The Sun.
London, England, 1835-12-26 00:00:00

APPEAL to the BRITISH PUBLIC, against
the PRIESTLY AND POLITICAL POWER of the
WESLEYAN-AIETHODIST CONFERENCE.
Very few are aware of what Wesleyan Methodism actually is. It
has hitherto beta looked upon, for the most part, as an extraordi-
nary means employed by the Providence of God in the spread of
'truth and holiness amongst the poor, the wicked, and the wretched
of our home population : and has been acknowledged accordingly,
as a branch of Christ's Church here upon earth, the efforts of which
He has been pleased signally to bless and prosper. The word Me-
thodist, for about one hundred years, has been applied to all—what-
ever their opinions as to speculative theology, or their practice as
to ecclesiastical government might be, who Were not ashamed to
bear the reproach of Christ, by whole love they were constrained
to seek the extension of the heavenly kingdom every where, but
• principally amongst their neighbours and fellow-countrymen, who
were living around them seithout God and without hope.
John Wesley was the founder of this sect, every where spoken
against. Both ty his preaching and his living he showed himself
the witness of. the truth and power of that inspiration, which enables
the man of God to know nothing amongst men but Jesus Christ, and
him crucified. No one could ever charge him with seeking his own.
" Tl. is you I seek and not yours"—was the unchallenged and un-
it:banging spirit, in which he lived, and worked, and died. All that
he did is before the world. He knew nothing of men's opinions and
persuasions as such. Men of all sentiments, religious and political,
were his brethren—and with him, they strove to flee from
the wrath to come, and to lay hold on endless life—to save their
own souls, whilst they were instrumental in assisting others also in
working, out their salvation with fear and trembling. This was the
great—the only bond of his confederated or " United Societies,"
whom he supplied with every means of grace, required by the
coming emergencies of their-novel situation, and evidently furnished
out of the providential storehouse of the great Head of the Church.
Himself a churchman (ea to its doctrines and discipline generally ),
he applied himself to the reformation of mankind, according to
the light and help which God himself was pleased to afford, deter-
mined, in the mean time, to know no man after the flesh—but
thankfully to avail himself of the aid of all, and never to rest, until
the heavenly character of the church of Christ should be seen and
acknowledged, and every thing worldly and unholy be taken for
ever-out of its way. In one short sentence he has left upon record
the full and settled judgment of his enlightened mind upon this
fundamental subject—on which also he uniformly acted throughout
the whole course of his truly apostolical career ; and, instead of
crowding together a variety of qeotetions, all of them to the same
point, we shall rehearse these 'memorable words—written, as if for
these very times—spoken as by a spirit of prophecy, to mark out the
doom, and betoken the speedy downfall of the USURPATION that has
subsequently been built upon the Scriptural foundation which he was
chosen of God to lay in this benighted land, THE BEAST IS •
SPIRITUALLY SECULAR POWER, OPPOSITE TO THE KINGDOM or
CnatsT; A POWER NOT MERELY SPIRITUAL OR ECCLESIASTI-
CAL, NOR MERELY SECULAR AND POLITICAL, BUT A mIxTuBJE
or norm" These oracular words of his weleave to the thoughtful
meditation of the true Christian. They will bear a second and a
third perusal. We pray God to carry them forward to his inmost
heart—there to become aeailiary to the establishment of the almost
unknown, unheeded, but Heaven-sprung truth of Jesus Christ,—
`MY KINGDOM II NOT OF THIS WORLD."
Since John Wesley's death, his successors of the Conference have
endeavoured to root themselves as " csepirituallysecular power" in
the land—to rival, to outstrip, and then to cast under them, all
other modes or forms of faith whatever. They have, for near half
a century, been underworking the rights and freedoms of mankind;
the same outside show of doctrine and of discipline, which their
Father left them, being uniformly presented to the beguiled and
beblinded eye of their unsuspecting adherents. The last meshes of
their net have lately been knotted, and upwards of one million of
our fellow-countrymen, of their classes and congregations, in Great
Britain alone, now find themselves enclosed within the toils of an
ecclesiastical economy, which asserts the divine right of an irrespon-
sible . priesthood to legislate in all matters of doctrine, whilst it
maintains the legal right ONE HUNDRED self-chosen elders of that
priesthood to have and to hold, to open and to shut, several thousand
houses for worship, all raised by voluntary subscription,for the reli-
gious instruction and benefit of the respective neighbourhoods, in
wh;.ch they have been built. Besides which appalling fact, it is
Openly, unblushingly asseeted, that, while this priesthood can deal
as they list with the souls of men and the' things pertaining to God
—the members of their numerous societies and congregations have
no right whatever, human or divine, so much as to deliberate, much
lets to decide upon, any of the great principles which associate
them together as a religious or a corporate body. Certain opinions,
held indiscriminately, amongst all classes of the community, civil
and religious, have been declared irreconcileable with the con-
nexional existence of the parties holding them ; certain proceed-
ings, sanctioned every where else in the churches of Christ, have
been denounced as unmethodistical, and have entailed the sem-
inary excommunication of all who have hitherto dared to iden-
tify themselves therewith. Thus, within a few short months (the
machinations of these lords over God's heritage being completed),
several preachers, with thousands of the members of the hod)
Lave been solemnly expelled. These men are now unwillingly
obliged to renounce all connexion with their brethren—all claim
and title to the temples they have assisted in rearing, in which
themselves and their children, and their neighbours, have toge-
ther worshipped the Lord God of their fathers. Since the in-
famous Act of Uniformity was proclaimed, the consequences of
which are matters of notorious history, so frightful, so dar-
ing a stretch of priestly prerogative, has never been exhibited
in the United Kingdom. Of the real state of things in this
body, 'the country at large has but little knowledge—nor are
our fellow-countrymen at all aware of the dangers with which they
in common with themselves, are menaced by these overt acts of an
ecclesiastical tyranny. The concentration, the organisation, the
secrecy, the ease, with which, at the nod of one man, the most
eomplicated, yet most efficient machinery in the world is now
brought to bear upon the people of England, as one means of
checking the progress of salutary reforms ; and, under the mask of
religion at home, and missions abroad, of overtopping all other
churches, and upon their ruins causing a second grisly papacy to
arise. These religious and political features of Wesleyan Metho-
dism, as at present administered, are now disclosing themselves in
a way that, unhappily, leaves no room for doubt, whilst it must fill
the mind of the generous philanthropist with serious apprehension,
if not with dismay.
To counteract this influence, and, if possible, to subvert this
dower—to find out what is the freedom wherewith Christ has made
his people free, and then—having attained unto the truth of God
(whether Wesley, or Calvin, or Luther, may have aided us in our
search after it), to hand down the clustering blessings that grow
out of it, to our children after us : this great idea has led to the for-
'nation of the Wesleyan Methodist Association. Whether it shall
succeed or not, it is for God—for time—for the friends of truth—
everywhere to determine. On this one thing the members of this
Association have set their hearts, and they hereby again pledge
themselves, never to grow weary, so long as they have any hope from
hearen—any help from their brethren, whatever may be their creed.
and whatever the name by which they are called. The object of
this address is to call the attention of Christians, and of the public
generally, to the present position and aspects of the Wesleyan Con-
ference, on the one hand, and of its reformers on the other—to
forewarn Englishmen of all classes of the danger that threatens
their municipal and national• liberties, through the oily but stea-
dily progressing career of this now stupendous body, more secret—.
fai ther ramified--and more dangerous than any Orange Unioh that
ever plotted against our freedom—to forearm all, thus forewarned,
that they may be ready to meet these men at every fresh develop-
ment of their deep-laid schemes, and to bespeak the counsel and
support of all who are willing to take any part hi reforming this
great people, and so, relatively, in reforming the entire Church of
Jesus Christ.

The friendly leaning of Wesleyanism towards the Church of Eng-
land, so grandiloquently but gratuitously trumpeted forth by the
Conference of 1834, and so covertly made to bear upon the politico-
religious crisis of that period, together with some more recent at-
tempts to conciliate the influential Dissenters, whom they had
previously most cavilierly affected to despise, has happily opened
the eyes of both these great parties in the State to the Jesuitical
claracter of modern Methodism,—running with the hare, buthold-
ing with the hound,—standing aloof on the field of battle, and in
treaty with each of the contending hosts, until the hour of hottest
tight should afford an opportunity to pour down with its mercenary
legions, and occasion their mutual discomfiture. This trickery with
the one party, and treachery with the other has disgusted them
both. Whig and Tory, Churchman and Dissenter, Conservative
and Reformer, Protestant and Papist, are all alike prepared for the
tortuous, though undeviating, policy of the best organised, and
most dangerous hierarchy, at present to be found in Christendom.
We seek not, as an Association, to mingle in this strife. We are
men, Britons, and followers of Christ ; as such, we would seek out
the truth, and, having found it, under whatever shape we care
not, we are willing to walk after it, and to abide by it. Whoever
is like-minded with ourselves in this matter, or whoever should
think we are in this, followers of that which is good, he is the man
to whom we look at the present crisis of our ecclesiastical and na-
tional existence, for the kindly help he sees we need ; whilst,
at the same time, we trust we shall not be backward in doing
all that may be in our power to assist him in the furtherance
of everything that shall be shown to be truly wise and good,
and strong and holy. Sure we are, that the times we live in,
are not times either for sleep or for sloth. The minds of men
everywhere are athirst, we might almost say, agasp, for some better
thing than that they have hitherto been furnished with. We are
weary,—we are woe, when we look at the tearing, the biting, the
hating, the worrying of one another, that has been, and still is,
too:vf§ible in some of the sections of the professing church of
Christ. Men and brethren help—come up with us to the help of
Lord—to the help of the Lord against the mighty.
We call, then, most earnestly upon the free press, metropolitan
and provincial, to afford their powerful assistance in disabusing the
mind of the public, who know little or nothing comparatively of
the real state of this hierarchy ; we invite the notice of all parties
of politicians to the existence of a priestly power, that is ready for
the time and to the seeming, to coalese with any, whilst it is
silently working its way over them all, and above them all, and to
she destruction of them all. We solicit the assistance, pecuniary
and every other, of the friends of truth and liberty—the wise—the
great--the good of all parties, who are bound to none, but God
only, to enable us to carry to successful termination a work which
we have undertaken, not with any private aim, but for the public
good ; and in which we are resolved never to slacken, whatever the
sacrifice we may be called upon personally to make, until having
brought the subject before the whole British public in its courts of
law and of equity, and of supreme legislation ; and, lastly, before
its most awful and all-determining tribunal—the tribunal pf public
opinion—it be seen what the truth i 6, and whether that teldh shall
stand or fall.

* every principal town a Committee of the Wesleyan Me-
thodist Association is to be found, to whom Donations and Sub-
scriptions can be transmitted; thence to be conveyed to the Man-
chester and Liverpool Central Committee, or to either of the fol-
lawinggentlemen :—W. Smith, Esq., Reddish House, near Stock-
port ,! Wood, Esq., Newton-street, Manchester ; Richard
Fatter, Esq., St. Ann-street, Liverpool ; or John Thurston Esq.,
Catherine-street, Strand, London.
Liverpool, Oct, 24, 1835,