BRANCHES OF METHODISM.
The Methodist Christians in England and America are divided into a number of distinct ecclesiastical organizations--the 'Wesleyans,' the 'Methodist Episcopal Church,' the 'Primitive Methodists,' the 'Primitive Wesleyans of Ireland,' the 'Bandroom Methodists,' the 'Methodist Protestant Church,' the 'Welsh Calvinistic Methodists,' the 'Free Methodist Church,' the 'African (Bethel and Zion) Methodist Episcopal Church,' etc. To the Methodist family belong also the 'Evangelical Association' (or 'Albright's Brethren,' so called from Jacob Albright, a Pennsylvania German, who founded this society in 1800), and the 'United Brethren in Christ' (founded by Philip William Otterbein, a German Reformed minister, d. in Baltimore, 1813).
The great parent body, however, are the Wesleyans in England and the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. They far outnumber all the other branches put together. The Methodist Episcopal Church was divided in 1844 on the question of slavery into 'the Methodist Episcopal Church' (North), and 'the Methodist Episcopal Church, South,' but measures have been inaugurated (1876) for reuniting them. Similar schisms for the same cause rent other Churches before the civil war, but have been healed or will be healed, since the war has removed the difficulty. The Roman Catholic, and next to it the Protestant Episcopal Church, owing to their conservatism, were least affected by the disturbing question of slavery, and remained intact.
The differences between the various branches of Methodism refer to the episcopate, the relative powers of the bishops and the general conference, lay representation, and other matters of government and discipline which do not come within the scope of this work. The doctrinal creed is the same in all, with the exception of the Whitefieldian Methodists, who are Calvinists, while all the rest are Arminians.
Note.--The Cyclopædia of M'Clintock and Strong, Vol. VI. p. 159, gives the following list of Methodist denominations, with the date of their organization and estimate of their ministers and church members in 1872:
GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
Denominations Date of Organization. Number of Ministers. Number of Church Members Wesleyan Methodists 1739 3,157 557,995 Welsh Calvinistic Methodists (1745) 207 58,577 New Connection Methodists 1797 260 35,706 Primitive Methodists 1810 943 161,229 Primitive (Ireland) Methodists 1816 85 14,247 Bible Christians 1815 254 26,241 United Methodist Free Churches 1828-49 312 68,062 Wesleyan Reform Union 1849 20 9,393 Totals 5,238 931,450
AMERICA.
Denominations Date of Organization. Number of Ministers. Number of Church Members Methodist Episcopal Church (in 1872) 1784 10,742 1,458,441 Methodist Church (Non-Episcopal) 1866 624 75,000 United Brethern 1800 . . . . . . . . Evangelical Association (Albrights) 1800 632 78,716 African Methodist Episcopal 1816 600 20,000 African Methodist Episcopal (Zion) 1819 694 164,000 Canada Wesleyans 1828 . . . . 69,597 Eastern British American Wesleyan Methodists 1854 ? 147 16,118 Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada 1828 228 21,103 Methodist Protestants, South 1830 2,858 600,900 Free Methodists 1860 about 90 6,000 Primitive Methodists about 20 2,000 Totals 17,308 2,591,875
* This does not include the colored membership now separately organized as the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
[1682] Tyerman, John Wesley, Vol. III. p. 658 (Harper's ed.). Dr. Rigg (The Living Wesley, Hurst's ed. p. 208) remarks that Wesley rode ordinarily sixty miles a day, and not seldom eighty and ninety miles, besides preaching twice or thrice.
[1683] Osborn's edition contains 7600 poems of Wesley, including those of John, who composed all the translations from the German.
[1684] When hardly able to articulate any more, he dictated to his wife these lines:
'In age and feebleness extreme,
Who shall a helpless worm redeem?
Jesus, my only hope thou art,
Strength of my failing flesh and heart;
Oh could I catch a smile from thee,
And drop into eternity!'
[1685] Tyerman, Vol. III. p. 78.
[1686] See Wesley's Funeral Sermon on the death of John W. Fletcher, who was a French Swiss by birth (de la Fléchière), born at Nyon, Canton de Vand, 1729, educated at Geneva, died at Madeley, 1785. His chief works is Checks to Antinomianism, against Calvinism.
[1687] Stevens, Centenary of American Methodism (N. Y. 1865), p. 94.
[1688] 'At the first,' says Dr. Rigg ('Contemporary Review' for 1876, pp. 656 sq.), 'with Wesley faith had meant the intellectual acceptance of the creeds, together with the submission of the will to the laws and services of the Church. . . . Until he met with Böhler, he had not embraced, scarcely, it would seem, had conceived the idea of faith as being, in its main element, personal trust and self-surrender, as having for its central object the atonement of Jesus Christ, and as inspired and sustained by the supernatural aid and concurrence of the Holy Spirit. . . . Wesley confessed that Böhler's teaching was true gospel teaching. . . . Here ended his High-Church stage of life. Here began his work as an evangelist and Church revivalist. All dates from his final acceptance of Böhler's teaching as to the nature of faith.' Dr. Stevens says (Centenary, p. 31): 'Methodism is indebted to Moravianism for not only some of the most important features of its moral discipline, but for the personal conversion of both the Wesleys.' But Wesley was converted before as much so as Luther was when he entered the convent of Erfurt several years before he experienced his second or evangelical conversion to the doctrine of justification by faith alone. On the other hand, some of the Oxford Tractarians were converted over again, or backward, when they joined the Church of Rome.
[1689] The first Methodist society in America was formed in 1766, in the city of New York, among a few Irish emigrants, by Philip Embury, a local preacher, and by his cousin, Mrs. Barbara Heck, a true 'mother in Israel.' Hence Methodism celebrated its centenary in 1866 with great festivities.
[1690] He also ordained a few presbyters for Scotland and England to assist him in administering the sacraments, on the plea that the regular clergy often refused to admit his people to the Lord's table. At the Conference of 1788 he consecrated (according to Samuel Bradburn's statement) one of his preachers as a superintendent or bishop. He had long before been convinced by Stillingfleet's 'Irenicon' and Lord King's 'Primitive Church' that bishops and presbyters were originally one order, and that diocesan episcopacy was not founded on divine right. In a letter to his brother Charles (1785) he calls the uninterrupted episcopal succession 'a fable which no man ever did or can prove.'--Rigg, 1.c. p. 669. For a full discussion of Wesley's ordination acts, see Stevens, History of Methodism, Vol. II. pp. 209 sqq., and Tyerman, John Wesley. Vol. III. pp. 426 sqq.
[1691] Bishop White, of Pennsylvania, was not consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury until Feb. 4, 1787, the consecration being delayed and nearly frustrated by certain impediments.