break in the continuity of opinion as expressed by the Church in various ways, and now, at the opening of a new century, the General Conference of 1884 rendered its decision as to the nature of the episcopate of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and re-affirmed the doctrine of the founders of the denomination. The deliverance of the General Conference of 1884 is in harmony with the doctrine held in 1784, and which has prevailed throughout the hundred years. The bishopric is an office, and the bishops are presbyters.

CHAPTER XII.

CONCLUSION.

HE Methodist Episcopal Church has always recog

THE

nized that there is an ordo ecclesiasticus, and that there are official positions which are not clerical orders, though they are filled by those who have such orders. Thus it has its order of elders and its office of presiding elders; the presiding eldership being not an order, but an office of supervision filled by one who in orders is an elder. So it has held that the bishopric is a higher office of supervision occupied by one who also is an elder, and this view is sustained by the consensus of a century, as gathered from the expressed opinions of leading exponents of Methodism, from official declarations, and from the formal actions of authoritative Conferences.

Some persons have claimed that a Church has power to make as many orders as it pleases, and, reasoning from this assumption, have alleged that the Methodist Episcopal Church has made three orders, but this is a non sequitur. Even if a body had power to do a thing, it does not follow that it has exerted that power. So in this case the inference alluded to is illogical. Even if it be admitted that a Church had power to make as many orders as it pleased, this de

termines nothing. The question remains one of historic fact. What did it do? How many orders did it make? Such questions compel us to investigate the records of history, and to inquire into present facts, if we would learn the truth. Hence we consult the teachings of the past and the facts of the present.

As a matter of fact the Methodist Episcopal Church at its organization recognized two orders, namely, the order of elders and the order of deacons, and it has never made any others. However, though the Methodist Episcopal Church has always had the diaconate and the presbyterate, it has never held that these two orders are absolutely necessary, or that it is necessary to have two ordinations for a valid ministry. Hence, though it has preferred to have the sub-order of the diaconate, and has two ordinations for those who come up into the ministry from the ranks of its laity, it concedes perfect liberty to other Churches to have the diaconate in some other form or to omit it entirely and to have only one clerical order, and, hence, it has recognized as a valid ministry that of Churches where the full ministry is conferred in one ordination, and has frequently received into its own ministry, without re-ordination, those who came from other denominations where the full ministerial function was granted in a single ordination. It has treated its diaconate as a stage in the progress toward the presbyterate, or, in other words, as a station in the way, or a point in the period of probation, leading

toward the full ministry, rather than something that is absolutely necessary for a true ministry.

In the Methodist Episcopal Church the full ministry is vested in the presbyter. It recognizes no ministerial function which does not inhere in the order of presbyters, and it has always denied the right to have any order above that possessed by presbyters.

With it the episcopacy has no higher clerical function, but is an executive expedient—a judicious arrangement, it has held, yet merely an expedient— which it uses as a convenience, and which it could modify to suit changing conditions, or even abandon entirely, and yet have a complete and valid Church.

Mr. Wesley held that Church government might be that of the independent congregation, that under a presbytery, or that under episcopal supervision. He preferred the latter, but recognized the validity of the others So the Methodist Episcopal Church holds that there may be a legitimate Church with or without that which is commonly called the episcopal form of government, and on this ground it recognizes the validity of those Churches which are without a general or a diocesan supervision.

Examination shows that the episcopate of the Methodist Episcopal Church has not a single element of a clerical order as distinct from, and superior to, that of the presbyters. In this Church, and in general ecclesiastical usage, clerical orders relate to the sacraments, and each clerical order has its own pecul

iar relation to one or all the sacraments. Hence Churches that hold their episcopacy to be a higher order concede as peculiarly belonging to its so-called episcopal order something of the supposed nature of a sacrament. Thus the Roman Catholic and Greek Churches consider confirmation and ordination to be sacraments, and these they conceive as belonging exclusively to the bishops, and so they hold their episcopacy to be an order superior to the eldership.

The articles of religion of the Anglican Church do not teach that confirmation is a sacrament, or that ordination is a sacrament, and so, when these articles were formulated, after the Protestant Reformation in England, the English Church did not hold that bishops had a higher clerical order than that of priests or presbyters, but that they were superior in office. When, however, the High-Church element gained strength, this school of thought gave to confirmation something of the nature of a sacrament, considering it, so to speak, as the completion of baptism, and, in the same manner, gave something of a sacramental character to the service of ordination. As these acts of confirmation and ordination, which High - Churchmen deemed to have a sacramental or quasi-sacramental character, were considered as belonging exclusively to the bishops, it was an easy thing for High-Churchmen to conceive that the bishops had a distinct and higher order, and to claim that non-episcopal ordinations were invalid.