METHODISM AND THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 467 



the intention of all this to serve the Church ? No, but to get up a 

 rival establishment, which should compete with the Church, and in the 

 end overthrow her. To entertain a doubt on this point is, on the part 

 of Churchmen, to manifest the most absurd incredulity as to the inten- 

 tions of the Methodist preachers, who, whatever may be the shortsight- 

 edness of others, know well how to conduct the profitable trade of dis- 

 sembling kindness for the Church, while every thing they do is selfishly 

 intended to promote exclusively their own interests. Our authority for 

 what we say is their past conduct, and our rule of judgment as to their 

 future intentions is common sense. We assert most positively that the 

 Methodists as a body never have assisted the Church, and moreover 

 that it is the sheerest folly to expect they ever will do so, or to depend 

 upon them for the slightest help for the Church in case of danger. We 

 have not been without the means of forming an opinion a just estimate, 

 indeed both of the Methodist people and their preachers. The former 

 we believe to be generally simple-hearted, pious, and well-meaning ; but 

 the latter, more especially a few of the leading ones, under a plain garb 

 and with self-denying pretensions, have more of ambition and of 

 human policy in their composition than is commonly suspected. No 

 class of men on earth professing religion, carry matters with a higher 

 hand than they do, where they have authority ; or are more pompous in 

 showing their consequence to their inferiors. Towards the Church of 

 England expediency has however hitherto dictated a different demeanour ; 

 and it is with them an object to be thought friendly towards her, merely 

 because they have profitted and expect to profit by it. They, in fact, 

 traffic with this profession on part of a fictitious capital, which they 

 have pushed into extensive circulation with the expectation of receiving 

 good interest ; and they have not been disappointed, for, thanks to the 

 credulity of Churchmen, it has produced a return an hundred- fold ! We 

 repeat, then, our conviction that the Methodist preachers have no such 

 affection for the Church as would lead them to help her under any cir- 

 cumstance ; and our solemn opinion is, that the Church incurs great 

 danger in seeming to lean to Methodistical aid, in as much as she 

 will never obtain it ; and therefore all hopes resting thereon are false ; 

 and further, this frequent reference to the Methodists as allies of the 

 Church, instead of strengthening or fortifying her, has a contrary effect, 

 by causing her to neglect those means of defence which she has 

 within herself, and which only can be of avail in any great crisis. 

 The Church, we say, can defend herself if she will, but before she does 

 this, her confidence in foreign help must cease ; and, being brought fully 

 to consider herself in a true and proper light, she must remove every 

 bye-purpose, and be solely anxious to fulfil the design of her establish- 

 ment : viz. the instruction of the people of England in the great truths 

 of the religion of Jesus Christ. The Church has hitherto been defended 

 in a way which has alarmed her best friends, and given every advantage 

 to her enemies. Many of her professed advocates have, in fact, done 

 their work just in the manner they should have done, if they had intended 

 shortly to deliver her over to destruction. First, instead of admitting 

 that certain imperfections and abuses (and who can deny these ?) have 

 crept upon her, and showing a willingness for them to be scattered to the 

 four winds, they have defended her in the gross, good and bad have 



