The Doctrines and Discipline of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church
9781465664013
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
To the Members of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church: We esteem it our duty and privilege most earnestly to recommend to you, as members of our Church, our form of Discipline, which has been founded on the experience of a long series of years. We wish to see this publication in the house of every member of the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church; and the more so, as it contains the Articles of Religion maintained more or less, in part or in whole, by every reformed Church in the world. Far from wishing you to be ignorant of any of our doctrines, or any part of our Discipline, we desire you to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the whole. You ought, next to the Word of God, to procure the Articles and Canons of the Church to which you belong. We deem it proper, in this place, to give you a brief account of the organization of our Connection: From the introduction of Methodism on this continent, we have ever constituted a part of the great Methodist family—first, as members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America, and also after the change took place by which we were known as the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States; and when the division took place, in 1844, which we regard as a legal and constitutional division of the Church, we formed a part of that division called the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, which relation we continued to sustain until the organization of our Church took place at the General Conference held at Jackson, Tenn., which began its session December 15, 1870. The day was spent in prayer and supplication to the Almighty that his blessings might rest upon us; and on the following day the regular business of the session began, Bishop Robert Paine, D. D., of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in the chair. The circumstances which led to our separate and distinct organization were as follows: When the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, met in New Orleans, April, 1866, the Conference found that, by revolution and the fortunes of war, a change had taken place in our political and social relation, which made it necessary that a change should also be made in our ecclesiastical relations, and provision was made for our organization into separate congregations, Districts, and Annual Conferences, if we desired it; and that when two or more Annual Conferences should be formed, if it was our wish, and met the approbation of the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, we should have a General Conference organization like that of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and that our preachers should receive ordination according to the regulations and requirements of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, as Deacons and Elders; and should a General Conference be organized, and suitable men be elected to the office of Bishops, that the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, would ordain and set them apart as Chief Pastors among us. At the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, at Memphis, Tennessee, May, 1870, it was found that five Annual Conferences had been formed among us, and that an almost universal desire had been expressed on our part that we might be organized into a separate and distinct Church, which was acquiesced in by the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and recommended to said Conference in their address; whereupon, by our request, the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, together with A. L. P. Green, Samuel Watson, Edmund W. Sehon, Thomas Whitehead, R. J. Morgan, and Thomas Taylor, were appointed by said Conference to aid in organizing our General Conference at the time and place above specified. At the succeeding sessions of our Annual Conferences, delegates were elected to attend our General Conference, in accordance with the Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
