806 ECCLESIASTICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



new sect, implying a re-assertion of the right of private 

 judgment, is a collateral result of the nature which makes 

 free institutions possible. 



Still more significant do we see this multiplication of sects 

 to be if we consider the assigned causes of division. Take 

 for instance the case of the Wesley ans. In 1797 the 

 Methodist New Connexion organized itself on the principle 

 of lay participation in church government. In 1810 the 

 Primitive Methodists left the original body : the cause being 

 a desire to have &quot; lay representatives to the Conference.&quot; 

 Again, in 1834, prompted by opposition to priestly power, the 

 Wesleyan Methodist Association was formed: its members 

 claiming more influence for the laity, and resisting central 

 interference with local government. And then in 1849, there 

 was yet another secession from the Methodist body, similarly 

 characterized by resistance to ministerial authority. 



Of course in sects less coercively governed, there have 

 been fewer occasions for rebellions against priestly control; 

 but there are not wanting illustrations, some of them supplied 

 even by the , small and free bodies of the Unitarians, of this 

 tendency to divide in pursuance of the right of private 

 judgment. Moreover, in the absence of a dissidence suffi 

 ciently great to produce secession, there is everywhere a 

 large amount of expressed disagreement on minor points, 

 among those holding what is supposed to be the same body 

 of beliefs. Perhaps the most curious instance of this is fur 

 nished by the established Church. I do not refer simply to 

 its divisions into high, and low, and broad ; all implying more 

 or less of the nonconforming spirit within it. I refer more 

 especially to the strange anomaly that the ritualists are men 

 who, while asserting priestly authority, are themselves rebels 

 against priestly authority defy their ecclesiastical superiors 

 in their determination to assert ecclesiastical supremacy. 



But the universally admitted claim to religious freedom 

 shown in these various ways, is shown still more by the 

 growing movement for disestablishment of the Church. This 



