declared that intellect has the primacy; Scotus ever assigns it to the will. Thus, while to the first, Theology is a theoretical science, to Scotus it is ever a practical one. The object of theology is not so much to enlarge our knowledge as to accomplish our salvation. We are not united to God perfectly in knowledge, but only through the activity of will in love. It is true the will alone cannot bring salvation, for the divine. charitas must be infused. However, this is not without our co-operation. True, Christ is the door, but the door must be entered, and this implies synergistic activity on the part of the sinner. The vision of God, of which Thomas talks so much, does not satisfy the ideal of Scotus. Delectatio even smacks too much of Quietism. Even the knowledge of God, of which Scripture speaks, includes love.

We have treated Scotus mainly as a philosopher, and not as a theologian. In this latter province, and because of his thorough-going emphasis of freedom, he has, it is evident, somewhat lost his balance. We can only stop to signify a few points in the briefest manner. In asserting freedom of God, he goes to the extreme of arbitrariness. The foundation of moral obligation, according to him, lies so completely in the will of God, that, had he chosen to do so, he might have made wrong to be right. Utter arbitrariness is thus enthroned in the very bosom of God, and spiritual freedom sweeps over into blind nature. Again, while Scotus struggles like a very Hercules with the problem of personality in his doctrine of the incarnation, he shows a vicious emphasis of the notion of freedom in asserting that God could have become a stone as well as man. A valuable thought, on the other hand, is this, that the incarnation was not conditioned by human sin. Once again we see the same thing in his doctrine of the atonement, or the acceptilatio, according to which the work of Christ was accepted as the ground of hunan salvation without reference to its exact adjustment to the relationship between God and man. Thus, as God could have saved the sinner without Christ's offering, and have justified him without the infusion of grace, so fallen man, by his native powers, may or might, apart from what he calls the ordinate power of God, obey the Divine Will.

We close the study of this great man, so marked by keen

ness of thought and originality full of the seeds of the future, by remarking that philosophy was in his day too deeply wedded to theology for Scotus to emancipate himself wholly from the rubrics of scholasticism. But he set to work a fermentation which began immediately to agitate thinkers. The image

which Milton uses in his description of creation may be applied to Duns:

"Now half appeared

The tawny lion, pawing to get free

His hinder parts."

He never pawed himself loose from scholasticism. Hence the imperfect solution of the antinomy between faith and knowledge, the theoretical and the practical, intellect and will. Still he worked well at the problem, of which we are now finding the definitive solution-this, namely, the perfect harmony of theology and philosophy, the rational vindication of the Christian Faith.

ART. II.-METHODIST DOCTRINAL STANDARDS.

WHAT are the doctrinal standards of the Methodist Episcopal Church? What is their authority over the teaching and denominational standing of members of the Church? What does the word of God require as touching those who publicly dissent from the doctrinal standards of the Church? are questions of vital importance to its peace and prosperity?

I. What are the doctrinal standards of the Methodist Episcopal Church?

In ¶ 71 of the "Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church," we read:

The General Conference shall have full powers to make rules and regulations for our Church, under the following limitations and restrictions, namely:

§ 1. The General Conference shall not revoke, alter, or change our Articles of Religion, nor establish any new standards or rules of doctrine contrary to our present existing and established standards of doctrine.

¶ 72 permits the General Conference, by a two thirds majority, and with the concurrent recommendation of three fourths of

the members of the Annual Conferences, present and voting, to alter any of the Six Restrictive Rules, "excepting the First Article."

Judging from these two sections of the " Discipline," the orthodoxical symbols of the Church are unalterable as "the laws of the Medes and Persians." Yet the multitude of contributions to the religious press, and the formal essays entrusted to magazines and reviews, postulate, for the most part, that it is a matter of entire uncertainty what the Methodist doctrinal standards are. Ask one of the writers what the authoritative creed of the Church is, and he replies that he does not know. Another answers that it is contained in the New Testament, and another in the Bible.

That the latter statement is true in the sense that the Bible is the depository whence all the materials for the fabrication of the Methodist doctrinal standards have been drawn, is beyond question; and for that reason all candidates for diaconal ordination are obliged "to unfeignedly believe all the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testament." For the same reason, candidates for presbyterial and episcopal ordination are required to profess their persuasion "that the Holy Scriptures contain sufficiently all doctrine required of necessity for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ," and they are "determined out of the said Scriptures to instruct the people committed to "their “charge, and to teach nothing as required of necessity to eternal salvation but that which" they "shall be persuaded may be concluded and proved by the Scriptures." + They are also required to pledge themselves to "be ready with all faithful diligence to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God's word," + and further, in the case of bishops, "both privately and openly to call upon and encourage others to do the same." +

These requirements denote the high estimate placed by the Church on the maintenance of sound doctrine, and indicate the zeal with which all its ministers ought to labor for its preservation.

But the reply, that the Methodist doctrinal standards are to be found in the Bible is a mere evasion of the question. All are agreed that they ought to be in harmony with the teach"Discipline," p. 344. † Ibid., pp. 319, 334.

Ibid., p. 319.

ings of "God's word written," and that the creeds, confessions, and symbols of all branches of the visible Church are binding upon the conscience only to that extent in which they accord with them. "We believe," wrote Wesley in his "Character of a Methodist," "the written word of God to be the only and sufficient rule, both of Christian faith and practice. . . . ... We believe Christ to be the eternal, supreme God. . . . But as to all opinions which do not strike at the root of Christianity we think and let think."

But what does Methodism in our Church "think" of the doctrinal contents of the Holy Scriptures? "The Bible is of God; the confession is man's answer to God's word. The Bible is the norma normans; the confession the norma normata. The Bible is the rule of faith, (regula fidei;) the confession, the rule of doctrine, (regula doctrinæ.)” * What is the Methodistic confession? What are the symbols regulating the public teaching of ministerial officials? Protestant Episcopalians, Lutherans, Calvinists, have "summaries of the doctrineof the Bible, aids to its sound understanding, bonds of union among their professors, public standards and guards against false doctrine and practice;" and in these their interpretations of biblical teaching on the great subjects of theology, Christology, anthropology, the Church and the sacraments, soteriology, and eschatology, are more or less precisely defined. Has Methodism similar instruments, and if so, where and what are they?

Dr. Buckley says that "from the beginning till the present day Methodism has had, not indeed a confession, or a systematic creed, (for the absence of which we thank God and our fathers,) but a general backbone of theology, upon which its sermons, treatises, commentaries, catechisms, hymns, exhortations, and ritual, rest. Every person who becomes a minister among us knows what that spinal column is, and also that the Church claims the right to dispense with the services of those who attempt to break it." +

All of which is historically true; but where shall we find this "general backbone?"

Dr. Curry maintains "that there are no definite and ascer

* Schaff's "Creeds of Christendom," vol. i., p. 7.

Christian Advocate," October 20, 1881.

tained set of documents which are to be accepted as embodying the legally protected doctrines of Methodism;" and that the "existing and established standards" recognized by the law of the Church "cannot be identified with "-he does not say in -"any given books or documents, and, therefore, it is left to those to whom the detection and punishment of heresy may be committed to find out and decide what doctrines are, in any case, contrary to the 'standards.'"*

"If it shall be asked what are those standards. . . and where may they be found?" he says that "the only possible answers are that they are the generally accepted doctrines of Methodism, established at its beginning, and perpetuated by the common. consent of all concerned; and they are to be found in the memories and convictions of those upon whom the safe keeping of the body is devolved."+ If this be an accurate statement, then the Methodist Episcopal Church has only an oral theology, and that as diverse as the manifold receptacles to which its keeping is confided. A system more flexible, fluctuating, and intractable of reduction to method could not be devised. But even then, the existence of documentary sources of the tenets held in memory and conviction is necessarily implied, Civilized theological associations have never been destitute of such primitive literature. Theological students need to know where and what it is, and if it take the form of creed, confession, symbol, or serial articles. In these latter forms the Methodist doctrinal standards can easily be studied; and even if they should be embodied in commentaries or sermons, it will be comparatively light labor to define and formulate them. But Dr. Curry denies the existence of any such authoritative fountains. "The Methodist Episcopal Church... is without any definite documentary system of belief by law established." + And yet he affirms that Methodist theology" recognizes certain great truths, which lie at the root of Christianity,' which must be held sacred." He further asserts that the Church, "according to definite rules of judicature" has power to determine what are these essential Christian doctrines, "and also to remove from the body all who reject them."

He next, as one of those in whose "memories and convictions" the essential doctrines of Methodism are preserved, #66 "Independent," November 3, 1881. t Ibid., December 1, 1881.