History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

Art. 10th. The government of every Christian church, should be strictly a government of principle,
in relation to the governed; and every private Christian, is as deeply and reasonably interested as the
ministry. Dominion over conscience, is the most absurd of all human pretensions. The assumption,
that absolute power in the affairs of church government, is a sacred deposit in the hands of the
ministry, libels the genius and charities of the New Testament. Whenever a Christian people place
themselves under a ministry, who claim the right of thinking and deciding for them, in matters of
faith and morality, they are guilty of impiety, however unintentional, to the Great Head of the church,
inasmuch, as it is required of every Christian, to reflect and determine for himself, in all such cases,
and the duty cannot be performed by another. And those ministers who aim at a principality of this
kind, in the personal concerns of faith and practice, are plainly guilty of usurped dominion over the
rights and consciences of the people.
Art. 11th. Expedience and right are different things. Nothing is expedient that is unjust. Necessity
and convenience, may render a form of government useful and effective for a time, which afterward,
under a change of circumstances, and all accumulation of responsibility, may become oppressive and
intolerable. That system of things, which cannot be justified by the word of God, and the common
sense of mankind, can never be expedient. Submission to power, gradually and insidiously usurped,
should seldom or never be received as proof of the legitimate consent of the people, to the peculiar
form of government, by which they are oppressed; as such submission may be the result of
principles, attachments, and energies, which owe their existence to causes foreign from the
government, which is supposed to produce them. Peaceable submission by the people, to a system
of government, can never be construed into a proper approval of it, as one of their own choice; for,
as men by birth and education, may become the subjects of a form of civil government they do not
approve, so thousands may be born into the kingdom of God, and nurtured in his family, under forms
of ecclesiastical polity, materially inconsistent with the lights and notices of revelation on this
subject. The continued sufferance and submission of the people, so far from proving the divine right
of those who govern, does not even furnish proof of any right at all, except the claim which arises
from mere forbearance.
Art. 12th. Without insisting upon those portions of the New Testament, which go directly against
the right of the ministry, to exclusive rule, the well known indefiniteness of its language, on the
subject of church government, should admonish the claimants of such power, that their pretensions
cannot be sustained. Nevertheless, in all ages since the apostolic, and in all parts of the world, with
but few exceptions, a large majority of those calling themselves Christian ministers, have shown a
disposition, both in ecclesiastical and civil affairs, to maintain an influence in matters of government,
independent of the people, and to suppress the right of inquiry, and freedom of discussion. And this
is readily accounted for, by adverting to the fact, that the liberty of thinking and acting, and
especially the free expression of opinion, have always lessened the influence of ministerial
pretensions, and abridged the claims of an aspiring ministry, to irresponsible domination. It is
lamentably true, that in a thousand instances, in the various divisions of papal and Protestant
Christendom, oppression has been exercised under pretense of duty, and professed veneration for
the dead; and their doings; and an earnest contention for preexisting customs have been urged, as
sufficient reasons, for withholding the rights of the people, and lording it over God's heritage.