he was endeavouring to raise Methodism to a sort of Episcopal dignity, he says, "I study to be little; you study to be great; I creep; you strut along. I found a school; you a college-nay, and call it after your own names! Oh, beware! Do not seek to be something! Let me be nothing, and Christ be all in all. One instance of this, your greatness, has given me great concern. How can you, how dare you, suffer yourself to be called a bishop? I shudder,-I start at the very thought! Men may call me a knave, or a fool, a rascal, a scoundrel, and I am content; but they shall never, by my consent, call me a bishop! For my sake, for God's sake, for Christ's sake, put a full end to this! Thus, my dear Frankey, I have told you all that is in my heart; and let this, when I am no more seen, bear witness how sincerely I am your affectionate friend and brother."

The Patriarch wrote this characteristic and inimitable note September 20, 1788, and on March 2, 1791, he left earth for heaven. With this event ended the first dispensation, which was one of absolute, although paternal authority; and then began the contest between the principles of liberty and of despotism. To the more ambitious spirits among the Preachers the death of the Founder seems to have been a deliverance. Their new-found power appears to have quite intoxicated them. One of the best and greatest men of the body at that time, Rev. J. Crowther, in Feb., 1796, describes this Conference as "the annual sight of six or seven men getting round the table and fighting with each other, talking by turns, (except when several of them talk together,) engrossing all the speechifying, while the rest sit round in sullen, stupid, or indignant silence, the Devil perching on the front of the gallery; while love, meekness, and wisdom, together with our guardian angels, and even the Holy Ghost, quit the assembly; and the confused group appears to the weeping heavens something like the assembly in a cockpit." The right of rule which had been conceded to Wesley, was by intelligent men denied to the Preachers, who had, against his wish, clothed themselves with his absolutism. For four years the conflict went on; the popular party, as usual, strengthening at every stage, till the fears of the Conference Preachers brought down their courage to the point of prudence, when they yielded to threats what they had denied to reason. The height of that courage may be conceived

from the following fact:-The people protested against the assumption, and claimed redress from the intolerance and oppression it brought upon them. Accordingly upwards of a hundred addresses demanding a Constitution, were conveyed to the Conference. That Reverend Body being apprized that the documents were before them, it was moved, seconded, and resolved, that the said addresses be not read, but forthwith burnt! And they were committed to the flames!" The insulted people were exasperated; the Conference quailed, and to escape speedy destruction proposed what was called the Plan of Pacification. This transaction forms a curious illustration of the deceit which is inherent in despotism. To give effect to the Plan it was necessary that it should be inserted in the Journals of the Conference, inasmuch as Wesley's Polldeed enacts," that no law, rule, or regulation, should be binding on any preacher, officer, or other member of the Connexion, unless inserted in the Journals, and signed by the President and Secretary for the time being." Now when Dr. Warren, during his suit in Chancery, demanded an inspection of the Journals, which was refused, and only granted under a threat" of application to the Lord Chancellor for an order," on referring to the year 1795, he found, to his utter astonishment, not a syllable of the Articles of Pacification recorded! but, on the contrary, a protest entered against them! Thus a cruel deception was practised upon the people, who rejoiced in a guarantee of privileges which was only imaginary !

In the following year, 1796, Conference, that it might for ever extinguish the spirit of agitation, enacted the following most Papal Law:

"LET NO MAN, OR NUMBER OF MEN, IN OUR CONNEXION, ON ANY ACCOUNT OR OCCASION, CIRCULATE LETTERS, CALL MEETINGS, DO, OR ATTEMPT TO DO ANYTHING NEW, TILL IT HAS BEEN FIRST APPOINTED BY CONFERENCE!"

In point of arrogance, modern history, apart from Rome, furnishes no parallel to this most monstrous injunction. It is fit to rouse the spirit of free-born Englishmen to frenzy. But people, born in bondage, fall in love with chains, while their tyrants teach them to view their liberators as their enemies. The Plan of Pacification did not fully meet the views of the People whom it still left bondsmen, and, therefore, in 1797, they forced on further concessions in the "Regulations

made at Leeds," in which the Conference professes to have made vast "sacrifices in respect to authority." The chief points gained here, respected the admission and exclusion of members of the body-points of the very first moment; but here again the people were doubly deceived. To give these regulations validity, it was necessary to insert_them on the Journals of the Conference; but to the lasting disgrace of the authorities of that day, they were not so inserted! On the occasion already referred to, Dr. Warren turned to the Journal of 1797, "for the Concessions made at Leeds, and found nothing but the preamble,-not a word of the Regulations relative to the rights of the People!" Despotism holds itself to be absolved from all obligation of either truth or honour. Thus the arrangement whereby a too confiding people were soothed, encouraged, and inspired with hope, turns out to be a mere delusion, as cruel as it was base! One of the Rules, most precious and most prized, runs thus: No person shall be expelled from the Society for immorality, till such immorality be proved at a Leader's meeting." Now, from the craft which kept this rule out of the Journal of Conference, it is rendered null and void; but had it been otherwise, it has from that day to this been violated throughout the whole empire. Multitudes of your best members have been expelled, in spite of majorities of leaders, amounting often to nearly a totality; not for "immorality," but for liberal opinions. We have cases before us to this effect that would fill a volume. Many of those cases are of a nature so aggravated, that were they fully known they would lead to results which would involve the extinction of the power from which they proceed. A noble-minded man of your own body, whose virtue and public spirit made him a victim, in the bitterness of his spirit truly said, "These are solemn facts. I am of opinion that if the People throughout the Connexion were but informed of them, they would rise up as one man. I would not give a six months' purchase for the tenure of the existence of Conference, if the People were informed of the oppressions and illegalities perpetrated in the different circuits by superintendents and preachers, all of which have been solemnly sanctioned by Conference." A worthy man of your community said, "Ignorance on the part of the People is the great and fertile means whereby priestly domina

tion is perpetrated." In order to liberty there must be light; and those who bear the chains must break them! In a document before us, the question is raised, "Whether there remains, within the great mass of the People who compose the Wesleyan Connexion, sufficient information correctly to appreciate their religious rights and privileges, and sufficient energy to assert them, against a rampant and ruthless domination, which sets at defiance all attempts to curb its exorbitant power."

Leaders! Local Preachers! the determination of this question, under God, will very mainly depend upon you. Are you prepared to work out the liberties of your People? We stand aside, that one of yourselves may reason with you:

"And why, we ask, do the Local Preachers sit tamely during the usurpation of men scarcely in any desirable matter their superiors? Are not most of these men who are set above you, ruling to your entire exclusion, from your own ranks? Were they not, yesterday, your associates, your fellow-tradesmen, your equals? What wondrous transformation, then, have they undergone to justify their elevation and your depression? Is there such magic in the colour of the coat? That you put on as often, nearly, as they do. Does the virtue lie in the cognomen of Reverend? It is an empty and unmeaning word, too common to be coveted, and too prostituted to confer a distinction. Are they better Christians than yourselves? If so, they would cease to be lords over God's heritage. Are they in labours more abundant than you? On the contrary, you are the strength, the tutamen, if not the decus of the Methodistic cause. Could the Connexion maintain itself without your labours? Would they have a people numerous as now to govern without your assistance? Yet you labour, and they enjoy; you proselyte, and they rule; you gather in, and they consume. In all the work you have no share but much toil, spare thanks, and an approving conscience. You sow, they reap. Surely, if they will have all the fruits, they ought to have all the labour of the harvest. And for what object can they take to themselves all power, but to engross all emolument? Would the polity of Methodism be less effective if your voice was heard in the hall of its legislation? Would your own Christian rights be diminished (to diminish them is not easy) if placed under your own guardianship? Would your

character be impaired, if servitude was exchanged for freedom? Does a man fall or rise as he casts the yoke from his shoulders? Who breathes so freely, who thinks so nobly, who aspires so highly, who so great, and so good, and who so like the Deity, as the freeman of the Lord? Men and brethren, ye know not what you lose when you suffer the trammelling of yourselves. Englishmen,' said Alfred, should be as free as their own thoughts;' they should, if they are to have the Spirit of the Lord,' if they are to feel the full power of Christ's Gospel,-if the purposes of time are to be wholly fulfilled, and the discipline for eternity thoroughly and successfully undergone."

Men and brethren, what say you to these things? The time, we assure you, is come, when you must either act with your brethren, or be undone! Slumber on a little longer, and you will be swallowed up by the Established Church! This is the goal to which all the movements of your Oligarchy are tending. Their lust of POWER naturally, necessarily impels them towards the throne. Have you forgotten the last words of that great and good man, Joseph Benson, that danger to Methodism rose chiefly from three sources, "the love of riches, THE LOVE OF HONOUR, THE LOVE OF POWER?"

This at once accounts for the Church and State propensities of your Oligarchy, and also explains Dr. Bunting's celebrated axiom :-" Methodism abhors Democracy exactly as it deprecates sin.”

To say nothing of Christ the Lord, has Dr. Bunting succeeded to persuade you that this is Wesleyan? If so, you are sadly deceived. Hear your Founder :"One of the circumstances which contributed chiefly to preserve sanctity in the Christian church was the right of excluding from thence such as had been guilty of enormous transgressions. This right was vested in the Church, from the earliest period of its existence, by the Apostles themselves, and exercised by each Christian assembly upon its respective members. The rulers denounced the persons whom they thought unworthy of Church communion, and, the People approving, -pronounced the decisive sentence. Wesley's Ecclesiastical History, pp. 66. Dr. Bunting's Methodism and Christ's Church, then, are, in respect of constitution and government, clearly as distinct from one another as the governments, respectively, of Russia and of England

so that a most rebel Methodist may yet be a most royal Christian! Englishmen ! by which will you stand-Methodism, or Christianity?

It is time your delusion on this subject should be dissipated; you have been long enough imposed upon. The judgment of Wesley is a much safer guide for you than his prejudices; the latter leaned to the Establishment, the former to the New Testament church. In the year 1747, he discussed the following question, giving the result of reason and Scripture in the

answer:

Q. What instance or ground is there in the New Testament for a National Church?

A. We know of none at all; WE APPRE

HEND IT TO BE MERELY A POLITICAL INSTITUTION.

Brethren, what say you to this? Is it a very heretical and anti-Methodistical thing for one of your number to disapprove, or to denounce, or seek by legal means to terminate the union of Church and State? But need we tell you, that for these very things your Conference has excluded some of your most distinguished men? Let us, therefore, again hear Wesley:

"I have been long convinced, from the whole tenor of ancient history, that this very event, Constantine's calling himself a Christian, and pouring forth that flood of wealth and honour on the Christian church, the clergy in particular, was productive of more evil to the church than all the ten persecutions put together. From the time that power, riches, and honour of all kinds, were heaped upon the Christians, vice of all kinds came in like a flood, both on the clergy and laity. From the time that the Church and the State, the kingdoms of Christ and the World, were so strangely and unnaturally blended together, Christianity and heathenism were so thoroughly incorporated with each other, that they will hardly ever be divided till Christ comes to reign on earth!"

Once more, brethren, we ask, what say you to this? Would Wesley have been altogether out of his element as Chairman of the Anti-State-Church Association? You will now judge of the justice, not to say the decency, with which Conference passed the following resolution :-" That the speeches of the avowed ob

ject of which is a separation of Church and State, are directly at variance with the general sentiments of Mr. Wesley and the Conference, and * inconsistent with those sentiments of respect

* *

and affection towards the Church of England, which our Connexion has from the beginning openly professed and honourably maintained." For these speeches the speaker was expelled the community! Nor is this all. At the same time, the Conference, converting itself into a Political Union, published an Address to Christian Electors, exhorting them, "to pledge their candidates to the support of the present connexion between Church and State!"

Men and Brethren! Whatever reason for regret, there is none for wonder, at these doings; they are the natural offspring of the system. Well may the Divan fear, hate, and denounce democracy! Every step in that direction is to them a step in the path of destruction! Its Goshen is in Egypt; its Canaan surrounds the throne! Thus only can it gratify its "love of riches, its love of honour, and its love of power!"

You, the People, in the simplicity of your hearts, have, by your Centenary Contributions, done something, not to satisfy, but excite the thirst for "riches," -the full golden draught is to be had in the fountain beneath the throne. The love of honour leads the subjects of it to cast their longing eyes in the same direction. Wealth prompts the desire of honour; time will tell how far your Centenary fund is to work for evil or for good in your midst. From that hour, in many ways, pride has budded. The eminent American, Dr. Tyng, whom we have quoted in a former letter, as saying, "From all I heard and saw in England, I became convinced that there is a real, and, perhaps, a very rapid approach among the Wesleyans to entire re-union with the Church,"-Dr. Tyng, speaking of your Mission-house, says," They have far the largest and finest building of its kind in London for their accommodation, purchased, I believe, with a portion of their Centenary Collections. It is quite a splendid and very extensive edifice. I was a little surprised at the style of it for a Society so plain and simple in their professions. As I knocked at the large entrance, a Porter, in livery, with red cuffs and collar, came and introduced me, with much form, into first one Secretary's room, and then another's, before I was in my right place. After having visited the Bible Society-house, and the Church Mission-house, and finding everything so very unpretending, I was the more struck -I cannot say pleased-with the appearance of pomp with which I was met here."

-This system of admission through double rooms is in harmony with the arrangements at the highest offices of State! British Methodists, we speak as unto wise men; judge ye what we say! Spirit of Wesley! Liveried porters! Red cuffs! Red collars! Was it for these things your poor subscribed their hard-earned pence?

Now comes the end: dangers thicken on every side of you. A Two Shilling Pamphlet is just issued, every page of which may be viewed as a shadow of coming events. This gigantic plan of reform not only leaves the despotism untouched, but gathers around it atlantean munitions: it establishes thirty-two Bishopricks, one in each district; it abolishes the Local Preachers, and localizes the Travelling Preachers, adding 400 to their numbers, and establishes a new order of itinerants to do the heavier country and other labours; it modifies Classes, and introduces gowns, &c., in all the chapels! In this way you are being prepared for union with the Established Church, and becoming the pensioned slaves of the Government! In this way your ministry will become independent of their flocks, and Methodism will be raised or sunk into a fettered appendage to the State Church! This pamphlet,this feeler,--is the production of one of your first-class Laymen; it is written with good temper and consummate ability; and closes with some very significant language, from which we offer you the following:-" We are encouraged to think that our views meet with the sympathy of many ministers and laymen; and if not immediately, that the time is not far distant, when the Wesleyan Church will advance still further in the direction in which she has already begun to move; and when her members will demand that she shall assume all the religious privileges and ecclesiastical influence to which she is entitled and for which, in her behalf, we now unworthily contend."

In conclusion, we conjure you to ponder the following words of the late Dr. Alexander Vinet, of immortal memory :

-"At some period, then, the slave having arrived at the extent of his chain, will perceive that he is in bondage. What will he demand? That his chain be lengthened, in order that he may delude himself yet a little longer with the notion that he is free? No; this delusion cannot be twice experienced. To de mand a little more space, is to demand

THE "NEW VIEW" CHURCHES.

In an early Number of the WITNESS, we had occasion to refer to the case of the Nine Students expelled from the Academy of the Congregational Union of Scotland, and to use some severity of tone towards them on account of what we then and still deemed their errors. They have, nevertheless, held on their way, and we believe, have effected much good. These churches are partly Presbyterian, and partly Independent. Their basis seems reduced to their one peculiar theological principle; they make comparatively light of ecclesiastical polity; and hence we find them made up of seceders from the Free, the Secession, and the Relief churches.

Sabbath or week-day, morniug, noon, or night, with tongue or with pen, they all keep toiling away on their one subject. The Independent portion. of them had a grand gathering in Glasgow, about the middle of April, when some of the chief men delivered controversial discourses to large audiences. What is called the Evangelical Union, (Presbyterian,) now numbers nineteen churches; while the Independent section formed by the expelled Students, has already multiplied to no fewer than thirty-five-fifty-four in all! Nothing like persecution, real or imaginary, for stirring up the hearts of men, and calling forth their mental and moral capabilities. Mr. F. Ferguson, of Glasgow, in the course of a very temperate statement, spake as follows:

I have hitherto spoken of the pulpit and the churches; I must now speak shortly of the press and the publications. It is admitted on all hands that the press is a powerful auxiliary to the cause of truth. We have found it to be so in our history. By its means the truth of God has been brought before thousands who would not otherwise have heard it. Men in remote corners of the land have read the doctrines that were proclaimed in more densely populated places; and the earnest inquirer, when perusing patiently the refreshing treatise, has had time to digest its contents, and wipe away his tear. I have already referred to the first of Mr. Morison's treatises, and have shown

how it was happily rescued from suppression. His treatises on the Nature of the Atonement, the Extent of the Atonement, Saving Faith, &c., quickly followed, and have been all eminently blessed in doing good. I need not name nor enumerate all the treatises which have been issued from among us, because they are all familiar to you, and are duly advertised to the public. Let me simply say, that, as a whole, however much scorned and unnoticed by the great and the learned, they have been honoured by God to do good perhaps more in proportion to the extent of their circulation, and the length of time during which they have been read, than any other similar series. Let me, however, notice particularly our little magazine, the Day Star. It has been published monthly for two years and a half. It has been used as the humble means of causing the day-spring from on high to arise upon many a heart. The circulation has gradually risen to 12,000. I believe that this month 23,000 have been printed, a considerable proportion of these being intended for gratuitous circulation. We have, moreover, nearly for nine months back, had a printing-office of our Our friends will be happy to learn that its affairs are prosperous, and that the service it has already rendered the cause has exceeded expectation. We must, for this powerful auxiliary and mighty engine in the effecting of good, thank a kind God who suggested the idea of such an establishment to the mind of one friend, who ripened the resolution to make a trial in the mind of another, and inclined those who have received the talent of wealth to enable the enterprising projectors to proceed with their incalculably useful undertaking. The office was opened for business in the end of July last. The number of pages that have been issued since that time in the shape of tracts, pamphlets, books, &c., is five millions. Besides this the Day-Star has been issued to the extent of three millions of pages. The Christian News, also issued from the same office, is read on an average by upwards of 7,000 readers, and is circulated more or less in England, Ireland, France, United States, Canada, West Indies, East Indies, Africa, and China. The above statement is exclusive of several widely-circulated publications, which are sold at the office but have been printed elsewhere.

own.

zeal would do honour to any denomination. That Nine Young Men, without property, patronage, or friends, should, in the brief space of little more than thirty months, have built up an ecclesiastical fabric of such comparative strength and numbers, is not a little extraordinary. It is both an example and a reproof to older communities, who, but for apathy here, stupidity there, and covetousness yonder, might this day have been very differently circumstanced. If the Scottish Congregational Union do not bestir itself, before another seven years it will form a minority! The exclusion of these