History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

were necessary for an enduring organization of the various crude elements which Methodism
[9]
gathered from the degraded masses of the English populace." As much has already been conceded
in these pages at least as to the clerical leaders of the great religious revival. Of the three preeminent
ones he alone possessed in a large degree the organizing faculty. But it must be observed that nearly
all the factions in early Methodism with which he had to contend were fomented by inferior men
among the ambitious preachers.
It is safe to conjecture that Wesley could have strengthened himself against all of this class if he
had taken more account of the laity in his councils. It has been found that, in the Conferences he
assembled from 1744 to 1765 and onward, he invited of the preachers whom he would, and allowed
a sitting to any prominent Band leader or member in the place of its meeting of his selection also.
But down to his decease, in 1791, they figure but furtively in any of these consultations. The whole
history of Methodism proves how loyal they have been to the preachers and how conservative of the
methods adopted. What an opportunity it was for a scriptural beginning according to New Testament
precedents. What if he had invited a few prominent laymen of the Societies in London, Bristol,
Newcastle, and Leeds, and so in an enlarging circle as the societies multiplied and the preachers
increased? They would probably have added little light in doctrinal and speculative discussions
which occupied so much of the time of these early Conferences, but as to discipline and local needs,
the Kingswood school and the temporalities generally, would they not have been helpful? Was it
because he had broken away from the Moravian regulations with their apostolical example of
consulting the brethren in all emergencies at Fetter Lane? If these things occurred to him, they were
dismissed as trammels upon his administration. He was providentially directed. Plainly he was so
convinced. But doubts will arise when it is considered that it has no countenance in the methods of
the primitive churches under the guidance of the Apostles, and it was the fruitful source of numerous
divisions in the United Societies after his decease. If the Deed of Declaration had included one
hundred laymen as well as a hundred preachers; eminently prudent, as it was to hold property, a pure
temporality; it is not too much to declare in the light of all the facts of history that Methodism, the
world over, would have been as fully a unit of organization, as it is of doctrine and means of grace.
The proofs of this postulate will appear in the current places. There is no key, however, to the
anomalous conditions, unless it be found in the dictum of Tyerman which is freely accepted:
"Wesley was not a designing man; cunning he had none; he was a man of one idea; his sole aim was
to save souls. This was the philosophy of his life. All his actions had reference to this. He had no
preconceived plans; and hence it is needless to speculate about his motives. The man is best known
[10]
by what he did; not by what philosophers may suspect he thought." His parental relation to his
helpers and the societies determined the bias of his actions, and under its molding influence there
was no need that he should preconceive plans. In him resided the motive power of the whole, and
it needed no invention to adjust the subordinate parts; wheel came to wheel and cog to cog by a kind
of natural selection. And it is not easy to criticize it on the score of efficiency alone, and the system
can be freely condoned during the life of Wesley. Criticism holds only as to the trend of such a
system as developed in the fundamental error of its entailment by the Deed of Declaration.
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