it to each other as of partaking of it. Wesley's followers for years were sent for baptism and the Supper to Episcopalian ministers. As they became numerous in America, and especially after the Revolutionary War, when many of the Episcopalian ministers as British sympathizers fled the country, it was found that something must be done, or Methodism would come to naught. Wesley appealed for years to the Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church to lay holy (?) apostolic (?) hands on some of his followers if not on himself, to make a bishop for the new associations, which up to that time much resembled the early church, not even taking a sectarian name though called Methodists in derision by their opposers, the Episcopalians and Presbyterians. Mr. Wesley well knew that according to the laws of Episcopacy he could not ordain a minister --that only a bishop had that authority, and he saw that if he could only get one bishop ordained in harmony with him and his new Church, all would then be smooth, and as many ministers could be authorized as might be needed; but his appeal was in vain.
Finally as a last resort, Mr. Wesley with two others--T. Creighton and R. Whatcoat --ministers (not bishops) of the Church of England, determined to do the best they could to hold to the form of Episcopacy, and attach it to the new Church, so they met and ordained Thomas Coke a bishop. They well knew that they were violating the rules and principles of Episcopacy and that under those rules ten thousand of the "inferior clergy," or ordinary ministers could not make a bishop, but they did the best they could and made the best imitation bishop they knew how, and this started the great Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States of America. On Mr. Coke's arrival a general conference was held at Baltimore, and sixty ministers who had long been preaching Christ were authorized to baptize and to officiate at the Lord's supper. These were ministers not in the sense of titled and honored "clergymen," but in the true and early sense of the word ministers, namely servants--servants of God and his people.
Let us not be misunderstood; we mean no disrespect to Methodists in showing that Methodism has only the form of Apostolic succession and ordination; on the contrary it is our claim that they needed not even the form. Each of those sixty ministers (servants) of God had just as much authority before Mr. Coke authorized them, as afterward. They needed no such human authority, but had it direct from the Head of the Church in the Bible, and were only hindered from seeing it by the long standing customs and superstitions coming down from Rome. Every child of God is authorized to preach, everywhere, Jesus and the resurrection, and to immerse any believer; and every believer is invited to partake of the emblems of his Lord's body and blood in remembrance of him, without asking liberty or requiring the assistance of any other member of the body.
We have referred to this in answer to proposition six (6.) above, to show that the feature of Mr. Wesley's course commended by our brother, was the worst failure Wesley made. Notice for instance, When he believed that divine authority lodged in the Episcopal Bishops as the representatives of the Apostles, was he not wrong in organizing a church contrary to their will, and in opposition to their authority?--if they had any authority, which we deny.
Our brother is right in saying (6.) that the reform of the Episcopal Church has "never been done." It itself was a reform on a previous system, and hence its title Protestant. It protested and rebelled against the Church of Rome. It did not and could not reform the Church of Rome, for the same reason that it cannot be reformed from within, viz.: because all these systems are so carefully and thoroughly organized that a sufficient number of those who have the holy spirit of Reform could never get into the places of power and control.
Besides, from another standpoint our brother's argument is unsound. If we concede that our Lord and the Apostles authorized and organized the Protestant Episcopal Church (which we do not), still it would not follow that it must triumph, and must be reformed, and that from within. The Jewish Church surely was organized and authorized by God, yet it was not reformed but cast off, and only the Israelites indeed gathered out into the Gospel favor. Our Lord declared the reason that he did not attempt to reform Judaism, and why that was not his "starting point;" and his wisdom is shown by the failure of modern reformers to reform present institutions from within. He says:--Men do not put a patch of new cloth on an old worn out garment, neither do men put new wine into old wine-skins, for they are not strong enough to hold it and the result would be a waste of the wine. Our Lord thus illustrates his reason for not trying more to put the Gospel into the Jewish institutions. New vessels and agencies were preferred by the Lord when opening up the Gospel age.
Even so now, he again chooses new vessels for the opening work of the Millennial age, and for the same reason. He even shows us clearly that the closing of the Gospel age was foreshadowed by the closing of the Jewish age. Now as then great nominal Israel is to stumble in her blindness and be cast off from all special favor; and only the remnant, the faithful few, the Israelites indeed, in whom is no guile, are to be accepted into the higher favor of Millennial glory with Christ.
(7.) The brother errs here; it is not we, but Christ, who calls his people out of Babylon. We merely call their attention to his words and show that they are reasonable. It was the Lord himself who said--Let wheat and tares grow together until the HARVEST, and who now in the harvest himself thrusts in the sickle of truth to separate these as he did in the "harvest" of the Jewish age. (Matt. 13:30.) His work then, as now, was a separating work, a gathering of the Israelites indeed into harmony with himself, and the separation from them of the great mass whom he never recognized as his kingdom or joint-heirs. Mark that Babylon had long been in existence as an abomination, and had even become a mother of other harlots and abominable systems (all of which bear her name--Babylon) and had been drunken with the blood of the saints and martyrs of Jesus (Rev. 18.), and yet it is not until the time of her complete overthrow that the message is sent by the Lord who is about to destroy her utterly (not reform her), saying, "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not of her plagues." (Rev. 18:4.) We are not ashamed to be the Lord's mouthpieces in this timely but unpopular message: and what timely truth has not been unpopular?
But some may object that the Lord and the Apostles did not call believers out of the Jewish synagogues, but "went into the synagogues" and taught the people there. (Luke 4:15,44; Matt. 4:23; Acts 9:20; 13:5.) Ah yes! The Lord and the Apostles could go into the synagogues, and could teach the people there, for a time, but as they shunned not to declare the whole counsel of God, they soon found little and finally no opportunity to teach the people in the synagogues. (Matt. 10:17; Mark 13:9; John 16:2; Luke 4:28-29; John 9:34.) But could the Lord or the Apostles get into the pulpits of any of the various divisions of Babylon and teach the people? We all know that they could not. In the Protestant Episcopal Church for them to preach from the pulpit and altar would be considered defiling, and they would need to be cleansed and possibly re-consecrated. To get into such office and privilege of teaching the people, they would require the holy Apostolic blessing from three bishops, or at least from one. And none could be found who would dare install either the lowly, untitled Nazarene, or the tent-maker of Tarsus, or any who humbly follow in their footprints.
The system of Babylon is much more thorough than that of the Scribes and Pharisees. Law and custom has so hedged the sheep about, that only the regular shepherds have access to them to feed them. And the "Clergy" has so exalted its office and power, that it can and does keep out all whom God could or does use in feeding to the sheep "meat in due season." Hence the Master, the great Shepherd who bought the sheep, needs now to call his sheep "out," because they cannot be rightly fed while in these man-made systems, as our Brother admits in proposition (5) five.
But this Brother and many others err in supposing that we or the Lord are calling the "little flock" into confusion and beyond the bounds of all authority. Not so; while the nominal human institutions have continually had trouble about their organizations, and have been continually trying to get rightly organized, as the names "Protestant," "Reformed," "United," etc., etc., indicate, the true Church has had no such trouble, but has had a temporary organization all the time. God has this organization under his charge. "The Lord knoweth them that are his," and their "names are written in heaven," and such only who prove unfaithful are ever blotted out. No "wolves" are of that organization and its teachers are the Lord and the Apostles only. They teach by the Word, using the various members of the "body of Christ" in building up and strengthening one another through that Word. All are led of the spirit, and all are priests ministering and sacrificing daily.
Oh no! We want none to come out of this organization, this true tabernacle, in every lively stone of which, God through his spirit operates. Thus seen, we have something much better than the Babylon confusion with its attempted,
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