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fall of the King of Babylon , and say , " how hath the oppressor ceased ! " ? And the rather are we disposed to think with complacency of the fall of the Babel which the Conference have erected , when we call to mind that in doctrinal intolerance also the Methodist rulers have departed from their primitive simplicity . Wesley himself required from his followers the pronunciation of no shibboleth . " The Scriptures , " he says , * ' are the only rule and the sufficient rule both of our faith and practice . " True he did not always act in strict consistency with his own declaration , yet he was no bigot . He required chiefly , if not solely , that his assistants should be earnest for the
conversion of sinners . But now all who would act in the Conference must think with Conference on each and every disputed point , and to certify the purity and completeness of their orthodoxy are required before they are admitted «« into connexion" to signify their belief—in what ?—in the Thirtynine Articles ? no ;—in the Assembly ' s Catechism ? no;—in something somewhat longer than either of these lengthy symbols , in the eight volumes of Mr . Wesley ' s Sermons , and in Mr . JVSs Notes on the New Testament . Whatsoever is contained in these , all « ' ministers" are to profess , and to teach , and to vary in the least from all and every thing therein contained , brings down on the rash offender the punishment of excommunication , except where , as in one or two cases , the power and talent of the individual render it convenient to overlook his heretical pravity . This ig another and a gross offence against religious liberty . We know that Methodism has done good service in the field against the monstrous dogmas of Calvin . The minds of thousands it has liberated from the strong agony which these tenets occasion in all who . earnest in their religious convictions , sit at the feet of
the Gamaliel of Geneva . So far we recognize the leaders of Methodism as friends to religious emancipation . But for one shackle they have taken off , they have put on and rivetted ten , and in no instance more firmly than
in the dread of miscalled heresy which they have inspired , and in the repression of religious inquiry in which they have , alas ! too well succeeded . A better spirit is , however , even in this particular beginning to prevail . There are many in the body tired and disgusted with traversing the dull and tiresome , because unvarying round , marked out by Mr . Wesley ' s sermons . They ate weary of meeting at every turn with prison bars . They are beginning to ask why they should thus be cabined , cribbed , and confined ; why they may not extend the range of their minds , and rove at large in quest of truth over the ample domains of God ' s works and God ' s word . And a few there are who have spoiled the proportions of that worthy figure
which the labour of ages has been needed to construct , and which in all the multiplicity of its Protean forms has still been designated Orthodoxy . Others still more bold have done better service than lop an extremity of the image by denying the Eternal Sonship of Christ ; they have ventured even to remove the basis on which it stands , by impeaching the doctrine of Original Sin . The spirit of inquiry which has manifested itself , the recent arbitrary
acts of the Conference , and the operations of the Schoolmaster , will foster ; and a purer form of Christianity may be the reward of those who are now struggling with the powers of darkness . In the state of things of which we have spoken , the path which the Conference ought to pursue with a view to their own interests is manifest . If they wish to retain and perpetuate their power , they must loosen the reins of their government . Let them venture no farther . It is the last drop
• Vide Isaiah , chap . xiv .
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544 Methodktical Articles of Faith .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1830, page 544, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2587/page/40/
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