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follows: "Resolved, That the Form of Discipline shall be printed by itself, and the notes likewise printed distinctly out, with such references that they may be bound with the form, and that the preachers shall have liberty to order as many as they please, with the notes or without them." "

1

This language is quaint, but it and the phrasing quoted by Doctor Robert Emory, mean the same thing, while the side-heading in the printed Journal has: "Discipline to be printed without notes," thus showing very plainly that the intention in each was identical, and both forms could have been prepared, the one in the formal report, and the other in the separate resolution.

In these "Notes" were annotations on each and every one of the Articles of Religion. These were the first official comments on the Articles of Religion, and no other General Conference has ever requested any new annotations on "The Twenty-five Articles."

The collected "Notes" are reprinted in Doctor Robert Emory's "History of the Discipline," and reprinted in Doctor David Sherman's "History of the Revisions of the Discipline," but neither volume contains the annotations on the Articles of Religion by Bishop Coke and Bishop Asbury. For these comments on the Twenty-five Articles the student must now go back to the Book of Discipline for 1798.

"General Conference Journal," 1800, pp. 43, 44.

2 Appendix, pp. 281-339, editions of 1843, 1851. 3 New York, 1890, pp. 401–459.

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XV

RELATED FORMULARIES

ERTAIN of the facts which have been ascertained should now be recalled and so grouped together as to clearly show their relation to

each other.

In them there is an order of time for all were not of the same date or the same period. Some were preliminary to others, some were supplementary, while all blended sooner or later, and moved on together, and in the end made a complete and homogeneous system of theology.

First, were the preached doctrines, spoken and heard; second, the same doctrines conversed about, and crystallized in the thought of the people; and, third, the written, printed, and circulated presentations of the doctrine in permanent form, growing in its scope according to the need and the opportunity.

When we reach this third stage, which was approached quite rapidly, certain presentations, or formulations appeared in a logical and natural order. First, came the General Rules which gave, not only an initial outline of polity, but also, a scheme of practical and religious living based on religious truth. Then came the doctrinal utterances in the Minutes of the Conferences, first of the British and later of the American. Then came the doctrinal teachings in Wesley's first fifty-two

collected sermons, and still later, John Wesley's "Notes on the New Testament." Here were found the early standards of doctrine, and, particularly, in Wesley's Sermons and in his Notes.

All these existed before Wesleyanism formally began on the Atlantic Coast of North America.

Now we have already traced certain Wesleyan doctrines, and standards of doctrine from Great Britain to the British Colonies in North America, doctrines and standards which were the same as those held and formally acknowledged by the Wesleyans in England and other parts of the monarchy.

Coming to America they were recognized, and even formally adopted by vote, by early American Methodism in Colonial times, in the revolutionary period, and, after the recognition of the independence of the United States of America, and that was formally done in the very year, and only a few months before the American Methodists were organized into the Methodist Episcopal Church.

These doctrinal standards of British Methodism, therefore, were carried to, and recognized in America, and became the standards of doctrine in the American Wesleyan organization, and, later, when the preachers and people who held them were organized into the Methodist Episcopal Church, the doctrines were carried on and continued with them and in it.

This should be observed most carefully. The fact is to be noted, and never lost sight of, that those who recognized the Wesleyan Standards, in the month of May, 1784, were the very same persons who, in December of the same year, reorganized themselves into the ecclesiastical body known as the Methodist Episcopal

Church. The natural presumption is that the same people, in the same year, with an interval of only a few months, as a matter of course, continued to hold and preach the same doctrines, and carried with them the same doctrinal standards. The only thing that could overturn this presumption would be positive proof that they had deliberately turned against their doctrines and standards which they had held throughout the years and up to that moment, but there is absolutely no evidence that they discarded these doctrines when they formed themselves into this new Church.

Further, it is to be remembered, that the Methodist Episcopal Church, in 1784, was not an entirely new creation, but, rather, an evolution from an organism that had a previous existence in America, and, before that, an existence in England, which ran back to 1739, and of that previous organism there had been no dissolution.

Still further, there were various vital things that were carried through the several stages of the continuing organic life, and the process was somewhat similar to that seen in the Colonies that passed over into the United States of America.

In this way various features, including those which were organic and vital, were carried over into the Church organization of 1784, and that without requiring reënactment. It is well known that various usages were thus carried over, and if ceremonial and economical usages went over in this way without any formal action, there were much stronger reasons for continuing their system of doctrines in the same way.

As a matter of fact most, if not all, of the old things continued, and only a very few new things were added

to make the complete Church, one of the new things added being the Articles of Religion. They were new chiefly as a formally designated standard, and they were accepted as such.

The following facts, therefore, are plain:

First, that the American Methodists carried with them into the new Church organization their old doctrines and their old doctrinal standards which were the Wesleyan Standards and doctrines as they existed in 1784.

Second, that, as a part of the new organization, they adopted the Twenty-four Articles of Religion prepared by the Reverend John Wesley, and also an additional article prepared by the organizing Conference, so that the new Church had at the beginning Twenty-five Articles of Religion.

Third, that the organizing Conference accepted or adopted "The Sunday Service. With other Occasional Services," which had been prepared for the new organization by John Wesley, the then ecclesiastical head of Wesleyan Methodism.

Fourth, that the organizing Conference also adopted formularies and services in addition to those previously held by those who made the new Church, and that these additions contained doctrinal declarations and expressions, as for example the forms and services in the new book of common prayer called "The Sunday Service. With other Occasional Services," the first new authoritative book of the Methodist Episcopal Church, for that book contained much more than prayers and an order of service.

These new standards together with the old standards made the doctrinal standards of the new Church.

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