Methodists

Methodists, the name originally given, about the year 1729, by a student of Christ Church to the brothers Wesley and several other young men of a serious turn of mind, then members of different colleges of Oxford, who used to assemble together on particular nights of the week chiefly for religious conversation. The term was selected, it is believed, in allusion to the exact and methodical manner in which they performed the various engagements which a sense of Christian duty induced them to undertake, such as meeting together for the purpose of studying Scripture, visiting the poor, and prisoners in Oxford gaol, at regular intervals. Subsequently it came to be applied to the followers of Wesley and his coadjutors, when these had acquired the magnitude of a new sect; and though their founder himself wished that 'the very name,' to use his own words, 'might never be mentioned more, but be buried in eternal oblivion,' yet it has finally come to be accepted by most, if not all of the various denominations who trace their origin mediately or immediately to the great religious movement commenced by John Wesley. For an account of the origin and earlier development of Methodism, see articles on the brothers WESLEY and on WHITEFIELD; we confine ourselves here to a brief notice of its organisation, doctrine, and present condition.

(1) Organisation.—This appears to have been partly improvised by Wesley to suit the exigencies of his position. It was not a theoretical and premeditated, but a practical and extempore system. In the Rules of the Society of the People called Methodists, drawn up by himself, he says: 'In the latter end of the year 1739 eight or ten persons came to me in London, who appeared to be deeply convinced of sin, and earnestly groaning for redemption. They desired (as did two or three more the next day) that I would spend some time with them in prayer, and advise them how to flee from the wrath to come, which they saw continually hanging over their heads. That we might have more time for this great work, I appointed a day when they might all come together, which from thenceforward they did every week—viz. on Thursday, in the evening.' This he calls 'the first Methodist Society.' Its numbers rapidly increased, and similar 'societies' were soon formed in different parts of England where the evangelistic labours of the Wesleys had awakened in many minds 'a desire to flee from the wrath to come, and be saved from their sins'—the only condition required of any for admission into these societies. In order to ascertain more minutely how the work of salvation was progressing in individual cases, Wesley subdivided the societies into 'classes,' according to their respective places of abode, each class containing about a dozen persons, under the superintendence of a 'leader,' whose duties are partly religious and partly financial. He has (1) to see each person in his class once a week, 'to inquire how their souls prosper,' and to encourage, comfort, or censure, as the case may require; and (2) to collect the voluntary contributions of his class, and pay them over to the 'stewards' of the society. Each society has its stewards, who take charge of the moneys contributed in the classes and congregation, and who see to their proper distribution. The leaders and stewards are the local church-council, which is invested with disciplinary functions. A circuit is an aggregate of the societies for a particular neighbourhood; and, according to its size, having from one to five ministers appointed for a period of not less than one or more than three years. The senior minister is superintendent of the circuit. The administration of the spiritual affairs of each society is vested in the leaders' meeting, and that of the general business of the circuit in the quarterly meeting, composed of the ministers, stewards, local preachers, leaders, and trustees. These bodies invite the ministers, fix their stipends, approve or reject candidates for the ministry, review all the interests of the circuit, send memorials to the district meeting or Conference, have the right to appoint a court of appeal from the findings and verdicts of a leaders' meeting in certain cases of discipline, and to suspend for one year the operation of any new Conference law intended to be binding on the circuit or societies, until it shall have been reconsidered by the Conference. The annual assembly which governs the whole Connection is called the Conference. Down to 1784 it consisted of such of Wesley's preachers as he chose to call together to take counsel with himself; but in that year he gave it a legal constitution defining its rights over the chapels, the disciplinary control of the ministers, and their appointments. Until 1877 the Conference was composed of ministers only; but in that year a scheme of lay representation was adopted, and was brought into operation the year following. So now the Conference is in part an assembly of co-pastors, exercising mutual discipline and taking mutual counsel on all subjects specifically pastoral, and in part an assembly of 240 ministers and 240 laymen convened to deliberate on the general interests of the Connection. The pastoral session extends over a fortnight, while the mixed session finishes its business in a week. 'The legal Conference' is a body of one hundred ministers constituted and perpetuated by Wesley's Deed of Declaration, which as a matter of necessary legal form adopts and endorses all that has been done in the general Conference.

Intermediate between the Conference and the circuit are the district meetings, which are in effect provincial synods. Like the Conference itself, during the transaction of pastoral business they are composed of ministers only, while for all other business they are mixed assemblies, the ministers being joined by the circuit stewards and the laymen who have charge of foreign missions, home missions, education, chapel, and temperance affairs. In the district meeting a searching inquiry is made by the pastors into the character and administration of each, candidates for the ministry and probationers are examined, the spiritual and financial condition of the circuits is considered, and suggestions or recommendations on the points which come under review are sent up to Conference. All new legislation is sent down by the Conference to the district meetings, nor can it become law for the Connection till it has been ratified by a majority of the district meetings. The district meetings are also courts of appeal from the circuits.

(2) Doctrine and Worship.—Under this head not much requires to be said. Methodism is regarded by its friends as a revival of primitive Christian doctrine, fellowship, and discipline. In the beginning it set itself to combat Calvinism on the one hand, and the doctrine of baptismal regeneration on the other. Its founders held that the predestinarian element in Calvinistic divinity is opposed to the experimental theology of primitive Christianity. The Methodist preachers taught a full, free, and present salvation as the glorious privilege of every man—a theology at once experimental and evangelical, quite unlike the theology of the decrees. They taught, moreover, this conscious renewal and sanctification through faith alone in Jesus Christ. The Methodist doctrine of regeneration is through 'repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ' (not through baptism); sanctification is through the saving truth spiritually received and applied by faith and obedience. The Wesleyan Methodists are evangelical Arminians. Holding the freedom of the human will, and the responsibility of man, they also maintain his total fall in Adam, and his utter inability to recover himself. They believe in the universality of the atonement, and that a dispensation of the Spirit is given to enlighten every man that cometh into the world. They insist on the necessity of men who profess to be Christians feeling a personal interest in the blessings of salvation—i.e. the assurance of forgiveness of sins and adoption into the family of God. This, however, is not to be confounded with a certainty of final salvation. They believe the Spirit of God gives no assurance to any man of that, but only of present pardon. In harmony with this view, they reject the doctrine of the necessary perseverance of the saints, and hold that it is fearfully possible to fall from a state of grace, and even to perish at last after having 'tasted of the heavenly gift,' and having been 'made partakers of the Holy Ghost.' They also maintain the perfectibility of Christians, or rather the possibility of their entire sanctification as a privilege to be enjoyed in this life. But Wesley 'explains' that 'Christian perfection does not imply an exemption from ignorance or mistake, infirmities or temptations; but it implies the being so crucified with Christ as to be able to testify, "I live not, but Christ liveth in me." He regards the sins of a 'perfect' Christian as 'involuntary transgressions,' and does not think they should be called 'sins' at all, though he admits that they need the atoning blood of Christ. The mode of worship is elastic, ranging from the full and stately liturgical service of the Church of England, and Wesley's abridgment, to the free, spontaneous utterance of extempore prayer, the singing of four hymns, and a sermon. The more elaborate services are found principally in the large cities, the more simple in the country towns and villages. The 'love-feast' is for members only, and is held in each society once a quarter; it is a narration of vivid and inspiring experience, mingled with praise and prayer. The Covenant Service is held on the first Sabbath of the New Year. In this service the members of the church solemnly reconsecrate themselves to God, 'heartily contented that He appoint them their work and station;' covenanting to endeavour to order and govern their whole life according to the divine direction, and not to allow themselves in the neglect of anything they know to be their duty. The service concludes with the Lord's Supper.

(3) History.—The history of Methodism is for many years the history of Christian effort to evangelise the neglected 'masses' of England. The labours of Wesley, and of those whom he inspired to imitate his example, were of the noblest description, and met with remarkable success. The reformation of life which his preaching produced, for example, among the Kingswood colliers and the Cornwall wreckers, is a testimony to the power of religion which cannot be too highly estimated. The zeal which has inspired the body in regard to foreign missions, although in the highest degree honourable, is only the logical development of their efforts at home—for they originally regarded their society in England as simply a vast 'home mission,' and neither Wesley nor his followers desired to consider themselves a 'sect,' a new church, in the common usage of the term, but were warmly attached to the old national church, and considered themselves among her true children. When Wesley died (1791) his 'societies' had spread over the United Kingdom, the continent of Europe, the States of America, and the West Indies, and numbered 80,000 members. Since then they have largely increased (see below).

The Wesleyan Methodists have four theological colleges for the training of ministers—at Richmond Hill, Surrey; Didsbury, South Lancashire; Headingley, in Yorkshire; and Handsworth, Birmingham. They have, besides, numerous secondary schools, and also (in 1889) 841 day-schools, with 179,578 scholars; the total income of the schools being £246,478. The Methodist Book-room is situated in the City Road, London, and issues hundreds of thousands of religious publications (tracts, &c.) monthly. The newspapers and other periodicals professedly in connection with the body include four quarterlies, and about 150 journals in English and other languages. Among the more eminent Methodist authors may be named the two Wesleys, Fletcher, Benson, Clarke, Moore, Watson, Drew, Edmondson, Sutcliffe, Jackson, Treffry, Rule, Nichols, Smith, Etheridge, Rigg, Pope, Gregory, Beet, and Pearse.

THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH is the society of Wesleyan Methodists in the United States of America, where the first members of that body—immigrants from Ireland—established themselves as a religious society in New York in the year 1766. In the course of a year or two their numbers had considerably increased, and they wrote to John Wesley to send them out some competent preachers. Two immediately offered themselves for the work, Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmoor, who were followed in 1771 by Francis Asbury and Richard Wright. The agitations preceding the war of independence, which soon afterwards broke out, interrupted the labours of the English Methodist preachers in America, all of whom, with the exception of Asbury, returned home before the close of the year 1777; but their place appears to have been supplied by others of native origin, and they continued to prosper, so that at the termination of the revolutionary struggle they numbered 43 preachers and 13,740 members. Up to this time the American Wesleyan Methodists had laid no claim to being a distinct religious organisation. Like Wesley himself, they regarded themselves as members of the English Episcopal Church, or rather that branch of it then existing in America, and their 'preachers' as a body of irregular auxiliaries to the ordained clergy. 'Episcopal churches,' we are informed, 'are still standing in New York and elsewhere, at whose altars Embury, Pilmoor, Boardman, Strawbridge, Asbury, and Rankin, the earliest Methodist preachers, received the holy communion.' But the recognition of the United States as an independent country, and the difference of feelings and interests that necessarily sprang up between the congregations at home and those in America, rendered the formation of an independent society inevitable. Wesley became conscious of this, and met the emergency in a manner as bold as it was unexpected. He himself was only a presbyter of the Church of England, but having convinced himself that in the primitive church a presbyter and a bishop were one and the same order, differing only as to their official functions, he assumed the office of the latter, and, in September 1784, with the assistance of some other presbyters who had joined his movement, he set apart and ordained the Rev. Thomas Coke (q.v.), of Oxford University, bishop of the infant church. Coke immediately sailed for America, and appeared with his credentials at the Conference held at Baltimore in December of the same year. He was unanimously recognised by the assembly of preachers, appointed Asbury coadjutor bishop, and ordained several preachers to the offices of deacon and elder. Wesley also granted the preachers permission (which shows the extensive ecclesiastical power he wielded) to organise a separate and independent church under the Episcopal form of government. Nevertheless, there were not a few who were dissatisfied with the Episcopal form of government. This feeling grew stronger and stronger, until in 1830 a secession took place, and a new ecclesiastical organisation was formed, called the 'Methodist Protestant Church.' In 1842 a second secession took place, chiefly on the question of slavery—the seceders pronouncing all slave-holding sinful, and excluding slave-holders from church membership and Christian fellowship; and in 1843 a meeting was held at Utica, New York, where a new society was constituted and named the 'Wesleyan Methodist Connection of America.' It has continued up to the present a small and unimportant body. But in 1844 a far larger and more important secession took place on the same question, when the whole of the Methodist societies in the then slave-holding states, conceiving themselves aggrieved by the proceedings instituted at the general Conference of New York (1844) against the Rev. James O. Andrew, D.D., one of the bishops, and a citizen of Georgia, who had married a lady possessed of slaves, resolved to break off connection with their northern brethren. Hence originated the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In 1869 a movement (unsuccessful) began in favour of the re-union of the northern and southern Methodist Episcopal Churches, slavery, the main obstacle in the way, having been finally abolished. There are now 10 theological schools, nearly 50 colleges and universities, and a great number of other educational institutions belonging to the body in America, with some 30,000 students. The publications of the church, managed by a General Book Committee, extend to far above 200,000,000 pages of books and tracts in a year; while in its foreign missions more than 3000 American missionaries are employed.

Returning to the English Wesleyan Methodists, we mention the various secessions from the parent body in the order of time. (1) The Methodist New Connection.—This society detached itself from the older one in 1797. Its doctrines and order are the same, the only difference being that it admits one layman to each minister into the Conference, and allows them to share in the transaction of all business, both secular and spiritual. These laymen are chosen either by the circuits or by 'guardian representatives' elected for life by the Conference. (2) Primitive Methodists, vulgarly designated Ranters, were first formed into a society in 1810, though the founders had separated from the old society some years before. The immediate cause of this separation was a disagreement as to the propriety of camp-meetings for religious purposes; and also upon the question of women being permitted to preach. A third point of difference is the admission to their conference of two lay delegates for every minister. (3) Independent Methodists, who separated in 1810. They are chiefly distinguished by their rejection of a paid ministry. (4) Bible Christians, also called Bryanites, were formed by a local preacher named O'Bryan, who seceded from the Wesleyans in 1815. The only distinction between them and the original body appears to be that the former receive the eucharistic elements in a sitting posture. (5) United Free Church Methodists have been formed by the amalgamation of two sects of nearly equal numerical strength. The older of these, called the Wesleyan Association, originated in 1836 in the removal of one or two influential ministers from the original Connection. Points of difference subsequently appeared with regard to the constitution of the Conference.—The younger sect, called the Wesleyan Reform Association, took its rise in 1849 through the expulsion of several ministers from the parent body on a charge of insubordination, and, being founded on the same principles as the last-mentioned community, arrangements were entered into for their union, which was subsequently effected in 1857. Church independency and freedom of representation in the annual assembly are two of the most prominent distinctive traits in the organisation of the United Methodist Free Church.

The WELSH CALVINISTIC METHODISTS are not a secession from the followers of Wesley, but originated partly in the preaching of his friend and fellow-evangelist, Whitefield, and partly in that of Howell Harris. Whitefield was a Calvinist; Wesley, as we have seen, was on some points decidedly Arminian. A difference arose between them on the subject of election. Henceforward their paths lay in different directions. Whitefield, however, did not form a religious sect; and after his death (1770) his followers, being left without any distinct bond or organisation, either followed the leading of the Countess of Huntingdon (q.v.), or became distributed among other denominations, a large portion, especially in Wales, becoming absorbed in the new society gradually forming itself through the preaching of Howell Harris and his coadjutors. They became a separate body in 1810, and have now about 130,000 communicants.

The total number of members and adherents of Methodist churches is estimated at 25,000,000; the following table shows the distribution of ministers and members in 1889-91:

See, besides the works and the Lives of the Wesleys and of Whitefield, George Smith's History of Methodism (1862); Abel Stevens' History of the Religious Movement called Methodism (New York, 1861); Daniel's Short History of the Methodists (1882); and works on the polity, constitution, and economy of Methodism by Pierce, Williams, and Rigg. For Methodist missions, see MISSIONS.