ists were the greatest Churchmen in the nation, because they were the strictest attendants on church and sacraments. To debar persons from sacraments is almost unknown in the Church of England. The wicked and the righteous are alike her visible members.

It would also have been a new thing to call Mr. Wesley to an account. There were thousands of wicked ministers within the pale of the English Church who were sabbath-breakers, profane persons, swearers, drunkards, extortioners, &c. And the people were like their pastors. It would have been a strange thing to have called Mr. Wesley to an account for preaching, praying, and converting sinners, when all the wicked clergymen were passed by. In short, public sentiment would not admit of it.

It was, therefore, morally impossible to expel Mr. Wesley from the church. He had been the means of uncommon good to the whole nation. This was acknowledged and appreciated by a large number of persons. George the Third was among the number; and when some bishops were importunate with the king to interfere against Mr. Wesley, they received a merited rebuke. In short, Mr. Wesley could not have been expelled from the English Church without convulsing the church itself to its centre, and perhaps the nation. The irreligious bishops and clergy knew this very well; and while they were left in possession of their benefices without molestation, they seemed, indeed, contented on the whole; and the greatest annoyance they met was, the crowded churches and communion-tables occasioned by the labors of the Methodists; unless we may except that they were sometimes put to the blush, in moments of sobriety, by the regular walk and chaste conversation of the Methodists. But all these things could be borne when the benefices were left untouched. This is the principal cause why the Methodists were not persecuted more. Perhaps, had they attacked the clergy as they deserved, and exposed their vices, and been less connected with the church, they would have been the subjects of more persecution, and would have been the means of more good.

Mr. Wesley considered the succession as a figment. He, with the fathers of the English Church, believed that elders and bishops were of the same order, and that, therefore, elders might ordain. He and his people never formally renounced the communion of the national church. The bishops did not issue proceedings against him, and why should he leave them when he was an approved minister, yet he did in several things deviate from their institutions, though not in any thing, nor in any manner, that interfered with the church.

The state of the matter is plainly this:-The Church of England had no discipline to bear on Mr. Wesley's case, or they had not virtue enough to exercise it, or perhaps both together; or Mr. Wesley attended to the order of the church with more punctuality than most of her ministers. If they had no discipline to bear on his case, then he could not break their laws, as they did not exist; and they, as a church, have little claims to apostolicity, when schismatics, like Wesley and the Methodists, could be permitted to live and die within the pale of the church without either censure or expulsion. If they had a discipline, but had not vigilance or virtue enough to enforce it, then they are placed in the peculiar dilemma of having allowed, through either indolence or wickedness, the sacred walls of the

church to be broken down; and are not, therefore, the proper successors of apostles and primitive Christians. Or if deficiency of discipline, or neglect in exercising it, formed a united barrier in the way, the defects of their church appear in a still more glaring light. And if Mr. Wesley and the Methodists were as good Churchmen as any others, then there can be no room to charge them with schism. The truth is, those of the clergy and people who had any regard for religion saw at once that the spiritual interests of the church and the world were promoted by the Methodists; and they were not disposed to interfere much with Methodism. The worldly interests of the others were not interfered with by the Methodists; they, therefore, generally let them alone, seeing they left them in the quiet possession of their benefices. And add to all this, Mr. Wesley was no ordinary man to meet in controversy or in church process. The sturdiest sons of the church quailed under the weight of his arguments, and the force of the unction or spirit with which he spoke ; and it was more than enough for any of them to meet him, seeing he had Scripture, truth, righteousness, antiquity, unremitting industry, and powerful coadjutors on his side. Hence, in answer to his brother in view of his rights as a Churchman and the father of the Methodist societies, Mr. Wesley says,-"I firmly believe that I am a Scriptural eлLOKOжOs as much as any man in England or Europe; for the uninterrupted succession I know to be a fable, which no man ever did or can prove. But this does in no wise interfere with my remaining in the Church of England, from which I have no more desire to separate than I had fifty years ago."

7. Mr. Wesley, with good reason, did not apply to the English Church for ordination in behalf of the American Methodists. The following are weighty considerations:

(1.) The English episcopacy was very defective in apostolical character; and it was not proper to sanction the irregularities of that church, and her departure from the primitive and Scriptural model, by having recourse to her for ordination, especially when a more Scriptural one was within reach.

(2.) That Scriptural one was among the Methodists themselves, in their pious and apostolical presbytery or body of elders, with Mr. Wesley as their bishop, and all according to the earnest request of those immediately concerned, viz., the American Methodists, to whom it belonged to choose those who should be their chief pastors. (3.) The bishop of London, to whom alone application could be made, had lost all jurisdiction in America; and when Mr. Wesley applied to him on a former occasion, his application was rejected. (4.) Unscriptural terms would be enjoined or required, to which the applicants could not accede. For instance, the oath of supremacy would be required, a university education, &c.

(5.) They would delay and so long procrastinate that the necessities of the sheep in the wilderness would be increased beyond measure. Well did Mr. Wesley say, in this very case,-"If they consented, we know the slowness of their proceedings; but the matter admits of no delay." The application of Mr. Seabury was so long delayed that he went to Scotland and received ordination from the non-jurors, an excommunicated sect. The patience of Bishops' White and Provost had like to have failed them too, in consequence

of the delays they experienced. Nor were the English bishops to blame in this matter. They had not authority to ordain. Before they could or did, the sovereign ecclesiastical legislature of the Anglican Church, i. e., the parliament, must make an enactment before the bishops could act; and then the supreme head of the church, the king, must issue his license, sealed by his own hand, before the bishops could ordain.

(6.) If the English bishops would ordain, they would also expect to govern them. So Mr. Wesley supposed. And, though they might not require canonical obedience from them, they would expect conformity to them in church polity, to which the Methodists could never consistently conform.

(7.) Indeed the requirements would, as Mr. Wesley said, be a real entanglement to the Methodists. This is obvious from the case of the Protestant Episcopal Church, which received an ordination from the British parliament, through the king, by the English bishops, by which they and their successors are prohibited, by act of parliament, from officiating in any part of his British majesty's dominions. Accordingly, no minister or bishop of America can preach or pray, or administer sacraments in any part of the British territories. Such an ordination, saying nothing of its antiscriptural character, would have prevented Methodist ministers from planting the gospel in Canada; and when any of our brethren visited Britain, he must not preach or officiate in any part of England. Appropriately, then, did Mr. Wesley say, "How grievously would this entangle us!"

8. The American Methodists, therefore, for the best of reasons, became an independent church.

They became a free, independent church, unentangled by any foreign interference whatever. Mr. Wesley, in his usual laconic, forcible, and clear manner, expresses himself on this topic as follows:"As our American brethren are now totally disentangled, both from the state and from the English hierarchy, we dare not entangle them again, either with the one or the other. They are now at full liberty simply to follow the Scriptures and the primitive church; and we judge it best that they should stand fast in that liberty wherewith God has so strangely made them free."

The American Methodists have taken, received, and followed the Scriptures and the primitive church; and their doctrines and form of government furnish a specimen of a well-organized ecclesiastical polity, founded on Scripture, and the best adapted in the world to promote the cause of truth, and righteousness, and good order.

9. The condition of the American Methodists, according to the concession of several Methodist authors, has been sometimes represented as a case of necessity, and that, therefore, the common ecclesiastical regulations of a well-ordered church polity would not apply to them in their organization.

For ourselves, we cannot admit that there was such a case of necessity as to make it necessary to deviate from Scripture, or a sound ecclesiastical polity. It was necessary, in order to follow Scripture, to reject, or not to apply, for such unscriptural ordination as the Protestant Episcopal Church received from England. It was necessary, indeed, to follow Scripture itself, in order to get rid of such worldly and political attachments as the English Church had

associated with her ordinations. Our space does not now allow us to discuss this topic; we must, therefore, leave it as it is for the present. It may be remarked, however, that the American Methodists, at the close of the Revolution, possessed all the elements of a wellordered church polity, both in principle and practice, in their pious people and excellent preachers; and had Dr. Coke never set foot on American soil, and had Mr. Wesley never set apart him or Whatcoat or Vasey, the American Church would have carried out on Scriptural grounds, and according to primitive usage, her already well-formed polity, so as to prove that she was a church Scripturally organized. We believe there is a plain and Scriptural ground to be taken by the advocates of our church, without pleading the case of necessity, even as a secondary or corroborating argument, in such a sense as to concede that a mere emergency, arising from anarchy, compelled our church to overlook the principles of sound church government and Scripture in her organization. We strongly suspect that the supposed separation of the Virginia conference, and their schism, so called, were far from being schismatical; and that it was only carrying out the principles of Scripture which were adopted by Mr. Wesley, and reduced to practice by the Wesleyan Methodists in Europe, and the Methodist Episcopal Church, in their excellent forms of church polity as they are now established. We have an original document on this topic, never yet published, which we will take the liberty of laying before the public before long. From this, we think it will appear that the schism charged on this conference previous to the formal organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church is founded in mistake.

10. We are now to answer the question, "Are the Methodists guilty of schism in regard to the Church of England?" The answer which we would unhesitatingly give is, That the Methodists are not chargeable with schism in reference to the English Church. The following are the reasons, in connection with what has already been said on this head :

(1.) The Methodist societies were, in a great measure, gathered out of church neglecters. Few pious persons have been separated from the communion of the established church by a connection with the Methodists; and if any such had been they would be profited by the separation. But the great body of the Methodists, in Europe, were brought from the ranks of the ignorant and careless. If uniting such persons in bonds of Christian unity be schism in reference to the English Church, then the schism of the Methodists is a thousand times more valuable and Scriptural than the union of the established church. Indeed, the charge of schism in such a case is the height of Pharisaic self-sufficiency.

(2.) The Methodists increased the number of hearers and communicants in the established church. Indeed, they were the means of forming new church congregations, which remain to this day.

(3.) The establishment itself was roused to great activity by the instrumentality of the Methodists, and in the place of its being a loser it really gained. We must confess, however, that we are not of those who estimate very highly the increase of piety in the established church, through the instrumentality of the Wesleyans. There has been an increase, we admit; but yet there has been an increase

of evil, in some respects, among them. Their piety and zeal must suffer great abatements, because much thereof is through envy and opposition to Methodism, or to pure and undefiled religion. Their zeal is rather forced upon them by the orderly walk and activity of their Methodist neighbors. Another abatement must be made, that they still adhere to the corruptions of their rotten system of church polity, and disregard gospel discipline, so that no proper distinction is yet made between the righteous and the wicked; between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not. Another item must also be deducted from their increased piety, in the following way: In consequence of the clearness and force by which Methodism is brought to bear on the conscience and judgment of every man, Churchmen are less excusable than formerly in adhering to their sins and false principles, and in not embracing fully the pure principles and practice of the gospel as exhibited in Methodism. And as it regards those who were nurtured in the lap of Methodism, and have abandoned it and returned to the immunities of the parliament church, we suspect they would sell their professed Master for the thirty pieces, and transfer Methodism to make the bargain good.

(4.) Were it not for the supplies both of ministers and at least partially pious members added to the establishment, through the instrumentality of Methodism, the amount of piety in its pale would be far less than it now is, and the irreligion of its members would be much greater. The bare statement of this we deem sufficient, as its proof must be obvious to every well-informed person who considers the matter.

(5.) Few Methodists of the present day would properly be Churchmen. It is, therefore, unjust to charge Methodism with drawing away those from the church who were never attached to her; or those who, in consequence of her corruptions, were disgusted with her and her ministers, and would therefore join with a people who lived more in conformity to Scripture.

(6.) Add to this that the plea of schism is peculiarly absurd in the mouth of Churchmen against the Methodists, from this consideration, that the great body of professed Churchmen were not Christians. The separation, if it were one, was not from a body of Christians, though there were some Christians among them. And the disciplinary departure of Methodists was not from gospel discipline. The objection of making a schism in the English Church, and gathering churches out of churches, is admirably met by Mr. Wesley in the following extract from his Plain Account of the People called Methodists. He says, in answer to the objector :

"If you mean only gathering people out of buildings called churches, it is. But if you mean dividing Christians from Christians, and so destroying Christian fellowship, it is not. For, 1. These were not Christians before they were thus joined. Most of them were barefaced heathens. 2. Neither are they Christians, from whom you suppose them to be divided. You will not look me in the face and say they are. What! drunken Christians! cursing and swearing Christians! lying Christians! cheating Christians! If these are Christians at all, they are devil Christians, as the poor Malabarians term them. 3. Neither are they divided any more than they were before, even from these wretched devil-Christians. They