Methodists

“ The fact that Methodism is Methodism still, in the midst of the turmoil of revolution that is going on in our religious world, and that its former characteristic wildness rather subsides into the airs of sobriety, while the confusion of fanaticism rages in other ranks, where the boast of comparative order was once cried as a badge of honor, would seem to demonstrate, that the great and fundamental principle of government which the Methodists have built upon, hath a conservative power in it worthy to command respect. ”

“ METHODISTS. The original Methodists are the Wesleyans, but already this sect has split up into numerous sections, or "Churches," as they call themselves. The leading sub-divisions will each have a separate notice. The leading idea of Methodism is a revival of religion by a free appeal to the feelings, and the method adopted is an elaborate system of "societies," and preaching the doctrine of "sensible conversion."
The "people called Methodists," or Wesleyans, are the followers of John Wesley, who was born in 1703. He took his degree at Oxford, and was ordained in 1725. ”

“ I just spoke of the Methodists, showing the evil which comes from their false method, and ecclesiastical discipline; they have a fervour of religious emotion, a zeal for the spiritual welfare of neglected white people, which makes them exceedingly useful. ”

“ Turn all your well-born scholars into Methodists, and your half-educated social inferiors into the Church, and you would reverse the present social positions of the established and the nonconforming divines. ”

“ You might as well attempt to reach heaven with your hand; for, blessed be God, such an honour has he put upon the Methodists, that whoever renounces the world and takes up Christ’s cross, and believes and lives the doctrines of Grace, must be stiled a Methodist whether he will or not. ”

“ Comparing the two, we find the following decisions arrived at during the interval between the dates just mentioned.
1. “We believe the design of God, in raising up the preachers called Methodists, is to reform the nation, and, in particular, the Church; to spread scriptural holiness over the land.” [528]
2. “The greatest hindrance to field preaching is to be expected from the rich, or cowardly, or lazy Methodists. But regard them not, neither [Pg 475] stewards, leaders, nor people. ”

“ The ring of Methodism includes many sections: it embraces, amongst others, ordinary Wesleyans, Bryanites, New Connectionists, Primitives, United Free Church men, and Independent Methodists. They can't all be right; but they think they are; and that is enough. They have as yet requested nobody to be responsible for them; and weighing that over well, the fairest plan is to let the creed of each alone—to condemn none, to give all legitimate chance, and permit them to “go on.” Antique simplicity seems to be the virtue of those whom we have now to describe. ”

“ Secondly, it might hurt the Methodistic connection very much, which I for one would not like to injure. They have their faults, and are peculiarly liable to those of hypocrisy, and spiritual ambition, and priestcraft. On the other hand, they do infinite good, carrying religion into classes in society where it would scarce be found to penetrate, did it rely merely upon proof of its doctrines, upon calm reasoning, and upon rational argument. Methodists add a powerful appeal to the feelings and passions ”

“ THE METHODISTS.
The Methodist Society was first founded in 1729. Mr John Wesley and several others, who in 1735 were joined by the celebrated George Whitefield, constituted its first Association. They formed rules for the regulation of their times and studies, for reading the Scriptures, and self-examination; and obtained the name of Methodists from the exact regularity of their lives, and the systematical manner in which all their concerns were conducted. ”

“ There are methodists in business as well as in religion, who have a peculiar happy knack in folding a letter, or in saying How d’ye do, who postpone the main object to some pragmatical theory or foppish punctilio, and who might take for their motto—all for conceit or the world well lost. ”

“ Some of the best elements of our day have been profoundly at work among the Methodists. Many of the denomination have been in the vanguard of the march to better things. But it is fair to the course of Hesperus University, which has sometimes halted, to say that sagacious vigor and a knowledge of the best—τὰ Βέλτιστα—were not in every case the claim to distinction of its Methodist head. ”

“ The Methodists are now as it were a skreen for others. Formerly, if a person was serious, or preached Christ, he was termed a Puritan, now he is a Methodist: But do you go on as you are able to bear it. Opposition shall follow you; without it, be as prudent as you will, your sincerity towards God and love for souls cannot be evidenced. Self, love of praise, and love of the world, must come down. ”

“ Some say they must be sprinkled; others say the water must be poured upon the believer; while others say that immersion is the correct method. The Methodists are very pliable on this point—they give a man a chance to have which method he pleases; their ministers do not know which is right, so they give the sinner the privilege to take which he likes. ”

“ You must not expect Methodists or any other set of people to be perfect. The very fact that they band themselves together for mutual help and encouragement is a confession that they are not, but are trying to follow in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus Christ. ”

“ The Primitive Methodists alone, with the smallest amount of means, have done incalculably more good in fifty years, than the Unitarians, with unlimited supplies of wealth, and all the advantages of learning and position, have done in a hundred and fifty years. We have cast in our lot with the living, working portion of the Church. ”

“ And we may add that amongst the Methodists, the Baptists, and other religious sectaries, but especially among the missionaries of all nations and churches, this class of éloges is continually increasing. Not unfrequently men of fervent natures and of sublime aspirations are thus rescued from oblivion, whilst the great power of such bodies as the Methodists, their growing wealth, and consequent responsibility to public opinion, are pledges that they will soon command all the advantages of colleges and academic refinement ”

“ And ye dinna ken what I mean—that's metaphysics.
—Scotch.
1343 Method will teach you to win time.
—Goethe.
1344 FRIENDS IN NEED. Perhaps one of the most noteworthy characteristics of Methodists is the spirit of clannishness which runs through the whole body. Is any sick, the rest are eager to pray; is any merry, the rest are delighted to sing psalms; and they will not only pray and sing in sympathy, which is comparatively easy, but they are ready to spend, and to be spent, for the brethren to almost any extent. Men may know that they are Methodists from the love they have one to another. ”

“ Methodist preachers sing “sweet syren songs”; they are “new doctors and modern teachers tickling the ears, pleasing the pride, and flattering the vanity of the human mind”; they are “quacks in divinity,” using “unedifying jargon, unscriptural harangues, and false encomiums on the virtue and dignity of man”; they are “flatterers of human nature, sleek divines, downy doctors, velvet mouthed preachers, miserable daubers, and soul deceivers.” ”

“ The Methodists love your big sinners, as proper subjects to work upon—and indeed they have a plentiful harvest—I think what you call flagrancy was never more in fashion. ”

“ Again, Methodism, by its leading doctrines, has a peculiar charm for all those, who have an equal facility in sinning and repenting,—in whom the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,—who have neither fortitude to withstand temptation, nor to silence the admonitions of conscience,—who like the theory of religion better than the practice, and who are willing to indulge in all the raptures of speculative devotion, without being tied down to the dull, literal performance of its duties. ”

“ Neither do we affect to use any particular expressions of Scripture more frequently than others, unless they are such as are more frequently used by the inspired writers themselves. So that it is as gross an error, to place the marks of a Methodist in his words, as in opinions of any sort.
3. Nor do we desire to be distinguished by actions, customs, or usages, of an indifferent nature. Our religion does not lie in doing what God has not enjoined, or abstaining from what he hath not forbidden. It does not lie in the form of our apparel, in the posture of our body, or the covering of our heads ”

“ Seeing, then, that those men can do so much for the progress of religion on whom the goodness of God has bestowed, together with the grace of the faith, great natural talent, let such men, in this most savage conflict of which the Scriptures are now the object, select each of them the branch of study which is best adapted to his circumstances, and endeavor to excel therein, and thus be prepared to repel with effect and credit the assaults on the word of God. ”

“ Nor was this all; its promoters trusted to gain light on the relation of universal Methodism to education, civil government, other Christian bodies, and missionary enterprise at large, and looked for a vast increase in spiritual power and intelligent, enthusiastic activity among the various branches of Methodism, whose gathering together might well draw "the attention of scholars and reformers and thinkers to the whole Methodist history, work, and mission," while a new impulse should be given to every good work, and a more daring purpose of evangelisation kindled. ”

“ But the Methodist was one who had heard the call of God, conscience had been stirred within him, and a new life had created new interests; for Christianity really ennobles a man, gives him self-respect, shows to him a new purpose and business in life, and stirs the spirit, moreover, with a pulse of joy and cheerfulness; hence Methodism created the necessity for meetings and for frequent reciprocations. ”

“ It will be seen that Methodism has inaugurated, really, all the great moral reforms of the last hundred and fifty years. The great missionary movement, which has sent evangelistic agencies into all the earth, had little or no life when Methodism was born. ”

“ The burden of the discourse is to prove that this is so; that religion is compatible with the business of Common Life. This appears, first, because religion, as a science, sets out doctrines easy to be understood by the humblest intellects; and as an art, sets out duties which may be practised simultaneously with all other work. It is the art of being and of doing good: and for this art every profession and calling affords scope and discipline. ”

“ I mean the endeavor to describe the mind and heart of our generation, appraise the significant thought-currents of our time. This would be an attempt to give some description of the chief impulses fermenting in contemporary society, to ask what relation they hold to the Christian principle, and to inquire what attitude toward them our preaching should adopt. If it be true that what is most revealing in any age is its regulative ideas, then what is more valuable for the preacher than to attempt the understanding of his generation through the defining of its ruling concepts? ”

“ Such is the class of discoverers; men who get truth at first hand, truth pertaining either especially to literature, philosophy, politics, religion, or at the same time to each and all of them.
The next class consists of such as organize these ideas, methods, truths, and laws; they concretize the abstract, particularize the general; they apply philosophy to practical purposes, organizing the discoveries of science into a railroad, a mill, a steam-ship, and by their work an idea becomes fact. They organize love into families, justice into a state, piety into a church. ”

“ He places conduct before creed. He long ago took that method of teaching which modern pedagogy approves. He taught religion by the manual method. Instead of saying, as theologians do, first comprehend these doctrines and then you will be able to do them, He says, first do these things, practice My precepts, and they will ere long become plain to you. Men learn religion by doing. Begin to do the right and you will get the reason; get the rule through the example. Deeds are the solvents of doctrines. ”

“ A Methodist is one who loves the Lord his God with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his mind, and with all his strength. God is the joy of his heart, and the desire of his soul, which is continually crying, 'Whom have I in heaven but thee? ”

“ It never interested me very much to look into the church's machinery—I had what seemed much more important and seductive work in planning and carrying out my runaway trips—but in later years I must confess to having been impressed with similarities in Methodism as a religious policy and politics as a business. Methodism considered simply as a religious organization, ought to be described by some one who can study it impartially. ”

“ If I go to live in any country on the face of the earth, I have to be subject to its laws, and if I am a reasonable, intelligent man, I acknowledge the propriety of my being so. If I join the Methodist church, I have a right to be a good Methodist, and to submit to their discipline. ”

“ The order of development is always life, doctrine, morals. The earlier stages of the Christian religion and of Christian experience at any time and in any community is the vital experience and the institutional organization. Doctrines of faith and knowledge presuppose the vital relation, and morals presuppose both, and conduct is the final aim and crown of the whole development. ”

“ They forget that Methodism has for one of its main elements of strength, one of its most effective equipments for moral service, a principle and bond of brotherhood, a family relationship such as belongs to no other Christian Church on earth. ”

“ The disciples of philosophers formed schools, and the adherents of each school constituted a group the members of which were united one with another by the bond of a common intellectual aim and a common conception of life and of the world; and there was also a scientific union between the various groups, the fundamental methods of investigation and lines of thought being the same everywhere. But the object of thought was the discovery of truth by human reason, not the quest of salvation by worship of the divine. ”