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HAD THE NEW CHURCH STANDARDS OF

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DOCTRINE?

HE Methodist Episcopal Church, formed in the last week of December, in 1784, started off as a Church, with a ministry, a membership, and

a government.

Now to be a complete Church it must have religious doctrines, and this raises the question, Had the new Church any religious doctrines, and any standards of doctrine, or was it without doctrines and without standards of doctrine ?

It is startling, or even absurd, it would seem, even to ask whether a Church is without doctrines, for it seems inconceivable that a Church could be totally without religious doctrines and standards of doctrines, for how could the Church have had organizers and adherents, and have adhesiveness and power of continuance, without some form of religious belief, and, indeed, without some common belief, how could the people have been brought together? The fact that a Church exists and has existed in any external form for generations, is proof that it must have commonly recognized doctrines.

In the case of any denomination, say, for example, "The Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America," the necessary presumption is that it holds

some doctrines and that it has certain standards of doctrine, and the presumption is so logical and necessary, that if anybody declared that the Methodist Episcopal Church had no doctrines or doctrinal standards, the burden of proof to the contrary would be on the one making such a declaration, and he would be expected to prove his allegation, and, unless he did bring forward satisfactory proof, the natural and necessary assumption would be that the Methodist Episcopal Church must have had, and has, common doctrinal beliefs, and that somewhere, in some form, it has had, and has standard expressions of these, to it, essential doctrines.

But something more than presumption, or assumption will be, and ought to be, demanded, for there are those who want, and should have, positive proof. We must, therefore, seek evidence that will be clear and convincing.

The underlying questions must be considered and answered, and the particular question before us, therefore, is this: Had, and has, the Methodist Episcopal Church any doctrinal standards, and, if it had, and has, such standards, what are they, and where may they be found?

To properly reply to this query requires some historical research, some logic, and a little patience in making the investigation.

The question, then, is, first, Had this new Church any doctrines and any standards of religious doctrine at the organization and when the organization was completed ?

A preliminary question is this: Had the preachers and people who were reorganized any religious doc

trines or doctrinal standards just before they were reorganized into the new Church?

The prompt and complete answer to that inquiry is that the organization from which the Church emerged had both doctrines and doctrinal standards. That has already been shown. The doctrines were well known as "Methodist doctrines," and the standards of doctrine were distinctly specified, and officially as well as formally recognized time and again.

Thus the American Conferences of 1781 and 1784 specifically recognized" the old Methodist doctrine" "as contained in the Notes, Sermons, and Minutes published by Mr. Wesley," or, as it was phrased in the Conferences of April and May, 1784, they were to preach the doctrine taught in the four volumes of Sermons and Notes on the New Testament," and "follow the directions of the London and American Minutes," which contained doctrine as well as polity.'

So the very year the American Wesleyans were reorganized, and only about seven months before they were organized into a Church, they had formally and legally declared their continued acceptance of the Wesleyan doctrines, and had specifically stated what were their standards, and these were their recognized standards when they walked into the organizing Conference on the 24th of December, 1784. They, therefore, had these standards when they began the work of that Christmas Conference, and the Conference essentially was the same Conference that met in May. In other words, those who organized the new Church already had standards of doctrine which they had accepted, and to which they were committed, and these standards

1See Minutes of the Annual Conferences of 1781 and 1784.

were the Wesleyan Standards contained in Wesley's Fifty-two Sermons, Wesley's Notes on the New Testament, the Minutes, and, we may say, the General Rules, which all recognized.

The matter may be put in a different form, as follows: As the preachers and people had doctrines and standards of doctrine, immediately before they evolved, or were developed, into the new Church, there arises an interesting and important question, namely, Whether, or how far, if in any degree, this reorganization of American Methodism carried over into the new Church the doctrinal standards of the period immediately preceding, and in, the organizing moment?

In answer to that inquiry, it is plain that the reorganizers carried over with them their existing and continuing doctrinal convictions, and, unless there was some action to the contrary, their accepted doctrines and standards of doctrine went with them into the reorganization.

The fact is that, in the organizing Conference, there was no formal or informal repudiation, or discarding, of their old doctrines. There was no action of any kind doing away with their old doctrinal standards, and there was no informal action that could be construed as an abandonment of their Wesleyan doctrines which they had had from the beginning.

The conclusion must be, therefore, that the organizers of the new Church did not divest themselves of their old doctrines, to which they had been, and then were, so greatly attached, but that they adhered to them, and carried them over into their new organization. That they carried them over and continued to hold the old doctrines and the old standards is proven by many historic facts.

Further, the old organization never was disbanded, but, from it, the new came with a few additions, as, for example, the ordained ministry, and many things, indeed, most things, that existed under the old form, simply went over into the reorganization, without any reënactment, and without any question being raised. As a matter of fact, the old forms continued unchanged, unless they were slightly modified by the few new features of polity.

It will be observed that the American Methodists, when formed into the Methodist Episcopal Church, did not, and never did, readopt the General Rules, and yet they existed at the beginning, always continued, and the Constitution showed that they were a part of the then Constitution of the Church.

They simply went over with the preachers and people, who always had had them, into the reorganization, a reorganization that simply meant some additions to what they already had. The development was an evolution with certain accretions, and not an absolutely new reconstruction, after the dissolution of the old organization, for there was no such dissolution, and, thus, the old doctrines went over into the new Church, in the same way, and continued to be the actual belief of preachers and people, and continued in their teaching.

Another question is as to whether the new and developing ecclesiasticism modified the then existing standards, or acquired any new standards, of doctrine ? If the old continued, was there anything new or additional of a doctrinal character ?

At this point, it is to be observed, that history shows at least that there was some change in the doctrinal symbols of American Methodism, that an important