History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

METHODIST REFORM
Edward J. Drinkhouse, M.D., D.D.
Volume I
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTORY
The subject in purview — Roots of Methodist Protestant history — Paternalism of Wesley and
Asbury — The growth of the system in England and America — Synoptical outline must cover
Methodist Reform as necessary to a philosophical and logical treatment of the Methodist Protestant
Church — Historical method of this work in a bird's-eye view — The Poll-Deed in England and the
Episcopal organization in America exclusively clerical, responsible for all the divisions of
Methodism — Fundamentals on which the conclusions of this History are based.
The history of the Methodist Protestant Church finds its roots in the personal and paternal
government instituted by John Wesley for the Methodist Societies of Great Britain and perpetuated,
under his example, by Francis Asbury for the Methodist Societies of North America. It shall be my
task to uncover these roots; mark the growth of the anomalous system under the Father and Founder
of Methodism; show how it flowered and brought forth its legitimate fruitage in the Deed of
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Declaration which entailed its principles and sowed the seeds of frequent and disastrous divisions
in the parent body, with a like result for American Methodism from the organization of the
Methodist Episcopal Church.
In pursuance of this historical method and as germane to a history of the Methodist Protestant
Church, — which will soon close the third quarter of a centennial existence as a standing Protest
against ecclesiastical Paternalism, — as much of general Methodist narration in its origin and growth
shall be given as will satisfy the reader without resort to other literary sources. It is a wide field.
D'Aubigne, in his "History of the Reformation," has well observed that "the encroachments of power
form a large portion of all history; the resistance of those whose rights are invaded forms the other
part; and the ecclesiastical power could not escape that intoxication which leads those who are lifted
up to seek to raise themselves still higher. It felt all the influence of this general weakness of human
nature." More forcibly still he declares, in the Preface to his masterful work, that "the History of the
Reformation is altogether distinct from the History of Protestantism. The latter might claim the
attention of Protestants but the history of the Reformation is a book for all Christians, or, rather, for
all mankind." And in accommodation of this language the writer affirms, in justification of the
comprehensive character of this work, that the History of Methodist Reform which it outlines is
something inseparable from and parallel with the History of the Methodist Protestant Church as its
most salient expression. The latter might claim the attention of its members and adherents only; the
former challenges the attention of all Methodists, or, rather, of the Christian world.
It is therefore the History of Methodist Reform that is here synoptically related, as it furnishes the
only philosophical and logical basis for a specific History of the Methodist Protestant Church. It
alone clothes its anatomical structure with fleshly symmetry. The parallel runs farther. Methodist
Reform sustains the same relation to the parental Methodisms of Wesley and Asbury that the