Note Footnotes — Theodosia Ernest. Volume II.: or, Ten Days’ Travel in Search of the Church. (continued 10)

[1] If my reader desires to see the argument on this subject, he can find it in a delightful work styled “The Infidel’s Daughter.”

[2] Theodosia, vol. i.,

[3] See the argument in “The Infidel’s Daughter,” which may, in some sort, be regarded as a continuation of the present work, by the same author.

[4] The reader will find the best apology which Mr. Courtney knew how to make for the parsimony of the Baptist churches farther on. It must be admitted that there is a most deplorable amount of truth in the allegations of Dr. Woodruff; and Mr. Percy’s fears of what would probably be the treatment of the churches to himself and family were not only natural, but more than justified by the facts which must have stared him in the face had he been at all familiar with the relationship which very generally in this country exists between the pastors and their people. It is a mournful truth that the churches do not give their ministers a reasonable support. It is lamentable to see how many of the best and noblest minds are driven out of the pulpit into the schoolroom, or the workshop, or other place of secular business, by the apprehension of absolute want. It is sad to think how many who would probably be most useful and efficient ministers are prevented by such fears from ever entering the ministry.

Few have the utter self-consecration of Mr. Percy, and scarcely any such a comforter to speak words of hope and trust to their doubting hearts. There is a fearful, an awful weight of responsibility resting upon our churches in regard to this subject. Let them look to it that God does not require at their hands the price of souls. Are there not some of them who have good reason to fear that by their parsimony they have forfeited the right to be regarded as the true churches of Him who has expressly provided that they who preach the gospel shall live of the gospel?

[5] During the lifetime of Christ the kingdom was established, but the Church, as the executive of the kingdom, was not needful, for the King himself was present, and acted as his own executive. The apostles who were with him, receiving instructions, may be regarded as in some sort his ekklesia. They were an assembly of his people, and were engaged in the preparatory business pertaining to the kingdom. We may, without impropriety, therefore, consider the meetings of the apostles to receive the ordinances and laws of the kingdom from the mouth of Christ, as meetings of his ekklesia. We may consider the apostles as constituting a Church when they, after the Passover, received the ordinance of the supper with instructions for its continuance; and so we may consider that as a Church meeting in which Thomas saw and believed; and that in which Peter was restored to favor and specially charged to feed Christ’s sheep. And so each of those assemblies which gathered around the Saviour during the forty days that he remained upon the earth to receive instruction in the things pertaining to the kingdom, may be regarded as a Church meeting. We may consider the Church as organized from the time that Christ called the twelve to be with him; but it was not till he was about to ascend that it received authority to transact the business of the kingdom, as his judiciary and executive.

[6] The reader is respectfully desired to turn back to page 159 of the first volume of Theodosia, and read again, in connection with the subject the chapter on the introduction of sprinkling.

[7] The reader is referred for additional information upon this subject to pages 319⁠–⁠340, vol. i.

[8] The following is a part of the act of Parliament referred to, and under authority of which the three American bishops, White, Madison, and Prevoost were permitted to be consecrated. After making it lawful for the English bishops to proceed with the consecration in a certain way, the act goes on to say, that “No person shall be consecrated bishop in the manner herein provided, until the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Archbishop of York, for the time being, shall have first applied for and obtained his majesty’s license, by warrant, under his royal signet and sign- manual, empowering him to proceed to such consecration.

“Provided also, and it is hereby declared, that no person or persons, consecrated to the office of a bishop in the manner aforesaid, nor any person or persons deriving their consecration from or under any bishop so consecrated, nor any person or persons admitted to the order of a deacon or a priest, by any bishop or bishops so consecrated, shall be thereby enabled to exercise his or their respective office within his majesty’s dominions.”—(Statutes of George III)

[9] Can any Methodist answer it? Let each one try.

[10] The members of the society have the same right to control the discipline of their own body that a recent letter-writer says the people in France have to vote. He says, “We have entire freedom to vote. A ticket prepared for us by the government, and we may vote it if we please. But if we do not like the ticket, we can abstain from voting.”

[11] If any one should doubt that it was the express intention of the makers of the Discipline to place the whole power of retaining or excluding members in the hands of the preachers, he can easily be satisfied by consulting the explanatory notes at first appended to the Discipline, and at one time published with it. These notes were prepared by Bishops Coke and Asbury, who presided in the Conference which formed the Church, and made, or rather adopted, the Discipline. In reference to this matter, the bishops say, “The grand point to be determined is this: whether the final judgment of an offender, in respect both to the guilt and the censure, should be invested in the minister or in the people? We shall therefore take a view of this part of our economy; first, in the light of Scripture, and secondly, in that of reason.” Then from Matthew xviii. 15, 17, “If thy brother shall trespass against thee,” etc., they come to the sage conclusion that “here is not a word said of the Church’s authority, either to judge or to censure. On the contrary, the whole authority is expressly delivered into the hands of the minister.” So that, if they intended by the provisions of the Discipline to place any part of the authority in the Church, they belied their own convictions and stultified their own explanation of the word of God.

“But it may be urged,” they go on to say, “that the offence must be first mentioned to the Church before the offender can be scripturally excluded. ‘Tell it to the Church,’ says our Lord. And so we do. It is merely for the sake of convenience that in large societies we tell it only to a committee, or representation of the society, or do abundantly more—even make them witnesses of the whole trial. But if such societies were to desire it, we would tell the whole unto the Church at large. But still, we must declare from the plain sense of the word of God that our Lord invests the minister with the whole authority both of judgment and of censure.”—(Notes on Discipline, chap. ii, sec. 8 as quoted in Emory’s History of the Discipline, pp. 331⁠–⁠288.)

[12] The reader will find it in the volume styled “The Infidel’s Daughter.”