mises its dignity and deprives it of authority in its patronizing endeavors to rectify the scandal of Methodistic illegitimacy.

Aside from this example of the weakness of his old age, John Wesley is, in the estimation of Churchman, a decisive authority against the modern ecclesiastical pretensions of Methodism. The Wilberforces in their biography of their father (vol. i, p. 248) say, "Nor were any of his preachers suffered during his lifetime to attempt to administer the sacraments of his Church." And Dr. Pusey (Letter to the Bishop of Oxford, p. 151) declares that "Wesley reluctantly took the step of ordaining at all, and to the last he refused, in the strongest terms, his consent that those thus ordained should take upon them to administer the sacraments. He felt that it exceeded his powers, and so inhibited it, however it might diminish the numbers of the Society he had founded." Any man who knows Wesley's recorded opinions knows that these statements are directly contradictory of them, and are equally contradictory of the facts respecting his ordinations. He ordained twenty or more of his itinerants, some for America, some for Scotland, some for England. He gave them certificates of ordination which expressly record that they were authorized by him "to administer the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, according to the usages of the Church of England." Good old Henry Moore, Wesley's biographer, was thus ordained by him, and we have in his own autobiography (p. 134, Am. edition) a copy of the certificate containing these words. It is well known, too, that these ordained men did administer the sacraments during Wesley's life; their ordination would have been preposterous if it was not for this very purpose. After his death they supplied the denomination as far as they could with the sacraments. The seven years' controversy which followed his death, and shook the denomination to its foundations, related mostly to the demand of the people for the sacraments from their own preachers generally, and resulted in the concession of this claim. Wesley wished to conform to the Church as far as he possibly could without essential harm to the societies which he had providentially founded. He persuaded them fervently to the last to attend the Church and receive the sacraments at her altars. But in cases where his arguments could not prevail, where his people were mostly Dissenters, (and a ma

jority of them were in his latter years,) or in Scotland and America, where the Establishment could not be an objection, he supplied them with the sacraments by the hands of his own ordained itinerants. He had read the "Irenicum 99 of Bishop Stillingfleet, and "The Primitive Church" of Lord King, and tells us himself that they convinced him of the essential parity of bishops and presbyters in "order,” and of the original right of the latter to ordain. He practically claimed this right in behalf of his societies, though he prudently waived it whenever its exercise was not necessary.

Our cotemporary, "The American Quarterly Church Review" has shown more zeal for the reclamation of Methodism than any other cis-Atlantic periodical. It has frequently discussed the peculiar position of the denomination and the inestimable advantages which would accrue from its reunion with "the Church." Its temper is generally good in these discussions, and its pleas are evidently sincere, though marred by errors which can be defended, as conscientious, only on the charitable ground of inaccurate information. In an article entitled "Wesley on Separation from the Church," in its number for last April, occur some such errors which we are compelled to correct, and which will require unusual charity from the reader. For example, the reviewer gives the following citation from Wesley to show his sound Churchmanship:

As to my own judgment, I still believe the episcopal form of Church government to be scriptural and apostolical. I mean, well agreeing with the practice and writings of the apostles.

Now read the whole of the passage of which this is but the beginning; here it is:

As to my own judgment, I still believe the episcopal form of Church government to be scriptural and apostolical. I mean, well agreeing with the practice and writings of the apostles. But that it is prescribed in Scripture I do not believe. This opinion, which I once zealously espoused, I have been heartily ashamed of ever since I read Bishop Stillingfleet's "Irenicum." I think he has unanswerably proved, that neither Christ nor his apostles prescribe any particular form of Church government; and that the plea of divine right for diocesan episcopacy was never heard of in the primitive Church.- Wesley's Works, vol. vii, p. 284.

Does not our confrere need a considerable stretch of our brotherly forbearance in this instance? He gives two sentences

of a paragraph; they seem to be entirely concessive of the orthodox Church claim for episcopacy; but they are in fact but a preliminary apology for the most outright and downright protest against that claim! Coleridge said that a partial truth is the worst lie, for the degree of truth in it gives a hypocritical disguise to its essential falsehood. We will not accuse the reviewer of lying, for we know how good men, in a case like this, see usually only what they wish to see. An error like this, however, on the very second page of the article, must impair the whole authority of the writer.

This remarkable declaration of Wesley was written thirtyfive years before his death. It puts, therefore, a conclusive quietus on the charge that his alleged heresies on this and kindred subjects were the effect of the imbecility of his old age. He showed no "imbecility" in his old age, nor any mental decay, except in his last one or two years; his opinions were never really more authoritative than about five years before his death, for they were then in their richest maturity; but be this old apology for him worth what it may, this bold declaration of his opinion was made when, in his fifty-third year, he stood out before the world as clear and sharp a thinker as could then be found in all England. It saves also the credit of the great little Welshman, who has been made the scapegoat of Wesley's heresies on the subject, for he had not yet heard of Dr. Coke; he did not know there was such a man in the realm till twenty years later.

In fine, Wesley early and manfully settled, in his own mind, this whole question of Church government, and settled it by candid and elaborate study of the Holy Scriptures and of the best Anglican Church authorities. The above citation is but an example of opinions which are interspersed through his abundant writings. His strong Saxon common-sense scattered to the winds the whole brood of traditionary nonsense and bigoted puerilities which had gathered about the question. "No particular form of Church government" is prescribed by the Scriptures was the summary result of his studies. The Scriptures exemplify but do not enjoin any one form; the apostles copied chiefly from the synagogue the outlines of the primitive Church system, as Stillingfleet and King show; the synagogue orders and rites were not of divine prescription;

they belonged not to the Levitical ritual. The synagogue is not mentioned in the writings of Moses. The orders of deacons and elders (presbyters) were derived from the synagogue; they were not orders of the priesthood or of the temple service, they were conveniences of the provincial religious assemblies. "Ordination," now so mysteriously sacred to Papists and Churchmen, was a formulary of the synagogue and of the civil or municipal offices of the Jews. The divinely appointed priesthood knew nothing of ordination by imposition of hands. What, then, could the sound common-sense of Wesley infer? What but that Church polity is only a matter of devout expediency, and can be varied according to the ever-varying necessities of mankind; that the system which is most expedient, most utilitarian, is the most divine? Such is the real solution of the whole question as it respects John Wesley and Methodism, such the explanation of his frequent and emphatic declarations on the subject. In his earliest writings he shows the lingering prejudices of his early education; but in his ripening manhood he corrects them, and through the long remainder of his life is uniformly free from all "High Church" bigotry. Thirty years before his death he thus replies to charges against him and his people:

"They maintain it lawful for men to preach who are not episcopally ordained." In some circumstances they do; particularly where thousands are rushing into destruction, and those who are ordained and appointed to watch over them neither care for nor know how to help them. "But hereby they contradict the Twenty-third Article, to which they have subscribed." They subscribed it in the simplicity of their hearts, when they firmly believed none but episcopal ordination valid. But Bishop Stillingfleet has since fully convinced them this was an entire mistake. "They disclaim all right in the bishops to control them in any of these matters." In every point of an indifferent nature they obey the bishops, for conscience' sake; but they think episcopal authority cannot reverse. what is fixed by divine authority. Yet they are determined never to renounce communion with the Church, unless they are cast out headlong. Wesley's Works, vol. vii, p. 301.

It is true, then, that Wesley did not wish his people to leave the Church, as the reviewer contends, but it is not true that he believed in the reviewer's notion of Church rites and authorities. Alluding to the essential equality or rather identity of bishops and presbyters in the primitive Church, he affirms:

I firmly believe I am a scriptural episcopos [bishop] as much as any man in England or in Europe. For the uninterrupted succession I know to be a fable, which no man ever did or can prove.— Wey's Works, vol. vii, p. 312.

In these remarks and citations we have answered whole pages of the reviewer; but let us proceed with his partial quotations, exemplifying Coleridge's opinion of the "worst lie," though protesting meanwhile, with whatever difficulty, our charitable construction of the reviewer's motive. Here is an example:

In respect to the Methodists in America, he says: "Whatever then is done, either in America or Scotland, is no separation from the Church of England. I have no thought of this; I have many objections against it."-Review, p. 73.

The italics of Wesley's words are the reviewer's. The reader perceives that the reviewer here quotes Wesley as against the separation from the Church, of "Methodists in America" after their organization by his own authority. What now was the real intent of Wesley in this passage? It is a part of a defense of his organization of American Methodism and his ordination of preachers for America and Scotland. And what is the defense? Why, that as there was no Church of England in America (for it was after the Revolution) nor any in Scotland, (none at least to interfere with these proceedings,) it was no secession from the Church of England for those portions of his people to have a separate or independent existence. And yet the reviewer quotes him to show that "Methodists in America" should not be separate and independent, but should come repentantly back to "the Church." Here are Wesley's real words; they need no further comment:

After Dr. Coke's return from America many of our friends begged I would consider the case of Scotland, where we had been laboring so many years, and had seen so little fruit of our labors. Multitudes indeed have set out well, but they were soon turned out of the way; chiefly by their ministers either disputing against the truth, or refusing to admit them to the Lord's Supper, yea, or to baptize their children unless they would promise to have no fellowship with the Methodists. Many who did so soon lost all they had gained, and became more the children of hell than before. To prevent this, I at length consented to take the same step with regard to Scotland which I had done with regard to America. But this is not a separation from the Church at all. Not from the