ '

CATHOLICITY AKD METHODISM. 27
second principle in ascertaining the Truth, — to recei\-e
nothing but what God has revealed as a fact, whether He
has " uncovered " the fact by " natural conscience," bj' " his
inward voice," by the outward world, or by the Scriptures.
3. It will be seen tliat his method was progressive. He
ever abandoned the untenable. By facts observed, he con
cluded that a layman should be allowed to preach. B\- facts
observed, he admitted the Christianit}- of Unitarians. By
facts observed, he admitted the Christianity of Quakers, who
have no outward " sacraments." By following facts, he be
came the greatest reformer of his age. Facts, viewed by his
independent judgment, made him anticipate scientific induc
tions only now agitating the world. Those who speak most
loudly against the doctrines of creation b}- evolution from
pre-existent forms of matter, are, if they are IMethodists, far
behind the founder of their Church. His note on Hebrews
XIL, 9, has been corrected by a change in his views on the
origin of souls. He once held, and did so when the Notes
were first published, that souls originated by what may, from
want of better language, be termed spasmodic acts of crea
tion. In 1762,* he became convinced that they were
evolved from the parents. By facts observed, he concluded
that the lower animals have reason, as well as we. " Wes
ley believed that there was a regular gradation of creation
from the animalcule to the archangel." " He also thought
it probable that each class in the series ad\"ances, and will
for ever advance" i" Thus AA'esley, like the scientists of
to-day, took his stand in the present ; but, while they scan
the past, he endeavoured to forecast the future, both of
them leaning to the evolution of higher from lower forms
of nature. If AA'esley's view differs from that of modern
scientists, it is in being more " advanced " than theirs ; for
it seems to lean in the directions of the pre-existence of
souls in a lower form of nature. By facts observed in his
youth, and testified to him by persons whose words he
records, but not superstitlously, as some suppose, he became
convinced of what men are learning to-day, though many
fear to acknowledge it, that we are not left without objec
tive confirmation of our natural tendency to believe that a
world of spirits exists about us, and that the dead are not
altogether " departed." Thus, while his method made him
progressive, it was also conservative, and shows the way
out of that blank and cheerless materialism that threatens
to wither our dearest sympathies, and drive us to the dark-
' Journal, January 27, 1762, and October 25, 1763. + Stevens, p. 700.

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.

ness and superstition of ancient Paganism. His progress,
is the only true conservatism of his system.
The conclusion of this is that no one can hold all that is
contained in the Wesleyan standards of doctrines ; and the
only question is, — on what principle those who adopt them
shall make their selection. If the decision be left to caprice,
endless trouble must arise. If it be decided by Methodist
traditions, or by popular opinion, we shall have no security
for truth except that fallacious ohe of the infallibility of
majorities on which sacerdotalism is founded. To inter
pret the legal standards by the Articles of Religion or by
the Systematic theology embodied in the "Discipline," by
the Liturgy, or by the Hymns, is to ignore the fact that
the legal standards are the ultimate test of these formula
ries, and are not to be tested by them. It is also simply to
increase the confusion, not to lessen it. This may be seen
from the fact that the second " Article " reduces Christ to a
species of being different from all other species, and having
under the species only the one individual, thus making of
the term " Christ " a substantive designating that species,
when it is truly an adjective designating a quality of the
man Jesus, — the quality of being " anointed." Besides, it
is directly at variance with Acts X., 38.* To make the
authority ofthese, then, superior to that of the Notes and
Sermons is to increase the evil. The only safe principle,
and the only one consistent with true catholicity, is that of
loyalty to fact, wherever it leads us. Loyalty to fact
cannot lead astray, for truth is conformity to fact ; and it
is by the spirit of Truth that we are led into life eternal.
This testing of the conformity to fact of all dogmatic
statements, even at the cost of doing what Wesley
himself often did, — abandoning his own personal views
on many points,— is the only way gradually to reach the
Unity of Truth amongst the inconsistent and contradictory
opinions now collected together in the Methodist standards
of theology. This is, to some extent, already done. Few
Methodists, clergy or laity, accept the correctness of Wes
ley's exegesis on Romans VL, 4, and Coloss. n, 12,
where he construes " buried " into an allusion to the 'form
of baptism. Still fewer accept the theory of baptismal
regeneration, or regeneration by the Spirit throuo-h the
means of baptism, taught in his notes on John III., 5", Acts
* The words of this "Article" are: "the godhead and manhood were
joined together m one person, never to be divided; whereof is one Christ "
&c. '

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 29
XXIL, 1 6, Rom. VL, 3, i Cor. xii., 13, and Coloss. IL,
12. How man}- accept his view of Clary's perpetual
virginity given in his note on Matt. I., 25 .' Are there
any who accept all his views in his notes on the
Apocalypse .' The facts of Christian experience, and those
elicited by biblical criticism, are against these notes ; and
the notes are disr^arded in presence of the opposing facts.
The demands of Christianity to-day may lead us to a
wider application of AVesley's method than either he or
his followers have ever made. §3-
The Test of Fact.
It has been seen that AA'esle}-'s method was the use of
his private judgment, and lojalt)- to the facts obtained in
¦the course of his continued investigation of Truth. But
how can any one ascertain whether a dogma corresponds
to a fact .'
I. By actual comparismi of tJie dogma ivith tlie fact to
which it is supposed to correspond. Take, for instance the
dogma of human depravity. AA'hether this is true or not,
and, if true, in what sense it is so, must be decided by a
reference to humanity and the facts it presents. The shape
of the earth is not to be decided bj- ecclesiastical authority,
but by measurements and voyages ; and the relative
importance, in the solar system, of our present abode
cannot be decided by any authority but one whose utter
ances are based on the investigation of facts. The bearing
of the decision of such questions on any pre-conceived
system of theology or ecclesiasticism must never be taken
into account. The only question of importance is, — what
are the facts .' The consequences of the answer must not
be allowed for a moment to interfere with the in\-estigation,
further than to guard us against carelessness or haste in
our search for facts.
2. WJiere tlie partiadar f cut is beyond our reach, the com
parison must be instituted betweoi ilie statement and the
general principles under zifiich the partiadar fact must be
placed. In any dogma relating to the essential nature of
the divine Spirit, the truth must be tested b}- our knowledge
of the general laws of spirit. Anjthing predicated of a
single mind must be tested b}" the general laws of mind,
where the particular mind is beyond our observation.
Psychology thus becomes a clue to certain problems in

30 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
theology ; and the solution of the question whether, in the
divine mind, there exists a threefold distinction under the
essential unity can be determined finally only by a
profound analysis of the nature and laws of all mental
and spiritual existence. It is a problem, therefore, of meta
physics. 3. In cases zvhere both the particular fact and the general
principles which embrace it are beyond our reach, the corres
pondence of any statement with the fact it is taken to represent
may be proved by the competetice of the testimony which com
municates it to us. The possibility of seeing the Southern
Cross is, to most people, very remote ; but he would be guilty
of worse than credulity who should reject the testimony of
the many who profess to have seen that constellation. This
is the weakest of the three methods of testing a fact, and
savors more of credulity than of that faithjwhich personal
investigation produces, and which is all the knowledge we
have here ; yet credulity is not always an evil, and often
anticipates faith. To be credulous is to be ready to
believe ; and there is a readiness to believe which is more
blessed than scepticism, and even more blessed than the
faith which is based upon sight. Rare gifts, in poetry and
in religion, often anticipate great truths which observation
afterwards confirms ; and practical life demands the
acceptance of them simply on the authority of him who
utters them, or on an inward assurance of their truth, long
before they are conflrmed by observation. This acceptance
of testimony is, in practical life, of more frequent necessity
than personal observation ; but it can easily be perceived
that the safety of the blind depends largely upon the trust
worthiness of those who lead them ; and, in questions of
life and death, as all religious questions are, the blind
should not trust to any leader who cannot be absolutely
relied upon.
This acceptance of testimony may be traced, deeper
than mere testimony, to the very convictions of our nature;
for nature compels us to believe that good men will
not willingly be false, and that multitudes of independent
observers of the same facts, when they unite in their
assurances, may be taken as worthy of our confldence.
This method of testing dogmas implies that the indivi
dual Reason is the flnal court of appeal. In personal
investigation, whether of particular facts or general laws,
all our knowledge of Truth depends upoij the trustworthi
ness of our mental faculties ; and to this court all questions

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 31
must ultimately come. In choosing testimony, its com
petence must be decided by Reason. The most skilled
Romanist theologian appeals, as a last resort, to this, in
his effort to make the authority of his Church axiomatic.
To this, the Protestant appeals flnally, when he essays
to do for the Bible what the Romanist does for his
Church, — present it as an infallible guide whose correct
ness none dare question. It is idle, therefore, for Romanist
or Protestant to represent such a method as " Rational
istic." So far as the term " Rationalism" is taken to
mean a rejection of the supernatural, — or, as the word
" supernatural " seems to mean, super-material, — it is not
Rationalism at all, inasmuch as it irrationally ignores a
mass of facts which have been presented to the world
in all nations and all ages, as well as those natural in
stincts which compel a belief in the existence of a realm
of being not subject to the limits of material nature. So
far as the word Rationalism means the employment of
Reason as a passive recipient of communications from
without, or an active agent in the discovery of Truth,
working by generalizations of facts based on its own native
and necessary convictions, Romanism is as Rationalistic
as Protestantism. To allude to the language of Cardinal
Manning, in his " Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost,"
we may say that the Romish theologian is quite as much
a " critic " of revelation, before he yields himself as a
" disciple " of it as the Protestant. Before the former yields
to his Church, he criticises its claims, if he is intelligent ;
and after the latter has satisfled himself that anything is
a revelation from God, he yields himself to it as fully as
the other. Rome and Protestantism diverge only from
the point where each flnds the authority to which it is
henceforth to submit : up to that point, the method of each
is the same. The point at which Wesley's Reason yielded
to Faith was God's revelation of a fact. Farther than
this, he did not insist that others should go. Beyond this,
he left terms, definitions, and philosophical speculations, to
the individual judgment.
, Enough has now been said to show that the main ques
tion of this chapter cannot be answered without an ex
amination of Wesley's relation to what is commonly called
" orthodoxy." To this we must now turn.

32 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
§4-
" Orthodoxy:'
During the early Christian centuries, a mass of specu
lative dogmas accumulated in the minds of thinking men,
and assumed the name of " orthodoxy." There never have
been wanting men whose words and lives, even when their
own views were wrong, have been a standing protest
against this appropriation of a good name by a system of
thought which their intelligence rejected, and which
brought upon them, for their rejection of it, some of the
most severe afflictions a Christian heart can bear. This
assumption and these protests have continued to this day.
A careful observation of the thoughts ranged on both
sides reveals a common substratum of Christian facts.
These facts form the real orthodoxy, — the fundamentals
of Christian opinion which distinguish Christianity from
every other religion in the world. The definitions, system
atic groupings, and explanations of them which have, at
various times and in various places, prevailed, constitute
our different "theologies." The facts may be grouped
under four heads, — Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement, and
Retribution. The Trinity implies three agents in the work
of saving men from sin. The Incarnation implies the
embodiment, in some sense, of God in Jesus Christ The
Atonement implies a reconciliation between God and
man through Jesus Christ Retribution implies rewards
and punishments, in a future state, of virtue and vice in
this life. The question is being forced upon Christianity,
is any given explanation of these thoughts necessar)' to
catholicity .' Are any of the current explanations of them
to be regarded as the Revelation of God.' Has the Bible
distinctly unfolded any such explanadon, or has it but
revealed the facts .' Especially, has it revealed, as the Truth
of God, that system of explanations which has assumed
the title of " orthodoxy .' " In any case, what is the
relation of Wesley's theology to that system .' To answer
these questions, an appeal must be made to the facts of
History, Church authority, Christian consciousness, the
Bible, and the Methodist theological standards. In this,
however, the design is not to uphold any one theory, but
to show that no one is absolutely necessary to real ortho
doxy, or to Wesleyan principles. The historical facts are
locked up from the public in large volumes whose number

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 33-
and cost prevent them from being widely read. Mere
allusions to these works, then, could not secure a con
sultation of them by the masses; and unsupported state
ments would not have the weight which actual quotations
would give. The style of preaching which the popular
taste demands prevents arty education of the people into
an intelligent comprehension of the questions at issue,
through the medium of the pulpit. At the risk, conse
quently, of appearing to burden the reader with quotations,
some extracts from standard writers must be given at
length. The extracts will be made from the works of
none bnt "orthodox" writers, and works which are recog
nized text-books in Methodist colleges, theological schools,
and courses of study, especially in Canada and the United,
States. I.
"ORTHODOXY" TESTED BY HISTORY.
I. Extracts from Hagenbach' s "History of Doctrines!'
In presenting only such of these as are necessary, the
brevity demanded will produce an abruptness in the tran
sitions from one to another.
(a) Puzzled, as our modern thinkers are, by the diffi
culty of reconciling the ideas of the Absolute and the
Infinite in God with his relations to a finite creation, the
ancients, in their speculations, conceived the thought of a
medium by which creation was effected. Referring to
this medium, Hagenbach says : "We find traces of it in
the more definite and concrete form which, at the time
when the apocryphal writings were composed, was given
to the personiflcation of the divine Word and the divine
Wisdom found in the Old Testament, especially, however,
in the doctrine of Philo concerning the Logos, and in
some other ideas then current." * " This Logos is poeti
cally personifled in several places." " Like the Word, the
Wisdom of God is personifled." "On the question whether
Philo ascribed personality to the Logos, — while most
writers reply in the affirmative, Dorner entertains the
opposite opinion." " According to Philo, the Logos is
the essence and seat of the ideal world (the ideal of ideals).
As an artist flrst forms a model of that which he purposes
to make, so God flrst shaped the world ideally." -f- "That
* Vol. I., p. 114; t I. p. 115.

34 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
Philo frequently personifles the Logos does not necessarily
imply that he ascribes to him a real hypostasis." " The
doctrine of an intermediate being between God and the
worid is a part of the theftlogy of the Talmud; but this
intermediate being is there designated, not by the name
of the Word, but by that of the Shekinah." * " Before
the doctrine of the Trinity was further developed, the
Logos was considered by the orthodox church to be the
only hypostasis."t "The apostolic fathers make no use
of the doctrine of the Logos, but adhere to simple apho
ristic and undeveloped declarations about the divine
dignity of Christ."| "In the writings of Clement (of
Alexandria) the Logos is superior to men and angels, but
subordinate to the Father"§ On page 121, 2, Hagenbach
quotes from Tertullian. Some sentences may be thus trans
lated. " Before all things God was alone ; to himself he
was world and place and everything. But he was alone
because there was nothing external to him. Yet he was
not even then alone ; for he had with him what he had in
himself, namely, his reason, &c. For he brought forth
God the Word, just as a root brings forth 2. shrub, a
fountain a stream, the sun a ray, — since these things, also,
are a development of those substances from which they
proceed." "In chap. 9, the Son is even called ^portion
of the Father." " We flnd in Tertullian, on the one hand,
the effort to hold fast the entire equality of the Father and
the Son — on the other hand the inequality is so manifestly
conceded or pre-supposed ; it is everywhere expressed in so
marked, and, as it were, involuntary a way, and it strikes
its roots so deeply into his whole system and modes of
expression that it must, doubtless, be considered as the
real and inmost conception of Tertullian's system." ||
"After Tertidlian had employed the term Son in reference
to the personality of the Logos more distinctly than had
previously been done, Origen decisively adopted this ter
minology, and was led to the idea of an eternal generation.
Though he kept clear with all strictness from any notion
of physical emanation, yet he was, on the other hand,
pressed to a subordination of the Son to the Father.
Consequently his deflnitions by no means satisfled the
consciousness of the church." H "He also considers the
generation ofthe Son as eternal, because God did not at
any time begin to be a father, like fathers among men."
*l., p. 116. tl., p. u8. + I., p. 119. §1., p. 119.
II L, pp. I2I-2. <: II I., p. 123.

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 35
"Particularly was the expression 'Son of God' which, in
the New Testament, is undeniably used in respect to the
historical Christ, confounded with the metaphysical and
dogmatic usage of the schools!' " It (the subordination of
the Son to the Father) is a necessary aid in the substi-
Tution of several actual hypostases in God for the doctrine
of the Logos, as previously held, which only vaguely
maintained the distinction of hypostases in God."* "As
soon, however, as the attempt was made to go beyond the
Trinity of revelation (i. e., the Trinity as it manifests itself
in the work of redemption), and to conceive of the essence
of the Holy Spirit in itself, and the relation in which he
stands to the Father and the Logos, difficulties sprang up,
the solution of which became problems of speculative
theology. By some, the AA^isdom of the Old Testament,
from which the doctri?ie of the Logos was developed, was
called ' the Holy Spirit,' and made co-ordinate with the
Word. Others either identifled the Logos with the Spirit,
or expressed themselves in a vague manner as to the
distinction between them, and the Holy Ghost (imperson
ally viewed) appears as a mere divine attribute, gift, or
agency. But the pressure of logical consistency led gra
dually to the view of the personality of the Holy Ghost,
and his deflnlte distinction from the Logos."-f- " It is not
to be forgotten that the trias of revelation was held in a
complete form long before the church came to clear state
ments about the esse^itial trias!'% Theophilus, one of the
so-called " Church Fathers," quoted by Hagenbach, §
says, (in the second Christian century), "This Word,
being the spirit of God, &c., descended upon the prophets."
This passage shows that the message, or " Word of the
Lord," which came to the prophets in old times, had, in
the time of Theophilus, been invested with personality,
and was by him confounded with the spirit of God, thus
presenting the fact that duality and not Trinity was the
orthodoxy of this " father" Of Justin Martyr, the great
Christian apologist, Duncker, quoted by Hagenbach,
says : " — but still it is none the less true that his philo
sophical principles, logically carried out, lead only to a
dyas (or duahty in the Godhead), and that he could not
doctrinally establish the difference between the Son and
the Spirit" " Origen acknowledges the personality of
* I., p. 124. + I., p. 125.
X I., p. 127, Note 4. « Vol. I., p. 127.

36 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
the Holy Spirit, but subordinates him to both the Father
and the Son, by the latter of whom he is created like all
other things, though distinguished from all other creatures
by divine dignity."* "The belief in the Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost belonged to the regula fidei, even apart
from any speculative development of the doctrine of the
Logos, and appears in what is commonly called the
Apostles' creed, in this historico-epic form, without being
summed up in a unity. The Greek word trias was flrst
used by Theophilus ; the Latin term trinitas, of a more
comprehensive doctrinal import, is found in Tertullian."
Hagenbach gives an extract from Theophilus, to the follow
ing effect : " The three days before the creation of the
luminaries have become types of the trias of God, his
Word, and his Wisdom. But for a fourth type, is man,
&c. So that there may be God, the Word, Wisdom, Man."
" Here we have indeed the word trias, but not in the
ecclesiastical sense of the term Trinity ; for as man is
mentioned as the fourth term, it is evident that the trias
cannot be taken here as a perfect whole, consisting of three
joined in one; besides, the term Wisdom is used instead
of the Holy Spirit. "-f "The strict distinction which was
drawn between the hypostases (persons) in the Trinity led,
in the first instance, to that system of Subordination in
which the Son was made inferior to the Father, and the
Holy Spirit to both the Father and the Son." j Tertullian
" expressly appeals to the point that Christ did not say
that he and the Father were one (unus, masculine), but one
(unum, neuter) ; and he refers this unity to a moral relation
— the love of the Father and the obedience of the Son."§
These quotations refer to the period between 80 A.D.
and 254 A.D. : A few must now be given between 254
A.D. and 730 A.D. " Orthodoxy, however, prevailed at
last, partly from an internal necessity," and partly from,
" the combination of political power and monkish in
trigues." || " In proportion to the development of ecclesias
tical orthodoxy into fixed and systematic shape, was the
loss of individual freedom in respect to the formation of
doctrines and the increased peril of becoming heretical.'"!"
"The Nicene Creed decided nothing concerning the Holy
Spirit." "But Athanasius correctly inferred from his
premises the divinity of the Holy Spirit." Gregory of
Nazianzum 380 A.D., says : " Some of the wise men
*l., p. 128. tl., p. 129. +1., p. 130. § I., p. 131.
II I-, p. 228. IT I., p. 229.

CATHOLICITY AND METH0D1.SM.

amongst us regard the Holy Spirit as an energy, others
think that he is a creature, some again that he is God him
self; and, lastly, there are some who do not know what
opinion to adopt, from reverence, as they say, for the
Sacred Scriptures, because tliey do not teach anything de
finite on this point." Hilary " could not flnd any passage
in Scripture in which the name ' God' was given to the
Holy Spirit."* Gregory of Nazianzum " acknowledged
that the doctrine was not expressly contained in Scripture,
and therefore thought that we must go beyond the letter
itself" " He, himself, showed that the Holy Spirit is
neither a mere power, nor a creature, and, accordingly, that
there is no other alternative except that he is God himself"
" The want of a sufficiently definite interpretation of Scrip
ture was one of the chief hindrances to the recognition of the
consubstantiality (Homousia) of the Son. To conduct the
proof from depths of Christian consciousness appeared to
many too adventurous."-)- " At the third synod of Toledo
(589 A.D.) the clause ^/w^2<^ (' and from the Son') was
added to the confession of faith of the council of Con
stantinople"! "The doctrine of the church concerning
the Trinity appears most fully developed and defined in a
perfect symbolical form in what is called the symbolum qui
cunque (commonly but erroneously called the creed of St.
Athanasius). By its repetition of positive and negative pro
positions, its perpetual assertion, and then again, denial of
its positions, the mystery of the doctrine is presented, as it
were, in hieroglyphics, as if to confound the understanding."
(b) " The doctrine of the devil occupied during the period
a prominent place in Soteriology, inasmuch as Gregory of
Nyssa and other theologians still maintained the notion
previously held that God defrauded the devil by a dishonest
exchange." " The train of his argument is as follows :
Men have become slaves ofthe devil by sin. Jesus offered
himself to the devil as the ransom which should release all
others. The crafty devil assented, because he cared more
for the 07ie Jesus, so much superior to them, than for all the
rest. But, notwithstanding his craft, he was deceived,
since he could not retain Jesus in his power. It was, as it
were, a deception on the part of God that Jesus veiled his
Divine nature, which the devil would have feared, by means
of his humanity, and thus deceived the devil by the appear
ance of flesh." " It was necessary, in order that this fraud
should be practiced on the devil, that Jesus s'hould take a
•I., p. 259. tl., p. 261. JL, p. 263.
4

38 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
body, that this body should be corruptible and inflrm, so
that from its infirmity it might be crucified."* " In pro
portion as the death (of Christ) is referred to the divine
causality, Christ's death is viewed as punishment for human
sin, as the bearing of the curse, and is, consequently referred
tothe divine justice. A theory of satisfaction begins to be
developed."f "To set aside the devil, Athanasius put
personified death in his place, which was deceived in the
same way."| " Thomasius gives a full view of the theory
of Athanasius, as the most important in the patristic litera
ture — summed up : The Logos assumed a mortal body, in
order thus to fulfill the law for us, to bring the vicarious
sacrifice, to destroy death, to give immortality, and so to
restore the divnie image in humanity. His death was 'the
death of all,' ' the death of humanity,'" &c.§ The theory of
Anselm of Canterbury "is in substance as follows: In
order to restore the honor of which God was deprived by
sin, it was necessary that God should become man ; that,
by voluntary submission to the; penalty of death, he might
thus, as God-man, cancel the debt, which, beside him, no
other being, whether a heavenly one or an earthly one,
could have paid. And he not only satisfied the require
ments of divine justice, but, by so doing, of his own free
will, he did more than was needed, and was rewarded by
obtaining the deliverance of man from the penalty pro
nounced upon him. Thus the apparent contradiction
between divine love on the one hand, and divine jus
tice and benevolence on the other, was adjusted." ||
" The doctrines of the church were gradually developed in
the lapse of ages." "Abelard was accused of heresy for
contesting the right ofthe devil to man."1[ " Thus the two
representatives of scholasticism, in its first period, when it
developed itself in all its youthful vigor, Anselm and
Abelard, were directly opposed to each other, with respect
to the doctrines of redemption and atonement. The one
considered the last ground of it to be the divine justice,
requiring an infinite equivalent for the infinite guilt of sin,
that is, a necessity founded in the nature of God ; the other
held it to be the free grace of God, which, by kindling love
in the breast of man, blots out sin, and with sin its guilt."**
Duns Scotus is quoted on p. 51. The following is a trans
lation : " For Christ was meritorious not so far as he was
God, but so far as he was man. Hence if you demand how
? L, p. 346 1 1., p. 347. X I., p. 348. § I., p. 349.
II IL, p. 41. t n., p. 43. ** IL, pp. 47, 8.

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 39
valuable the merit of Christ was, according to its sufficiency,
doubtless it was of value so far as it was accepted by God.
Since divine acceptance is the most powerful cause and
reason of all merit — the merit of Christ was of sufficient
value so far as the Trinity was able and willing to accept
it." " Thus he (Duns Scotus) destroyed the principal
argument of Anselm's theory in his ' Cur Deus Homo.'' "*
"V^hile, Anselm did not go beyond the simple fact of
Christ's death, Aquinas endeavored to demonstrate that
Christ endured in his head, hands, and feet, all the sufferings
which men have to endure in their reputation, worldly
possessions, body, and soul, in head, hands, and feet ; ac
cordingly, the pain of the sufferings of Christ is by far ihe
greatest which can be endured in the present life. Never
theless his soul possessed the uninterrupted enjoyment of
blessedness. Aquinas considers that Christ need not, and
could not, suffer " eternal punishment ; "the dignity of his
person, and his voluntary sacrifice were sufficient."-f- " Pro
testantism could not absolutely withdraw itself from the
power of tradition. For even the authority of Scripture
rested upon the belief of the church. But even in relation to
the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, Protestantism
declared its agreement with the oldest creeds of the church.
But with all its theoretical opposition to any other authority
than that of Scripture, Protestantism soon carae to be
dependent upon its own tradition ; for the words of Luther,
and the declarations of the confessions of faith, became a
standard and restraint in the subsequent exegetical and
doctrinal development."! "As Protestants and Roman
Catholics agreed in resting their doctrines concerning
theology and christology on the basis of the oecumenical
symbols (the Apostle's Creed, the Nicene, and the Athana-
sian), so they espoused in common the doctrine of atone
ment as given in Anselm's theory of satisfaction, only with
this difference, that the Prostestants gave the preference to
that aspect of this theory presented by Thomas Aquinas,
while the Roman Catholics were favorable to the scheme
of Duns Scotus." The Protestants " so extended the idea
of vicarious suffering as to make it include the divine curse
(mors (Bteriia — eternal death), an opinion which was com
bated by the divines of the Roman Church."
(c) On the future state, Hagenbach says : " All writers
admitted the difficulty of forming just views on this subject.
The sufferings of the damned were represented as the
? IL, p. 51. t IL, p. 50- X II-. PP- 248-9.

40 CATHOLICITY AND MBTHOUIS.M.
opposite of the pleasures of the blessed ; and, in the
descriptions of the punishments of hell, greater prominence
was given to gross sensuous representations. Many were
disposed to regard the fire in question as a material fire.
There were still some theologians who favored the idea of
degrees both of bliss and torture. Concerning the duration
of the punishments of hell the opinion was more general
that they were eternal ; but yet Arnobius maintained that
they would at last cease, though with the annihilation of
the individual ; and even the Origenistic humanity, in a
few of its representatives, still dared to express a glimmer
of hope in favor of the damned. Jerome, at least, admitted
that those among the damned who have been orthodox,
enjoy a kind of privilege."*
(d) '' The New Testament does not contain the idea of
Sacrament, as such. Baptism and the Lord's Supper were
not instituted by Christ as two connected rites, but each in
its own place and time, without a hint of a relation of the
one to the other "f " As Tertidlian, generally speaking,
is the author of the later terminology (New Testament,
Trinity, original sin, satisfaction), so he is the first writer
who uses the phrase, sacrament of baptism and the
eucharist." " Tertullian also uses the word sacrament in a
more general way."| " The idea of the Holy Sacraments
was moEC precisely defined and limited in this period (from
A.D. 254 to 730) ; they are the organs by which the church
works upon the individual Christian, and transmits the
fullness of divine life, which dwells within it, to the
members."! 2. Extracts from Kurtz's " Church History!'
(A text-book in the Methodist Colleges of Cobourg and
Montreal.) (a) "In its friendly or hostile contact with heathen
culture, Christianity had to appear in a scientific form, in
order thus, also, to prove its claim to recognition as a
universal religion. During the three first centuries, how
ever, the dogmas of the Catholic Church were not yet fully
formed and established." || " The real essence of the
Deity was rather ascribed to the Father, and all the attri
butes of divinity were not assigned to the Son in the same
manner as to the Father" " The views entertained about
fhe Holy Ghost were even more vague. His personality
* I., p. 376. t I., p. 212. J I., p. 211.
§ I-. P-355- II I., p. 141.

CATHOLICITY AND MEIHODISM. 41
and independent existence were not subjects of settled or
deep^ conviction ; it was more common to subordinate
him."* " The acknowledgment of the equalitv of being
of the Son, with the Father— as yet was left out of the
orthodox view," was "propounded in the third century, but
— found general acknowledgment only in the fourth cen-
tury."f " Origen was the first to propound the truth that
the Son is begotten by the Father from all eternity, and
hence from all eternity a hypostasis."!
(b) In the period from lOO A. D. to 323, the dogma of
the Lord's Supper " was not clearly developed, although it
was generally realized that the Lord's Supper was a most
holy mysterj', and indispensible food of eternal hfe, that
the body and blood of the Lord were mystically connected
with the bread and wine." "When once the idea of a
priesthood had gained a footing, the cognate notion of
sacrifice could not for any time be kept out."§
3. Extracts from Westcott's " Introduction to the Study of
the Gospels."
After quoting man)- passages from the book of Henoch,
written between 107 B. C. and 144 B. C, showing that
writer's view of the humanity of Messiah, and his pre-
existence in the divine purpose and choice, AA'estcott says :
" But while Messiah is thus represented as man, and,
perhaps, classed among created things. He stands far
above all in the greatness of His gifts." || " In the Book
of Proverbs, Wisdom appears in some degree to fill up the
chasm between God and the world." " Meanwhile the
growing belief in an angel-world, composed of beings of
the most different natures and offices, gave consistency to
the idea of a Power standing closer to God than the
mightiest among the created hosts. The doctrine thus
grounded fell in exactly with the desire of the philosophic
interpreters of Scripture to remove from the text the
anthropomorphic representations of the Supreme Being ;
and, witli varied ingenuity, and deep insight into the
relations of the creature and the Creator, the finite and
the infinite, they cotisirucied the doctrine of the W'ord
(Logos). The belief in a divine Word, a mediating power
by which God makes himself known to men in action and
teaching, was not confined to any one school at the time
of Christ's coming. It found acceptance alike at Jerusalem
* I., p. 142. t I., p. 143- + I-. P- I44-" § I-. P- 123. II P. 123.

42 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 1
and Alexandria, and moulded the language of the Targums,
as well as the speculations of Philo. But there was a
characteristic difference in the form which the belief
assumed. In Palestine, the Word appears, like the Angel
of the Pentateuch, as the medium of the outward com
munication of God with men ; in Egypt, as the inner
power by which such communication is rendered possible
The one doctrine tends towands the recognition of a divine
Person subordinate to God (yet created); the other, to
the recognition of a twofold personality in the divine
essence."* "The very title. Logos, with its twofold
meaning, speech and reason, was a fruitful source of
ambiguity ; and this first confusion was increased by the
tempting analogies of Greek philosophy in conflict with
th.e Hebrew faith in the absolute unity of God. As a neces
sary consequence, the Logos is described under the most
varied forms. At one time, it is the mind of God in
which the archetypal world exists, as the design of an
earthly fabric in the mind of the architect. At another
time, it is the inspirer of holy men, the spring and food
of virtue. At another time, it is the Son of God, the
First-born, all-pervading, all-sustaining, and yet personally
distinct from God. At another time the conception of
two distinct divine personalities yields to the ancient
dogma, and the Logos, while retaining its divine attributes,.
is regarded only as a special cbnception of God, as reason
ing, acting, creating." -f- " It is impossible to decide
absolutely that Philo attributed to the Word a personal
and divine essence." " The Word is neither an emanation
nor a created being, but rather God himself under a par
ticular form."! ' I" ^he Latin versions of the New
Testament, as represented by MSS. of every class. Logos
is translated by 'Verbum, which falls very far short even of
a partial rendering of the Greek. There is, however,
evidence that, in the second century, sernio was also
current, which is, in some respects, a preferable rendering;'
and Tertullian seems to prefer ratio, though he implies that
that had not been adopted in any version."§
4. Extracts from Withrow's " Catacombs of Rome!'
" 'The Holy Trinity,' says Dr. Northcote, ' is nowhere
represented, as far as I know, in the paintings of the
Catacombs.' " || " Throughout the whole range of sacred
» P. i6i. t P. 163. + P. 165. § p. 265. II P. 354.

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 43
mosaics at Rome from the fourth to the fourteenth centur}-,
according to Mr Hemans, the Supreme Being is never
represented except symbolically by means of a hand,
usually holding a crown over the head of Christ, the
Virgin, or the Saints."* " But this grossness of treatment
reaches its most offensive development in the impious
attempt to symbohze the sublime mystery of the Holy
Trinity by a grotesque flgure with three heads, or a head
with three faces joined together, somewhat after the
manner of the three-headed image of Brahma in the
Hindoo mythologj-. In other examples, the Trinity is
represented by three harsh, stiff, and aged flgures." -f-
REFLECTIONS OX THE EXTRACTS.
I. The real must be distinguished from the conventional
in orthodoxy. Orthodoxy, in the Roman Church, properly
covers the whole realm of human thought : in Protest
antism, it covers only a certain set of subjects which has
not been very clearly deflned. Some persons, as will be
seen further on, include under the head of Orthodoxy
even the " Sacraments," as Baptism and the Lord's Supper
have come to be called, thus excluding from the Church
of God the " Friends " or Quakers. A few extracts on
this part of the whole subject have been inserted, to show
that the general law of development applicable to the
other parts is true in it, also ; but it would be a wrong
to the mass of Protestants to hold them responsible for
views which they repudiate. Orthodoxy, then, as held
by most Protestants, may be grouped under the four heads,
— Trinity, Incarnation, Atonement, and Retribution.
An analysis of the extracts given from Hagenbach, Kurtz,
and Westcott will show a difference bet^\een the thoughts
of Christians on these subjects, and the explanations given
of those thoughts at various times. In this distinction
lies the only hope of a reconciliation between Christians
of different views. It will be found that the underlying
thought cf nearly all, if not all, who ever desire the name
of Christian is much the same, while any attempt to
define and explain the thought creates a diversity, at once,
from the defects of language, the varieties of individual
culture and ability to express what is thought, and from
' r the influence of current opinion on the forms of expression
* P. 3S7. t P. 360.

44 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
used. The thought must be as permanent as Christianity
itself: the expression must bear the stamp of locality and
time ; hence the more our creeds leave general principles,
and descend to details of explanation and definition, the
less are they suited to a catholic, universal, and permanent
Church. Real Orthodoxy recognizes a threefold agency in the
development of human purity and perfection ; and these
three are called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
I prefer to use here the word Spirit ; for " Ghost " begs a
question which is a point of controversy. That point is
personality, distinctness of conscious existence and charac
ter Real Orthodoxy also recognizes the manifestation of
God in Jesus Christ ; and this it designates by the term
Incarnation. It acknowledges that in and through Jesus
Christ a reconciliation is produced between God and man :
this it calls the Atonement. It is convinced that in the
future life, as well as in this, virtue is rewarded, and vice is
punished ; and this it designates Retribution.
Conventional Orthodoxy defines the three agents in re
demption as hypostases, or persons, in the essence of one
Deity, thus leading men into the subject of essences of
spirits, a subject of which we know but little, and which
can have but a remote bearing on the questions of prac
tical life. The term hypostasis, or person, it defines, at
times, as an individuality having distinct consciousness and
will ; and, at other times, to avoid tri-theism, it loses itself in
an ineffectual attempt to give any intelligible definition of
the term, urging its acceptance as a mystery to be believed
without any clear idea of what it is. It represents the In
carnation as the embodiment of one of these hypostases in
the human form of Jesus of Nazareth. It represents the
Atonement, not as reconciliation, but as that act of Christ
which promoted the reconciliation ; and that act, it repre
sents as a substitution of his righteousness for that which
men should have given, and of his sufferings for those which
men should have endured. It is not distinct in its utter
ances as to the nature of future reward and punishment ;
but it is unanimous in the conviction that these never end,
and that neither one nor the other is the annihilation of the
soul's conscious and individual existence. On the nature of
future punishment, conventional orthodoxy is less definite,
and more negative than on either of the other points ; and
it is, therefore, less open to controyersy on Retribution than
on the Trinity, the Incarnation, or the Atonement. The

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 45
Orthodoxy which is upheld by authority and ecclesiastical
force is not the real and fundamental, but the conventional ;
and, because it is conventional, it is the source of division.
•The question to be discussed here is not, — is it true or false.'
— but, can it be made a basis for a catholic Church .' This
can be decided, partly, by an examination of its origin and
development. 2. " Orthodoxy,'" as commonly understood, is the out
growth of philosophical speculation, (a) There was a time
when it did ¦ not exist. The elements of thought which
ultimately proved to be the germs of it were in existence at
the time of Christ ; but neither in the consciousness of
Christians, nor in the oral tradition which preceded the
written gospels, nor in the opinions taught by the earliest
followers of Jesus, do we find any distinct statement of
those theories or explanations which are now known by
the name of " Orthodo.x} ." The text, i John v., 7, 8, is
now proved beyond a doubt to be an interpolation. The
earliest records in the Catacombs show an utter ignorance
of this schola.-'tic theology, if they do not contradict it.
The Apostles' Creed knows nothing of these hypostases, or
the unity of the three agents. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
(b) The time of its commencement is definitely fixed. It
arose from the second great conflict in which Christianity
became engaged. The first conflict was with Judaism.
The second vvas between the Aryan and the- Semitic mind,
and arose from the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles.
The thoughts which were brought out by the flrst are
found in some of the writings of Paul, and in the Epistle
to the Hebrews. Those evolved by the second are found
in the Gospel of John and in all subsequent Christian liter
ature. The Semitic mind delights in materialistic im
agery and the personiflcation of characters and principles.
The Aryan, or Indo-European, mind delights in abstract
thought and scientifle classiflcation. When these diverse
forms of intelligence came into contact, a necessity arose
for a scientific presentation of Christian truth. From
Westcott we leam that Arianism may be traced to Pales
tine, and Trinitarianism to Alexandria, while both found
their origin in the language and thought of the Talmuds.
(c) The progress of its growth is equally marked. Begin
ning with the proclamation of the personality of the Holy
Spirit, — the last stage of progress in the development of
Trinitarianism, — we find the three hypostases on a foot
ing of equality. Going back, we find the hypostases

46 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
subordinated to each other. Retreating again, we find it
doubtful whether there is a trace of any distinction between
hypostases. Back farther, we find but one hypostasis.
Back still farther, we find the hypostatic or personal
Logos vanish into a figure of speech, the " Wisdom " of
the Old Testament, and the message, or Word, of the Lord,
communicated to the Prophets, being spoken of as if they
were living beings. From the inextricable confusion and
incomprehensible contradictions ofthe so-called Athanasian
creed, then, we trace the whole of this Orthodoxy back to
a rhetorical figure ; and, if we like to look forward to its
imposition upon the world as identical with the Truth, we
find it upheld by speculation, conscientious zeal, diplomacy,
" political power, and monkish intrigues."
3. It leads to Sacerdotalism. The method of its growth
does not necessarily lead to the view that the conventional
orthodoxy ultimately predominant is false. By whomso
ever promoted, or by whatever means triumphant, it may
yet be true. It is the logical outgrowth of certain
premises ; and if these are true, the conclusion must be
right, however it may confound common sense, and by
whatever methods it has prevailed. Taking for granted,
then, that it is correct, it logically leads to that system of
" Church " authority for which no more appropriate title
seems to be found than " Sacerdotalism." II.
Can " Orthodoxy '' rest on Church Authority ?
A remarkable confirmation of the fact here presented,
that the identification of patristic dogmas with divine truth
necessarily leads to the doctrine of the infallibihty of the
Church, is seen in the " Methodist Quarterly Review " for
October, 1876, page yT,?:.
" Woe to the man who ' will not hear the Church.' For,
" first, the Church is the great author, preserver, and inter-
" prefer of the Word. The volume of the book of the
" Word has lain in the ark of even the corruptest Church
" of Christendom. Based on it, secondly, and found in it,
" is a great outline type of holy doctrine : The Trinity,
" the Atonement, the Sacraments, and Retribution, from
" which no private interpretation must vary. In that
" great Type of doctrine, and even in one great type
" of ecclesiastical organization, Irensus, Chrysostom, and

CATHOLICITY .VND METHODISM. 47
" John Wesley essentially agree. There is a great truth
" contained in the profound maxim, JVhat has everywhere
" and always been believed by those who hold the supremacy oj
" the Word is true. This may not apply in exegesis. There
" may be texts which the great body of the Church have
" wrongly interpreted. There may have been tenets in
" regard to physical,^ and cosmical things, and outside the
" limits of pure theology, in which every individual of the
" Church was mistaken. But within her limits the Church
" does not err."
On page 737, Dr. AA'hedon thus defines the AA'ord : " The
" AA^'ord is the great current of spiritual thought running
" through the written text."
Here it must be noticed that Dr. AA'hedon's meaning of
the "Word," is one \\hich was held by some in the early
Church, but is not the one now held by the majority of
Christians. Who can define the limits of " spiritual
thought .' " It is founded on hi.storical, and even scientific,
thought ; and, if the psychological and historical thought
on which the spiritual is built is not also the Word, how
can we be assured of a superstructure which rests on so
insecure a foundation .' Certainly by no means indicated
by Dr. Whedon. His view simply amounts to saying that
the Bible contains the Word, but is not itself, as a whole,
that Word. This view is not without strong evidence in its
favor, even in the Wesleyan Catechism, which says the
Word is " contained in the Scriptures." AA'e must, however,
if we identify the Bible with the Word of God, take the
Bible as a whole, or much confusion will arise.
Again, Dr. AA'hedon teaches: (l) that the authority of
the Bible, and the interpretation of it, rest upon the
authority of the Church which is its author and preserver ;
(2) that this Church is, in the sphere of " pure theology,"
practically, if not theoretically, infalhble It " does not
err," whether it can do so, or not ; (3) that this sphere
embraces the Trinity, the Atonement, the Sacraments, and
Retribution. So long as Dr. AVhedon does not openly dis
sent from the so-called "orthodox" views of these subjects
is it doing him an injustice to take for granted that he
accepts them .' If he does fioi accept them, the remarks
here made lose their force. It is assumed that he does
accept them; (4) that, in the interpretation of what the
Bible teaches on these subjects, private judgment has no
rights which the majority are bound to respect ; for it is only
in the sense of the majority that the Church has ever had

48 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
a unanimous voice on any of these great subjects ; (5) that
whatever authority is due to the type of doctrine indicated
is due, also, to a type of organization supposed to be pre
sented in the Bible. This, taken in connection with Dn
Whedon's view that Bi.shops, Elders, and Deacons are
" an ordained class," different in basis and authority from
such ofhces as that of class-leaders, shows that this great
Methodist is, doubtless unintentionally, on the verge of
betraying his church into the hands of the Sacerdotalists.
It must give to Romanists inexpressible confidence in
their future triumph, when that master of logic concedes,
even in a modified form, one of the fundamental princi
ples of Romanism. He sees his church on the horns of a
dilemma : it must either reject the conventional orthodoxy
or accept the infallibility of the Church. He chooses the
latter alternative.
Were this the place to do it, it could be shown, from a
comparison of the definitions of Regeneration, the Sacra
ments, and the work of the Holy Spirit, given in the
Wesleyan catechism. No. IL, with the ordination service
of the Methodist Church, that all danger of relapsing
into Sacerdotalism has not yet passed away. Sacraments
are there represented as means of receiving spiritual-
grace Baptism is the means of regeneration. A Sacra
ment depends for its validity on a special qualification
of the man who administers it. That qualification is
received in ordination. Hence arises the distinction of an
" ordained class," and, with it, the committing of Method
ism to the sacerdotal side of Christianity. But, is Method
ism leaving the progressive John Wesley for the reactionary
Charles .' Has Charles Wesley's poetry sunk deeper into
the heart of Methodism than John Wesley's prose .' Has
the ballad-singer again triumphed over the lawgiver .' Is
Methodism to end by becoming one of the many paths
that lead to Rome .' Is it to terminate its glorious career
by confirming Manning's assurance, on page 6, that " The
errors of the last three hundred years are passing fast
away .' " The Cardinal utters a great truth when he says,
on page 5, of the work already noticed, that " the infalli
bility of the Church " is " one of the terms of the question"
between Faith and Science, dogma and free thought, and
that, if we take "dogma" and "Faith" in the Romanist
sense of these terms, the reconciliation of these with free
thought furnishes "problems insoluble to all who reject the
infallibility of the Church." — But, can Church authority

CATHOLICrrY AND METHODISM. 49
prove this view of orthodoxy correct .' Let us see. There
is no uniform standard of orthodoxy in Christendom.
That of the Eastem Church is not that of the AA'estern.
Symbolize that of the Greek Church, and you have a
Greek Lambda. S\-mbolize that of the AA'estern Church,
and you have a triangle. In the one, the Spirit proceeds
from the Fatlier alone: in the other, from Father and Son.
Hence it is that, in the later symbolism of the catacombs
at Rome, the Trinit}-, in the sense that prevails in the
Westem Church, is represented by a triangle. Both views
were the best attempts of their time to express great truths
which the men of that day dimly saw, but could not fully
grasp or explain. Here, it is enough to know that there
is no unanimity of \'iew in Christianity on the fundamental
doctrine of the Trinit}-, even amongst those who call them
selves "orthodox." Now, take the AA'estern Church alone:
the orthodoxy of tlie Roman branch of it is, in foundation
and matter, different from that of Protestantism. The
latter is based upon the Bible : of the former, let Cardinal
Manning speak. He says :* " We neither derive our
religion from the Scriptures, nor does it depend upon
them." Based on a wider foundation than the Bible, the
Roman orthodoxy covers wider ground than that of Protes
tantism. Now take Protestantism apart from Rome. If
Calvinism is orthodox, Arminianism is heterodox, and
Maclaine was right in inserting amongst the names of
heretics, not " reputed," but " real," as he distinguishes
some of them, and '' enemies of revelation," under which
title he groups them, the following sentence, taken from
page 775 of Tegg's edition of ]\Iosheim's " Ecclesiastical
History," published in 1833: "Among the sects of this
century we may reckon the Hemhuters, or Moravian
brethren, and the followers of AA'hitefield, Wesley, and
others of the same stamp." If immersion only is true
baptism, none are orthodox, 01 right thinkers, but close-
communion Baptists. One might go on thus till all
diversities of thought were exhausted, and we came at
length to the celebrated definition, " orthodoxy is my
'doxy, and heterodoxy is another man's 'doxy." Orthodoxy
becomes simply the sentiment of the majority in any
community. That identity of views which is represented
in the formula quod ubique, " what is everywhere believed,"
finds no representative in the objective creeds, or theolo
gical standards, of any existing Church, when these creeds
* Temp. Miss, of H. G., p. 176.

50 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
are taken as wholes. The idea involved in quod semper,
" what has always been believed," is in no better condition.
Orthodoxy has never passed unchanged through two suc
cessive periods of the intellectual development of Christen
dom. As for quod omnibus, " what every one believes,"
it would be interesting to ask what creed, what system of
orthodoxy, would combine the beliefs, or represent the
corhmon belief, of all who have enjoyed, or now enjoy, the
favor of God. Unity in the personality of God was the
flrst Christian, as it was ever the Jewish, orthodoxy, not
withstanding the plurality in the words, " Let us make
man." The time when Duality in the Godhead became
the prevailing opinion is definitely fixed in Church History;
andthis could not have been confined to the Gnostics, for
the hypostatic relations of the Holy Spirit to the Father
and the Son were not then established even in the minds
of the " orthodox."
The period when the scientific statement of theology
demanded and presented, as a logical result of previously
assumed premises, a Trinity in unity is also a fixed era in
the growth of speculative thought.
But, not only is it true that there is no uniform standard
of orthodoxy in Christendom, — not only is it true that
there never has been any, — but any attempt to set up the
opinions of one age as a dictator to the thought of follow
ing ages has been attended by most painful consequences?
It has led to a self-destructive conglomeration of opinions,
like the ancient Roman adoption of the gods of every
conquered race. It has led to the abnegation by intelligent
men of their own intelligence. It has led to the fantastic
view that the Church is one mystical person whose think
ing soul is the Holy Spirit, and whose voice, to be heard
and obeyed without question by all its members, is the
voice of a priesthood magically invested with supernatural
powers beyond any arising from its intrinsic worth. It has
led to a bitter revolt of the human intelligence from all
external, sacerdotal, control whatever It has often be
come the fruitful source of hypocrisy in the ministry,
tyranny in church courts and in private members of
churches, and infidelity in the worid. It is based on a
total misconception of the powers and tendencies of human
nature The absence of external infallibility anywhere
need be no source of alarm. Practical life does not hang
on demonstration, or infallible certainty, of the truths from
which it springs. Faith is sufficient. " Faith " does not

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 51
mean credulity, or that confidence, the foundation of which
lies beyond the necessary convictions of the human mind,
in an abnormal condition of the individual intelligence, in
the influence of education, or in the weight of mere exter
nal authority, — but that confidence whose root is in the
necessary instincts of humanity. The primitive tendencies
to belief existing in our nature, especially on its moral and
religious side, when that nature is in healthy action, ever
gather essential truth from all- the sources of knowledge
which life everywhere presents. A comparison of state
ments with the facts they are taken to represent will
disclose the truth or falsity of the statements ; and, where
the facts are beyond our reach, the truth about them will
be found not to be absolutely essential to the ordinary
purposes of life, though they may be so to our highest
development, and may allure us onward to our own eleva
tion. Our opinions on such points may safely be left
until the explanatory facts are known.
III.
Can "Orthodoxy '' rest on Christian Consciousness?
If an affirmative answer to this question means anything,
it means that, wherever a consciousness of the existence of
Christian piety is found in a man, there, also, is found an
acceptance of the so-called orthodoxy. But this is mere
assumption, and is denied by the records of Christian piety
in all ages and in all lands. AA'as Montanus destitute of
Christian consciousness .' AA'ere the " gentle Novatian "
bishops whose piety rebuked their opponents .'* AA'as the
martyred Servetus .' Was William Ellery Channing no
Christian .' AA'ere Fletcher and John AA'esley no Christians
because they publicly repudiated the cruelty and contra
dictions of the highest expression of this orthodoxy, — the
Athanasian Creed } Are the living men and women whose
piety has been seen by us in the hallowed associations of
personal friendship from the times of our childhood, yet
who cannot bend their minds to this orthodoxy, no
Christians ? Then there is not in an}- man a test of Chris
tianity that is worth a moment's notice ; for if a godly spirit
and a godly life, continued from boyhood to age, amid the
changes of prosperity and sorrow, are no evidence of piety,
we have nothing by which to test the inner life of any man.
* " CEcumenical Councils." Bromfield & Co., Toronto, p. 17.

52 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
Down deep in every Christian man's heart, even when, as
in the majority of men, he may have no theories, or very
wrong ones, is a consciousness that his being and his
blessings proceed from the great Father who made the
world. In that consciousness, to the instrumentality of the
Son he ascribes his whole salvation, and bates not one
jot of the tribute due to his master and Lord. In that
consciousness, he knows that the power by which he is
raised from sin to righteousness is not from himself, but from
both the Father and the Son, and that power he knows is
what the saints and apostles of all ages have recognized as
the Holy Spirit ; but when you come to define what is that
Father, — what is involved in that term Son, — what is that
Holy Ghost, — he may accept the scholastic definitions you
propose, if your support of them appears to him sufhcient ;
and, if it does not appear sufficient, he will discard them, and
his Christianity will not be impaired thereby. This view
of orthodoxy cannot be based on Christian consciousness,
without ignoring facts in Christian biography that are
patent to all mankind. IV.
Can " Orthodoxy " rest on the Bible ? ^
This is not the place to examine the whole Bible for the
purpose of ascertaining whether the particular passages
supposed to uphold the scholastic views now called ortho
doxy really do so or not ; but a few thoughts on the subject
are necessary to the argument. It must not be forgotten
that the translation of the Bible now used by us was made
by men who regarded no view but that of this " orthodoxy,"
at least as modified by the results of the Lutheran Refor
mation, as the correct one. The translation, therefore,
bears the impress of the preconceptions of the men who
made it. Yet, even in this translation, now that no well-
read man maintains the genuineness of i John v., 7, 8, not
one passage distinctly maintains this so-called orthodoxy.
Not one passage of those which seem to maintain it is not
capable of bearing a meaning totally different from it,
without doing any violence to the meaning of the words or
to the laws of grammatical construction. Many passages of
the New Testament, plainer in their utterances than those
on which this scholastic orthodoxy is sought to be built,
crowd upon the mind, as soon as it is freed from that
bondage to past traditions by which we put a meaning into

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 53
the Bible that is really not there, and flatly contradict the
whole scheme. Men in all ages of Christianity, since writ
ten books by Christian authors took the place'of the " oral
gospel" from which much of the written gospels was
obtained, have protested against the meaning put upon the
Bible by those who assumed the title of " orthodox." The
learning of these men is acknowledged even by such a body
as the Bible Revision Committee ; and the value of their
researches is being felt by all who take the pains to make
themselves acquainted with them. The time has gone by
when the charge of invincible ignorance, or a desire to
escape from moral and religious obligations, may, without
a crime, be laid against these abused men. They are as
learned as those who, in their supercilious spiritual pride,
deny them a place in Christianity ; often, in their lonely
exclusion from the fellowship of men whose zeal they
admire, but whose narrowness they regret, they are more
saintly than their accusers ; in the uprightness of their lives,
and in their quiet, unobtrusive devotion to men and to
their Master, they rebuke the supineness of those who
shudder with holy horror at the sound of their name. And
these men love their Bibles. But they see not in them the
dogmas of Anselm, Aquinas, Origen, Augustine, and the
Synods and Councils of either the early or the later times
of Christianity. This does not prove that the so-called
orthodoxy is wrong ; but the fact that equally good and
learned men form views so different of the teachings of the
same book proves that some other basis must be found for
confidence in the so-called orthodoxy, than simply the
Scriptures. Before investigating the meaning of the Bible,
in its bearing on this point, a deeper question must be
answered ; for the interpretation of the Bible depends upon
our knowledge of its origin, the idiosyncrasies of the writers.
the influence on them of the current thought of their day,
and the relation of these writers to God dn one hand, and
to mankind in general on the other.
I. What is the relation of the Bible to the human intel
ligence .' This question is being forced upon us. Science
appeals to observation, and thus invests the human mind
with immense importance and responsibility. Modern
education impels to the use of this intelligence. The child
is no longer taught to work arithmetical problems by un
reasoning compjiance with rules. The tendency is, indeed,
to place so much importance upon the word " why " that
our smaller " Arithmetics " are almost too abstruse even for
5

54 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
adults. Where the intellect is incapable of solving any
problem, science now forbids dogmatism at all. Roscoe
and Cooke warn students of Chemistry against dogmatizing'
even on the atomic theory. This elevation of the mental
faculties demands an answer to the question,^how does
the Bible bear on this thought .' The importance of the
matter is increased by the fact that, when the " Bible
Revision Committee " have finished their labors, the people
will have what will, practically, be two Bibles. These will
not agree : who will decide between the conflicting claims.'
Authority cannot ; for both versions will have had authority
in their favor. The masses cannot judge of MSS., or gram
matical intricacies in dead languages. Common sense, or
Reason, will assert itself. We may as well prepare for this
at once. The Scriptures must assume one of two attitudes:
they must be regarded as z. fountain, or as a dictator. If
the former view of them prevail, then will they lie open to
the use of all, even while critical analysis unfolds their
healthful, or their deleterious qualities, if any deleterious
qualities should be discovered. Their value will be hidden
by no blindness of antecedent antagonism ; but the keener
the investigation, the better will the old Bible appear. If
the latter position be assigned to the Scriptures, then, so
perilous is it to trust one's eternity to anything beyond
one's own judgment, that the claim to infallible dictator
ship and the right to unquestioning submission will subject
the Bible, immediately, to all the disadvantages of self-
defence against unfriendly scrutiny. Then, even the good
of the Book will be endangered amid the search for weak
ness and defect. Unfortunately, this is the position the
majority of its friends are ever claiming for it ; and the
evidence of history seems useless to teach them the con
sequences of their misguided zeal. At the time of the
Reformation, it seemed to be accepted as an axiom that
infallibility must be found somewhere ; and the Pope and
Councils being rejected, in no long time the Bible was
installed into their vacated office. Richard Watson, too,
the greatest systematic theologian Methodism has yet pro
duced, even when granting, as he does in a Note to a
' chapter in his " Institutes," that " Reason is the foundation
of all certitude," does for Reason exactly what Cardinal
Manning does, — employs it to overthrow its own authority.
The latter makes the Church the dictator ; the former, the
Bible. The prevalence of the view that the Scriptures must be

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 55
accepted as a dictator to the intelligence has largely arisen
from the unquestioning use of that ambiguous source of so
many fallacies — the expression, the "Word of God," as
applied to the Bible. It has been already noticed that this
use of the expression has no authority in the Scriptures
themselves, and could have none ; for, before it could be
so used, the book must have been made distincl; from
other books, and quite complete : the term could be applied
to the Bible only after it was all written. On this subject,
Hagenbach* says of Tollner, who died in 1774: "He
shows, from the language of Scripture itself, that, by the
Word of God, we are not to understand the Sacred Scrip
tures." If, by the " Word of God," we mean the only source
of Revelation, Tollner is decidedly Wesleyan ; for Wesley
extends revelation beyond the Scriptures.
(i) What is "Bible," and what is not ? The Old Testa
ment existed in two forms, the Hebrew and the Greek
translation of it known as the LXX. The latter was the
form most used and quoted by the New Testament writers.
It was their " Bible" But, in this " Bible," the books of
Esdras, now, and since the Geneva Bible of 1560, found in
the Apocrypha, existed as III. & IV. Ezra, and Nehemiah
stood as I. & II. Esdras. Hagenbach -f- assures us that
" other church writers cite even the fourth Book of Ezra,
and Origen defends the tale about Susanna, as well as the
books of Tobias and Judith." The New Testament was
not accepted in its present form until after centuries
elapsed. The oldest MS. now known contains the " Epis
tle of Barnabas " and part of the " Shepherd of Hermas " : !
that MS. is appealed to as a high authority on some points ;
but, unless reasons from sources -beyond the MS. itself had
been found for the rejection of these " uncanonical " books,
their presence in the Tischendorf manuscript would elevate
them to a position equal to the other portions. The
Apocalypse was not admitted to the Bible till the 6th cen
tury by the Greek Church ; and even the Latin Church
remained for several centuries before it accepted the N. T.
canon as it now stands : for centuries, the majority said
certain books were not the " Word of God ; " afterward, the
majority said they 'were. Thus it will be seen that whether
any book, or what book, was to be considered the " Word
of God " rested on the judgment of certain men, or on the
arguments which convinced them. To accept the mere
* Vol. ii., p. 466. t Vol. i., p. 84.
+ " 'When -were our Gospels 'Written ? " Tischendorf, p. 29.

56 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. ,
authority of these persons is practically to accept their
infallibility. To accept the arguments of these persons is
to acknowledge the'abihty of ti?^r judgment to test argu
ments as accurately as themselves. In either case, we
abandon the ultimate dictatorship of the Bible ; for, in one,
we trust to the judgment of other men, and, in the other,
to our own. The whole question is solved by Wesley. He
accepted whatever facts came from any source, as
decisive of the problems to which they were related. Truth,
then, on his principle, is the " Word of God," no matter
whence derived ; and the Bible, as the highest known ex
pression of that Truth, gives a final decision on the facts it
reveals. His principle was : — Thy word is TRUTH."
(2) What is inspiration .' Does it imply- infallible dicta
torship .' Inspiration must be sought in the form, the
thought, or the purpose, of the Scriptures. Is it in the
form ? To say this is to state that Inspiration is the super
natural communication of the words and the order of
language employed. Such an inspiration would be confined
to the original copies, unless translators also should be
inspired ; and, where such copies did not present self-
evident proofs of such infallibility, the compilers would need
equal guidance in collecting them. Some have gone
so far as to claim this for the Septuagint.
Such an infallibility could not be permanent, even if the
originals were preserved. Words ever change their mean
ing : and, in time, the sense of the best original would
become obscure amid the variety of meanings borne by the
words employed. Its infallibility would, then, be practically
lost Besides, we have not the originals, either of the Old
Testament or the New. Of many Old Testament books,
Canon Farrar says : " They have, in fact, been edited with
explanatory glosses and other additions and interpolations
by later writers, and especially, if we may accept the very
probable Jewish tradition, by Ezra and members of the
Great Synagogue." * No MSS. ofthe New Testament are
found to date their origin earlier than the fourth century.
Further, Christ spoke Aramaic ; and we have no assurance
that, if we had the original Greek writings, they would in
fallibly give Christ's words.
Such an infallibility would either be useless or would lead
to ridiculous consequences. There are passages, the sense
ofwhich is so uncertain that, even if some hidden infallibility
* Bible Educator, Vol. i.. Art. — "The Inspiration of Holy Scripture,"'
r-. 260.

CATHOLICTTY AND JfETHODISM. 57
lies in them, that infallibility is useless. One such passage
is Hebrews IX., i6, 17. For one meaning of it, are Pierce,
Doddridge, Michaelis, Macknight, Parkhurst, Scholefield,
Henderson, Barnes, Tait, and, perhaps. Green. For another,
are Calvin, Erasmus, Wolfe, Newcombe, Alberti, Bengel,
Schleusner, Rosenmiiller, Stuart, Robinson, AA^iner, and
Bloomfield. The passage is an important one ; but of
what value would be an infallibilit}'^ which leaves its meaning
uncertain .' Scholarship appears incapable of solving the
grammatical and other difficulties of the passage, or proving
the sense demanded by the context.
Some consequences of this infallibility theory reduce the
question of inspiration to an absurdity. Hebrews IIL, 16,
means one of two distinctly opposite things according as a
¦Greek word has an acute accent or a grave, and has it on
the first syllable or the second, thus extending infallible
-dictation of the form even to the inclination or position of a
little stroke. In the uncial manuscripts, no accents occur, and
in the cursives, they are not always found ; hence, infallible
certainty of the meaning of this verse, and similar passages,
is not attainable, unless we suppose a divine and infallible
guidance of those who added the accents. Probability,
based on various considerations, is all that we can have, and
is quite sufficient for practical purposes A comparison of
Griesbach, Westcott, and Bagster's " Critical English New
Testament," on i Tim. III., 16, will show that, in addition
to the presence or absence of the letter sigma, the true
reading depends upon the existence or the non-existence
of a little line in the centre of a Greek letter, making it an
Omicron or a Theta. As regards the bearing of this theory
on the Old Testament, the following passage from the
younger Buxtorf will, to many, be a curiosity. Ordo
literarum Hebraicarum nititur auctoritate Divina ; nam in
non-nullis Capitibus Veteris T. vcrsiculi a Uteris Alpluxbeti
hoc ordine incipiunt : ex. gr. Caput primum Threnorum con-
tinet 22 versus, quorum singuli a Uteris Alphabeti incipiunt.
"The order of the Hebrew letters rests upon divine
authority ; for, in some chapters of the Old Testament, the
verses begin with the letters of the Alphabet in that order :
e.g., the first chapter of Lamentations contains twenty-t^\-o
verses, all of which, in their order, begin with the letters of
the Alphabet." *
This infallibility theory is contradicted by facts. How-
*yohannis Buxtorfii Epitome Graminaticce Hetrcea: Liigduni Batavorum,
1776, p. 5.

58 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. '
ever ungracious the task may be, the assumptions of false
theories must be met by facts ; and it is remarkable how
examination of the Bible overturns the mischievous fables
about the Bible which so many insist upon identifying
with the Truth. The Scriptures contain incorrect state
ments. The importance of the passages referred to as
proof of this proposition depends on their relation to the
question at issue, and that alone. It will not do to say, ,
" no important doctrine is at stake in thehi." The question
is, — is the form of the Bible free from error .' If any con
tradiction occurs, the question is answered, no matter
whether any other question remains unaffected or not.
Very few of the many facts which have been elicited by
such men as Neander, Burnet, Tholuck, Hinds, Whately,
and Farrar, can be here presented ; yet some must be
given. Dean Prideaux, in his " Old and New Testament
Connected,"* says : " It is most likely that the two books
" of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther, as well as
" Malachi, were afterward added in the time of Simon the
" Just, and that it was not till then that the Jewish canon
" ofthe Holy Scriptures was fully completed. And, indeed,
" these last books seem very much to want the exactness
" and skill of Ezra in their publication, they falling far
" short of the correctness which is in the other parts of the
" Hebrew Scriptures!' By a comparison of 2 Chronicles
XXL, 17, 20, XXIL, I, 2, and 2 Kings VIIL, 26, it will be
found that Jehoram died at the age of 40 years. By one
account, Ahaziah, or Azariah, or Jehoahaz, as he is var
iously called, succeeds his father at the age of 22 years ; and
by the other, at 42 years. The first account leaves the
father 18 years of age at his son's birth : the second makes
the_ father unborn for two years after his son's accession.
This son, too, is the youngest ; for, prior to his own birth,
Jehoram had not only a plurality of sons, but of wives. —
Dn Geo. Smith, a Methodist writer, in his "Sacred Annals,"
on the authority of Dr. Adam Clarke, accuses the Jews of
our Lord's day of so tampering with the Hebrew Biblical
chronology that a difference of 1386 years is now found
between the Hebrew and the LXX, though it did not
exist prior to 280 B.C. Infallibility in our present version,
then, is hopelessly gone. The four Gospels profess to give
the language of the inscription on the cross : no two
agree ; therefore some or all must be destitute of infallibi
lity in the actual form of the words.— Mark XV, 25, says
* Vol. i., pp. 272-3.

CATHOLICTTY AND METHODISM. 59
Christ was crucified at nine in the moming : John, xix,
15, says he was still before Pilate at noon. , The Scriptures
contain inaccurate quotations. ^Mill, quoted by Farrar,*
says that the Apostles quote the LXX, even where, were
they to rel}' upon the Hebrew, not only would the force
of the Apostolic argument perish, but there would be
found no place for any argument. INIill's words are : si
reponerentur Hebrcea non modo periret vis argumentationis
ApostoliccB, sed tie ulius cjuidcm ford argumentationi locus.
The quotations in the New Testament from the Old Tes
tament are numbered to the amount of 275. Of these,
the New Testament, the Hebrew, and the LXX, agree in
only 53 instances. In j6, the N^ew Testament, by differing
from the LXX, differs more wideh- from the Hebrew. In
99 cases, there is no correspondence between any t^vo of
the three. Should it be said that, by virtue of the Apos
tolic use of the LXX, an infallible authority is imparted
to their quotations from that translation, the above remarks
will show that this would lead to different and conflicting
infallibilities. The Scriptures contain, even in itnporiant
passages, spurious glosses and interpolations. " The Critical
English New Testament " gives, amongst many others,
Mark XVI., 9-20 ; John v., 3-4, and Canon Farrar presents
Matt. VL, 13 ; Acts viii., ],/ ; and i John, v., 7. The last
named writer sa}-s : " Is not this sufficient to show that
" what was really important was the Divine message and
" revelation, not the form in which it was delivered — the
" sacred treasure, not the \-essel in which it was conveyed .'"
Is inspiration to be found in the thought of the Bible .'
To answer in the affirmative is to assert that the knowledge
contained in the Bible was given by supernatural inspira
tion. But this is to confound inspiration and revelation.
That Truth, little known, or entirely unknown, elsewhere,
was possessed b}- the Jews is a mere truism. That new
thoughts of God, man, and the mutual relations of God
and man were given to the world in and by Jesus Christ is
but another truism. That the Bible is the casket in which
these thoughts are contained is only another. Did God
reveal, or unveil, these thoughts to the men w-ho uttered
them .' Assuredly ! Then the Bible contains a revelation
from God. It contains his word, — Truth. It does not
contain all his Truth. It is not the only source from which
Truth is gained. But it is the written record of thoughts
which God has been unfolding more and more from the
* Bible Edtuator, Vol. i., p. 262.

60 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
earhest times of human history until, in Christ, the
living embodiment, or incarnation, of his Thought, the
Word became revealed in fullness, and until that Word
lived again in the deeds and writings of his holy apostles
and evangelists. But this communication of thoughts is
not, properly speaking, inspiration. The communication
of knowledge, whether by bringing it down to the ordinary
intelligence, or by raising the intelligence to an extra
ordinary power of grasping it, is, properly, revelation.
Inspiration deals with the writing, recording, and trans
mission, of knowledge received. Besides this confusion of
things that differ, such a view of inspiration as the one
questioned contradicts the Bible itself Much of the
knowledge conveyed to us by the Bible was originally
given supernaturally, but in the sense in which " the
" deepest facts of our spiritual experience are supernatural,
" and only miraculous as any communications must be
" miraculous whereby the flnite is enabled to comprehend
" the teaching and will of the Inflnite."* But much of
the information came to the Scriptural writers by no
such means. The late Dr. Freshman, who, as a Jewish
rabbi, surely knew something of his own Bible, says, in
his httle work on the Pentateuch, that the book of
Genesis was compiled from eleven original documents. The
" Chronicles " record ten documents as authorities for their
statements.f The genealogy of Christ is based on legal
documents. Luke writes from observation as an eye
witness, and from testimony of other eye-witnesses. The
Bible presents History, Physical Nature, the Human mind,
and Language, as sources of Revelation. Inspiration,
consequently, must not be sought in the matter of the
Bible. It must, then, be found in the purpose. It will
then be a divine impulse to write This conclusion the
writer is glad to find confirmed even by Manning, on page
158 of the work so frequently quoted. It does not fully
answer his purposes ; and he adds to it, on page 161, matter
quite distinct from the question of inspiration, and some
what contrary to his own sentiments expressed on page 159.
The following thoughts, however, are valuable : " First,
" then, comes the word Inspiration, which is often con-
" founded with Revelation. Inspiration, in its first inten-
" tion, signifies the action of the Divine Spirit upon the
" human, that is, upon the intelligence and upon the will.
" It is an intelligent and vital action of God upon the
* Bible Educator, i., p. 336. t Bible Educator, i, p. 260.

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 61
" soul of man ; and ' inspired ' is to be predicated, not
'" of books or truths, but of living agents. In its second
¦" intetition, it signifies the action of the Spirit of God upon
" the intelligence and will of man, whereby any one is
" impelled and enabled to act, or to speak, or to write,
" in some special way designed by the Spirit of God. In
" its still more special and technical intention, it signifies an
" action of the Spirit upon men, impelling them to write
" what God reveals, suggests, or wills that they should
" write. But inspiration does not necessarily signify reve-
" lation, or suggestion of the matter to be written." This
accords with the Bible itself, which represents knowledge
as coming from various sources, but the impulse and pur
pose to write as coming from God. Compare Habakkuk
IL, 2 ; Revela. I., 11-19 ; Rom. xv., 4 ; Luke I., 3, &c. But
here is no ground for a belief in infallible dictatorship.
We are reduced to the conviction that the Bible is not
to be a dictator, the infallibility of whose voice is to be
assumed in every discussion, but a source of truth given by
godly men from a godly purpose inspired in them by that
providence who guides all minds that come within the circle
of His spiritual laws ; for such infallibility would be useless
unless we were infallibly certain of the correct meaning of
every passage. That a divine power insp'red this purpose,
and revealed the thoughts, may be gathered from the
following considerations. AVhere the teachings of the Bible
are clearly demonstrated, no scrutiny has found error in its
leading doctrines. Its moral and spiritual thoughts accord
with the convictions of the wisest and best minds. It
accords with history and science, where they and it are
best understood. It gives thoughts higher than those
derived from any other source. There is in it a unity
of progressive spiritual plan and purpose. Its fruits are
everywhere beneficial. It anticipates the mightiest changes
in the political and ecclesiastical world. Its promis ;s are
the only satisfactory assurances of the reality of those
things our deepest instincts crave. — If these things speak
not of the presence of a divine element, the mind of man
is incapable of tracing the Deity anywhere.
2. AVhat are the teachings of this Book on the dogmas
of the old ecclesiasticism .' This is a vast question. To
answer it satisfactorily demands far more learning and far
more time than the writer can boast of; and, if he had all
the requisites, the answering of the question would simply
be the substitution of one system of dogmatics for another.

62 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
It only remains to ask whether this so-called orthodox
presentation of the ultimate facts of Christianity is borne
out by the Bible. Of the Athanasian creed, two views
may be taken, according as some of its terms are used in
their strictly grammatical sense, or in a conventional sense.
Take " substance " as equivalent to " hypostasis," and
" person " as equal to " a mask, or assumed character ; "
and one hypothesis of the Trinity arises. There is then
but one hypostasis in God ; and the three persons are but _
manifestations of that God. There is then no real, but only
an apparent. Trinity in Unity.
Take, however, "substance" in the conventional sense
of "essence," and "person" as "hypostasis," or distinct
consciousness and will ; and you have three Gods. Con
sciousness and will are marks of individuality ; and no
identity of disposition or action in the three wills can
prevent their distinctness. Three individuals must be
three Gods ; and no subsequent denial of this, in words,
can be a denial in fact. To assert it first, and, after
ward, deny it, is to remove the question from the court
of common-sense, and to appeal simply to external autho
rity. Hence, the creed says tres Deos aut Dominos dicere
catholicd religione prohibemur, — "we are forbidden by the
" (Roman) Catholic Religion to say that there are three
" Gods or Lords."
By our interpretation of this highest expression of
"orthodoxy," then, we are shut up, to one of these two
conclusions. We may adopt a view of the Trinity to
which even some Socinians would not object, or we
may form a theory which is essentially tri-theistic." The
majority of " orthodox " people do the latter. But here
the question arises,— do the Scriptures teach either of these
hypotheses .'
The term hypostasis occurs five times in the Greek
Testament, 2 Cor IX., 4; xi, 17; Heb., I., 3; III., 14;
XL, 1. Only in Hebrews 1., 3, has it any relation to the
nature of God, being used in the remaining passages in
the sense of "firm conviction," or "confidence" In that
passage, Beza translates it by the \vord personcs. Luther
renders it by Wesens, which the dictionaries define as
beinq, substance, nature, disposition, behavior, conduct.
Diodati uses for it sossistenza, subsistence, and not sostanza,
substance. Craik, the author of Bagster's " Amended
" Translation of the Epistle to the Hebrews " says, on
this verse : " There is no authority for 6,rdffTao-:s " hypostasis,"

CATHOLICITY AffD METHODISM. 63
" being used in the sense of ' person ' until centuries after
" the time when the epistle was written."
However, then, we ma}- translate this word, so far as
Scripture testimony goes, there is but one hypostasis in
God ; and all that mass of speculative confusion which
has been imposed upon the Church for so many centuries
is utterly without Scriptural foundation.
An examination of the " proof-texts " of the New Testa
ment would be out of place here; but it may safely be
asserted that, as the speculations of the " fathers," who
by these speculations originated this " orthodoxy," arose
long after the New Testament was w-ritten, — as the New
Testament writers knew nothing of those subsequent spe
culations, — and as some features of this "orthodoxy"
confessedly arose, by pure logical necessit}-, from premises
not certainly correct, and not derived irqm the New Testa
ment Scriptures, — this particular s}stem of explaining the
ultimate facts of Scriptural teaching and Christian con
sciousness cannot be necessarj- to the sense of the New
Testament. A critical examination of the strongest texts
usually adduced in its favor, to whatever other hypotheses
they may give rise, will be found rather to destro}- than
to help the one now under consideration. The plea that
the matter is a "mystery," or an unexplained or un-
explainable fact, removes all propriety of dogmatizing on
one side an}- more than on the other; so that we cannot
but confess the wisdom of AA'esley, who desired to enforce
no explanation or mystery, but rather to leave the forma
tion of hypotheses to the gradual development of the
intelligence like!}- to arise from a critical analysis and
synthesis of facts. The passages most appealed to in
support of the ecclesiastical " orthodoxy " are those which
relate to the pre-existence of Christ, and his relations to
Creation and the Deity. All these, however, centre in
the one term, the Logos, or "AA'ord." That both this
Logos and He who is the embodiment of it are called
God is certain. That Creation is represented a;s having
been made in and through (in and hi) Christ is also
certain. But, if we go beyond these statements, and ask
in what sense we are to understand them, four answers,
at least, have been given, presenting four hypotheses, —
the Ideal, the H}-postatic, the Emanation, and the Personal.
The ideal theory represents the Logos as the divine Con
ception, Thought, or Ideal, God's character. Himself in
ideal form, chosen and purposed from eternit}-, to be

64 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
embodied in Jesus of Nazareth, for the perfect exhibition
of His will. This is the theory dimly shadowed forth by
Henoch and Philo. The hypostatic theory represents the '
Logos as a " person," in the modern popular sense of
one having a distinct consciousness and will, and is the
so-called "orthodox," or "catholic," hypothesis. The
emanation theory represents the Logos as a material, or
semi-material, product of the divine substance, and is the
hypothesis once adopted by the Gnostics. The personal
theory, — following the strictly etymological sense of the
word " person," persona, a mask, or assumed character, like
the characters represented on a theatrical stage, — presents
the one God under different phases, according to the work
he does, and makes the Logos one of several aspects
under which the Deity is revealed. To ascertain which
ofthese theories,if any,is the correct one demands the study
of history, science, and language. We must know whether
the study of Creation reveals any relation to Christ in
the growing geologic ages, or " time-worlds." We must
know what were the views on the Logos and Creation
prevalent in the times of the Scripture writers, and whether
they used these words in thesense then assigned to them.
We must know the different senses of which such words
are capable, and ascertain which has the weight of evidence
in its favor Tested by this knowledge, some of the
theories mentioned have already been overthrown. Is any
one of them satisfactory .' Whether it is or not, does
the Bible teach it .' In particular, does it teach the hypos
tatic theory of the Logos .' It is enough for the purposes
of this essay to know that John Wesley denies that the
Bible presents any such theory or explanation, and that
he insists on nothing but the simple facts, leaving all
speculative explanations to the individual judgment and
to time.
That the Old Testament cannot serve as a certain proof
of this conventional orthodoxy may be seen from the
following considerations : Westcott, page 163, assures us of
" the Hebrew faith in the absolute unity of God." The
" Imperial Bible Dictionary "* says : " The Jews gener-
" ally did not expect Messiah to be more than man." On
page 1 1 1, Westcott tells us that, prior to the flood, Messiah
was not regarded even as a man, but that Jewish hope
centred in " a race, a nation, a tribe." "Up to this point,"
lie says, "no personal trait of a Redeemer was given."
* Vol. II., p. 575, Art. Peter.

CATHOUCITY AND METHODISM. 65
" The doubtful term Shiloh, * cannot be urged against
" this view." On page 121, he assures us that the book of
Henoch, quoted by Jude as an authority, and written
about 107 B. C, proclaims Messiah as only a man, a)id
his pre-existence as being in the divine clioice and purpose.
Thus, it will be seen that Scriptural facts, whether in the
Old Testament or the New, when elicited by a thorough
investigation, in the light of the best authorities, may
admit, without prevarication or dishonesty, of more than
one explanation, and do not necessarily involve those which
the common view of " orthodoxy " demands. One quota
tion more must be given. It is the second of the thirteen
Jewish " Articles of Faith." — "I believe with a perfect
"faith that the Creator, — blessed be his name, — is only
" One, in unity to which there is no resemblance, and that
" He alone hath been, is, and will be, our God." In view
of this, some other explanation of the plural Eloliim, " Let
us make," &c., and " the angel Jehovah," than the one
demanded by " orthodoxy " must be regarded as, at least,
possible. What it is, and what is really meant, in the
Scriptures, by the Holy Spirit, may be elicited from a
careful examination of historical facts, and by the use of
a concordance.

Wesley's Relation to " Orthodoxy."
No Church can at once free itself from the traditions of
the past. AATien Luther separated from the Pope, he car
ried with him much of the thought, and no little of the
spirit, of the abandoned system. When the Church of
England cast off the trammels of Popery, it did not and
coiild not suddenly see how fully Popery had left its im
press upon its popular opinion. Hence, in many respects,
the language of Manning, page 140, describes its early con
dition. " The traditional teaching of the Catholic theology,
with its various opinions, were therefore passively retained."
The theology of the so-called " fathers " of the early Chris
tian Church largely moulded that ofthe Church of England.
When Wesle}- began to move away from the traditions of
his Church, he little knew whither his steps tended ; and the
very Protestant and Arminian principles which he adopted
drove him, even against the violent resistonce of his intense
conservatism, to points from which he had before recoiled^
* Gen. .XLi.x., 10,

66 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
So intense was this conservatism that, on one occasion, it
completely overpowered his candor, and drove him to the
celebrated recipe for the cure of doubts, — an absolute, refusal
to think. This recipe was employed by him, to prevent
what threatened to be the consequences of reading Watts
on " The Glorifled Humanity of Christ" " What have you
or I," said he to Benson, " to do with that ' difficulty ' .' I
dare not, will not, reason about it for a moment." — " I would
not have read it (Dr. Watt's ingenious treatise) through
for five hundred pounds." * For once, the fearless man of
candor, the consistent logician, and the man who had
proclaimed that the fundamental principles of his system
should undergo the most rigorous examination, and be
abandoned if found untenable, or antagonistic to the wider
interests of Christianity, quailed before the merely possible
consequences of continued investigation !
Yet his principles involve further progress than Wesley
ever made, or an abandonment of the whole ground he
conquered. I . Wesley's later view of Justifying Faith, Justification,
and Human Merit, renders the scholastic hypotheses of "ortho
doxy" unnecessary. This view, arising from the case of
Cornelius, presents the object of saving faith as God and
spiritual things, and faith as such a confidence in these as
leads to a righteous life. Yet the Notes on Cornelius state
that the acceptability of such a life is " through Christ."
The official explanation of Justification given in the "Bound
Minutes" of 1770 presents that, not as the act of a
moment, but as a sentiment of approval varying directly
as the goodness of the life approved, and based upon the
inherent goodness of that life. Can these thoughts be
harmonized .' In what does the work of Christ through
which our goodness is acceptable consist .' In what sense
is our goodness acceptable for its own sake, and is yet
acceptable through him.' If saving faith has for its
object God and spiritual things, and if this object is
capable of being presented in various degrees of com
pleteness by the different sources of revelation open to all
minds, from the Materialist up to the Christian, then the
work of Christ is the perfect manifestation of God's char
acter and, consequently, his will, thus unfolding the true
standard of moral and spiritual life. The acceptable life is,
then, one that is conformed to this manifestation made by
Christ ; and its acceptability is graduated according to its
' Letter to Joseph Benson, written September 17th, 1788.

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 67
conformity to him. The merit or value of that life, then,
while inherent in the life itself, is tested by the ideal fully
given only in Christ ; thus, while our goodness is approved
seamdum merita operum, the merits themselves arise from
the conformit}^ of the life to the great standard by which all
human goodness is tested. Life becomes more or less
acceptable to God according to the Christ-like spirit which
is in it. But this great standard of perfect goodness was
set up in the world only at the cost of agony and death ;
and, under the circumstances, it could not have been other
wise. Christ, then, becomes the central object of human
thought ; and his blood-shedding becomes the centre of
attraction in his whole life. In one and the same life, he
maintains the authority of divine righteousness, provides
an unvarying standard by which all are tried, thus becom
ing the Judge of all, and so effectually touches the deepest
seat of human affection by his sacriflce of himself for human
good that he arouses in us, not merely admiration for the
character of God revealed in him, but a love so intense that
racks and flames, misunderstandings and misrepresentations,
tortures physical and tortures mental, cannot " separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Christ thus becomes our Teacher, our Judge, and our
Saviour, — " the Way, the Truth, and the Life."
But there is another aspect to this matter which must
not be forgotten. The antagonism of this later view of
Wesley's with his earlier views extends deeper and wider
than the mere theological presentation of the Truth. It
goes down to the underlying philosophical principles, and
out to the ecclesiastical, educational, scientific, social, and
political consequences of theology. Here, it is necessary
only to observe the underlying philosophy. Problems in
theology appear first in philosophy ; and the correctness of
tlie former will be tested, for the most part, by the sound
ness of the latter
The relation of philosophy to theology is put with
such peculiarly French clearness by Demogeot, in his
" Histoire de la Litterature Frangaise," that a few quota
tions from that writer seem to be appropriate here. Speak
ing of " Roscelin de Compiegne," Demogeot says: "II
" n'existe a ses yeux que des etres individuels, comme
" tel homme, tel animal. Les classes qui les contiennent
" les crenres, les especes, comme I'humanite, la creation,
" n'ont aucune existence reelle ; ce sont des mots, des
" noms: Roscelin est nominaliste. De cette doctrine a

68 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
" la negation du myst^re de la Trinite, il n'y a qu'un pas,
" et Roscelin le franchit ; il devint tritheiste, et mourut
" fugitif, frappe des anathemes de I'Eglise. L'adversaire
" de Roscelin, c'est saint Anselme, dont nous avons deja
" parle. Pour lui, les id^es, comme parle Platon, ou les
" universaux, comme on disait alors, ont une existence
" independante des individus ou ils se manifestent. — II
" voit partout des rMlit^s, il est r^aliste. — Roscelin avait
" pousse les consequences de sa doctrine contre le dogme
" cathoHque ; Anselme protege le dogme des consequences
" de la sienne : il ecrit contre Roscelin le Traiti de la
" Trinite. Abelard fut conceptualiste. — Abelard comme
" Roscelin, son maitre, s'6carta du dogme catholique, et jeta
" bientot I'alarme dans le camp severe de I'orthodoxie." *
Here, we see how theology varies with philosophy, how
Nominalism led to tri-theism, how Realism was adopted
to uphold the "Catholic," or Romish, view of the Trinity,
and how, when the faults of Realism were pointed out,
and Conceptualism was substituted for it, Abelard threw
consternation into the camp of Romish " orthodoxy,"
doubtless by that view of the Atonement which he pre
sented, and of which Bushnell's so greatly reminds us, and
the logical effects of that view on " orthodoxy " in general.
Now, no one can compare the early and later views of
Wesley without realizing that a change, toward the close
of his life, was going on in the philosophical standpoint
from which his theology was formed. Great political
changes were in progress in the world. The principles on
which political authority was based were being questioned.
The "divine right of kings" was being shattered by the
advancing democracy of America ; and, in the relation of
Wesle}^ to the New World, as well as the Old, it was
impossible for his mind to be unaffected by the mental
revolutions going on around him, or to resist entirely the
general tendencies' to progress. Beneath the early and
later views of the founder of Methodism may be found
two distinct conceptions of law. Law viewed from the
standpoint of political government, and that monarchical,
moulds his early theology, even while the germs of his later
opinions are springing up in his mind. Hence arose the view
of God's " right " to prescribe the terms of pardon, as an
absolute sovereign of an unlimited monarchy. Hence
Wesley's view of jusrice as "vindictive," and its office as
that of punishing offences. Hence his view of govern-
* Pp. 175-178.

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 69
mental " expedients," to reconcile justice and mercy, and
his arbitrary introduction of the word "yet" into a passage
of Scripture relating to God as "just and the justifier,"
when the original presents no antagonism between these
two attributes.
Law, as Mr. Wesley's age advanced, seems, more than
before, to have assumed, in his view, the scientific aspect
rather than the forensic or judicial. The personality of the
Divine Spirit, or the distinctness of his conscious existence,
in relation to the human spirit, continued to give form to
Wesley's conceptions of government ; but law ceases to
be regarded as an arbitrary enactment, and becomes an
inherent tendency to act in fixed ways. Stevens says : *
" In his admirable sermon on the Properties of the Law,
" Wesley has attempted to define the basis of all theology.
" The moral system of the universe — the ' moral law ' — is
" a unit. It is not an arbitrary enactment by the Supreme
" Ruler, but grows out of his own essential nature." The
forensic and judicial view is based upon the scientific ; and
God's government is conducted upon principles which have
their foundation in the necessary tendencies of his own
nature and of creation. The arbitrary disappears. How
ever and whenever God's relations to Creation began, these
relations exist ; and He is, therefore, absolute, not in the
sense of being unlimited in power, but simply independent
in existence, — and infinite, only in the sense of being per
fect in character. The bearings of this view on other
points in theology are apparent. Justice then appears to
be the inexorable maintenance of the laws of nature, mean
ing by "nature" all that is, — the upholding of the condi
tions necessary to the accomplishment of any given end.
The conditions of a possible reconciliation of all men to
God were the manifestation of God's love and God's
righteousness, — love, to awaken human love, — righteous
ness, in the spirit of the Saviour's life* preserved " even
unto death," to present the uniform and obligatory stand
ard by which all men must be tried, and to give direction
to the awakened desire to please the loving author of all
good. The "Atonement," or means of reconciliation, then,
becomes this double manifestation of love and justice, in
the one "human righteousness" of Jesus. Every map
then becomes accepted, so far as he is Christlike, and
because he is Christlike, for the sake of Christ, — that is,
because he is Godlike, — that is, because he is right. By
* Hist., p. 689.
5

70 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
this view only can we understand those passages in
Wesley's writings which present repentance as a change
from death to life, which present the first movement of a
soul toward God as spiritual and accepted life, and which
present " conversion," as commonly understood, as only
one of many successive and marked steps in the develop
ment of a perfect Christian piety. By this view only can
we understand how goodness is acceptable for its own sake,
and yet, also, for the sake of Christ. By this view only
can we understand how those who, in AVesley's writings,
are called " servants " of God are accepted on one common
principle with those whom he calls " sons " ; and by this
alone can we understand how such a man as Mr. Law, who
denied "Justification by Faith," is, in one passage, called
a " servant," and in another a " child," of God.
By this aspect of " law," we may form correct ideas of
what is the penalty of sin. It ceases to be pain arbitrarily
inflicted, and as arbitrarily continued or removed ; but it is
viewed as a natural and necessary consequence of wrong
doing, proportioned to the kind and degree of the wrong,
and continuous as the duration of that wrong. Hence, too,
may we arrive at a correct idea of forgiveness. It is no
longer an arbitrary removal of penalty ; for that cannot be
removed. He who violates physical law, by smoking to
the injury of his nervous system, by irregularity and excess
in food- or drink, by excess or deflciency in physical exer
cise, cannot, by orthodox belief or pious devotions or
contributions to " the Superannuated Fund," avoid the
consequent irritability, depression, rheumatism, paralysis,
or insanity, any more than grasshoppers can be removed
by sprinkling " holy water" on the flelds to the tinkling
music of a little bell, or small-pox be cured by processions
of praying women led by a priest with a big cross in his
hands. Turkish baths, tooth-brushes, and dumb-bells, will
never remove the low spiritual conceptions, or the base
sensuality, of him who never prays. The learning and
saintliness of Thomas Walsh will never save him from the
shortened life, the curtailed usefulness, and the perpetual
lesson of folly, brought about by his unnatural asceticism.
Throughout eternity, the impure in heart can never see
God ; and the youth wasted in sin can never, to all eter
nity, by sub sequent goodness, obtain the position which
might have been gained had the whole life been spent in
obedience to the laws of God.
Pardon is simply the re-introduction of the offender

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM, 71
¦within the circle of God's beneflcent laws, physical, moral,
or spiritual ; and it is given whenever the offender returns
to his allegiance. In spiritual things, Christ Jesus is the
only perfect expression of God's highest law of Love ; and
he who returns to Jesus, to learn his spirit, and manifest it,
instantly partakes of that spiritual pardon which is free for
all. The conviction of God's personality will remove from
this view all appearance of cold necessity, and will touch
the heart that longs for personal care and sympathy with
the assurance of a divine tenderness as minute in its
-details as it is grand in its unlimited comprehension. If
the modern term " EvangeHcal " is not to be continued as
a more or less Calvinistic party " Shibboleth," or to sink
into a mere cant word with no determinate meaning, its
force must be found in this recognition of personal contact
between the human mind and the Divine Spirit, according
to the general laws of spiritual influence. By this, Chris
tianity will be saved at once from necessitarianism and
from that humanitarianism which traces mental and morarl
-changes no farther than the inherent tendencies of humanity
as affected by the associations of its merely mundane cir
cumstances. How will such a view alter clerical dealings
with so-called " penitents " ! No longer will " seekers " of
salvation be urged to unreasoning credulity in accepting
the " authoritative assurance" of pardon from priestly lips ;
and no longer will the perplexed spirit be sent away, to
mourn to disgust over its inability to " flnd peace " by
attempting to solve metaphysical and theological problems.
But, recognizing Jesus as the highest expression of God's
law of spiritual life, and realizing that "coming to Jesus"
means learning of him, catching the inspiration of his spirit,
and being, like him, humble, trustful in those divine influ
ences by which alone good is begotten in us, and in divine
protection, and being obedient to divir;e laws, the "assur
ance " of pardon will accompany the consciousness of even
the first surrender to the laws which secure pardon, and a
more intelligent piety will be sure to follow the common-
sense presentation of Scriptural Truth, even if the oriental
phrases of the Bible and the scholastic phrases of theology
should be abandoned for the words of modern every-day
speech. The complications and confusion of our theologies
will be lost in a return to the simplicity of the early
" Gospel " ; and piety, standing apart from bewildering
metaphysics, will assert its power over the human heart,
till a truer " revival " of religion will bind the scattered

72 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
fragments of our common Christianity into one cemented'
whole : Christ, the great Head of the Church, and the
perfect Incarnation of God, will continue to receive the
adoratibn of reverent hearts who see in Him no merely
human equal, but the " express image " of the one God
and Father of all.
But, in view of this presentation of Christianity, where
is the necessity for that complicated " scheme " or '"plan"
of suppositions and " expedients " which has usurped the
sacred name of " orthodoxy " .' The government of God
totters not by the spread of insubordination, and needs no
prudential props, to maintain its integrity. The offences
of millions can never affect the supremacy of God ; and
those schemes which may be necessary to preserve human
authority and law from anarchy can never find any place
in the government of Him who changes not. In no human
government is the punishment of an offence necessary to
the pardon of that offence. How, then, in view of what
-has been said of Wesley's later views and their logical
consequences, can we persist in applying to the divine
government principles conceived in a day when the basis
and laws even of human government were little understood.
— principles which modern experience proves to be founded
in no facts of nature, human or divine .' If pardon can
be granted where the penalty of offence is not exacted,
but where it is found that justice and mercy are both
satisfied without the infliction of punishment, — if we flnd
this the case in earthly governments, domestic and political,
every day and every year of our lives, — if the ends of
government are secured by the return of the offender to
obedience, and if this return can be secured, as it often is,
nay, as it most frequently is, by other means than punish
ment, either of the offender or his substitute, — wherein lies
the necessity for an " inflnite sacriflce " to secure the
pardon of one who needs but to realize the love of Him
whom he has offended, in order to melt in penitence at
his feet .' If the antecedent necessity for such an " infinite
sacriflce " is a fallacy, then wherein lies the necessity for
an infinite divine " hypostasis " to constitute such a sacri
fice, and any combination of " hypostases " at all in the
being of the One God and Father of all .' Wesley's later
view of " saving faith " destroys this antecedent necessity,
and, with it, the whole speculative fabric we found upon it..
2. Wesley's abandonment of the supposed Scriptural char
acter of the terms " heresy " and " heretics," as now used

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 73
^abandons the only ground on which this sacerdotal " ortho
doxy " can be maintained. — On Acts XXIV., 14, he says :
" Heresy. — This appellation St. Paul corrects. Not that
" it was then an odious word ; but it was not honorable
" enough. A party or sect (so that word signifies) is
" formed by men." On 2 Peter II. , i, he says : " Heresies,
" that is, divisions." On Titus liL, 10, he says of fhe term
" heretic " : " As for the popish sense, ' A man that errs in
" fundamentals,' although it crept with many other things,
" early into the Church, yet it has no shadow of foundation,
¦" either in the Old or New Testament." Part of his note
on I Cor. XL, 18, may be repeated : " So wonderfully have
" later ages distorted the words heresy and schism from
'" their Scriptural 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 com-
" munion-of others. Therefore both heresy and schism, in
" the modern sense of the words, are sins that the Scripture
" knows nothing of ; but were invented merely to deprive
" mankind of the benefit of private judgment, and liberty
" of conscience" As bearing upon these expressions, from
the ultimate standards of Methodist theology, the following
passage from Sermon LXXIV., may not be out of place
here : " I dare not exclude from the Church Catholic all
" those congregations in which any unscriptural doctrines,
" which cannot be affirmed to be ' the pure word of God,'
" are sometimes, yea, frequently, preached ; neither all
" those congregations in which the sacraments are not
" 'duly administered.' Certainly, if these things are so,
" the Church of Rome is not so much as a part of the
" Catholic Church ; seeing therein neither is ' the pure
" word of God ' preached, nor the sacraments ' duly ad-
" ministered.' Whoever they are that have ' one Spirit,
" one hope, one Lord, one faith, one God and Father of
¦" all,' I can easily bear with their holding wrong opinions,
" yea, and .superstitious modes of worship: nor would I, on
" these accounts, scruple still to include them within the
'" pale of the Catholic Church; neither would I have any
" objection to receive them, if they desired it, as members
" of the Church of England." This sermon was preached
in 1788 : when a century has passed, will the Christian
and ecclesiastical statesmanship of the worid have risen
to the high charity and Godlike comprehension of John
Wesley .' Oh ! for that time when the hearts of men,
softened by the distant strains of music from the nearing

74 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
heaven, shall melt in the love of one common Lord, for
getting the jarring creeds of a speculative but ignorant age,
and rising above the petty differences of aesthetic taste
displayed in forms of robes or rituals, shall cry to each
other from the thousand fanes of Christian prayer, from
snowy Canada to India's heated plains, " if thy heart be
as my heart, give me thy hand ! " But touching reveries
of the coming glory must give place to that stern conflict
of thought which is the preparation for the glorious unity
to come; and John Wesley's words must be analyzed, to-
flnd their bearing on the dogmas that keep Christian
hearts divided from each other Now, it will be evident
from the foregoing quotations that Wesley traced the
division of Christians into the two hostile camps of
"orthodox" and "heretics," not to the Bible, but to Rome.
The Bible furnishes no foundation for such a classiflca
tion. The explanations of Scriptural facts on which such
a division is based have been put forth by Rome, to lead
men to Rome. They were enforced as truth in order to-
limit human liberty, and subject it to the external authority
of a self-styled " Catholic Church." To the assumed in
fallibility of this " Church," then, we must trace the origin
of all the authority that lies in this distinction of " heretics"
and "orthodox" ; and to that same infallibility must that
distinction lead, if we persevere in maintaining <t. Who
pronounces the Unitarian or the Quaker a " heretic .' "
A certain body that assumes to itself the title of " the
Church." On what authority does it so pronounce? It
asserts that the " heretic's " opinions are contrary to the
" Word of God," or the Bible. On what authority does.
it call the Bible the " Word of God .' " There is no one
passage in the Scriptures in which the terms are, or could
be, synonymous. It calls it so on its own authority. As
Dr. Whedon, in a quotation given before, assures us, the
Church made the Bible,— put together its various parts,
and called them " Bible," to the exclusion of everything
else. But granting that the term "Word of God" is a
true description of the Bible, — for there is a sense in
which it may be so called, — on what authority does this
"Church" assert that the Quaker's, or the Unitarian's,
interpretation of it is wrong .' These " heretics " accept
the Bible as well as their censors, and build their Christian
ity upon it. If this self-styled " Catholic Church " wishes
to base the patristic " orthodoxy," or explanation of the
fundamental Scriptural facts, on the Bible, it must do so,

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 75
either because criticism flnds that explanation there, or
because some other authority says that is the sense in
which the Bible must be taken. But criticism does not
find it there, as is evident from the fact that good and
learned men receive the Bible and yet reject the " ortho
doxy " of Rome, though their goodness and learning are
not inferior tp those of others who do not reject that inter
pretation of the Bible. The only other authority to which
we can appeal is the " Church." But if so, we must define
the " Church." It cannot, to such men, mean all who, in
any sense, acknowledge Christ ; for these have no unani
mous voice in favor of this " orthodoxy." Therefore we
must limit the " Church" fo some divinely authorized and
constituted organization. But, if such exists, any breach
of its unity, or separation from its order, is a crime. We
must go back to the unity before the establishment of the
Greek Church as a separate organization, to find any form
of Christianity which will answer the demands of our
investigation ; and when we do think we have found it,
what does it amount to .' Simply this. The voice of the
" Church" cries : "You must receive the Bible as such, be-
" cause I made it. You must take it in my sense, because I
" say so , and, as I have made it, I ought to know what it
" means. I put together these scattered treatises, becatlse
" they accorded with my convictions ; and, if they had not so
" accorded, I should have rejected them, just as I did other
" treatises. If you do not find this ' orthodoxy' and infalli-
" bility in the Bible, so much the worse for the Book. I
" am the mouthpiece of the Holy Ghost, and am not
" dependent upon the Bible." That this is not a misre
presentation of the line of argument pursued by " church "^
writers may be seep from the following quotations from
Manning's "Temporal Mission," pages 173-6: "It may
" be from ' intellectual obtuseness,' or ' want of the critical
" faculty,' or 'obstinate adherence to preconceived belief ;
" but it makes little impression on me to be told that S.
" Stephen, in Acts vii., 16, fell into an historical error in
•' saying that Jacob was buried in Sichem. I confess that
" I cannot explain the difficulty, and that the explanations
" usually given, though possible and even probable, are
" hardly sufficient. Nevertheless, I am not shaken in the
"least as to the divine axiom, that Holy Scripture is
'' exempt from all error Nor, again, when we read in one
" place that King Solomon had 4,000 stalls for horses, in
" another, 40,000 ; nor that King Josias began to reign at

76 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
" eight years of age, in another place at eighteen. Why
" should we be ashamed of saying with S. Augustine, ' Let
" ' us believe and immovably affirm that in Scripture false-
" ' hood has no place. Adore in the Gospel what you do
" ' not as yet understand, and adore it all the more in pro-
" ' portion as it is now hidden from you.' And if it should
" seem irrational and perverse to shut our eyes to difficul-
" ties, as men say, we can but answer — We neither derive
" our religion from the Scriptures, nor does it depend upon
" them. The centre and source of all our certainty is the
" perpetual Voice of the Church of God." Here, let it be
observed, (a) that it is only on the basis of church infalli
bility that men are branded as "heretics" in the theological
sense of the word ; (b) that to reject the distinction between
"heretics" and "orthodox," in that sense, is to reject the
foundation of that distinction, which is church infallibility ;
(c) that to accept that infallibility is to blind one's eyes to
patent facts, and believe that Sichem and not-Sichem,
eight and eighteen, are one and the same ; (d) that the
abandonment of the distinction of men, theologically, into
" heretics" and " orthodox " renders it possible that right
thinking ma}'- be on the side of the so-called heretic, and
error on the side of the so-called orthodox ; (e) that the
test of right thinking must be found elsewhere than merely
in the Bible, which evidently, apart from some common
standard of interpretation, does not settle the points at
issue, — or in church authority, which, on the one hand,
imposes upon the Bible a meaning foreign from it, and, on
the other, ignores facts patent to every critical investigator
of the Bible, demands of those who ignore those facts a
stultification of their own intelligence, and, when pressed
by those who cannot stultify themselves, shifts its ground,
and rejects the Bible altogether ; (f) and that Mr Wesley,
having abandoned both the Scriptural and the "church"
foundation for this distinction, must be held responsible for
the logical consequences of the abandonment.
Thus, we are not merely led to the conviction that Mr
Wesley's view of "saving faith" renders the patristic
orthodoxy unnecessary to a truly Arminian and evangeli
cal view of Christianity, but that he abandoned the only-
foundation on which that system of speculative dogmas
can rest.
J. Wesley's abandon ment of the "A thanasian ' ' creed is the
abandonmerd of the whole " orthodoxy" of which that creed is
the highest exponent. It is necessary, in order to form any

CATHOLICITY AND METHODLSM. 77
correct ideas of the bearing of Wesley's views on modern
controversy, that he should be, so far as is possible, his
own interpreter His general writings furnish the best clue
to his mature conceptions of the matter presented in the
legal standards of Methodism. His Notes were published
in 1754- In 1775, he published his Sermon on the Trinity,
from I John v., 7. It is impossible, apart from that ser
mon, and scattered passages in his other writings, to form
any true opinions of his views on the subject referred to.
A few extracts from the sermon, then, even at the risk of
repetition, are necessary. Alluding to his text, he says :
" I do not mean that it is of importance to believe this or
¦'¦ that explication of these words. I know not that any well-
" judging man would attempt to explain them at all. One
¦' of the best tracts which that great man. Dean Swift, ever
" wrote, was his Sermon upon the Trinity. Herein he
" shows that all who endeavored to explain it at all have
" utterly lost their way; have, above all other persons, hurt
" the cause which they intended to promote, having only,
" as Job speaks, ' darkened counsel by words without know-
"' ledge' It was in an evil hour that these explainers
" began their fruitless work. I insist upon no explication
"at all; no, not even the best I ever saw; I mean that
¦¦ which is given us in the creed commonly ascribed to
" Athanasius." Further on, he says : " I dare not insist upon any one's
*' using the word Trinity or Person." " I would insist only
" on the direct words, unexplained, just as they lie in the
" text : ' There are three that bear record in heaven, the
*' ' Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three
" ' are one' " " The Bible barely requires you to believe
" such facts, not the manner of them, Now the mystery
" does not lie in the fact, but altogether in the manner!'
"  the Bible does not require you to believe any mystery
" at all!' " I believe this fact also (if I may use the ex-
" pression), that God is three and one. But the manner,
" how, I do not comprehend ; and I do not believe it. Now
" in this, in the manner, lies the mystery ; and so it may ;
" I have no concern with it : it is no object of my faith : I
" believe just so much as God has revealed, and no more.
" But this, the manner, he has not revealed ; therefore I
" believe nothing about it."  " But the thing which I
" here particularly mean is this : the knowledge of the
" Three-One God is interwoven with all true Christian
" faith, with all vital religion."

78 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
To the last sentence, penned in 1775, must be added the
following, written in 1786 : " I cannot argue against matter
" of fact. I dare not deny that Mr Firmin was a pious
" man ; although his notions of the Trinity were quite
" erroneous." Here, let it be noted : (i) that it must be absurd to in
sist, after the lapse of one hundred and twenty-three years
from the publication of the " Notes," on explanations of
the Bible, publicly abandoned by Wesley himself after the
lapse of, successively, twenty-one, and thirty-two, years
from that publication ; (2) that, in Wesley's later opinion,
the Bible contains no explanation of the Trinity, in its so-
called " orthodox " sense, of a Unity made up of three
" hypostases " ; (3) that all attempts to explain what he, to
the day of his death, took for a revealed " fact " must end
in failure, and have so ended ; (4) that the evidence that
this threefold unity in God is a fact rested on the distinct
statement of the Bible to that effect, and on the testimony
of universal Christian consciousness ; (5) that, in 1786, he
abandoned the testimony of Christian consciousness to that
supposed fact, in view of the other fact that such conscious
ness could co-exist with the denial of that threefold unity ;
(6) that his retention of this threefold unity rested ulti
mately only on the distinct assertion of Scripture that such
unity existed in heaven ; (7) that Scriptural facts and
facts of personal observation were of co-ordinate authority
for our beliefs, and that, where what seemed to be
Scriptural facts were in any way, doubtful, trustworthy
facts of observation should decide the sense in which
Scripture ought to be taken : he thought Scriptural fact
warranted the exclusion of Unitarians from the pale of
Christianity : he abandoned that view of Scripture on the
evidence of observation ; (8) that, thus. Scripture was in
terpreted by him through the use of his own Reason, and
not by reverence for that misappropriated Scriptural
allusion, which has no reference to church authority in
doctrinal matters, but only in moral conduct, and which is
contained in the anathema : " Woe to him who refuses to
' hear the Church ' ; " (9) that, by the use of this Reason,
he rejected, not merely the damnatory clauses of the so-
called Athanasian creed, but its whole explanatory hypo
thesis ; and (10) that, with this creed, he abandons the
authority of any " mystery " at all, either over our belief
or our teaching.
But no presentation of the so-called " orthodoxy, "

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. ( 9
except the Athanasian creed, will bear investigation for
an hour. It is, itself, a mass of provoking contradictions ;
but any other exposition of " orthodoxy " lands us in
incomprehensible propositions, or in tri-theism. Let any
one, apart from the terminology and thought of that creed,
try to formulate to himself his view of the Trinity in
Unity, and he \vill find himself mercilessly driven to the
abandonment of thought at all, to tri-theism, or to a
Trinity of masks assumed by the one Deity. If he say :
" I do not understand; I believe," it is the abandonment of
his own thought in the acceptance of the thoughts of others.
If we recognize Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three
phases assumed by God in the work of redemption, these
phases are but masks — the old and true sense of "persons"
— assumed by the one Deity ; and we have no real Trinity
in Unity at all. If we recognize Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit as being " persons " in the modern sense of the
word, having each a distinct intelligence, consciousness,
and will, these are but attributes of beings so distinct that
they are really three Gods ; and, if the Unity of God has
so little of numerical one-ness about it, who can deny
' Manning and some of the " fathers " their unity of immen
sity, with its semi-materialistic conception of God, and its
possibility oi four persons, yes, four tliousand, or all the
gods of Olympus, in the compass of its vastness .' To be
" orthodox " in the technical sense of that term adopted
by what is called the " AA'estern Church," we must accept
the Athanasian creed. But AA'esley abandoned that creed.
" I believe nothing about it," said he, referring, not to its
anathema, but to its explanations. AA'hat is this, but to
reject the whole logical process of which it is the legitimate
conclusion .' AA'hat is this but to reject the premises from
which that conclusion is drawn .' AA'hat is this but to
bundle out of doors the whole patristic crowd of monkish
speculators, — to lay on the lash of small cords, till the
tribe of buyers and sellers of monkish mysteries and the
souls of men are driven from their seats of authority in the
temple of God .'
If it is thought a matter of questionable propriety to
interpret Mr. Wesley's notes in the light of his subse
quently-formed opinions, and not leave them as they first
came from his pen, let it be remembered how little love
of Truth is involved in keeping to what he himself aban
doned, namely, all explanations of the Trinity, even that
one given in the creed called "Athanasian." Nor must

:80 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
it be forgotten that this process has been already adopted.
It is well known that any theory of the origin of souls
decides the theological question of hereditary tendencies
to evil. In Mr Wesley's Journals as quoted before, he
abandons the theory of infusion of souls for that of tra
duction ; and, on this, Dr Stevens* says : " Correct by
these his note on Heb. XIL, 9." Where the standards,
then, are capable of bearing the truer interpretation, the
false and the abandoned should certainly not be insisted
upon. Let the principle apply in this case, also ; and the
standards will express, not Mr. Wesley's cruder views, but
his most mature convictions.
How far this liberality of sentiment should be extended
in any body claiming to be a church, may be learned from
his Notes and his Sermons. Where a godly fear and a
righteous life exist, Mr Wesley held that no peculiarities
of doctrinal view, and no regulations founded by authority,
should deprive men of the rights of church-membership.
On Acts X., 17, he says : " And who are we that we should
" withstand God ? Particularly by laying down rules of
" Christian communion which exclude any whom he has
" admitted into the Church of the first-born from wor-
" shipping God together. O that all Church governors
" would consider how bold an usurpation this is on the
" authority of the supreme Lord of the Church ! O that
" the sin of thus withstanding God may not be laid to the
" charge of those who, perhaps with a good intention, but
" in an over-fondness for their own forms, have done it,
¦" and are continually doing it." Here, he evidently teaches
that no church should adopt terms of fellowship which
are narrower than catholic. But, should the same liberty
be accorded to those who preach .' In his Sermon,
No. XXXVIII., on Mark IX., 38-39, he lays down, in section
IIL, 3, the test of a man's call to preach, namely, the fact
of his preaching turning men from sin to a Christian life.
The tenor of the sermon is that, where the preaching of
layman or clergyman will bear this test, no diversity of
opinion, no alliance with any particular party in the
Church, no difference of church relations, and no existing
personal animosities, should lead to anything calculated
to stop him from preaching. The ground of the whole is
that, where God has given the ability to preach, and has
made the preaching useful, God has called the preacher to
exercise his gifts ; and, if God has called, who shall forbid
* Hist., p. 690, Eng. ed.

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. j 81
him to answer the call .' " Beware how you attempt to
" hinder him, either by your authority, or arguments, or
" persuasions. Do not in any w ise strive to prevent his
" using all the power which God has given him. If you
" have authority with him, do nat use that authority to stop
" the work of God. Persuade him not to depart from the
" work. If he should give place to the devil and you, many
" souls might perish in their iniquity ; but their blood
" would God require at your hands." If Mr. Wesley
thought it wrong and satanic to " persuade " to a departure
" from the work," what would he say of any who would
compel it .' " Forbid him not ; no, not at the peril of your
" soul. Shall not God work by whom he will work.' No
" man can do these works unless God is with him; unless
" God hath sent him for this very thing. But if God hath
" sent him, will you call him back .' Will you forbid him
" to go .' " The work of bringing sinners to God Mr.
Wesley calls " casting out devils ; " and he says : " when I
" have reasonable proof that any man does cast out devils,
" whatever others do, I dare not forbid him, lest I be found
" even to fight against God." " And whosoever thou - art
'' that fearest God, ' forbid him not,' either directly or in-
" directly. — You indirectly forbid him, when you dis-
" courage him in his work, by drawing him into disputes
" concerning it, by raising objections against it, or fright-
" ing him. with consequences which very possibly will never
" be. You forbid him when you show any unkindness
" toward him either in language or behavior. O forbid
" him not in any of these ways ! " " If we willingly fail
" in any of these points, if we either directly or indirectly
" forbid him, ' because he followeth not us,' then we are
" bigots." " Examine yourself, — Do I not indirectly at
" least forbid him on any of these grounds.' Am I not
" sorry that God should thus own and bless a man that
" holds such erroneous opinions .' — If you do any of these
" things, you are a bigot to this day." " In order to
" examine ourselves thoroughly, let the case be proposed
" in the strongest manner. AVhat, if I were to see a
" Papist, an Arian, a Socinian, casting out devils .' If
" I did, I could not forbid even him, without convicting
" myself of bigotry. Yea, if it could be supposed that I
" should see a Jew, a Deist, or a Turk, doing the same,
" were I to forbid him either directly or indirectly, I should
" .be no better than a bigot still."
" Encourage whomsoever God is pleased to employ, to

82 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
" give himself wholly up thereto. Enlarge, so far as you
" can, his sphere of action ; show him all kindness in word
" and deed ; and cease not to cry to God in his behalf,
" that he may save both himself and them that hear him."
If any suspicion igmains that this liberal view of things
is to prevail only amongst ministers of different churches,
and not amongst those of the same church, toward each
other, let the reader refer to the third paragraph of the
secoq^ head of this sermon ; and he will find that diversity
of opinion is spoken of as existing in the same church ;
^nd, as an illustration of this, he alludes to the case of the
Apostles themselves : " Difference of opinion sprang up —
" in real Christians ; nay, in the very chief of them, the
" Apostles themselves ! Nor does it appear that the dif-
" ference which then began was ever entirely removed. We
" do not flnd that even those pillars in the temple of God,
" so long as they remained upon the earth, were ever
" brought to think alike." He speaks, too, of those over
whom we have " authority," evidently alluding to ministers
of the same church.
If the reader still doubts that Mr. Wesley regarded this
broad basis as the proper one, let him refer to the lan
guage quoted in a previous division of this work, where, at
the time when Methodism deserved the boast of catholi
city, the founder of that system laid down the relation of
the individual members of the Conference to the majority;
so that, in speculative matters, the authority of the latter
was not to control any man's convictions, and, in practical
matters, was to be binding only so far as the individual
conscience could submit. Then will it be seen how far
reaching was John Wesley's abandonment ofthe authority
of Church and creed. To deny any well-supported fact
would have been fatal to the honor and piety of any of his
preachers ; and it would, doubtless, have been followed by
ecclesiastical excision ; diversity of speculative views was
not to be followed even by an unkind word, much less the
excommunicative exercise of authority. What Mr. Wesley
regarded as the essential facts of Christianity may be seen
from his sermon on " Reason." * In this discourse, treating
of the use of Reason, he says : " And how is it possible
" without it to understand the essential truths contained
" therein .' (i.e., in the Scriptures,) a beautiful summary of
" which we have in that which is called the Apostles' Creed!'
It will be remembered that this creed gives no attempts at
• Serm. LXX., i., 6.

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 83
explanaliions, but keeps to the unexplained facts of the
earliest Christian times. Had Methodism retained the
spirit of its founder, would it now regard dogmatical stag
nation as a virtue, and boast of what is in reality a reproach .
to its intelligence ?
4. JVesley's theological method uproots entirely this so-called
" orthodoxy!' Wesley's method, adopted by himself, claimed
as a right, followed as a duty, fearlessly, in the presence of
the most appalling opposition, and as fearlessly recom
mended to others, was simply consistent Protestantism, — •
the use of private judgment, and loyalty to facts, let these
come from whatever quarter they may, and lead to what
ever consequences they must. The method of ascertaining
whether any dogma or dogmas correspond to facts or not
has been pointed out Let this method be applied to this
so-called " orthodoxy " ; and the overthrow of the greatest
barrier to the perfect success of Christianity is secured.
It remains only to present a summary of the thoughts of
this chapter.
The standards of Methodist theology, in Canada and
England, are AVesley's flrst flfty-three sermons, and his
Notes on the New Testament. By these, every other for
mulary must be tested. Of these standards, Mr. Wesley
must be his own interpreter, by means of his other writings.
The opinions expressed in these standards are often con
tradictory, and cannot all be held by any one person, so
that every preacher who has any deflnlte views at all will
find himself " contrary to" something that "is contained in"
them. Some views in the Notes and Sermons are explicitly
corrected and abandoned by Wesley himself Harmony,
amidst the contradictions, must arise from observing the
thread of Wesley's own mental development, and from
preserving his own Arminian principles and his Protestant
method. This method was distinctly asserted at his first
Conference, was subsequently recognized in his later writ
ings, and was to the effect that, if the fundamental prin
ciples of Methodism were not capable of bearing the closest
scrutiny, or stood in the w ay of the general interests of
Christianity and practical religion, the sooner they were
abandoned the better, — and that, for the more thorough
testing of these principles, speculative questions were left
to the individual conscience, and practical ones were to be
decided by the majority, yet only so far as not to infringe
on individual consciences. No theories, or explanations,
or mysteries, of speculative, or systematic, theology, or

84 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
popular opinion, should be enforced at all. Facts of Scrip
ture alone should be insisted upon. These facts must be
elicited by free criticism. They are summarized in the
Apostles' Creed. As these facts are unfolded, our theology,
like Wesley's own, should be modified by them. These
facts necessarily lead to an abandonment of the mis-named
"orthodoxy" for certain fundamental thoughts common to
all forms of Christianity, under whatever , conflicting dog
matic statements they may be presented. This abandon
ment is the only safety for Protestantism from ultimate
loss in Sacerdotalism or irreligion. As humanity must
have a religion of some kind, the world's fate lies between
the respective principles and methods of John Wesley and
Ignatius Loyola ; and Methodism can again be catholic in
the true sense of the term.

CHAPTER IV.
THE RELATIONS OF METHODISM.
§1.
To Modern Religious Thought.
The characteristics and tendencies of modern thought
furnish a study not only interesting, but necessary to him
who aims at the good of mankind. The literature which
embodies this thought is bewildering in its abundance.
The patient toil, and the extensive and minute research of
Germany furnish the basis for wide generalizations, as well
as for the clear and popular productions of the French and
the English mind. Even Spain and Italy raise their elo
quent voices in behalf of one phase or another of that
thought which everywhere is so active to-day ; and distant
India, wakened into a new life by its contact with English
literature and Christian thought, contributes its share to
the solution of problems which agitate the minds of our
young Canadian nation.
Modern thought is pre-eminently religious, if that term
can be properly employed to designate the object, and inot
the tone and temper, of our investigations. History, philos
ophy, and science, all trench upon religion ; and their
religious bearings are largely the source of their attractions.

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 85
Modern thought is radical. It deals not merely with the
leaves and twigs, nor even with the boughs and branches,
of religion ; but it goes to the very roots. Petty polemics
still rage, but the great controversy is not now about forms
of baptism or postures of worship, but about the origin and
necessity of any religion at all.
Modern thought is intensely earnest. The time is
coming when, as this thought spreads amongst the church-
going masses, as it is spreading beyond them, it will de
mand stronger food than the " Lives of the Saints," whether
these saints are Romish or Protestant. The trashy fiction,
too, which is the strongest food many can now bear, will
soon become distasteful in the midst of the anxious search
for the true and the good which modern thought is
awakening. Modern literature reveals the fact that thought is arrang
ing itself along two distinct and divergent lines, and to
ward ends which are not merely antagonistic, but mutually
destructive. The end is Sacerdotalism, or Reason ; and
there is no middle way. It is a mistake to say that the
end is Reason or Revelation, because the terms are not
mutually exclusive ; but Sacerdotalism and Reason cannot
exist together. This does not mean that Sacerdotalists
are not intelligent or learned or reasonable ; but it means
that the system of thought and organization which we
designate by the term Sacerdotalism cannot live if it
-attempts to base its claims on Reason.
The common centre from which these lines diverge is
the question, — is any thought or system of thoughts to be
received as true because it is divine, or divine because it
is true .' The foundation of this is in the philosophical
question whether moral distinctions are the product of
arbitrary will, or are natural and immutable. The first
alternative places the ultimate source of authority in what
is external to the man : the second, in the intemal. The first
makes theology mechanical ; the second, dynamical. The
first places its ideal of perfection in the past, and, there
fore, represses progress ; the second, for a .perfect concep
tion and expression of the true and the good, looks to the
future, and, therefore, lives only in the atmosphere of pro
gress. The ecclesiasticism ofthe first must be sacerdotal;
that of the second makes every man a king and a priest.
The genius of the first tends to solidarity ; that of the
second, to individualism. The natural ally of the first is
despotism ; that of the second is freedom. AA'e can thus
7

8 6 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
perceive how our civilization and our liberties are linked'
up with thoughts which some think of no moment, and
which others, from a mistaken view of what constitutes the
" Gospel," desire to banish from the pulpit, the great.
source of popular education on religious subjects.
Unfortunately, our Protestant theology is based on a
Romish foundation. We have practically accepted the
first of the two alternatives, or if we hold the second, we
fear to accept its legitimate and logical consequences ; and
it is no wonder that Rome threatens to overwhelm us. Let
us take the central idea of Christianity, ¦ — " God is love."
Why do you believe that to be true .' Doubtless, some
will say : " Because Jesus said so." But how do you know
that Jesus spoke the truth .' " Because of the attestation
of his miracles." But how do you know the miracles ever
took place .' " Because the Bible says so." But how do
you know the Bible is true .' The collected books we call
" the Bible " were taken from amongst many such books,,
some of which are quoted as authority for its statements,
though not incorporated in it : who selected the books,
and how did they know that these were " Bible," and the
others not .' " The Church so decided." So we are, at last,
brought to the supreme authority of the Church in matters
of thought ! But the Church, if it makes any utterance
at all, must have a mouthpiece, some authorized or tacitly
accepted exponent of its views, and that cannot be less in
fallible than the body, when speaking for that body ; hence,
if we recognize the Church as infallible, we come to the
essence of the papacy. In the contest for supremacy,
Rome will be sure to vindicate the claims of her Pope,
from any definition ofthe term "Church" which Sacerdo
talists may adopt. Thus our present Protestant theological
standpoint lands us, logically, first in High-churchism, and
then in Rome. Is there no other basis for our conviction.
that God is Love than the mere dictum of external au
thority .' Euripides, nearly five hundred years before
Christ, in his " Iphigenia in Tauris," put into the mouth of
his heroine the following words : " But I reproach the
" devices of the goddess, who if any one work the death of
" a man, or touch with hands a woman newly delivered,
" or a corpse, restrains him from her altars, as deeming^
" him impure, but yet herself takes pleasure in man-slay-
" ing sacrifices. It cannot be that the consort of Jove,
" Latona, hath brought forth so much ignorance. I even
" disbelieve the banquets of Tantalus set before the gods

CATHOLICITY AND JIETHODISM. " 5 7
" as that they should be pleased with feeding on a boy.
But I deem that those in this land, being themselves
¦ '' man-slayers, charge the goddess with their own baseness ;
" for I think not that any one of the gods is bad." I do
not ask what external authority taught Euripides the
great truth of the essential goodness of Deity, for it is onl}-
by objective revelations that the occasions are furnished
for ascertaining any truth ; but, when he condemned the
low anthropomorphism which predicated of Deity the
passions of abnormal humanity, and when he felt that
anthropomorphism is right only when it predicates of
Deity what is essential to the highest ideal of our mental
and moral nature, did his belief rest ultimately on testimony,
or on the necessary convictions of his own mind.' AA'e,
too, feel that only so far as we are loving are we right ;
and, as we can form no conception of God higher than that
which is highest and best in us, raised beyond the limita
tions of the created, we instinctivel}- feel that God must be
what we should be were we perfect, that is. Love. All
questions must, therefore, rest ultimately on the trust
worthiness of our mental and moral nature.
But we cannot demonstrate even our own existence.
The celebrated expression of Descartes, " I think, there
fore I am," supposes the existence of the " I " which is the
very thing to be proved. Absolute certainty, therefore, or
infallibility, is entirely out of the question ; and all the
certaint}- we can hope to have is that confidence which
w-e feel in the trustworthiness of our faculties. Is this a
sufficient basis on which to construct our theology, our
religion, our morals, our civilization, without attempting to
construct an external infallibility in presence of which
Reason must cease to act .' If we can, then Theology may
rest on Reason. " See," says Wesley, in Sermon LXX.,
" of what service it (Reason) is both in laying the foundation
" of true religion, under the guidance of the Spirit of God,
" and in raising the superstructure' AVe may, then, trust
to what is "vulgarly termed natural conscience," to lay
even "the foundation of true religion " ; for the conscience
is but "the Reason employed about questions of right and
wrong."* If we cannot, then Theology must be taken at
second hand. But this use of Reason will be called Ra
tionalism ; and Rationalism is popularly understood to
deny the supernatural, and thus threaten religion. Does
it necessarily do so .' AA^hat is the supernatural .' Is there
* Butler's Sermons. Whewell's Preface, page ix.

88 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
not a fallacy lurking in the very word .' What is " natural " .'
If, by this term, we understand only the physical, do we
not exclude from nature even the Deity .' If by " natural" '
we mean fixed, established, regular, why exclude from the
term "nature " all but the physical .' Butler, in his
"Analogy,"* says of the term "natural" : "But the only
" distinct meaning of that word is stated, fixed, or settled!'
" And from hence it must follow that persons' notions of
" what is natural will be enlarged in proportion to their
" greater knowledge of the works of God, and the dispen-
" sations of his providence." If there is a realm of spiritual
life connected with the physical, then it, too, is part of the
established order of things ; and "' nature " includes all that
is. Our use of the term " super-natural " is, in that case,
superfluous ; and the natural order of things is truly the
divine. Then miracles are not contraventions of natural
laws, but the results of the interlacing of the higher and
the lower forms of nature.
The great demand of the age is some objective evidence
that may conflrm the instinctive convictions of Reason
that there exists a realm of spiritual being distinct from
matter, and that, back of thought, there is something more
than mere oxidation of the brain, and, to quote Prof Bain
against himself, that there is an "independent spiritual
subsistence " behind " the entire compass of our feelings
or emotions."f If our theology is still to deserve that
name; if Christ is still to be revered; if communion between
the mind of man and the mind of God, — the most sublime
comfort, and the most ennobling source of inspiration, to
man,— is to be anything more than a dream ; if the wailing
heart of the bereaved is to be cheered by the prospects
of again seeing the loved ones around whom death has
cast its veil ; if all life is not to end in the blankness of
" hope deferred,"— then the worid demands that its men of
science shall examine, as some of them are examining, the
foundations and coiiflrmations of that belief in a spiritual
worid which everywhere and always has been characteristic
of healthy and normal humanity.
In the private experience of many, there have been facts
which cannot be explained but by the communication of
mind with mind at distances, and under circumstances,
beyond the control of mere matter Such facts give a
reality to that beautiful picture of Longfellow's :!
* Tefft's, ed.. Part I., chap, i., p. 66. t Mind and Body, p 8
X Evangehne, Part Second, ii.

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 89
' ' After the sound of their oars on the tholes had died in the distance,
' ' As from a magic trance the sleepers awoke, and the maiden
" Said with a sigh to die friendly priest : ' 0 Father Felician !
' ' Something says in my heart that near me Gabriel wanders.
' " Is it a foolish dream, an idle and vague superstition ?
" Or has an angel passed, and revealed the truth to my spirit ? '
" Then, with a blush, she added : ' Alas ! for my credulous fancy,
" Unto ears like thine such words as these have no meaning.'
" But made answer the reverend man, and he smiled as he answered :
" ' Daughter, thy words are not idle ; nor are they to me without meaning.
" Feehng is deep and still ; and the word that floats on the surface
" Is as the tossing buoy, that betrays where the anchor is hidden.
' ' Therefore trust tu thy heart, and to what the world calls illusions.
" Gabriel truly is near thee.' "
It is time, in the name of our common humanity, its
interests and its hopes, to cast aside our superstitious fears
of the charge of superstition, and boldly face the facts that
history, biography, and science present, in favor of a spirit
ual world. Then can it be most fully shown that Reason
does not lead to Atheism, and that Protestantism may,
without danger to the interests of humanity, rely com
pletely on the soundness of its fundamental principle, —
private judgment, or the exercise of our intellectual and
moral powers in the discovery of Truth, unbiased by dicta
tion on the part of others.
That a decisive collision between the two antagonistic
forms of Christian thought, the prescriptive and the scien
tific, has been anticipated, and what is its significance, may
be learned from two quotations, the first from Ewer's
" Failure of Protestantism," page 55, and the second from
Draper's "Conflict between Religion and Science," page 367.
" When the two great clusterings, Protestant and Catholic,
" shall have completed themselves, the one organic, like an
" army, the other disintegrated, like a mob, and the shock
" between the two shall take place, can any one doubt the

issue .'

" This power (Rome), conscious that it can work no
" miracle to serve itself, does not hesitate to disturb society
'' by its intrigues against governments, and seeks to accom-
" plish its ends by alliances with despotism. Claims such
" as these mean a revolt against modern civilization, an
" intention of destroying it no matter at what social cost.
" To submit to them without resistance, men must be
" slaves indeed ! As to the issue of the coming conflict,
" can any one doubt .' Whatever is resting on flction and
" fraud will be overthrown."
In this " shock " and " conflict," Protestant success de
pends upon an enlightened public opinion. But, on the

90 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
questions at issue, public opinion is not in possession of tbe
facts necessary for a decision. So fully has the scholastic
theology of the Sacerdotalists become incorporated into
our Protestant thought, that it bears, even with us, the name
of " right thinking " ; and so little do the public know of
the history and hoUowness of this scholastic theology, that
one word against the so-called orthodoxy is sufficient to
brand the warmest friend of Protestantism and of Man as
an enemy not to be tolerated. But the present is no time
for temporizing. The case is too serious. It is hfe or
death for one or the other of the two opponents. The
utmost frankness and freedom are demanded in the discus
sion of the debated points.
Several circumstances seem to show that a new presenta
tion of Christianity is imperatively demanded by the times.
Lord Northbrook has lately assured the British public that
India will become Christian, but only by adopting that
primitive form of Christianity which preceded the forma
tion of those speculative dogmas now confounded with its
fundamental truths.* Prof Monier Williams says, in the
London Times of April 17th, 1876: "A complete disin-
" tegration of ancient faiths is in progress in the upper
"* There is a striking passage in the Earl of Northbrook's recent speech
at Falmouth which deserves preservation at a time when High Church and
Low Church dogmas are being freely discussed by Europeans in India.
Lord Northbrook has come home after his term of ofhce as Governor-
General with a conviction that is evidently deep rooted, that it is not the
part of the Government of India to connect itselt with any form of belief or
religion in India. To the missionaries must be left the propagation of Chris
tianity ; but he gives it as his earnest conviction, alter seeing much of India,
and visiting districts in which there are thousands of native Christians, that
the most suitable road from idolatry and superstition is not necessarily any
one of those which our various sects present to the people. He evidently
expects that a more primitive form of Christianity will take hold of the
natives of India than that which we present. " I believe (he said) that they
will go further back and get rid of much of the dogma which has overlaid
the foundations of Christianity for nearly 1,800 years ; and some of us may
live to see them adopt a form of Christianity more nearly approaching the
simplicity of the Apostolic church than any which now exists." Lord
Northbrook said some sound things at Falmouth about silver ; this we take
to be golden. — Homeward Mail.
To this note on Lord Northbrook and India are added two paragraphs on
t'le Rev. Fergus Ferguson, taken from the " Belfast News-Letter " of March
14th, 1877, each containing remarks not found in the other, and one extract
from the " Christian Guardian," of March 26th, 1877, on Principal Tulloch's
reraarks concerning the Article on the Bible in the new edition of the " Ency
clopedia Britannica." They will show how wide-spread is the conviction
that a new presentation of Christianity is imperatively demanded :
"The Rev. Fergus Ferguson on the Creed.— The Rev. Fergus
Ferguson, in preaching to the Queen's Park U. P. congregation, Glasgow,
said the Church had yet to begin the work of constructing her creed on a
truly Scriptural and scientific basis. It was monstrous, mischievous, and

CATHOLICITY .VND METHODISM. 91
" Strata of East Indian society. Most of the oldest thinkers
" become pure Theists or Unitarians. In almost every
" large town there is a Samaj, or society of such men,
" whose creed would be well expressed by the first part of
" the 1st Article of the Church of England. No sooner
" however, is a Samaj formed than, as is usual in India, it
" splits up into sub-divisions, some founding their theism
" on the Veda, others partially appealing to it, and others
" rejecting it altogether. Real conversions are certainly
" uncommon, nor will they, in my opinion, be more com-
" mon until our religion is presented to the Hindus in that
" more simple Oriental form which originally belonged to
" it on its first foundation at Jerusalem." Here are pre
sented some suggestive facts. The tendency of the Hindu
mind, amid the dissolution of former beliefs, is toward an
acceptance of Christianity. Learning tends to the rejec
tion of those forms of Christianity which are identified
with the scholastic speculations called " orthodoxy." The
form of Christianity which the learning of India most
favors has no power of external cohesion. This arises from
the conflicting claims of external theological authorities.
Something, then, in our religion attracts educated and un
educated alike. Something in it repels the educated. The
-absurd to suppose that a view of truth attained by a limited number of men
in a dark and troubled age of the world should remain the standard of truth
for all time."
"The Rev. Fergus Ferguson, of the Queen's Park U. P. Church, Glas
gow, gave notice of a motion at the U. P. Presbytery, yesterday, asking for
a revision of the Confession of Faith. Mr. Ferguson, alluding to the Con
fession, said it was monstrous and mischievous to hold that that view of
truth formed in a troubled and dark age should remain the standard of the
Church for all time. The absurdity ofthe idea was written on the face of it.
It was fit only to be scouted by all reasonable men, and was nut entided to
one moment's respect. The revision question seems to meet with more
favor in the U. P. Church than in any other branch of the great Presbyterian
femily. "
" Principal Tulloch o.n Free Thought. — Principal TuUoch, in the
March number of the "Contemporary," dwells at length upon Professor
Smith's article on the Bible, and says ; ' It is surely a fact of momentous
significance that such opinions (as are therein contained) should -vindicate
for themselves a position within the Free Church, and that the prospect
should in consequence be the opening up of an entire change in the attitude
of the Scotch mind towards the Bible.' Later on, alluding to the Rev. D.
Macrae's motion relative to the Confession of Faith, Dr. Tulloch says :
' None can tell what may come of the present movement of thought in Scot
land. . . . The current of free thought is running deep and sure in all
the churches, even within softened and exclusive precincts, where it makes
no noise at all. It will make its way towards the light by-and-by, from all
quarters of the ecclesiastical horizon ; and the Church which will have most
chance may possibly not be any of the present organizations, but a Church
more excellent — because at once more liberal and catholic — than any of these
now existing.' "

92 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
explanation of the phenomena lies in the method of ascer
taining the truth.
Of the relations of Science to Christianity, little need be
said. So far as the popular phase of our religion is con
cerned, its method of investigation, and that of Science,
are fundamentally antagonistic ; and, if Christianity is to
retain its hold upon the learning, not of India, but of the
world, it must be re-stated, or it can never be re-instated
in its former place of power and authority.
The same lesson comes from our schools of Theology.
Is it not the case that, when our thoughtful students put
to their professors even simple and necessary questions, all
the answer often elicited is, " It is a mystery " .' Then the
hungering mind is directed to ponderous volumes of meta
physical subtlety in which all the treasures of learning and
thought seem consecrated to the work of proving that
mystery is the normal state of things, and that the less we
think the better. Is it any wonder that the professors go
to their homes feeling that the men who break stones upon
the streets are happier than those whose position demands
of them the stultification of their own intelligence, and the
stifling of the rising spirit of inquiry in their pupils .' Is it
any wonder if the students go home from their classes
feeling that, out of this mystery, there comes a confusion,
a very Babel, which finds its expression in the clangor of
the jarring sects .' Surely a revision of our theological
standards is absolutely demanded.
But what is the new presentation of Christianity to be.'
Whence is it to come .' What will be its effects .' The
answers must arise from a review of the laws of religious
development in the world.
I. Religion, in the sense of theology and ecclesiastical
form, not in its proper sense of individual character and
life, develops by successive new presentations of its fun
damental thoughts. These thoughts are God, moral res
ponsibility, and a future life. These thoughts become
clear in conception and expression by successive "strides in
the progress of intelligence.
2. Each development is preceded by a process of prepa
ration in the public mind. Mosaism in the Jew, philo
sophy and the decay of Polytheism in the Gentile, prepar
ed the world for Christianity. " With Socrates (Ob. 399,
" B.C.), commenced the positive preparation for the truth,
" accomplished by Greek philosophy." * The culture of
* Kurtz, Vol. I., p. 48.

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 93
classical literature prepared the way for Luther Scepticism,
arising from Protestant disintegration, and this again from
want of unity and consistency in Protestant methods of
investigation, led to such irreligion as created a demand for
Methodism. Scientific investigation is now producing a
state of mind which calls for a new phase of religious
thought and life. " The development of Christianity was
" impelled in the ancient Church by tradition, in the
" medicBval by the hierarchy, in the modern by science." *
3. The theology of each development arises from an
underlying philosophy. Scholasticism arose from a philo-
-sophy of the Absolute and the Infinite, expressed in Semitic
terminology and imagery. Personal investigation, aroused
by the conflicts of Nominalism and the Aristotelian and
Platonic Realism, smote the strength of unquestioning
submission to authority almost to its death in the fifteenth
century. ¦)¦ Wesley's whole system is based on the philo
sophy of the Freedom ofthe Will. An}thing which denies
that destroys his system.
4. Each grand development proceeds from the last one
before it, and not from the original stock. Christianity
came from Judaism. Romanism came from Christianity.
Protestantism came from Rome. Methodism came from
the Reformed Church of England. If this is a true law,
the world must look to Methodism for the coming Reform.
It cannot find such a reform in Oxford Ritualism : that
is not a progress, but a retrogression. It cannot find it
in Old Catholicism ; for that movement would have to
pass over the path the world has been pursuing since
Luther's day, before it could catch up to that world which
is yet so far in advance of it.
5. Each, to preserve its new life, has been compelled to
adopt a form suited to itself The new wine has needed
new bottles.
6. The convulsions arising from this changing of form
have resulted in the rejection of the new by the old, and,
consequently, in inherited narrowness in the new, in the
development of fresh evils, in the perpetuation of antagon
ism between both new and old, and in the retarding of
healthy and catholic progress.
7. The destiny of each development is controlled by
its underlying philosophy. This will explain the perpetu-
* Kurtz, Church History, Vol. II., p. 37.
t D'Aubign^ Hist, of Reformation, Book II., p. 34, and Kurtz, Church
History, Vol. I., p. 423.

94 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
ation of old forms of religion, long after new ones have
impelled men to higher progress. Some germ of truth lies
in them, and prevents their utter dissolution.
Freedom of the Will implies personal responsibility.
This supposes power in the individual to meet the respon
sibility. This implies a germ of spiritual life in all human
ity, if all humanity is free and responsible. This denies
the necessity of extra-natural grace arbitrarily imparted,
or through .sacraments. This is fatal to sacerdotalism and
the authority of the " Church." This leaves the individual
to rest upon the trustworthiness of his own faculties to
gather necessary truth from every source of information,
or revelation, open to him.
8. While eminent examples of goodness are confined to
no one phase of religion, each successive development
creates a higher general type of religious life and character.
From what has already been presented, it may be seen
what a responsibility rests upon the Methodist Churches.'
Will they, on the basis of their founder's principles, pro
claim a Christianity in harmony with those of modern
thought ; or will they, for the sake of a reputation for a
misnamed, and, to Methodism, a destructive. Evangelical
ism, blindly let the grandest opportunity offered to any
modern Church pass from them .'
§2.
Relation of Methodism to its own Prosperity.
The subjects discussed in this little work lie at the
foundation of great questions now agitating the whole
Methodist Church. The rights of laymen to membership
apart from obligation to "meet in class;" the right of
congregations to a choice of the pastors whom they sup
port ; the extension of the term of ministerial residence ;
the retention of old hymn books, or the adoption of new
ones, — all press their claims for immediate attention.
I. Methodism should return to the simplicity of its first
principles.
(a) Liberty of thought must be restored to the preachers'
At present, it is assumed that the work of turning men to
God is necessarily connected with certain forms of doctrine
called "orthodox" and "evangelical." Facts prove that
these terms are not synonymous with "right thinking"
and " gospel." As regards the latter term, Mr Wesley's

CATHOLICTTY AND JrETHODISM. 9.5
view- of its appropriateness may be gathered from a letter
written to Miss Bishop, in 1778, given in his Works, Vol.
VIL, p. 242, and in which he says : " I find more profit in
"' sermons on either good tempers, or good works, than
" in what are vulgarly called Gospel sermons. That term
" has now become a mere cant word : I wish none of our
" society would use it. It has no determinate meaning.
" Let but a pert, self-sufficient animal, that has neither
" sense nor grace, bawl out something about Christ, or
" his blood, or justification by faith, and his hearers cry
" out, ' What a fine Gospel sermon ! ' Surely the Methodists
" have not so learned Christ ! " In fact, so decided was
Wesley's stand against Calvinism, that Dr. Rigg, in the
" Contemporary .Review " for October, 1876, asserts his
belief that, were the founder of Methodism now alive, he
would be in the ranks of the " Broad Church." Facts,
again, prove that, from the days when Ulfilas tempered
the ferocity of the Goths, when Schleiermacher led so
thoroughly to God the Jewish David Mendel that the latter
assumed the name of Neander, " the new man," to the days
in which Unitarians are said to have rejoiced in the return
to Christianity of Professor F. W. Newman, " orthodoxy"
has not been alone in its power to convert souls to God
and to Christ. Wesley, himself, commands that no means
be taken to drive or persuade either an Arian or a Socinian
from preaching, or from connection with the Church, if he"
is found to bring men's hearts and lives to God ; for that
fact puts upon him the stamp of God's approval, which no
man has a right to gainsay. Piety alone is essential to
Christianity or Methodism. Each is a life, not a fixed
creed or an unchanging organization. A Methodist, Mr
Wesley defined, in his English Dictionary with the cele
brated humorous preface, as " One that lives according to
" the method laid down in the Bible." * If Methodism
is a life, then, why narrow it to the limits of a sect .'
Why not assert its own Christian breadth .' Let the
central question, — what are the preacher's fruits in bringing
men's hearts and lives into a richer likeness to Christ .' —
become the one essential question. If it is answered satis
factorily, who has the right to interfere with his opinions or
teaching ? " To his own master he standeth or falleth."
Who gives men any right to prescribe another's thoughts
or expressions .' No one in earth or heaven ! To attempt
to do so is an impertinence.
» Works, Vol. VII., p. 534, Note.

96 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
Let Methodism return to the principles of her first Con-'
ference. If unanimity of thought is desirable, let time be
given at each Conference for the frank discussion of such
doctrines as affect practical work ; and let no terrors of
" friendly investigations," or cross-questionings at District
Meetings, prevent the development of any preacher's intel
lectual or moral manhood. Then will the prominence
given to Christian and gentlemanly love spread everywhere
a greater likeness to Christ. The Church will be purer,
and the world will grow better.
On this point, it is a real act of self-denial not to quote
the bulk of what Paley has written on " Subscription to
Articles of Faith " ; but a few sentences must be given.
" The Popes, when they assumed the power of the Apostles,
" laid claim, also, to their infallibility ; and in this they were
" consistent. Protestant churches renounce with all their
" might this infallibility, whilst they apply to themselves
" every expression that describes it, and will not part with
" a jot of the authority which is built upon it." Of the
plea that the Church has a right to prescribe its own terms
of communion, and its standard of requirement for the
ministry, he says : " All which, in plainer English, comes
" to this ; that two or three men, betwixt two and three
" centuries ago, fixed a multitude of obscure and dubious
" propositions, which many millions after must bring them-
¦" selves to believe." "  it is one of the first duties a
" Christian owes to his Master, ' to keep his mind open and
" unbiased ' in religious inquiries. Can a man be said to
" do this who must bring himself to assent to opinions pro-
" posed by another .' who enters into a profession where
" both his subsistence and success depend upon his con-
" tinuance in a particular persuasion .' " " It has been
" thought to detract considerably from the pretended use
" of these subscriptions, that they excluded none but the
" conscientious ; a species of men more wanted, we con-
" ceive, than formidable, to any religious establishment."
"  as the hearers are at liberty to believe preachers or
" no, as they see, or he produces, reasons for what he says,
" there can be no harm, and there is a manifest utility, in
" trusting him with the liberty of explaining his own mean-
" ing in his own terms." " If a Christian can think it an
" intolerable thing to worship one God through one media-
" tor, Jesus Christ, in company with any such as differ from
" him in their notions about the metaphysical nature of
" Christ, or of the Holy Ghost, or the like, I am sorry for

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 97
" it. But whatever those men may please themselves with
" thinking, who are sure they are arrived at the perfect
" knowledge of the most abstruse points, this they may be
" certain of, that in the present state of the church, even
" supposing only such as are accounted orthodox to be joined
" together in one visible communion, they communicate together
" with a very great variety and confusion of notions, either
" comprehending nothing plain and distinct, or differing
" from one another as truly and as essentially as others
" differ from them all ; nay, with more certain difference
" with relation to the object of worship than if all prayers
" were directed (as Bishop Bull says almost all were in the
" first ages) to God or the Father, through the Son." His
closing sentence is too suggestive to be omitted : " As the
" man who attacks a flourishing establishment writes with
" a halter round his neck, few ever will be found to attempt
" alterations but men of more spirit than prudence, of more
" sincerity than caution, of warm, eager, and impetuous
" tempers ; that, consequently, if we are to wait for im-
" provement till the cool, the calm, the discreet part of
" mankind begin it, till church governors solicit, or minis-
" ters of state propose it — I will venture to pronounce that
" (without His interposition with whom nothing is impos-
" sible) we may remain as we are till the ' renovation of all
" things.' "
(b) Liberty should be restored to the members of the
Church. Not one rash or unkind word would the writer
use against class-meetings. They have been, and are,
blessed to the great majority of the members of the
Methodist churches ; and, in one form or another, they will
be a blessing to the end of time. But there are phases of
experience to which they are ill adapted. There are
natures to which they are almost entirely unsuited. The
repetition of their subjective scrutiny at such brief intervals
as a week becomes, at times, irksome, and tends, in no
small degree, by its concentration of thought on self, to the
development of an offensive denominational egotism, and
to a morbid emotionalism. To exclude persons from the
Church simply for not "attending class" implies what is
a slander on every church which does not adopt these
classes, — that, without them, piety is either questionable or
absent, — and is to deprive the churches of the help of many
noble souls, or else to take their money, but give them no
voice in the management of the organization they support
This must come to an end ; and, if the fearing of God and

98 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
the working of righteousness is everywhere accepted with
God, the very works of men will be test enough of the
inward reverence, without imposing upon them arbitrary
rules of church communion. If the benefits of the classes
are to be continued, let them rest on their own merits.
Then will they be made profitable, or die. If any still
refuse to attend them, let the class-leaders, as under-
pastors, visit the absentees, as when classes were first or
ganized, and all good ends will be secured.
Thus, no revolution is demanded ; but the restoration
of old principles and practices can meet the existing
necessities. The arguments of Paley against subscription to Articles
and Creeds apply, in no small degree, to the prescription
of any conventional rules. He does not argue for the total
abolition of creeds, but for the elimination from them of
their merely local and temporary elements ; and rules of
life must be imposed by church authorities ; yet they, too,
should not perpetually enforce the merely conventional.
The liberties of men and churches should be limited only
by the boundaries of spiritual life. The aim of the Church
is to promote that lile ; and, so long as it exists, no man
or body of men has any right to curb its development.
Christ was the grandest example at once of prudent regard
for right and truth in the conventional rules of society, and
the independent assertion of his personal liberties. After
him, Paul is the noblest assertor of the rights of individual
consciences, both in thought and observances. Let their
example have due weight. A study of the history of all
churches from early Christianity down to our own day
proves that schisms arise from the tyranny of authority more
than from the perversity of individuals. It was so in those
times when almost every independent thought was branded
as a heresy, till one cannot, to-day, amid the multitude of
such heresies, vary one iota from Rome without having
some name of terrible sound and length, coupled With an
anathema, hurled at his head. It was so with the Reform
ation. It was so with Wesley. It has been so with
almost every Methodist schism ; and we are now beginning
to realize that the right often lay with those who were
driven away, and the blame with the powers that were.
Church discipline should not be based upon the idea that
men and women are ever to remain babies in intelligence
and judgment, but should aim at the development of a
self-acting and perfected humanity. This end can never

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 99
be reached while our individual beliefs are prescribed for
us by others, and when churches descend to the dictation
of rnere petty details of individual conduct I Good sense,
cultivated taste, and the powerful checks of public senti
ment, are better safeguards in these matters than prescrip
tive rules. 2. Methodism must extend her principles.
The societies, their members, the places of worship, the
preachers, are no longer under the personal control of one
man, or " his heirs and assigns for ever," to be held or
dismissed at pleasure. Hence
(ci) The rights of separate congregations must be ex
tended. Those who support a pastor have a right to say
whom they will support ; and, where they deliberately
choose a man, they should have him, if possible, and bear
the consequences of their choice.
(b) The possibility of a lengthened term of the pastorate
should be provided for Dr Rigg, in the article before
referred to, shows that i\Ir Wesley contemplated this. In
his "Deed Poll," there stands a provision that the "three
years' rule " shall not be binding on Methodist preachers
who are also clergymen of the Established Church of
England. This has seemed a strange piece of partiality.
Dr. Rigg regards it as a piece of far-se?ing statesmanship;
and he is, doubtless, right. Wesley looked to the con
solidation of fixed suns in great centres, with smaller
satellites revolving around them, till, as these centres in
creased in number, the fluctuating itinerancy would gra
dually settle into a permanent pastorate, and, by this
gradual change, avoid the evils of a sudden stoppage of
the revolving bodies. The precise plan proposed cannot
now be adopted ; for the Church of England allowed the
golden opportunity to pass forever. Cannot the statesman
ship of Methodism rise to an equality with the demands
of the time, and form a plan which may secure a lengthened,
or, should it be desired in any case, a continued pastorate ?
Her interests in great centres call for this.
3. Methodism must heal old ^ores by appropriate sacrifices.
The Canadian M. E. Church should be conciliated. It
will be better for the future of the whole body, and for
the country, that estrangements and antagonisms come
to an end. The Methodist Church of Canada, itself, needs

100 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
episcopal supervision. To adopt Bishops would not merely
be a graceful act to a body whose size and growing
educational interests make it desirable to unite with her
in' forming one great Methodist Church, but would tend
to beneflt the larger body. Any sacerdotal tendencies of
the Episcopate would be checked in the presence of such
an anti-sacerdotal theology as has been suggested in this
work ; and thus the arguments which frustrated the adop
tion of the " General Superintendency," some years ago,
would be obviated.

Relation of Methodism to Protestant unity.
Is a reunion of the churches desirable .' Is it desired .'
I.
Common work demands a common organization.
Why is any ecclesiastical organization necessary at all .'
There are those who, in church and state, are practical
anarchists. They see no use for government at all. They
observe the tendencies of thought during the progress of
ages, and find that, from worshipping their rulers, men, at
first, come to regard them as divinely commissioned, and,
at last, reach the conception of a state of society in which
no external authority shall control the liberty of the in
dividual. They observe how governments tend to force
upon men the temporary and the conventional, instead of
the essential and the eternal. They see how, instead of
defending and elevating the masses, governments tend
toward oppression. They ask : why, if self-government is
the evident end of humanity, should there be any external
control whatever .' Others, again, who see the need of
organizations for carrying on any of life's purposes, think
the present appliances of Christianity quite sufficient.
They ask : have not denominational distinctions freed the
world from great oppressions, elicited truth,, developed
energy, been a mutual guard over each other, promoted
civilization, spread Christianity .' Would not unity tend
to a corruption now avoided .' To both these classes, the
answer must be given, — common aims demand common
organizations, whether the aims be mechanical, municipal,
or ecclesiastical. There is an aim common to all the

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 101
denominations. This is constantly forced upon our atfsen-
tion. It is seen in education. Shall every sect support its
-own schools, or shall all combine to establish a uniform
system of instruction .' It is seen in humanitarian effort.
Shall every sect have its own hospitals, or shall all com
bine to promote a common and efficient system of benefi
cence .' The feeble and comparatively inefficient character
of almost all denominational effort in these matters gives
a decided answer to the questions proposed. Now, there
are aims common to all the divisions of Christianity. They
need to become acquainted with each other They have
a common relation to the civil govemment. They have
a common foe in the vice' they aim to exterminate. They
have a common humanity to bless. They have a common
interest in education and the relief of poverty and help
lessness. They have one God whose will is to be made
supreme over all. Yet there is no common organization
for carrying out these common aims. To go no further
than the one first mentioned, let us ask what common
means exists by which the various churches may become
-acquainted with each other's character and views .' In
the discussion of comprehensive schemes for the conver
sion of the world, doctrinal views largely mould the deci
sions arrived at : in what assembly can the zealous " Evan
gelical " meet on common ground with the equally zealous
" Ritualist," and find that, in the man he dreaded, there
ds a godliness as deep as his own, and, in his opponent's
arguments, a cogency he never realized when they came
to him at second hand .' In the discussion of methods for
the promotion of Christian work, the history of denomina
tion effort is of immense advantage : on what platform
can the Quaker or the Unitarian stand, as a brother, with
Presbyterian or Congregationalist or Methodist, and tell
of his methods and his success .' Even a frank endeavor,
on the part of an " orthodox " clergyman, to do simple
justice to the history of Unitarian effort is likely to be
regarded as an unparalleled impertinence. Yet the col
lective wisdom of all is necessary to the proper perform
ance of a work common to all ; xand narrowness must
result from the absence of a common platform on which
representatives from all denominations may meet, and,
without suspicions of each other's Christianity, may pro
pound their schemes for the benefit of Man.

102 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
II.
The tendencies toward union show a sense of its importance.
Running parallel with a growing desire for large nation
alities is a similar desire for large churches. The scattered
branches of Presbyterianism and Methodism exhibit a
tendency to come together. In churches which are not
so divided as these have been, there is an evident unwil
lingness to separate. The Free Church of England and
the Reformed Episcopal Church of America, though they
have many strong reasons to offer for their existence, do
not seem likely soon to be very numerous or powerful.
Clergymen who cannot yield their consciences to the keep
ing of majorities remain in churches with which they are
not in perfect sympathy rather than promote division by
leaving them ; and laymen, even where vital questions are
involved, long resist all attempts at the severance of their
ecclesiastical connections. Even the " Old Catholics," who
have been compelled to protest against the tendencies of
the Papacy, tremble on the verge of a Protestantism whose
bent is to divi.sion, and cling tenaciously to that Aposto
lical Succession which seems to them the safe -guard of
unity. There is, then, evidently a growing and almost
universal desire for unity amongst the Christian churches.
It is hardly in place, here, to notice another fact which is
making itself apparent, both in England and America ; yet
it should not be entirely ignored that, amongst the Jews,
in their views on the Sabbath, in their forms of worship,
and in their thoughts on the Messiah, there is at work an
influence which is drawing them, in some places, closer to
Christianity than they have ever previously been.
III.
The removal of great systems of evil dematid ihis union.
It is always unwise to remove even an evil system, until
a better is prepared to succeed it. Such systems still
exist : has Protestantism really been prepared to supplant
them .' Protestantism, as it now exists, contains within
itself antagonistic elements of life and death. In its fun
damental principle, it has a germ of perpetual growth and
endless development : in its application of that principle,
it contains the seeds of its own dissolution. It exhibits at
once a tendency to promote human progress and elevation

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 103
and to die from a want of cohesion. Its future may be
that of an orb which was once believed to have given light
to the heavens, but which, by convulsions, became so dim
inished that its influence, as a whole, was lost, and its
history became a matter of antiquarian speculation. Who
does not know the perplexity of Romanist or Jew or Pagan
when he is required to choose between the contending
claims of the Protestant sects .' Why have the great Mis
sionary Societies of Protestantism portioned out the mis
sion-fields between them .' Is it not a tacit confession that,
in the presence of Paganism, only unity must be seen .'
The desire for non-interference with the missions of the
Independents in Madagascar had a deeper foundation than
selfishness. But this division of the mission-field is only a
temporary postponement of a collision which must come,
when civilization amongst the Christianized heathen pro
motes a wider intercourse between them. Then will come
the discovery that what each was taught to regard as Chris
tianity is not all Christianity ; and in the questions which
the discovery will originate, will there be no danger to reli
gion itself .' A better form of Christianity than any now
existing is an imperative necessity ; and so deeply do men
feel this that, under what seems a mere aesthetic reaction
towards medisevalism, there grows steadily a professed
Catholicism, against which the combined efforts of pulpit,
bench, and fiction are employed in vain, while the Papacy,
in spite of all attacks, lingers in its blighting, withering
corruption and tyranny, waiting for the coming of a pro-
phecied better time before the cry of its ruin goes up to
Heaven. IV.
What the continuation of the present system means.
It means rivalry for denominational success in every
petty village or country settlement. It means attention
divided between work which is really God's and work which
arises purely from denominational necessities. It means
wasted energies and resources. It means the practical
assumption of the infallibility of denominational peculiari
ties, and the perpetuation of " parish standards " of life,
character, and work. It means the intellectual and moral
paralysis of the pulpit. It means that grand intellects who
would submit, as ministers of Christ, to comparative poverty

104 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
and obscurity for the opportunity of doing good to men„
must be prevented from following their noblest aspirations,
unless they can tie their thoughts to the sentiments of
majorities not always superior to themselves, and, parting
with their manhood, lisp their " Shibboleth " with the
crowd. It is easy to say to men : " If you are not satis
fied with the church you are in, go elsewhere." What
does this "go elsewhere," said to good men, mean.' It
means scorn and humiliation, the loss of life's most tender
associations, violence to some of its dearest bonds, the
blasting of its brightest hopes, the perpetuation of littleness
and bigotry, the sacrifice of men to "little systems" that
" have their day and cease to be" ; and all this is for what .'
For some petty rule which may have served some good
prudential end, but which could never be made universaL
The man and the Christian, both lay and clerical, are often
treated by our denominational system as if made for keep
ing rules, and not the rules for benefiting men. And what
shall be said when one forms the conception of a Chris
tianity higher than any or all of our denominations, and
can yield to nothing less than his high ideal .' If a lay
man, he must, like the founder of the Burnett " Prize
Essays," go on his lonely way, companionless, and, per
haps, be branded as an infidel ; or, like the younger New
man, he may, in his very loneliness, be left to wander,
embittered against all claims to supernatural authority, to
the verge of Atheism. If he is a clergyman, he may be
left, after years of service have unfitted him for any other
employment, to beg for a home from door to door of the
denominations, only to reject them, or to be rejected by
them, one by one, even when they profess to believe that
his "gifts, graces and fruits" mark him as one "called of
God" to the ministry of His church, — while they who
reject him still call themselves that church ! O Protestant
ism ! boast not thyself against thy sister, Rome. Thou
hast thy martyrs, too : their blood is crying from thy gar
ments again.st thy cruelty ; and God shall avenge them,.
and that right early !
But what is the tendency of this practical muzzling of
the pulpit .' If it resulted only in silencing a few audacious
men, it might be borne ; but do its results reach no farther
than this .' Like the boomerang, it rebounds on the hand
that hurls it. It narrows the range of subjects which the
pulpit treats. It consequently limits the religious educa
tion of the masses who must ever depend upon the pulpit

CATHOLICrTY AND METHODISM. 111.5
for much of their knowledge of divine truth. It makes
dull sermons by demanding a constant repetition of
thoughts every man knows as well as his minister ; or it
seeks for novelty in the sensational presentation of the
familiar truths, rather than in an extension of the intellec
tual vision beyond the sacred limits of denominational
orthodoxy. It transfers the power of the living voice to
the press. It deprives the Lord's Day of one inducement
to its holy observance. It stabs the very heart of
Christianity. The accomplishment of a union of Protestantism is one
of tlie grandest problems of the day ; and he who can
point out the method by which it can be reached is one of
the best friends of humanity. Grander than the grandest
aims of statesmanship, inasmuch as it overleaps the boun
daries of nations or continents, and looks for nothing less
than the ultimate unity of the human race under one great
confederation, it almost stuns us by its vastness ; but, to
the ambition that rises equal to itS' immensity, it affords a
sphere for the exercise of the mightiest genius and the
most seraphic heart, while it imparts an inspiration, heaven-
begotten, that sends the spirit forth, Uke Uriel,
' ' Swift as a shooting star
" In autumn, 'thwart the night,"
to carry its message of blessing to mankind. Yet the
greatness of the project invests it with almost overwhelm
ing difficulties. V.
The difficulties of the question.
I. The present condition of the popular mind. In Pro
testantism, no movement can be successful that does not
coincide with the will of the masses. Popular opinion
must respond favorably to any call for action, or the call
will pass unheeded. Now, do the masses possess the know
ledge necessary to a proper appreciation of the question at
issue .' Such writers as the Newmans, Manning, Ewer,
Cordner, Draper, and a host of others, have written on the
subject embraced in this question : who, in Canada, have
read their works .' A few persons in scattered localities
have, doubtless, read enough to prevent them from shud
dering with a holy horror if the opposing arguments are
broached in their presence; but what of the masses .' Take
any ordinary congregation, let us extend . our observation

106 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
to similar ones in any Province, let us look from city to
town, village, country ; and how many persons are there
who have been made acquainted with the points of discus
sion between educated Romanists and Protestants, espe
cially with Protestant scientists .' Are not our pulpits
rather ringing with attacks on science which leave the
masses under the impression that Huxley and Tyndall
and Draper are fools, not to say villains, in the presence
of the eloquent and good men who, though thej^ never
knew what science is, from any personal acquaintance
with it, think themselves perfectly competent, on the
strength of the information gained from a few magazine
or newspaper articles, to demolish the whole presumptu
ous and "atheistic" crowd .' Under such circumstances,
how can one expect to find an enlightened public .' Besides,
any attempt to enlighten the public is likely to meet with
discouragement where it should rather be welcomed. The
very denominationalism beyond which Christians need to
be taught to rise whispers its words of warning " prudence ";
and longings for a wider intellectual culture amongst the
people are met by advice to circulate " religious biogra
phy," — a very good thing it its place, but not the only, or
the chief, food needed by the times.
The very "defences" that are written to preserve Chris
tianity often either ignore the fundamental questions or
betray Christianity into the hands of its corrupters; rhetoric
largely usurps the place of logic ; and the craving for
preaching that will arouse the religious feelings drives
away that which, by cultivating the judgment, would give
a better substratum on which the emotions might be made
to rest The public feeling which would welcome any
attempt to show the true basis for the reunion of the
churches has, the writer fears, yet to be created, so far
as Canada is concerned. He will be glad to find himself
mistaken. 2. A greater difficulty arises from confusion between
dogmas and the truth they are intended to represent. The
day is past when popular opinion on the constitution of
the Church forbade a dissentient voice ; but the ghost of
dogma still creates a terror that silences every independent
public utterance, forces those whose private intercourse is
intimate enough for the first whispers of confidence to
speak with bated breath and guarded phrase, probes,
with inquisitorial power, the secret questionings of the
heart, and drives the defenders of private judgment calmly

CATHOLICrrY AND METHODISM. 107
piously, sincerely, and almost tearfully, to threaten the
ecclesiastical life of him who dares to use that judgment.
In the dim moonlight, we see before us the grand propor
tions of the Church of the Living God ; and we long to
explore it. But, before its portals stands this ghost of
dogma. In sepulchral tones, it cries : " Seek not an en
trance here, ye bold adventurers. Be content with Rome,
and thither turn your steps ! " The sheet must be plucked
frdm this ghost, and its terrors must be dispelled, or the
building -it guards cannot be visited, its sweet and deep-
toned organ cannot awaken the echoes of the night that
might resound through arch and aisle ; the play of the
morning's sun upon its richly-tinted windows cannot be
seen, and none can hear the " still small voice " that speaks
from God amid its solemn silence.
Let Christianity return to its primitive simplicity, and
the world stands ready to embrace it ; and on the ground
of a common spirit there will rise a Church as grand as
ever fired a poet's thought or a Christian's heart.
" Twice in her season of decay
The fallen Church hath felt Elijah's eye
Dart from the wild its piercing ray ;
Not keener bums, in the chill moming sky,
The herald star
Whose torch afar
Shadows and boding night-birds fly.
Methinks we need him once again.
That favored seer — ^but where shall he be found ?
By Cherith's side we seek in vain.
In vain on Carmel's green and lonely mound :
Angels no more
From Sinai soar
On his celestial errands bound.
******And since we see, and not afar,
The twiUght of the great and dreadful day,
¦Why linger, till Ehjah's car
Stoop from the clouds ? Why sleep ye ? rise and pruy,
Ye heralds seal'd
In camp or field
Vour Saviour's banner to display."
3. What church will be the leader in the movement
towards this comprehensive union of the Protestant forces
against the tide of sacerdotalism .' The foe is upon us in
disciplined line, and with crowding hosts. He snuffs the
battle from afar, and the voice of his shouting is in our ears.
He laughs as he dreams of speedy victor}'. Where is the
* Keble, Christian Year. St. John Baptist's Day.

108 CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM.
Riitli on which the cantons of Protestantism may assemble,
to repel the haughty enemy, and build up the common
wealth of Christianity .' Let Pan-Synods and Pan-Con
ferences unite the different bodies of Protestantism on
merely denominational bases, and they will but feed the
fires of a more deadly antagonism. We want a re-united
Protestantism on grounds at once Christian and Catholic.
What church will show the way .' Such a church must
not be disintegrating. No body whose genius compels it
to seek the destruction of rival forms of benevolent or
Christian work can lead the way here. Such a church must
react on others by the inspiration of a high example, and
not by attempts at humiliating absorption. Such a church
must have a historical reputation for spiritual life. No
sesthetic taste and no intellectual acumen can wake to
enthusiasm the masses whose hearts beat only for a God
whose power they can feel, as well as see and admire. This
church must be wedded to no particular outward form. It
must not insist on fighting modern battles in the armor,
and with the weapons, of the times of feudalism. This
church must have standards of doctrine such as will admit
of enlarged and enlarging views, without doing violence
to them, or without suppression of the Truth. It is no easy
matter for a church to fly in the face of its historical
symbols of doctrine ; for not only noblesse, but histoire,
oblige. But it is death to a church when its creed cannot
be frankly and honestly accepted in its evident signiflcation.
Again and again, in disguised form, has the opportunity
come to different churches for a large statesmanship to
grapple with some mighty question, the solution of which
would have made any one of these churches the leader of
God's returning hosts ; but traditional blindness has led
to the stoning and slaughter of God's messengers, and the
golden occasion has passed away.
4. Goldwin Smith, at the close of an address delivered,
some years ago, at a Convocation of the University of Vic
toria College, remarked that Methodism, having arisen from
opposition to no existing form of Christianity, but only
from opposition to sin, had the best opportunity for becom
ing the nucleus of a re-union of the Church of God. The
sentiment is worthy of attention from its suggestiveness.
It unfolds the primary aim and spirit of the body referred
to, and suggests many thoughts on the relation of that
informing spirit to its historical development and future
prospects. But the sentiment becomes more deserving of

CATHOLICITY AND METHODISM. 109
notice from the character and advantages of him who ex
pressed it. His wide culture, his freedom from necessi
tarianism, his observation of the effects of theological
questions and ecclesiastical organizations upon the destiny
of the world, and, above all, his practical acquaintance with
Methodism in the United States and Canada, qualify him
to speak with authority either for or against the church
whose ministrations he, for some time, attended.
In the Methodist Church lie the elements necessary to
success in the work of leading the way to victory.
Let her but set the example of catholicity, and others
will follow. She can do it without any violence to her
standards. Let her but assert her first principles. Let
her remerfiber the progress in the investigation of fact,
in Scripture and out of it, which has been made since
Wesley's time, and, in his spirit, frankly accept the
situation in which she finds herself, conforming herself
to the wants of this present time ; and what a vista
opens up before her ! Let a large statesmanship grapple
with the questions that must come up for her discussion,
and more than one blessing will attend her. Unions there
shall be, of denominations,— tired of separate effort and
energies wasted in the maintenance of struggling existence,
and finding, perhaps, in conjunction with her, the liberty
and life they need, — increasing in scope till, in ever-growing
confederations, dropping, at last all denominational names
and conventionalities, Jew and Gentile form one Church of
God! Mystery shall be abandoned, and Christian truth
simplified, till, in unbiassed loyalty to fact, scientist and
theologian seek the common Truth ! Popular education,
demanded alike by teacher and taught, no longer neglected,
dreaded, or shunned, will spread amongst the masses an
intelligence that will go far to banish superstition, disease,
And vice ! Beneficence, the rule of Christian piety, will
spread comfort and peace to the utmost bounds of human
life ! Christ shall reign on the earth, in the prevalent spirit
of universal Love !

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