ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



ing desire to break away from the Church of England. The Wesleyans 

 received the ordination of their ministers from the bishops and the sacrament 

 from the clergy of the Church of England. At his death the separation move- 

 ment could be no longer repressed. The next conference after his death, the 

 forty-eighth conference, in July, 1791, was held at the Oldham Street chapel, 

 Manchester. The controversy then blazed forth with a fierceness that 

 threatened to shatter the whole society. On the mere question of separation 

 from the Church of England and of independent administration of sacrament 

 and ordination this important conference pursued a middle course, deciding 

 not to separate and to permit independent administration of the sacrament 

 only in the exceptional cases where Wesley had himself permitted it. The 

 settlement was a mere compromise, and served by its lack of finality to bring 

 to the front an even more vital question, viz. that of the representation of 

 the lay element of Methodism in the hitherto purely clerical or ministerial 

 conference. After four years of internecine agitation the conference of 

 1795, which also met at Manchester, arranged a compromise which saved 

 Methodism from disruption. This conference is remarkable for the appear- 

 ance of a delegated meeting of trustees (laymen of the Connexion) which was 

 held independently of the ministerial conference. Negotiations between the 

 two bodies resulted in the adoption of Thomas Thompson's Plan of Pacification 

 which left the question of the administration of the sacrament to be deter- 

 mined by a majority of trustees, stewards, and leaders, with the consent of 

 conference, with the proviso that it should not be administered in Wesleyan 

 chapels on those Sundays on which it was administered in the Church of 

 England. The larger question of the representation in conference of the lay 

 element was left untouched, and when two years later the ministerial element 

 obtained complete mastery and prevented any readjustment on this head, the 

 first secession in Methodism took place. The champions of the rights of 

 laymen withdrew under Kilham to form the New Connexion. Manchester 

 has a personal as well as a local interest in this important episode in Methodist 

 history, for Jabez Bunting, the pontiff of Wesleyanism, the man who, after 

 Wesley himself, played the most decisive part in binding the chains of an 

 oppressive hierarchy (practically still existent) upon the corpse of Methodism, 

 was intimately connected with the place both personally and ministerially. 



Manchester played, if anything, an even more incisive part in the second 

 episode of Methodist disruption, that which led to the formation of the Metho- 

 dist Free Church. The immediate cause of dispute, the division in conference 

 over the proposed establishment of a theological institute, was a compara- 

 tively minor matter as compared with the discontent which it represented 

 against the hierarchic polity of the Wesleyan body. This discontent found 

 sharp expression in Manchester and Liverpool, and it was for his temerity in 

 forming these elements into a ' grand central association ' for the purpose of 

 an organized attack on the Wesleyan polity that Dr. Samuel Warren was 

 suspended by the Manchester District Meeting, and thereby excluded from 

 ministering in Oldham Street chapel. He thereupon applied to Chancery for 

 an injunction against the trustees of Oldham Street chapel and Oldham Road 

 chapel, Manchester. The decision was given in favour of the District 

 Meeting, and on appeal this decision was confirmed. In the following 

 conference Warren was accordingly expelled, and thereupon formed the 



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