Introduction

1. As it is true that every family ought to be able to trace its ancestry to appreciate those that came before, as well as to learn of the wealth or weaknesses of their inheritance; even so, the Church ought to be curious and investigate to learn about those from whom they have received their faith.

2. Our motto is: "Earnestly contend for the faith once delivered unto the saints," but I doubt if there are more than two dozen of us that can call the names of those who contended for the Methodist Protestant Faith!

3. Our "faith" apart from people has little, if any, relevance for any generation. It is but dead philosophy without meaning and without a following.

4. How many of you have heard of Nicolas Snethen, Asa Shinn, Samuel K. Jennings, Thomas H. Stockton, Robert Dobbins, Jonathan Flood, or George Brown, only to name a few.

5. Of these and many others, it may be said, that they "through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises... out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight... had trial of cruel mocking... were sawn asunder, tempted... and all obtained a good report through faith," and we have inherited their treasure after 175 years.

6. It is not my intent to bore you, only challenge you; to present to you a concise overview of their struggle, for their story is our story, and I will attempt to tell it the best I can.

Our Lineage from Christ

1. The Methodist Protestant Church traces its ancestry through the Methodist Episcopal Church to the EVANGELICAL REFORMATION begun in England by the Holy Spirit working in and through the ministries of john and Charles Wesley. Both were ordained clergymen in the Church of England, also known as the Anglican or Established Church.

2. The Church of England had its beginning in the PROTESTANT REFORMATION when it broke away from the Roman Catholic Church, which may be traced to The Primitive of Early Church (known in The Apostle's Creed as the holy catholic Church), and to the Apostle's of our Lord, and to Jesus Christ, the Rock and Foundation of the Church.

3. Thus, when our forefathers sought for a name by which to identify their new offspring, they were more inclined toward the concept of "reformation" than that of their decrepit grandparents of the old world, taking the names of the two great spiritual epics in our Christian past, THE EVANGELICAL REFORMATION AND THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION, and calling their newborn spiritual home, THE METHODIST PROTESTANT CHURCH.

The Rise of Methodism

1. The Methodist Protestant Church is distinctively and uniquely old fashion Methodist. This sets us apart forever as being Wesleyan-Arminian in doctrine and belief.

2. May we never forget that form of scriptural holiness doctrine that brought us into existence, for to contend for the faith, we must contend for holiness and heart of life.

3. Methodism began as a spiritual awakening during the ministries of the Wesleys, Whitfield, and others who saw that they could not be saved without holiness, came into possession of the blessing of a clean heart, and encouraged others to seek the blessing. This second blessing they called "perfect love" and afterward testified that God had thrust them out to raise up a holy people, and for this reason Methodist exists, and all the rest who preach not this doctrine, have forfeited their right to exist.

4. The Wesleys also preached the witness of the Spirit to the work of salvation in the soul.

5. This was a time when the Church of England was morally and spiritually ineffective, and the country was on the verge of moral collapse.

6. To reach the lost, Wesley and Whitfield abandoned the methods of the day and began a ministry of field preaching to reach the masses, resulting in a mighty infusing of the Spirit of God and countless thousands getting saved and sanctified.

7. In order to follow up these converts, Wesley formed Methodist Societies to disciple them, appointing over the various classes, laymen as class leaders.

8. These converts and Methodist societies received little encouragement from the clergy of the Church of England, who called them "methodist," criticizing the order and method of their lives. They received the ordinances from John Wesley and other ordained clergymen in the Church of England.

The American Methodist

1. The work in England spread to the American English colonies with the arrival of Methodist missionaries, and the Methodist seed grew quickly in the American soil. By the time they were organized into a Methodist Church, there were more than 80 traveling preachers and over 15,000 members.

2. Methodism was seriously interrupted by the American Revolutionary War, which was opposed by John Wesley as as Englishman, but with American Independence he had a change of mind and a great concern for the work here.

3. Prior to the Revolution, all Methodist in America were members of the Church of England as a state church, but after Independence, the Church ceased (being reorganized as the Protestant Episcopal Church), leaving the Methodist outside the fold and without the ordinances.

4. Upon appeal to Wesley, who had never ordained anyone, and being slow to act, the American Methodist began to ordain each other or administer the ordinances without an ordained clergy.

5. Even though he was not a bishop, and only a minister, Wesley reluctantly ordained Thomas Coke (a medical doctor) as joint superintendent over the American work, and authorized him to go to America and ordain Francis Asbury to share the work of an ordained clergy jointly.

6. With Coke he sent the following letter: "As our American brethren are now totally disentangled both from the state and English hierarchy, we dare not entangled them again either with the one or the other. They are now at full liberty simply to follow the Scriptures and the primitive Church. And we judge it best that they stand fast in that liberty wherewith God has so strangely set them free."

7. This statement by John Wesley, our Founder, contains the germ of freedom that eventually gave rise to the organization of the Methodist Protestant Church and which has kept it on a mission through schism and merger for the past 175 years.

The Christmas Conference and the Organization of the Methodist Protestant Episcopal Church:

1. It is now evident that when Dr. Thomas Coke arrived in America that he did not follow the directions given him by the founder of Methodism.

2. Coke's political and religious mindset were both colored by the old world in which He believed in a bishop for the Church and a king for the State.

3. The American Revolution had settles the matter of a king for the State; and he immediately set out to settle the matter of a bishop for the Church, all in contradiction of the mission he was sent to carry out.

4. He called a conference, made up only of the clergy, to meet at Baltimore, Maryland, December 25, 1784. This became known as the famous Christmas Conference.

5. He set about the matter of organizing American Methodist into the Methodist Episcopal Church even though the time (Christmas), the place (Eastern seaboard), and the weather (snowing) was such that few of the preachers could attend the conference.

6. NOT ONE LAYMEN WAS INVITED TO ATTEND AND REPRESENT THE LAY INTEREST.

7. The church organized was unique, although it was an American church, in that the legitimate, executive, and judicial powers of church government were all placed in the hands of the clergy to the complete exclusion of the laity.

8. Thus, all the layman was expected to do, according to one observation, was to: "Pay, pray, and obey!"

9. It is the exclusion that eventually divided American Methodism into two distinct camps: Episcopal Methodism and Representative Methodism, with the Methodist Protestant Church the champion of the latter.

Petition and Protest

1. Almost immediately a protest, first raised by the clergy, and then by the laity, was heard throughout the land, growing in volume and in intensity with each passing year until it resulted in the dissenters being excommunicated after which they took up the sorrowful task of organizing a new church embracing the principles for which they contended.

2. In the years that followed petitions, as had been used to air American grievances against the British crown, were circulated and filed with the bishops praying for change, all to no avail.

3. In 1842 a petition was presented to the General Conference asking for a representation of ministers and laymen in the lawmaking body. The reply was as follows: "If by rights and privileges it is intended to signify something foreign from the institutions of the church, as we receive them from our fathers, pardon us if we know no such rights and if we do not comprehend such privileges" (1824 edition of the Methodist Magazine).

4. The reformers were not discouraged. They continued to be united in their petitions, and began circulating two newspapers in which they advocated their views for reform, first, The Weslyan Repository, which was superseded by The Mutual Rights of Ministers and Laymen of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

5. As American freeman, freedom of speech and freedom of the press were their right, and they would exercise these rights to achieve their objective.

Expulsion:

1. The result was they were threatened with expulsion from the Church, and when brought before their peers for trial, and wanted to know what law of the church they had violated, they were informed that they were guilty of having broken John Wesley's rule of "speaking evil of magistrates and ministers."

2. Their accusers were determined to carry out their threats, resulting in hundreds being excommunicated simply because they advocated a change in church government which would include laymen and read a newspaper which did the same.

3. These were men and women who had no redress for their grievances; no due process of law; no appeal from decisions affecting their church affiliation; only a ruthless determination of an authority that would , but would not listen.

4. The immediate result of the expulsions was that hundreds and thousands began withdrawing from the Methodist Episcopal Church out of sympathy for the reformers, including whole congregations.

5. There was not one stain on their character; they were Christian men and women; they were Methodist, loving its doctrines and its experiences of salvation, and until now, its sweet, sweet spirit.

6. There was but one Methodist Church in America, and it had turned them out; so there was but one thing to do, take up the task of forming themselves into a new Methodist Church which would embrace and incorporate within its government those principles for which they contented.

Convention and Constitution

1. First, a convention was called for November 12, 1828 to meet at Baltimore out of which grew a provisional organization under the title The Associated Methodist Churches, adoption of Articles of Association, and to be in force until a constitution could be written.

1. The result was they were threatened with expulsion from the Church, and when brought before their peers for trial, and wanted to know what law of the church they had violated, they were informed that they were guilty of having broken John Wesley's rule of "speaking evil of magistrates and ministers."

2. A second convention was called for in 1830, which met at St. John's Church, Baltimore, Maryland, November 2, 1830.

3. There were fourteen annual conferences present, represented by 114 delegates.

4. The name THE METHODIST PROTESTANT CHURCH was chosen.

At last the controversy was over, and the reformers were free from the past; from the stern mandate of an angry authority; and disentangled from the American as well as the English hierarchy, and at liberty to follow John Wesley's advice, "simply to follow the Holy Scriptures and the primitive Church."

Governing Principles

1. The Methodist Protestant Church was born out of necessity for a persecuted people.

2. They were people who followed Christ and holiness who only wanted to take part in their church government

3. They were Americans who believed that the consent of the govern rest with the people; that all government proceeds from the people upward, not from the bishop downward.

4. They created a government of the people, by the people, and for the people; that the clergy was to be respected and honored, but were not lords over God's heritage; that the people as members of the church in good standing own the right to vote and hold office; the right to choose in fair elections those who will represent them in all legislative assemblies; that redress is a right for every grievance; and for every decision, the right of appeal; and that church trials are to be conducted on Bible principles.

5. They wrote these ideas into a church constitution, the first ever written; and hedged them about with restrictive clauses which can never be changed except by the slow process of amendment.

6. It was a government embracing representative democracy, pure and simple.

7. It was a new experiment in church government, even as new as that of the republic of which they had pledged their allegiance.

8. The bishop, nor his presiding elder, was no longer needed than King George was needed.

9. The new leaders of both the annual and General Conference would be called "presidents," and no higher order than elder, an ordained minister, would exist in the clergy. The rest is history.

The American Civil War Schism and Reunion:

1. The Methodist Protestant Church was launched upon a sea of American liberty and began in earnest to carry out her Lord's Great Commission.

2. Her progress was interrupted only by the American Civil War.

3. Other denominations, both North and South, had already divided over the question of slavery.

4. A convention of delegates from the North and West assembled with the General Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church in Lynchburg, Virginia in 1858 in which they asked for the removal of the words "white male members" as this applied to voting. When this was rejected by the southern vote, the North and West conferences left the Methodist Protestant Church and formed another denomination identical in every way to the Methodist Protestant Church under the name The Methodist Church. (This is the same name the uniting churches took in 1939.)

5. After the Civil War was over, negotiations were opened and reunion was consummated. (This is why we had two publishing houses and two church papers, The Methodist Protestant and The Methodist Recorder.

1. The Methodist Protestant Church was launched upon a sea of American liberty and began in earnest to carry out her Lord's Great Commission.

Merger Now a Possibility

1. Since the merger became a reality, serious discussions began to reunite all Methodism once again.

2. An attempt at merging the Methodist Episcopal Church, South and the Methodist Protestant Church took place at Montgomery, Alabama, May 1867, but when the M.E. Church, South rejected it, the Mississippi Conference of the M.P. Church having been so set on it, they offered to join the M.E. South without conditions, revolting from the conference. This was nothing more than a secession.

3. It took years for the Mississippi Conference to overcome this departure, and grow back a church of any size.

4. In his 75th Anniversary message to the Maryland Conference in 1903, reunion with all Methodism was the heart cry of our general president, Dr. Thomas H. Lewis. He began to work actively for Methodist Union thereafter.

100th Celebration and Reorganization of the General Church:

1. In 1928 the Methodist Protestant Church held its Centennial Conference and Celebration in St. John's Church, Baltimore, Maryland.

2. There were 198 delegate present, representing 26 annual conferences, seven home mission conferences (five black and two white), and three foreign mission conferences: Japan, China, and India.

3. The total number of churches in the denomination was 2177, and membership was 201,000.

4. The church held four colleges and one seminary, two homes for the aging, and two orphanages for children.

5. Total property value exceeded $24,000,000.

6. These are the last complete figures we have of the strength of the Church ten years before Methodist Union in 1939.

Methodist Merger:

1. The first real attempt at Methodist merger took place in 1908 in Baltimore, Maryland. These were initial talks.

2. A second attempt followed in 1914 involving primarily discussions between the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. This became known as the Chattanooga meeting.

3. The third and final meeting for merger took place in 1930 in which the basic provisions for the creation of a new Methodist Church was formulated.

4. This resulted in the election of the Joint Commission chosen from each of the three churches, whose task was to complete a Plan of Union, which later was ratified by the three General Conferences and by the majority of the annual conferences favoring Methodist union.

5. Delegate were then elected to the Uniting Conference to be held in Kansas City, Missouri, April 26, 1939 to finish the work and to make the three churches one. The union would make the Methodist Church the largest denomination in the world.

6. The Mississippi Conference, who had already suffered and sacrificed because of the merger back in 1867, became the David to contend for the faith once again against this colossal Goliath.

7. All the fathers and mothers in Mississippi wanted was to be left alone, and they circulated a petition to this effect.

8. And it is to the laymen that credit must be given for the preservation of our denomination identity by those who took a firm stand against Methodist Union on these very grounds where we are assembled today.

9. When the vote was counted to approve or reject the resolution presented by the General President, now a Methodist bishop, a majority of the laymen voted with the minority of the clergy of the Mississippi Conference, defeating the resolution 34 against to 21 for it.

10. All of our church property and most of our church membership except that remaining in Mississippi, was swept away into the double sea of Methodist Episcopalism and drowned forever.

11. Our forefathers were the only ones who grabbed a board in the wreckage and made it alive to the shore and because they lived, the Methodist Protestant Church lives today, and we celebrate 175 years of victory. Hallelujah!