establishment to jealousy. The recorded peculiarities and varieties of the belief of our ancestors, is to us a kind of inheritance, or property, and not a mere deposit committed to us for safe keeping. If we can use this property so as to make ourselves wiser than they were, we have a right so to do. The most fastidious advocate for primitive Methodism is found to have varied his faith in God's designs in raising up lay-preachers and the people called Methodists, &c. &c. We do not believe now-a-days, if a young man professes to be called to preach, that there is any thing so very extraordinary in the case, as was once supposed. He is sent forth without any reference to the clergy of the church of England, or any other church, to preach the gospel to every person who is disposed to hear him at any hour of the day, though others may be preaching at the same time. The primitive preachers believed that a preacher ought to have the judicial power over all the members of the society; and this power, they conceived, they ought to exercise over the members of an independent church, as well as while they were members of a national church; and of the society at the same time; and their excommunications from the latter, did not affect their standing in the former. No Methodist preacher, before ordination was introduced among us, could deprive any person of the sacrament, and yet the members of the conference of 1784, all preachers as they were, did not scruple to entrust this awful power exclusively to their own hands and the hands of their successors. The cautious policy of Mr. Wesley, and his prudential movements in regard to the national church, I am not disposed to criticise; but it appears to me, that it led both him and his followers into a species of empyricism in cases where only abstract principles should have guided them. If it could have been possible for Mr. Wesley, on the supposition that he was properly addressed by the Methodists in this country, after the acknowledgment of our independence by the British government, to have replied to their request to be acknowledged by him as an independent church, that, Whereas the United States had become independent, and application had been made to him, &c. &c. he did consent that they should meet together personally or by delegates chosen by and from among themselves, and make and adopt such form and plan of church government as they in their judgment might judge both scriptural and best adapted to their local and national situation, &c.&c.

And had it been possible for the American Methodists and preachers to have proceeded in this way, and have formed a system by which the legislative, executive and judicial powers of the church should so mutually balance each other, as to prevent any man or order of men in the ministry or membership, from infringing upon the rights of others, &c. &c. our condition at this time, I am inclined to think, would have been rendered much more prosperous. Now, the impossibility in this case did not arise from a want of goodness or wisdom, but from the prejudices of education, local partialities, and the habits of mind which they were calculated to engender. With a heart full of good wishes, I remain, &c.

SENEX.

No. 11.

Wesleyan Repository vol. i. March 28, 1822. No. xxvi. page 409.

A memorial to the members of the Philadelphia Annual Conference.

This memorial humbly sheweth, that whereas the experience of near forty years proves, that the division (or rather want of division) of power established by the conference of travelling preachers who first organized the Methodist societies in the United States into a separate and independent church, is, in this country (the genius of whose government, and the spirit of whose citizens, are the most free of any country upon earth,) better adapted to the spreading of the peculiar doctrines of Methodism than to the prosperity of churches-and whereas it is evident, that a strong sense of public disapprobation exists against those principles in our form of discipline and church government, by which the members of our church are wholly excluded from all participation in the law-making power, and are thus reduced to a level in point of religious liberty, with those professors of religion who lived in the most barbarous, ignorant, and despotic ages-and whereas, internal disaffection and loss of confidence are manifesting themselves in different places among the members of our church, threatening the most dangerous consequences to its peace and union:

The Philadelphia Annual Conference are appealed to, in order to induce its members to take these important and weighty matters into their most serious consideration; and, from the decided part they have taken in favor of all questions pertaining to the cause of religious freedom, a fond hope is cherished, that they will not wait for the other conferences, but set them the example; and, as the General Conference have established a rule, making the concurrence of the annual conferences necessary to certain changes in the existing form of government, they will come forward before the church and the public, with a formal and explicit declaration, setting forth, that in their judgment and belief, the members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in these United States, ought of right to have a voice personally, or by their representatives, in ordaining, making, or altering the rules and regulations appertaining to the discipline and government of the church. And moreover, that the members of the Philadelphia Annual Conference, will address the other annual conferences in a suitable manner upon this momentous subject; earnestly soliciting their attention to the danger of delay, as well as to the actual loss the church is suffering in most of those places where active competition is maintained by other reformed churches. The promotion of bible societies, and missions, those fashionable displays of religious liberality and zeal, highly praiseworthy as they are, sink into insig nificance in respect to our interest, when compared with the advantages of instating the Methodist Episcopal Church in possession of its rights by a voluntary act of the preachers, who now hold the legislative power. The Philadelphia Annual Conference need not, it is presumed, be reminded of the imperishable fame which must follow such a declaration in favor of the rights of the church; nor is it necessary to urge this motive upon them, as it is believed they are sufficiently conscious of the influence of the higher and more imperious motives of duty. Is there any reason to fear, that the Northern and Eastern conferences will not cheerfully unite in the glorious design of emancipating the members of our church from their present humiliating condition, and of raising them to an equality, and if possible, to a superiority in religious liberty, over the reformed churches in this country? The examples of the Northern and Eastern conferences, will have all the weight upon the Southern conferences, which consistency can give them:

and fortunately for the latter, in aiming to promote the liberties of the church, they will not have to encounter the jealousy and interference of their state governments; as has been unhappily the case in the emancipation of slaves. If there be really any hostility among the Western preachers to the rights of the church, a few years of experience will convince them that religion cannot prosper long in any church in this country which is not free indeed; and that preachers can gain neither profit nor honor by legislating for others without their consent. It may suffice to add, that the declaration herein proposed, will tend to secure the confidence of the members of the church within the bounds of the Philadelphia conference, and that if they find a becoming attention to their interests among the preachers, they will wait in confidence the final result, which in the present state of progressive information, cannot fail to be successful.

Though the members of the church have an undoubted right to claim their legislative rights, yet, it is very desirable for the honor of the preachers, who enjoy them, that they should make a voluntary surrender of them, as such an act would inspire the highest degree of confidence and respect. When the General Conference shall also declare, that the Methodist Episcopal Church ought of right to be free-that no man or order of men have a right to make laws for its members without their consent-and that the attempt is as unevangelical as anti-American, then the doctrine of nonresistance and passive obedience will have no more place among us: then the knowledge gained by experience will lead us towards perfection; and a spirit hitherto unknown and unfelt among us, will inspire us with unexampled energies, and lead us to great success. A Methodist preacher should be able to say with truth, that those who become members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, become the guardians of their religious rights and privileges; that the overseers of this flock and heritage of God, are not its Lords. Our book of discipline will never be complete without a bill of rights.

THOUSANDS.

No. 12.

Wesleyan Repository, vol. i. March 28,1822, No. xxvi. page 419.

Thoughts suggested by the manner in which the complaints of

brethren are treated.

"If you are dissatisfied with our rules, withdraw from the church, go to Stillwell." "We can do without you," &c. We shall not now inquire whether this kind of language savors of hard-heartedness or of self-sufficiency; nor whether it be precisely in unison with "come go with us, we will do thee good." But we put the question whether those who have right and truth on their side, are entitled to no credit, when they make any sacrifice of these to the peace of the church? Are not those who know their rights, under the necessity of continuing to know them? Can any length of time, in which men forbear to exercise their rights, give to others a title to exercise them in their stead without their consent? Rather, from the very nature of the case does not every hour and every day they submit their rights to others, diminish the pretensions of usurped authority? Though men who know nothing, may very sincerely fear nothing, yet this cannot be the case with those who apprehend danger. We know, from the authority of an infallible oracle, that there can be nothing new in the operation of cause and effect. We must therefore believe, that there can be no office in our church exempt from the frailties of human nature. And so long as we believe this, we must fear the consequences of the depraving influence of vice over church officers. Our presiding elders cannot be impeached by any power in their districts. Two presiding elders from neighboring districts must make and select the court. Bishops too, are only subject to impeachment through the intervention of presiding elders of their own choosing: yet all these are small matters when compared with a monopoly of legislative power, which destroys all security, that a bad state of things may not be made worse, as well as the good be changed for the bad. And yet with all these causes of complaintwith all these causes of fear-men who see them and feel them, are required to be contented and satisfied; and if they whisper or groan, the door is pointed to, and they are told it is upon the latch, and that they may go out into the wide world or where else they please. The General Conference, one would suppose, ought to be open and accessi