Let us now inquire, as Mr. Wesley was to be their guide, next to the apostles, whether they have paid members of all meetings of which the elders are members; and, consequently entitled to vote therein." This is a singular construction of the rule. Is there no difference between being entitled to attend a meeting, and being a full member of it? How many are entitled to attend parliament, who are not allowed to take any part in its proceedings? Is not every one who pleases entitled to attend the assizes? But if all who attend were to claim a right to sit on the bench, or in the jury box, and to give a vote on the fate of the prisoner, would they not be soon taught another lesson? What is more common than for persons to be allowed to attend meetings of which they are not members, and in which they are not allowed either to speak or vote? If it were the intention of the legislators to be understood that missionaries shall be elders, how easy it would have been to say so. But instead of that, it is immediately added, "They shall be subject to the same rules as the preachers." This seems evidently intended to prevent such a construction of the rule as the editor has given; for if he were correct, the rule would, no doubt, have stated, "They shall be subject to the same rules as the elders;" for a man must be subject to the rules of the body of which he is a member. Though all your elders are preachers, and therefore subject to the preachers' rules; yet all the preachers are not elders, and, consequently, are not obliged to conform to the elders' rules. But though the missionaries are subject to the same rules as the preachers, they are not entitled to the same privileges. The local preachers of each circuit may elect one of their body to be a member of the yearly meeting; and "in places where the number of members in a circuit shall exceed one thousand, two preachers may be sent from the preachers' meeting." But they cannot send a missionary to the yearly meeting, since his attendance depends upon the missionary committee. (Mag. for Nov., p. 348, 349.) The rule which immediately follows the preceeding is worded thus: "They," the missionaries, "shall have no power to alter of dispense with any law or rule of the connexion; nor to establish any new law, rule, or custom, in either the discipline or mode of worship of the connexion; nor to have any individual control over the funds of the society, but in all things they shall be as fully under the government of the existing laws and regulations of the connexion as any other member thereof." Upon this law the querist asks, "Does it deprive missionaries of voting in the quarterly or yearly meetings, upon questions involving the altering or dispensing with, any law or rule of the connexion, or the establishing of any new law, rule, or custom, either in the discipline or mode of worship in the connexion, which those meetings may be competent to enact, authorise, or adopt?" The editor replies in more respect to him than to the sacred writers! And 1. The evangelists, or travelling ministers, instead of the negative; and assures us, that the rule" merely prohibits their assuming an unconstitutional authority to do any of these things, by their own exclusive power." As to the quarterly meeting, we may leave that out of the discussion, because it can only propose to the yearly meeting; it can enact nothing. The editor is most certainly mistaken. The rule says expressly, "They shall have no power" to repeal or enact laws relating to either discipline or worship; and this cannot mean, “They shall have no individual, or exclusive power;" because the word individual is introduced into the middle of the rule, after they are stripped of all power to legislate respecting discipline or worship, and is applied to the funds only. If it were intended that they should possess no individual power to make or repeal laws merely, the word individual, ought to have been connected with no power, at the beginning of the rule; its being placed in the middle shows it was not forgotten, and that it has no connexion with legislative power. But when we have proved that "no power," does not mean, "no exclusive power," there is only another sense of which the words are susceptible, and that is, "no joint power;" and when a man has no power of himself, or conjointly with others, he has no power at all. This interpretation agrees with other rules. Your laws must all be made at the yearly meeting; and you have one, already quoted, in which the admission of missionaries to the legislative assembly depends upon the will of the missionary committee, who cannot send more than three, and are not obliged to send one, to this meeting of sapients. Now, if I have no power to take a seat in the legislature, I have no power, either individually or conjointly, to make laws. If it be said that a missionary may be sent, if the committee please, I ask, and what then? does it follow that he has a power, in connexion with others, to make laws, because he may become a legislator if he curry favour with his superiors? Then I possess a power, in concert with others, to make laws for this country; for I may be sent to parliament, if some gentleman will but give me an estate of £300. per annum, as a qualification, and favour me with his interest in a borough where he is lord paramount and I think I should find it easier to get into parliament, than, were I one of your missionaries, to get into your yearly meeting. In this way of arguing, possess a power of legislating for Greece; for I may become sovereign of that country, if the king-makers will but place me upon the throne! But how, in the name of common sense, can any body of men possess legislative authority, when they may all be legally kept out of the legislative assembly! The editor seems to be ashamed of these rules; and well he may : being the lowest officers in the Methodist societies, as they are amongst the Protestants, were always, like those of the Bible, in the first rank: we, therefore, protest against the order of our accusers. 2. Our preachers follow the example of the evangelists of holy writ, and administer baptism as a duty connected with their office; and we protest against the transfer of this authority by the Protestants to their elders. 3. Our itinerants, following Bible precedents, admit candidates into society. As Peter, however, in reference to the admission into the church, by baptism, of Cornelius, and his family and friends, asked, "Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized?" and would, no doubt, had any just cause been but his attempts to explain them away have utterly failed. And it must not be forgotten, that his opinions have no authority; the law makers have not chosen him as their expositor; and as the law is opposed to his opinions, they are of no value. Thus then the matter stands. The missionaries may attend the meetings of elders, and two or three of them may, perhaps, be allowed the mighty privilege of sitting in the yearly meeting, with their hands upon their mouths, listening in silent astonishment to the divine orations of mechanics and manufacturers! And what is the character of these missionaries? "No person shall be employed as a missionary but a preacher fully received upon the plan, and who shall have given satisfactory evidence of his attachment to the principles on which our society is founded; of fervent piety, great zeal for the glory of God, and talents calculated to make him generally accepted." This is your own account of your own None but the wicked can trample under foot those they confess to be so good. They do not love but fear them, and therefore, lay them under restraint; just as their predecessor behaved to the baptist. "Herod feared John, knowing that he was a just man and holy;" and then comes the tragedy-he shut him up in prison, and finished by chopping off his head. Do you not blush on account of the fetters and gags prepared for your ministers ? And so these men are to be wholly devoted to their work, but not allowed to speak and vote upon sacred topics in the presence of those who are six days out of the seven employed in secular affairs. Such ministers are like muzzled bears, to be baited by every cowardly dog that delights in mischief, when he can do it in a whole skin. Shame on those who can thus debase the servants of Christ, and expose them to public contempt! men. assigned, have declined giving the rite; so our rules state, that "the leaders' meeting shall have a right to declare any person on trial, improper to be received into the society; and, after such declaration, the superintendent shall not admit such person into the society."* But since elders are never once in the Bible represented as receiving new members, we protest against this practice of our reformers. 4. Our evangelists expel immoral members, as did Titus; and since we never read in the Bible that elders or leaders, and private members, performed this act of discipline, we protest against their doing it, as an usurpation of another's office. We have, it is true, admitted a check on this subject, for which I can find no plain authority in the New Testament; but as it is not opposed to anything in the sacred volume, and may have a salutary effect, I do not object to it. I refer to this rule: "No person shall be expelled from the society for immorality, till such immorality be proved at a leaders' meeting." The word at, in this rule, has been the subject of much cavil by our opponents. They would claim for the leaders' meeting the power of expulsion; but as that power is never in scripture exercised by leaders or elders, the Conference dare not concede so much. The rule was professedly made to prevent "clandestine expulsions ;" and the Conference very properly remark upon it, that "that superintendent would be bold indeed, who would act with partiality or injustice in the presence of the whole meeting of leaders. Such a superintendent, we trust, we have not among us: and if such there ever should be, we should be ready to do all possible justice to our injured brethren. "‡ 5. It has been proved at large, in "Ecclesiastical Claims," that our leaders answer to the elders of the Bible. Timothy and Titus appointed elders; and our itinerant preachers have always done the same; and as * Minutes, vol. i., p. 375. + Minutes, vol. i., p. 375. Minutes, vol. i., p. 377. the power of appointment is vested by the Protestants in the quarterly meeting, in which an elder presides, we protest against their practice, and abide by the scripture. We allow, indeed, on the nomination of a leader by the preacher, a veto to the leaders' meeting, for which we cannot find any express authority in the New Testament; yet since none but he can nominate, and induct into office, the substance of the primitive practice is preserved. 6. The evangelists of the Bible tried and judged elders; and in this we follow their example; and we protest against the Protestants for departing from this scriptural order. 7. The evangelist Timothy was empowered by the apostle to restore repentant elders, and our evangelists do the same, conceding a negative to the leaders' meeting, as in the case of their first appointment. As the missionaries of the Protestants are entirely divested of this power, we protest against the robbery. 8. The appointment of deacons, or poor stewards, belonged to the evangelists, according to the New Testament. This is the case with us; the leaders' meeting having a veto on the nominee. The Protestant evangelists have nothing to do in this af fair, and we protest against the transfer into other hands. 9. The primitive evangelists had the appointment of others to their own office; and so have ours. A candidate amongst us, however, must have the approbation of the quarterly meeting, before he can be proposed to our evangelists as fit for the office; but the Conference have the power to accept or reject him, as they judge proper. Whilst the appointment, therefore, is with the travelling ministers, his character and qualifications are submitted to the scrutiny of all the principal local officers in the circuit where he resides; so that a bad man cannot become an itinerant with us, without the recommendation of the people. The purity of our ministry is entrusted to their guardianship, and if they recommend wolves instead of shepherds, they |