History of the revisions of the discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church

Front matter

I

From the collection of

Julius Doerner, Chicago i Purchased. 1918. *"i

Preface

The study of the Discipline, containing, as it does, the constitution and laws of the Methodist Episcopal Church, ought to engage the attention of all her people, lay and clerical. “ Far from wishing you,” the Bishops, in the Episcopal Address, well say, “to he ignorant of any of our doctrines, or any part of our Discipline, we desire you to ‘read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest’ the whole. You ought, next to the word of God, to procure the Articles and Canons of the Church to which you belong.”

This little volume of ecclesiastical regulations, so worthy of serious study, having been subject from the organization of the Church to frequent and often extensive revisions, has come to demand a work of explanation, which shall set forth briefly, but distinctly, to the eye of the reader, the changes which have been effected in this grand charter of Methodism. The examination of these changes will prove not only a curious investigation, but will frequently be found indispensable to ascertain the meaning and intent of the law itself, by revealing the time of its enactment and its connection with other provisions, in the book.

With most students of the Discipline the difliculty oi tracing, in the original sources, the historical progress of our Church legislation will prove altogether insuperable. The changes were made at flrst by the Annual, then, from 1792, by the General Conferences; but the Journals of those bodies afford us no light on the subject without the aid of the various editions of the Discipline to which they refer. These editions of our ecclesiastical code have now become numerous, and are all, save the last one, out of print, and hence nearly inaccessible. The issue of a new edition displaces the old one, which is then considered valuable only to the antiquary or the curious student.

As a result, early copies of the Discipline are obtained only with great difliculty, being seldom found in the libraries of the preachers, and no public library, save that of Drew Theological Seminary, is known to contain a complete set. This institution enjoys the rare fortune to inherit the set employed by Emory in the preparation of his History of the Discipline, and the series is complete, save the copy for 1787, which was obtained of Rev. Dr. Lee, of Richmond, Virginia.

My own collection, gleaned from old New England families, extends back to 1790 ; but the copies for 1791, 1792, and 1816 are missing. The missing volumes, together with the one for 1789, were furnished me by the authorities of Drew Seminary. These books, with the Journals of the Conferences, constitute the materials from winch to trace the course of legislation in our Church.

It IS the design of this work to facilitate the labors of the student and administrator of the rules of the Church, by placing at their command a digest of these materials, so far as they relate to the history of the Discipline. The original data are given, and then, in the simplest form, the mustard-seed of law, dropped in this fruitful soil by the hand of Wesley, is traced on, as it unfolds into the more compacted and complete system of our current Discipline.

The volume of Emory, prepared with the same design, and characterized by careful research, and neatness and accuracy of statement, extends only down to 1844. The continuations of that work, by various hands, are less careful and accurate than the original. The grand defect, however, of the whole book, is found in the plan on which it was constructed.

Preface.

The volume affords a mass of materials for a history of the Discipline, rather than the history itself. The language of the statutes, with various explanatory clauses, is given in full; but the parts are so separated that the sense is often obscured. The extracts have to be reconstructed mentally, or, in case of extended passages, on paper, before the reader is able to perceive the real nature of the change. In other words, the reader, after bein^ furnished with the data, is required to construct the history himself, often at no small inconvenience, especially when in haste.

The present work adopts a different plan. While the narrative style is avoided as too verbose and indefinite for a work of this kind, the language of the Discipline is so arranged that the eye detects, at a glance, the change that has been made, and the Discipline thus becomes its own best historian. The passages are collated for the reader ; the history prepared to his hand.

The author trusts this method will be found to possess some advantages not only for clearness, but also for brevity and convenience of consultation. The book will be often used in the haste of debate, when there is no opportunity to collect and arrange materials ; and as to brevity, it is compressed into the smallest possible compass, containing, as it does, the language of the Discipline, with few words of the compiler.

In different editions of the Discipline, the paragraphs have been variously numbered ; but, as the retention of these numbers was deemed liable to confuse the reader, the consecutive numbers of the present edition have been adopted in place of them.

The labor in the preparation of this work has been very great, as will be perceived by the immense amount of detail of which it is made up. The method of preparation is much more difficult than that employed by Emory. Extracts had to be made from the original sources in the same way, and then, the more difficult work to be performed of recasting the whole in minute and often perplexing detail. But, however difficult the use of the plan to the author, it is confidently believed it will be found more simple and valuable to the student than the former one.

That a work, beset with so many difficulties, should prove to be perfect, is too much to hope. The author only claims to have used due diligence, and indulges the hope that serious errors have been avoided. If any shall be found he would gladly be informed of them, that they may be corrected.

The Notes on the Discipline, by Dr. Coke and Bishop Asbury, “many of them still intrinsically valuable and all instructive and curious,” as presenting the views of the fathers and founders of the Methodist Episcopal Church, are retained in the Appendix, as selected and arranged by Dr. Emory.

In examining this work the reader will find the following key indispensable. D. Sherman.

Malden, Mass., Feb. T, 1874.

K E Y.

This volume contains aU the matter included, at any time, in the Discipline. The portions of it now omitted from the Discipline are placed in smaller type; the larger type shows the existing provisions. The broad-faced figures on the left are the dates of insertion, and those on the right of omission, down to the next similar dates. Briefer changes are indicated in the line. Brackets are used, not as a guide to reading, but to indicate the beginning and the ending of these lesser quotations. The omitted and inserted parts are included within the bars with the date between them. In case of a change within another change, the parenthesis is employed. The present Discipline entire will be found in this, volume, by reading the lai’ge type without reference to the smaller or the brackets.

II^TEODUOTIOI^^.

Before passing to an examination of the specific and extensive changes which have been effected in the Discipline, it may he proper to glance at the silent but important modifications which the fundamental law of the Church has been constantly undergoing. In the Church, as in the State, the significance of a historic period can be ascertained only by going below the surface, by studying the principles that underlie the movement, and by carefully noting and measuring the changes transpiring in the constitution.

These changes are sometimes sudden, violent, revolutionary; but more frequently slow and silent, the result of a gradual unfolding of the system ; the abrasion or accretion of ages ; the debris left by the steady fiow of events through long periods of time. Like the Lord of the Church, they come without observation, without human forethought or plan. The actual results were not designed by any one; the providential undertow has swept the craft to a point not anticipated by any of the rowers ; nevertheless, on a mature survey of the whole course of events, it is often found that the haven, so unexpectedly entered, is more commodious and secure than the one at which they aimed. They have builded wiser than they knew, because the spirit of the invisible Architect has inspired their plans, and, unwittingly to themselves, guided their hands in the execution of the work.

In the origin and development of the ecclesiastical system of Methodism, this providential superintendence was peculiarly conspicuous. Wesley is reputed a great organizer; but his superiority lies in an appreciative sense of Providence, a quick and keen insight into opportunities of doing good, and in consummate tact in bringing the human forces at his command into complete harmony with those of providence, thus insuring the help of the Divine and human elements in forwarding his undertakings. With a deep and abiding sense of Divine power, he was wise enough never to attempt to row against this stream ; but his bark was so skillfully managed as to harness the winds and the waves in the service of his enterprise. More than almost any other, Wesley himself realized the hand of God to be in the Methodistic movement. In the expressive language of the founder, they were “raised up,” “thrust out,” to spread scriptural holiness. The movement came from abroad, not from themselves ; they had no plan, but were led by a way they knew not, entering into each door divinely opened to them.

Unlike those schemes of ecclesiastical polity which, Minerva-like, spring, full-formed and complete, from the teeming brain of some theoretical genius, the economy of Methodism is eminently practical and flexible, readily adjusting itself to new and strange conditions, and having no iron bedstead on which all forms of religious life and effort must be shaped.

For the beauty and excellency of the system we are not a little indebted to its flexibility, to its capacity to yield and change, to the imperfections even of its beginning, as they gradually give place to improvements which could not have been incorporated in the original structure. It is not so much a theory as a growth. As in the human system there is a constant elimination of refuse matter and an incorporation of healthy elements, so has this Church system, from the beginning, b(icn casting off the cruder and less valuable materials, and taking on greater vigor and symmetry.

Intkoduction.

“ The worst legacy,’’ says a recent English historian, “ which princes or statesmen could bequeath to their country, would be the resolution of all its perplexities — the establishment, once and forever, of a finished system, which would neither require nor tolerate improvement.” * Free Governments, like those of England and America, are susceptible of constant improvements • the envelope yields to the pressure of new impulses, of fresh wants, of loftier aspirations ; while nations, with castiron constitutions, either crush out the rising spirit of improvement and enterprise, or they are themselves rent into a thousand fragments by the uprising and overmastering energy of reform.

The advantages of such an improvable system are as apparent in the Church as in the State. Change is the safety-valve of the machine. The forms claimed to be divinely authorized, like those of the Catholics and of some Protestant bodies, find diificulty in meeting new conditions ; the arrangement adapted to the beginning of the movement proves unsuited to its advanced stages, and must either incur damage itself or repress the improving influences about it ; but, on the other hand, those bodies which hold, like the Methodists, that the New Testament prescribes no specific form of Church order, but allows each section of the Church to adopt the plan best suited to its conditions of labor, may keep constantly in harmony with the forces of the age in which they are called to act.

in the Methodist Church provision is made in the constitution for change. It was never anticipated that the legislation of one age would be sufficient to meet the wants of another. We retain the original Church, and yet a difierent one ; the identity of the body remains, recognizable in all its features, and yet changed in all its particles. The system was never, save in a few features, stereotyped, but is subjected, in each period of four years, to a thorough review and revision by the General Conference.

The causes of change in the law of the Church have been various, arising both from internal and external conditions. The new life inspiring the movement constantly endeavors to express itself outwardly — the new wine requires new bottles — the freshly sowed field must have a fence adapted to protect the growing harvest. The importance of this cause, in the unfolding of the movement, will be observed in the fact that Methodism is a revival rather than a theology, a life rather than a theoretical system, In other words, the life was not an outgrowth of the system, but the system of the life.

The influence also of the freedom-loving race, to which we belong, has been potent in producing changes in our economy. The movement began and has achieved its greatest triumphs among the Anglo-Saxon people, ever practical, judicious, and attached to free institutions.

Again, the entrance of Methodism into the New World rendered other modifications inevitable. It was a land of experiments, in which nothing was considered ultimately settled. The Church, as well as the State, was subjected to the tide of new influences, and could not fail to be affected in its government. The germs of ecclesiastical law, selected by Mr. Wesley for a settled and conservative state of society, once established in our virgin soil, shot forth with fresh vigor and assumed unexpected forms. The cion flourished by the healthful and vigorous juices of the wild stock on which it had been grafted, The spirit of the KepuMic diffused itself by degrees through the economy of the Church. At first a centralized and, to some extent, conservative system, the polity of the Church has yielded to the influence of a genial_ and free atmosphere, to the gentle yet plastic touch of our civil institutions, until the genius of the Church has become assimilated to that of the State.

* Fronde. “ History of England,” vol. xii, p. 5S7,

Introduction

The struggles of the Church and of society have been also a prolific source of change in the Discipline. Within the Church, as in nature, the centripetal and centrifugal forces have balanced and neutralized each other. There have been parties from the beginning in favor of reducing and others in favor of strengthening the central authority. The debate has resembled, in this particular, that under the General Government ; Asbury and his fellow-organizers stand for the party of authority. O’ Kelly and the seceders for Jelferson Davis and his band of rebels ; the one would compact and fortify the organization, the other disintegrate and destroy its wholeness. Happily, both in State and Church, the centralizing force has held in check its opposite, and allowed the systems to run on in harmony.

But the struggle within the Church has been atfected more or less by those going on without, as may be seen in the discussions on Temperance and Slavery, which touch the very core of human rights and interests. The combatants were often drawn into both arenas, and applied the principles of the one to settle questions in the other.

Finally, in estimating the improvements in the economy of our Church, the agency of organizing men, like Asbury, Coke, and Hedding, is not to be forgotten. The results of changes, effected by Providence, are registered ordinarily by the legislative genius of the Church. The hint, it may be, is given by some turn in affairs, but it takes form and becomes incorporated in the law of the Church only by men who are able to estimate its value and judge of its importance to the system.

In passing to notice some of the specific changes effected in the constitution of Methodism, we naturally revert to the origin of the system, as giving direction and shape to all the subsequent unfoldings of it. The stream is affected by the condition of the spring head, as well as by the tract of country through which it flows. A -Church, uniting several original centers of action, will differ widely from one derived from a single mind ; the weakness of the one will communicate itself along the whole line of its subsequent history, while the unity and strength of the other will be felt long after the primitive form has been discarded.

In the beginning of the religious movement from which the various branches of Methodism have sprung, the entire ecclesiastical authority, now widely distributed among ministers and laymen, resided in Mr. Wesley himself. As regards human interference, his rule was absolute and autocratic. He was the Church in a more emphatic sense than Louis XIV. was the State. His authority, however, was not thrust upon unwilling hearts, but courted by those who cherished entire confidence in his integrity and in the purity and elevation of his purpose. Having been the agent of their conversion, he became their natural guide and counselor in the conduct of religious affairs, being to them, as it were, a second lawgiver.

In accordance with this view of the subject we find that he made and executed all rules and regulations for the society ; that he received and excluded both preachers and members at his will ; that he considered and settled, as he pleased, all disputes among his followers ; that he held control of all the chapels in the connection : that he stationed and changed the preachers of his own motion ; and that he controlled the literature and the funds arising from the sale of books. In a word, of the societies he had been instrumental in organizing, he was an absolute ruler.

In attaining their present form and distribution of powers, the economy of Methodism and that of our Federal Government have traveled in opposite directions. In the Church, as we have seen, all authority was at first centered in one man, and then diffused through the body. In the State, on the other hand, authority was at first held by several scattered

Introduction.

colonies, und afterward gathered up into a central Government: The former affords an instance of the operation of the centrifugal, the latter of the centripetal, force ; the one diffusing, the other centrmizing, power.

But the time came when the powers of government, originating in and long held by the founder, must pass into other hands. The transmission of those powers, whicn have crystallized in new forms of Church order, the unfolding of those regulative germs which have expanded over all the continents, afford a curious and instructive chapter in the constitutional history of our Church. It is clear that Mr. Wesley, by reason of his providential relations to the Methodist movement, could have no individual successor; his vast power must he distributed through the various branches of the religious family he had been instrumental in raising up. In passing over to these various sections, the features of the original economy assumed different forms and colors. The Methodism of England and America, though one in spirit and doctrine, adopted regulations suited to the fields each was to cultivate. In England the authority of the founder was transferred by deed to the “Legal Hundred” of the Conference; but in America, on the other hand, that authority was delivered by Mr. Wesley himself, through Dr. Coke, to the traveling elders assembled in the Christmas Conference of 1784, a sort of constitutional convention, called to organize a government adapted to the wants and conditions of the infant societies in the New World.

By act of this extraordinary assembly the societies, hitherto united with Mr. Wesley, became the Methodist Episcopal Church. The Conference, originally embracing all the traveling elders, possessed unlimited power to govern the Church ; but in 1800 the General Conference, which had become the sole law-making body, was restricted in its membership to those elders who had “traveled four years,” and in 1808 to delegates chosen from the body of elders.

It thus appears that the elders in America, instead of exerting their powers directly in the government of the Church, as is done by the Legal Hundred in British Methodism, transferred them to other parties, who became the agents, or trustees, of the rights invested in the traveling elders. These elders, however, notwithstanding the transfer, continue to be the source and fountain of power. The General Conference has no power except what was derived from this source, and what was granted may, upon occasion, be recalled, as the indefeasible right inheres in the original grantors. They granted the use of the powers, not the powers themselves, as did Mr. Wesley to the American elders ; and, moreover, reserved the privilege of recalling the administration of even that use by a change of the form, or by the abolition of the constitution itself.

But it must be borne in mind that, while the elders are the original source of power in our Church, they are not allowed to interfere directly in government while the present constitution remains in force. They may abolish the constitution which commits the government to trustees ; but, while the compact remains, the execution of the provisions in it must be left to the parties designated in that instrument.

Furthermore, the grant made by the elders to the General Conference is sweeping and general. That body possesses full power “to make rules and regulations” for the government of the Church, limited only by the six restrictive rules. In this respect the constitution of our Church differs, as Bishop Harris well observes, from those of our Federal and State Governments. In the latter there is a delegation of exactly defined and enumerated powers, with a general reservation of all others ; but, on the other hand, in the former, there is a grant of extensive, general powers, with a few specified restrictions.* All power to

* See Bishop Harris’ ‘‘ Constitutional Powers of tlie General Conference,” p. 22.

Introduction.

make rules and regulations, not excepted in tlie plain terms of the chapter, belong to the General Conference.

In transferring their powers of government, the elders established an Episcopal Church. Dr. Coke was ordained a superintendent for the American societies, as the Discipline informs us, because Mr. Wesley “preferred the Episcopal mode of Church government to any other.” The fathers, supposing they had secured an end, deemed so desirable by the founder, called the new organization the Methodist Episcopal Church.

Of late years, however, it has become the custom, in some quarters, to classify us as Presbyterian, but mistakenly. The distinction between ours and the Presbyterian mode of Church government is marked and radical. It is true, the source of authority with us, as with the Presbyterians, is in the body of elders, or presbyters ; but the difference is in the use of that authority. In Presbyterianism the elders make and administer laws directly, while in our Episcopal mode the right to use those powers has been transferred, as we have seen above, to other parties. The body of elders remains the source of power, but stands pledged, by compact, to abstain from its use. English Methodism, as seen by this definition, is Presbyterian, because the Hundred Elders, who constitute the legal conference, have never transferred their power to other hands, but make their rules in full assembly, and execute them, by committees, or agents, whom they, from time to time, select for that purpose.

The type of government in American Methodism is very different. The power of the elders to govern is permanently transferred, or so as to be recalled only by a change in the constitution ; and it is distributed, as in the Federal Government, into three departments : the legislative, lodged solely in the General Conference ; the executive, assigned exclusively to the Bishops ; and the judicial, diffused through various Church courts. The analogy between the two governments is thus, in outline at least, complete. Like Congress, the General Conference is the law-making power. Whatever law is made, by any subordinate body, is by its allowance, and is rather a rule to guide the parties, in administration, than a proper law. In the same way, executive authority is lodged in the Episcopacy, whence it flows through every department of the Church. The Bishops stand at the head and give direction to the work, doing personally what they are able, and performing the rest through agents whom they appoint, just as the President of the United States appoints administrators of civil affairs. If not allowed to appoint their agents, the Bishops could not be held responsible for the administration of the affairs of the Church any more than the President could be justly held accountable for agents he was not allowed to appoint. Hence the Church has committed to the Bishops the appointment, either directly or indirectly, of all who administer the Discipline — the Preachers, the Presiding Elders, and through them Leaders, Stewards, and Trustees. The Bishops also arrange the Districts and, through their appointments, control the conferences ; in a word, they are the center, the medium of administration for the whole Church, the machine moving only as these cliief engineers give direction to it. Again, the courts of the Church are similar to those of the General Government.

Between the polities of Presbyterianism and Episcopal Methodism there exists the same difference as between an aristocracy and a republic. The aristocracy not only holds power, but administers it ; the republic has transferred it to other parties with limited powers and specified duties. Presbyterianism is an aristocracy ; Episcopal Methodism a republic. Again, the distinction between Congregationalism and our type of Methodism is the same as that between a democracy and a republic. In Congregationalism the administration is in the hands of the people, a mode well suited to a small sect, but not broad enough for a large and

Introduction.

wide-spread denomination. The nation could as well be governed in town meeting, as a large Church by Congregationalism. At best it is only a loose confederation, ever ready to fill in pieces, and powerless to resist the infection of false doctrine as well as to make any broad and united effort for the extension of the kingdom of Christ.

While these general features of oiir economy remain, as at the beginning, securing a beautiful harmony and balance in the elements of the constitution, the system, in its parts, has not been free from change. The equilibrium has not been destroyed, but it has been to some extent modified. No single element remains just as it was at the organization of the Church.

The change in the constitution, of the Church has been nowhere more marked than in the legislative department. The General Conference, at first embracing all the elders, eliminated those who had not traveled four years, and at a later date restricted membership to delegates chosen from the body of elders ; but the gravest departure from original Methodism was the introduction of lay delegates into the law-making body of the Church.

As we turn, however, to the executive branch of the government, we find there also changes of no inconsiderable importance have transpired. The Episcopacy, still holding an eminent place in our economy and in the affections of our people, has experienced a loss of power both positive and relative. The power remains, indeed, in the executive department, but has been transferred in some instances to other agents, whom the Bishop can reach only indirectly.

At the founding of the Church the Bishops, though distinguished from Mr. Wesley in many respects, inherited a larger share of his power than any other Church officers. Unlike him, however, they were deprived of all legislative and most judicial functions ; they could not control the property of the Church, and even their executive powers were checked and guarded. Neither could the providential relations he sustained to the work pass over to them. But, at the same time, no superintendent, elder, or deacon could be chosen without their consent ; no book could be issued by a preacher without their approbation, and the appeals of preachers and people were to be decided by them. But these important powers have been transferred to other parties.

With the decline of the Episcopal power, that of the Presiding Eldership has materially increased. In 1784 the elder had but little power, his labors being confined to a partial oversight of sections of the Church, and to the administration of the sacraments. A couple of years later the Discipline was so changed as to allow him to discharge some Episcopal duties in the absence of the Bishop ; and in 1792 the office assumed its present form, though other duties have from time to time been attached to it.

The office of pastor also has grown in infiuence and importance with the growth of the Church. This relative growth has been attained while considerable subtractions, of a positive kind, have been made from it. The former judicial functions of the preacher have been transferred to other parties.

In closing, it may be proper to notice the extensive remodeling which the judicial department of the Church has undergone. From being the most poorly organized, this feature of our economy has come to be matured and completed. The extensive powers at first lodged in the hands of the chief executive ofiicers have been passed over to regularly constituted courts, in which preachers and laymen are tried by their peers. The changes effected in this, as in all the other departments, being based on experience, have tended to secure real improvements and to establish the broad principles which underlie the system, and which have proved so beneficial in their effects in spreading pure and undefiled religion.