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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 1

Its recent Expulsions

Its recent Expulsions.

Within the last three or four years the peace of the Wesleyan Connexion has been seriously interrupted by the publication of a series of mischievous and libellous pamphlets, which have been extensively circulated, by post and otherwise, for the professed purpose of correcting various alleged abuses, both in the Conference and several of its institutions. These pamphlets are all strictly anonymous, containing no author's name, and the name of no printer, but professing to be the joint production of a Corresponding Committee, the members of which were said to be resident in some of the principal towns of England and North Britain. They contain direct and repeated attacks upon some of the most gifted, useful, laborious, and esteemed Ministers of the body, representing them as indolent, proud, selfish, ambitious, and morally dishonest; especially the men whom the Conference has intrusted with the management of its important and widely extended Missions. The writers represent the members of the Conference generally, as mean and spiritless, not daring to think and act for themselves, but consenting to be blindly led by a few ambitious individuals, who are intent upon managing everything for the gratification of their own selfishness, caprice, and vanity. These nameless authors profess to relate private and confidential conversations, to disclose the secrets of domestic life; and they even assail with strong but unrighteous censure the memory of the pious dead.

These things are dwelt upon by the writers, not in a tone of sorrow and regret, that evils of such magnitude should exist among religious people, so as to dishonour Christ, to page 27 neutralize the effect of his truth and ordinances, and to retard his work of mercy in the world. They are rather dwelt upon in a tone of scorn, and of bitter malignity, bearing, indeed, a character of personal hatred and vindictiveness; and in various instances the writers manifest a fearful disregard of truth. For a time it was hoped that the spirit of these writers would defeat their object, especially among religious people, whose sanctified nature instinctively abhors that which is evil; so that these vehicles of slander and defamation Mould sink into deserved neglect and forgetfulness. But, alas, appeals to the bad passions of our fallen nature are seldom harmless. Reflections upon the personal and public character of several of our Ministers were, by these anonymous scribes, pressed upon the attention of the Methodist mind with such pertinacity, and even hardihood of repetition, that at length a feeling of distrust was somewhat extensively produced in the body; and even men of pure minds, who were unwilling to believe evil of any one, and especially of the honoured Ministers of Christ who were recklessly assailed, began to fear that there might be some truth in the allegations. Evil surmising and evil speaking were extensively promoted, and religion was wounded in the house of her friends.

Here then was a sin of fearful magnitude and aggravation, committed in the bosom of a Christian community; the sin of slander, reviling, and defamation; the sin of propagating and placing upon public record flagrant untruths, which the writers knew, or might have known, to be such; the sin of attempting to render the public services of gifted, pious, and even aged. Ministers of Christ useless, both to the church and the world; the sin of promoting evil-speaking, jealousy, and wrath among religious people, and that to the widest possible extent; the sin of attempting to shake the public confidence in the management of one of the largest and most successful Missionary Societies in the world, and of thus depriving self-denying Missionaries of their support; and of withholding the word page 28 of salvation from the perishing Heathen. This sin was not hastily committed, under the impulse of temporary and excited feeling; but was deliberately planned, and then pertinaciously perpetrated through a series of years, and that with unabated malignity; the writers never betraying the least signs of relenting towards the men whom they so bitterly maligned. Speaking of Mr. Wesley, the late Robert Hall has said, "I would not incur the guilt of that virulent abuse which Toplady cast upon him, for points merely speculative, and of very little importance, for ten thousand worlds."* Yet the abuse which Toplady lavished upon Mr. Wesley never surpassed, in rancour and malice, the abuse which the "Fly-Sheet" writers have poured upon several living Ministers of the Wesleyan body.

These proceedings, when compared with the law of Christ, appear in all their atrocity. "Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, and considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the Law and the Prophets." (Matt. vii. 3—5,12.) "Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another." "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men." (Rom. xii. 9, 10, 18.) "Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another." "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving page 29 one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." (Eph. iv. 25, 31, 32.) "But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice. . . . . . Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds." "Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel (complaint) against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness." (Col. iii. 8, 9, 12—14.)

The violation of these holy precepts, on the part of the "Fly-Sheet" writers, was the more inexcusable, because, as Methodists, and, above all, as Methodist Preachers, they were not only at liberty to seek the removal of any abuses in the Connexion that might come under their observation, but were bound and even pledged to seek their removal, in a constitutional and honourable manner. They knew that the regular courts of the body were open to them continually. A distinct challenge was also given to them twice every year, in the District-Meetings and in the Conference, to prefer any accusation against the Missionary Secretaries, and the Rev. Treasurer: the meeting of the Missionary Committee of review, which is held every year on the day which precedes the opening of the Conference, was accessible to them; and there they might have sought an explanation of anything in the management of the Missions, which they might deem unsatisfactory; and there they might have even urged their complaints. But in all these places the accusers were as silent as death; they never showed their faces to the men whom they accused; they never preferred any complaint before the tribunals that were competent to deal with them: thus leading every disinterested observer to the conclusion, that these writers sought the removal of no grievances, but rather the gratification of some private resentment or jealousy, and the introduction of general confusion.

The duty of the Conference to attempt the extinction of page 30 this evil, few persons, it is presumed, will deny. It was an injury to some of the most useful men that the Wesleyan Connexion ever knew; and these men naturally looked for protection and redress to the Conference, whose faithful servants they were. The matter was an occasion of triumph to infidel scoffers, of deep and bitter sorrow to multitudes of devout people in our own societies, and an occasion of scandal to other denominations of Christians, who saw men publicly professing and teaching spiritual religion, thus "biting and devouring one another." In the year 1847, the Conference published a strong and decisive testimony against this organized system of calumny; but was not able at that time to lay its hand upon the guilty parties, who, it has since been ascertained, had pledged themselves to an inviolable secrecy.

Evils of this kind, however, are seldom permanently concealed; and the time at length arrived when the Conference was able to deal with at least some of the authors of this mischief. The great body of the Wesleyan Ministers purged themselves from all blame, by affixing their names to an explicit "Declaration," in which they not only asserted their innocence of all participation in the authorship and publication of these pamphlets, but stigmatized them as "wicked" and "slanderous." Some other Ministers at the Conference purged themselves by an oral testimony to the same effect. The men who had not purged themselves were now reduced to a very small number; and among them was the individual, whom almost every one suspected to be the prime mover of the whole concern.

Cases of delinquency the Conference generally deals with by means of specific charges, which are preferred by responsible men, given to the accused in writing, and judged of after the accused has been heard in his own defence; but in the present case this course was impossible, because of the concealment in which the offenders had shrouded themselves. The mischief was indeed apparent; and so was the fact, that it had been concerted and perpetrated page 31 by Methodist Preachers; but they had wrought in the dark; and although circumstantial evidence was strong and various, direct proof of their identity was not available. Two courses only were therefore open to the Conference: either that of passing the matter over, acknowledging the suspected men as brother Ministers, appointing them to our pulpits, and to the pastoral charge of our societies; or that of subjecting them to a personal examination as to their guilt or innocence in this matter. The continued recognition of them as brother Ministers, vehemently and generally suspected as they were of a fearful amount of moral guilt, appeared to be utterly incompatible with the solemn trust which the Conference sustained; for it necessarily involved unfaithfulness to Christ, and to the spiritual interests of his people. Can the purity of the evangelical ministry be lawfully sacrificed to a mere technicality? The Conference has from the beginning possessed the unquestioned right of examining not only Candidates for admission into connexion with it, but its own members, on all points affecting their Christian and ministerial character, or the peace and prosperity of the body; and it resolved to exercise this right in the case of these suspected men. Through the whole of their ministerial life every one of them had been annually questioned on the subject of his orthodoxy, and his continued attachment to the Wesleyan economy; and it was felt to be perfectly fair, in this fearful emergency, to question them as to whether or not they were concerned in this grievous system of immorality, by which the whole Connexion was dishonoured. Feeling that the law of Christ had been violated by one of the most vile and malignant conspiracies that ever disgraced a religious community; feeling at the same time that it was now in a situation to deal with the evil, and that if it neglected the opportunity, it would be a partaker of the sin; the Conference first called the suspected ringleader of the mischief, and, through the medium of its own officers, asked him whether or not he was concerned in the authorship, or in the publication, of the "Fly-Sheets." page 32 He replied, that, to this question he would give no answer. If charges were preferred against him, he would meet them, and defend himself; but to no such question as that which was now proposed, would he return any reply, even upon pain of expulsion. Other men, who were suspected of being in the confederacy, and some of whom were known to have been extensively concerned in the mischiefs of agitation, were questioned in the same manner, and avowed the same determination. Attempts were made to bring them to a different mind. A Committee, comprehending some of the most aged Ministers of the body, with others who had filled offices involving great trust and responsibility, was appointed, to meet with the men who thus placed themselves in an attitude of hostility towards their brethren, to hear their reasons, and, if needful, to remonstrate with them; but to no purpose. He who first made the declaration of refusal to answer, declined, even when sent for, to meet cither the Conference or the Committee with reference to any argument on the subject. Of the others, two who met the Committee not only persisted in their refusal to answer the question proposed, but even to give any pledge of abstinence from future agitation. The Conference therefore deemed it to be matter of solemn duty, both to God and his church, by three successive votes, to sever these men from ministerial connexion with itself.

The examination to which these men were subjected, amounted simply to this, as all the parties well understood:—Our union as Ministers of Christ, as you are well aware, is voluntary; it is founded upon mutual confidence and affection, and upon considerations which are purely religious. We have one faith, and one Lord. We have professed our belief of the same truth, and our adherence to the same system of church order; we exercise our ministry for the one purpose of advancing the glory of Christ, in the conversion and salvation of men; and we have pledged ourselves to countenance among each other no sin, but endeavour to promote each other's purity and usefulness in every possible way. It is our grief to find that a great page 33 sin has been committed among us. The "Fly-Sheets" have neither been written nor circulated by chance. "An enemy hath done this." The enemy is among ourselves. The Preachers in general have solemnly avowed their innocence. The men who are capable of writing and publishing such wanton falsehood and defamation as these pamphlets contain, and who will persist in such practices, are unfit for the ministry which we have received. They are not such men as our venerated Founder would have sent forth and sanctioned; they are not such men as he intended the Conference to send forth and sanction. Direct proof that you are the guilty parties has not been placed before us; we are willing to believe that you are innocent; but general suspicion falls upon you. If you are innocent, declare your innocence; and we will credit your testimony, as we have done every year during the entire period of your union with us; we will still give you the right hand of fellowship, and treat you with our wonted confidence and affection as fellow-labourers in the vineyard of the Lord. If you are not innocent, but have entered into temptation, acknowledge that you have done wrong; give us your promise that you will from this time desist from these practices; and, as we ourselves hope for the mercy of God, we will not withhold mercy from you. But if you will neither clear yourselves with respect to the past, nor give us a guarantee for the future, our duty to God, to his cause, and to his people, together with our own recorded vows and engagements, render it impossible that our ministerial union should any longer continue. You leave us no alternative in the case. Our union must now cease and determine.

I would ask all sober, candid, and religious men, Is this course of action a just subject of blame? Has the Methodist Conference any reason to be ashamed before either angels or men, of having thus acted in this sad emergency?

To thoughtless persons, listening to popular oratory amidst the excitement of a public meeting, it seems a marvellous exhibition of moral courage, that three men page 34 should have dared to set the whole Methodist Conference at defiance; and they think the men worthy of being compared with the great German Reformer, when he stood before the Diet of Worms. They forget that Luther stood there for the announcement and defence of the truth; and these three men for the concealment of sin.

In reference to the acts of discipline, which have now been expounded, two observations may be appropriately made. 1. They were performed with singular unanimity, and with a deep feeling of their necessity. Of the expelled men, one had been forty-three years in connexion with the Conference, partly as a regular Minister, and partly as a Supernumerary; another of them had been thirty years; and the third, seventeen. All of them, therefore, may be fairly presumed to have had an extensive circle of acquaintance, and several personal friends, among the Ministers who constituted the Conference; and yet, with regard to the act of expulsion, scarcely the slightest difference of judgment prevailed, in this the largest assembly of Wesleyan Ministers that was ever held. Indeed, the expulsion of the man who was regarded as the principal writer of the "Fly-Sheets" was proposed to the Conference by a senior Minister, who had been coaxed and lauded in those publications. It may be fairly assumed that such unanimity could not be produced upon light grounds; so that several hundreds of Ministers, with the father of the Conference at their head,—himself having been sixty-two years in this ministry, to which he was personally appointed by its Founder,—should all unite in an act which is at all tunes painful and unwelcome. Yet here we find Richard Recce, with all the gradations of age and of ministerial rank, down to the men who had been only a few days before ordained to the sacred office, including acquaintances and personal friends, uniting in the act of expulsion as matter of urgent and of solemn duty. In an assembly of brother Ministers, amounting to considerably more than five hundred, in favour of one of the expelled men three page 35 hands were held up, two of them being the hands of accomplices; in favour of another, one hand was held up; and in favour of the third, no hand at all. The act of expulsion, therefore, was not the act of a bare majority, but of the entire Conference, the exceptions being so inconsiderable as to be scarcely worth naming.

2. The act of expulsion was not hastily performed, but took place after much anxious deliberation and delay, and after every effort had been tried to save the men whose case was under consideration. Except these cases of discipline, there was no business of the Conference that required much time; so that its sittings were likely to be less protracted than usual. And indeed its speedy conclusion was on many accounts felt to be exceedingly desirable. The attendance was unusually large: the long detention of so many men from their homes and their work was matter of serious inconvenience; especially when the prevalence of disease and mortality in many of the Circuits was considered. The sitting of so many men, also, from day to day, for several hours together, in a heated atmosphere, created considerable uneasiness, and even alarm; especially as one of the Ministers retired from his place in the Conference, and died in a few hours of malignant cholera; and not a few others became seriously ill. Yet the Conference prolonged its sittings till the last day, and almost till the last hour, that it could legally continue them, deferring other matters of an urgent nature, for the purpose of hearing these men, and of bringing them to a better mind, so as, if possible, to secure their continuance in the ministry to which they had been appointed. For their accommodation and benefit the regular and necessary business of the Conference was from time to time delayed, till all further delay was impossible, without endangering the very existence of the Connexion. In consequence of the large portion of time which was devoted to this case, the Stations of all the Preachers could not be considered with due care; and no small amount of domestic inconvenience and suffering is page 36 the result. In this matter, therefore, all semblance of haste, of precipitancy, and of rashness, was carefully avoided; ample space for reflection was given to the offending parties; but when it was found that there was absolutely no hope for the permanent peace of the Connexion, but by the severance of these men, the entire body of the Conference arose to the act of separation, with a calm and solemn fixedness of determination, which nothing could produce but a deep and conscientious feeling of duty to God and to his cause.

* Hall's Works, vol. v., p. 426.