This address was replied to the January following, 1832, by a formal message from the King, from which I extract the following sentences:—

The representations which have at different times been made to His Majesty and his Royal predecessors of the prejudice sustained by his faithful subjects in Upper Canada, from the appropriation of the clergy reserves, have engaged His Majesty's most attentive consideration.... It has, therefore, been with peculiar satisfaction that, in his inquiries into this subject, His Majesty has found that the changes sought for by so large a portion of the inhabitants of Upper Canada, may be carried into effect without sacrificing the just claims of the established Churches of England and Scotland.... His Majesty, therefore, invites the House of Assembly of Upper Canada to consider how the powers given the Provincial Legislature by the Constitutional Act to vary or repeal this part of its provisions, can be called into exercise most advantageously, for the spiritual and temporal interests of His Majesty's faithful subjects in the Province.

It will be seen that the Address to the Crown and reply, above quoted, contemplated the application of no part of the proceeds of the clergy lands for the support of the clergy of any religious persuasion, but the application of the whole to the promotion of education, and in aid of erecting places of worship. I do not make these references to advocate this view of the question, but to show that the Crown has long since assented to the alienation of the whole of the proceeds of the reserves from the support of the clergy of any Church, should the Canadian Legislature think proper to do so, and that the Church of Scotland in Upper Canada agreed with the other religious persuasions, and the great majority of the Canadian people, in the advocacy of such an alienation of said reserves. The same parties cannot now object on constitutional and moral grounds to what they heretofore advocated on those same grounds.

9. It has, however, been alleged that the people of Canada have acquiesced in the provisions of the Imperial Act, and are satisfied with it. At the time of passing the Imperial Act, in 1840, and down to within the last two years, the discussion of questions relating to the organization and system of government itself occupied the attention of the public mind in Canada; but no sooner was the public mind set at rest on those paramount and fundamental questions, than the Canadian people demanded the restoration of their rights on the question of the clergy reserves. What they have felt for two years, and often and strongly spoken, through the local press and at the hustings, they now speak in the ears of the Sovereign of the Imperial Parliament. That there must be deep and general dissatisfaction in Canada on this subject, will appear from the following circumstances: (1) The Imperial Act infringes the rights, and contravenes the wishes of the Canadian people; (2) It inflicts an injustice and wrong upon the great majority of the religious persuasions in that country, where the "convictions of nine-tenths" or rather ninety-nine one-hundredths, of the inhabitants are in favour of "equal rights upon equal conditions," among all classes and persuasions; (3) The Legislative Assembly, by a majority of 51 to 20, declare that the Imperial Act, "so far from settling this long agitated question, has left it to be the subject of renewed and increased public discontent;" (4) The comparative silence of the Wesleyan body—the oldest, the most numerous, and the most unjustly treated, of all the excluded denominations—is expressive and ominous. Its representatives, having proceeded to England in 1840, remonstrated against this Bill, then before Parliament; they sought the assent of Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies to be heard at the Bar of the House of Commons against it, and having been refused, they presented to him, July 27th, 1840, a most earnest remonstrance against the Bill. On the Bill becoming law, they silently submitted, and on grounds which were explained, a few months since, by the official organ of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada, in the following words:—

On Lord John Russell's Bill becoming a law, the question was changed from a denominational to a Provincial one—from an ecclesiastical to a constitutional one. It was no longer a question between one denomination and another, but a question between Upper Canada and the Imperial Parliament. As Canadians, and acting in behalf of a large section of the Canadian community, the representatives of the Wesleyan Methodist Church expressed their convictions, their feelings, and their apprehensions to Her Majesty's Government while the question was pending before Parliament; but when the execrable Bill became an Imperial Law, it was as much out of place for them as clergymen, or of any religious persuasion to strive to fulfil their own predictions, or set on foot a Colonial civil contest, as it would have been pusillanimous in them not to have remonstrated before the consummation of such an act of wrong against the people of Upper Canada. The question is now being taken up in the right place, and, we trust, in the right spirit.

10. Under such circumstances it is impossible that the question can long remain in its present state, and it is for the Imperial Parliament to say what shall be done. It is admitted upon all hands that the members of the Churches of England and Scotland in Canada are more wealthy in proportion to their numbers, and, therefore, less needful of extraneous aid than the members of any other religious persuasion; and in proportion to their numbers and wealth will be their comparative influence and advantages in the proceedings of their own Legislature. It is a grave question, whether the Imperial Parliament will place itself in an attitude of hostility to the Legislative Assembly and people of Canada for the sake of conferring questionable pecuniary distinctions upon the clergy of the two most wealthy denominations in that country? Should any members of Parliament be disposed to pursue this course, and hazard this experiment, I beg them to pause and consider the following questions:—

(1) Can the real interests of the Churches of England and Scotland themselves be advanced by occupying a position of antagonism to the acknowledged equal rights of the great majority of the people of Canada? And is it desirable that these Churches should be the instruments and emblems of wrong to a country, rather than natural and powerful agencies of its unity, advancement, and happiness? Interested parties in Canada may not be able to see this, but British and Christian statesmen ought not to overlook it.

(2) Ought the members of the Churches of England and Scotland, who take a part in public affairs in Canada, and who may be candidates for popular power, to be placed in circumstances in which they must either war against the position and authorities of their own Church, or war against all other religious persuasions, or retire from public life altogether?

(3) What will be the natural, or apparently inevitable, result of thus singling out two classes of Canadian people, and distinguishing them from all others by pecuniary endowments, and sustaining them in that position, not by the free Legislature of their own country—not by the original principles of their constitution of government to which Canada may have pledged itself—but by a recent Imperial Act, to the preparing or provisions of which the Canadians were no parties, and against which they protest? Is it likely that the will or predilections of a transatlantic House of Lords, so largely composed of and influenced by one class of ecclesiastical dignitaries, can long determine the mutual relations of religious persuasions in a country constituted as Canada is, and bordering on the northern free Anglo-States of America? What the Canadians ask they ask on grounds originally guaranteed to them by their constitution; and if they are compelled to make a choice between British connection and British constitutional rights, it is natural that they should prefer the latter to the former? It is also to be noted that the Imperial Act in question has to be administered through the local Canadian administration. Such is the machinery of the Act. The revenue that it appropriates is Canadian, and it is worked through Canadian agency—through Canadian heads of departments, responsible to the representatives of the people of Canada. Should the Canadian people, then, find that their respectful and earnest appeal to the Imperial Parliament, through the Sovereign, is in vain, they will naturally look to their own resources and elect representatives at the ensuing general elections who will pledge themselves to oppose the administration of the Imperial Act—representatives who will support no Inspector or Receiver-General that will be responsible for the payment of even any warrant for moneys under such Act. The consequence must soon be, not only injury to existing incumbents whom the Canadian Assembly now propose to secure, but collision between the Government and the Legislative Assembly, and ultimately between the latter and the Imperial authorities; and finally, either the establishment of military government in Canada (an impossibility), or the severance of that great country from Great Britain. On the other hand, if the reasonable demand and constitutional rights of the people of Canada be regarded in this question, I believe Canada will remain freely and cordially connected with the Mother Country for many years, if not generations, to come. I will conclude these observations in the expressive words of Lord Stanley, to the spirit of which I hope every British statesman will respond. On the 2nd of May, 1828, in a speech on this subject, Lord Stanley expressed himself in the following terms:—

That if any exclusive privileges be given to the Church of England, not only will the measure be repugnant to every principle of sound legislation, but contrary to the spirit and intention of the Act of 1791, under which the reserves were made for the Protestant clergy. I will not enter further into it at present, except to express my hope that the House will guard Canada against the evils which religious dissensions have already produced in this country and in Ireland, where we have examples to teach us what to shun. We have seen the evil consequences of this system at home. God forbid we should not profit by experience; and more especially in legislating for a people bordering on a country where religious intolerance and religious exclusions are unknown—a country to which Parliament looked in passing the Act of 1791, as all the great men who argued the question then expressly declared. It is important that His Majesty's Canadian subjects should not have occasion to look across the narrow boundary that separates them from the United States, to see anything there to envy.

FOOTNOTES:

[137] Since the foregoing was written, it has been ascertained that the Wesleyan Methodists number 142,000, or more than one-fifth of the entire population (1850).



CHAPTER LIV.

1854-1855.

Resignation on the Class-Meeting Question.—Discussion.

The last important connexional discussion in which Dr. Ryerson was engaged was on the Class-Meeting Question. For years he had objected, chiefly privately, amongst his brethren, clerical and lay, to making attendance at class-meeting a condition of membership in the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Canada. For various reasons, few members of the Conference desired to have the subject publicly discussed in Conference. They felt that a serious practical difficulty surrounded the question itself—difficulties which could not be surmounted by public discussion. Many of them also knew that in calmly discussing, without personal feeling, the abstract principle involved in the rule, it would be found that their judgment and loyal feeling to the Church would go one way, while their uniform practice in the administration of the rule would often be at variance with both, owing to peculiar circumstances. On the other hand, Dr. Ryerson thought, that not only should preaching and practice in this matter agree, but that theory and practice should also agree. And hence he felt that as his preaching and practice agreed in opposition to the rule, he was not loyal to the Church in ministering at her altars, while he was heartily and conscientiously opposed to the fundamental rule of membership prescribed by that Church. Hence, on the 2nd of January, 1854, he addressed the following letter to the Rev. Dr. Wood, President of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference (I omit extraneous matter):—

I hereby resign into your hands, my membership in the Conference, and my office as a minister of the Wesleyan Methodist Church—herewith enclosing my parchments of ordination, thus taking my place among the laity of the Church.

I have resolved to take this step after long and serious deliberation, but without consulting any human being. I take this step, not because I do not believe that the Wesleyan ministry is as fully authorized as the ministry of any other branch of the universal Church, to exercise all the functions of Christian priesthood; not because I do not as unfeignedly as ever subscribe to all the doctrines of the Wesleyan Church; not because I do not profoundly honour the integrity and devotedness of the Wesleyan ministry; not because I do not think that Christian discipline is as strictly, if not more strictly, maintained in the Wesleyan Church than in any other Christian Church in the world.

But I resign (not my connection with, but) my ministerial office in the Wesleyan Church, because I believe a condition of membership is exacted in it which has no warrant in Scripture, nor in the practice of the primitive Church, nor in the writings of Mr. Wesley; and in consequence of which condition, great numbers of exemplary heads of families and young people are excluded from all recognition and rights of membership in the Church. I refer to attendance upon class-meeting—without attendance at which no person is acknowledged as a member of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, however sincerely and cordially he may believe her doctrines, prefer her ministry, and support her institutions, and however exemplary he may be in his life.

I believe the class-meetings, as well as love-feasts, have been and are a means of immense good in the Wesleyan Church, and that both should be employed and recommended as prudential and useful, means of religious edification to all who may be willing to avail themselves of them. But attendance at love-feast is known to be voluntary and not to be a condition of membership in the Church; so I think that attendance at class-meeting should also be voluntary, and ought not to be exalted into an indispensable condition of membership in the Church; I am persuaded that every person who believes the doctrines, and observes the precepts and ordinances enjoined by our Lord and His Apostles, is eligible to membership in the Church of Christ, and cannot, on Scriptural or Wesleyan grounds, be excluded from its rights and privileges upon the mere ground of his or her being unable to reconcile it to their views to take a part in the conversations of class-meetings.

The views thus stated, I have entertained many years. After having revolved the subject in my mind for some time, I expressed my views on it in 1840 and 1841.... But since my more direct connection with the youth of the country at large, and having met with numbers of exemplary persons who prefer the Methodist Church to any other, but are excluded from it by the required condition of attending class-meeting, besides thousands of young people of Wesleyan parents and congregations, I have become more deeply than ever impressed with the importance of the question, to which I referred in remarks made at the last and preceding Conferences. I had intended until within a short time to defer any decision on the step I now take until the next annual Conference, and until after bringing the question in the form of distinct propositions before the Conference; but, after the best consideration in my power, I have thought it advisable to resign my office in the Church at the present time—fearing the revival and results of unpleasantnesses from my bringing the question formally before the Conference, ... and from a deep conviction that I should no longer delay taking the most effectual means in my power to draw the attention of the ministry and members of the Wesleyan Church to this anomaly in her Disciplinary regulations, and secure, if possible, to tens of thousands of persons the rights and privileges of membership in that branch of the Church of Christ which they prefer—rights and privileges to which I am persuaded they are justly entitled upon both Scriptural and Wesleyan grounds.

I do not think it is honest or right for a man to hold the office of a minister in a Church, all whose essential regulations, as well as doctrines, he cannot justify and recommend. I say essential regulations; for there may be many regulations and practices in a Church of which a minister may not approve, and the existence of which he may deplore, but which would not prevent him from maintaining, as usual, his relations and course of labour. An enlightened Christian mind can and will, without any compromise of principle, allow a wide latitude in modes of proceeding, and in matters of opinion, taste, and prudence. But a regulation which determines who shall and who shall not be recognized as members of the Church of Christ, involves a vital question, the importance of which cannot be overrated, and which must be determined by Divine Revelation, and not by mere conventional rules.

Now, while as an individual I may value and wish to attend, as far as possible, all prudential as well as instituted means of grace in our Church, I cannot as a teacher, by word or office, declare that all persons who will not attend class-meetings, in addition to observing all the ordinances of Christ, should be rejected and excluded from the Christian Church. I cannot say so—I cannot think so—I cannot believe it Scriptural or right, in respect to great numbers of estimable persons, and of the sons and daughters of our people, who believe Wesleyan doctrines, who respect and love the Wesleyan ministry, support Wesleyan institutions, are exemplary in their lives, and who wish to be members of the Wesleyan Church, but who, from education, or mental constitution, or other circumstances, cannot face much less enjoy, the developments and peculiarities of the class-meeting. I have met and sympathized with many who have sought to reconcile their views and feelings to the personal speakings and communications of class-meetings, but who could not succeed; and not being allowed otherwise to enjoy the privileges of membership in the Wesleyan Church, were driven to seek admission into some other Christian communion.

Our Lord and His Apostles have prescribed no form of religious communion but the Lord's Supper. The New Testament meetings of Christian fellowship, in which the early Christians edified one another, are appropriately adduced as the exemplars of Wesleyan love-feasts—that voluntary and useful means of religious edification. But it is remarkable that a person may neither attend love-feast nor the Lord's Supper, and yet retain his membership in the Wesleyan Church, while he is excluded from it if he does not attend class-meeting, though he may attend both the Lord's Supper and love-feast, as well as the preaching of the word and meetings for prayer. Nay, I find in the latter part of the section of our Discipline on "Class Meetings," that the minister in charge of a circuit is required to exclude all "those members of the Church who wilfully and repeatedly neglect to meet their class," but to state at the time of their exclusion, "that they are laid aside for a breach of our rules of Discipline, and not for immoral conduct." I know of no Scriptural authority to exclude any person from the Church of Christ on earth, except for that which would exclude him from the kingdom of glory, namely, "immoral conduct." But here is an express requirement for the exclusion of persons from the Wesleyan Church for that which it is admitted is not "immoral conduct," namely, neglect of class-meeting. This is certainly going beyond Scriptural authority and example.

I have said that I do not regard as Wesleyan, or having the sanction of Mr. Wesley, the making attendance at class-meeting an essential condition of membership in the Church of Christ. Mr. Wesley declared that the sole object of his labours was, not to form a new sect, but to revive religion in the Church and in the nation; that each class was a voluntary society in the Church, but was no more a separate Church organization than a Bible Society, or Temperance Society, or Young Men's Christian Association, is a separate Church organization. Nor did Mr. Wesley regard the admission of persons into, or exclusion from, any one of his societies as affecting, in the slightest degree, such person's Church membership. Nay, Mr. Wesley insisted that all who joined his societies, in addition to attending class-meeting, and the ministrations of his preachers, should regularly attend the services and sacraments of the Church of England. In his sermon "On Attending Church Service," Mr. Wesley says, "it was one of our original rules, that every member of our society should attend the church and sacrament, unless he had been bred among Christians of another denomination." In his Tract, entitled "Principles of a Methodist Further Explained," (written in reply to the Rev. Mr. Church,) Mr. Wesley says:—

The United Society was originally so called, because it consisted of several smaller societies united together. When any member of these, or of the United Society, are proved to live in known sin, we then mark and avoid them: we separate ourselves from every one that walks disorderly. Sometimes if the case be judged infectious (though rarely) this is decided openly; but this you style "excommunication," and say, "does not every one see a separate ecclesiastical communion?"

Mr. Wesley replies:—

No. This society does not separate from the rest of the Church of England. They continue steadfast with them both in the apostolical doctrine, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.

And in further reply to the charge, that in excluding disorderly persons from his society, he was usurping a power committed to the higher order of the clergy, Mr. Wesley says:—

No; not in the power of excluding members from a private society, unless on the supposition of some such rule as ours is, viz.: "That if a man separate from the church, he is no longer a member of our society."

These passages (from scores of similar ones in Mr. Wesley's works), are sufficient to shew what Mr. Wesley understood and intended by admission into, or exclusion from, any one of his societies—that it did not in the least affect the relations of any person to the Church of which he was a member. Now, the rule which Mr. Wesley imposed as a condition of membership in a private society in a Church, we impose as a condition of membership in the Church itself.

It is also worthy of remark, that attendance at class-meeting is not required of members in the general rules of the society—those very rules which our ministers are required to give to persons proposing to join the Wesleyan Church.

In those rules no mention is made of class-meeting, nor is it there required that each member shall meet the leader, much less meet him in a class-meeting, in the presence of many others; but that the leader shall see each person in his class, and meet the minister and stewards once a week. Yet, by constant and universal practice, we have transferred the obligation from the leader to the member, and made it the duty of the latter (on pain of excommunication), to meet the former in class-meeting; an obligation which is nowhere enjoined in the general rules. In those rules it is said:

There is only one condition previously required of those who desire admission into these societies—a desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins.

The rules then truly state, that wherever this desire is really fixed in the soul, it will be known by its fruits. These fruits are briefly but fully set forth under three heads. (1) By doing no harm. (2) By doing good. (3) "By attending all the ordinances of God: such as, the public worship of God; the ministry of the word, either read or expounded; the Supper of the Lord; family and private prayer; searching the Scriptures, and fasting or abstinence. These are the general rules of our societies, all of which we are taught of God to observe, even in His written word, which is the only rule, and the sufficient rule, both of faith and practice." Now, neither class-meeting nor love-feast is mentioned among the "ordinances of God" enumerated in the general rules of the society; nor is it mentioned in Mr. Wesley's Large Minutes of Conference among the instituted means of grace. So far as the general rules themselves are concerned, there is nothing which makes attendance at class-meeting a condition of membership, even in Mr. Wesley's societies as he originally instituted them; nor did the idea of holding class-meetings at all occur to Mr. Wesley until after the general rules were drawn up and published.[138] But what was not required by the general rules soon became a condition of membership in another way—this was by the system of giving tickets. Mr. Wesley says in his Plain Account of People called Methodists:

As the society increased, I found it required still greater care to separate the precious from the vile. In order to this, I determined, at least once in three months, to talk with every member myself, and to inquire at their own mouth, as well as of their leaders and neighbours, whether they grew in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. To each of those whose seriousness and good conversation I had no reason to doubt, I gave a testimony under my own hand, by writing their name on a ticket prepared for that purpose. Those who bore these tickets, wherever they came, were acknowledged by their brethren, and were received with all cheerfulness. These tickets also supplied us with a quiet and inoffensive method of removing any disorderly member. He has no ticket at the quarterly visitation (for so often the tickets are changed); and hereby it is immediately known that he is no longer of the community.

It was at length required by a minute of the Conference, (as our own discipline enjoins,) that a preacher should not give a ticket of membership to any person who did not meet in class. In our own Discipline, in the section on class-meetings, will also be found the following question and answer:—

Question.—What shall be done with those members of our church who wilfully and repeatedly neglect their class?

Answer.—1. Let the chairman, or one of the preachers, visit them whenever it is practicable, and explain to them the consequence if they continue to neglect, viz., exclusion.

2. If they do not attend, let him who has charge of the circuit exclude them (in the church), showing that they are laid aside for a breach of our rules of discipline, and not for immoral conduct.

By this added ministerial authority and duty, a condition of membership in the society is imposed which is not contained in the General Rules, and which subjects a member to exclusion, for that which is acknowledged to be "not immoral conduct."

This appears a strange regulation in even a private religious society within a Church; but no objection could be reasonably made to any such regulation in such a society, if its members desired it, and as it would not affect their Church membership. But the case is essentially different, when such society in a Church becomes a Church, and exercises the authority of admitting into, and excluding from the Church itself, and not merely a society in the Church.

In England, and especially in the United States and Canada, the Wesleyan Societies have become a Church. I have repeatedly shewn in past years, that they have become organized into a Church upon both Wesleyan and scriptural grounds. I believe the Wesleyan Church in Canada is second to no other in the scriptural authority of its ministry and organization. Believing this, I believe that exclusion from the Wesleyan Church (either by expulsion or refusal of admission) is exclusion from a branch of the Church of God—is an act the most solemn and eventful in the history and relations of any human being—an act which should never take place except upon the clear and express authority of the word of God.

Far be it from me to say one word other than in favour of every kind of religious exercise and communion which tends to promote the spiritual-mindedness, brotherly love, and fervent zeal of professing Christians. That class-meetings (notwithstanding occasional improprieties and abuses attending them), have been a valuable means in promoting the spirituality and usefulness of the Wesleyan Church, no one acquainted with her history can for a moment doubt; and I believe that myriads on earth and in heaven have, and will ever have, reason for devout thankfulness and praise for the benefits derived from class-meetings, as well as from love-feasts and meetings for prayer. But attendance upon the two latter is voluntary on the part of the members of the Wesleyan Church; and what authority is there for suspending their very membership in the Church of God on their attendance upon the former? The celebration of the Lord's Supper, and not class-meeting, was the binding characteristic institution upon the members of the primitive Church. So I am persuaded it should be now; and that Christian faith and practice alone (and not the addition of attendance upon class-meeting,) should be the test of worthiness for its communion and privileges. While, therefore, as an individual I seek to secure and enjoy all the benefits of the faithful ministrations and scriptural ordinances of the Wesleyan Church, I cannot occupy a position which in itself, and by its duties requires me to enforce or justify the imposition of a condition of membership in the Church of Christ, which I believe is not required by the Holy Scriptures, and the exclusion of thousands of persons from Church membership and privileges, to which I believe they have as valid a right as I have, and that upon the sole ground of their non-attendance at a meeting, the neglect of which our own Discipline admits, does not involve "immoral conduct," and which Mr. Wesley himself, in his Plain Account of the People called Methodists, has declared "to be merely prudential, not essential, not of divine institution."

It is passing strange, that while the Wesleyan Church is the avowed "friend of all and enemy of none"—is the most Catholic of any Protestant body towards other religious communions—she should close the door of admission into her own fold even to attendance upon class-meeting. I regard it as the misfortune rather than the dishonour of the Wesleyan Church, that she repels thousands that seek her communion rather than relax this term of admission. If her success has been so great under disadvantages unparalleled, I cannot but believe, that, with the same divine blessing, and upon a basis of membership less narrow and more scriptural, the Wesleyan Church, would, beyond all precedent, increase her usefulness, and enlarge her borders.

I will not permit myself to dwell upon associations and recollections which cannot be expressed in words, any more than they can be obliterated from the memory, or effaced from the heart. Though I retire from councils in the deliberations of which I have been permitted to take a part during more than twenty-five years, and relinquish all claims upon funds to which I have contributed for a like period, I should still deem it my duty and privilege to pray for the success of the former, and continue my humble contributions to the latter; while I protest in the most emphatic way in my power against shutting the doors of the church upon thousands to whom I believe they should be opened, and against making that essential and divine, which, as Mr. Wesley says, "is merely prudential, not essential, not of divine institution." I hope the day is not remote when the Wesleyan Church will be as scriptural in her every term of membership as she is in her doctrines of grace and labours of love.

To this letter of resignation, Rev. Dr. Wood, President of the Conference, replied on the 4th of January:—

To accept the enclosed documents would be assuming a responsibility at variance with my judgment and affections. If the proposal you make of withdrawing from the Methodist ministry be ever received, it must be with the concurrence of the collective Conference; or, should the question require immediate attention, that of its executive committee. I shall be glad to see the enactment of any regulation which will promote the usefulness of our Church to the benefit of a large and intelligent class of adherents now receiving no recognition beyond their contributions to our institutions; and also the adoption of practical measures by which the youth baptized by Wesleyan ministers may be more personally cared for, and affiliated to our ordinances. Your distinguished ability and matured experience eminently qualify you as a safe legislator and counsellor on such grave questions, which by some cannot be separated from ancient usages greatly blessed to the growing spirituality of true believers, without injury to the vital character of the Church. After so long and useful a career, your separation from our Conference and work would be a connexional calamity. You stand among the few in Canada to whom the present independent and legal position of the Wesleyan Church stands deeply indebted. Future generations of ministers and people will partake, imperceptibly to themselves, of the advantages a few of the more gifted and noble-minded brethren struggled and contended for against so many obstacles. You are as capable of remedying anything wrong, or supplying anything wanting within the Church, as you were many years ago, to overcome impediments to her usefulness without.

Nothing further was done in the matter until at the Belleville Conference of 1854 Dr. Ryerson moved the following resolution:—

1. That no human authority has a right to impose any condition of membership in the visible Church of Christ, which is not enjoined by, or may be concluded from the Holy Scriptures.

2. That the General Rules of the United Societies of the Wesleyan Methodist Church being formed upon the Holy Scriptures, and requiring nothing of any member which is not necessary for admission into the kingdom of grace and glory, ought to be maintained inviolate as the religious and moral standard of profession, conduct and character, in regard to all who are admitted or continued members of our church.

3. That the power, therefore, of expelling persons from the visible Church of Christ, for other than a cause sufficient to exclude a person from the kingdom of grace and glory, which the fourth question, and answers to it, contained in the second section of the second chapter of our Discipline, confer and enjoin upon our ministers, is unauthorized by the Holy Scriptures, is inconsistent with the Scriptural rights of the members of Christ's Church, and ought not to be assumed or exercised by any minister of our Church.

4. That the anomalous question and answers referred to in the foregoing resolution, be, and are hereby expunged from our Discipline and are required to be omitted in printing the next edition of it. (See page 477.)

These resolutions having been negatived by a considerable majority on the 12th June, Dr. Ryerson wrote to the President:

The decision of the Conference this afternoon on the scriptural rights of the members of our Church, and the power of our ministers in respect to them, makes it at length my painful duty to request you to lay before the Conference the letter which I addressed to you the 2nd of last January, and that you will consider that letter as now addressed to the Conference through you.

I hereby again enclose you my parchments of ordination. I propose to do all in my power to promote those important measures in regard to the college and means for the regular training of received candidates for the ministry which have been recommended by the Conference. I cannot attempt to add anything more to what is contained in my letter of the 2nd January, expressive of what I feel on the present occasion, except to say that, although I gave no intimation during the discussion of the result of the decision on this subject upon my own official relations to the Conference, I retire from it with feelings of undiminished respect and affection for my Reverend Brethren, and my earnest prayer for their welfare and usefulness.

In reply to this letter Dr. Wood said:—

The purpose you aim to accomplish can be effectually secured by a different resolution to that introduced yesterday; if you will stay and hear what the brethren may say about the appointment of a large committee to take up this subject before I lay your resignation before them, I shall feel much gratified. I again say, I look upon your proposed withdrawal with deep sorrow, and must say, I cannot bring myself to believe that on such grounds you can be justified in taking so serious a step.

Dr. Ryerson did attend the Conference as suggested, after which he wrote to Dr. Wood:—

I listened with delight and hope to the observations and recommendations which you made. I anticipated happy results from the appointment of the very large committee which you nominated, and which might be considered as representing the sentiments and feelings of the Conference. But from the lengthened meeting of that committee, in the evening, it was clear that no disposition existed to modify the power of ministers to expel persons from the Church for non-attendance at a meeting which, in the 12th section, chap. 1st, page 47, of our own Discipline, taken from the writings of Mr. Wesley, is declared to be "prudential," even among Methodists—that thus the highest and most awful penalty that the Church can inflict—a penalty analagous to capital punishment in the administration of civil law—is to be executed upon members of the Church for the omission of what our own Discipline does not exalt to the rank of a "prudential" means of grace among Christians,—only among Methodists.

It was also clear that views of baptism prevailed (I cannot say how widely) at variance with the 17th Article of Faith in our Discipline,[139] and altogether opposite to those set forth by Mr. Wesley in his sermons and in his Treatise on Baptism.

But that for which I was not prepared (which I supposed to have been settled, and which I therefore assumed), was the obviously prevalent opinion against the Church membership of children baptized by our ministry. It will be recollected that I had not proposed any other condition or mode of admitting persons into our Church from without, than that which already exists amongst us; but I urged in behalf of both parents and children, the practical recognition of the rights and claims of children who were admitted and acknowledged as members of the Church by baptism, as implied in our Form of Baptism, and according to our Catechism, and according to what the Conference unanimously declared at Hamilton, in 1853, our Church holds to be among the privileges of baptized persons,—namely, that "they are made members of the visible Church of Christ." Persons cannot, of course, be members of the "visible" Church of Christ without becoming members of some visible branch or section of it; and it is not pretended that children baptized by our ministry are members of any other visible portion of the Church of Christ than the Wesleyan. To deny, therefore, that the baptized children of our people are members of our Church, and that they should be acknowledged as such, and as such be impressed with their obligations and privileges, and as such be prepared for, and brought into, the spiritual communion and fellowship of the Church, on coming to the years of accountability, is, it appears to me, to make the Sacrament of Baptism a nullity, and to disfranchise thousands of children of divinely chartered rights and privileges. Mr. Wesley, in his Treatise on Baptism, in stating the third benefit of baptism, remarks:—

By baptism we are admitted into the Church, and consequently made members of Christ, its Head. The Jews were admitted into the Church by circumcision, so are the Christians by baptism.

Mr. Wesley, speaking of the proper subjects of baptism, says:

If infants are capable of making a covenant, and were and still are under the evangelical covenant, then they have a right to baptism, which is the entering seal thereof. But infants are capable of making a covenant, and were and still are under the evangelical covenant.

The custom of nations and common reason of mankind prove that infants may enter into a covenant, and may be obliged by compacts made by others in their name, and receive advantage by them. But we have stronger proof than this, even God's own word: "Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord,—your captains, with all the men of Israel; your little ones, your wives, and the stranger,—that thou shouldst enter into covenant with the Lord thy God."—Deut. xxix. 10-12. Now, God would never have made a covenant with little children, if they had not been capable of it. It is not said children only, but little children, the Hebrew word properly signifying infants. And these may be still, as they were of old, obliged to perform, in aftertime, what they are not capable of performing at the time of their entering into that obligation.

The infants of believers, the true children of faithful Abraham, always were under the Gospel covenant. They were included in it, they had a right to it, and to the seal of it; as an infant heir has a right to his estate, though he cannot yet have actual possession.—Vol. x., English Edition, pp. 193, 194. Vol. vi., American Edition, pp. 16, 17.

Again, Mr. Wesley's third argument on this subject is so clear, so touching, and so conclusive, that I will quote it without abridgement, as follows:—

If infants ought to come to Christ, if they are capable of admission into the Church of God, and consequently of solemn sacramental dedication to Him, then they are proper subjects of baptism. But infants are capable of coming to Christ, of admission into the Church, and solemn dedication to God.

That infants ought to come to Christ, appears from his own words: "They brought little children to Christ, and the disciples rebuked them. And Jesus said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven."—Matt. xix. 13, 14. St. Luke expresses it still more strongly: "They brought unto him even infants, that he might touch them."—xviii. 15. These children were so little, that they were brought to him; yet he says, "Suffer them to come unto me:" so little, that he "took them up in His arms;" yet he rebukes those who would have hindered their coming to Him. And his command respected the future as well as the present. Therefore His disciples or ministers are still to suffer infants to come, that is, to be brought, unto Christ. But they cannot now come to Him, unless by being brought into the Church; which cannot be but by baptism. Yea, and "of such," says our Lord, "is the kingdom of heaven;" not of such only as were like these infants. For if they themselves were not fit to be subjects of that kingdom, how could others be so, because they were like them? Infants, therefore, are capable of being admitted into the Church, and have a right thereto. Even under the Old Testament they were admitted into it by circumcision. And can we suppose they are in a worse condition under the Gospel, than they were under the law? and that our Lord would take away any privilege which they then enjoyed? Would He not rather make additions to them? This, then, is a third ground. Infants ought to come to Christ, and no man ought to forbid them. They are capable of admission into the Church of God. Therefore they are proper subjects of baptism.—Vol. x., English Edition, pp. 195, 196. Vol. vi., American Edition, pp. 17, 18.

Upon these Wesleyan and Scriptural grounds, I believe that the promise and privileges of membership in the Church belong to the baptized children of our people as well as to their parents; that the parents have a right to claim this relationship and its privileges for their children until such children are excluded from the Church by the lawful acts of its executive authorities. Otherwise, the youth baptized by our ministry are in the most pitiful and degrading religious position of the youth of any Church that recognizes the doctrine of infant baptism; and it appears to me that we ought rather not to baptize infants at all, or recommend their parents to take them to other churches for baptism, than thus to treat the feelings of such parents, and to regard their children as having no more membership and privileges in our Church than the rest of the youth of the land, or even the world at large.

It is happily true, that many of the children of our people, as well as those of other people, are converted and brought into the Church under the faithful ministrations of the Word; but how many ten thousand more of them would never wander from the Church, would more easily and more certainly be led to experience all the power of inward religion and the blessings of Christian fellowship, were they acknowledged in their true position and rights, and taught the significancy, and obligation, and privilege of all that the outward ordinances and their visible relations involve were intended to confer. It ought to make a Christian heart bleed to think that our largest increase of members, according to returns over which we are disposed to congratulate ourselves, falls vastly short of the natural increase of population in our own community, apart from the increase of the population of the country at large, and, therefore, that perhaps five or more persons are sent out into the world, as worldlings, from the families of our Church, while one is retained or brought into it from the world by all our ministrations and agencies. The prophets did not deny to a Jew his membership in the Jewish Church, in order to make him a Jew inwardly. Mr. Wesley did not un-church the tens of thousands of baptized members of the Church of England to whom he successfully preached salvation by faith: he made their state, and duties, and privileges, as baptized members of the Church of Christ, the grounds of his appeals; and this vantage ground was one great means of his wonderful success.

But I will not enlarge. I will only add, that as in former years, I, with others, maintained what we believed to be the rights of Canada and of our Canadian Church against pretensions which have long since been withdrawn, and the erroneous information and impressions connected with which have long since been removed; so, I now feel it my duty to do what I can to secure and maintain the Scriptural and Wesleyan rights of members of our Church against the exercise of ministerial authority which has no warrant in Scripture nor in the writings of Mr. Wesley; and I feel myself specially called upon by my position in respect to the youth of the country, as well as by my strong convictions, to claim and insist upon the Scriptural and Wesleyan rights of church membership in behalf of the many thousands of children baptized by our ministry—believing upon both Scriptural and Wesleyan grounds, it is due to such children and to their parents.

I have no object in view, beyond what is avowed in this correspondence. If I have had any personal ambition, it has been more than satisfied both in the Church and in the country at large. I have nothing more to seek or desire, than to employ the short and uncertain time that remains to me in striving to become more and more meet for the intercourse of the saints in light, to mature and promote for my native country the great educational system in which I am engaged, and to secure to all members of our Church, and to all parents and children baptized into it, what I am persuaded are their sacred rights and privileges. I am satisfied that Scriptural and Wesleyan truth will, as heretofore, prevail, and that the Conference and the Church will yet rejoice in it, however it may, for the moment, be clouded by error and misrepresentation, or impeded by personal feelings, groundless fears, or mistaken prejudice.

On the 13th June Dr. Ryerson made a request to the Conference that the documents connected with his resignation be published in the Guardian. He said:—

I wish the church to know the reasons which have influenced me on this occasion—especially as I believe them to be both Wesleyan and Scriptural. As I have for thirty years contributed to all the funds of the preachers and Church, without receiving or expecting to receive a farthing from them, and from the period and kinds of labours I have performed in the Church, and from my wish to live in connexion with it, I think my letters of resignation might at least not be withheld from the members of our Church. If any expense attend the publication of the correspondence between us, I will defray every farthing of it.

I do not think any other member of the Conference is called upon to do as I have done—my circumstances being peculiar. But I do not wish to be wronged and blackened by misrepresentations; I only desire that my brethren and old friends through the land may be permitted and enabled to read my own reasons and views on this the last occasion of my official intercourse with them.[140]

This request was denied, so that Dr. Ryerson published the documents in a pamphlet himself. In doing so he said:—

A more vitally important and deeply affecting subject can scarcely be laid before the Wesleyan community; but in order to present it to the pious judgment of that body at large, I have had no other alternative than to assume the position I now sustain—otherwise being compelled to observe, as in past years, a strict silence beyond the walls of the Conference room. But from what I have witnessed and heard in that room, I appeal to the calm consideration of the intelligent and devout members of the Wesleyan Church, either in their closets with their Bible before them, or at their firesides with their children around them. Whether I have or have not overrated the importance of the question, I leave everyone to decide after reading the following correspondence. It will be seen that the question is not one of a personal nature—is not one which ought to excite any unkind feeling between persons who may take different views of it. The question is as to whether, on the Wesleyan Conference assuming the position and functions of a distinct and independent Church, a condition of membership has not been imposed which is a departure from the principles of Mr. Wesley and the doctrine and practice of the Apostolic and Primitive Church—a condition which ignores the church relation, rights and privileges of the baptized children of the Wesleyan body, and excludes thousands from its membership upon unscriptural and un-Wesleyan grounds. It will be seen by an extract on page 20, that Mr. Wesley's disciplinary object in giving quarterly tickets was, "to separate the precious from the vile," "to remove any disorderly member;" but in vain have I sought for an instance of Mr. Wesley ever excluding, even from his private societies in a Church, an upright and orderly member for mere non-attendance at class-meeting. That, however, he might have consistently done in a society in a Church, if he had thought it expedient to do so, as it would not have affected the membership of any parties in the Church to which they belonged. The three paragraphs of our Discipline, containing three sentences against which I protest, had no place in the Minutes of Conference finally revised and printed by Mr. Wesley in the year of his death; nor do they exist in the Minutes of the British Conference to this day. From what is therefore modern and unauthorized by Scripture, by the practice of the Primitive Church, or by Mr. Wesley, I go back to first principles, and say, as did Mr. Wesley to Dr. Coke and Mr. Asbury, when he sent them to organize the Societies in America into a Church, let us "simply follow the Scriptures and the Primitive Church."

It is often said that "nobody objects to attending class-meeting except those who have no religion." Persons who thus judge of others show more of the Pharisaical, than of the Christian, spirit, and evince but little of the "wisdom that cometh from above" in thus "measuring others by themselves." The following correspondence shows that I am second to none in my appreciation of the value and usefulness of class meetings; but I have had too much experience not to know that the best talkers in a class-meeting are not always the best livers in the world; and I attach less importance to what a person may say of himself in a class-meeting, than to uprightness in his dealings, integrity in his word, meekness in his temper, charity in his spirit, liberality in his contributions, blamelessness in his life. Doings, rather than sayings, are the rule of Divine judgment....

It may not be improper for me to observe, that there are ministers who loudly advocate attendance at class-meeting as a Church-law, and yet do not observe that law themselves perhaps once a year, much less habitually, as they insist in respect to private members; and the most strenuous of such advocates pay no heed to the equally positive prohibitions and requirements of the discipline in several other respects, especially in regard to band-meetings, which were designed, as the Discipline expressly states, "to obey that command of God, 'confess your faults one to another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed.'" I am far from intimating, or believing, that there are many advocates of class-meeting tests of this description. But history shows, from our Lord to the present time, that the most vehement advocates for the "mint, annise and cummin" of particular tests and forms, are not proportionably zealous for the "weightier matters of the law." It is easier for men to impose and enforce law upon others than to observe it themselves. But when a man's words and actions contradict each other, the argument of his actions is the more forcible, as well as the more honest and sincere.

It has likewise been alleged, that if attendance at class-meeting be not made a church-law, and the capital punishment of expulsion be not attached to its violation, class-meetings will fall into disuse. I answer, this is beside the question. The question is, whether there is such a law in the Bible? Has our Lord or His Apostles given authority to any conclave or conference to make such a law? Our Lord and the Apostles knew better than their followers what was essential to membership in the Christian Church, as well as what was essential to its existence and prosperity. I may also observe, that if the existence of class-meetings cannot be maintained except by the terror of the scorpion-whip, or rather executioner's sword, of expulsion from the church, it says little for them as a privilege, or place of delightful and joyous resort. My own conviction is, that if class-meetings, like love-feasts, were maintained and recommended as a privilege and useful means of religious edification, and not as a law, the observance of which is necessary to membership in the visible Church of Christ, but made voluntary, like joining the Missionary Society, class-meetings would be more efficient and useful than they are now, and attendance at them would be more cordial and profitable, if not as, or even more, general. But what might be or not be in any supposed case, is foreign to a question as to what is enjoined in the law and testimony of the Holy Scriptures as essential to discipleship with Christ.

It is well known that meeting in class, by a large portion of the members of the Wesleyan Church, is very irregular—that their absence from class-meeting is the general rule of their practice, and their attendance the exception. Yet such persons are not excluded, as it would involve the expulsion of the greater part of the members of the body, including several of its ministers. It is, therefore, so much the more objectionable, and so much the more wrong, to have a rule which ignores at one sweep the membership of all the baptized children of the body, which sends and keeps away the conscientious and straightforward, who would not think of joining a religious community without intending habitually to observe all its rules, and yet, after all, habitually disregarded by a large portion of both preachers and people, and is made, as far as my observation goes, an instrument of gratifying individual hostility, rather than a means of promoting the religious and moral ends of Christian discipline.

It is, however, the bearing of this question upon the relationship and destinies of the youth of the Wesleyan body that has most deeply impressed and affected my own mind, as may be inferred from the correspondence on the subject. It requires less scriptural zeal, and an inferior order of qualifications, and it is much more exciting and easy, to minister or attend at special meetings, and in the ordinary public services of the Church, than to pursue "in season and out of season" the less conspicuous and more detailed labour of teaching and training up children and youth in the knowledge and experience of the doctrines of Christ, and thus secure them to the Church, and to the Saviour, and secure to them the "godliness which has the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come."[141]

And what is the result of the general adoption (with a few fine exceptions), of the former in preference to the latter—instead of the union of both? It is the humiliating and most painful fact that the great majority of Methodist youth are lost to the Church, if not lost to Christ and to heaven—that in a large proportion of instances, Methodism is not perpetuated to the second generation of the same family—that in the great majority of instances it is only so perpetuated very partially, and in very few instances to all the children of Methodist parents; while there is each year the conversion of only a few hundreds, or thousands, mostly from without. The return of prodigals, and the accession of strangers and aliens to the body, are indeed causes of thankfulness and rejoicing; but prevention is better than cure—piety from childhood is better than reformation in manhood. The judgment of the Apostle upon him "who neglects to provide for his own house," even in temporal matters, is well known; and must there not be a radical defect and wrong in any religious organization which loses the great majority of its own youth, and depends largely on infusions from without for the recruit of its numbers? Such an organization may do much good, and widely extend in many places for the time being, especially in a new and unsettled state of society; but the vital element of permanent strength and lasting prosperity is wanting, where, by its repulsion or neglect, the great majority of its baptized youth are alienated from, and lost to its communion. It is not in the promise of God, or in the genius of Scriptural Christianity, that "children trained up in the way they should go," will, in many instances, much less generally, depart from it in after years....

Impressed with the magnitude of the wrongs and evils above referred to, dreading personal collision in the Conference, anticipating but little success from it, and feeling uncertain as to how few were likely to be the days of my earthly career, and believing that a special duty was imposed upon me in this respect by Providential circumstances, I addressed to the President, the 2nd of January, ... as the most likely means, without collision with any person or body, to draw practical attention to the subject, on the part of both the ministry and the laity of the Church.... I have the satisfaction of knowing that, if the first efforts of my pen, after joining the Conference in 1825, were to advocate the right of the members of the Church to hold a bit of ground in which to bury their dead, and the right of its ministers to perform the marriage service for the members of their congregations, my last efforts in connection with the Conference have been directed to obtain the rights of Christian citizenship to the baptized children and exemplary adherents of the Church. While I maintain that each child in the land has a right to such an education as will fit him for his duties as a citizen of the state, and that the obligations of the state correspond to the rights of the child, so I maintain, upon still stronger and higher grounds, that each child baptized by the Church is thereby enfranchised with the rights and privileges of citizenship in it, until he forfeits them by personal misconduct and exclusion, and that the obligations of the Church correspond to the rights of the child. I also maintain that each member of Christ's visible Church, has a scriptural right to his membership in it as long as he keeps the "commandments and ordinances of God," whether he attends or does not attend a meeting which Mr. Wesley (who instituted it), declared to be "merely prudential, not essential, not of divine institution," and for not attending which he never excluded, or presumed to authorize excluding, a person from Church membership. It is a principle of St. Paul, in the 14th chapter of Romans, of all true Protestantism, as well as of the writings of Mr. Wesley, "in necessary things unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity."

* * * * *

In a letter, written from Quebec to a dear friend in Toronto, Dr. Ryerson thus refers to his religious experience at that time of personal trial on the class-meeting question. He said:—In compliance with the entreaties of the Hon. James Ferrier and the Rev. Wm. Pollard, I preached here last Sunday evening, and perhaps seldom with so much effect—certainly, never in Lower Canada. The congregation was very large; many members of the Legislature were present; and some were much affected. I had felt condemned for not preaching in New Brunswick when solicited; and I have felt that I have done right in obeying the powers that be in this respect in Quebec. I am solicited to remain and preach here again next Sunday, as many public persons have expressed disappointment at not having heard me last Sunday evening. A leading member of the church from Montreal was so comforted and edified, that after having spent the evening in my room until after ten o'clock, he went to write out all of the discourse he could remember. The friends here seem delighted to think I will still preach, and say that I would sin against God and man if I refused. My discourse on Sunday was the result of my reflections and prayer here without books or notes; and I feel much better since I consented to do what all seemed to think I ought to do. They are quite satisfied with the course I have adopted, and think it will result in great good, if I will not refuse to preach. The words of St. Paul (1st Cor. ch. 9, verse 16), in a chapter to which I opened the other day, have affected me much; and I know not that I can otherwise do so much good during the very few years at most that now remain to me, as to preach when desired by those who have authority in the matter, in any church or place. I feel deeply humbled under a sense of my own unfaithfulness, and am amazed at the great goodness, long-suffering and compassion of God towards me.

FOOTNOTES:

[138] Mr. Wesley's own account of the origin of the office of class-leader and class-meetings, illustrates the accuracy of what I have stated. The office was first created at Bristol, 15th February, 1742, for financial purposes alone. A few weeks afterwards, it was instituted for religious purposes also; and for the twofold object of religion and finance, it was embodied in the General Rules, which were drawn up and signed by Mr. Wesley, 1st May, 1743; but in which there is no mention made of class-meeting, or of the duty of any member to meet in class. In his "Plain Account of the People called Methodists," Mr. Wesley thus states the origin of the office of class-leader and the institution of class-meetings.

At length (says he,) while we were thinking of quite another thing, we struck upon a method for which we have had cause to bless God ever since. I was talking with several of the Society in Bristol (Feb. 15, 1742,) concerning the means of paying the debts there, when one stood up, and said, 'Let every member of the Society give a penny a week till all are paid.' Another said, 'But many of them are poor, and cannot afford to do it.' 'Then,' said the other, 'put eleven of the poorest with me, and if they can give anything, well: I will see them weekly; and if they can give nothing, I will give for them as well as for myself. And each of you will call upon eleven of your neighbours weekly, receive what they give, and make up what is wanting.' It was done. In a little while some of these informed me, they found such and such an one did not live as he ought. It struck me immediately, This is the very thing we have wanted so long. I called together the Leaders of the classes (so we used to term them and their companies,) and desired that each would make particular inquiry into the behaviour of those whom he saw weekly. They did so. Many disorderly walkers were detected. Some turned from the evil of their ways. Some were put away from us. Many saw it with fear, and rejoiced in God with reverence. As soon as possible, the same method was used in London, and in all other places. The following is Mr. Wesley's account of the first appointment of class-leaders in London, extracted from his Journal, Thursday, March 25, 1742: I appointed several earnest and sensible men to meet me, to whom I showed the great difficulty I had long found of knowing the people who desired to be under my care. After much discourse, they all agreed there could be no better way to come to a sure, thorough knowledge of each person, than to divide them into classes, like those at Bristol, under the inspection of those in whom I could confide. This was the origin of our classes at London, for which I can never sufficiently praise God; the unspeakable usefulness of the institution having ever since been more and more manifest. In his "Plain Account of the People called Methodists," Mr. Wesley says, "At first they (the Leaders) visited each person at his own house; but this was soon found not so expedient, and that on many accounts." Mr. Wesley assigns several reasons for this change, and proceeds to answer several objections to class-meetings. The following passage shows the exact ground on which Mr. Wesley based the institution of class-meetings:

Some objected, 'There were no such meetings when I came into the society first; and why should there be now? I do not understand these things, and this changing one thing after another continually.' It was easily answered: It is a pity but they had been from the first. But we knew not then either the need or the benefit of them. Why we use them, you will easily understand, if you will read over the Rules of the Society. That with regard to these little prudential helps, we are continually changing one thing after another, is not a weakness or fault as you imagine, but is a peculiar privilege which we enjoy. By this means we declare them all to be merely prudential, not essential, not of divine institution.

Now, while it is proper for each person, as far as may be consistent with his circumstances and views of duty, to use every prudential means of doing and getting good, yet the observance of nothing but what is Divinely instituted should be imposed as a condition of membership in the Church of God. To make attendance at class-meeting that condition, is to require what the Lord hath not commanded, and to change essentially the character and objects of a means of good which Mr. Wesley (with whom it originated) declared to be "merely prudential, not essential, not of divine institution."

That Mr. Wesley conceived the basis of a church should be much more comprehensive than the rules he drew up and recommended in regard to the "little prudential helps" which were suggested to him from time to time, is obvious from the eighth of his twelve reasons against organising a new church—reasons published many years after the preparation and adoption of all his society rules. His words are as follows: "Because to form the plan of a new church would require infinite time and care, with much more wisdom and greater depth and extensiveness of thought than any of us are masters of."

[139] The following is the Article of Faith referred to:—

XVII. Of Baptism. Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference, whereby Christians are distinguished from others that are not baptized, but it is also a sign of regeneration or the new birth. The baptism of young children is to be retained in the church.

[140] I have understood, nevertheless, that a resolution was adopted expressing the sense of the Conference as to my past labours in the Church; but the publication of it has been suppressed in the official organ, as also in the printed minutes, of the Conference.

The correspondence in the subsequent pages shows with what feelings and sentiments I retired from the councils of the Conference; and I could not have supposed that any members of that body were capable of excluding from the public records of its proceedings what the Conference had deemed a bare act of justice to an individual who had laboured nearly thirty years in connection with it, and often performed most difficult services and labours in its behalf. Such a proceeding will reflect more dishonour upon its authors than upon me, in the judgment of every honourable and Christian mind in Upper Canada, of whatever persuasion or party. I am happy to believe that this poor imitation of the system of the "Index Expurgatorius" cannot blot from the memories of an older generation in the Church recollections of labours and struggles of which the expurgators know nothing but the fruits—among which are the civil and religious privileges they enjoy.

I have also been credibly informed that, while the real grounds of my resignation and the judgment of the Conference upon my conduct and labours during many years' connection with it, are withheld from the Wesleyan public, insinuations are circulated, that my resignation has been dictated by ulterior political objects—an idea which I have never for one moment entertained, and which is foreign, as far as I know, to the thoughts of every public man in Canada.

[141] Of the utter insufficiency of public ministrations alone, even for grown up Christians, much more for children, Mr. Wesley thus speaks in his large and authorized Minutes of Conference:—"For what avails public preaching alone, though we could preach like angels? We must, yea, every travelling preacher must, instruct them from house to house. Till this is done, and that in good earnest, the Methodists will be little better than other people. Our religion is not deep, universal, uniform; but superficial, partial, uneven. It will be so, till we spend half as much time in this visiting, as we now do in talking uselessly." "For, after all our preaching, many of our people are almost as ignorant as if they had never heard the gospel. I speak as plain as I can, yet I frequently meet with those who have been my hearers many years, who know not whether Christ be God or man. And how few are there who know the nature of repentance, faith and holiness. Most of them have a sort of confidence that God will save them, while the world has their hearts. I have found by experience, that one of these has learned more from one hour's close discourse than from ten years' public preaching." "Let every preacher having a catalogue of those in each society, go to each house. Deal gently with them, that the report of it may move others to desire your coming. Give the children the instructions for children, and encourage them to get them by heart. Indeed, you will find it no easy matter to teach the ignorant the principles of religion. So true is the remark of Archbishop Usher—'Great scholars may think this work beneath them. But they should consider, the laying the foundation skilfully, as it is of the greatest importance, so it is the masterpiece of the wisest builder. And let the wisest of us all try, whenever we please, we shall find that to lay this ground-work rightly, to make the ignorant understand the grounds of religion, will put us to all our skill.'" "Unless we take care of the rising generation, the present revival will be res unius aetatis (a thing of one generation); it will last only the age of a man."

There are several ministers who earnestly labour in the spirit of these extracts from Mr. Wesley's Minutes of Conference—printed the year of his death. But their labours are the promptings of individual zeal and intelligence, and not dictated or backed by the authoritative example of the ministry and Church at large, or the recognition of the Church relations of the interesting subjects of their instructions. The effect of the general disuse or neglect of systematic individual instruction of children, not speaking of such, instruction of adult members, and reliance upon public ministrations and meetings alone, must be instability of religious profession, want of clear and acute views of the grounds, doctrines, nature, institutions and duties of religion, indifference to all religion, or wandering from denomination to denomination according to circumstances or caprice; but in all cases the loss to the Wesleyan Church of the greater part of the harvest which she should and might gather into the garner of Christ.



CHAPTER LV.

1855.

Dr. Ryerson Resumes his Position in the Conference.

Although the great majority of the Conference of 1854, after much conflict of feeling—in which regret and sympathy were mingled—rejected the resolutions proposed by Dr. Ryerson on the class-meeting question, yet sorrow at the loss from their councils of so distinguished a man as Dr. Ryerson prevailed amongst them. This feeling deepened as the year advanced, and much personal effort was made to induce him to consent to some honourable means by which his return to the ministerial ranks could be secured. At length, as the Conference-year neared its close, he yielded to the wishes of his friends, and, on the 26th May, 1855, addressed the following letter to Rev. Dr. Wood, President of the Conference:—

From the conversations which have taken place between you, my brother, and some others of our ministers and myself, in reference to my present and future relations to the Conference and to the Church, I think it but respectful and an act of duty to state my views in writing, that there may be no misapprehension on the subject, and that you may adopt such a course as you shall think advisable.

When I wrote my letters of resignation of office in the Church, the one dated 2nd January, 1854, and the other the 12th day of June following, I had but faint expectations of being in the land of the living at this time. In what I wrote and did, I acted under the apprehension of having no longer time for delay in attesting, in the most decisive and practical way in my power, what I believe to be the divine rights of members of the visible Church of Christ whether they are baptized children or professing Christians. Since then I have reason to be thankful that the alarming symptoms in respect to my health have in a great measure subsided, and that I have the prospect of being able to continue my labours with undiminished strength and vigor, at least for some time to come.

In my first letter to you I stated and explained at length my belief that making attendance at class-meeting an essential condition of membership in the Church of God, is not only requiring what is not enjoined in the word of God, but excluding, on other than scriptural grounds, exemplary persons from the Church of Christ, and unchurching the baptized children of our people who, as well as their parents, are scripturally entitled to membership in the Church. Having given the subject much further consideration during the last twelve months, and having examined all the works on it within my reach, I am, if possible, more fully confirmed in the views I expressed last year, as both Wesleyan and scriptural, than when I penned them. And it is not unworthy of remark, that the only two newspapers in Canada which have combatted my views have been The Church and The Catholic Citizen; and both of these papers have done so upon the ground that my views were not compatible with the due authority of the Church to decree dogmas, rites and ceremonies. I acknowledge myself a heretic according to their creed of ecclesiastical authority; and I confess that the position I have been unexpectedly compelled to assume during the last two or three years as to the right of every man to the Bible, and the rights of individuals and municipalities against compulsion in regard to taxation for the support of sectarian schools, has more deeply impressed upon my mind than ever that the Bible is the only safeguard of civil liberty, and that "the Bible only ought to be the religion of Protestants;" and especially in a matter so important as that which determines who are members and what are the conditions of membership in the Church of Christ.

I must, therefore, in all frankness and honesty, still declare my conviction that there is no scriptural authority for the power which is given to a minister, by the answers to the 4th question in the 2nd section of the 2nd chapter of our Discipline, to exclude a person from the Church of God for what is expressly stated not to be "immoral conduct," namely, not attending a meeting which is not ranked among the ordinances of the Church in the General Rules of our Societies, which the 12th section of the 1st chapter of our Discipline does not enumerate among the "prudential means of grace," even among Methodists, and which Mr. Wesley stated to be "not spiritual, not of divine institution." I would never exercise such authority myself; I never have exercised it; but I will not assume to judge those who think and act otherwise.

I beg, however, that it may not be forgotten, that while I thus speak and quote the authorities of the Church in respect to class-meeting as a test or condition of Church membership; yet as a prudential means of grace and a mode and means of Christian fellowship, I regard class-meetings (as stated in my former letters above referred to), as well as love-feasts and prayer-meetings, as of the greatest value and importance. But when I think of class-meeting being converted into a condition of membership in the Church of Christ, and thus made the occasion of excluding from its pale the whole early generation of our people and many other sincere Christians, I cannot view it as I would wish, and as I could otherwise do, with the same feelings that I view love-feasts and prayer-meetings.

In regard to the other aspect of the question, as it applies to the baptized children of our people, and in which the nature and office of Baptism are involved, I feel it to be of such vital importance that I must beg to make some observations which I hope may not be considered out of place, or prove altogether useless.

The circumstances which have caused me to feel so strongly on this point were stated in my letter to you on the 2nd January, 1854, and afterwards more fully justified in my letter of the 12th of June following; and it is with no small degree of surprise that I have found my views misapprehended and pronounced unsound. It has been alleged that they involve baptismal regeneration. Nothing can be further from the fact. What I maintain is simply what is stated in the 17th Article of Faith professed by our Church, and by the catechism used in the Methodist Church on both sides of the Atlantic, and what is set forth at large in the writings of Mr. Wesley and Mr. Watson. Baptism, like the Lord's Supper, is an outward sign; but, of course, neither can be that of which it is the sign.

Baptism (as the 17th Article of our Faith expresses it), is not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference whereby Christians are distinguished from others that are unbaptized, but it is also a sign of regeneration, or the new birth.

What I maintain is, that baptism is the outward and visible sign, while regeneration, or the new birth, is the inward spiritual grace; that by baptism we are born into the visible Church of Christ on earth, while by the Holy Ghost we are born into the spiritual or invisible Church of Christ in heaven, the same as in the Lord's Supper; there is the visible act of the Church and of the body of communicants, and the invisible act of the Saviour by the Holy Ghost and of the soul of the communicant. The two are distinct; the one may not accompany the other; but they may, and often do, accompany each other. The parent should bring his child in faith to the Lord's baptism, the same as the communicant should come in faith to the Lord's Supper. The communion of the Lord's Supper is the act of a professed member of Christ's visible Church; the receiving of the Lord's baptism, is receiving the seal of membership in Christ's visible Church, that "mark of difference whereby Christians are distinguished from others that are not baptized." Hence in the Wesleyan catechism, the question is asked,—

What are the privileges of baptized persons? The answer is,—They are made members of the visible church of Christ; their gracious relation to Him as the Second Adam, and as the Mediator of the New Covenant, is solemnly ratified by divine appointment; and they are thereby recognized as having a claim to all the spiritual blessings of which they are the proper subjects.

I maintain, therefore, that the language of our Articles of Faith and Catechism, as well as of our Baptismal Service and the writings of Mr. Wesley, explicitly declares baptism an act of the Church by which it receives the children baptized into its bosom—that all baptized children are truly members of Christ's visible Church, although they be not communicants in it until they personally profess the Faith of their Baptism, and evince their desire to flee from the wrath to come by the negative and positive proofs so briefly and fully enumerated in the General Rules of our societies.

The Church membership of baptized children is known to be the doctrine of all parties in the Church of England, as well as of Mr. Wesley. It is equally the doctrine of all sections of the Presbyterian Church, in which the baptized children are regarded as members of the Church, but not communicants until they make a personal profession of conversion, and receive a token or ticket of admission to the Lord's Supper. On this point it is sufficient to cite the following passages from the fifteenth chapter of the fourth book of Calvin's Institutes.

Baptism is a sign of initiation, by which we are admitted into the society of the Church, in order that being incorporated into Christ, we may be numbered among the children of God.... For as circumcision was a pledge to the Jews, by which they were assured of their adoption as the people and family of God, and on their parts professed their entire subjection to Him, and, therefore, was their first entrance into the Church; so now we are initiated into the Church of God by baptism, are numbered among His people, and profess to devote ourselves to his service.... How delightful is it to pious minds, not only to have verbal assurances, but even occular proof, of their standing so high in the favour of their heavenly Father, that their posterity also are the objects of his care! This is evidently the reason why Satan makes such great exertions in opposition to infant baptism: that the removal of this testimony of the grace of God may cause the promise which it exhibits before our eyes gradually to disappear, and at length to be forgotten. The consequence of this would be an impious ingratitude to the mercy of God, and negligence of the instruction of our children in the principles of piety. For it is no small stimulus to our education of them in the serious fear of God, and the observance of His law, to reflect, that they are considered and acknowledged by Him as His children as soon as they are born. Wherefore, unless we are obstinately determined to reject the goodness of God, let us present to Him our children, to whom He assigns a place in His family, that is, among the members of His church.

Richard Watson, the great expounder of Wesleyan Christian doctrine, treats this subject elaborately in the third chapter of the fourth part of his Theological Institutes. I will only quote the following sentences:—

Infant children are declared by Christ to be members of His Church. That they were members of God's Church, in the family of Abraham, and among the Jews, cannot be denied.... The membership of the Jews comprehended both children and adults; and the grafting-in of the Gentiles, so as to partake of the same "root and fatness," will, therefore, include a right to put their children also into the covenant, so that they, as well as adults, may become members of Christ's Church, have God to be their God, and be acknowledged by Him, in the special sense of the terms of the covenant, to be His people.... "Whosoever (says Christ) shall receive this child in my name, receiveth me;" but such an identity of Christ with His disciples stands wholly upon their relation to Him as members of His "mystic body, the Church." It is in this respect only that they are "one with Him;" and there can be no identity of Christ with "little children" but by virtue of the same relation, that is, as they are members of His mystical body, the Church; of which membership baptism is now, as circumcision was then, the initiatory rite.... The benefits of this Sacrament require to be briefly exhibited. Baptism introduces the adult believer into the covenant of grace and the Church of Christ; and is the seal, the pledge, to him, on the part of God, of the fulfilment of all its provisions, in time and in eternity; whilst on his part, he takes upon himself the obligation of steadfast faith and obedience. To the infant child, baptism is a visible reception into the same covenant and church, a pledge of acceptance through Christ—the bestowment of a title to all the grace of the covenant as circumstances may require, and as the mind of the child may be capable of receiving it; and as it may be sought in future life by prayer, when the period of reason and moral choice shall arrive. It conveys also the present blessing of Christ, of which we are assured by His taking children in His arms, and blessing them; which blessing cannot be merely nominal, but must be substantial and efficacious. It secures, too, the gift of the Holy Spirit in those secret spiritual influences, by which the actual regeneration of those children who die in infancy is effected; and which are a seed of life in those who are spared to prepare them for instruction in the word of God, as they are taught by parental care, to incline their will and affections to good, and to begin and maintain in them the war against inward and outward evil, so that they may be divinely assisted, as reason strengthens, to make their calling and election sure. In a word, it is, both as to infants and adults, the sign, and pledge of that inward grace, which, though modified in its operations by the difference of their circumstances, has respect to, and flows from, a covenant relation to each of the Three Persons in whose one name they are baptized,—acceptance by the Father—union with Christ as the head of His mystical body, the Church—and communion with the Holy Ghost. To these advantages must be added the respect which God bears to the believing act of the parents, and to their solemn prayers on the occasion, in both of which the child is interested; as well as in that solemn engagement of the parents which the rite necessarily implies, to bring up their child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

To these impressive words of Richard Watson, I add the following equally impressive extract from the pastoral address of the Wesleyan Conference in England to the Societies under its charge in 1837:—

By baptism you place your children within the pale of the visible Church, and give them a right to all its privileges, the pastoral care of its ministers, and as far as their age and capacity will allow, the enjoyment of its ordinances and means of grace. These children are not offshoots of the Church, enjoying only a distant relation to it, but they are of it, as a fact; they are grafted into the body of Christ's disciples; they are partakers of an initiatory and provisional state of acceptance with God, and can forfeit their right to the fellowship of the saints only by a course of sin. Besides, when this sacred ordinance is regarded by parents in the spirit of prayer and faith, it cannot be unaccompanied by the divine blessing. Grace is connected with every institution of the Christian Church; and when children are constituted a part of the flock of Christ by being placed within the fold, they have a peculiar claim on the care of that good Shepherd who "gathereth the lambs with his arms and carries them in his bosom;" and they will receive instruction, spiritual influences, tender care, and the exercise of mercy, agreeing with the relation in which they stand to God. On these grounds we affectionately exhort you to place your beloved offspring within the "courts of the house of our God," and amongst the number of His family, by strictly attending to this divinely appointed ordinance of our Saviour.[142]

Dr. Ryerson's views were, therefore, the same in 1834 as they were in 1854—that by Baptism children stand in the relation of members of the Church, and should be enrolled in its registers, and entitled to its privileges, until they, by their own voluntary irregularity or neglect, forfeit them. The coincidence mentioned, and the consistency of the views expressed by Dr. Ryerson twenty years before, are very remarkable.

* * * * *

Now what are these solemn and affecting words of John Calvin, of Richard Watson, and of the British Conference, but a mockery and a snare, if the baptized children are not to be acknowledged and treated as members of the visible church of Christ? Ought not then children baptised by the Wesleyan ministry to be recognized and cared for as members of the Wesleyan Church? It is absurd, and leaves them in a state of religious orphanage, to say that they are members of the visible Church of Christ, but not members of any particular branch of it. As well might it be said, that the children born in Canada, are members of the Canadian family, but not members of any particular family in Canada. To be the former without being the latter, would indeed allow them a country, but would leave them without a home, without a parent, without a protector, without an inheritance—homeless, houseless, destitute orphans. Is this the relation in which the baptized children of our people are to be viewed to the Church of their parents? In doing so, are not the most powerful considerations, motives and influences brought to bear upon both parents and children? In not doing so, is not the greatest wrong inflicted upon both, the ordinance of baptism virtually ignored, and its blessings lost? But in denying that any one is or can be a member of the Church except one who meets in class, are not the baptized children of our people refused a place within its pale? deprived of their baptismal birthright, before they are old enough to forfeit it by transgression? shut out from the family of God's people, and as practically unchurched as if they had never received a Christian name, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost? I cannot reflect upon the subject or contemplate its consequences, without the deepest pain and solicitude. I will pursue it no further, but will leave it with you and those on whom the responsibility of deciding upon it devolves.

It will be remembered that I have never said anything as to the mode of receiving adult persons from without into the Church; nor as to the class of members who alone should be eligible to hold office in the Church; nor have I entertained the idea that any other than the scriptural summary of Christian morality contained in the General Rules of our Societies should be applied to all members of the Church, whether in full communion or not. Nor have I other than supposed that all persons recognized as a part of the Church, would, as far as circumstances can permit, be registered as classes, and called upon regularly by a leader or steward for their contributions in support of the ministry and other institutions of the Church, the same as persons meeting weekly in a class. What I have said applies wholly and exclusively to the Church relation and rights of the baptized children of our people, and to the rights of persons otherwise admitted into the Church, who, I believe, ought not to be excluded from it except for what would exclude them from the kingdom of grace and glory.

Anything appertaining to myself personally is unworthy of mention in such a connexion. I banish from my mind and heart the recollection and feeling of anything I consider to have been uncalled for and unjust towards myself on the part of others. Though I have resigned the ecclesiastical or outward authority to exercise the functions of the Christian ministry, I have never regarded myself as a secular man; I have felt, and do feel, and especially with improved health, the inward, and, I trust, divine conviction of duty to preach, as occasion may offer and strength permit, the unsearchable riches of Christ to dying men. And if after the past publication and foregoing statement of my convictions on the point of Church Discipline and its administration, as affecting baptized children and other scripturally blameless members of the Church, and my purpose to maintain them on such occasions, and in such manner as are sanctioned by the Discipline, the Conference thinks it proper and desirable that I should resume my former relations to it and to the Church, I am willing to cancel my resignation, and to labour, as heretofore, to preach the doctrines and promote the agencies of the Church which I have sought by every earthly means in my power, though with conscious unfaithfulness before God, to advance during the last thirty years, and which are, I believe, according to the Scriptures, and calculated to promote the present and everlasting well-being of man.