History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

The period from 1784 to 1792 will be carefully considered, a period which marked the growth and
consolidation of a Methodist hierarchy, under much agitation, and final upheaval in the secession
of James O'Kelly and others, with more than one-fifth of the Methodist people. This secession
disclosed to Asbury two weak places in the government, which a subsequent General Conference
strengthened by enacting a rule for expulsion of members or preachers for other reasons than
immorality; namely, "sowing dissensions" and "inveighing against either our doctrine or discipline";
and the deed of settlement for church property placing the title in "the ministers and preachers of said
church at their general conferences." The Council Plan of Asbury was intended to supersede the
assembling of the preachers except in segregated annual conferences; the reasons for its miscarriage,
with the outcome of a Delegated General Conference enacted in 1808, which was the first formal
recognition of the voting power, or the right of suffrage, but confined exclusively to the ministers
in Annual Conference. It will be shown that grave dissatisfaction existed all this time among the
thoughtful laity because they were absolutely ignored as an estate in the Church, but who, for the
most part, silently endured with patient acquiescence, for the sake of doctrines and means of grace
which gave them soul liberty and spiritual peace. The same restive spirit found exhibition among the
ministers in the right of appeal from the appointing power, O'Kelly's objective, and the election of
presiding elders by the Annual Conferences, which had among its advocates a preponderance of the
leading ministers from 1800 to 1820, when the measure was carried by a two-thirds majority in the
General Conference of that memorable year. It brought with it, however, the amazing revelation of
the superiority of the Episcopacy to the General Conference. The bishop-elect, Soule, entered his
virtual veto, while the senior bishop, McKendree, solemnly protested; by indirection the resolution
was suspended, and finally abandoned, and Episcopal prerogative reigned supreme, as exercised by
Wesley and Asbury. It marked its culmination — it also marked its decadence.
A new epoch in the history of governmental Methodism dates from 1820. The effort of Bishop
McKendree to secure the endorsement of the Annual Conferences for the reactionary step of Bishop
Soule and himself opened the discussion of Episcopal prerogatives, and for the first time the
intelligent laity of the Church looked more critically into the Discipline. In April, 1821, the Wesleyan
Repository was issued from Trenton, N. J., by W. S. Stockton, a leading layman of the Church, and
was continued for three years, its columns being open for the polemical study of Church polity; and
lay participation in the discussion took tangible form. The synoptical review of this introductory
chapter is not the place for historical details. The General Conference of 1824 was a red-letter one,
inasmuch as it was called to answer the petitions of the laity for recognition. That answer was in turn
an amazing revelation of exclusive claims for the ministry, and was intended to silence the
membership, as the action of Soule and McKendree was intended to silence the ministry, as to the
modification of the unlimited sway of Episcopal prerogatives. It gave birth to "The Mutual Rights
of the Ministry and Laity of the Methodist Episcopal Church," a monthly publication issued from
Baltimore; and of the Union Societies. The expulsions in various places for reading and circulating
it and for being members of the Union Societies led to a crisis with the Reformers. The preliminary
Convention of its friends in 1827; the delegated Convention of 1828; the formation of The
Associated Methodist Churches, with its culmination in the Convention of 1830; the institution of
The Methodist Protestant Church; its Constitution and Discipline; the growth of the infant Church
under persecutions, and its subsequent history to the present time, — furnish the material for this
work. As necessary to the vindication of its principles parallel notice will be taken of the revived
agitation in the Methodist Episcopal Church; the modifications wrought at least in the administration