though he had said ye cannot bear flattery; it will pervert your understandings and spoil your tempers. It will make you selfish, positive, impatient of contradiction, peevish, and ill-natured. But if this conception is embraced in the maxim, it has a bearing upon the freedom of the pen, the press, and of speech, and has been offended against by those clergymen who have procured the enactment of laws to coerce their enemies into silence. The inquisition, it cannot be doubted, was productive of unbounded flattery to the clergy in the countries where it was established. By destroying the liberty of the press and of speech, one of the fountains of blessing is dried up, and those who instigate the measure, entail upon themselves the woe denounced against the false prophets.

The whole passage may be considered as a proof that our Lord needed not to be told what was in man, because he knew the hearts of all men. He foresaw that his disciples would be exposed to the opposite extremes of adulation and hatred; and that the natural and inherent love of praise would prompt them not only to seek applause, but when it might be in their power, to extort it, without being subjected to the necessity of deserving it. Power will be flattered, and wealth will be flattered, and parts and talents will have more than silent admirers. But flattery is like ardent spirits, it stimulates and intoxicates the brain. When its inebriating fumes have been frequently applied, the mind hankers for it, as the drunkard does for his bottle, and becomes impatient and even furious under the privation. Here and there a head may be found strong enough to bear a little flattery, but no one can bear it constantly: woe unto you when all men speak well of you. The Pope, or the Romish clergy, or as he or they, or both are wont to call themselves, "the church;" falsified their claim to infallibility when they procured laws to be made to terrify their enemies into silence, and to encourage and reward their flatterers. Is it not a matter of wonder, that writers of high pretensions to philosophy, should emblazon the crimes of priests, as though there were something in the office which alters the nature of man. For ourselves, we always have believed that they were men of like passions, and that they are affected and influenced by physical and moral laws in the same manner as other men. What cause then, has contributed in a peculiar manner to spoil and corrupt priests? Flattery. They did not take the warning, and the woe was

fulfilled. Their heads grew giddy, and their hearts corrupt, amidst the surrounding smoke of that incense which they had helped to kindle. What every body said, they were not slow of heart to believe must be true; not reflecting that they were listening to the echo of their own voice.

Make no laws, procure none to be made against the tongue and the pen, leave your fellow men at liberty to say and publish what they will. The servant is not above his Lord. Consider, O ye clergy, what a contradiction of sinners he bore against himself. How is it that ye cannot understand this saying, blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake? Could you but see how much humbling and mortifying human nature requires, how much crossing and contradiction, to keep the mind sober, then would you know the meaning both of the woe and of the blessing.

One of the precautions which the founder of Methodism used to give to the preachers was, to beware, above all things, of that deadly poison, flattery. His remarks on this subject, are well worthy the attention of every Methodist preacher; but why strain out a gnat and swallow a camel? Elders beware; presiding elders beware; bishops beware of that policy which tends to surround you with flatterers. In effect, all men will speak well of you when your measures are so taken as to prevent you from hearing those who would speak otherwise, if they speak at all. This supremacy of ours, is a chip of the old block. Truth, they say, cannot penetrate to the ears of kings. All men will speak well of the General Conference, in the General Conference. All men will speak well of bishops, while they are stationing the preachers. How simple and obvious are the means to secure the hearing of only one side. Let there be no elections; they are rude, blunt, uncourtly things, but little given to flatter men in power; besides they lead to electioneering; and of all the means in the world to take off the woe of flattery, none can be compared to those.

The effects of flattery upon children are well known; but we never outgrow this infirmity; it grows with our growth, and strengthens with our strength. It is flattery which is the bane of absolute monarchs. It is this deceitful demon which has betrayed with a kiss so many of our young and our old preachers. O ye professors of religion, be cautious how you flatter your preachers; and ye preachers, be cau

tious how ye flatter your bishops; have compassion upon these men; consider that they are on the pinnacle of the temple, and that if their heads should chance to grow giddy with the sweet fumes of praise, they may lose their equipoise, and if they fall from such a height must be inevitably dashed to pieces.

DOKEMASIUS.

No. 27.

Wesleyan Repository, vol. ii. February, 1823, No. ix. page 366.

Letters to a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. No. III.

A crude and stale opinion, which existed among the preachers, something like "might is right," or we have a right to govern those we convert, as well as those we con quer, is now vamped up, and put forth under the imposing title of "A Vindication of Methodist Episcopacy!" Now, we know that the apostles were Jews, and that their political opinions must needs have been considerably modified by Grecian principles. Tarsus was a Grecian city, and the Greeks maintained their power in Palestine in a greater or less degree, from the time of Alexander until the conquest of the Romans. To say nothing of apostolic inspiration, can it be supposed that these Jews, one of whom was a thorough bred scholar, well versed in the writings of the Greeks who speculated more subtlely upon the science of govern ment than any other people, took the short cut of undivided power, and set themselves up in authority as absolutely as eastern despots? No; it is impossible to come to this conclusion by any logical inference. Not to insist upon the public odium which such an assumption would have brought upon them, it appears on the very face of their history, that it was with much difficulty that they could maintain an equality with their competitors. The Jewish converts made no ceremony in opposing PETER and PAUL: witness the case of the conversion of Cornelius, in which PETER was immediately taken to task for going in to men uncircumcised, &c., and almost all the epistles of PAUL, in which he is under the necessity of asserting and proving his apostleship, in opposition to those who denied it. The contests of the apostles, and particularly of ST. PAUL, which our itinerant brethren are so fond of enlisting in their be

half, when their right to legislate for the church is questioned by any of its members, is altogether inapplicable to the case. His controversy was with rival teachers of rival doctrines. "For, though, (says he to the Corinthians, among whom his apostleship was most violently opposed,) ye have ten thousand instructors in CHRIST, yet have ye not many fathers for in CHRIST JESUS have I begotten you through the gospel. Wherefore I beseech you, be ye followers of me, ," and not of those rival instructers. I have heard ordination sermons preached by our episcopacy, from the eighth to the thirteenth verse inclusive, of this IV. chapter of 1 Corinthians, but it always seemed to me that the text was no wise calculated to prove the legislative supremacy of our travelling elders over our church. And I am very slow of heart to believe, that when this same apostle speaks of the care of all the churches which came upon him daily, he meant to express the feverish ambition of his soul to retain the power to legislate for them without their consent.

Yours, &c.

LETTER IV.

P. P.

DEAR BROTHER.-What you say respecting the influence of the REPOSITORY, may be true in part. That some, both in and out of the church, will be scandalized at the expose of our polity, there can be no doubt. But I beg of you to reflect well upon the demonstration which modern history has given of the value, as well as verity, of the scripture maxim, "Let the righteous smite me friendly." The Romish church would suffer none of its members to call in question its infallibility. What was the consequence? We have all witnessed it. The infidels took them in hand, and gave them a wound not skin deep, but to the heart. The thing is as fixed as fate, if this collossal power is not modified, it must fall to ruins. Now, in my judgment, is the most proper time to investigate principles. We are neither too young nor too crazy. Nobody I hope is yet driven to despair. Wavering confidence may yet be established by unconstrained measures. When the church and the world shall know that the great principle of the right of suffrage is recognized as the polar-star of our preachers, and that whenever the church think proper, they may exert it in their own behalf, our cause will be safe from internal fermentation and external injuries. The difficulties of church representation lies more in principle than in practice. I say to a

travelling preacher, out of thine own mouth will I condemn thee-If, as you say, a church delegation is really impracti cable, then you have nothing to apprehend from an avowal of the principle. What would be safer in all events, than for the General Conference to make a provision that the number of church delegates should be returned to the annual conferences,-that they might fill up the vacancies in the usual way, or leave it optional with the church to choose its own members, or local, or travelling preachers. But you are afraid of elections. So am not I.

As for your concern, lest our venerable and laborious brethren should be relieved from any portion of their burden of office, I incline to think it has more of kindness than mercy in it. Mr. A, when a motion was once made in General Conference to relieve the bishops from the oversight of the temporalities, came forward and approved the motion, but the conference refused to unbrace it from his back; and so his successors go on, bowed down between the two burdens, the spirituals and the temporals; my blessing go with them, since they are afraid to receive it in the General Conference.

Here the address to the senior bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, by Cincinnatus, commences-(It is about the election of presiding elders.)

No. 28.

Wesleyan Repository, vol. ii. February, 1823, No. x. page 377.

The Cap Sheaf.

"PUT all your black coats and blue coats together, and see if that can beat that." The quotations from the "VINDICATION," in the Repository, No. VII. p. 262, shew the tendency of principles to generate identical ideas and language. The word church, it seems, among all suprematists, has at least two meanings. Among the Romanists, it is employed in the same convertible and equivocal manner, as it is in the quotations made by the Reviewer from B's book. Such a play upon words we have had occasion to observe, is becoming fashionable among us. "THE RULES BY WHICH THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH GOVERNS ITS MEM