The great iron wheel

Front matter

4 o

THE

GREAT IRON WHEEL;

Dedication

TO

3E\itx$ American

WHO LOVES OUR FREE INSTITUTIONS AND SCORNS TO BE DEGRADED OR ENSLAVED IN CHURCH OR STATE ;

Preface

The Authoi offers no apology for writing these letters upon the polity and doctrines of Methodism. He has done so, because he believed it to be his duty ; and, doing it in the exercise of hig inalienable right of " freedom of speech and the press ;" having infringed the rights of no man, he offers apology to none.

They appear in their present form in compliance with the earnest wish of the thousands who read many of them in the columns of the Tennessee Baptist, for which they were originally written.

That, as literary productions, they are open to criticism, the author is fully aware ; but they were not written for mere critics, in whose eyes the very heavens are unclean, but to men's business and bosoms, with sufficient perspicuity to be understood, it is hoped, and with sufficient force to be felt.

The Author is confident that he will command the charity of those whom these letters may reach in their present form, by the simple statement, that they were thrown off at odd intervals of time snatched from the slavish routine of excessive editorial labors ; and as the thought presented itself, it was hastily clothed with the first garment at hand, without time to use either brush or powder, chalk or rouge, and in such a garb they now go forth. To prepare them as the Author would desire to do, would require an amount of time which he despairs of being able to command for years to come.

The amount of repetition which occurs in the book is attributable to the fact, that each letter was originally intended for a separate

1 W yi PREFACE.

tract (in which form many of them will yet appear), that would be read by hundreds who might see none of the preceding or succeeding ones. But this feature, so far from proving a fault, may, unless so frequent as to tire, prove one of the excellencies of the book, since those points so repeatedly brought up are usually the most obnoxious features in the system under review, and their deformities will thus be the more thoroughly and forcibly impressed upon the reader's mind.

There is a class, and perhaps a large one, who may look upon these letters as an unprovoked attack upon an unoffending and peaceable denomination, and therefore pass sentence of condemnation upon it. It is not so much an unprovoked attack upon the unoffending, as a defensive attack upon the bellicose. The reader is here referred to the Introductory Letter. It is very far from being made upon a peaceable and unoffending denomination, but rather a battery reared against the most belligerent and offensive of all Protestant sects. The public is pointed to the weekly and monthly publications issued by the Conference presses from Maine to Florida, with which the land is being filled, and to the numberless books and tracts issued in one ceaseless tide from the mammoth Book Concern in New York, with which the land is being flooded ! Are these unoffending and inoffensive publications? And is this Concern a great " peace establishment ?" Let any one examine one invoice of the controversial works and doctrinal tracts daily sent forth to the North and the South, to the East, and especially to the " Great West," and be satisfied as to their character. What assaults do they not contain upon Presbyterianism — upon the doctrines of Calvin and his "horrible decree!" In what terms are the doctrines of election and sovereign grace repudiated and denounced ! The Episcopalians do not escape, for here are tracts especially devoted to the exposure of their claims, while no quarter is shown to Eepublican Methodists. But the author has not volunteered in the defence of these sects, since they are so well able to protect their own doctrines and practices against the attacks of their Methodist brethren.

He writes as a Baptist, and in behalf of Baptists. And have we

PREFACE. VJi

no cause to issue a defence ; at least to show our assailants the weakness of their positions ? In these publications, which are so rapidly multiplying, history is most grossly attacked and misrepresented, our distinctive doctrines most ruthlessly assailed, and our peculiar practices most shamefully reproached, and the most unwarrantable representations and appeals made to sour the public mind and inflame the bitterest prejudices of the multitude against American Baptists. Are instances demanded ? He points to the pages of a work very largely circulated in Virginia and the South. Bead this : " While I am fully convinced that the Baptists, as a denomination, had their rise in Germany in 1521 or 1832, under Nicholas Stork, Muntzer, John of Leyden, Kurpperdoling, and others, I have forborne giving an account of them as it is found in Kobinson's Charles V., and in a Yiew of All Eeligions, by Boss, published in London, 1664 ; as I know the matter to be very offensive to our Baptist friends," &c— P. 9.

Again, "Thomas Stork held communion with God by means of an angel, < yet I will not retaliate by recounting the doctrines and practices of the German Anabaptists." * These are specimens of attacks made upon the History of Baptists, and this and other works are issuing by thousands monthly from the " Concern." The reader is referred to Letter XXXVII. (and will he turn and read it in this connection ?) for samples of the language used with reference to our baptism— the action we exclusively practise being denounced as superstitious, indecent, disgusting, and sinful ; and our terms of communion are constantly and everywhere assailed and repudiated in unmeasured terms of condemnation and reproach.

The " Great West" is to-day one great battle-field ; and indeed the J whole South is intensely agitated upon these questions, and the (publications of the Book Concern, and numberless others, issuing Ifrom the Methodist press, South and West, more shameless even than the above, are brought into the field. The ten thousand circuit-riders echo and iterate and reiterate these sentiments in the

* Slicer on Baptism For the testimony of candid Historians, see chapter on Primiire Church Constitution.

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ear of the multitade, and scatter these books and tracts broadcast, as the winds scatter the autumnal leaves. The Author then appeals to the press and to the world to decide, if Baptists do not owe it to themselves and to the principles they represent and most conscientiously believe, to defend themselves from undeserved contumely, and their principles from unmerited reproach ? If these Letters are considered an attack, let them be looked upon as an attempt to spike the enemy's guns, in which effort, the aid of the Baptist press of America is most affectionately and earnestly invoked.

Nor have these Letters been written in a bitter and vindictive spirit, although the severity of the language employed may occasionally indicate it. The Author has not been conscious of entertaining such an emotion for one moment. He has written " more in sorrow than in anger." He entertains the kindest feelings towards all Christians, and those whom he considers in error, he looks upon as " more sinned against than sinning," for their leaders do cause them to err. Principles, and not men, he has endeavored to discuss, and erroneous and pernicious principles cannot meet with! reprehension too severe, if the Saviour or the apostles are allowed, to be worthy examples in the rebuke of such.

With fervent prayer, that the Letters may accomplish the end for which they were written, and that any angry feelings they may at first awaken, may be overruled to a candid investigation of the facts advanced and the principles advocated, they are now submitted by the

AUTHOR.

Nashville, Jan* 1855.

LI

Contents

INTRODUCTORY LETTER, 9

LETTER II.— Methodism cannot justly be called a Church of Christ, because too young by 1747 years— it being only 63 years old, 19

LETTER III.— The system of Methodism cannot justly claim to be a Church of Christ, because of human origin— an invention of men, ... 34

Part II

LETTER XXVI.— The peculiar Doctrines and Usages of Methodism— "A Calvinistic Creed, a Popish Liturgy, and an Arminian Clergy," . . .827

LETTER XXVII.— The Discipline— Its Popish Liturgy— Its Marriage Service borrowed from the Romish Chureh— The Mummeries of Rome Protestantized, .... 336

LETTER XXVIII.— The Popish features of the Discipline— Unscriptural terms of admission — The Societies used as drag-nets to sweep the world into the Methodist Church, 845

LETTER XXIX.— Seekership— Its unscripturalness— Its pernicious tendency —The testimony of a Presbyterian, 852

LETTER XXX. — Inconsistencies — Admitting acknowledged sinners into the Church, and debarring for six months an acknowledged Christian from entering! — Giving baptism by force to non-believing children and unconscious infants, and refusing baptism to the professed Christian for six months ! . 866

LETTER XXXI.— The Class-meeting law— An essential feature of Methodism — Exclusion the penalty for its violation — Is confessedly a commandment of men— To submit to it is to obey and serve men, 378

Xli CONTENTS.

LETTER XXXII.— Band-meeting*— Virtually confessionals— Sinful thoughts must be confessed to the Preacher— Their tendency— The opinions of Presbyterians,

LETTEE XXXIII.— The Proselyting features of Methodism— The Influence of the Class-leader— Aid, patronage, and suffrage offered to all who will either join or " groan"— A popish feature, &c— How Presbyterians regard it, 403

LETTEE XXXIV. — Baptism— Methodists have two distinct " baptisms," one for infants and one for adults — A distinct and different office for each—A distinct and altogether different design for each— The regeneration of infants in baptism in all cases, plainly taught in the Discipline and standard works of the Book Concern, 415

LETTEE XXXV.— Adult Baptism distinct from infant— Its design, with the exception — No faith required of the adult, save that required by the Eomish Church — And no profession of regeneration as a condition of baptism — Regeneration ordinarily the same with baptism, 423

LETTEE XXXVI.— Infant baptism in a New Light— Tried by the Creed, the Catechism, and the Eitual, and condemned by the word of God— Thirty untruths taught in the baptism of one infant, . . . . . . 436

LETTEE XXXVII.— The action of baptism— The Discipline acknowledges immersion as a scriptural act of baptism — It is so admitted in the older standard works published by the Methodist " Book Concern" — Mr. Wesley admits immersion to have been the primitive action in his Journal, in his Notes on N. T. — Adam Clark — Benson — And yet it is pronounced an unscriptural and indecent action in other works published by the Book Concern, and by the whole Methodist press In the South— Admissions of two Presbyterians, two Catholics, and two Episcopalians, 451

LETTEE XXXVIII.— The Methodist terms of communion— None so close, or bo unscripturally close— They invert the ordinances and violate the divine order— The Discipline forbids Methodist preachers to invite members of other denominations — All who commune with Methodists must not only believe, but dress like them — Clo3e communion in marrying — In trading, in Sabbath-Schools, in Singing-Schools, and "Tune Books" — Baptist communion not close— The testimony of Mr. Hibbard, Mr. Griffin, . . .470

LETTEE XXXIX.— The " Calvinism" of the Creed and the Arminianism of the Clergy — The "Articles of Eeligion" Calvinistic— They preclude the idea of the ultimate apostasy of the believer — The ground of Justification examined — The Scriptural argument — The Methodist Clergy preach against their own creed, as well as teachings of Holy Scripture — Revival and Camp-meeting excitements— The Foctrine of Apostasy made necessary— The tendency of such teaching and doctrine is to make infidels , 500

LETTEE XL.— Primitive Church Constitution— Eepublicanism and Christianity Direct, . 544

%\t (great fen Htel

INTRODUCTORY LETTER.

To J. Soule, Senior Bishop of the M. E. Church, South.

Dear Sir . — Should the inquiry arise in your mind, or the mind of the reader of these letters, why they were written, or why addressed to^yourself 1 I answer, I am prompted to write them in order to place myself in my true position before the public, and to convince the Christian world that I have, as has every Christian minister of the gospel and religious editor, sufficient and weighty reasons for opposing the religious system denominated " Methodism." Nothing but an ardent desire that truth, and truth alone, should prevail, moves me to oppose Methodism, or to address this series of letters to you.

During the past six years, in the conscientious discharge of my duty as a minister, and the Editor of a religious Journal, I have repeatedly weighed serious objections against many of the doctrines and peculiar features of Methodism, and, almost in every instance, I have been charged with misapprehension, or gross misrepresentation of its doctrines and polity, without receiving, when I have most respectfully and repeatedly 1 & (9)

sought it, the light, either to correct my errors, or the proof to satisfy me of the alleged injustice done.

I have, for years past, earnestly wished to examine the scriptural claims, polity and influence of the system of Methodism, in a calm, candid manner, with one whose confidence in its heavenly origin, and divine sanction would qualify him to do so with equanimity of temper and a Christian spirit.

It is a time-attested axiom, that truth loses nothing, but gains every thing from examination. I propose nothing, therefore, which you can possibly construe into an insulting and injurious attack upon your system — if you regard it founded in truth, and sustained by divine authority — but on the other hand, a course that will afford you an opportunity to correct the erroneous views (if they be erroneous) entertained concerning your peculiarities, by a majority of those not intimately connected with your societies, and thus to aid materially in recommending and disseminating them.

I have chosen to address this series of letters to you, in preference to any other person for several reasons.

1st. You are the senior Bishop of your society South; I believe the senior of all Methodist Bishops in America.

2d. As I have intimated, all previous attempts to discuss the peculiar features of your system with the conductors of your press or the leaders of your party, have been met, not with reason and proof, but with derision and personal abuse. In every instance the arguments have been left for the man, since it was far easier to abuse the latter than to answer the former. Rome served her heretics thus. I greatly mistake you, if you are capable of such a course.

3d. I have respectfully and repeatedly requested information touching sundry parts of your system and denominational usages, best known to its originators, legislators, and executors, but have been answered with insult and scorn ;

and consequently I have been left to misrepresent you to the world, unintentionally, if I have indeed misapprehended any part of your polity.

This ought not to be so. The different religious denominations ought to understand each other's polity and doctrines perfectly, that they may agree, where agreement is possible. It seems to me far better to endeavor to dimmish our real differences, and seek approximation by calm and friendly discussion, and the abandonment of all unscriptural tenets, than to increase the distance by misapprehension of our views.

4th. I address you, sir, because you now fill, and have for years filled the highest office in your Church, as one of its " chief ministers" and the oldest successor of Wesley, — a position of great trust and fearful responsibility ! You certainly will not bring a reproach upon your office, if you have no respect for your own personal character, with an unbecoming reponse.

5th. It is, furthermore, presumable that no one in your connection is better acquainted with the origin, history, genius, usage and influence of American Methodism than yourself, since its years and your own are equal, and you are happily endowed with the talent of clearly expressing your ideas, when it is your pleasure to do so.

6th. I address you, sir, because, if you reply, you will doubtless do so in all candor, and in the fear of God, since the hoar frost on your head, and your trembling frame admonish you that in a few days more, you must stand before that solemn bar and give an account of your bishopric — of all you have taught, and enjoined upon men to teach and observe.

Judgirig from your time of life, you must have entered into the confines of Bunyan's Beulah land — the place of all others best fitted for calm reflection and an honest retrospection of your past life, so that whatever of error you have taught or countenanced, you can correct before you are called to pass the dark waters of the river that rolls before you, and upon whose very margin your feet already now tread.

If, upon a final examination of your teachings, you find nothing to correct, you will be afforded the privilege of putting the seal of conclusive scriptural proof upon them, which your knowledge of God's Word, acquired by the study and experience of more than a half century, qualifies you to do as well as any man now living, and thus you will be able to close a long life by sealing your course and teaching with its gathered fruits.

But should you decline entering upon the defence of your system, and should you find nothing in these letters to which you think successful contradiction can be urged, you will not be expected to reply, — your silence will be considered an all-sufficient consent to the correctness of the facts they contain.

Truly, those who do not consider you as ambitious in your aims, must acknowledge you sincere in your creed. You have given the vigor of youth, the strength of manhood, and the weakness of age to the extension of your system. From the Alleghanies to the Gulf, what mountains have you not crossed, mid summer's heat and winter's cold, what streams have you not forded or swam, what defiles have you not threaded, what fatigues have you not endured or dangers braved in the devious steps of your elevation, from a laborious preacher to the almost imperial office and power you now fill and sway. By the dint of native talent and unconquerable perseverance you have forced your way from obscurity to your present place of honor, of tremendous influence, yet awful responsibility. You cannot, if the manhood of mind remains, look with contempt upon any one, however humble, or assume a weight of dignity to avoid noticing arguments which you are convinced are not in your power to answer. You leave all such tricks to self-important brainless clergymen, and new-made doctors of divinity. Man is only man's equal, and neither a salary nor a factitious position can make him more than the equal of his contemporaries.

But alas, sir, how fearful to you now would be the thought, that you have exhausted the whole of life, hazarded all those dangers, underwent all those toils to advance the interests of an organization, not instituted by Jesus Christ, or authorized by his word — but a mere human, man-devised system — a rival fold, whose very being and advancement is hostile to, and subversive of, the Church and Kingdom of Christ, set up by him and designed to fill the whole world ! What an awful thought for an aged minister about to die, that he has spent his long life and exhausted all his mighty powers of mind and body in opposing the Kingdom of Christ, and diverting those seeking to enter it into a rival organization, which, becoming universal, would blot out the doctrines, constitution, and very being of Christ's Church from the world ! ! What a soul-piercing thought would this be — the very fear of which is quite sufficient to deter you from harboring a reflection or engaging in an examination that might lead to it. But, what will error, however sincerely believed, avail a man upon a bed of death or at the bar of the Great Judge ! ! The truth alone can save us.

And are you prepared, sir, to say there is not the least possibility that a candid and prayerful examination of your discipline, by the light of God's Word, would force that thought upon your mind % Are there not more than two millions and a half of professed Christians in this Union, who look upon you as in gross error, and misleading others 1 and among this number scores, and indeed, thousands distinguished as the best scholars and most pious Christians of this age?

I do not urge this consideration as sufficient of itself for you to renounce your creed, but is it not enough to exhort you to examine once more, candidly and prayerfully, ere you leave the world, the doctrines and polity of your society, and decide with the Word of God in your hands and your eye upon his Bar, whether Methodism was originally " set up" by Christ, and conformed in organization, doctrines, membership, laws, offices, and usages, to the Divine Pattern and Model given by Christ ?

Such an examination can do you no harm, and it may be of incalculable advantage to you, and to the millions of your followers, both in this world and in the world to come.

If an examination should convince you of your mistake, you have already far too little time to counteract your past influence, and pull down what you have spent a half century in building up. If you have labored nearly a whole life under a mistake, you owe much to the world, and much to your God, before you are prepared to leave the one or to meet the other. If your society is not a Christian Church, i. e., a scriptural one, and set up by Christ, it is an Antichristian organization — being opposed, to Christ's teaching and the extension of his church in the world — and should you judge yourself by the rule you judge others, you would decide a life spent, however sincerely, in establishing the doctrines and kingdom of Antichrist, is illy prepared to " pass that solemn test :" " Have ye done all things whatsoever J have commanded," and receive the " Well done, good and faithful servant."

Ignorance cannot be plausibly urged, since there is little excuse for ignorance in this age of Bibles. Sincerity in error can be pleaded by the blindest idolater.

Your broadest charity hardly admits a Loyola or a Xavier to a Christian's heaven : and who more sincere than they, if a long life of toil and sacrifice sufficiently attest sincerity ! The fact that a man or society has accomplished a large amount of good is not sufficient to prove that he is a Christian, or that such a society is a Church of Christ, or entitled to the name of Church. If so, we might canonize heathen philosophers and modern sinners, and pronounce our Bible and Tract Societies scriptural churches of the Lord Jesus. The Eomish Apostacy has accomplished much good, and the church of Luther in his day vastly more, yet the former is the Man of Sim and the latter a manifest ' : harlot " — the fruitful mother of infidelity, and the curse and bane of religion in Germany. A man or society, propagating a wrong system or practice, always does inconceivably more evil than

I drop these remarks to correct the impression that "it matters little what we believe so we are sincere, and there is no doubt about a man's salvation if he has done a great deal of good." We are saved by grace through faith — by faith in, manifested by obedience to, Jesus Christ. We must believe the proper facts, and certainly, to manifest our love and fidelity to Christ, we must obey the commands he has required at our hands : not those we ourselves institute, or others may impose upon us.

I offer one more reason for addressing you. In age, in experience and knowledge of divine things, you are a father — one able to impart instruction in the proper spirit, and when you look into the open grave at your feet, I must conclude from the proper motive. You have lived long enough for yourself, and have reached a position in your society sufficient to satisfy the loftiest ambition; nothing should now interest you so much as the welfare of religion, the salvation of sinners, and to meet God in peace. A few days hence and creeds and parties will concern you no more.

Can you do nothing even now to unite Christians and bless the world?

Look at the distracted state of Christendom — look at Tennessee and the south-west ! What a spectacle ! The so-called Christian churches armed in bitter hostility ! Methodists and Baptists engaged in an exterminating warfare. Presbyterians and Methodists in East and West Tennessee unchurching and unchristianizing each other, and pronouncing each other's peculiar doctrinal teaching dangerous to the souls of men ! * Will Tennessee or the world ever be christianized so long as this state of things exist *? Will the world ever believe on Christ % If all the world were this day converted and banded under the colors of these hostile parties would it be a millennium % Peace would no more be restored than now, since opposites and contradictories must of necessity antagonize. The state of things as it now exists is frightful. But storms of tenfold fury await the years to come. What we now feel is but the breathings of a zephyr in comparison to the whirlwind that is rushing upon us. The great questions of this age are, " Which of all the claimants is the true Church of Christ % Ought Christ Jesus alone to be obeyed in religious matters, or may the authority of Bishops and Elders be regarded V

The contest, in a word, is between Bible-/sm and man-es??i. You are as well convinced — you know as well as myself, and the world shotdd know, that all the ten or twelve so called evangelical, yet conflicting denominations cannot be the churches of Christ, equally scriptural in doctrine, polity and practice.

Two, much less a dozen, contradictory propositions cannot

* I allude to the pamphlet publications of Annan, Musgrave, Ross, Graves, (0. S. Pres.) Burrows, (C. P.) and McFarland, (Meth.)

be equally true ! If Christ set up a visible kingdom, or build a church, which he came to do, as well as to suffer, he must have given it a definite organization — he must have given either a rule or an example — directions or a pattern for its building and government. It is therefore certain, if any one of all the ten denominations is justly entitled to the name Christian, only one is, or can be, since they are all dissimilar — radically opposite and subversive of each other.

If the Methodist E. societies are churches of Christ, scriptural organizations, Baptists' churches are not. The former or the latter are manifestly in gross error.

The history of the past few years, and the present posture of affairs, convince you that the principles and practices of our relative societies fiercely antagonize. The kingdom of Christ is not thus divided against itself. Both are not — cannot be scriptural, or gospel churches.

The mechanic well knows that two, or twenty things, cut after the same pattern, will be alike. The mathematician tells us that " things equal to the same thing are equal to each other." If our churches were organized according to the Divine direction and pattern, would they not be in all respects similar, and we be one people — in one fold and under one shepherd 1

To bring this serious and solemn subject to our own " business and bosoms." If I am right, you are wrong ; if you are right, I am wrong. If you are following Christ, I am serving Antichrist, and vice versa, since we are opposing each other and pulling down what the other builds ! A follower and servant of Antichrist ! fearful, awful thought ! "Lord, is it I?"

I make this appeal to you as a Christian, occupying life's honest place — the steps of the tomb. I beseech you in the name of Christianity, to tell me candidly wherein I err in regarding Methodism as an Antichristian organization. Convince me, I beg of you, of my error, if I am fighting against Christ. Expose before me and the world the errors, if I err, that I am spending life and treasure to disseminate. If you refuse, when you have it in your power to correct and undeceive me, will you not have to answer for the evils you might have prevented % I profess to you, before all men, that I will give you a heart honest, I trust, and open to the convictions of truth. Should you not see fit to respond, the w r orld shall be satisfied that it is not because the language or spirit of these letters is offensive or unchristian, or that the matter contained in them is of little moment.

Your replies shall be faithfully printed in this paper,* whether your own journals reciprocate the favor or not.

Yours with due respect,

J. R. Graves.

* The % Tennessee Baptist," published in Nashville, Tennessee, in which these letters originally appeared.