Page:Daniel Minort Baxter - Bishop Richard Allen and His Spirit (1923).pdf/83

Rh his law suits being dragged before the courts, persecuted for no crime, but that he would not agree to worship God in a gallery, and take the Lord’s supper when everybody else had finished eating as dogs eating the scraps from their masters’ tables. Why I am an African Methodist Episcopal? Then I said:

I am an African Methodist because I love the doctrine and polity and history of the church. I love its orthodox faith which believes in the one true and living God, one in essence, but three in divine personage, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I love it because it believes in a change of heart—an awakening, a conversion and regeneration. I love its plain preaching—unpretentious and without ceremony of pomp; where the Bible in the hands of the people is the guide for the rules and practice of our faith. I love the faith because it teaches the great Bible truth of free will, that is, it does not believe that God is a respector of persons, and predestines that some are saved and some are lost. It teaches whosoever will may come to Jesus and be saved on the terms of the gospel, while whosoever won’t, will be lost of his own free will and accord. Because we