History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

wrote like a mountain torrent. Strong men of the Conference sided with him and others against him,
and another year was spent in jangling over the sacraments, preaching in Church hours, etc. The
forty-ninth Conference met in London, July 31, 1792. Alexander Mather, who had been preaching
thirty-five years, and had been set apart by Wesley as a "Superintendent" for Scotland — a fact of
which little account was taken by the preachers after his return to England, as the "bishop" fiction
was scouted by them — was elected President and Dr. Coke Secretary. The controversy opened in
the Conference, and Killiam was censured by a formal vote for the violent language of his pamphlet.
On the merits of the question itself they were "profoundly embarrassed by its difficulties, and unable
to reach its solution by discussion, so an extraordinary measure was proposed by Pawson as the only
means of concluding the debate, and as affording a common ground of mutual concession, at least
in time shed bring them nearer to unanimity. They resolved to determine it for the present by lot, 'for
or against the sacraments this year." Dr. Clarke drew the lot, and it was against it. All were either
satisfied or submitted. The act met with severe animadversions afterward, and the fact that the
following Conference showed a decrease in members was construed unfavorably. "The Conference
sent an address to the societies on the course it had taken. It was the first address to them ever issued
by that body." Perhaps it was not so much a condescension to the laity thus to confer with them, as
it was an expedient to keep them in sympathy with the Conference. It was progress, however, in the
direction of equal rights. The body seemed bent on a surcease of paternalism, so they "ordained that
the same person should not be chosen President of the Conference more than once in eight years, and
also that the President's power should cease so soon as the Conference ended." The last provision
directly contravened the provision of Wesley's Deed, which declared that the President should
continue in office "until the election of another President at the next or other subsequent year."
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Stevens says of this act, "It was doubtless an inadvertence," but he gives no evidence, and the fact
that at the ensuing Conference it was not amended is in proof that it was intended. The paternalism
of Wesley was so extreme that they swung in departure from it to the other segment of the circle.
Radicalism was at work. "Regulations were adopted requiring all the preachers of any district, who
should be present at the Conferences, to meet, after the appointments were settled, and choose their
district chairman; also authorizing the chairman to call district meetings at the demand of preachers
or people, for the purpose of trying complaints against any preachers; and making the chairman
himself subject to trial and suspension, or deposition from the chair, or from the office of
superintendent, by the district meeting to be called by a circuit superintendent, should the chairman
be charged with any crime, misdemeanor, or a refusal to call a district meeting when there were
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sufficient reasons for it." All these were advances for liberal government. There was a net
increase of the home work of 1659 members. The Conference of 1792 adjourned with solemn vows
and covenanting, but the "lot" decision did not settle the sacramental questions. Pawson, Adam
Clarke, and other leaders were restive, the latter declaring that "he would have liberty of conscience
if he had to go to the ends of the earth for it." The controversy raged through the year; Kilham, as
usual, was in the van of it. He issued another circular under an assumed name, and submitted a new
system for the government of the Connection, which more than ever set at odds the progressive and
the conservative forces of the societies and Conference.
The fiftieth Conference met at Leeds, July 29, 1793. John Pawson was elected President and Dr.
Coke Secretary. The discussion came on and ended in a compromise that, "in places where the
members were unanimous in their desire to have the sacraments administered by their own preachers,
it should be conceded; that all distinctions between ordained and unordained preachers should cease;