SEVEN THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS 3. POLITY

FRANK BAKER Duke University, North Carolina, U.S.A.

SEVEN

THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS

3. POLITY

ON Wednesday, October 17, 1787, after rising as usual at 4 a.m. for an hour's Bible-reading, meditation and prayer, and then conducting public worship in the Methodist preaching-house at Witney, an apparently frail old man of eighty-four put the finishing touches to a sermon on which he had been engaged throughout the few days of his 'little tour in Oxford­ shire'. John Wesley was summarizing for the last time the story of the rise and growth of Methodism. The sermon was entitled 'God's Vineyard'. He described how 'two young clergymen, not very remarkable anyway, of middle age, having a tolerable measure of health, though rather weak than strong, began, about fifty years ago, to call sinners to repentance'. Driven from the parish churches into the open air both by official opposition and the multitude of their hearers, they were led to recruit lay assistants for their rapidly increasing work. Wesley began a fresh paragraph to enforce an essential point: It may be observed, that these clergymen, all this time, had no plan at all. They only went hither and thither, wherever they had a prospect of saving souls from death. But when more and more asked, 'What must I do to be saved?' they were desired to meet all together. Twelve came the first Thursday night; forty the next; soon after, a hundred. And they continued to increase till, three or four and twenty years ago, the London Society amounted to about 2,800_' l

These sentences contain the key to the organization of the Methodist Societies. These Societies were brought into being, not according to any predetermined plan, but as expedients forced upon a man ready to utilize almost any methods to accomplish what he regarded as a divine mission. The accumulating complexities of Methodist organization arose in the same way. There was no master plan to form a new sect, only the urgent demand to meet another aspect of spiritual need, even though this fre­ quently involved the solution of another ecclesiastical problem. Each situation was approached with a prayerful heart and an open mind, un­ swayed by prejudice, by an undue regard for precedents, or by any in­ flexible convictions about the pattern of Methodist polity. The eventual 1. Works (1829), VII.206-7. See also Sermons, VIII. (1788), pp. 258- 62, and Arm. Mag. 1789, pp. 6ff, 62ff, where it is dated Witney, October 17, 1787; cf. Journal, VII.334. 213 214 HISTORY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN expedient might be derived from ecclesiastical practice ancient or modern, from church or sect; it might equally well come from the committee-room or the law court, from Parliament or prayer meeting. It might be the result of 'pure chance'. Wesley was not concerned about the source, so long as the projected method of furthering the purpose of God in Methodism met his own peculiar brand of churchmanship-and worked. Only an overpowering urge could thus drive into imaginative, bold and controversial experiment a man who by nature was conservative, reticent, studious, meditative and deliberate-apparently much more fitted for the cloister or the quadrangle than the market-place. This driving spiritual motive was two-sided-the longing for a personal religion, both in himself and in others, and the speedy realization that this could only be preserved, and with many people might only be secured, through a living Christian fellowship. Around this spiritual urge many doctrinal, moral, social and cultural concepts rapidly clustered. Methodism of this character really began with the Holy Club at Oxford in 1729, as Wesley himself constantly avowed. But its momentum was furnished by the dynamic religious experience which came to the two Wes­ ley brothers in May 1738, for each of them a climactic episode in a long spiritual search. And both men realized that they must endeavour to share this experience. They now possessed-or were possessed by-a spiritual impetus that was not to be halted by the lifted eyebrow or the raised fist, by episcopal displeasure, magisterial threats or mob frenzy. In all this, as in the Holy Club itself, initiative and enthusiasm might be furnished by Charles Wesley, but the execution was in the hands of his elder brother. Usually Charles not only acquiesced in John's leadership but actively sought it. In the few (though important) matters whereon their views differed radically, Charles would not normally enter into open conflict with John, but having registered a protest would refuse to impede where he could not conscientiously assist. It is therefore with John Wesley that we are particularly concerned. The only checks which might restrain John Wesley from a course to which he believed himself driven by spiritual necessity, and against which the prudential reasoning of his brother and other trusted helpers proved unavailing, were provided by the teaching of the Bible and the practice of the Church, particularly the Church of the Apostles and of the first three Christian centuries. Unfortunately the most perfect Church of which he had personal experience, the Church of England, did not measure up to the Church of the New Testament and the ante-Nicene Fathers. From both sources, however, he was confirmed in his belief that the outward patterns of ecclesiastical organization mattered far less than spiritual efficacy. He found in the Bible what he regarded as the chief axiom of the Pr~test~nt Reformation, 'the grand principle of every man's right to private Judgement', but he did not find the sins of heresy and schism, which THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS: 3. POLITY 215 'were invented merely to deprive mankind of the benefit of private judge­ ments, and a liberty of conscience' .2 Wesley therefore felt free to indulge in ecclesiastical experiments whenever driven thereto by his spiritual urge. All his twelve reasons against the separation of Methodism from the Church of England were prudential, merely showing that to separate was not expedient. Only Charles Wesley's endorsement claimed that it was 'neither expedient nor lawful'.3 Yet John Wesley would flout established Anglican authority only under extreme spiritual pressure, when no outlet offered through ortho­ dox channels. The seeds of the Methodist Church, however, were present in that initial spiritual urge, finding fruitful soil in the consecrated catholi­ city of an organizing genius who would draw upon the resources of all men, but would call no man master. From the days of the Holy Club at Oxford, Wesley was convinced of the need for Christians to assemble together, not only for public wor­ ship, but for more intimate spiritual conversation. One of the text-books of the Holy Club was The Country Parson's Advice to his Parishioners, first published in 1680, wherein Wesley approvingly read: If good men of the Church will unite together in the several parts of the kingdom, disposing themselves into friendly societies, and engaging each other, in their respective combinations, to be helpful to each other in all good Christian ways, it will be the most effectual means for restoring our decaying Christianity to its primitive life and vigour, and the supporting of our tottering and sinking Church. In a letter to the London Magazine for December 1760, Wesley adduced this advice as the origin not only of the Oxford Methodists but of the Methodist Societies in general. Here we see the primary source not only of Wesley's most important method, the 'society', but of its motive, to restore to the Church its 'primitive life and vigour'.4 The anonymous 'country parson' wrote from a knowledge of the Religious Societies recently founded in London, Westminster and else­ where under the influence of Dr Anthony Horneck. These Societies, best known to us through Dr Josiah Woodward's Account of them (1698), were intended solely for spiritually-minded churchmen, though they did succeed in winning some Dissenters back to the Anglican fold. From the Religious Societies sprang in turn the Societies for the Reformation of Manners (circa 1691), the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (1698) and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (1701). John Wesley was born with religious societies in his blood. In 1700 his father had published an enthusiastic plea for their more widespread adop-

2. Works V.496; VIII.30; MS. Min. 1744, p. 12; 1747, pp. 39-40, 46-47; Letters 11.77-78, 96; Notes 011 N.T., I Cor. xi. 18. 3. MS. Min. 1744, pp. 12, 13; 1747, p. 47; Works, VII.208; XIII.225- 32. 4. Letters, IV.119. 216 HISTORY OF THE METHODIST C H U R CH I N GREA T BRITAIN tion, and had himself founded one at Epworth in February 1701/2.5 Ten years later, during the rector's absence at Convocation, Mrs Wesley entered this field . She threw open her family prayers first to a trickle, and then to a torrent, of eager parishioners, until two hundred of them were regularly worshipping in the rectory kitchen. Even though this was not a religious society in quite the sense that Dr Woodward or Samuel Wesley would have used the term, Susanna Wesley did sometimes speak of this Sunday evening gathering as 'our society'. These occasions may have enforced in John Wesley's mind the principle that God might well summon sincere Christians to fellowship and worship outside the walls of the parish church and under the leadership of laymen or even women. 6 By this time the religious societies themselves were forsaking their original pattern of assemblies for ordered worship conducted by the parish priest. Horneck's concession of occasional 'conferences' or spiritual discussions had become the regular and basic feature of the meetings. Similarly the appointment of 'an orthodox and pious minister' as 'director' was no longer essential but expedient, and the organization of most societies was firmly in the hands of two lay stewards, who acted not only as secretaries and treasurers, but as sub-pastors.7 The terms 'little society', 'religious society'- and sometimes 'ridiculous society'- were used by others to describe the religious study-circle begun by Charles Wesley at Oxford in the summer of 1729, which in the autumn was taken under the wing of his elder brother, just returned from parochial duties in Epworth and Wroot. John Wesley himself usually avoided the technical term, preferring 'our little company' or the 'glorious title' of Holy Club, but occasionally he also slipped into it.8 Eventually 'Methodist' became the accepted description, carried over to the other societies founded by the Wesleys, ,as well as to many other manifestations of devotional, evangelical and philanthropic zeal. The first defence of this spiritual upsurge (apparently written by William Law) links the terms 'Methodist' and 'Society'-The Oxford Methodists: being some Account of a Society of Young Gentlemen in t.hat city, so denominated (I 733). This unbiased investi­ gation speaks throughout of this 'Society', and disproves the criticism in Fog's Journal that 'all social Entertainments and Diversions are disap­ prov'd of' by the rather dubious argument, 'How can that be, when they themselves are a Society?' 9

5. See the 16-page appendix to Samuel Wesley, The Pious Communicant Rightly Prepar'd. The Epworth Society began with a nucleus of choristers who met on Saturday evenings. Only men were eligible and a new society must be formed when the numbers reached twelve. See W. 0. B. Allen and E. McClure, Two Hundred Years: The History of the SPCK, pp. 87-93. 6. John Whitehead, Life of John Wesley (1743, 1796), I.45-54. 1. J. Wickham Legg, English Church Life, pp. 291-300, 308-14; J. S .Simon, John Wesley and the Religious Societies, pp. 10- 27. 8. Journal, 1.89, 94; VIII.260, 266; X.98; Letters, 1.54, 85. 9. Journal, I.101; Works, VIII.348; Oxford Methodists, p. 22. THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS: 3. POLITY 21 7 When in October 1735, as Oxford Methodists, the Wesleys set sail for Georgia, the 'Holy Club' fellowship was continued on board the Simm0nds, Within a few weeks of their arrival in Georgia both the wider and the m~re intimate communion were advocated as a means of enriching the parochial life of Savannah. Wesley's Journal records: We agreed, 1st. To advise the more serious among them, to form themselves into a sort of little Society, and to meet once or twice a Week, in order to reprove, instruct and exhort one another. 2. To select out of these a smaller Number for a more intimate Union with each other, which might be forwarded, partly by our conversing singly with each, and partly by inviting them all together to our House.10 They met on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday evenings. Within a few weeks a similar society was meeting on the same evenings in the southern outp?st of Frederica, and then a second. In addition Wesley held a preparation meeting for communicants on Saturday evenings.11 Towards the close of 1737 John Wesley followed his brother Charles and Benjamin Ingham back to England, in many ways disillusioned, yet as certain as ever of the necessity of Christian fellowship as one of the most important means of grace. In Oxford he met in 'Mr Fox's Society', and on his return to London on May 1, 1738 he assisted at the birth of what has erroneously been called both the first Moravian and the first Methodist Society in England. In fact this Fetter Lane Society (which met originally , at Hutton's home) was clearly for Anglicans only, fashioned after the ; pattern of the Religious Societies. This was made plain and public not only by the expulsion of two members 'because they disowned themselves members of the Church of England', but by the group going as a body to communion at St Paul's.12 Originally the Fetter Lane Society had only two rules, each designed to ward off dangers to which many or most of the older Religious Societies had fallen prey. The first (based on James 5.16) aimed at avoiding lifeless formality, the second eschewed exclusive narrowness: 1. That they will meet together once in a Week to confess their Faults one to another, and to pray for one another that they may be healed. 2. That any others, of whose sincerity they are well assured, may if they desire it, meet with them for that purpose. This second rule obviously did in fact open the door (as members

10. Journal, 1.197-205; L. Tyerman Oxford Methodists, pp. 69, 70; Works, XIIl.305. 11. Tyerman, Oxford Methodists, p. 79; Letters, 1.214. It is significant that the second section of Wesley's Charlestown Collection, 1737, comprised 'Psalms and Hymns for Wednesday or Friday', and the third section those for Saturday. Cf. Journal, 1.226-30, 232, 276, 278-9. 12.Journal, 1.445, 457, 458; Works, XIIl.307; Letters, J.276; Charles Wesley's Journal, 1.148, 150, 153, 216. H.M.B.I.- 9 218 HISTORY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN if not as participants) to non-Anglicans in general, and to Moravians in particular, who were in communion with the Church of England.13 There was a long discussion about subdividing the Society. The Wesleys from their own experience both in Oxford and Georgia supported the 'exhortations' of the Moravian Peter Bohler that such 'bands' were essen­ tial. It was agreed to try the experiment of dividing into two 'companies' (the word is probably Wesley's), the single and the married men meeting separately. After a month's trial, accordingly, on May 29, three more rules were added, arranging for the continuance of this division 'into several bands, or little Societies', each consisting of from five to ten members with a leader.14 A similar society had been founded in Nettleton Court, off Aldersgate Street, by James Hutton, and this society also was subdivided into bands at Bohler's instigation. It was in this Aldersgate Street Society that John Wesley experienced his 'warmed heart' on May 24, 1738. On board ship, in Georgia, and now in England, Wesley's contacts with the Moravians had underlined the value of religious society and of Religious Societies. They had shown the Wesleys the way from formal into vital religion. Small wonder that John Wesley, always the seeker after truth, must go to Herrnhut and examine for himself the methods of the remarkable community there. He returned with his new scale of values confirmed, and with the patterns of his own immediate spiritual programme taking shape in his mind. Not that Wesley swallowed Moravianism whole. He rejected their gatherings for mental prayer, the foot-washing, the kiss of peace. Nor would he accept their 'monitors', urging that brotherly reproof was the duty of all. Nor were those aspects of their worship, social service and polity which most impressed him simply transplanted into English soil. Rather were they seed-ideas cross-fertilized by his study of the early Church, by his Anglican training, and by his own initiative.16 The greatest immediate effect was his complete conversion to the method of the bands. Even here, however, it was Moravianism with a difference, in effect a combination of the Moravian bands and 'choirs'. The Herrnhut community was subdivided into eleven 'choirs'- groups consisting res­ pectively of married men, widowers, single brethren, youths, boys, married women, widows, single women, young women, girls, and infants in arms. In addition, there were voluntary groups formed without reference to the 'choirs' from those in a similar stage of spiritual development. These had first been called 'bands', but after 1736 more usually 'societies'. Their leaders held monthly conferences to discuss the spiritual state of their members. Wesley retained the spiritual intimacy of the band (or 'band- 13 . D. Benham, James Hutto11, pp. 29- 32. The Herrnhut copy of this MS adds after the title 'the members consisting of Persons in communion with the Established Church', subtly different from 'communicants of'. See W. G. Addison's Renewed Church of the U11ited f!rethre11, p. 84 n. For the spiritual poverty of the societies see Tyerman, White­ field, I.317-19. 14. World Parish, November 1949, pp. 12-13; cf. Journal, I.475n. 15. Journal, II.50-56. Cf. Letters, 1.257-8, 272-4, 349- 50. THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS: 3. POLITY 219 society' as he came to call it) combined with the basic subdivisions of the 'choirs' into men and women, married and single.10 John Wesley arrived in London from Herrnhut on Saturday night September 16, 1738. During the following week he made a round of seven Religious Societies in London, including the one in Alders gate Street and the one which he had helped to start-'our little society, which now consisted of thirty-two persons'. It seems clear that he wanted to reform the Religious Societies root and branch, and Friday the 22nd was spent largely in defending himself against exaggerated reports of his wild new ideas. The following Monday evening, September 25, he again met the Society at Hutton's, and the fruits of his Herrnhut visit were codified in a supple­ mentary set of 'Orders'. These included regulations for the conduct of meetings both of the bands and of the Society as a whole. There were to be days of general intercession, love-feasts on Sundays, and a rota arrangement for a continuous fast. Careful provisions were made for the probation and admission of new members, and ('after being thrice admonished') for their expulsion. Acceptance of discipline was a condition of admittance, spiri­ tual conversation implied reproof, and members were to be 'entirely open, using no kind of reserve' ;journeys and even courtship, were not to be under­ taken without the approval of the brethren. Wesley also prescribed, after the pattern of the old Religious Societies, the regular collection of volun­ tary subscriptions towards expenses, this being done through the Leaders of the bands.17 In December 1738 Wesley drew up 'Rules of the Band-Societies'. Again the note of intimacy to the point of confession was emphasized, both in the quotation from James 5.16 and in the detailed regulations. These included eleven questions to be asked by the leader of every candidate for member­ ship, and of the others from time to time, and five questions to be asked of everyone at every meeting: I. What known Sin have you committed since our last Meeting? 2. What Temptations have you met with? 3. How was you delivered? 4. What have you thought, said or done, of which you doubt whether it be a Sin or not? 5. Have you nothing you desire to keep secret? 18 Although on this evidence the band might now be condemned as a spiritual hothouse, it revived many wilting Societies.19 Within a few months other societies honouring Wesley's influence took the bands into their system. As early as March 1738 he and Bohler had established a band for 16. Wes. Meth. Mag. 1911.197-202; cf. C. W. Towlson, Moravian and Methodist, pp. 184-95. 17. Benham, Hutton, pp. 30-32; Journal, I.458- 9. 18. Cf. Works, VIIl.273. The fifth question was omitted from later editions. 19. Cf. Bishop Lavington's criticism, Wesley's Works, IX.55-56, Joseph Nightingale Portraiture of Methodism (1807), pp. 190-9. 220 HISTORY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN Oxford students, and another for townswomen. Wesley's diary and letters show that these had survived and even increased, though against difficulties which were soon to overpower them. 20 Whitefield's urgent appeal that Wesley should foster the spiritual revival in Bristol contained the claim that many there were 'ripe for bands', and within a week of his arrival Wesley had indeed formed two bands, one for men and one for women, for whom he transcribed the London 'Orders'. A week later they had grown to five, and others quickly followed. 21 Wesley's adventurous views and strict Anglican discipline were by no means welcome to all members of the religious societies, either in London or at Bristol. For a time he was accepted as their 'director' (though Horneck's term does not seem to have been used), witness his letters to his second-in­ command in London, James Hutton, from whose home the rapidly ex­ panding Society had transferred to Fetter Lane. In November 1739 Wesley returned to London after a month's absence to find his authority at Fetter Lane undermined, a majority of the members being captivated by a recently arrived Moravian, Philip Henry Molther, who taught that the means of grace were of no value before, and not necessary after, the experience of saving faith in Christ. 'Be still, and know that I am God' was the slogan. For a handful of other adherents, Wesley took the lease of the ruined King's Foundery near Upper Moorfields, and the new society there grew so rapidly that, by June 1740, there were three hundred members. The Fetter Lane disputes reached their head in July 1740, and a further seventy-five or seventy-six of the members there came to swell the Foundery Society. Within two years the Fetter Lane Society became a recognized congrega­ tion of the Moravian Church, although for almost a year Wesley tried to bring about a reunion. At Bristol, Wesley already possessed his own suite of premises, the 'New Room in the Horsefair', where as proprietor he was obviously in control. The same was now true in London, which soon came to be recognized as the parent Methodist Society. Wesley was resolved to use his past frustrations to good purpose.22 Two points were of special importance in this new situation. For the members of the Foundery and New Room Societies Wesley was the supreme authority, their Father in God. They had asked to be taken under his wing. Every responsibility undertaken by others in the organization of these Societies was authority delegated by Wesley. He recognized that there was danger in this spiritual autocracy, but events proved that his powers were unfailingly used to the glory of God, not to the glory of John Wesley. 23 Second, the conditions of entrance into membership were extremely wide,

20. Wes. Meth. Mag., 1911, p. 200; Journal, 11.151d, 283-4. 21. L. Tyerman, Whitefield, 1.193; Journal, 11.173d, 174, 179-80d, 237d; Lellers, 1.294, 296, 299-300, 316. 22. J. S. Simon, John Wesley a11d the Religious Societies, 228-92; John Wesley and the Methodist Societies, 9-20; Journal, 11.453; Charles Wesley's Journal, 1.241. 23. Minutes of the Meth. Conferences (1862), 1.497-509; Letters, II.238-41. THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS: 3. POLITY 221 and have so remained. Unlike the Religious Societies, from which he thus parted company, Wesley imposed no ecclesiastical or credal test; the new society was for any who evinced 'a desire to flee from the wrath to come, to be saved from their sins'. Within a few years this was strengthened by rules which were conditions of continuance in membership; in other words, they were designed as tests of the sincerity of the initial desire, which still remained the one condition of entry.24 Even at Bristol, however, there were serious dissensions, convincing Wesley that he must maintain strict discipline on matters of conduct, no matter how broadminded he was about creeds. Out of this need for disci­ pline arose the distinctive ticket of membership. Before acting, Wesley took the inner circle of the bands into his confidence: Tues. 24 [February 1741]: The bands meeting at Bristol, I read over the names of the United Society, being determined that no disorderly walker should remain therein. Accordingly I took an account of every person (1) to whom any reasonable objection was made; (2) who was not known to and recommended by some on whose veracity I could depend. To those who were sufficiently recommended, tickets were given on the following days. Most of the rest I had face to face with their accusers; and such as either appeared to be innocent, or confessed their faults and promised better behaviour, were then received into the society. The others were put upon trial again, unless they voluntarily ex­ pelled themselves. About forty were by this means separated from us; I trust only for a season. Further expulsions at Kingswood, near Bristol, were accompanied by the public reading of a carefully prepared document: I, John Wesley, by the consent and approbation of the band-society in Kings­ wood, do declare the persons above-mentioned to be no longer members thereof. Neither will they be so accounted, until they shall openly confess their fault, and thereby do what in them lies to remove the scandal they have given.26 In April, Wesley followed a similar disciplinary pattern at London.26 Wesley's use of the term 'the United Society' apparently refers to the Baldwin Street and Nicholas Street societies, for whose accommodation the New Room was primarily built, and which had been finally united in the presence of John Wesley and George Whitefield on July 11, 1739.27 The earliest check-list of members' names to survive is in Wesley's own hand and is headed 'The United Society, in Bristol, Jan. 1, 1741.' 28 The 24. Journal, VII.389; Works, VII.281; VIII.249. 25. Journal, 11.429- 33. The editor incorrectly states that 'Society' appears instead of 'band-society' in the first edition. The 'band-society' consisted of the united bands and was both smaller and more select than the Society as a whole. Wesley's diary makes it quite clear that this clisi.iplinary action was taken in the presence of the bands only. For earlier expulsions from the Baldwin Street Society see Letters, 1.326. 26. Journal, Il.442 & d; Letters, 1.352. 21.Journal, II.194-7, 302d; cf. Letters, 1.318; WHS Proc. XIX.133-5; Tyerman, Whitefield, 1.260. 28. WHS Proc. IV.92-97 (illus.). Cf. Meth. Mag. September 1940, pp. 400-4. The inclusion of Cennick's name makes it clear that the elate is 1740/1, not 1741/2. 222 HISTORY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN same title was soon applied to other societies owing allegiance to Wesley, as may be seen from the title-page of the 1743 Nature, Design, and General Rules, of the United Societies, in London, Bristol, King's-wood, and Newcastle upon Tyne. 29 At this time only the band members were really under any close super­ vision in small groups; the other members of the United Society would simply meet in a larger fellowship once a week. With very large societies such as those in Bristol and London adequate pastoral oversight by visiting necessitated some delegation of responsibility, and something much more definite than expecting the band members in general to keep their eye on the peripheral members of the society. The solution to this pastoral prob­ lem came as the by-product of a financial expedient. On Monday, February 15, 1742, Wesley summoned the leading members at Bristol to consider methods of liquidating the debt on the New Room. One Captain Foy (not yet identified with certainty) suggested that every member should give a penny a week towards the debt. On being challenged that some could not afford even a penny, Foy offered to take eleven of the poorest as his own responsibility; he would call on them weekly, and himself make good any deficit. Other leading members were prompted to make similar offers, and the whole society was thereupon divided into 'little companies or classes­ about twelve in each class'. One person received the contributions of the other members of the class and brought the money to the stewards each week. By this means the debt was discharged in less than two years. 30 This was not the first suggestion of a 'penny-a-week' contribution; Wesley had inaugurated one for the poor in the London society on May 7, I 741. It was, however, the first real attempt in Methodism to break down the whole membership of the societies into manageable and co-ordinated groups. Unlike the Moravian division into 'choirs' (and the Methodist bands), for the most part the allocation to classes ignored differences of age and sex, and was based chiefly on topographical considerations. 'Children's Societies' were tried for a time, but hardly got beyond the experimental stage.31 The title 'class' implied no teaching element, but was simply the English form of the Latin classis or division. Nor was any pastoral function at first envisaged, until two of the collectors or 'leaders' reported to Wesley that they had found one member quarrelling with his wife, and another drunk, whereupon Wesley thought, 'This is the very thing we wanted. The Leaders are the persons who may not only receive the contributions, but also watch over the souls of their brethren.' By the time he returned to London the new method had taken shape in his mind, and within two days he put the plan into operation:

29. 'Methodist Societies' did not appear on the title-page until after Wesley's death. 30. Journal, 11.528; IIl.97; Works, VIIl.252-3; XIII.259; WHS Proc. III.64-65; XIX.64-65. 31. Journal, 11.453-4; Works, VIII.38; Minutes, 1.480. THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS: 3. POLITY 223 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 most 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. 32 Within a few months another transformation took place. Instead of the class leaders visiting all their members each week, the members themselves came together for a fellowship meeting, either in the Society's headquarters, the leader's home, or some other suitable place. On these occasions 'advice or reproof was given as need required, quarrels made up, misunderstand­ ings removed', and all in the atmosphere of praise and prayer. There were those who objected to the method, and those who were timorous in speech; nor were all the class leaders fitted for their pastoral responsibility. On the whole, however, the system worked so well that it was accepted and welcomed throughout the country, even though Wesley, agreeing that it was a purely human institution, pledged himself ready at any time to make a change that might prove for the better. 33 Once meetings were established for all members there was a strong tendency for the classes to oust the bands from their key position in the Methodist economy. Indeed in his Plain Account of the People called Methodists ( 17 48) Wesley himself not only gave first place to the classes, but implied that the bands had developed from them. To the end of his life, however, he continued to insist that without bands a society would lack spiritual vigour, and most of the larger societies did indeed retain them.34 Membership of the Methodist Society was exercised by membership of a class or band. Four times a year membership was renewed at the distribu­ tion of the tickets introduced by Wesley in 1741. This was done after a 'visitation', which originally meant quite literally a series of house-to­ house visits, but later an official gathering. On these occasions Wesley or one of his deputies would meet one or more classes assembled together, would make inquiries about each individual, and would then present him with his new ticket. On this occasion a special thank-offering of a shilling was usually made by each member, later called 'ticket-money'. The first ticket was received only after a would-be member had been 'on trial' for three months, reduced by 1780 to 'at least two months'. 35 The membership 32. Journal, 11.528, 535; Works, VIIl.252- 5; XIII.259. 33. Works, V.IIl.253- 5. The weekly meeting was established at least by 1744. The evi­ dence of the 1743 Rules is inconclusive, but that of the 1744 Minutes and of Viney's diary for May- June 1744 imply a weekly meeting; the phrase 'visiting the classes' in Charles Wesley's Joumal, 1.305 (February 1743) seems to mean calling upon the members, as does Journal, III.68. 34. Works, VIl.207; Minutes, I.BO, 480-81; Letters, Vlll.57. 35. The 1748 Conference pondered the desirability of a longer probation for the rich (MS Minutes, p. 52). 224 HISTORY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN ticket proved a very valuable means of enforcing discipline. Admission to Society Meetings and Love-feasts was restricted to those who could present a current quarterly ticket to the doorkeeper; each ticket was readily dis­ tinguished from that of the preceding quarter not only by a different date and scriptural text, but from 1750 onwards by a different serial letter. Continuance in membership, however, was reserved for those who evi­ denced their desire to 'flee from the wrath to come' by avoiding evil, doing good, and using the means of grace. Withholding the ticket proved a quiet and simple method of suspension or expulsion.36 The members of the various classes were listed on a 'class-paper', which in the following century became a 'class-book'. This recorded either their presence and contribution or their absence and the reason for it: 'S' for sick, 'D' for distant, 'B' for business, 'N' for neglect, and 'A' when absent for unknown causes. 37 Three consecutive absences without reason involved 'self-expulsion' because the member had 'ceased to meet'.38 From at least 1750, and probably earlier, those who also met in bands had their own distinctive tickets, containing the word 'Band' or a Jetter 'B' in addition to the serial letter. The band-members also had their own addi­ tional rules, based on those of 1738, to which were added fifteen detailed and searching 'Directions' for daily conduct, first published on Christmas Day, 1744, and reviewed from time to time. 39 A member might be down­ graded from meeting both in class and band to meeting in class only, witness the occasion on May 5, 1750, described by Charles Wesley: Met a Band of still Brothers, corrupted by the Germans, and very quietly and lovingly gave them Society-tickets for their band-tickets, not chusing to trust them any longer among the sound sheep. 40 The Minutes of the 1744 Conference reveal a further grading of member­ ship and of fellowship groups, in the larger societies at least: Q.1. How are the people divided who desire to be under your care? A. Into the United Societies, the Bands, the Select Societies, and the Peni­ tents. Q.2. How do these differ from each other? A. The United Societies (which are the largest of all) consist of awakened persons. Part of these, who are supposed to have remission of sins, are more closely united in the Bands. Those in the Bands, who seem to walk in the light of God, compose the Select Societies. Those of them who have made shipwreck of the faith, meet apart as penitents. The Select Society, it will be seen (in spite of statements to the contrary), was not synonymous with the Bands. At the Foundery in February 1744 36. Works, VII.209; Minutes, 1.478- 9; Nightingale, Portraiture ofMethodism (2nd Ed., 1815), pp. 244--50. 37. Jonathan Crowther, Portraiture of Methodism (2nd Ed. 1915), pp. 266-8 38. Letters, IV.273; VI.208. This interpretation of the basic rule of attendance was not inserted in the Minutes, but became part of the unwritten tradition. 39. Works, VIII,273-4; cf. Journal, IV.186; Letters, VI.383. 40. MS letter, Emory University Library, Georgia. THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS: 3. POLITY 225 there were seventy-seven members of the Select Society, about one-tenth of the number in the Bands. The category first appears in Wesley's diary for May 20, 1741, as the 'select band'. Band-members might be accepted on their own testimony of having received remission of sins; their professions of faith must have been tested and proved by consistent Christian living and by obvious growth in grace before they could become members of the Select Society. In his Plain Account Wesley stated that in forming this inner circle fellowship his idea was: not only to direct them how to press after perfection ... but also to have a select company to whom I might unbosom myself on all occasions without reserve, and whom I could propose to all their brethren as a pattern of love, of holiness, and of good works. Their only additional rules were that they should treat all discussions as confidential, submit to their minister 'in all indifferent things', and make a special contribution each week towards a common stock. It seems possible that for a time at least they had their own distinctive tickets. In later years the Select Society came to be regarded as intended, not for those who were sincerely pressing on to Christian perfection, but for those who 'appeared, so far as man could judge, to be partakers of the same "great salvation" '.41 The Penitents were not backsliding class-members, but band-members who had fallen away spiritually. No separate rules for them are given in the 1744 Minutes, though they were envisaged. Both the Select Society and the Penitents Society gradually fell into abeyance. Until 1772 the Large Minutes listed among the duties of a 'helper': 'To meet the United Society, the Bands, the Select Society, and the penitents every week.' The latter two sections of this fourfold division were dropped from 1780 onwards. Never­ theless to a limited extent the categories continued. Wesley still urged preachers to care for the Select Societies, and Samuel Bradburn's scheme of subjects for his Saturday evening Penitents' Meetings in London in 1789 is still extant.12 We have seen that from the beginning of the strictly 'Methodist' societies Wesley himself (or his brother Charles) assumed full responsibility for the admission and discipline of members. At the same time he sought the co-operation of the more reliable band-members, and later band-leaders and class-leaders, in arriving at his decisions. With the appointment of itinerant preachers to act as his 'assistants' or 'helpers' he felt able to dele­ gate to them the responsibility for oversight of members and leaders alike. Neither the leaders themselves, nor the stewards (whom Wesley regarded as holding a higher office), had any executive authority in the Societies, but simply discharged administrative duties under the assistant. Both 41. G. J. Stevenson, City Road Chapel, London (1872), pp. 33ff, Works, XIII.260; Nightingale Portraiture, pp. 199-200. See tickets in 1762 marked 'S', which may have stood simply for Society', WHS Proc. XXXI.3, 7. 42. Minutes, I.492-3; Letters, VII.205, 253, 291. Bradburn 's MS scheme was included in the Dodsworth Bequest to Wesley's Chapel, London. H.M.B. J.-9* 226 HISTORY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN members, leaders, and stewards were admitted, appointed, and expelled by Wesley or his assistants alone. With the growth of lay leadership this often proved unpopular, but in 1771 he put the position bluntly but plainly, pointing out that in the Methodist polity the wheels transmitting power were 'the assistant, the preachers, the stewards, the leaders, the people'. Wesley continued to insist on this hierarchy, making it abundantly clear in 1785: The Assistant has need in most places to have a strict eye to the leaders; but they are nothing in the Methodist constitution, but single men who are employed by the Assistant as long and as far as he pleases. 43 In practice, however, Wesley's regular consultations with his band­ and class-leaders (and stewards) gave them a somewhat higher status than his forthright words would imply. From the beginning he tried to maintain the regular Wednesday 'conferences' with the bands, as laid down in the Fetter Lane 'Orders', and sought the guidance of the Bristol bands (later the band-leaders only) when considering the Society's membership list. The first 'Leaders' Meeting' of Methodism seems to have been held in Bristol on June 6, 1739, followed by one in London on September 5 of that year. With the inauguration of the class system, a weekly meeting of the leaders, the stewards and the minister became an essential part of the organization of the larger societies, with both pastoral and financial functions. The regulation that the preachers should 'meet the Leaders weekly' remained in the Large Minutes until shortly after Wesley's death. The Leaders' Meeting still possessed only advisory powers, but in 1797 was given the right of veto in the admission of members, and of approbation or disapprobation in the appointment or removal of leaders or stewards.44 It will readily be realized that if under Wesley's regime the leaders had little power, the members themselves had less. The Society Meeting had no administrative responsibilities at all, but was simply a devotional gathering. Not until 1908 did the Wesleyan Methodist Church legislate for the representation of the Society members on the Leaders' Meeting. That this lack of democracy or any trace of congregational polity was in accordance with Wesley's mind is made quite clear by one of his letters, written in 1790: As long as I live the people shall have no share in choosing either stewards or leaders among the Methodists. We have not and never had any such custom. We are no republicans, and never intend to be. 46 · In calling the chief administrative officials of his societies 'stewards' Wesley was borrowing the term already current in the old Religious

43. Journal, V.404-6; Minutes, I.125; Letters, VIII.124-5 (the original is dated 1785, not 1789). Cf. VI.208, 275; VII.101. See especially WHS Proc. II.19-22. 44.Journal, Il.178d, 181d, etc.; II.213d ('the leaders'); cf. Il.259d, 265d, 271d, 274d, 289d, 299d, 442; Works, VIII.270, 253, 255; Minutes, I.492- 3; 391 - 2, 394. 45. Letters, VIII.196; cf. J. S. Simon, Methodis't Law and Discipline, 1923, pp. 41-42. THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS: 3. POLITY 227 Societies. His first steward was chosen in the winter of 1739- 40 to relieve Wesley of the temporal burdens incurred by the lease of the derelict Foundery. The Minutes of the first Conference (I 744) show how multi­ farious became the duties of a steward: 1. To manage the temporal things of the Society. 2. To receive the weekly contributions of the Leaders of the classes. 3. To expend what is needful from time to time. 4. To send relief to the poor. 5. To see that the public buildings be kept clean and in good repair. 6. To keep an exact account of Receipts and Expenses. 7. To inform the Helpers, if the rules of the house, of the school, of the Bands, or of the Society, be not punctually observed; and 8. If need be, to inform the Minister hereof. 9. To tell the Helpers in love, if they think anything amiss in their doctrine or life. 10. If it be not removed, to send timely notice to the Minister. 11 . To meet his fellow Stewards weekly, in order to consult together on the preceding heads. Most of the larger societies had two stewards, and the smaller societies one. They became of such importance that on occasion they were invited to share the Conference deliberations with Wesley and his preachers. Be­ cause of their very importance, Wesley later urged that at least one should be changed each year, and constantly insisted on the Assistant's right to appoint and dismiss them at will. 46 The stewards also had their rules, seven of them, including 'Have no long accounts; pay everything within the week'. For a long time the chief call on the funds was the relief of the poor, and Richard Viney's diary for February 27, 1744, gives a vivid picture of the class leaders at the Foundery bringing in their class-moneys to the stewards, and then participating in the distribution to the various poor people whom they were asked to nomi­ nate. About £8 a week was thus used for poor relief, and the amount was the same in 1769. This system of weekly contributions for charitable pur­ poses was in direct succession from the Religious Societies.47 Most Metho­ dist Societies, however, had no personal link with such traditions, and in any case their militant evangelism needed financing. Accordingly the class-money was begun at Bristol to liquidate the building debt, and in most parts of the country it was earmarked for the support of the travelling preachers, as well as to provide such items as stationery, a tiny library, and some hymn-books. The quarterly 'ticket money' also went to support the preachers. The poor and sick were occasionally assisted out of society funds, but in the larger Societies collections for this purpose were taken at the periodic love-feasts and (later) communion services. Sometimes, such was the financial stringency, even these collections were raided to eke out the general needs. Regular weekly collections were unknown during 46. Minutes, 1.60; Works, VIII.37-38, 261-3; Letters, 11.142; MS Minutes, p. 57; Minutes, 1.80; Letters, VIl.279, etc. 47. MS transcript of Viney's diary in my possession; Letters, V.155, H. Moore. Life of Johll Wesley (1824, 1825) 11.108n; Simon, John Wesley and the Religious Societies, p, 12. 228 HISTORY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN Wesley's time, but most Societies did take four annual collections for Connexional funds.48 The stewards' responsibilities were increased with the erection of 'preaching-houses'. (Wesley at first preferred this term to 'chapel' in order on the one hand to insist that good Methodists would attend their parish church for full sacramental worship, and on the other to avoid the dis­ senting term 'meeting-house'.) The 1748 Conference firmly set its face against preaching without forming Societies, and this made a meeting-place essential. Until the nineteenth century specially built preaching-houses were few compared with the huge number of cottages, farm-kitchens and barns used for Methodist fellowship and worship. Only about a dozen had been erected by 1750, increased to forty by 1760 and to 120 by 1770. At Wesley's death in 1791 there were some 470 preaching houses in Eng­ land, 14 in Wales, 16 in Scotland, and 88 in Ireland. In order to secure legal protection, Wesley reluctantly agreed that both cottages and regular preaching-houses might be registered by the diocesan registrar or the Petty Sessions clerk. In many cases Methodist worshippers registered their meeting-places as for 'Independents' or 'Protestants' in order to avoid any implication that Methodists.were Dissenters from the Church of Eng­ land, for whom alone the Toleration Act (whose terms they were invoking) was in fact designed.49 The ownership of property gave rise in the Methodist societies to a new class of officials, the trustees. Wesley's first venture into building, the 'New Room' at Bristol, had made him somewhat wary of trustees. Some legal settlement of the property upon others was obviously necessary, however, for Wesley could not personally administer many preaching­ houses in different parts of the country without endangering his more directly spiritual leadership. Happily there were many men of substance, integrity and spiritual vision quite prepared to shoulder this responsibility. Itinerant preachers as well as laymen were named as trustees of various preaching-houses, but it was always assumed that they would be members of the Methodist society. Rarely was membership of a trust confined to local worshippers; leading Methodists from a wide area were invited to serve, and were frequently trustees for several buildings. As trustees died or ceased to be Methodists the surviving members renewed the trust, and there was a tendency for each successive renewal to contain a larger pro­ portion of local members. 60 Two main purposes were served by the appointment of trustees. On 48. Minutes, 1.158, 213; F. Baker, Methodism and the Love-feast, p. 16; cf. p. 76, and Crowther, Portraiture, p. 301. 49. MS Minutes, p. 52; a small margin of error must be allowed for in my chapel statistics, for they are based on the lists in Wm Myles Chronological History of the People called Methodists (4th edn., 1813), pp. 427-45, which are occasionally inaccurate. For the operation of the Toleration Act among Methodists, see Works, VIII.I 13-7, and a forthcoming article based on research by the present writer. 50. E. B. Perkins, Methodist Preaching Houses and the Law, pp. 18- 30. THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS: 3. POLITY 229 the one hand it was their responsibility to keep the premises in good repair. On the other they were charged with securing the property for Methodism, and seeing that authorized Methodist preachers promulgated therein orthodox Methodist doctrine. This second aspect of their duties caused endless difficulties throughout Wesley's life-time, and even after his death. The first preaching-house in Leicester was lost because a faulty deed allowed the son of the original purchaser to claim it as personal property. Other deeds allowed the trustees themselves to decide who were in fact Methodist preachers and what was Methodist doctrine. In 1746 Wesley secured the preaching-houses at Bristol, Kingswood and New­ castle, on a deed which he intended to be a model for other trusts. The premises were conveyed to the trustees upon special trust that they do and shall permit and suffer the said John Wesley and such other person and persons as he shall for that purpose from time to time nominate or appoint ... to have and enjoy the free use and benefit of the said premises ... and therein preach and expound God's holy word . It was provided that after John Wesley's death his brother Charles should exercise similar powers, and only on his death was the power to revert to the trustees themselves.51 The Large Minutes from 1763 onwards prescribed as a model deed a revised version of that dated December 28, 1751, for Birchin Lane preach­ ing-house, Manchester. In this deed, the Rev. William Grimshaw of Haworth was named as the legal successor of the Wesleys in complete charge of the Methodist Societies. The revised version printed in the Large Minutes contained two important additions, in effect defining 'Methodist preacher' and 'Methodist doctrine'. The trustees could only permit the use of the preaching-house by 'such persons as shall be appointed at the yearly Conference of the people called Methodists', and those per­ sons must 'preach no other doctrine than is contained in Mr Wesley's Notes upon the New Testament, and four volumes of Sermons.' 62 There was still plenty of scope for trouble from careless preachers or ambitious trustees, however, and Wesley was kept busy trying in­ effectively to secure all Methodist property on deeds following this pattern. A minute of the 1778 Conference acknowledged that after Wesley's death it might be expected that some trustees would abuse their power. In 1782 endless trouble was caused by a test case at Birstall, where the trustees of a new building insisted on their own right to appoint preachers. After many negotiations a new deed was made giving Conference the right to appoint preachers, but the commotion caused by the controversy was a primary reason for the defining of the term 'Conference' and the legal 51. Wes. Meth. Mag., 1834, p. 103; E. B. Perkins, op. cit.; Bristol deed at the Metho­ dist Book Room, dated March 5, 1745/6: cf. W.W. Stamp, O,phan House, pp. 267-71. 52. Minutes, I.604-11; E. B. Perkins, op cit., pp. 31-41; the Rev. C. Deane Little first pointed out that the original deed differed considerably from the version in the Large Minutes. 230 HISTORY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN establishment of Methodism in 1784 by Wesley's Deed of Declaration. Another controversy followed the Deed of Declaration, when the trustees at Dewsbury managed to keep the Methodist preaching-house for their own purposes, being aided by one of Wesley's preachers.53 The term 'United Societies', as we have seen, arose early in Methodism to describe the local situation at Bristol, and was then transferred to other societies throughout the country. The term itself eventually fell into disuse, but the principle of connexionalism remains one of the greatest contributions made by Wesley to ecclesiastical polity. He was convinced that it was folly to preach without ensuring Christian society for his con­ verts. He was equally convinced that the Methodist societies needed linking together if they were to grow in spiritual strength and efficacy. This became the main purpose of his amazing itineraries throughout the British Isles. After the first decade, Wesley seldom undertook any pioneer evangelism except at the pressing request of a local Society, for he saw it as his function to consolidate and unify the results of the evangelical enterprise which he inspired. In appalling conditions he travelled a quarter of a million miles, and probably came to know England better than any other man of his century. By his presence as well as by his precepts, Metho­ dism was welded into a unity. This vision of a 'Connexion' was one of the chief reasons why Wesley insisted on the princip e:_Jll~rntrancy for his preachers also, both among the circuits and within the circm . Their itinerancy covered in a series of smaller circles the same ground traversed by the large circle of his own itinerancy. They exercised at a lower level and in even greater detail the powers deputed by this benevolent despot in whose person the Methodist Societies realized their ecclesiastical unity. 54 Another of Wesley's reasons for the itinerancy, it must be confessed, was his belief that variety was necessary both for people and for preachers; 'I know, were I myself to preach one whole year in one place, I should preach both myself and most of my congregation asleep.' 65 It is well known that Wesley was at first reluctant to accept the labours of laymen as preachers, until his mother compelled him to admit: 'It is the Lord: let Him do~hat seemeth Him good.' Thomas Maxfield was thus welcomed as his first 'son in the Gospel' in the winter of 1740/41, soon followed by Thomas Richards and still another Thomas, Thomas Westall. Wesley bad in fact accepted the help of laymen as preachers be­ fore this time, witness Charles Delamotte in Georgia, and Joseph Hum­ phreys and-:J?~n _Cennick in_ Engtano. By the te~m 'Sons i~ the Gospel', / however, he implied something more than occas10nal help 111 emergency. These were regular full-time Methodist preachers. 50 Even when the first Conference assembled in 1744, however, it consisted 53. E. B. Perkins, op. cit., pp. 51- 65; Minutes, I.136. 54. Minutes, 1.87-88. 55. Letters, 111.195. Cf. Works, VII.208. See also Journal, VI.502 and Minutes, 1.141. 56. WHS Proc. XXVII.7-15; Minutes, 1.501; Moore, Wesley, II.I 1. THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS: 3. POLITY 231 of only six clergymen until they decided to co-opt the four laymen (in­ cluding Maxfield and Richards) who had been waiting for such a summons, and the question 'Are Lay Assistants allowable?' was answered: 'Only in cases of necessity.' William Myles lists some forty laymen who were preaching for Wesley at this time, increased the following year to fifty, but at the 1745 Conference Wesley named only fifteen of these as his 'Assistants'. Already there was some differentiation amongst the preachers, who as a class were known as 'Helpers', with a select group of the more trusted ones as Wesley's 'Assistants' or 'Sons in the Gospel'. At the Conference of 1749 Wesley restricted the title 'Assistant' to those whom he made responsible for the oversight of a circuit, to whom after his death the title 'superintendent' was given. In the Assistants and Superintendents • has resided the day-to-day episcope or authority in Methodism, but always subject to the ultimate episcope of Wesley or (after his death) the Confer­ ence.57 The word 'circuit', like its early Methodist equivalent the 'round', implied an ordered tour. A number of them indeed covered territory carved out by the men accepted by Wesley as his preachers.58 The general function of a travelling preacher sent into a circuit by Wesley was very little different from that which he described at the first Conference as the 'office of our Assistants', which was 'In the absence of the Minister [i.e. a clergyman] to feed and guide, to teach and govern the flock.' The detailed working out of this principle altered somewhat, however, and more characteristic of Methodism throughout the remaining years of the century than the in­ structions of 1744 are those given in 1749 to the question 'What is the office of an Assistant? A[nswer]: I. To visit the classes in each place, and write new lists of the Societies. 2. To regulate the Bands. 3. To deliver new Tickets. 4. To keep Watch­ nights and Lovefeasts monthly. 5. To take in or put out of the Society or Bands. 6. To hold Quarterly Meetings, and therein diligently to enquire into the spiritual and temporal state of each Society. 7. To watch over the Helpers in his Circuit and see that [they] behave weJI, and want nothing. 8. To take care that every Society be supplied with Books, and that the money for them be returned quarterly. The Assistants also had been given their rules, twelve of them, summed up in the last- 'Act in all things not according to your own will, but as a son in the Gospel'. To these was added in 1745 the famous injunction: You have nothing to do but to save souls. Therefore spend and be spent in this work. And go always, not only to those who want you, but to those who want you most. 57. MS Minutes, pp. 7, 15, 27, 64; Minutes, 1.532- 3, 596; Myles, History, pp. 446- 9; for episcope in Methodism see WHS Proc. XXX.162-70, XXXI.18-19, 23-24, 27- 31, 47-48, 151. 58. The most well known are 'John Bennet's Round' in Lancashire, Cheshire and Derbyshire, and 'William Darney's Societies' in Lancashire and Yorkshire, which were taken over as part of 'Grimshaw's Round' or the 'Haworth Round'. ' 232 HISTORY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH IN GREAT BRITA IN With some slight variations, these were later known as the 'Twelve Rules of an Helper'.59 The pioneer Methodist preachers were kept constantly on the move over very wide areas. The manuscript minutes of the 1746 Conference are the first to give details of their itinerancy. At that time°' England and Wales were divided into ~even circuits-London (including the Home Counties), Bristol (includiqg most of the south-west), Cornwall, Evesham (with much of the Midlands), Yorkshire ('which includes Cheshire, Lan­ cashire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Rutlandshire, Lincolnshire'), New­ castle, and Wales. For the quarter following the Conference each circuit had a change of preachers every month, quite apart from the fact that these men were already itinerating within a circuit covering several counties. This was altogether cumbersome, even though some of the preachers were allowed to remain two months in one circuit, which was the normal period envisaged at the Conference of 1747. There was little change in the order­ ing of the circuits up to 1758, when they had increased to thirteen (in­ cluding Ireland), but the meagre evidence suggests that Wesley had come to accept an annual interchange of preachers between the circuits as sufficiently frequent. In 1765 began the regular series of printed annual Minutes of the Con­ ference, and it is clear that the intervening seven years had brought con­ siderable changes in the circuit system. Each of the thirteen circuits of 1758 had been subdivided into from two to eight circuits, making a total of 39 in the British Isles as a whole, served by 25 Assistants and 49 'other Travelling Preachers', some of whom were actually in charge of one­ man circuits. 60 The number of circuits gradually increased, mainly by division, so that in 1770 there were fifty, the fiftieth being 'America'. By 1780 there were 64, and at Wesley's death in 1791 there were 114 in the British Isles, including 27 in Ireland. By that time the annual move to a new circuit which every preacher expected in 1765 was still quite normal, although occasionally a preacher might stay two years in one circuit, and the 1784 Deed of Declaration had stipulated a maximum of three years. Throughout Wesley's life-time there was a constant itinerancy also within the circuits, genuine itinerancy difficult to visualize for a preacher in one of modern Methodism's nine hundred compact circuits, where he may spend many days away from home, but very few nights. In Wesley's day each preacher stationed in each of the eighty or so circuits- and it should be noted that preachers or ministers have always been stationed in the circuit, not in any particular society- would spend a few days, including a week-end, in the chief town, where he had his lodgings. He would then set off on a round of all the other societies, taking a month,

59. MS Minutes, p. 65; cf. pp. 15-16, 27; Minutes, 1.492- 7, 719. 60. There are some strange anomalies in the Minutes: for instance Thomas Westall, one of the first assistants, is not listed as such, though he is named as the first and there­ fore chief preacher of the three put down for the Athlone Circuit. THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS: 3. POLITY 233 six weeks, or even two months over the task, and rarely sleeping in the same bed for two consecutive nights. After a few more days at home with his wife and family if he had so far disregarded Wesley's advice as to marry, he went once more on his round. The other preachers in the circuit were doing likewise, following a similar itinerary at an interval of a week or two. Alternatively, the circuit might be subdivided into distinct sections travelled by each preacher in turn, taking anywhere from a week to a month per tour, a light round probably alternating with a heavy one. These sections formed obvious nuclei for the eventual hiving-off of new circuits. 61 While on their rounds, Methodist preachers lived 'off the land', and some interesting documents survive in which they advise their successors about where they may expect bed and/or board on their travels. Thomas Wride's account of the Grimsby Circuit in 1782 lists the hosts at fifty places, though the entry for Hundleby is a curt 'Where you can'. Two years later, in Wales, Joseph Cole found the accommodation very poor-'the places I visit are little better than scraping up a supper for me and my horse'. The hospitality plan for Worcester in 1791 throws so much light on the circuit system that it is worth quoting in full: The brother that goes on the circuit from Worcester sets off immediately after breakfast on Friday Morning, dines at Mrs Cannings, schoolmistress, at Bengeworth; Saturday morning, after breakfast, to Broad Marston, Mr Henry Eden's; Sunday forenoon, preach at Broad Marston, and in the evening at Weston, Mr Adkins; Monday, dine at Mrs Guy's, Hampton, near Bengeworth, and after come to Pershore to preach, at Mr Jones's, barge owner; Tuesday morning, return to Worcester; Wednesday go to Stourport, Mr Cowell's; Thursday, to Bewdley, Mr James Lewis, near the church, shoemaker; Friday, to Kidder­ minster, Mr James Bell, shopkeeper, Mill Street; Saturday evening, preach here also, and Sunday morning, which falls to their turn in this manner once in a month, because the next preacher that comes to this part of the circuit, goes back from Kidderminster to Bewdley on the Saturday morning in order to preach there the opposite Sunday morning once in the month. From each of these places Bewdley and Kidderminster, the preacher returns after Sunday morning preach­ ing to dine at Stourport, and preach at half-past two and six in the evening. Monday, after breakfast, you go to the Clee Hills, through Cleobury-a new place (society this year begun, 1791). Tuesday of late has fallen vacant, through giving up a place in that country. I hope the Lord will open a door for you some­ where to fill up this day. Wednesday, dine at Stourport, preach at night. Thurs­ day morning, return to Worcester, having now completed your fortnight's round. The next preacher then takes the above circuit. You stay in Worcester a whole fortnight.62 61. An example of the former method is the Colne Circuit, and of the latter the Hull Circuit, both in 1786. W. Jessop, Methodism in Rossendale, p. 397 and Letters, VII.337; cf. Lives of Early Meth. Preachers (ed. T. Jackson, 4th edn., 1871- 2), IV.306. Within a year of his death Wesley wrote: 'I wish we had no circuit with fewer than three preachers in it or less than four hundred miles' riding in four weeks.' (Letters, VIII. 206; cf. p. 245.) 62. WHS Proc. XXV.I 1-12; cf. J. F. Hurst, History of Methodism, III.1204-5; Wesley Banner, 1851, p. 195. 234 HISTORY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN The Methodist travelling preacher was thus assured of free board and lodging, usually in the homes of the people, sometimes offered freely, sometimes paid for from the funds of the society where he was preaching and visiting for the time being. The local Methodists were also expected to meet his other occasional needs- shoeing his horse, dosing him with medicine, paying for his letters, washing his shirt, buying and mending his clothes. All this was in accordance with the rule laid -down by the 1744 Conference, and repeated in the 1749 'Disciplinary' Minutes: Take no money of any one. If they give you food when you are hungry, or clothes when you need them, it is good. But not silver or gold. Let there be no pretence to say, we grow rich by the Gospel. With the growth of Methodism, however, this principle did not work very well. Occasionally preachers followed Wesley's advice of setting the people an example of fasting not from enthusiasm or a sacrificial urge but simply for lack of food. As late as 1788 the complaint was made that during their period in town 'many of our preachers have been obliged to go from the house of one friend to another for all their meals, to the great loss of their time, and to the injury of the work of God', and it was urged that a sufficient allowance should be made them so that they might 'in general eat their meals at their own lodgings'.63 Depending upon charity for clothing was even more of a problem than food and shelter, and Wesley came to realize that his rule forbidding his preachers to receive money was impracticable, so that it was quietly dropped from the 'Twelve Rules' as republished in the Large Minutes for 1753. The 1752 Conferences meeting in Limerick and in Bristol had agreed that it was 'expedient that every Preacher should have a yearly allowance for clothing'. This was suggested at £8-£10 for Ireland and £12 for England. At the same time it was agreed that, if a preacher were married and his wife were in need, she should be allowed £10 for her maintenance while he was on his travels, and that there should be an allowance for any children. The 1753 Conference warned, however, that no support could be expected if a preacher married 'hand over head' without the approval of his colleagues; in that case he 'should not take it amiss that he is then left to himself to provide for her how he can'. 64 Actually some allowances for families had already been customary in at least one circuit, for during 1748- 9 the Haworth Round allowed Wil­ liam Darney's wife 30s. a quarter. Alexander Mather, however, believed that the settlement of 4s. a week on his wife by the London stewards when he went to the Epworth Circuit in 1757 was the beginning of such allow- 63. MS Minutes, p. 16; Minutes, 1.24, 214; for examples of the allowances see J. N. Dickons, Kirkgate Chapel, Bradford, pp. 67-80, and the MS accounts of the Todmorden Society for 1752. 64. Minutes, 1.715-16, 719, 576-7, 598-600 (the phrase about providing for himself was dropped from the 1780 Large Minutes); cf. Irish Minutes, 1.49, and Myles, History, p. 76. ------

THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS: 3. POLITY 235 ances. Not until 1758 was the preacher's wife in the Manchester Round given a regular allowance of 3s. 6d. a week, though from the beginning of the Manchester accounts in 1752 the preachers themselves had been given 5s. a month for travel charges or pocket money. From 1761 onwards the Haworth Round relieved their preachers from the worse aspects of their hand-to-mouth existence by making them a regular allowance of £3 a quarter each, together with a further 5s. for 'charges'. From 1761, also, the Manchester Round began paying their preachers a regular £3 . 3s. a quarter, together with £2. 12s. 6d. for a wife-i.e. at an annual rate of twelve guineas for a preacher and ten guineas for his wife. They also added a quarterly allowance of £1 (or a guinea) for the first child, reduced to the usual 13s. for the second child-though in 1768 John Pool's five children brought him an allowance of only 6s. per quarter. 66 The Conference might make its recommendations or even its rules, but local stewards sometimes stuck grimly to their own methods. Some of them proved very obstinate about the proposed allowances. The stewards of the York Circuit travelled to the Manchester Conference in 1765 in order to protest against the £12 allowance per preacher which they were expected to give. They were overruled, but not convinced, so that the following January one of their preachers, Thomas Johnson, confessed, 'I have been in the Furnace ever since the Conference ... Some of the stew­ ards have much oppos'd our Stipends.' In 1769 Wesley wrote to a Swedish professor: Each of these Preachers has his food where he labours and twelve pounds a year for clothes and other expenses. If he is married, he has ten pounds a year for his wife. This money is raised by the voluntary contributions of the Societies. Some preachers, however, did not in fact receive these allowances, and were in real need. At the Conference each year their distresses were alleviated by gifts from the 'General Fund' or 'Yearly Subscription' raised primarily to help societies build chapels. During the quarter of a century preceding Wesley's death this burden became heavier almost every year, in spite of the raising of a special fund to maintain the minimum allow­ ances, and constant appeals (and even threats) to the Circuits. From £53. Is. thus expended in 1765 the amount grew to £119. 13s. 5d. in 1772, £227. 12s. IOd. in 1778, £510. 12s. 3d. in 1783, £921. 12s. 8d. in 1787, and £1,000. 2s. lld. in 1790. 66 Circuits fought shy of married preachers because of the extra allowances involved, and in 1769 the Conference tried to remedy this by organizing the payment of allowances for wives largely on a connexional basis. In 1774 the wife's allowance was raised to £12 per annum, and where a circuit did

65. Haworth Round Account book, Temple Street Church, Keighley : Manchester Round Account book, transcript in the author's possession; Early Meth. Preachers, II.171. 66. Letters, V.155; see Thomas Taylor's graphic description of his early years as a preacher, Early Meth. Preachers, V.82- 84; Minutes, 1.50, etc. 236 HISTORY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN not 'find her a lodging, coal, and candles' this must be increased to £15. The financial position became so difficult, however, that in 1781 the dangerous precedent was begun of subsidizing the preachers' families from the Prea­ chers' Fund, founded in 1763 to provide superannuation allowances, and maintained by the preachers' own subscriptions.67 In these economic circumstances, it is not altogether surprising that some preachers supplemented their income in various ways. The Manuscript Minutes of the 1755 Conference list twelve 'half-itinerants', including William Shent, who financed his preaching the Gospel for half the year by serving as a Leeds barber during the other half. Another on the same list, Matthew Lowes, augmented his allowances by selling a family veteri­ nary medicine, 'Lowes' Balsam'. In 1768 the problem came to a head, and the Conference made it quite clear that an itinerant preacher must not follow a trade, because he 'receives his little allowance for this very end, that he may not need to do anything else'. Where indeed there was genuine need extra allowances were promised to meet that need. The Conference of 1770 peremptorily demanded the resignation of any preacher who 'traded in cloth, hardware, pills, drops, balsams, or medicines of any kind'.68 Those travelling preachers who for family reasons nevertheless felt unable to give up their gainful occupations once more became 'local preachers', from which status they had been called into the itinerancy. Financial insecurity prevented many talented local preachers from ever becoming itinerants. There was a tremendous amount of 'wastage' in the early Methodist itinerancy for this and other reasons. Of the two hundred preachers accepted from 1741 to 1765 only eighty-one died in the work. Of the remainder a score or mote became clergymen or dissenting ministers, and six were dismissed. Almost half, apparently, returned to serve as local preachers, or never fully became itinerants. Many of these local preachers worked exhaustingly. Alexander Mather's experience was typical in kind if not in degree: My master was often afraid I should kill myself: and perhaps his fear was not groundless .... After hastening to finish my business abroad [delivering the bread which he had baked], I have come home all on a sweat in the evening, changed my clothes, and run to preach at one or another chapel: then walked or run back, changed my clothes, and gone to work at ten, wrought hard all night, and preached at five the next morning. I ran back to draw the bread at a quarter or half an hour past six; wrought hard in the bakehouse till eight; then hurried about with the bread till the afternoon, and perhaps at night set off again.60 It seems quite clear that from the first decade of Methodism there were men (usually class leaders) who on occasion not only admonished the 67. Letters, Vl.328; Minutes, 1.50, 86, 93-94, etc.; cf. Irish Minutes, 1.49; Early Meth. Preachers, IV.27; V.175. 68. MS Minutes, p. 67; Methodist Magazine, 1947, pp. 123- 5; Minutes, 1.78-79, 90. 69. Minutes, 1.289, 626, etc. The statistics of preachers, based on the list in Myles, History, pp. 445- 9, can be regarded as only approximate; Early Meth. Preachers, 11.170- 71. THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS: 3. POLITY 237 members of their own classes but also 'gave an exhortation' to larger groups, both on Sundays and on weekdays, and particularly when an expected travelling preacher was prevented from coming. Following up a report by his brother Charles, in 1747 John Wesley made a careful survey of the posi­ tion in Cornwall. He discovered eighteen 'exhorters', of whom five were unfitted or unworthy, three 'much blessed in the work', and the remaining ten 'might be helpful when there was no preacher in their own or the neigh­ bouring Societies'. These were the raw material from which local preachers were made, just as local preachers were potential travelling preachers. Indeed, the term 'exhorter' was sometimes used synonymously with local preacher, as in the Conference of 1770, when the assistant was asked to furnish his successor with a list of the exhorters in his circuit.70 The 1747 Conference listed twenty-three travelling preachers and thirty­ eight men who 'assist us only in one place', of whom eleven later served, for a time at least, as itinerants. At the 1753 Conference sixteen local preachers were present, of whom four became itinerants. Yet their position within early Methodism was never clearly defined. The only clearcut regulations which survive were urged on John Wesley in 17 51 by his brother Charles: 'With regard to the Preachers, we agree: 1. That none shall be permitted to preach in any of our societies, till he be examined, both as to his grace and gifts, at least by the Assistant, who sending word to us, may by our answer admit him a local Preacher. 2. That such Preacher be not immediately taken from his trade, but be ex­ horted to follow it with all diligence. 3. That no person shall be received as a Travelling Preacher, or be taken from his trade, by either of us alone, but by both of us conjointly, giving him a note under both our hands.71 The Limerick Conference in 1752 made it quite clear that no preacher should be appointed without the approbation of an assistant, and that if a man were only able to preach twice a day he must remain a local preacher. The 1758 Conference agreed that if in conducting a disciplinary survey of the bands a travelling preacher were 'straitened for time, any of the local preachers may supply his place'. There is only a casual mention of local preachers in the Large Minutes and none at all in the Deed of Declaration. Throughout Wesley's life-time they seem to have been given little official

70. Charles Wesley's Journal, 1.419, 420, 422; Journal, IIl.307; Early Meth. Preachers, III.295-6; V.222; Howell Harris humbly declared before the 1763 Conference 'I could never call myself a preacher, but an exhorter, my gifts being so', but at other times used the term as synonymous with 'preacher' (T. Beynon, Harris, p. 184; G. T. Roberts, Harris, pp. 44-50, 53- 58, 72. 71. MS Minutes, p. 49; Minutes, I.717; Whitehead, Wesley, II.269-70; cf. WHS Proc. XXIII.183, where a memorandum by Charles Wesley makes it clear that the occasion was November 25, 1751. This evidence makes it fairly certain that the 1746 regulations about examining would-be preachers was intended for the local as well as the itinerant preachers (MS Minutes, p. 35). 238 HISTORY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN recognition, apart from occasional admonitions to the assistants that their wings should be clipped. 72 It was with the local preachers mainly in mind, however, that the circuit preaching-plan came into existence. In this again Wesley himself seems to have been the pioneer, although the series of seventeen weekly preaching plans which he prepared for the London Circuit during the summer of 1754 were mainly for itinerants. John Pawson tells how in 1761 the Leeds Assistant put him 'into the Plan among the local preachers before [he] had ever preached at all'. In 1776 Wesley urged the assistant of the Dales Circuit to 'fix a regular plan for the local preachers, and see that they keep it'. Reproductions still survive of manuscript plans for the local preachers in Leeds in 1776, and one of the originals for May-July 1777. Wesley him­ self was probably responsible for the first printed circuit plans, those for London, beginning in the l 780's. These included the appointments of travelling as well as local preachers, and the same was usually true of the other large cities which slowly followed suit, and of the country circuits which followed more slowly still. Although there are interesting variations, most of these plans covered three months at a time, thus linking up with the Circuit Quarterly Meeting. 73 The local preachers seem to have had no generally recognized court of their own until after Wesley's death, their business being transacted at the Quarterly Meeting. In Wesley's Journal for Friday, February 6, 1789, however, there is a clue to the possible existence of a regular organization, for he speaks of 'the quarterly day for meeting the local preachers'. This may have been an isolated example in the metropolis of a practice which Wesley had approvingly noted elsewhere, and it could well be that the honour offurnishing this example belongs to John Crook, the founder and assistant of Methodism in the Isle of Man. On March 24, 1780, Crook met forty-five local preachers at Peel, and himself seems to have made the first entries in the volume labelled 'Local Preachers' Minute Book', which re­ mained in use until 1816. After the precedent set by the Methodist Confer­ ence, the business proceeded, and the minutes were recorded, in the form of question and answer. Quarterly local preachers' meetings were not formally recognized as a regular feature of the Methodist economy until the Conference of 1796. 74 72. Minutes, 1.74, 626, 715; MS Minutes, p. 72; Letters, VII.88, 94. 73 . G. Smith. History of Wesleyan Methodism (5th ed. 1866) 1.703, and cf. Wes. Meth. Mag., 1855: 223- 6; Early Meth. Preachers, IV.24; Letters, Vl.224; J. R. Robinson, Notes on Early Methodism in Dewsbury, pp. 52-53 and WHS Proc XXVIl.129. In 1779 there were twenty local preachers in the Leeds Circuit, see Early Meth. Preachers, IV.305; V.62. Some plans continued to list local preachers only, as did Rochdale in 1789 and 1805, and Burslem in 1807. 74. F. H. Sutton, Waterloo Road Methodist Church, Ramsey, Isle of Man: Centenary 1846-1946, pp. 13- 16; Journal, VI.321 - 2; Minutes, 1.366. N .B. For a different view of the local preachers in early Methodism see D. Coomer in WHS Proc. XXV.33- 42. For a biographical survey of eighteenth-century local preachers see L. F. Church, More About the Early Methodist People, pp. 99- 135. THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS: 3. POLITY 239 The Circuit Quarterly Meeting arose experimentally to satisfy the need voiced in the 1748 Conference that the Methodist Societies should be 'more firmly and closely united together'. As John Bennet and William Darney returned from that Conference to their respective rounds in the north, Bennet's ideas on the subject clarified. His knowledge of Quaker organiza­ tion seems to have led him to the idea of a circuit assembly every three months, though it should be noted that quarterly oversight of the Methodist societies had already been in operation for some time, and there had also been gatherings of society stewards. The first experimental Methodist Quarterly Meeting was arranged for Darney's Societies, now under the wing of the Rev. William Grimshaw, who presided over this historic gathering at Todmorden Edge on October 18, 1748. Two days later Bennet conducted a Quarterly Meeting for his own societies at Woodley in Cheshire. Others followed, and at the Conference in 1749 a new duty was added to those of the assistants: 'To hold Quarterly Meetings, and therein diligently to enquire into the spiritual and temporal state of each Society.' In order to ensure widespread use of this new feature, John Bennet was asked to inform the other Assistants both in writing and in person about 'the nature and method of these meetings'.75 The rather scrappy evidence available suggests that Quarterly Meetings did not 'take on' quite as quickly as Wesley hoped, and the reason is no doubt partly to be found in the fact that it was in October 1749 that John Bennet married Wesley's betrothed, Grace Murray. Nevertheless by 1753 Wesley seems to have established them in all twelve circuits, including Ireland. Nor did the basic pattern of the Methodist Quarterly Meeting vary greatly from those pioneer experiments in October 1748. They re­ mained gatherings of stewards and leaders from the various societies, meeting under the chairmanship of the minister or his assistant to co­ ordinate the accounts, the activities, and the spiritual oversight of the whole circuit, and at the same time themselves to be enriched by worship and fellowship. They assembled from great distances, so that a Quarterly Meeting dinner was a normal event. John Bennet's description of the first Quarterly Meeting reveals the machinery in operation:

Four Stewards were appointed to inspect into, and regulate the temporal Affairs of the Societies. Every L[ea]d[e]r brought his Class Paper and shewed wt. Money he bad recd. yt. Quarter, which was fairly entered in a Book for yt. Purpose. The several Bills of Charges were brought in at the same, and after they were throughly examined were all discharged. But Alas! The People are exceeding Poor, and will not be able to maintain the Preachers & Wm. Darney's Family.-The Overplus after the Bills were discharged was only 9s. 2d. The No. of the Brethren [i.e. the membership of the circuit] at ye Meeting as appeared by the Books wherein the Names are entered was (358). 76

75. LQHR January 1949, pp. 28-37. 76. op. cit., especially pp. 31-32, 35- 37. 240 HISTORY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN Although the assistant was responsible under Wesley for the conduct of all circuit activities, including finances, he normally deputed these to special stewards. These 'general' stewards for the circuit were apparently chosen by the assistant from the 'particular' stewards, i.e. those in charge of the business of the various societies. The revenue administered by these circuit stewards came from two main sources, the society stewards, to whom the class leaders had handed the weekly pennies brought in as class money, and the Assistant himself, who received the shilling per member at the renewal of tickets. Actually both these amounts were usually com­ bined at society level, and reached the circuit steward as one amount credited to the Society, its 'quarterly collection' or 'quarterage'. The circuit expenditure was quite varied, but was mainly concerned with defraying the expenses incurred by the preachers. A valuable summary is provided in the 'Cash-Book of the General Steward of the Revd Mr Wesley's Societies in Leeds Circuit' ( 1781) : Articles of expense paid out of the quarterly collections (1) For the travelling preachers' clothes £3 p. an. (2) travelling expenses 6/- p. quart. (3) expenses to the Conference. (4) For the Horses: after being half year in the circuit. (5) Maintenance of wives & children. (6) Washing of the linen. (7) Shaving. (8) Carriage of letters & boxes. (9) Farriers' Bills. (10) Saddlers' Bills. (I I) Apothecary's Bills. (12) Funerals. (13) Horse-hire & turnpikes paid for the local preachers. (14) Printing of the tickets & class papers. (15) Dinner at quarterly meeting. And whatever expense relates to the Circuit in general.77 The second major function of the Quarterly Meeting, the spiritual oversight of the societies, was not deputed, but remained firmly the Assis­ tant's responsibility. The 'state of the work of God' in the circuit was assessed primarily by means of the returns of membership from each society. The Quarterly Meeting provided an ideal occasion for carrying out the aim of a suggestion made at the 1748 Conference: Let the Preachers assisted by the Stewards in each Society take an exact list of them every Easter. 2. Let these lists be transmitted within three weeks after 77. Irish Minutes, 1.26; WHS Proc. XVII.154-5. Where insufficient funds accrued the following came to be the order of precedence in payment: 'Wives, children, Preachers, carriage of luggage, letters on business, shoeing horses, expenses to and from Confer­ ence, and also to give what is wanting to take the Preachers . .. to their new Circuits.' (Irish Minutes 1.47). For Wakefield Circuit accounts see WHS Proc. XXIJl.59- 64, 77 • 80, 108-11. THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS: 3. POLITY 241 Easter to the persons appointed in each division [i.e. circuit] to receive them. Let this same person at the same time diligently inform himself of the spiritual and temporal state of each Society. And let him bring these lists with him to the following Conference and give an account of all. A few such membership rolls both for societies and for circuits during Wesley's day still survive, some of them in his own hand. In some cases these membership rolls used signs denoting the member's spiritual standing -'a' for 'awakened', 's' for 'seeker','.' for justified', and':' for 'sanctified'.78 The membership totals from each circuit were printed in the annual Minutes from 1766 onwards. In order adequately to assess the spiritual health of Methodism generally, however, Wesley wanted even more than this. The 1748 Conference asked every preacher to send him 'a circumstantial account ... 1. Of every re­ markable conversion. 2. Of everyone who dies in the triumph of faith'. This was the kind of thing that Bennet had in mind when he wrote to Wesley in 1749: I have made a small Book which shall be kept in the Box with the Accts. wherein an exact Acct. of the Marriages, Deaths, Backsliders, &c. shaU be Noted down, that I may be able to give you an Acct. thereof each Quarter. Wesley believed in preparing such statements and statistics both for the circuit's own encouragement or warning and in order that the progress of Methodism as a 'Connexion' might be assessed. He continued to urge the need for more than mere membership returns, for what he called a 'Plan of every Circuit'. This is more fully explained in one of his letters: A Plan of a Circuit should contain (1) the several Societies, (2) the number of members in each, (3) the new members, (4) the backsliders, (5) the persons in band. Then the conversions, deaths, marriages, removes, with the total number at the foot of each column. How successful he was in securing such details from all the circuits we do not know. Through at least one surviving example, however, we know that he did issue printed blanks, entitled 'A Quarterly Plan for every Assistant', with twenty-five horizontal spaces for the names of the various societies (and for the totals) crossed by twelve columns asking for returns of Local Preachers, New Members, Removals, Deaths, Marriages, Backsliders, Conversions, Believers, Bands, Whole Number, Yearly Collection, Kings­ wood Collection. Certainly this very demanding method fell into abeyance, so that the Conference in 1820 resolved 'to revive, uniformly, the good old 78. MS Minutes, p. 59. Fragments of Wesley's membership lists for London are in the Colman Collection at the Book Room; the Bristol New Room has lists for 1770- 86, largely in Wesley's hand; the Dublin lists (imperfect) are in the Lamplough Collection at the Book Room. For circuit rolls see 'Account of Keighley Round: Taken Nov., 1763/4' and later ones in the Temple Street Church, Keighley (WHS Proc. XXIII. 135- 7); also the East Lincolnshire registers from 1769 to 1823, in the Lamplough Collection. For the cryptic signs see Wesley's Chapel Magazine, VIII. No. 31, p. 17. Cf. Sheldon Knapp, The Arrested Development of Methodism, p. 13. 242 HISTORY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN custom of keeping quarterly schedules in every circuit', and this the 1823 Conference 'peremptorily required'.79 The inauguration of the Quarterly Meeting had indeed brought nearer fulfilment the dream of the 1749 Conference, that there might be 'a General Union of our Societies throughout England', with Wesley as Vicar General, the Assistants as his Agents, and the Foundery Chapel in London at the heart of an intricate network receiving reports and despatching both instructions and help: Might not all the Societies throughout England be considered as one body, firmly united together by one spirit of love and heavenly mindedness ? Might not that in London be accounted the mother church? And the Stewards of this consult for the good of all the churches? Might not they answer Letters from all parts, and give advice, at least in temporal things? But it may be asked, How can the temporal state of all the Societies be known to the stewards in London? I answer, very easily, by means of the Assistants. Let each Assistant make diligent enquiry at every Quarterly Meeting, con­ cerning the temporal as well as the spiritual state of each Society .... And the answers he receives let him transmit quarterly to London .... Being thus united together in one body of which Christ Jesus is the head, neither the world nor the devil will be able to separate us in Time or in Eternity.80 Although all this came to pass, it did not happen in this way. One feature of Methodism became so important that it took over most of the functions which Wesley had originally allotted to himself and his London Stewards. This was the Conference. In origin the Methodist Conference was far from being the supreme · dpctrinal, legislative, administrative, and disciplinary court which it etentually became. If Wesley had had any such avowed intention it would probably have been called by some more high-sounding ecclesiastical title. ) It was simply a matter of Wesley seeking the advice of others in the over­ sight of the Methodist societies, which both he and they regarded as his personal responsibility. This is probably one reason why the business has always been conducted by means of question and answer: the question was raised either by Wesley or one of those invited to 'confer' with him, and after a discussion Wesley gave his answer, which was final. Many undoubtedly echoed the comment made by one preacher at the 1774 Conference-'Mr Wesley seemed to do all the business himself.' This was after the Conference of 1766 had debated at length the complaint that Wesley held too much power in his own hands-though hardly anyone complained that he abused that power. The lengthy statement issued by that Conference was incorporated in each subsequent edition of the Large 79. MS Minutes, p. 58; LQHR, January 1949, p. 32; Letters, Vl.374; cf. pp. 357, 370, 380, and Minutes, 1.140; Minutes, V.152, 430. 80. MS Minutes, p. 63. The general idea was adumbrated at the previous Confer­ ence, cf. pp. 58-59. THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS: 3. POLITY 243 Minutes, so that all might be clear about this essential principle in the polity of Methodism. As with the formation of the Societies, the choice of Stewards, the acceptance and stationing of Preachers, so with the summon­ ing and conduct of Conference, Wesley maintained: I myself sent for these, of my own free choice; and I sent for them to advise, not govern me. Neither did I at any of those times divest myself of any part of that power above described, which the Providence of God had cast upon me, without any design or choice of mine. If after trial people disliked this Christian community with its all-powerful central direction, Wesley pointed out, their remedy was simple-to seek another. By his Deed of Declaration in 1784 (of which more hereafter) Wesley took legal steps to transfer this central control to the Conference, but only after bis death.81 London did not remain the undisputed headquarters of Methodism. The Foundery Chapel was the centre for the first Conference in 1744, as for those in 1747, 1748 and 1749. Those for 1745 and 1746, however, were held in the 'New Room' at Bristol. In 1751 a northern centre was introduced, Leeds, and in 1765 another, Manchester. Until the end of the century these were the only centres for the English Conferences, though semi-indepen­ dent Conferences were also held in Ireland from 1752 onwards. The time spent varied from two days to just over a week, the month from March to November, although from 1757 onwards every Conference to the end of the century met in late July or early August, the only exceptions being those for 1760 and 1761, which met at the end of August and the beginning of September respectively. The first four annual Conferences were mainly devoted to settling once (for all the doctrinal emphases of Methodism. The fifth (1748) gave itself to a review of the evolving polity or 'discipline' and to the establishment of Kingswood School as a centre for providing higher as well as primary education. Wesley summarized the discussions and decisions in two pam­ phlets published in 1749, popularly known from their contents as the 'Doctrinal Minutes' and the 'Disciplinary Minutes', but both entitled simply Minutes ofsome late conversations between the Revd. M . Wesleys and others. The 'Disciplinary Minutes' were revised and enlarged in 1753 to form a codified body of regulations, known as the Large Minutes, of which further revisions were published in 1763, 1770, 1772 (in Wesley's collected Works, volume XV), 1780, and 1789. A further revision and rearrange­ ment was made in 1797 in the light of the controversies arising upon the removal of Wesley's controlling hand, and these 1797 Large Minutes became the basic ecclesiastical document for early nineteenth-century Methodism. The Minutes of the annual Conferences also were published from 1765 onwards. They contained lists of the preachers and their stations for the coming year, the connexional membership returns, and some account 81. Journal, VI.35n; Minutes, 1.60-62, 497- 507, 638-49; cf. Letters, VIl.279. 244 HISTORY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN of connexional finance and important new legislation. The Address to the Societies, though inaugurated by Wesley in 1788, did not become an annual feature of the Minutes until after his death.82 The first Conference consisted of the two Wesleys and four other evan­ gelical clergymen, who readily agreed to Wesley's suggestion that four lay preachers who were waiting outside in readiness should be invited to share their deliberations. The proportion of laymen to ministers rose rapidly, from nine to four in 1748, and forty-one to three in 1753. The 1745 Con­ ference had included a Welsh Calvinistic preacher(Herbert Jenkins), a local preacher (John Slocombe), and a pious Welsh magistrate (Marmaduke Gwynne, whose daughter Charles Wesley later married). This illustrates what was said the following year about the composition of the Conference: Q .1. Who are the properest persons to be present at any Conference of this nature? A.1. As many of the Preachers as conveniently can. 2. The most earnest and most sensible of the Band Leaders, where the Conference is; and 3. Any pious and judicious stranger, who may be occasionally in the place. Methodist laymen and pious strangers continued to gain admittance to the closing sessions of the Conference, as in 1767, when 'Mr Whitefield, Howell Harris, and many stewards and local preachers' were present during the last two days. None but the preachers had any official standing in the Wesleyan Conference, however, until 1878.83 In theory all the travelling preachers were eligible to attend, but 'con­ venience' limited Wesley's invitations. He explained his procedure in 1766: When their number increased, so that it was neither needful nor convenient to invite them all, for several years I wrote to those with whom I desired to confer, and these only met at the place appointed, till at length I gave a general permission that all who desired it might come. His desire was to secure at least one good representative from each circuit, so that the views of the whole country might be represented, and also in order that the findings of the Conference might be fully and speedily disseminated. All the Assistants were expected to be present, or at least to have their accounts and statistics available at the outset of the Conference.84 Upon this Conference of his preachers Wesley pinned his hopes for the spiritual health of Methodism after his death, as he told them in 1769: You are at present one body. You act in concert with each other, and by united counsels .... I am, under God, a centre of union to all our Travelling as well as Local Preachers .... But by what means may this connexion be preserved when God removes me from you? He suggested that upon his death they should choose a small committee, the members of which would serve in turn as Moderator, and he urged that 82. R. Green, Wesley Bibliography, items 135, 136, 164, 221,268,276,344,404; Min­ utes, 1.1-43, 443- 706, 216 &c.; cf. XV.59. 83. MS Minutes, p. 29; Journal, V.228; Minutes, XX.147-52. 84. Mi1111tes, J.61, 74, 106, 126; Letters, V.60, 141. THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS: 3. POLITY 245 in the meantime those who were willing should pledge themselves to main­ tain the unity of the preachers by preaching 'the old Methodist doctrines' and observing and enforcing the whole Methodist discipline. Similar articles of agreement were signed by the majority of the preachers at the 1773, 1774 and 1775 Conferences; many of the 102 preachers (out of the total in the Connexion of 140) signed two or three times.85 The loyalty of the preachers to his ideals was one thing. The legal settle­ ment of the preaching-houses was another. Most of Methodism's property was held in trust for the use of the preachers appointed by Wesley, or after his death by the 'yearly Conference of the people called Methodists'. If, however, as many feared, and some hoped, this latter term were set aside as too vague, then upon his death the trustees would be empowered to do as they wished with the buildings-even, as one suggested, to 'appoint a Popish Priest, if they should think it proper.' On taking counsel's opinion, Wesley was advised that he should: prepare and subscribe a declaration ... naming the present members [of the Conference], and prescribing the mode of election to fill vacancies, and making the Minutes or Memorials of their proceedings, signed by their Secretary, evidence of such elections, to which declaration of Mr Wesley ... all the Trust Deeds should refer. Thereupon, at the request of the Conference, a Deed Poll was drawn up by William Clulow (Wesley's solicitor) and Dr Thomas Coke. It included a list of one hundred preachers named by Wesley himself, given in the order of their circuits in the Minutes, but so chosen as to provide a complete cross-section of the Methodist itinerancy, including youth as well as age. Like the previous and succeeding Conferences, this Conference, on paper, was a selection made by Wesley alone.86 This Deed Poll was duly signed on February 28, 1784, and enrolled in Chancery. Wesley never regretted this step, although almost inevitably a few of the two hundred preachers were jealous that they were not named among the 'Legal Hundred' in spite of what seemed their superior claims on grounds of seniority or ability. Dr Coke had urged the inclusion of all the preachers in order to obviate such jealousy, but Wesley feared that this would prove both financially burdensome and spiritually dangerous to the circuits, who would thus be deserted during the Conference. He made it quite clear, however, that the hundred should not 'assume any superiority over [their] brethren', and that all preachers might still on occasion attend and vote at the Conference.87 85. Minutes, 1.88-89, 110, 116, 121; WHS Proc. XII.87; Moore, Wesley, 11.295. Wesley's scheme seems to be partly based on that put forward by John Fletcher in 1775, including the use of the title 'Moderator' (Journal, VIII.333). 86. Moore, Wesley, 11.295, 298-9; Samuel Warren, Digest of the Laws of Wesleyan Methodists (1835), 2; Journal, VII.IOI; R. Kissack has compared the Legal Hundred to a Collegium of Bishops upon whom Wesley conferred his apostolic powers· see LQHR, April 1956, pp. 124-5, ' 87. See J. S. Simon, Wesley, The Last Phase, pp. 214-19. 246 HISTORY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN The Deed of Declaration required that forty of the hundred members were needed for a quorum; in this Wesley may have been influenced by the example of the House of Commons. Their first task on assembling should be to fill any vacancies caused by death or by absence for a third succes­ sive year without a dispensation. (Only preachers of a year's standing were eligible for election.) Thereupon they must elect from themselves a President (who should have two votes) and a Secretary, both of whom would continue in office until the following Conference. (It will be noticed that Wesley had discarded the previously suggested title of 'Moderator', as well as his desire for a clerical successor.) It was laid down that the Conference should assemble once a year, the time and place to be fixed at the preceding Conference. The duration should be not less than five days nor more than three weeks, and the place might be some town other than London, Bristol, or Leeds, which were specified on many of the trust deeds. If a quorum failed to meet for three successive years then the Con­ ference should be considered 'extinguished', and all the 'chapels and premises' should thereupon be administered as the local trustees themselves decided.88 One important proviso of the deed was that it did not affect the 'life­ estate' of John Wesley and his brother Charles in Methodist property. Its provisions were only to be fully implemented after the death of them both. In fact, however, the very next Conference witnessed an important change in procedure. The deed had referred to the printed Minutes as the official record of previous Conferences, but the 14th clause stated that: All resolutions and orders touching elections, admissions, expulsions, con­ sents, dispensations, delegations, or appointments and acts whatsoever of the Conference shall be entered and written in the Journals or Minutes of the Conference, which shall be kept for that purpose, publicly read, and then sub­ scribed by the President and Secretary thereof for the time being during the time such Conference shall be assembled, and when so entered and subscribed shall be had, taken, received, and be the acts of the Conference. This clause was brought into operation immediately, and in 1784 was begun that series of huge folios, bound in red calf, which form the final authority in Methodist polity. Henceforth the printed Minutes rank only as import­ ant but secondary documents. The Journals are indeed in many respects fuller than the Minutes, listing all the preachers actually present at the various Conferences, and also those not present, including the ones to whom a dispensation had been given. One important feature which is not reproduced in the Minutes is that from 1784 onwards John Wesley signed the Journal, using the title 'President', Thomas Coke signing as 'Secretary'. The Deed of Declaration also enhanced the status of Irish Methodism, which had for many years held its own Conferences, and whose Minutes commenced separate annual publication in 1783. Usually the Irish Conference assembled in the spring, and either Wesley or Coke would 88. See Journal, VIII.335-41. THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS: 3. POLITY 247 preside. Eleven Irish-based preachers were named in Wesley's hundred, and by the 13th clause the proceedings of the Irish Conferences were validated as the acts of delegates appointed by the English Conference.89 The regular agenda of the Conference did not change because of its new status, however. It can be seen from the printed Minutes from 1765 onwards, and was prescribed in the Large Minutes of 1770 and later, where it is summarized in the form of thirteen questions: 'What is the method wherein we usually proceed in our Conferences? A. We inquire: 1. What Preachers are admitted? What remain on trial? Who are admitted on trial? And who desist from travelling? 2. Who act as Assistants this year? 3. Are there any objections to any of the Preachers? (Who are named one by one.) 4. How are the Preachers stationed this year? 5. What numbers are in the Society? 6. What is the Kingswood Collection? 7. What is contributed toward the debt? 8. How was this expended? 9. What is contributed toward the Preachers' Fund? 10. What demands are there upon it? 11. How many Preachers' wives are to be provided for? 12. By what Societies? 13. Where and when may our next Conference begin?' Under each of these headings related questions were discussed from time to time, sometimes at considerable length, but this remained the general framework. It can readily be seen that the Conference fell into two parts, which in the following century became the respective spheres of the Pastoral ( or Ministerial) Session, and of the Representative Session. The first half directly concerned the preachers and their pastoral responsibilities, the second (which laymen could and did attend) finance and general adminis­ tration. The normal Conference sessions were from 6 to 8 a.m., from 9 to 12 a.m., and from 2 to 5 p.m.00 89. At least one issue of the Irish Minutes had been published previously (in 1778), in addition to extracts from another (1765) and from Irish stations and membership in the English Minutes. (See Green, Wesley Bibliography, Nos. 332A, 370, etc., cf. Minutes, 1.52- 53). 90. Minutes, I.636-9, 570-73; in 1780 item 2 was deleted, Nos. 3- 6 were re-numbered, two fresh questions were added, Nos. 11 and 12 were combined, and others were re­ phrased thus: '6. What boys are received this year? 7. What girls are assisted? 8. What is contributed for the Contingent expenses? 9. How was this expended? 10. What is contributed toward the Fund for Superannuated and Supernumerary Preachers? 11 . What demands are there upon it?' (For the times of sitting, see Journal, VII.192, and the evidence of Wesley's diary, 1783- 9). 248 HISTORY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN Usually the first two days seem to have been devoted to the itinerancy­ the admission and probation of preachers, their reception into full con­ nexion with the Conference, their stationing, for a few their discipline or expulsion, their superannuation or death.91 Before any preacher could be accepted as a full-time helper he must give evidence of three things- a true Christian faith and character, 'Gifts (as well as Grace) for the work', and effectiveness in preaching. Wesley discovered this by hearing reports from other helpers, by a trial sermon and personal conversation with the preacher, and by discussion with the local society and the preachers' converts. The decision as to acceptance or rejection was then made by Wesley alone. These remained the basic preliminaries throughout Wesley's life-time, save for the exception of a preacher at a distance, when the Assistant might act on behalf of Wesley. 02 After some years of hesitation, in 1749 Wesley drew up a formal pro­ cedure for 'receiving a new Helper', which has changed surprisingly little during the following two centuries: 1. Let him be recommended to us by the Assistant to whose Society he belongs. 2. Let him read and carefully weigh the Conferences, and see whether he can agree to them or no. 3. Let him be received as a Probationer by having a book given him inscribed thus: You think it your Duty to call Sinners to Repentance. Make full proof that God has called you hereto, and we shall then be glad to act in con­ cert with you. 4. Let him come to the next Conference, and after Examination, Fasting and Prayer, be received as an Helper by having a book given him inscribed thus: So long as you freely consent and earnestly endeavour to walk according to the following Rules we shall rejoice to go on with you hand in hand. Weare Yours affectionately, 5. Let a new Book be given at every Conference and the former returned.03 In spite of hopeful references in the Minutes of the first two Conferences, college training for the preachers did not prove practicable until the follow­ ing century, but Wesley set each man a stiff course of study, and before being admitted into Full Connexion he was submitted to a searching oral examination in the Conference, a sample being given in the Minutes for 1766:

91. In 1788 the 'chief business of the first day was "to transact the temporal concerns of the Circuits"' (WHS Proc. VIIl.101; cf. Journal, VII.192). 92. MS Minutes, p. 35; Minutes, 1.564-7. 93. MS Minutes, p. 66; cf. Minutes, 1.556-71. The last regulation seems speedily to have fallen into abeyance. For the book see p. 250 below. THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS: 3. POLITY 249 William Ellis, have you faith in Christ? Are you going on to perfection? Do you expect to be perfect in love in this life? Are you groaning after it? Are you resolved to devote yourself wholly to God and His work? Do you know the Methodist doctrine? Have you read the Sermons? The Notes on the New Testament? Do you know the Methodist plan? Have you read the Plain Account? The Appeals? Do you know the Rules of the Society? Of the Bands? Do you keep them? Do you take no snuff? Tobacco? Drams? Do you constantly attend the church and sacrament? Have you read the Minutes? Are you willing to conform to them? Have you considered the Twelve Rules of a Helper; especially the first, tenth, and twelfth? Will you keep them for conscience' sake? Are you determined to employ all your time in the work of God? Will you preach every morning and evening? Endeavouring not to speak too loud or too long? Not lolling with your elbows? Have you read the 'Rules of Action and Utterance'? Will you meet, the Society, the Bands, the Select Society, the Leaders (of Bands and Classes) in every place? Will you diligently and earnestly instruct the children, and visit from house to house? 9 Will you recommend fasting, both by precept and exa,:nple? ~ Reports of the preacher's conduct during his probation furnished evi­ dence supplementary to his own words, and he might be retained on trial for a further year or more. The single year of probation customary in 1749 was extended to four by the 1784 Conference, but for many years past there had been occasional extensions to two or even three years. Of the twenty-five preachers admitted into Full Connexion at the 1784 Conference three were so admitted after four years' probation, five after three, five after two, and six after only one. (The history of the remaining six is obscure, but most of them appear to have been admitted after less than a year's probation.) It is possible to visualize the actual reception of the preacher into Full Connexion through the account of one of them received in 1790: The close of this Conference was very impressive. The twelve young men ... on one of the be~che~, spoke bri~fly of their experience, their call to preach; and confessed their faith. After this, Dr Coke came on the fore bench with the Large Minutes on his left arm and delivered a copy to each, putting his right hand on each of our heads .... Mr Wesley took no part in these proceedings; he kept his seat. . . . His presence sanctioned the whole. . . . The Sacrament followed. Joseph Sutcliffe, whose account this is, points out that the placing of Coke's hands on their heads was an innovation, and equivalent to ordina­ tion, which in fact did not become the accepted practice in the Conference 94. MS Minutes, pp. 17, 27; Minutes, 1.53-55; cf. p. 70. H.M.D. 1.-10 250 HISTORY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN until 1836. Wesley himself had used a similar ceremony with Joseph Cownley and Adam Clarke, and probably many others, and from 1784 onwards had avowedly ordained 'by imposition of hands and by prayer' no fewer than twenty-seven of his preachers. These were all 'special cases', however. Thirteen were ordained for service overseas, eleven for Scotland. Only Wesley's last three ordinands, Mather, Moore, and Rankin, were intended for English circuits, and they did not pass on the ordination to others, even though Wesley had apparently ordained Mather as 'Superintendent' for this very purpose. Wesley's ordinations, therefore, whatever their importance in the separation of Methodism from the Church of England, had little immediate effect on Methodist polity. A Methodist preacher attained full status not by ordination but by his reception into Full Connexion. The symbol of this both in Wesley's day and for a generation thereafter was the delivery to him of a 'Book'. In 1747 Wesley had handed Cownley a New Testament. It seems clear that with the publication in 1749 of the' Disciplinary Minutes' this more specific handbook for the Methodist preacher was employed, and from 1753 on­ wards the Large Minutes. Sutcliffe's copy was inscribed: Joseph Sutcliffe. As long as you continue to walk by these rules we shall rejoice to acknowledge you as a fellow-labourer. John Wesley. Bristol August 4, 1790.06 The Conference spent much time considering those who for various reasons ceased to be travelling preachers. The names of all the preachers were read over, and this was the opportunity for a charge to be brought against any individual. At times the reading seems to have been quite perfunctory, but at others (as in 1776) the list was scrutinized rigorously. Those against whom some objection was proved were usually dropped quietly from the stations without any record, though occasionally their initials are given in the printed Minutes as having been 'laid aside'.06 The question 'Who desist from travelling?' seems to have referred to those preachers who for various worthy reasons, including ill health, resigned from the itinerant work. Sometimes their names were listed as 'desisting', sometimes not. Occasionally, as in the case of Joseph Pilmoor in 1776, their names reappeared unheralded in the stations. From 1767 the names of several preachers appear, followed by the term 'supernumer­ ary'. This seems to imply that they were extra preachers for the circuit where they were stationed, carrying only a small load of responsibility. This was usually done after a severe illness, as in the case of Christopher Hopper, whose name is the first thus to appear, and who returned to the full work the following year. In the 1780s a supernumerary was clearly 95. WHS Proc. XV.57, 60; Minutes, VIII.85; LQHR, April 1951, 156-69. 96. Minutes, 1:54,122; WHS Proc. XV.58. THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS: 3. POLITY 251 distinguished from a superannuated preacher: the one was still subject to stationing and was supported from normal connexional funds; the other was regarded as 'worn out' and received a pension from the Preachers' Fund. In October 1770 Wesley wrote to Matthew Lowes: 'You are not a superannuated preacher; but you are a supernumerary.' The position was somewhat clarified by a ruling of the 1793 Conference: Every preacher shall be considered as a Supernumerary for four years after he has desisted from travelling, and shall afterwards be deemed superannuated. 97 It seems very strange that Wesley completely omitted from his printed Conference Agenda the question: 'What Preachers have died this year?' This question was actually asked, however, first appearing in the printed Minutes for 1777, and every year thereafter. The answer took the form of obituary notices of those concerned.08 Wesley's curt pronouncement about stationing, made in 1780, summar­ ized the position as it remained until his death: It is I, not the Conference ... that station the preachers; but I do it at the time of the Conference that I may have the advice of my brethren. It seems clear that he came to the Conference with a written draft of the stations, and that in the light of discussions this was sometimes altered. Frequent emergencies arose after the Conference when he acted indepen­ dently of the preachers, and because of this the printed Minutes cannot always be accepted as a true record of the actual stationing. Not until the first Conference after his death was a Stationing Committee appointed to take over at least part of this heavy load. Nevertheless Wesley's letters show that he did consider requests from stewards and others about the preachers whom they wanted-or did not want. During the generation following his death the Conference was increasingly embarrassed by the deluge of in­ vitations to preachers and petitions from circuits about their stationing.09 The stationing of the preachers probably concluded the business regu­ larly carried out in closed sessions of the Conference, though it is possible that a discussion of the membership returns and the spiritual state of the societies also took place in private. The presentation and discussion of all the 'temporal affairs' seem to have been open to interested laymen. These matters (Questions 6-13 on the Agenda) largely concerned the progress and administration of the connexional funds, of which three were of outstand­ ing importance, the Kingswood Collection, the General Fund (known also as the 'Yearly Expenses' and 'Contingent Fund') and the Preachers' Fund. 91. Minutes, 1.11, lll, 122; Early Meth. Preachers, 1.219; Letters, V.205; (Lowes is not designated in the Minutes as a supernumerary, but he does in fact make an extra preacher in the Newcastle circuit); Minutes, 1.288; cf. WHS Proc. XVII.150- 53. 98. The Irish Minutes contain some slight variations, see 1.22, 31. 99. Letters, Vll.40; cf. VIII.168; the Conference Journals contai~ many written alterations in the original draft, and the alterations tested agree~ with the printed Minutes; WHS Proc. XV.58-59; VII.58- 60; X.138-9; W. Peirce, Ecclesiastical Principles and Polity of Wesleyan Methodism, 1873, pp. 352- 6. 252 HISTORY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN Wesley's great educational experiment at Kingswood School was in­ tended to benefit the whole of Methodism, although it was designed par­ ticularly for the preachers' sons. He had no qualms, therefore, about sug­ gesting in 1756 'that a subscription for it be begun in every place, and (if need be) a collection made every year'. The collection did indeed quickly become an annual event, prescribed in the Large Minutes from 1763: 'Let a collection be made for it the Sunday before or after Midsummer, in every preaching-house throughout England.' The amounts thus raised were recorded in the annual Minutes from 1765 onwards. From this fund the Conference not only subsidized preachers' sons at Kingswood School, but from 1781 made grants towards the education of preachers' children of both sexes. Some of the girls were sent to Miss Owen's school at Pu blow, whichWesley considered 'a pattern for all the boarding-schools in England' .100 The 1749 Conference envisaged a Methodism so 'united together in one body' that there might be created 'a small fund, out of which a Society under persecution or in real distress ... might speedily be relieved'. The 1761 Conference (whose minutes have not survived) actuall y set on foot a 'general yearly collection to which every Methodist in E11gland is to con­ tribute something', and within a few weeks societies in need were already being assisted 'out of the collection'. This 'General Fund' was announced in the Large Minutes of 1763 as being intended chiefly to liquidate the heavy debts incurred by building preaching-houses, which then amounted to something like £4,000. Other uses were to enable local preachers to become itinerant by paying their debts, to send preachers out as mission­ aries where no societies were established, and to pay the costs of law suits to protect Methodists and their property. Wesley outlined the suggested procedure for maintaining the General Fund : Let then every member of our Society in England, once a year, set his shoulder to the work: contributing more or Jess as God has prospered him, at the Lady­ day visitation of the classes. Let none be excluded from giving something, be it a penny, a half-penny, a farthing. Remember the widow's two mites! And let those who are able to give shillings, crowns, and pounds, do it willingly. The money contributed will be brought to Leeds, Bristol, or London, at the ensuing Conference.101 By 1766 the total debt was £11,383, and a halt was called to the building of new preaching-houses. The following year Wesley began a big push among the wealthier Methodists to liquidate the debt- what might be termed the first Connexional Appeal. The first year produced £5,660, and the second another £2,500. Wesley launched further appeals, including a penny-a-week fund , and challenge offers of gifts conditional upon a fixed amount being promised by others. At the same time he encouraged the Societies themselves to pay off their own building debts by organizing 100.Journal, IV.186; VI.78; Minutes, I.113-14, 119, 124, 150, 156, 164, 178, 223, 256, 592-4, 624-5. 101. MS Minutes, pp. 63- 64; Letters, IV.163; VIII.271; Minutes, 1.624-33. r

THE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS : 3. POLITY 253 similar local appeals, and he personally was prepared to head such subscrip­ tion-lists. He also dangled the bait before them that money subscribed locally to the General Fund would be handed back until their own debt was cleared. The emergency was conquered, but the need for an assured con­ nexional income remained. Constantly W:esley returned to the conviction that Methodism needed not occasional frantic financial drives but a really generous 'Yearly Collection' or 'Yearly Subscription'. Gradually the 'General Fund for carrying on the whole work of God' ceased to be en­ gulfed by building debts, and could be so broadened in scope that during Wesley's later years it came to be called the Contingent Fund, later changed to Connexional Fund. It was the parent alike of the General Chapel Fund, the Home Mission Fund, the General Purposes Fund and the Sustentation Fund.102 The Preachers' Fund was begun by the preachers themselves at the 1763 Conference-Wesley himself was quite lukewarm in the matter-in order to secure adequate pensions for superannuated preachers, their widows and children. Basically the fund was raised by annual subscriptions from the preachers themselves. Donations from well-wishers swelled the fund, how­ ever, and in 1781 Wesley used some of this money to ease the increasing financial strain caused by the needs of the preachers' families. At the same time he launched another appeal to replace and increase this fund, his plea being for the 'worn out' preachers. The fund was reorganized in 1796, and in 1799 the preachers' own contributions were separated to develop into an Annuitant Society, while the gifts of the people formed a charitable fund, later known as the Auxiliary Fund.103 By means of these annual collections on a connexional scale, as in other ways, every Methodist was encouraged to consider himself part of a nation­ wide family, even an international family, for in 1788 there was added (in Ireland at least) an annual connexional collection 'for the support of our most important missions among the heathens'. In thus sharing the burdens of others, Methodists were assured that, should their own societies fall into distress, the whole Connexion would stand behind them.101 The l 78O's found Wesley not only arranging for the continuance of Methodism after his death by establishing the Conference of his preachers as the heir to his power, but also by deputing that power in advance to a select number of preachers by means of committees. The first of these was the Book Committee, which also had oversight of Methodism's general finances. Wesley himself appointed this committee on Friday, October 10, 1788, and the members were named in his will four months later as Thomas Coke, James Creighton, Peard Dickenson (three clergymen), Thomas

102. Minutes, 1.57; Letters, V.65-68, 70, 73, 114, 159- 60, 283, 493; Vl.4- 5, 14, 16; VIl.224; VIIl.198, 273. Journal, VI.300; Minutes, 1.49-50, 58, 73, 77, 624-33, etc. 103. Early Meth. Preachers, IV.27; V.175; Minutes, 1.49-50, 58, 73, 77, 149, 155, 358- 61; Letters, VII.68-69. 104. Irish Minutes, 1.43. 254 HISTORY OF THE METHODIST CHURCH IN GREAT BRITAIN Rankin, George Whitefield (the Book Steward), and 'the London Assistant for the time being'. In 1790 two further committees were appointed, the Building Committee (with a separate list of names for Ireland), and the first tentative Overseas Missions Committee, appointed under the title of 'The Committee for the management of our affairs in the West Indies'. The very important Stationing Committee was not appointed until the Confer­ ence immediately following Wesley's death, and had as its nucleus repre­ sentatives of the committees set up by the Districts brought into being at this same conference. A committee was also appointed by the 1791 Con­ ference for superintending Kingswood School; this was, in effect, the first Education Committee.105 One fact which does not readily appear, however, is that Wesley had for some years been relying upon an inner circle of preachers to assist him in the discharge of Conference business, a committee which met (like the the later Stationing Committee) both before and between the sessions of the Conference. This committee first appears in Wesley's shorthand diary in 1785 as the 'Cabinet'; the following year it is 'Bro. Paws[on] &c', in 1787 'Comm[ittee]', in 1788 'T. R[ankin] Conf.', in 1789 'Comm.' and in 1790 ':Pre. Conf.' or 'L. Conf.'. Perhaps most interesting of all is Joseph Sutcliffe's description of the 'platform' at the 1790 Conference, which was surely composed of this same 'cabinet': A long table being placed across the chapel, which had no pews, Mr Wesley sat in a chair at the head of the table, and about twenty venerable men on the benches, ten on each side, distinguished by bushy or cauliflower wigs, aged men that had borne the heat and burden of the day. Mr Mather, as a sort of arch­ deacon ... conducted the whole business of the Conference. Mr Valton was the secretary, with his small quarto ledger. 106 Numbered in the 'Cabinet' would probably be two or three connexional officers whom Wesley had found it necessary to appoint from among his preachers. Frequently the preachers stationed in London had various administrative connexional duties to perform, but in 1773 for the first time one of the preachers was not put down to a circuit-'Thomas Olivers travels with Mr Wesley'. This task of being companion-secretary to Wesley was taken over in following years by Joseph Bradford. In 1776 the list of stations was preceded by the following list of connexional officers: Joseph Bradford travels with Mr Wesley. John Atlay keeps his accounts. Thomas Olivers corrects the press. In 1777 John Atlay's title became 'the Book-Steward'. From 1780 on-

105. Journal, VII.441; Minutes, I.240, 242,289; Findlay and Holdsworth, History of the W.M.M.S., I.65-67. Letters, VIIl.211 shows that Wesley himself appointed the Building Committee some months before the Conference, and that he intended to 'leave them everything pertaining to building for the time to come'. 106. Journal, VII.100, 191-2, 305-7, 420, 522; VIII.80-81; WHS Proc. XV.57- 58. T.lfE PEOPLE CALLED METHODISTS: 3. POLITY 255 wards these officers were once more included in the ordinary list of circuit appointments.101 At Wesley's first Conference, in 1744, he faced a question which obviously troubled him: Do you not entail a schism on the Church, i.e . . .. Is it not probable that your hearers after your death will be scattered into all sects and parties? Or that they will form themselves into a distinct sect? His answer was in effect: We cannot with good conscience neglect the present opportunity of saving souls while we live, for fear of consequences which may possibly or probably happen after we are dead. The present need, the present opportunity, the present call of God-these were the things that counted with John Wesley. The following Conference r~iterated this guiding principle. He stated that the Methodists must con­ sider themselves as 'little children, who have everything to learn', having their 'minds always open to any farther light which God may give'. In 1746 he expressed it thus: 'We desire barely to follow Providence, as it gradually opens.' 10s This attitude is illustrated by the whole development of Methodist polity from that of an avowed 'Society' to that of an acknowledged 'Church'. We have seen how Wesley met each spiritual need as it arose: how he organized those who attached themselves to him into fellowships large and small, providing them with a network of pastoral oversight, with standards of discipline and the means to enforce those standards, with meeting-places, patterns of Christian fellowship and the stimulus of varied but l1eart­ warming preaching; we have seen how these societies were knit together by the growth of the circuit system and the principle ofitinerancy; we have seen how Wesley provided that his personal oversight of the Methodist Societies, his episcope, should pass smoothly upon his death to his 'Sons in the Gospel', so that the purpose of God in Methodism should not be destroyed by controversies or forsaken in the pursuit of prestige or power; we have seen the complex machinery of a great evangelical 'Connexion' come into being piece by piece as the result of the play of a master-mind upon ideas from many sources. And throughout we have seen that all this was not done in order to build a new Church or to create a lasting name for John Wesley. It was done 'merely in obedience to the Providence of God, and for the good of the people' .100 107. Minutes, I.106, 111, 122, 128, 142, etc. 108. MS Minutes, pp. 13, 19, 35. 109. Minutes, 1.61.