Creeds Of Christendom With A History And Critical Notes

The American Methodists have three classes of doctrinal standards.

1. The Twenty-five Articles of Religion. [1692] They were prepared by John Wesley, from the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England (together with an abridgment of the Book of Common Prayer), for the American Methodists, and were adopted by the Conference in Baltimore, 1784, with the exception of Article XXIII., which recognizes the United States as 'a sovereign and independent nation,' and which was adopted in 1804. These articles are now unalterably fixed, and can neither be revoked nor changed. [1693]

2. John Wesley's Sermons and Notes on the New Testament. They are legally binding only on the British Wesleyans, but they are in fact as highly esteemed and as much used by American Methodists, and constitute the life of the denomination. When eighty-one years of age (Feb.28, 1784), Wesley, in his famous Deed of Declaration, which is called the Magna Charta of Methodism, bequeathed the property and government of all his chapels in the United Kingdom (then 359 in number) to the 'Legal Hundred,' i.e., a conference of one hundred of his traveling preachers and their successors, on condition that they should accept as their basis of doctrine his Notes on the New Testament and the four volumes of Sermons which had been published by him or in his name in or before 1771. [1694] These sermons are fifty-eight in number, and cover the common faith and duties of Christians, [1695] but contain at the same time the doctrines which constitute the distinctive creed of Methodism. [1696] The Notes on the New Testament are for the most part a popular version of Bengel's Gnomon.

3. The Book of Discipline and several Catechisms, one published in 1852, another in 1868 (by Dr. Nast), are at least secondary standards for the American Methodists.

The distinctive features of the Methodist creed are not logically formulated, like those of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches. It allows a liberal margin for further theological development. John Wesley, though himself an able logician and dialectician, sought Christianity more in practical principles and sanctified affections than in orthodox formulas, and laid greater stress on the oecumenical consensus which unites than on the sectarian dissensus which divides the Christians. The General Rules, or recognized terms of membership, for the origina1 Methodist 'societies' (not churches), are ethical and practical, and contain not a single article of doctrine. They require 'a desire to flee the wrath to come and be saved from sin,' and to avoid certain specific vices.

Nevertheless Methodists claim to have more doctrinal harmony than many denominations which impose a minute creed. There is a Methodist system of doctrine and a Methodist theology, however elastic they may be. But there is a difference of opinion among their standard writers as to the degree of originality and completeness of this system and its relation to other confessions. We may distinguish an American and an English view on the subject.

An ingenious attempt has recently been made to raise the Methodist creed to the importance and dignity of a fourth confession or symbolical system alongside of the Roman Catholic, the Lutheran, and the Calvinistic, and far above them. According to Dr. Warren, Catholicism makes salvation dependent upon a meritorious co-operation of man with God, and is essentially pagan; Calvinism makes salvation depend exclusively on the eternal decree and free grace of God, and views Christianity from the stand-point of the Old Testament; Lutheranism derives salvation from the personal relation of man to the means of grace (the Word and Sacraments), and views Christianity from the stand-point of justification by faith alone; Methodism makes salvation exclusively dependent upon man's own free relation to the illuminating, renewing, and sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit, and represents the stand-point of Christian perfection. Calvin retains the Christians under the dispensation of the Father, Luther under the dispensation of the Son, Wesley leads them into the dispensation of the Spirit. The first confines salvation to the favorite number of the elect; the second binds it to the baptismal font, the altar, and the pulpit; the third offers it freely to all. Calvin's ideal Christian is a servant of God, Luther's a child of God, Wesley's a perfect man in the full stature of Christ. [1697]

English Methodists claim for their system a humbler position, and represent it, in accordance with the intention of the founders, as a liberal evangelical modification of the Anglican creed, with some original doctrines to which they attach great importance. [1698]