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sums of money at its disposal . It was irresponsible except to public opinion , and that it did its best to keep down * There was not one layman among its members . It was a pure hierarchy . Its spirit was the grasping and tenacious spirit of the priesthood , and its rule a priestly domination . The people , however , were not altogether insensible to their degradation . Symptoms of discontent appeared amongst them . They regarded the
Conference with an eye of jealousy . They could with difficulty discern the reasons why the priests should own the chapels which their generosity * and enterprize had erected . It seemed to them still more strange they should not even know how the immense sums of money were disposed of , which from year to year they contributed . And , after all , they enjoyed not the whole of their Christian privileges . The Romish Church , in its plenitude of
power , forbade not the ordinance of the Lord's Supper , but only one of its symbols , the cup , to the laity . The Wesleyan priesthood went further . They were anxious to be taken into the Established Church , and in consequence abstained , as long as they were able , from administering to their followers the rites of the supper and of baptism . The people were clamorous for these ceremonies . The bulk of them had no desire for
comprehension in the church , and could not understand the affected delicacy of their ghostly leaders . But the latter were not to be easily moved from their purpose . Long and steadily they resisted the people ' s demands . At last a crisis came , and the matter was referred to God . Let not our readers be surprised . One of the worst features of Methodism is to be found in the support which it gives to cant and pious fraud . Pretensions to special guidance from on high pervade the body . The Bible is still with many a
book of divination . Dotards , dowagers , and spinsters use it as the oracles of the sybil of old , and comfort or harass their minds by learning the future ad aperturam libru The Conference gave an example in the dispute about the administration of the Lord's Supper . WTesley himself had both practised and defended the use of lots , and the Conference , in imitation of him , put the question to the lot ; it was decided that the Lord ' s Supper should not be administered for the current year ; and the Conference , in an address to
the societies , had the hardihood to assert that " God was uncommonly present , and did himself decide . * ' This revelation , however , ( some will perhaps prefer the term imposture , ) lasted not long , and the Conference was compelled to allow the administration of the " Sacrament , * ' which , however , they checked as much as lay in their power . Still the connexion remained in agitation . The priests bore sway— the people were in bondage . An effort for liberty was determined on . Petitions and addresses from the people bad in vain been sent . On one occasion a motion passed in the
Conference for destroying all such papers without examination . Outraged by the tyranny of the priests , the people assembled in a considerable number at Bristol , at the same time with the Conference , and demanded that some attention should be paid to their rights . The preachers were alarmedthey say themselves— " we trembled at the thought of a division and its dreadful consequences , and therefore ( more cant ) determined to set apart the first day of the Conference as a day of solemn and real fasting and prayer . God was indeed in the midst of us . "
A committee was appointed to prepare a plan of general pacification , and the choice of this committee , they tell the discontented , was of God . 46 We were astonished at the choice , and clearly saw it was of God . ** The doings of a committee , divinely appointed , the people were , of course , bound to respect , arid afraid lest they should seem to fight against God , they
Untitled Article
536 Risings of the People . — Concessions extorted from the Conference .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1830, page 536, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2587/page/32/
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