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ing the subject . At the time appointed there was a full attendance . The superintendant occupied the time till nearly midnight in talking of extraneous matters , and concluded by saying , " as to these resolutions J cannot put them to the vote , not that I am afraid they would be carried , but because
I cannot put any thing to the vote which I consider to be unmethodistical . " The address , however , was sent to the Conference , signed by those who were interested in it , and an oral reply was returned to the effect , that " the Conference very highly approved of the conduct of the superintendant in steadily resisting any discussions connected with the vital interests of Methodism , and that his refusal to put to the vote such resolutions was
exceedingly praiseworthy . " We will mention one more case in illustration of the oppressive spirit of the Methodist priesthood . An address was recently published in the London east circuit calling upon the people to augment the preachers' income . Mr . Russell , a class leader and local preacher , published a pamphlet in opposition to the address , on the grounds that £ 300 per annum , the income of each preacher in that circuit , was an ample provision , or if that sum was not sufficient , the number of preachers might be diminished without detriment to " the work of God . " This scandalum
masrnaturn brought down on his head , as might have been expected , the red-hot thunderbolts of ecclesiastical condemnation . The superintendant began by taking from Mr . Russell his official appointments , and when he attempted to explain , the conduct of his reverence was , he states , " more like a furious lion , or a bear robbed of her whelps , than a Christian minister . " Mr . Russell was brought to trial before the authorized judicature and acquitted . Yet two preachers came after the decision had been taken , and pronounced
his expulsion from the body . The fellow-workers with Mr . Russell protested against these despotic measures , but in vain . The superintendant refused to relent , except the offender confessed his fault and supplicated pardon . How odious and detestable are these proceedings i In reading them one is almost cheated into the belief that they refer to the details of
injustice in a slave colony , rather than to the conduct of Christians to Christians ; and who can refuse to concur in the remark of Lord John Russell , " could the Methodists be invested with the absolute power which Rome once possessed , there is reason to fear that , unless checked by the genius of a more humane age , the Conference would equal Rome itself in the spirit of persecution . " *
The cause of dissent we identify with the cause of religious liberty , and we charge the Methodists with impeding the latter by impeding the former . Methodism is a covered foe to dissent . It is dissent , and yet it is an enemy to the principles of dissent . It has done any thing and every thing to further its own interests ; therefore , and for no other reason it has become , to use the favourite phrases , " form of partial dissent , " " a moderated dissent . " While indulging in this " partial dissent , " the leaders boast of the services they
have done to the Establishment ; " these vestiges of attachment to the Church check that tendency to theoretic principles of dissent which level themselves against all establishments . " Nor have they yet resigned all hope of a return to the arms of mother church ; thus they coquet with the established hierarcljy- —** our retaining these vestiges of our ancient churchmanship answers the valuable purpose of not absolutely barring the door , under all p ossible contingencies , to the cultivation of a better understanding with our brethren of the Establishment . " It is the principles , however , which they
dissemi-* Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe from the Peace of Utrecht , Vol . II . p . 579 .
Untitled Article
540 Methodism Hostile to Dissent .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1830, page 540, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2587/page/36/
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