And in further reply to the charge, that in excluding disorderly persons from his society, he was usurping a power committed to the higher order of the clergy, Mr. Wesley says:—
No; not in the power of excluding members from a private society, unless on the supposition of some such rule as ours is, viz.: "That if a man separate from the church, he is no longer a member of our society."
These passages (from scores of similar ones in Mr. Wesley's works), are sufficient to shew what Mr. Wesley understood and intended by admission into, or exclusion from, any one of his societies—that it did not in the least affect the relations of any person to the Church of which he was a member. Now, the rule which Mr. Wesley imposed as a condition of membership in a private society in a Church, we impose as a condition of membership in the Church itself.
It is also worthy of remark, that attendance at class-meeting is not required of members in the general rules of the society—those very rules which our ministers are required to give to persons proposing to join the Wesleyan Church.
In those rules no mention is made of class-meeting, nor is it there required that each member shall meet the leader, much less meet him in a class-meeting, in the presence of many others; but that the leader shall see each person in his class, and meet the minister and stewards once a week. Yet, by constant and universal practice, we have transferred the obligation from the leader to the member, and made it the duty of the latter (on pain of excommunication), to meet the former in class-meeting; an obligation which is nowhere enjoined in the general rules. In those rules it is said:
There is only one condition previously required of those who desire admission into these societies—a desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins.
The rules then truly state, that wherever this desire is really fixed in the soul, it will be known by its fruits. These fruits are briefly but fully set forth under three heads. (1) By doing no harm. (2) By doing good. (3) "By attending all the ordinances of God: such as, the public worship of God; the ministry of the word, either read or expounded; the Supper of the Lord; family and private prayer; searching the Scriptures, and fasting or abstinence. These are the general rules of our societies, all of which we are taught of God to observe, even in His written word, which is the only rule, and the sufficient rule, both of faith and practice." Now, neither class-meeting nor love-feast is mentioned among the "ordinances of God" enumerated in the general rules of the society; nor is it mentioned in Mr. Wesley's Large Minutes of Conference among the instituted means of grace. So far as the general rules themselves are concerned, there is nothing which makes attendance at class-meeting a condition of membership, even in Mr. Wesley's societies as he originally instituted them; nor did the idea of holding class-meetings at all occur to Mr. Wesley until after the general rules were drawn up and published.[138] But what was not required by the general rules soon became a condition of membership in another way—this was by the system of giving tickets. Mr. Wesley says in his Plain Account of People called Methodists:
As the society increased, I found it required still greater care to separate the precious from the vile. In order to this, I determined, at least once in three months, to talk with every member myself, and to inquire at their own mouth, as well as of their leaders and neighbours, whether they grew in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. To each of those whose seriousness and good conversation I had no reason to doubt, I gave a testimony under my own hand, by writing their name on a ticket prepared for that purpose. Those who bore these tickets, wherever they came, were acknowledged by their brethren, and were received with all cheerfulness. These tickets also supplied us with a quiet and inoffensive method of removing any disorderly member. He has no ticket at the quarterly visitation (for so often the tickets are changed); and hereby it is immediately known that he is no longer of the community.
It was at length required by a minute of the Conference, (as our own discipline enjoins,) that a preacher should not give a ticket of membership to any person who did not meet in class. In our own Discipline, in the section on class-meetings, will also be found the following question and answer:—
Question.—What shall be done with those members of our church who wilfully and repeatedly neglect their class?