VII

DOCTRINAL STANDARDS AMONG WESLEY'S FOLLOWERS

I'

T has been seen that the Reverend John Wesley, personally, had very profound convictions as to

religious truth, and that much of the matter of his discourses, addresses, writings, and his "conversations" in his yearly conferences with his preachers, was made up of doctrinal statements and arguments in relation to doctrines.

Now we should ascertain whether his organized followers, in their religious organization, had any common, or commonly accepted, or recognized, religious doctrines.

That they had religious doctrines, of course, goes without saying, because, without them, they would not have come together as a religious body, or, if they did come together, there would have been no coherence, and, in course of time, they would have disintegrated, or would have had a violent disruption.

They must have had doctrines. That will be admitted. But the special question now is: Had Wesley's organized followers any recognized standards of doctrine?

Entering upon an inquiry as to the doctrinal standards of Methodism, one should seek to have the spirit and method of the historian and logician combined. We ask first:

How may we find the standards if there were any? As a New York court decided: "In ascertaining the early and contemporary usage and doctrines" of a sect, "resort may be had to history, and to standard works of theology of an era prior to the existence of the dispute of controversy."

So we may resort to history, to standard works on theology, and to recorded doctrinal statements, particularly of the early times.

A standard, it should be remembered, is, literally, "that which is set up." It is something which is made a model or a basis of comparison with which similar things are to conform, as standard weights and

measures.

So we seek such standards of Methodistic doctrines. In a certain broad sense, at the beginning of Methodism, and long after, the Reverend John Wesley, himself, was the standard of doctrines for his disciples.

By the choice, consent, and continued acquiescence of the people and the preachers, John Wesley was, in the early period, the absolute head of Methodism.

In matters of government that was absolutely true; in matters of doctrine it was equally so; and in the Conferences the statements of doctrine were framed by him; while his discourses were doctrinal forms; and so with many of his other writings.

Under such a leader the organization which he developed could not have existed long without distinct and well-defined doctrines, which would speedily crystallize into a doctrinal system, which statement the facts of history abundantly prove.

The Wesleyan bodies have, and have had, their standards of doctrine quite from the very beginning,

and investigation further shows that the standards have varied somewhat in different periods, but that these changes have been progressive, as in a development from a living germ, expanding and adding though never departing from the primary type, or, changing the figure of speech, never shifting from its original basis and its general plan.

In this day the numerous Wesleyan bodies, wherever they exist, and under whatever differentiating names, have their recognized doctrinal standards, and all of them have a common family likeness.

Going back to the beginning it will be found that the first standard was John Wesley himself. That fact should be repeated, emphasized, and never lost sight of. Wesley created a standard through his utterances by tongue and pen. He was the living standard, and he vitalized the doctrinal teachings. His followers listened to him and learned from him, not only how to preach, but what to preach, and they read what he wrote, and, in his writings, found careful formulations of Scriptural truth, which, when placed together, formed a systematic theology.

That they had from the very beginning, and in greater fullness as the decades of Wesley's long life flowed on. So what Wesley said, his followers said, and, next to the Scriptures, a quotation from Wesley was a finality in an argument.

The second standard was the document called the General Rules for the United Society, which Rules the Reverend John Wesley himself drew up and published in 1743.

These Rules were mainly guides to practical living, but they also had some of the elements of an initial

Constitution for the young organization, and they also involved matters that were doctrinal, though some were by implication.

The third standard was found in the doctrinal declarations which were published in the Minutes of Wesley's yearly Conferences, the first of which was held in 1744, one year after the General Rules were prepared, and which Conferences continued thereafter from year to year. In these Minutes, particularly in the earlier years, much space was given to the definition and statement of religious doctrine, and, in 1749, Mr. Wesley took from the Conference "Conversations" of 1744, 1745, 1746, 1747, and 1748, the matter relating to doctrines, and printed his combination under the title of "Minutes of some late Conversations between the Reverend M. Wesleys and others," and this publication, because of the specific nature of the contents, was popularly called "The Doctrinal Minutes." This presentation of Wesleyan doctrines doubtless had a position of authority.

The fourth standard was found in John Wesley's Sermons, the first series of which, published in 1746, contained forty-three sermons. Then a later, and enlarged, edition contained fifty-three sermons, but as the fifty-third, in 1770, was Wesley's funeral sermon on the death of the Reverend George Whitefield, which, not being a doctrinal discourse, but almost entirely biographical, was not counted as a doctrinal standard, and only the fifty-two sermons were recognized as standards of doctrine.

When the First Series of John Wesley's Sermons appeared, it was perfectly natural that they should be received as authoritative expositions of the doctrines

preached by Wesley. Under this preaching the "United Society" had grown up, and without any legal decree it would have been natural that they accept them as standard expressions of their doctrines.

These sermons were published by Wesley in four volumes, in 1771, although many of them were delivered in the earliest years of his ministry, after his return from America-one as early as 1738, and another (the xviith) in 1733, two years before starting for America. The series was published first in 1746, with forty-three sermons. This was afterwards enlarged to fifty-three in the four volume edition of 1771.

In his preface to his collected sermons printed in 1747, Mr. Wesley says:

"The following Sermons contain the substance of what I have been preaching for between eight and nine years last past. During that time I have frequently spoken in public, on every subject in the ensuing collection and I am not conscious that there is any one point of doctrine, on which I am accustomed to speak in public, which is not here, incidentally, if not professedly, laid before every Christian reader. Every serious man, who peruses these, will therefore see in the clearest manner what these doctrines are, which I embrace and teach, as the essentials of true religion.'

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The titles and texts of the fifty-two sermons of Wesley which are recognized as among the standards are as follows:

I. Salvation by Faith. through faith" (Eph. ii. 18). Oxford, before the University,

"By grace are ye saved, Preached at St. Mary's, June 18, 1738.

II. The Almost Christian. "Almost thou persuad

'Wesley's "Sermons ": New York, Lane & Scott, 1850, Vol. I, p. 5.