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Untitled Article
at their sittings . Out of these hundred persons , there are , we are informed , some few ambitious persons who rule the rest , and through them and other subordinate agents , the whole of the connexion , and that too not according to the laws of Methodism , but in direct contravention of these , and according to their own will and with a view to consolidate their own power . Now , one thing is too obvious to be passed over . There is not one representative
of the people in the Conference . Let all its members have equal rights , still its constitution is radically and shamefully defective . The Conference is a pure hierarchy , a pure aristocracy . The priesthood in it is the supreme and only power . The merest novice in history will know what to expect from such a body . But they are a hierarchy with most lofty ' notions . Yes , these priests who but yesterday were earning their bread in the sweat of their brow , now talk and act in the most priestly manner , talk of their
inherent rights , their legitimate pastoral authority , their aversion to democratical principles , and act in defiance of remonstrance , spurning restraint , and in the supremacy of their own wills . A few whose names have been of late much before the public , are the dictators of the Conference . To them , all the rest are little better than puppets . But what their servants lose of power in obeying the dictators , they regain in the sway which each in his sphere exerts over his inferiors .
Jabez Bunting , cum paucis aliis , rules the Conference , the Conference rules the preachers , the preachers rule the leaders , the leaders rule the people . This outline does not contain all the grades . Each district , each circuit , has a ghostly leader , supreme in his sphere , beside stewards and trustees to do his bidding , and people to do—what ? to pay his demands . This is the only function which we can find the people exercise . And if any of those
who are over them , to lead them as others direct , presume to demur and remonstrate , the thunders of excommunication , not altogether a brutum fulmen , are launched lo put to silence the audacious mortal . How is it the people endure all this ? Partly because they are used to it , partly because they are not for the most part over welUinformed , partly because they are terrified into obedience . Yes , the old trick is not seldom resorted to of
frightening the people into obedience by intimations of spiritual danger and final destruction . The frequency of such intimations is quite disgusting . If but a wish for liberty is breathed , the agency of Satan is assigned as the cause ; if wishes lead to action , the soul that thus sinneth is stated to be in peril . In a popular history of Methodism , the writer , a Methodist preacher ,
intimates that Mr . KiLham , a seceder , came by his death through a special judgment of God in consequence of his secession . Nor is it surprising that people who are conscious of having derived great spiritual improvement from the ministry of Methodist preachers should forget or forgive many a serious fault ; and thus they become accessary to creating an evil , which , except they speedily recover themselves , they will be able neither to controul
nor to estimate . The chief part of the power which the priesthood possessed in the darker ages , arose from the same feeling of gratitude and confidence towards them , occasioned by a sense of the blessings of which they were the immediate instruments . How shamefully , how wickedly , that power was abused , few need now to he informed , and few , therefore , one would think , would require to be exhorted to withstand all undue assumptions on the part of the clergy , on whatever basis they might be grounded . Not but they , the ministers ot Christ , deserve to be esteemed very highly for their work ' s sake . But the
Untitled Article
292 Tlie People terrified into Obedience .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1830, page 292, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2584/page/4/
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