BERS:" "THE EQUITABLE MANNER IN WHICH THE MEMBERS OF OUR CHURCH ARE DEALT WITH:" "WHAT MORE PRIVILEGES ANY PEOPLE CAN DESIRE:" are phrases which would not disgrace the pen of the SECRETARY OF THE ROMAN CHANCERY. Mr. B is a man of sense, and learning, and an author by profession; and, we trust, he is also both an honest writer and an honest minister. How is it then, that he could employ this Popish slang! The sin, we think, lies at the door of his "high church" principles.

The Methodist Episcopal Church is, or, ought to be, "a body of faithful men." The GOVERNORS of the METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH are A BODY OF ITINERANT PREACHERS, ELDERS and BISHOPS; who, by a misnomer, call THEMSELVES, "THE CHURCH"!!! This, we think caps the climax.

When American ears can be reconciled to such language, what will they be shocked at? There must be something strangely unnatural in ecclesiastical supremacy that leads men to affect the very names of the things which they most despise. KINGS never call themselves the people; but the HEAD of the CHURCH styles HIMSELF, "SERVANT OF SERVANTS;" and our DIVINES call THEMSELVES "THE CHURCH!"

We have a word to add about "privilege." In the General Conference which established, or rather, intended to establish the mode of trial by jury, it became a question, whether a jury had a right to judge of law, as well as of fact? The opinion of Dr. Coke was, that they had the right in both cases; which he supported by a reference to the decision of the British court in certain (then) recent state trials. Now mark the consequence: If the court and the jury should chance to differ in opinion on a point of law, the COURT, that is, the PREACHER, can appeal to the quarterly meeting conference, who are certainly not jurymen, nor peers, but OFFICERS of the preachers' own making. "Any people can desire" that the "privilege" of trial by jury should be more practically accordant to the spirit of the original institution of juries. WE DO DESIRE TO SEE OUR RIGHT TO BE JUDGED BY OUR PEERS, PLACED QUITE ABOVE THE CAPRICE, OR THE CONTROL OF TRAVELLING PREACHERS.

CONSISTENCY.

No. 29.

Wesleyan Repository vol. ii. January, 1823. No. x. page 383.

The Church and the Apostles.

It has been recommended by certain writers, that in order to test the truth or beauty of a rhetorical figure, the orator should imagine to himself how it would appear if it were painted. This method might be advantageously employed in other cases. We cannot, indeed, conceive how a painter could manage the complex figure which some divines make of the ministry and the church; but in Revelations, xii. 1. we have a piece of painting in which the church appears to us to be clearly identified; and the apostles are fairly distinguished from her. "There appeared (says John) a great sign in the heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." It is generally, if not universally, admitted, that this was a representation of the church and the twelve apostles. Of her resplendent dress, and her position, we need not now say any thing; but we have to remark that, a crown makes no part of the head which wears it; and that inattention itself could hardly confound them. According to this figure, St. Peter was not the head of the church, as he only occupied a place by his representative star in the crown, in common with the other apostles. These, or similar remarks, we think, are applicable to all the figures in the New Testament, which appertain to the church and the apostles. They are not confounded, nor is the one put for the other. When the church is compared to a temple, it is built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, JESUS CHRIST being the chief corner stone, &c. Now, the dragon, the fierce and inveterate enemy of the woman, has seven heads and ten horns, not crowns, all belonging to his body. But JESUS CHRIST alone is head over all things to the church. The twelve apostles, in virtue of their divine inspiration, hold a distinguished place; yet, they are neither the church, nor its head; how, then, came their boasted successors to be entitled to both these distinctions? We have long forseen, and dreaded the consequences, of familiarizing the minds of our brethren to this unscriptural kind of language, and we are persuaded, that it is high time to make a stand against it. It seems to us, also, that "Episcopal Church," is susceptible of wrong

conception; indeed, according to the usual manner of explaining such adjectives, it nearly answers to "Bishop's Church." We trust, that it was not intended, that our church should belong to the bishops; but who can say that the time will not come, when some one in this high office will think so. The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch, that is, followers of CHRIST; it had been well if they had never been called by a less significant title. PHILO ALETHES.

Here the remarks on Bishop McKendree's address laid before the Philadelphia Conference, &c. by an OLD MEMBER of that conference

commences.

Here a writer with the signature of WATERS begins to write.

No. 30.

Wesleyan Repository, vol. ii. February, 1823, No. x. page 392.

Remarks on Rev. Joshua Soule's Letter.

MR. STOCKTON:

The contents of Mr. Soule's letter to you, will be found, I trust, to be partly answered in fact, if not in form, in the Appendix to the Review, published in No. 9. To which I beg leave to refer him and your readers.

In comparing Mr. Soule's letter with the review, there seems to be a disagreement, but as he and the reader are the more competent judges of the matter, I will quote the two passages. "It would afford the most sensible gratification, to be able to anticipate, that the historian will find himself in possession of ample data to present these transactions in the most favorable point of light; but with present facts and evidences, we have not the means of exonerating them from all departure from the rules of prudence; nor can we see how the consequence can be avoided unless they shall say we were mistaken." Review, page 261, No. 7, vol. 2. "And finally, after suggesting a fear that the future historian will not be able to obtain justifying data, he assures the public that he has such facts and evidences, as exclude the means of exoneration." Mr. Soule's letter, page 337, No. 9, vol. 2.

Mr. Soule seems so far to have mistaken my meaning, as to require of me what, according to the sense of the re

view, I say I had not the means of doing, for the want of "facts and evidences." Whoever will be at the pains of examining the review and the appendix, will perceive, that I was aiming rather to apologise, than to criminate. And I do now say, had I been in possession of such facts and evidences as would have exonerated them, I would have done it. And if I possessed them now, I would exonerate Mr. Soule "from all departure from the rules of prudence." I have not even a copy of his note to the bishops, nor the means of procuring one. But if the publication of that document would exonerate Mr. Soule, it would afford me sensible gratification to see it spread on the pages of the repository. If Mr. Soule and the reader shall perceive the mistakes made in his letter, and rectify them, they will save me the trouble of a more particular answer to his communication.

QUORUM PARS fui.

No. 31.

Wesleyan Repository, vol. ii. February, 1823, No. x. page 398.

On Ecclesiastical Polity.-No. I.

An itinerant ministry of such a country as England, consisting of the professed members of a national church, with a special view to the reviving of the spirit of religion in that church, and the organizing of spiritual proselytes into societies, for the purpose of stricter discipline, can be extended to only a few of the demands of an independent church in a country like these United States. Nor in this country, where all the different denominations are upon a footing of political equality, can such an itinerancy as Mr. Wesley organized in England, become extensively prosperBefore the revolution it is well known, that the influ ence of Methodism was almost exclusively confined to those who professed to hold some relation to the established church. The manner in which the old Methodist preachers held forth in the pulpit, was adapted to that particular state of things, and would now be hardly tolerated. Scarcely any circumstances in old English Methodism, are relatively applicable to the Protestant Episcopal Church. If the experiment should be made to form societies out of the membership of the Protestant Episcopal Church, who might

ous.

still claim their standing in that church, it would not suc ceed to any considerable extent. These are plain and obvious facts which ought not to be overlooked.

Can it be possible, that the power which governs a church, acquires excellence by its mobility? The supposition is opposed by all the analogies in the universe, and is certainly not warranted by experience. It may be laid down as an incontrovertible position, that Methodism cannot exist in this country as in England, in a society form. It must maintain a church form, or be swallowed up of other independent churches. Now it admits of proof of fact, that there never was a church before our own, in which the power to govern was exclusively lodged in the hands of an itinerant ministry; and in ours, the principle is yielding to the pressure of necessity so far, that not only in all the principal towns, have the preachers become stationary for the time being, but in several instances, different congregations in the same place, are under the government of separate rulers. If the Methodist Episcopal Church can exist without schools and teachers of its own; without the means and influence to modify and direct the manners and morals which wealth naturally engenders; and, if the people will consent that the power which is perpetually to rule, shall remain quite above their control, then may its government remain exclusively in the itinerant ministry. But, will not the wealth, and learning, and liberty so generally diffused among the different denominations in this country, swallow up all competition not supported by these artificial aids? These are rival influences, which are in perpetual action, and if by revivals of religion, they may be temporally suspended, their whole effect is felt in the time of trial and adversity. Whenever these causes, in any instance take effect, nothing is more difficult than to countervail them. The ruling power, when exclusively in the itinerant ministry, must be little less than omnipotent, if it can overcome all the natural and artificial resistance against which it will have to contend. Have the advocates for the exclusive government of travelling preachers, ever counted the cost? Or, have they adopted the maxim, "Athanasius against the world?" Can power, naked, abstract, single handed, monopolized power, cope with all the sects, in a whole nation, who will make a common cause against it? Those who have lived to witness the results of the power of itinerancy upon the largest scale, must be sanguine indeed, if they