Christopher Rush

“ In the first place, suffer us to beg you will accept of our humble and sincere thanks for your kind services to us when in our infant state, trusting that the Great Head of the Church, the all-wise and gracious God, has, and will continue to reward you for your labours among us, having made you the instruments of bringing us from darkness to light, and from the power of sin and Satan, to Him, the true and living God. ”

“ There are at this time various societies and congregations of coloured people, in different places, who have been collected and raised under our ministerial labours, and who have erected and built themselves houses for the public worship of God, wherein they assemble separate from the white people for their religious devotions; and also, there are a considerable number of pious coloured men, whom we have reason to believe are qualified to preach the word of life and salvation, and to be useful in their labours among the people of their own colour ”

“ When the Bishop of a church was dead, all the people of that church met together in one place to elect a new Bishop—so Sabinus was elected Bishop of Emerita, by the suffrage of all the brotherhood, which was also the custom throughout all Africa, for the Bishop to be chosen in the presence of the people, and so Fabianus was chosen to be Bishop of Rome by all the brethren, who were met together in one place to that very end. ”

“ We view it as a subject of great importance to the coloured people, demanding from us our friendly patronage and pastoral attention, so far as circumstances willadmit of it. We have always acted upon the principle toward the people of colour, of doing them all the good that was in our power, in promoting and improving their moral and religious instruction and character, and in protecting and defending them in all their just rights and privileges, and more particularly we have, as instruments under God, laboured much for the conversion and salvation of their souls. ”

“ We now proceed, according to promise in the Preface, to give a view of our thoughts and knowledge of Church Government, as an Episcopal Church; showing, for the information and satisfaction of the ministers and members of our connection especially, and the public in general, that our present mode of Church Government, as an Episcopal Church, is established upon as good a basis as any other church, according to the custom of ancient Christians, and the expressions in Scripture of some of the Apostles of our Lord. ”

“ Here, in an assembly of sixty-six Pastors, men of approved fidelity and gravity, who had stood the fiery trials of some of the severest persecutions ever known, and who had testified their love to the Lord Jesus Christ; who appear not to have been wanting in any of the essential characteristics of Godliness, a question is brought, not whether infants should be baptized at all, none contradicted this, but whether it is right to baptize them immediately or on the eighth day; to a man, they all determined to baptize them immediately. ”

“ The Bishop, or the Elder appointed by him, to preside in the Conference, with an advisory committee of three, chosen by the Conference, to make out the stations and appointments of the Preachers.
4. All the other proceedings of the Conference to be as conformable to the rules and regulations generally followed in our Conferences, as circumstances will admit of.
5. Their Discipline, doctrines, government, and rules of order in all things, to be as conformable to ours as possible, so as to secure to themselves their own peculiar rights and privileges. ”

“ But painful as this consideration is, we cannot approve of the course which our coloured brethren have taken in separating themselves from us, and forming themselves under a distinct title, as an independent body. This course is the more to be regretted, because it places them in a position which the constitution of our church cannot cover. Your committee conceive that the primary object contemplated in the memorial and accompanying documents, lies beyond the limits of the constitutional powers of an annual Conference. ”

“ It is provided and declared that in all cases when houses are to be built, hired, or enjoyed gratis, for the purpose of Divine worship, wherein regular collections of money are to be made in any place within the limits of the Incorporation of each church, a fair representation of the same shall be made at the quarterly Conference, from time to time, by the party intending so to build, hire, or enjoy gratis for the aforesaid purpose, in order that there may be always a clear understanding between the two bodies of Trustees relative to the revenue arising from such establishments. ”

“ We learn from what Cyprian writes to Fidus, as to the case of infants, of whom you said that they ought not to be baptized within the second or third day after their birth, and that the ancient law of circumcision should be so far repeated that they should not be baptized till the eighth day. We were all of different opinion. The mercy and grace of God we all judged, should be denied to none; for if the Lord says in his Gospel, The Son of Man has not come to destroy men's lives, but, to save them, how ought we to do our utmost, as far as in us lies, that no soul be lost. ”

“ And it is provided and agreed, that the said Elder may claim, for himself and his white brethren, and shall have and possess a right to preach once on every Sunday, and once during the course of the week (and no more when there is a sufficient number of African Preachers) in any or all the houses set apart and built, or to be set apart and built, by the aforesaid Trustees or their successors, of the said African Zion Church, in the city and suburbs of New York. ”

“ Spiritual circumcision should not be impeded by that which is carnal—if even the foullest offenders, when they afterwards believe, remission of sins be granted, and none is prohibited from baptism and grace, how much more should an infant be admitted, who, just born, hath not sinned at all, except that being carnally born according to Adam, he hath contracted the contagion of ancient death in his first birth, who approaches to remission of sins more easily, because not his own actual guilt, but that of another is remitted. ”

“ The preachers of our Zion Church, (except the said George White,) believing that Bishop Allen had acted very unkind towards the church, by sending an Elder in- to this city, with intention to establish a third society of African Methodists, thereby taking the advantage of our present necessity, they met together and resolved not to preach for them, nor allow them to preach for us. ”

“ James Smith was appointed to the charge of Zion Church, in New-York; Leven Smith, to Newark; William Carman was continued on Long Island; James Anderson, to Middletown; and Christopher Rush was appointed a Missionary. The society at New-Haven, being dissatisfied, because the Elder had excluded from them a man who had been guilty of a gross crime, and whom they thought ought not to be expelled, because he was the only man of usefulness among them, were left to determine whether they would consent to be governed by the Rules of Discipline, and be continued in the connexion. ”

“ The Preachers of Zion Church being unpleasantly exercised in mind about a resolution of the white Methodist Preachers in one of their Conferences, relative to a Local Preachers' Conference, they had previously appointed a meeting, and had requested our Trustees to meet them and council each party in regard to what they had heard, and the appointed time happened to be on the night of the same day that the Trustees met the aforesaid Preachers at Peter Williams', in Liberty Street ”

“ It is believed that in these respects we have cause to charge ourselves with too little attention to their spiritual interest, and as though they were an inferior class of beings, they have too often been treated with unwarrantable neglect. It is to be feared that their loss of confidence in us, and the consequent measures which many of them have pursued, may, in a considerable degree, be traced to our neglect as the cause. ”

“ For this purpose they called a meeting of some of the most respectable and intelligent religious coloured men of the city, in order to consult upon the best method to proceed in this great undertaking, for coloured people in the city of New-York. ”

“ The work of the Lord prospered greatly in the church, and the number of members of the Society and of the congregation, continued rapidly to increase, so that the enemy of souls began to be angry at the prosperity of the church, and sought opportunities to hinder her progress. ”

“ He also advised them to pursue or adopt the plan, as it would be a case of real necessity with them, being an African Methodist Church without an Elder, and he not having a sufficient number of Elders connected with him at present to perform ordination. A vote was then taken, in order to know whether the official brethren approved of the measure and were ready to act upon it; which was carried in favour of being ready. They then proceeded to nominate Abraham Thompson and James Varick, to be recommended to the Society as persons to be elected to the office of Elders in the Church. ”

“ Some of the brethren (Abraham Thompson in particular,) were much displeased about requesting aid from a white Bishop in preference to Bishop Allen, who was yet in the city. The reason for so doing was mentioned, viz., that our brethren thought he had acted very unfriendly in coming to this city to establish a separate Society, while we were in union with him, which would tend to divide families and friends, and thereby cause very unpleasant feelings. ”

“ The time that was agreed upon for the white Elder to preach in our Zion Church, was on Sunday afternoon and on Wednesday night of every week, except on the days of the administration of the Lord's Supper, then his appointment was on Sunday morning, and was agreed upon to be the second Sunday of every month, because the first Sunday in the month was the time for administering the Sacrament in his own church ”

“ Many Preachers have been raised up among them, who have been very useful in a located state; but they have hitherto been confined; they have had no opportunities to travel, being generally poor men, and having no provision made for them to go forth and dispense the Word of Life to their brethren, their usefulness has been greatly hindered, and their coloured brethren have been deprived of those blessings which Almighty God might have designed to grant through their instrumentality. ”

“ It may not be amiss to state here, that about this time our new house was finished, and on Sunday, the 18th March, 1821, it was considered consecrated, although not in the usual form, because we had been holding meetings in it all the time from the time the floor was laid. ”

“ About this time there were several places opened where our Preachers might have formed societies, or taken the charge of those already formed; but they, being unaccustomed to the work of forming societies, and being not yet fully organized as a society, they were slow in their movements, and some of them complained of the want of money as a hindrance to their travelling ”

“ James Dubois and Thompson Price, to build a house fifty-five feet wide and seventy feet long, of stone, for the sum of eleven thousand five hundred dollars. On the 16th of July, 1819, the Trustees agreed to commence building the foundation around the old house, which was done and carried up nearly to the water table, except the front; but in consequence of the want of money they were obliged to stop the work, and agreed with the builders to cover up the walls, hoping to be able by the following spring to proceed. ”

“ The Trustees being informed that they could not hold meetings in the Circus any longer, were now obliged to turn their attention towards going home and holding meetings within the walls of the new building, which were at this time a little more than half up and the floor beams laid, so that by laying down planks on the beams and making temporary seats, some hundreds might be accommodated. ”

“ The next to be noticed is an Elder and his duty; but, as we find him so nearly like our present mode, we judge it needless to say much on that point, only that he was the same in order, or ordination, but not in degree with a Bishop, because he is not so advanced to that office by the suffrage of the church. We will, therefore, only transcribe one verse from Lord King:
"The Presbyters ruled in those churches to which they belonged ”