THE SEMI-ANGLICAN DOCTRINES.
The Twenty-five Articles represent the doctrines which Methodism holds in common with other evangelical Churches, especially with the Church of England. They are an abridgment of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, with a view to simplify and to liberalize them. Wesley omitted the political articles, which apply only to England, and those articles which are strongly Augustinian, especially Article 17, of Predestination (which teaches unconditional election to salvation and the perseverance of the elect), Art.13, of Works before Justification (which are said to have the nature of sin), and Art.8 (which indorses the three Creeds). On the other hand, Art.10, of Free Will, which teaches (with Augustine, Luther, and Calvin) the natural inability of man to do good works without the grace of God, is literally retained (Meth. Art.8).
Minor doctrinal changes were made in Art 2 (Art.2), where the clauses 'begotten from everlasting of the Father,' and 'of her [the Virgin's] substance,' are omitted (either as doubtful or lying outside of a creed); in Art.9 (7), where the last clauses, which affirm the continuance of original sin in the regenerate, are left out (as inconsistent with Wesley's view of perfection); in Art.16 (12), where 'sin after justification' is substituted for 'sin after baptism' (to avoid the doctrine of baptismal regeneration); in Art.25 (16), of the Sacraments, where the words 'sure witnesses and effectual,' before 'signs of grace,' are stricken out (which betrays a lowering of the doctrine of the Sacraments); in Art.34 (22), where 'traditions of the Church' are changed into 'Rites and Ceremonies.'
These omissions and changes are significant, and entirely consistent with Methodism, but they are negative rather than positive. Wesley eliminated the latent Calvinism from the Thirty-nine Articles, but did not put in his Arminianism, nor his peculiar doctrines of the Witness of the Spirit and Christian Perfection, leaving them to be derived from other documents of his own composition.
THE ARMINIAN DOCTRINES.
The five points in which Arminius differed from the Calvinistic system are clearly and prominently brought out in Wesley's writings, though mostly in the form of popular and practical exposition and exhortation. He put the name of Arminius on his periodical organ, and struck the keynote to the Arminian tone of Methodist preaching. The Arminian features of Methodism are, freedom of the will (taken in the sense of liberum arbitrium, or power of contrary choice) as necessary to responsibility; self-limitation of divine sovereignty in its exercise and dealings with free agents; foreknowledge as preceding and conditioning foreordination; universality of redemption; resistibility of divine grace; possibility of total and final apostasy from the state of regeneration and sanctification.
Calvinism and Methodism agree in teaching man's salvation by God's free grace, in opposition to Pelagianism and Semipelagianism. But Calvinism traces salvation to the eternal purpose of God, and confines it to the elect; Methodism makes it dependent on man's free acceptance of that grace which is offered alike to all and on the same terms. Calvinism emphasizes the divine side, Methodism the human. Herein Methodism entirely agrees with Arminianism, and is even more emphatically opposed to the doctrines of absolute predestination, limited atonement, and the perseverance of saints than Arminius was, who left the last point undecided.
Wesley began the thunder against the imaginary horrors and blasphemies of Calvinism which has since resounded from innumerable Methodist pulpits. He defines predestination to be 'an eternal, unchangeable, irresistible decree of God, by virtue of which one part of mankind are infallibly saved, and the rest infallibly damned; it being impossible that any of the former should be damned, or that any of the latter should be saved;' and then he goes on to show that this doctrine makes all preaching useless; that it makes void the ordinance of God; that it tends directly to destroy holiness, meekness, and love, the comfort and happiness of religion, zeal for good works, and the whole Christian revelation; that it turns God into a hypocrite and deceiver; that it overturns his justice, mercy, and truth, and represents him 'as worse than the devil, more false, more cruel, and more unjust.' 'This,' he says, 'is the blasphemy clearly contained in the horrible decree of predestination, and for this I abhor it (however I love the persons who assert it).' To this decree he sets over the other decree, 'I will set before the sons of men life and death, blessing and cursing; and the soul that chooseth life shall live, as the soul that chooseth death shall die.' The elect are all those who 'suffer Christ to make them alive.'
The vehemence of this opposition to the doctrine of predestination must be explained in part from the subjective and emotional nature of Methodist piety, which exposes it much more to an antinomian abuse of this doctrine than is the case with the calm intellectual tendency, of Calvinism.
On the other hand, however, the 'evangelical' Arminianism of Wesley, as it is called, differs from the Dutch Arminianism, as developed by Episcopius and Limborch, and inclines as much towards Augustinianism as Arminianism inclines towards Pelagianism. In this respect it resembles somewhat the Lutheran anthropology of the Formula of Concord, though it differs altogether from its christology and sacramentalism.
1. Methodism holds a much stronger view of original sin than Arminianism, and regards it not simply as a disease or weakness, but as a total depravity that unfits man altogether for co-operation with the grace of God towards conversion. Wesley, Fletcher, and Watson describe this natural corruption in consequence of Adam's fall in the darkest colors, almost surpassing the descriptions of Augustine, Luther, and Calvin; but they deny the personal responsibility of Adam's posterity for his fall or the doctrine of original guilt; and herein they agree with the Arminians and the Quakers.
2. Methodism teaches the freedom of will as a gift of prevenient grace, which is given to every man as a check and antidote to original sin; while Arminianism, with its milder view of the fall, allows man a certain freedom of will in a weakened state as an inherent and inherited power of nature.
3. Methodism lays greater stress on the subjective experience of conversion and regeneration. Its preaching is essentially radical evangelistic revival preaching, which rouses the sinner to a sense of his danger, and the paramount necessity of an immediate, sudden, and radical change of heart and life.
THE ORIGINAL DOCTRINES OF METHODISM.
To these modifications of Arminianism must be added a few doctrines which Methodism claims as its own contributions to the better understanding of the Christian system.
1. The doctrine of the universality of divine grace, not only in its intention, but in its actual offer. Herein Methodism resembles the Quaker doctrine of universal light. It is assumed -- on the ground of Paul's parallel between the first and second Adam (Rom. v.) -- that all men are born into an order of saving grace, as well as into an order of sin. Adam brought a universal seed of death, but Christ brought a universal seed of life, which is available for all who do not reject it. For by virtue of the universal atonement, man, though born in sin, is held guiltless until he arrives at the point of personal responsibility.
While Romanism and Lutheranism save those only who are brought into contact with the Church and the Sacraments, Calvinism those only who are elect from eternity, Methodism brings the opportunity of salvation to all men in this present life, though in different forms and degrees, so that they are actually saved if they do not incur the guilt of rejecting salvation by unbelief. Hence all children are saved if they die before they commit actual sin. Though born in sin, they are not held guilty before the age of responsible agency. They are saved by the same power of the universal atonement which saves adults; though there is a difference of opinion as to the regeneration of infants before death. On the same ground all heathen may be saved who do not neglect their opportunities. Ability and opportunity are the measure of responsibility, and God requires no more from man than he empowers him to perform. Christ's atonement covers the deficiency of ability in the case of infants, and the deficiency of opportunity in the case of the heathen.
Fletcher distinguishes three dispensations in this general economy of grace: the dispensation of the Father, embracing the heathen and Mohammedans, who know God only from his general revelation in nature, providence, and the conscience; the dispensation of the Son, for those who live within the limits of Christendom and the reach of the gospel; and the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, for those who have an experimental knowledge of the regenerating and sanctifying Spirit. Wesley, Watson, and Pope teach essentially the same view of the universality of grace.
2. The next distinctive doctrine of Methodism is the Witness of the Spirit or the assurance of salvation (Rom. viii.15, 16). It is a double and concurrent witness of God's Spirit and of our spirit concerning our justification. The former is objective and divine, and antecedes; the latter is subjective and human, and follows. The Holy Spirit bears testimony to our spirit that by faith we are the children of God. This testimony is immediate and direct, and follows the work of justification and regeneration. On the ground of this testimony the believer feels assured of his present acceptance with God, and has a hope of his final salvation, but he is at the same time guarded against carnal security by the fear of a total and final fall from grace. Hence there are so many backsliders, who constitute a special class among Methodists.
Herein the Methodist doctrine differs from the Calvinistic doctrine of assurance which is based, not on subjective feeling, but on the divine promises and the unchangeable decree of God's election, and which covers not only the present state, but the whole process to its final completion, conditioned by the perseverance of saints as the final test of genuine conversion.
3. The last and crowning doctrine of Methodism, in which the Quakers likewise preceded it, is Perfectionism. It is regarded as a mighty stimulus to progressive holiness, and forms the counterpart of the doctrine of apostasy, which acts as a warning against backsliding. It is derived from such passages as Matt. v.48; Phil. iii.15; Heb. vi.1; x.14; 1 John iii.6; v.18. Methodist perfection is not a sinless perfection or faultlessness, which Wesley denied, but a sort of imperfect perfection, from which it is possible to fall again temporarily or forever. It is entire sanctification or perfect love (1 John ii.5; iv.12), which every Christian may and ought to attain in this present life. From this state all voluntary transgressions or sinful volitions are excluded, though involuntary infirmities may and do remain; in this state all the normal qualities are possessed and enjoyed in their fullness. As to the attainment of perfection, it comes according to the prevailing view from gradual growth in grace, according to others by a special act of faith.
