THE DOCTRINES AND DISCIPLINE OF THE METHODIST ÉPISCOPAL CHURCH. 1864. WITH AN APPENDIX. New York: PUBLISHED BY CARLTON & PORTER, 200 MULBERRY-STREET. 1364. LIBRARY OF THE LELAND STANFORD JR. UNIVERS A.28651 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by CARLTON & PORTER, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States TO THE MEMBERS OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. DEARLY BELOVED BRETHREN,-We think it expedient to give you a brief account of the rise of Methodism, both in Europe and America. "In 1729, two young men in England, reading the Bible, saw they could not be saved without holiness: followed after it, and incited others so to do. In 1737, they saw, likewise, that men are justified before they are sanctified: but still holiness was their object. God then thrust them out to raise a holy people."* In the year 1766, Philip Embury, a These are the words of Messrs. Wesley themselves. Local Preacher of our society, from Ireland, began to preach in the city of New York, and formed a society of his own countrymen and the citizens; and the same year, Thomas Webb preached in a hired room near the barracks. About the same time, Robert Strawbridge, a Local Preacher from Ireland, settled in Frederic County, in the State of Maryland, and, preaching there, formed some societies. The first Methodist Church was built in New York in 1768 or 1769; and in 1769 Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmoor came to New York, who were the first regular Methodist Preachers on the continent. In the latter end of the year 1771 Francis Asbury and Richard Wright of the same order came over. We believe that God's design in rais ing up the Preachers called Methodists in America, was to reform the continent and spread Scripture holiness over these lands. As a proof hereof we have seen since that time a great and glorious work of God from New York through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, as also of late to the extremities of the Western and Eastern States. We esteem it our duty and privilege most earnestly to recommend to you, as members of our Church, our FORM OF DISCIPLINE, which has been founded on the experience of a long series of years, as also on the observations and remarks we have made on ancient and modern Churches. We wish to see this little publication in the house of every Methodist, and the more so as it contains the articles of religion, maintained more or less, in part or in whole, by every reformed Church in the world. |