SECTION 3. The Form and Manner of Mak- ing Elders....... RAISING SUPPLIES-CHURCH BUILDING-TRUSTEES, SECTION 1. Methods for Raising Annual Sup- plies for the Propagation of the Gospel, and making up the Allowance of the SECTION 2. Building and Renting Houses for the Use of the Traveling Preachers....... 232 SECTION 3. Building Churches, and the Order to be observed therein.. THE DISCIPLINE. HISTORY OF THE ORIGIN OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. THE preachers and members of our society in general, being convinced that there was a great deficiency of vital religion in the Church of England in America, and being in many places destitute of the Christian Sacraments, as several of the clergy had forsaken their Churches, requested the late Rev. John Wesley to take such measures, in his wisdom and prudence, as would afford them suitable relief in their distress. In consequence of this, our venerable friend, who, under God, had been the father of the great revival of religion now extending over the earth, by the means of the Methodists, determined to ordain ministers for America; and for this purpose, in the year 1784, sent over three regularly ordained clergy: but preferring the episcopal mode of Church government to any other, he solemnly set apart, by the imposition of his hands and prayer, one of them, namely, Thomas Coke, Doctor of Civil Law, late of Jesus College, in the University of Oxford, and a presbyter of the Church of England, for the episcopal office; and having delivered to him letters of episcopal orders, commissioned and directed him to set apart Francis Asbury, then general assistant of the Methodist Society in America, for the same episcopal office; he, the said Francis Asbury, being first ordained deacon and elder. In consequence of which, the said Francis Asbury was solemnly set apart for the said episcopal office by prayer, and the imposition of the hands of the said Thomas Coke, other regularly ordained ministers assisting in the sacred ceremony. At which time the General Conference, held at Baltimore, did unanimously receive the said Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury as their bishops, being fully satisfied of the validity of their episcopal ordination. PART I. DOCTRINES, ADMINISTRATIVE RULES, AND MEANS OF GRACE. CHAPTER I. DOCTRINES AND ORDER OF THE CHURCH. SECTION I. Articles of Religion. I. Of Faith in the Holy Trinity. THERE is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body or parts, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness: the maker and preserver of all things, visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead, there are three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. II of the Word, or Son of God, who was made very Man. The Son, who is the Word of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance |
