The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 2

III. Missionary Impey—Resignation From Methodist Ministry

WILLIAM IMPEY (1818-1896), for forty years a Wesleyan minister and missionary to South Africa, was long chairman and general superintendent of the Grahamstown District. Impey was highly esteemed and able. In the fateful year 1878 he reached a crisis in his relationship to Methodism over the question of Eternal Torment, just when there was agitation and crisis in many lands and faiths. Because of matured convictions he was constrained to resign from the Wesleyan ministry in order to preserve his freedom of conviction and expression of view. The background was as follows. (Photo on page 416.) CFF2 412.3

1. ANNUAL DECLARATION OF CONFORMITY REQUIRED

The constitution of the Wesleyan Church not only required “strict conformity” to its Doctrinal Standards (found principally in Wesley’s Notes on the New Testament and the first four volumes of his Sermons, and the Disciplinary Regulations of the Wesleyan Catechism), but stipulated annual examination of every minister before the meeting of the district in which he resides, and before the General Conference. This examination involved four questions, No. 2 being, “Does he believe and preach our the Wesleyan] doctrines?” and No. 3, “Does he ‘observe and enforce’ the Wesleyan Discipline?” CFF2 412.4

Among these declared doctrines is that of “eternal punishment as interpreted in Wesleyan theology.” ³⁸ Specifically, it involves eternal “punishment” as well as “reward”—punishment in “hell fire, which will not consume, but preserve him from a cessation of being,” with “sin and its punishment running parallel throughout Eternity itself,” ³⁹ and “without intermission,” so that when “millions of days, of years, of ages elapsed, still we are only on the threshold of eternity.” Again, “neither the pain of body nor of soul is any nearer an end than it was millions of ages ago.” ⁴⁰ CFF2 413.1

2. RESIGNS OVER “ETERNAL TORMENT” STIPULATION

Those are the Wesleyan Connexional Standards, along with those of the Wesleyan Catechism. So in personally repudiating such a dogma, Impey felt impelled to make this significant public statement:
“This Doctrine I do not ‘believe,’ and therefore cannot ‘preach.’ The Wesleyan Church applies no such test to its Members as it does to its Ministers, and because I cannot ‘believe’ and therefore do not ‘preach’ the Doctrine of Eternal Punishment as set forth to the Wesleyan system of Theology, the Conference declines to retain me as one of its Ministers, and that is the sole reason why I leave the Wesleyans.” ⁴¹ CFF2 413.2

3. TAKES STAND IN NOBLE LINE OF DISSENTIENTS

Impey had made thorough study of the question, as well as of the history of the noble line of dissentients. First, he found no mention of such dogma in either the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene. Second, it had been a debatable question through the ages. He was well acquainted with the line of scholars throughout the Christian Era who had rejected it. And he cites a succession of typical examples in this comprehensive paragraph: “The names of such men as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and Arnobius, in the early ages of Christianity,—and in later times of Dr. Isaac Watts, Isaac Taylor, John Foster, Archbishop Whately, Bishop Hampden, the Rev. R. W. Dale, Rev. Edward White, Dr. Parker, Rev. S. Minton, Dr. Petavel of Geneva, Professor Stokes of Cambridge, Professor Hudson of Cambridge, U.S., Dr. Huntingdon of Worcester, Mass., U.S. and a host of others in both the Established and Nonconformist Churches who repudiate the unscriptural dogma of endless misery, are certainly sufficient evidence that it does not come into the category of those truths which have been taught and received ‘at all times, everywhere and by everyone,’ and also that those who reject it are not summarily to be dismissed amongst infidels and sceptics.” ⁴² CFF2 413.3

4. RESTUDY TOUCHED OFF BY FARRAR REPUDIATION

He was likewise aware of the seventeen articles, written on this question by men of note, that appeared in the Contemporary Review for April, May, and June, 1878. These had been touched off by Canon Farrar’s treatise Eternal Hope, which simply repeated his crucial Westminster Abbey sermons of November, 1877, repudiating the dogma of Eternal Torment. Impey was also aware of Wesley’s own denial of Calvinistic predestination because of its misrepresentation of the character of God, and because it could not be “found in Scripture.” But the Wesleyan test on Eternal Torment was “rigid.” It allowed no latitude. It was “this or nothing.” That was the “Doctrinal Test!” And Impey said, understandingly: “It is not what I do believe, but what I do not believe that places me outside the Wesleyan Conference.” ⁴³ CFF2 414.1

5. PUNISHMENT “EVERLASTING” BECAUSE “FINAL AND IRREVERSIBLE.”

Impey’s resignation followed an exchange of letters with Dr. W. M. Punshon, of London, in September. In his first letter, dated September 7, Impey said:
“That the future ‘punishment’ of the wicked is ‘everlasting’ in the sense that in itself it is final and irreversible, but that such punishment consists in the conscious and Eternal agony or suffering of a living soul, I cannot believe. I do not believe that the general teaching of God’s word warrants such a doctrine, nor do I believe that this doctrine is consistent with the revealed character of God.” ⁴⁴ CFF2 414.2

6. TAKES STAND, WITH “SO HELP ME GOD.”

After referring to Wesley’s own rejection of “predestination” because it contradicted Revelation itself and clearly impugned the character of God, Impey made this declaration of faith and statement of relationship to Methodism:
“If the Discipline of the Connextion allows me liberty of thought here, well and good! Most gladly will I continue, for the few possible remaining years of my life [he was then sixty, to serve to the best of my power a Church and cause that I have ever loved; but if I am required to ‘believe and teach’ that the ever-and-all-loving God will consign to ceaseless conscious TORMENT, throughout all the countless ages of an incomprehensible Eternity, any soul that He has made, then, with Mr. Wesley, I must again say, ‘Here I fix my foot.’ I cannot do it; and with a greater than John Wesley, I must say, ‘I can do no other, so help me God.’” ⁴⁵ CFF2 415.1

He was “fully conscious of the gravity of the position.” ⁴⁶ CFF2 415.2

7. CATEGORICAL ANSWERS REQUIRED OF IMPEY

Dr. Punshon pressed Impey to categorically answer four questions, which he did under date of December 13. In this Impey reaffirms his belief in a “just and final Retribution” “excepting always that of a literally ceaseless, conscious and eternal torment, which I cannot accept.” ⁴⁷ CFF2 415.3

But he reaffirmed his undeviating adherence to all the basic, saving doctrines stressed by Methodism, including the Fall of man and the Atonement, about which he was asked. CFF2 415.4

8. RESIGNS BECAUSE CANNOT PLEDGE “SILENCE.”

But Impey refused to be “pledged to silence.” ⁴⁸ And furthermore, as a district chairman with responsibility for examining the “preachers of the district,” and the “probationers for the ministry,” he declared that inasmuch as his own views had “undergone an important change” on this disputed point of Eternal Torment, he would be unable to require their adherence to such a dogma. But without waiting for his reply, Dr. Punshon ordered Impey to proceed at once to England for consultation. ⁴⁹ After going immediately to England, and consulting with the conference leaders, he states: “I found no course open but to resign my position as a Wesleyan Minister, for the reasons above stated.” ⁵⁰ CFF2 415.5

Picture 1: James Panton Ham, William Impey
Left: James Panton Ham (d. 1902), congregationalist of Bristol—excludes notion of independent immortality. Right: William Impey (d. 1896), methodist superintendent, South Africa—resigns from methodism over issue of eternal torment.
Page 416

9. FORTY YEARS OF UNBROKEN SERVICE ENDS

This was his resignation, dated April 11, 1878:
“Having by the Grace of God (as I think), and under the guidance o£ His Blessed Spirit been led to entertain concoctions on the Doctrine of Eternal Punishment which are at variance with the Standards of Wesleyan Theology, and as there appears to be no prospect of such liberty of thought being allowed as may enable me consistently to retain my position as a Minister in the Connexion, I beg very respectfully, through you, to tender to the President and Conference my resignation. CFF2 416.1

“I cannot but deeply regret that after forty years’ unbroken service in the Wesleyan Church, the rigidity of Connexional rule renders such a step necessary. It is taken, however, in the fear of God, whose teachings, rather than those of any creed, or of any Church, demand my supreme allegiance.” ⁵¹ CFF2 416.2

This resignation was then accepted by Dr. W. B. Pope, president of the conference. And this was but an example of similar resignations or expulsions in different lands and among different faiths. CFF2 417.1

After leaving the Wesleyan faith Impey became an Episcopalian clergyman, serving as rector of St. John’s church, East London (South Africa), and as vicar of St. George’s Cathedral, Grahamstown. CFF2 417.2