CHAPTER IX.

THE notices of the journeys and labours of these inde fatigable Ministers of Christ, given in the preceding chapter, afford but a specimen of the manner in which the foundations of the Methodist Connexion were carried out and firmly laid. Nor were the Preachers under their direction, though labouring in more limited districts of country, scarcely less laboriously employed. At this period one of them writes from Lancashire to Mr. Wesley:-" Many doors are opened for preaching in these parts, but cannot be supplied for want of Preachers. I think some one should be sent to assist me, otherwise we shall lose ground. My Circuit requires me to travel one hundred and fifty miles in two weeks; during which time I preach publicly thirty-four times, besides meeting the societies, visiting the sick, and transacting other affairs." *

Of the Preachers some were engaged in business, and preached at their leisure in their own neighbourhoods; but still, zealous for the salvation of men, they often took considerable journeys. Others gave themselves up, for a time, to more extended labours, and then settled: but the third class, who had become the regular "Assistants" and "Helpers" of Mr. Wesley, were devoted wholly to the work of the ministry; and, after a period of probation, and a scrutiny into their character and talents at the annual Conferences, were admitted, by solemn prayer, into what was called "full connexion," which, as we have stated, was their ordination. No provision was, however, made at this early period for their maintenance. They took neither "purse nor scrip;" they cast themselves upon the providence of God, and the hospitality and kindness of the societies, and were by them, like the primitive

Preachers, "helped forward after a godly sort, on their journeys, to open new places, and to instruct those for whose souls "no man cared." It might be as truly said of them as of the first propagators of Christianity, they had no certain dwelling-place." Under the severity of labour, and the wretched accommodations to which they cheerfully submitted, many a fine constitution was broken, and premature death was often induced.

66

The annual Conferences have been mentioned; and that a correct view may be taken of the doctrines which at those meetings it was agreed should be taught in the societies, it will be necessary to go back to their commencement. At first every doctrine was fully sifted in successive "Conversations," and the great principles of a godly discipline were drawn out into special regulations, as circumstances appeared to require. After the body had acquired greater maturity, these doctrinal discussions became less frequent; a standard and a test being ultimately established in a select number of Mr. Wesley's doctrinal Sermons, and in his "Notes on the New Testament." The free and pious spirit in which these inquiries were entered into was strikingly marked at the first Conferences, in the commencing exhortation :- -"Let us all pray for a willingness to receive light, to know of every doctrine whether it be of God." The widest principle of Christian liberty was also laid down, as suited to the infant state of a society which was but just beginning to take its ground, and to assume the appearance of order.

"Q. 3. How far does each of us agree to submit to the judgment of the majority?

“A. In speculative things, each can only submit so far as his judgment shall be convinced; in every practical

*The want of a provision for their wives and families, in the early periods of Methodism, caused the loss of many eminent Preachers, who were obliged to settle in Independent congregations.

point, each will submit so far as he can, without wounding his conscience.

"Q. 4. Can a Christian submit any farther than this to any man, or number of men, upon earth?

"A. It is plain he cannot; either to Bishop, Convocation, or General Council. And this is that grand principle of private judgment on which all the Reformers at home and abroad proceeded: Every man must judge for himself; because every man must give an account of himself to God.'"*

Neyer, it may be affirmed, was the formation of any Christian society marked by the recognition of principles more liberal, or more fully in the spirit of the New Testa

ment.

To some of the doctrinal conversations of the first Conferences, it is necessary to refer, in order to mark those peculiarities of opinion which distinguish the Wesleyan Methodists. It is, however, proper to observe that the Clergymen and others who thus assembled did not meet to draw up formal articles of faith. They admitted those of the Church of England; and their principal object was to ascertain how several of the doctrines relative to experimental Christianity, which they found stated in substance in those Articles, and further illustrated in the Homilies, were to be understood and explained. This light they sought from mutual discussion, in which every thing was brought to the standard of the word of inspired truth.

Their first subject was Justification, which they describe with great simplicity; not loading it with epithets, as in the systematic schools, nor perplexing it by verbal criticism. It is defined to be " pardon," or reception into God's favour;" a view which is amply supported by several explicit passages of Scripture, in which the terms, pardon," "forgiveness," and "remission of sins," are

* Minutes.

66

used convertibly with the term "justification." To be received into God's favour," according to these Minutes, is necessarily connected with the act of forgiveness, and is the immediate and inseparable consequence of that gracious procedure. The same may be said of adoption ; which, in some theological schemes, is made to flow from regeneration, while the latter is held to commence previously to justification. In Mr. Wesley's views adoption, as being a relative change, is supposed to be necessarily involved in justification, or the pardon of sin; and regeneration to flow from both, as an inward moral change arising from the powerful and efficacious work. of the Holy Spirit who is in that moment given to believers.* To their definition of justification, the Minutes add, "It is such a state that, if we continue therein, we shall be finally saved;" thus making final salvation conditional, and justification a state which may be forfeited. All wilful sin was held to imply a casting away of vital faith, and thereby to bring a man under wrath and condemnation; nor is it possible for him to have justifying faith again without previously repenting." They also agree that faith is "the condition of justification ;” adding, as the proof, "for every one that believeth not is condemned, and every one who believes is justified." In Mr. Wesley's sermon on justification by faith, the office of faith in justifying is thus more largely set forth :

66

Surely the difficulty of assenting to the proposition, that faith is the only condition of justification, must arise

The connexion of favour and adoption with pardon, arises from the very nature of that act. Pardon, or forgiveness, is release from the penalties and forfeitures incurred by transgression. Of those penalties, the loss of God's favour and of filial relation to him was among the most weighty;-pardon, therefore, in its nature, or at least in its natural consequences, implies a restoration to the blessings forfeited, for else the penalty would in part remain in force.

from not understanding it. We mean thereby thus much, that it is the only thing, without which no one is justified; the only thing that is immediately, indispensably, absolutely requisite in order to pardon. As on the one hand, though a man should have every thing else, without faith, yet he cannot be justified; so on the other, though he be supposed to want every thing else, yet if he hath faith, he cannot but be justified. For suppose a sinner of any kind or degree, in a full sense of his total ungodliness, of his utter inability to think, speak, or do good, and his absolute meetness for hell-fire; suppose, I say, this sinner, helpless and hopeless, casts himself wholly on the mercy of God in Christ, (which indeed he cannot do but by the grace of God,) who can doubt but he is forgiven in that moment? Who will affirm that any more is indispensably required, before that sinner can be justified?

"And at what time soever a sinner thus believes, be it in his early childhood, in the strength of his years, or when he is old and hoary-headed, God justifieth that ungodly one; God, for the sake of his Son, pardoneth and absolveth him, who had in him, till then, no good thing. Repentance, indeed, God had given him before; but that repentance was neither more nor less than a deep sense of the want of all good, and the presence of all evil. And whatever good he hath or doeth from that hour, when he first believes in God through Christ, faith does not find, but bring. This is the fruit of faith. First, the tree is good, and then the fruit is good also."

Mr. Wesley's views of repentance in this passage will also be noted. Here, as at the first Conference, he insists that repentance, which is conviction of sin, and works meet for repentance, go before justifying faith; but he held, with the Church of England, that all works, before justification, had "the nature of sin ;" and that, as they had no root in the love of God, which can only