The second Annual Laymen’s Convention was held, pursuant to call, in the Baptist Church at Albion, N. Y., November 1 and 2, 1859. At the permanent organization the Hon. Abner I. Wood was reelected president; George W. Holmes, John Billings, Jonathan Handly, Edward P. Cox and S. C. Springer were chosen as vice-presidents; and S. K. J. Chesbrough, Stephen S. Rice, William Hart and Thomas Sully were chosen secretaries.

     The following was adopted as the Declaration in part of the Convention:
 

     When we met last year in Convention, we trusted that the preachers, whose course was the cause of our assembling, would be led to repentance and reformation. But our hopes have been blasted. The Scripture is still true, which saith that “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.”

     That we have the right to take into consideration the public acts of a public body to which we are intimately related, cannot be denied. That such consideration has become our duty we are well satisfied. Our Lord has given us the test, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” What have been the fruits for the past year of the party in Conference, known as the “Buffalo Regency”? Have they been such as we should expect from men of God? We are pained to be obliged to bear testimony to the fact that some occupying the place of Methodist ministers have used their influence, and bent their energies to put down, under the name of “fanaticism,” what we feel confident is the work of the Holy Spirit.

     The course pursued by some of our preachers, in expelling from the Church members in good standing and high repute for their Christian character, because they attended our Convention in December last, we look upon as cruel and oppressive, and it calls for our most decided disapproval. What does the right of private judgment amount to, if we can not exercise it without bringing down on our heads these ecclesiastical anathemas? To our brethren who have been so used, we extend our cordial sympathy, and we assure them that our confidence in them has not diminished on account of their names being cast out as evil for the Son of man’s sake. The action of the majority, in expelling from the Conference and the Church, four able and devoted ministers, and locating two others, upon the most frivolous pretexts, is so at variance with the principles of justice and our holy Christianity as to cause minor offenses to be aggravated, when they would otherwise be overlooked. The charge against each was the convenient one of “contumacy.” The specifications were in substance, the receiving as ministers those who were expelled at the previous session of the Conference, and for preaching in the bounds of other men’s charges. Where in the Bible, or in the Discipline, is “contumacy,” spoken of as a crime? It is a charge generally resorted to for the purpose of oppression. Let whatever the dominant power in the Church may be pleased to call “contumacy” be treated as a crime, religious liberty is at an end. There is not an honest man in the Conference but may be expelled for “contumacy,” whenever, by any means, a majority can be obtained against him. There is not a member of the M. E. Church, who acts from his own convictions of right, but may be excommunicated for “contumacy,” whenever his preacher is disposed to do so. Let some mandate be issued that cannot in conscience be obeyed, and the guilt of contumacy is incurred. The Regency party not only expelled devoted servants of God for contumacy, but did it under the most aggravated circumstances. An Annual Conference possesses no power to make laws. A resolution with a penalty affixed for its violation, is to all intents and purposes a law. The Regency passed resolutions at the last session of the Conference, and then tried and expelled men for violating them months before they had an existence! That any honest man can entertain any respect for such judicial action is utterly impossible. The specifications were in keeping with the charge. The first was for recognizing as ministers the expelled members of the Conference. The charge was not for recognizing them as Methodist ministers; for the expelled brethren did not claim to have authority from the Church. They acted simply by virtue of their commission from God. If a man believes he is called of God to preach, and God owns and blesses his labors, has he not the right thus to warn sinners to flee the wrath to come? At the second Conference held by Wesley, it was asked, “Is not the will of our governors a law?” The answer was emphatically: “No—not of any governors, temporal or spiritual. Therefore if any Bishop wills that I should not preach the Gospel, his will is no law to me. But what if he produced a law against your preaching? I am to obey God rather than man.” This is the language of the founder of Methodism. How it rebukes the arrogant, popish assumptions of some of the pretended followers of Wesley.

     The second specification was for preaching in other men’s charges without their consent.

     Where is there anything wrong in this? What precept of the Bible, what rule of the Discipline is violated? Does it not evidence the faithful minister of Jesus, burning with love for souls, rather than the criminal deserving the highest censure of the Church? Methodist ministers are bound by their obligations to serve the charges to which they are appointed by the Conference: but they do not promise that they will not preach anywhere else. On the contrary, the commission from Christ reads, “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.” The Discipline says, “You have nothing to do but to save souls; therefore, spend and be spent in this work; and go always, not only to those who want you, but to those who want you most. Observe, it is not your business only to preach so many times, and to take care of this or that society, but to save as many as you can; to bring as many sinners as you can to repentance, and with all your power to build them up in that holiness, without which they cannot see the Lord.” On this ground, were these men of God, as we esteem them, Revs. Loren Stiles, Jr., John A. Wells, Wm. Cooley, and Charles D. Burlingham, excommunicated by the Regency party of the Genesee Conference at its last session. Fidelity to God will not allow us quietly to acquiesce in such decisions. It is urged that we must respect the action of the Church. But what is the Church? Our XIIIth Article of Religion says, “The visible Church of God is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure word of God is preached, and the sacraments duly administered.” The ministers then are not “the Church.” If ministers wish to have their acts respected, they must, like other men, perform respectable actions.

     These repeated acts of expulsion, wrong as they are in themselves, deserve the stronger condemnation from the fact, scarcely attempted to be disguised, that THE OBJECT is to prevent the work of holiness from spreading among us—to put down the life and power of godliness in our Churches, and to inaugurate in its stead the peaceable reign of a cold and heartless formalism,—in short, to do away with what has always been a distinctive feature of Methodism. If the work which the men who were expelled both this year and last, have labored, and not without success, to promote, be “fanaticism,” then has Methodism from the beginning been “fanaticism.” Our attachment to Methodism was never stronger than it is at present, and our sympathy and our means shall be given to the men who toil and suffer to promote It. We can not abandon, at the bidding of a majority, the doctrines of Methodism, and the men who defend them.     

     The course of the Regency in shielding members of their faction, creates the suspicion that a stronger motive than any referred to lies at the foundation of their remarkable action,—the principle of self-preservation. It may be that the guilty, to prevent exposure, deem it necessary to expel the innocent. Their refusal to entertain charges; and their prompt acquittal of one of their leaders, though clearly proved guilty of a crime sufficient to exclude him from heaven, look strongly in that direction. The recent public exposure in another Conference of one of the founders of the Regency party, who took a transfer to escape from well founded suspicion shows how a minister may pursue, unconvicted, a career of guilt for years, when “shielded” by secret society influences, and willing to be the servile tool of the majority.

     For the evils complained of we see no other remedy within our reach than the one we adopted last year :—WITHHOLD SUPPLIES. To show that such a remedy is “constitutional” and “loyal,’ we have only to refer to the “proceedings” of the Convention of last year and to authorities therein quoted.

     In connection with the foregoing, and as a part of its Declaration, the Convention adopted eleven resolutions. The first of these, which was adopted unanimously, expressed the utmost confidence in the expelled preachers, commending them to the confidence and sympathy of the children of God wherever they might go.

     The second affirmed their adherence to the doctrines and usages of Methodism, but also declared their unwillingness to recognize the oppressive policy of the “Regency” faction in the Genesee Conference as the action of the Church, and their refusal to submit to the same.

     Resolution 3 recommended that all the preachers who had been expelled, and also the two who were located under the test resolutions at the Brockport Conference, “continue to labor for the promotion of the work of God and the salvation of souls, by preaching, exhorting, visiting and praying as they have opportunity,” and assuring them that, “while they shall thus devote themselves to the work of the ministry, we will cheerfully use our means and influence for their support.”

     Resolutions 4, 5, and 6 provided for the districting of the work, gathering those who had been unjustly deprived of their Church home into Bands, in order to keep them from being scattered and so lost to the Church, and for regular collections from the various Bands a~ a means of securing adequate support for the brethren in the ministry.

     The seventh resolution set forth the determination of the lay brethren to refuse their support to any member of Genesee Conference who assisted, either by his vote or influence, in the expulsion of the preachers charged with “contumacy,” except upon “contrition, confession and satisfactory reformation.”

     The eighth had to do with repudiating the course of certain preachers whose action out of the pulpit was regarded as inconsistent with their utterances from the pulpit; while Resolution 9 declared against the five test resolutions of the Brockport Conference as “anti-Methodistic and Popish, the merest ecclesiastical tyranny,” and recommended “that the preachers remaining in the Conference, who have the work of God at heart, repudiate in theory and practice the aforesaid resolutions.”

     Resolutions 10 and 11 provided for memorializing the General Conference to the effect that that body should set aside the action of the Genesee Conference in the alleged cases of “contumacy,” and restore the six expelled preachers to their former Conference and Church relation.