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man might hold his tongue before that court, stand his trial, and escape if the evidence failed to support the charge. Of the party themselves, the 'Fly Sheets,' or the usual practice of the Conference, we know next to nothing. We take these proceedings on the statement of the Conference, and we pronounce them at once a gross outrage on our old English principles of fair play.'-Times.

It is urged, that all this might be true in regard to the merely worldly relations of men, but that Christians are bound to each other by ties of a more intimate kind, warranting a different course of proceeding. The plea is not admissible. The Scriptures, no less than the law in man's heart, are opposed to all such principles of action. It belongs to church courts, as truly as to other courts, to take cognizance of FACTS only, and to judge where there is EVIDENCE, not where there is nothing beyond rumour or suspicion. To lose sight of these principles would be to open the way to the most atrocious forms of wrong-doing. The appeal made in support of the odious maxim on which these proceedings rest, to the conduct of Peter in putting Ananias and Sapphira to the question, may be taken as a sample of the sort of reasoning which has been supposed to be available on this point. It is sufficient to observe, that Peter put those parties to the question, not because he wanted evidence, but because he had it.

The point, our readers must bear in mind, is not, whether there may not be cases in which one man, one Christian man, may put such questions to another, as that other should feel himself bound in honour to answer. This is admitted on all hands. But the case is whether a man may be put to the question in a judicial court, in order that the confession there extorted from him may be used as evidence against him; or that upon his refusal to give the answers required from him, his silence may be construed as the proof of guilt. That men should consent to be so examined, is said to be a fundamental article of Methodist discipline; the men refusing to submit to it say, that in old time it was not so, and that whether the article be old or new, it is an article flagrantly at issue with scriptural teaching and with natural right. On these grounds men have refused to give the answers required from them, their silence has been interpreted as contumacy, and the penalty inflicted has been that which would have been inflicted had they been proved guilty!

Now to this hour, we know next to nothing of the notorious 'Fly-sheet' papers, and next to nothing of the expelled ministers. But admitting the case of these supposed offenders to have been as bad as the worst representation would make it, our answer is -the worse the better. If the censures be so bad, and at the

same time so baseless, they must not only admit of the easier refutation, but be the more likely to neutralise themselves by their very excess.

Two courses of proceeding were open to the injured parties; the one course that was taken, or the course of saying, 'Deeply 'as we feel the wrong done to us by these anonymous accusa'tions, and just as would be the punishment of the guilty parties, 'it is far from us to wish that those principles of natural and 'scriptural rule, on a due regard to which the large interests of 'all churches, and of society itself depends, should be suspended for our benefit. We say, therefore, let these men go, and so 'long as there shall be the absence of evidence, let there be the absence of judgment.' Had Dr. Bunting, in behalf of the aggrieved parties, taken this ground, need we say that the stream of public opinion which went so strongly against the Conference and in favour of the accused, would have gone against the accused and in favour of the Conference? In that case, too, the public opinion would have been a right opinion.

But we must not dwell further on the proceedings of 1849. The whole issue of this huge controversy turns on one point: 'We, the Wesleyan ministers, have received from the vene 'rable Wesley, and, through the enrolment of his Declara'tion Deed, from the law of the land, a sacred trust; this trust 'assigns the function of government in Wesleyan Methodism to 'us as ministers, acting through Conference; and we hold that what has been thus done as a matter of history and law, is in ' accordance with Scripture, Our consciences, accordingly, bind us to the course we take. Disloyalty to Methodism as thus 'constituted, would be in us disloyalty to John Wesley, to the law of the land, and to the authority of Christ.' In these terms, we think we show fairly the ground taken by the Wesleyan minister, We regret much that we cannot now deal with this view of the case at all adequately, but a page or two we must assign to it.

In the first place, is it a fact that the Wesleyan ministry have been so mindful of the will of John Wesley in all matters, as they appear disposed to be in this one matter of ministerial prerogative in the matter of church government? John Wesley was a great field preacher; he felt it to be of the essence of his mission that he should so be. Do the great expounders of Methodist law now-a-days emulate his zeal in that form of apostolic labour? John Wesley would not have religious services during church hours. Is the practice of modern Methodism according to his judgment on that point? John Wesley would not allow his 70,000 Methodists to be accounted or called a church, but regarded them as so many 'societies.' Have the ministry been

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content to follow his example in this particular? John Wesley would not have his helpers administer church ordinances, but counselled his 70,000, as a rule, to go for them to the church of England. Is modern Methodism tremblingly alive to the will of the dead on this point also? John Wesley's Conference was restricted to one hundred ministers. Is the Conference now so restricted? It is clear that there are matters concerning which the will of John Wesley can be looked at discriminately, modified, abated, disregarded altogether, even by the Methodist ministry.*

In regard to the law of the land, every one knows that what the law has done it can undo. The Conference has only to express its wish to be relieved from some of its cares, by devolving a greater measure of responsibility on the people called Methodists,' and the legislature will not be slow to render them the necessary assistance,

But we hold the power vested in us,' say the ministers, 'to be scriptural-and we cannot in our conscience be parties to doing that which would be in our judgment unscriptural.' Here then we come upon narrower ground. The great difficulty after all, it seems, is not about what John Wesley did, or did not wish, nor about the language of a legal document. The one question is-do the scriptures invest ministers with that sole power of rule in the church with which Wesleyan ministers are invested? It is a gain to find the case reduced to these simple and intelligible limits.

But who is to be the judge of the teaching of scripture on this

In answer to the question, 'How should an assistant be qualified for his work?' John Wesley observes, By walking closely with God, and having his work greatly at heart: by understanding and loving the Church of England, and resolving not to separate from it; let this be well observed. I fear when Methodists leave the Church, God will leave them.' It is again asked, 'Are we not unawares by little and little, sliding into a separation from the Church? O use every means to prevent this! 1. Exhort all our people to keep close to the Church and sacrament. 2. Warn them against all niceness in hearing-a prevailing evil. 3. Warn them also against despising the prayers of the Church. 4. Against calling our society the Church. 5. Against calling our preachers ministers, our houses meeting-housescall them plain preaching-houses or chapels. 6. Do not license them as Dissenters; do not license yourself till you are constrained; and then not as a Dissenter but as a Methodist.' It is further asked, 'But are we not Dissenters?' And the answer is given-'No. Although we call sinners to repentance in all places of God's dominion; and although we frequently use extemporary prayer, and unite together in a religious society; yet we are not Dissenters in the only sense which our law acknowledges,-namely, those who renounce the service of the Church. We do not; we dare not separate from it. We are not seceders, nor do we bear any resemblance to them.'

In a sermon preached only about a year and ten months before his death, speaking of the proper functions of his preachers, he says, 'We received them wholly and solely to preach, not to administer sacraments. And those who imagine these offices to be inseparably joined, are totally ignorant of the constitution of the whole Jewish as well as Christian Church.'-The Jubilee of the Methodist New Connexion. -pp. 58, 59.

point? The ministers insist that their judgment-their conscientious judgment in respect to it, should be held sacred. But to the impartial men of this class we feel constrained to put a question or two. Did it never occur to you, as a matter of very doubtful propriety, that you should be allowed to be the judgesthe sole judges, after this manner, in your own cause? Did it never occur to you, as a fact of deep significance suggesting at least the possibility of error-that on this point the judgment of all Protestant Christendom is against you? Have you duly weighed that one circumstance that there is not a community beyond the pale of Romanism, that does not formally and practically repudiate your doctrine in this matter? But beyond this -if your conscience is to be everything in this case, what is to be done with the hundred thousand Wesleyan consciences which are all on the other side? If in this connexion these consciences should all be accounted as nothing, then in what connexion should they be accounted as anything? Look at the matter steadily, and it must, we think, be clear, that the only consistent course for the Wesleyan Conference is, that it should assume to be infallible, and deal with offences as infallible authorities have been wont to deal with them. Are ministers, really, the only men who are to be heard on the plea of conscience, against conforming to that which they believe to be unscriptural? Is a conscientiousness of action in religion a something very proper to a priesthood-not at all proper to a people?

The question especially elaborated in the generally admirable treatise before us, is how may government best pursue its wise middle course between the stringency of Absolutism on the one hand, and the licence of Democracy on the other? It is shown, that the power of government in the church, even in the time of the apostles, was a co-ordinate power, devolving itself naturally both on official persons and on the people; and the writer pleads, on the ground of reason and primitive usage, for such a polity, as the one thing which may save Wesleyanism from the troubles of the present, and from things even more troublous as lying out in the probabilities of the future.

We know it is said-'We are a voluntary society, men are 'with us from their own choice, and those who do not like us 'may leave us.' But such talk is as little consonant with reason as with good manners. It is true, John Wesley expressed himself in this way, as we have seen, about the dissatisfied in his time. The fact, however, merely shows that a man shrewd in some things may evince a sad lack of shrewdness in others. Their majesties of St. Petersburg, Vienna, and Naples, and his highness of Tuscany, say, practically, to their respective subjects,

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that those who do not like their sway may leave it. But the good or bad in the government of these gentlefolk is good or bad notwithstanding. Our Stuart princes spoke to this effect to our forefathers. But our Hampdens and Cromwells, our Russells and Sidneys, did not take such talk as a settlement of the question at issue. They were bold enough to think that princes were made for peoples, not peoples for princes; and that ministers are made for churches, not churches for ministers. If there was to be a notice to quit, they claimed to be the party to issue it, not to be the party to receive it. The result we have in all the freeborn things distinguishing us from Russia and Austria, Tuscany and Naples. Even where the majority may be content with servitude, as majorities too commonly are, minorities have rights-not, it may be, the right to rule, but always the right to check and abate the power of those who do rule. The John Wesley argument, therefore, those who do not like us may leave us,' is as senseless and unjust as it is impertinent. All Wesleyan property must come from the Wesleyan people. On this ground, as well as on the conscientious ground, the hundred thousand have their stake and right in Methodism, to at least an equal extent with the 'legal hundred.'

We bear no ill-will to Wesleyan Methodism. On the contrary, we think it has adaptations for usefulness among large classes, which no other system possesses. And we could wish for the sake of those classes, as well as for its own sake, that it might prosper. Nor do we account Methodist ministers as more blameworthy than the same number of men would be elsewhere, if taken from the same circumstances, put through the same training, and placed in the same position. All similar organizations betray, upon occasion, similar infirmities; and we must confess, that we get more distrustful every day of such centralized forms of power. In the cause of the Methodist Reformers we are bound to recognise a just cause. Of their measures we know little; but in their principles we see the principles to which we are compelled to wish God-speed. If it should be given them to unite with their zeal for a reformed polity, much of the old methodist zeal for bringing the souls of the people under true religious influences, what they have done is little compared with what they may yet do. But the religious spirit is necessary to religious progress. Men who would labour with effect in such circumstances, must see to it that their passion to pull down, is coupled with the passion to build up. Had the rulers of Methodism taken the initiative in favour of the rights of the people, some ten or twenty years since, they could have given the system another impetus, the wholesome effect of which might