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Our spiritual governors are prevented from executing this part of their divine commission by tyrannical laws. Is there no way in which we can assist them? or, in case this is impossible, is there nothing we can ourselves do? If excommunication was enforced, all notorious ill-livers and professed heretics would be authoritatively cut off from familiar and intimate intercourse with churchmen. They are not so cut off at present by any authoritative sentence; but I believe it will be found in scripture that each individual Christian is authorized-nay, bound to cut them off for himself, to withdraw personally from all intimate contact with them, and, as far as his influence extends, to induce others to do so. This I conceive to be the course prescribed in Scripture for each individual Christian; but before stating my reasons for thinking so, it may be useful to notice a confusion of thought that seems to have diverted many persons from the truth in this particular.

The question" how ought a churchman to behave towards professed heretics and notorious ill-livers ?" is sometimes confused with another question which sounds like it, but is, in fact, very differentviz., "how ought persons who conceive themselves to be spirituallyminded to behave towards those whom they think worldly-minded ?” These two questions are often, whether designedly or weakly, regarded as one and the same, and all the folly and pride which the latter implies are attributed to the former. The evident truth, that 110 one has any right to judge himself spiritually-minded or his neighbour worldly-minded, is used as a proof that no one can know himself to be a churchman or his neighbour a notorious ill-liver, or professed heretic. And this sophism, obvious as soon as stated, has been a means of silencing inquiry on an important practical subject. A moment's consideration will shew that for a man to know himself to be a churchman is just as easy as for him to know that he is a Frenchman or an Englishman, and that implies just as little self-satisfaction and spiritual pride. It is also quite plain and obvious that if any neighbour professes to be a Socinian or Latitudinarian, or if he is living with a mistress, or uses indecent language, I can no more help knowing that he does so, than I can help knowing that he is six feet high, or forty years old; and that the knowledge of the former facts does not, any more than of the latter, imply, that I judge him, or pretend to say how he stands with his Maker. A churchman is a man who has been baptized and admitted into the church, and is not under sentence of excommunication, surely a man may know this of himself without any extraordinary pretence to a spiritual mind. Also a professed heretic is a man who makes no secret that he holds opinions contrary to the creeds; and a notorious ill-liver is a man that makes no secret of his immorality; so that every one who has eyes and ears must know both the one and the other. Now the question is, whether any directions are given in Scripture for the behaviour of churchmen towards these two classes of persons? whether persons who (however conscious of their own failings) are anxious to obey God as well as they can, have any rules given them for their conduct towards others, who

(whatever may be their excuses in the sight of God) make no secret' of deliberately violating his commandments, or making light of his church?

Those who think this question worth attending to are requested to consider the following texts:

"Now I have written to you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one NO NOT TO EAT."

...

"Many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh..... If there come any to you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed (xaípɛiv avtų μù Xéyete). For he that biddeth him God speed is PARTAKER OF HIS EVIL DEEDS."

Now I will not say that these texts are to be interpreted literally, and without exception, nor will I assert that if St. Paul and St. John were writing expressly for our direction at the present day they would have used precisely the same expressions. Yet let the utmost latitude be allowed for modes of speaking and difference of circumstances, let the words be turned, twisted, and tampered with in every conceivable way, and still I doubt whether they can be brought into any kind of consistency with the avowed and almost universal practice of Christians at the present day. Take, for instance, the words of St. John, and conceive that apostle explaining to a modern churchman what he intended by his advice to "the elect lady," can it be conceived that he would put this paraphrase on his words?

"When I spoke of persons who did not believe rightly in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, and forbade my flock from receiving them into their houses and bidding them God speed, I was far from wishing to interrupt friendly intercourse between persons who thought differently on this important subject. As long as your neighbours are amiable, respectable people, I have no objection to your living with them on the most intimate terms-to your eating, drinking, and being merry with them-to your contracting friendships and intermarrying-in short, I wish you to make no kind of difference between people on account of mere opinions?" Can it be supposed that St. John meant this? If so anything may mean anything. It is as easy to conceive that when he said, "The Word was God," he meant "the Word was not God," as to conceive that when he said"receive not heretics into your house, nor bid them God speed," he meant "be very good friends with Socinians and Latitudinarians." And again, as to the advice of St. Paul to the Corinthians, it certainly is no very intelligible method of interpretation which could elicit from the words "keep no company with drunkards and fornicators, do not even eat with them," a permission "to associate with them on easy terms, to dine with them and ask them to dinner." No! the words of the apostles are stubborn, and refuse to be tampered withdo what you will, and you cannot strip them of a meaning which renders heresy or immorality, the one as well as the other, some kind of barrier to friendship and intimacy, which obliges churchmen to

some degree of coldness and distance in their intercourse with open despisers of the creeds and commandments.

Some persons indeed there are who harden their minds against the reception of this plain truth, by calling it uncharitable, &c., a method of arguing which seems to bear harder on the inspired apostles, than on those who take them to mean what they have most plainly stated, and to such persons it might be a sufficient answer "whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye." But to shew in what a mere piece of selfdeceit and delusion their objection originates, I shall try the principle it proceeds on, in a parallel case. If it is uncharitable to make distinctions between people because they happen to have been brought up in habits and opinions different from our own, I presume it is just as uncharitable to do so when the difference is very trifling and nonsensical, as when it turns on serious and important matters. However wicked and uncharitable it may be to withdraw from a neighbour's society, because, in some respects, he thinks, feels, and acts differently from ourselves, it will hardly be more wicked when these respects are of vital consequence than when they involve mere fancies. If it is wicked to withdraw on account of religious differences, how much more so on account of any other difference in the world!

Bearing this in mind, then, let us examine for a moment certain distinctions which are acknowledged through the whole world, good and bad, as regulating the terms on which one man associates with another.

B is a man of excellent character, honest, sober, kind-hearted, brave, religious; and A knows it and esteems him. Does it follow from this that A acknowledges B as an equal, visits him, allows the families to contract intimacies and intermarriages? No!-B is a fisherman and A is a lord: one has rough hands and the other smooth -one has little money, the other a great deal-and other differences of about the same real importance, and these are allowed to constitute a just, rational, natural barrier between the families of A and B.

Such is the world which stigmatizes a separation from Socinians as uncharitable! If I did not know respectable persons who joined in this senseless cry, I should refer it either to hypocrisy or madness.

Yet, granting that we are in duty bound to withdraw, in some degree, from the society of lax persons, whether in faith or morals, it will be said that it is a difficult and almost impossible task to judge what that degree is. The thoughtlessness of others and of our own past lives has entangled us with friendships and relationships and obligations of various kinds in families from which we are thus called on to separate ourselves; are all such ties to go for nothing? or if not, how intricate is the path of duty. It is so.-It imposes on us a painful and most perplexing task. Who is sufficient for it? If, indeed, the spiritual rulers of the church were free to use their apostolical authority their word would be a law to us in this embarrassing situation. We should then be furnished with a guide far safer than our private judgment, swayed as this must perpetually be, either by fear or favour. But as things are we are left to ourselves: persecuting laws,

enacted in despotic times, prevent our holy fathers, the bishops, from acting. If they took on themselves to excommunicate, except under certain imposed restrictions that amount in almost all cases to a prohibition, they would forthwith come under a law enacted by Edward III., confiscating all their goods, whether ecclesiastical or personal, and subjecting themselves, their aiders and abettors, to perpetual imprisonment.

Can we expect them to face such consequences, if we shrink from our own share of pain and difficulty?

F.

WESLEYAN METHODISTS.

SIR, I beg your notice of the following document, which is truly valuable, as an evidence of the views entertained by the Wesleyan Methodists generally, in reference to the grievances (as they are called) of the dissenters, and the propriety or impropriety of the members of that body uniting themselves with the political portion of the dissenters to obtain their redress. The gentleman in question, the Rev. J. R. Stephens, is a young man, and has been stationed, as a Wesleyan minister, in Ashton and its neighbourhood, nearly two years, and was brought before his brethren, at the last Manchester District Meeting, to answer to the charges stated in the "Case."

CASE.

AN OBSERVER.

1. That Brother J. R. Stephens has attended four public meetings held at Ashtonunder-Line, Hyde, Oldham, and Staley Bridge, one of the avowed objects of which meetings was to obtain the total separation of the church and the state; and that at these meetings he delivered speeches expressive of his approbation of that object. 2. That at the Ashton meeting the terms Wesleyan Methodists of Ashtonunder-Line" were, on his motion, introduced into the preamble of a memorial, complaining of certain practical grievances of dissenters.

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3. That he announced from the pulpit that a town's petition, praying for the separation of the church and the state, lay for signatures in the vestry of the chapel. 4. That he has accepted an appointment to the office of Corresponding Secretary to a society called the "Church Separation Society for Ashton-under-Line and the neighbouring district."

(The above-mentioned facts were admitted by Brother Stephens.)

5. That he has thus acted without consulting his superintendent, and contrary to his example and expressed opinion.

The whole case having been solemnly and impartially considered, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted by the meeting :

1. That in these proceedings Brother Stephens has flagrantly violated the peaceable and anti-sectarian spirit of Wesleyan methodism so strongly enjoined in the writings of our founder, enforced by the repeated acts of the Conference since his decease, and required as a necessary qualification of every methodist preacher, particularly in that epitome of his pastoral duties contained in the Minutes of 1820, and directed, by a standing order of the Conference, to be read in every Annual District Meeting, as solemnly binding on every minister in our connexion.

2. That the above-mentioned speeches of Brother Stephens are directly at variance with the general sentiments of Mr. Wesley and the Conference, and are distinguished by a spirit highly unbecoming a Wesleyan minister, and inconsistent with those sentiments of respect and affection towards the church of England which our connexion has, from the beginning, openly professed and honourably maintained.

3. That, as far as his influence extends, Brother Stephens has committed the character of the connexion on a question involving its public credit as well as its

internal tranquillity; and that he has manifested a great want of deference to the recorded opinions of his fathers and brethren in the ministry, and a recklessness of consequences as to himself and others, by the very active and prominent part which he has taken in the aggressive proceedings adopted by the meetings before referred to.

4. That he has endangered the peace, and acted prejudicially to the spirituality of the connexion, by giving occasion to the introduction, amongst our people, of unprofitable disputations on ecclesiastical politics, thus violating the directions of the last Conference in its "pastoral address" to the societies, which Brother Stephens, as well as every other Methodist preacher, was bound, by his example at least, to enforce. (See Minutes for 1833, p. 115.)

5. That Brother Stephens, in accepting the office of Corresponding Secretary to the Ashton Church Separation Society, has acted contrary to his peculiar calling and solemn engagements as a Methodist preacher.

6. That the culpability of these proceedings is aggravated by the fact, that they were pursued by Brother Stephens without consultation with his superintendent, and contrary to his example and expressed opinion.

7. That Brother Stephens be authoritatively required to resign his office as Secretary to the Church Separation Society, and to abstain, until the next Conference, from taking any part in the proceedings of that Society, or of any other society or meeting having a kindred object; and that, in the event of a violation of this injunc-, tion, he be forthwith suspended until the Conference, and that his superintendent give immediate notice to the chairman of the district, that the president may supply his place in the Ashton circuit.

The above resolutions having been read to Brother Stephens, he declared that, on the finding of the second and third, he could not acknowledge the authority of the meeting, and that he would not resign his office of Corresponding Secretary to the Church Separation Society of Ashton-under-Line.

He is, therefore, now suspended from the exercise of his ministry until the next Conference.

8. That Brother Stephens be required forthwith to remove from the Ashtonunder-Line circuit, and that the chairman be requested to write to the president for a supply.

PHILIP HENRY ON THE INDEPENDENTS.

SIR,-A few years ago was published the Life of Philip Henry, by his son, "corrected and enlarged by J. B. Williams, F.S.A.," a dissenter of the independent persuasion. To the word "independent,” which occurs on p. 128, Mr. Williams attaches the following note :"In two things the independents are to be commended they keep. up discipline among them; they love and correspond one with another. P. Henry's Diary, Orig. MS."-Having recently borrowed from a friend of mine some of Philip Henry's Diaries, I was surprised to find in one of them the passage, of which part is thus introduced by Mr. Williams, standing as follows:-" Three things I doe not like in the independent way-1. That they unchurch the nation; 2. That they pluck up the hedge of parish order; 3. That they throw the ministry common, and allow persons to preach that are unordayn'd. In two things they are to be commended-1. That they keep up discipline amongst them; 2d. That they love and correspond one with another." I understand that Mr. Williams was remonstrated with on the unfairness of this garbling of the diary,

It has been before stated that the un-Christian Advocate has been taking every possible pains to produce warfare and schism among the Wesleyans respecting this case, and, it is to be hoped, without effect.-ED.

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