ported by the law and the history, and which, in this inquiry and discussion, is meaningless.

If the words are intended to mean anything it is to assert that the Articles are not binding, but to say they are not obligatory, or binding, is to display ignorance of the law of the Church and of its history. The Articles were not merely indicatory but declaratory and obligatory. They indicate the truth, and declare what those in the Church should believe and must respect.

The law of 1792 shows that the Church, from the very beginning, knew they were binding, and determined to protect them by punishing those who expressed views in opposition to, or not in harmony with, the Twenty-five Articles.

The law of 1792 meant, and said, that the Articles were obligatory and must be obeyed, and that law has continued ever since, and exists at the present time, and even in stronger terms.

Because they are obligatory the statute law has protected them quite from the beginning.

XVII

CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTION OF THE

WR

STANDARDS

E have seen how the power of the statute law was invoked, soon after the organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to defend the Articles of Religion by demonstrating that they were obligatory, and by indicating severe penalty to be imposed upon persons found guilty of speaking in public or in private against the said articles, or their teachings.

Some years later the Church, through its general General Conference, which then was the Sovereign Power, still further emphasized the obligatory nature of the Articles of Religion, and its determination to throw around them every possible safeguard, by putting them squarely under the protection of the new Constitution of the Church, and, indeed, by recognizing as, or making, them a part of its formal and written Constitution, as they had been in the organic law from the beginning.

Here it should be remarked that The Methodist Episcopal Church always had a Constitution of some sort. Thus the title of the Minutes, published in 1786, reads:

"The General Minutes of the Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America, forming the Constitution of the said Church.”

Later came the written Constitution, somewhat after

the form of the Constitution of the United States of America, with paragraphs and sub-paragraphs, or articles and sections, arranged in a somewhat logical and regular order.

In 1808, in making the first formally written constitution of the Church, for the purpose of creating a new kind of General Conference, namely, a delegated General Conference, the then sovereign body of the Church which was the general General Conference containing the body of the ministry, or eldership, in the Annual Conferences, took further measures to protect the Articles of Religion, particularly from any attempted exertion of power in relation to them on the part of the delegated General Conference, which was very different from the then existing General Conference which was composed of the ministry generally.

By a provision in this first specifically written Constitution of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the new and delegated General Conference, made up of selected persons from the Annual Conferences, though it was to have limited lawmaking powers, was prohibited from annulling, abrogating, destroying, or changing in any particular, the Articles of Religion.

This was done by putting into the Constitution a specific limitation on the powers of the delegated General Conference, and, to show its relative and great importance, it was made the very first restriction.'

On this specific matter for protecting the Articles of Religion against changes therein by the new kind of

1 "General Conference Journal," 1808, p. 89. "Book of Disoipline," 1808, Chap. I, Sec. III, Ques. 2, pp. 14-16. Thomas B. Neely, D. D: "History of the Governing Conference in Methodism "; New York, Methodist Book Concern, 1892, pp. 338–388.

General Conference, which was to be a proportionately selected body, the prohibition read: "The General Conference shall not revoke, alter, nor change our Articles of Religion."

This was put into the Constitution of 1808, the first formally written Constitution of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and there it has stood continuously from that time down to the present day, and is going on into the future, for the new, or amended, Constitution of 1900 continued bodily, and in every detail this first restriction, so that it remains in force as intended in the Constitution of 1808, putting a positive limitation on the power of the delegated, or representative, General Conference.'

The general General Conferences prior to the making of the Constitution of 1808 were ecclesiastically all-powerful, because they were made up of the assembled body of the ministry generally which possessed the sovereign power of the Church, but the body of the ministry in the Annual Conferences never passed all its sovereign power over to the delegated General Conference which the ministry or eldership had created.

The new kind of General Conference, therefore, was not to be an all-powerful body, but a body with limited powers, and so it has always remained, and, under the first limitation, the General Conference made up of delegates could not modify the Articles of Religion, but must preserve them as they were in 1808, and had been from the organization of the Church.

The General Conference, by the force of this restriction, could not, and cannot, revoke, alter, or change the Articles of Religion.

1 Meth. Epis., "Discipline," 1916, Art. X, Sec. I, p. 44.

At first sight these words may seem to be, or might be regarded as, repetitions, or tautological, but there are distinctions in the meaning of the words, and the plain intention in their use is to provide for every possibility and give the Articles perfect protection.

The General Conference cannot revoke, or call back, any article, or anything in any article. It cannot alter any article in any way, or any degree, in whole or in part. Then, to cover every possible thing, the broad and generic word "change" is used, so that the General Conference cannot modify the Articles of Religion in any possible way, directly or indirectly. It cannot change by abrogating, or rescinding; it cannot change by eliminating or inserting; it cannot change by modifying in any way the meaning or the wording; it cannot modify by shifting sentences or phrases, even though every word and every letter were preserved; it cannot take out old articles and put in new ones, as it cannot add any articles; and it cannot change the titles, number, and order of the Articles. In other words, The General Conference cannot amend the Articles of Religion in any way, or in any degree. That is to say, the General Conference must not touch the Articles of Religion, but must let them stand unchanged. The General Conference, of itself, must let them stand precisely as they were when the first restrictive rule was made, which is to say, that the General Conference cannot make them differ in any particular from what they were in 1808, which means, what they were at the beginning of the denomination.

It follows, therefore, that the General Conference could not authorize, or permit, any body or individual, directly or indirectly, or in any way, to change the