iently may be." But the Canons provide that it shall not be the duty of the Bishop to act in the case, unless there be a complaint made to him in writing by the injured party. If such complaint be made, the Bishop may restore him if he think fit, or institute an inquiry into the case according to the rules of the diocese; when in case "of great heinousness of offence" offenders may be proceeded against, to the depriving them of all privileges of Church-membership, according to such rules of court procedure as the General Convention may provide. Thus, the whole matter is taken even more entirely out of the hands of the local body of believers than in the Presbyterian Church, where it first goes to the session. The Methodist Episcopal method, ordains that discipline shall be conducted by the local preacher before the local society, or a select number of them, at his pleasure. If found guilty by a majority vote, the offender is to be expelled by the preacher having charge of the circuit, appeal being allowed the accused to the next Quarterly Conference; the preacher himself having the same right of appeal — if, in his judgment, the majority vote has not been right. It will be necessary to bear in mind, however, that in its practical working, this rule is modified by the fact that the offender may always be tried by a small committee selected by the preacher in charge—if he please to have it so 4. while the lay members of the Quarterly Conference are either directly or indirectly made such by the same preacher; so that the accused is practically tried, in the first instance, by a court appointed solely by the preacher, and, on appeal, by a court in which the preacher's power is still controlling, so far as the representatives from his own locality is concerned; and to which neither the accused, nor the people, have so much as the right of nomination -involving possibilities of monstrous injustice." 1 Prayer Book. Order of Communion. Preliminary note. 2 Canon XLII., Sect. 2. Wilmer's Episcopal Manual, p. 286. 8 Book of Discipline, Part I., Chap. 10, Sect. 4. 4 "The expulsion of Church-members by a vote of the society is as absurd in theory, as it would be ruinous in practice."— Christian Advocate and Journal, Nov. 25, 1840. "I never knew one case conducted by the society. This committee is constituted by the sole will of the preacher in charge." Polity of the M. E. Church, by D. Plumbe, p. 26. 5"Nearly every member of the Quarterly Conference is appointed to that body by the preacher himself, or holds his seat at the preacher's will." Hawley's Congregationalism and Methodism, p. 219. 6 A few years since, a member of the M. E. Church having failed in business, was charged with dishonesty. A committee was appointed to try the case; the accused pleading not guilty 5 How different are all these schemes from the simple, Scriptural, salubrious Congregational way. How can such appeals, in various forms, to an aristocracy, be made consistent with Christ's command to tell it to the Church? And how infinitely more kind and fair and Christ-like, is our method of friendly consideration of the matter, as among family friends, and, if it be needful to go to formal trial, of trial by the whole body of neighbor believers; whose undue bias or prejudice would seem to be well-nigh an impossibility, and by whose good sense the whole difficulty may be settled without troubling remote years or dignitaries. [See Appendix D.] SECTION 6.-Congregationalism claims preeminence over all other systems of Church government, in virtue of its favorable infiuence upon its ministry. It divorces them at once from all official pride. The distinguishing idea of their office is that they are servants and not masters of the Church. They owe their pastorship to the will of Christ, but as expressed by the vote of the membership of the Church; they are liable, at any moment, to owe their removal from it, to the same They can have, from the nature of the case, little or no factitious influence. If they deserve to be honored and loved, they usually will be loved and honored. If not, their official position furnishes them no shield. They stand, and must stand, upon their actual merits. If they show themselves approved unto God, work men that need not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth; cause. The evidence was "common fame." The committee finally decided that "they believed the accused had acted dishonestly, though there was no positive evidence of the fact." On this result the preacher in charge excommunicated the accused. The defendant appealed to the Quarterly Conference. The Presiding Elder ruled that "the opinion of the brethren expressed in the above case was a sufficient verdict, and was actually finding a person guilty according to the Book of Discipline;" whereupon the decision already made was confirmed. A petition was next sent up to the New York Conference, asking a decision on this judgment. No answer was returned the first year. But the second year the matter was referred to a committee who made a report justifying the course which had been pursued; which report was adopted without discussion the report being afterwards withheld from the baffled seeker after justice, on the ground, you might make a bad use of it!" [See Thoughts on some parts of the Discipline of the M. E. Church, by John W. Barber.] See also in the True Wesleyan, 18 Oct 1845, the statement of a case, like this: While a certain appeal to a Quarterly Conference was pending, one of the preachers, discovering "that a majority of the members of the Conference differed in opinion from himself, removed a sufficient number of class-leaders from office, and placed others in their stead, who he knew had the same view with himself," and thus gained a majority vote, all of which, by Methodist rules, was perfectly legal! -- they will, ordinarily, be approved of man, and be esteemed very highly in love for their work's sake. But if not, they can take shelter behind no vote of Presbytery, nor act of Conference, nor Bishop's mandate. Moreover, they are freed from much temptation which inevitably, though often doubtless unconsciously, assails the ministers of the hierarchal churches. When once Pastor of a Congregational Church, such an one is essentially as high in office as he ever can be; for each Congregational Church is on a par of essential dignity with every other. There is no ascending grade of ecclesiastical promotion stretching before him up toward a Bishop's lawn, or an Archbishop's crosier, admonishing him not so much to take heed to the ministry which he has received in the Lord, that he fulfil it,' as to take heed to that moderate, and conservative, and conciliatory course towards those parties in whose hand it is to make great and to make. small in the Church, which may be likely to result in the gratification of that ambition which the hierarchal systems create. Many of the noblest and most truly memorable Divines whose ministrations have adorned the annals of Congregationalism, have been, through life, the pastors of some of the quietest and most unassuming of her country churches.1 Congregationalism favors its Pastors, also, by the independence of position which it secures to them. Albert Barnes could not preach the truth of God as he understood it, and as his people rejoiced to hear it, without being intermeddled with by the Presbytery, on a charge of heresy, and being driven out of the pulpit, and silenced for weary months. An Episcopalian Rector cannot expound the thirty-nine Articles, though his conscience demand it, and his parish desire it never so much, essentially above or below the grade of Churchmanship of his Bishop, without risk of trial, and perhaps suspension and deposition. In the Book of Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church, we read, remember! a Methodist Preacher is to mind every point, great and small, in the Methodist Discipline! "2 and, on the following page, his seven Bishops, in 66 1 William Hubbard and Joseph Dana, lived and died at Ipswich; Joseph Bellamy, at Bethlem, Conn.; Samuel Hopkins, at Newport; Moses Hemmenway, at Wells, Me; Stephen West, at Stockbridge; Nathaniel Emmons, at Franklin; Samuel Niles, at Abington; Charles Backus, at Somers, Conn.; Alonzo Hyde, at Lee; and John Hubbard Church, at Pelham, N. H. Nor should it be forgotten that Richard Salter Storrs still abides at Braintree, Leonard Withington at Newbury, Jacob Ide at Medway, Noah Porter at Farmington, Conn., &c., &c. 2 Book of Discipline, Part I., Chap. 4, Sect. 9. whose hand his ecclesiastical breath is; who can send him to Siberia or Ethiopia, to exercise his ministry, as they please say to him, as the condensation and consummation of all their counsel in regard to his duties as a minister - "Above all, if you labor with us in the Lord's vineyard, it is needful you should do that part of the work which we advise at those times and places which we judge most for his glory!" This is "a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear." 991 - So, also, Congregationalism favors her ministry, above other forms of Church order, in the facilities which she afford them for usefulness. It is an old maxim that the less the harness chafes, the better the beast will draw; and our ministers are left to judge for themselves what field of labor will most befit their abilities. Each knows himself, and when a Church invites his service, he can tell, much better than any remote or stranger Bishop, or Presbytery, whether it is the place for him to work to the best advantage or not. And when his decision is made, there is a freshness and affection about it which peculiarly open the way for usefulness. They have chosen him, and he has chosen them - both of free will. He is their Pastor. They are his flock. They support him. He serves them in Christ's name. Here is no outward interference to awaken jealousies, and confuse the mind. All is natural, and favors the fullest working of the Gospel. If he is faithful to them, and they to him, this affection, so largely facilitating usefulness, may grow stronger through many delightful years. He can say, as did the good Shunamite, "I dwell among mine own people; or as Ruth said to Naomi, "thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried, the Lord do so to me and more also, if aught but death part thee and me." Friendships of years are formed. They know him, and he learns to know them; and they trust each other, and do each other good all the days of their life. Such a life-union, which accords with the genius of our system, is like the marriage relation, which makes home and that is heaven on earth; as much better for the real interests of all than the best itinerant ministry, as marriage is always better than concubinage. Having in the passage of the years followed them, one by one, to the grave, he goes, at last, to lie down by their side. No sight is more 1 Acts xv: 10. " 2 2 2 Kings iv: 13. 8 Ruthi: 16, 17. touching than some of the grave-yards of New England, where, before its Congregationalism became polluted by the invasion of the itinerant element, from another communion, under the shadow of the meeting-house, where all worshiped together, the bodies of Pastor and flock sleep sweetly, side by side, waiting for the resurrection trump. Moreover, Congregationalism is fitted to stimulate its ministry, as no other system can naturally do, toward the highest intellectual and spiritual attainments, and the noblest and broadest influence. The very facts – that they are not honored because of their office merely ; that they are free from Ecclesiastical temptations; that they are left independent of all external advice or control, to be and to do for their people all which they can be and do, tend to stimulate them to the highest possible usefulness. They are thrown, by this very peculiarity of their position, directly upon God and Christ, and the Holy Spirit, for the supply of all their wants, of counsel and sympathy and strength; and, living thus near to God, and accustomed to ask wisdom directly from Him, they get wiser and kindlier answers to their daily inquiries, than ever naturally fall from Prelatical or Presbyterial lips. So, also, the independence of thought which prevails in our churches, and the general intelligence which is stimulated by it, compel the Pastor to wider research and deeper thought, and a higher level of general attainment, in order to retain his position as a servant of the Church, in teaching it, and guiding it, under Christ, in the green pastures and by the still waters of prosperity and piety. SECTION 7. Congregationalism has preeminence over all opposing systems in that its fundamental principles are more favorable than theirs to the promotion of the general cause of Christ. The advancement of that cause unfolds itself especially in three departments; the growth of individual Christians in grace, and the promotion of associated Christian activity by every Church upon the community around it-developing in revivals of religion, and in missionary labors reaching out of itself toward the distant heathen. We have already urged that our system has special fitness under he first of these heads. We have alluded also to the second." |