every other of practical importance, Reason and Revelation are seen – not in hostile attitude, employed in the demolition of each other’s work, but har-moniously uniting.’ In terms of theological reflection, the principle of lay representation was said to be an expression of the Protestant notion of the priesthood of all believers. The Methodist New Connexion Magazine claimed in 1872, ‘When the royal priesthood of believers – of all believers – is under-stood, this question will be happily settled.’ It was routinely argued that

doi:10.4324/9780203166505-81

Chapter

every other of practical importance, Reason and Revelation are seen – not in hostile attitude, employed in the demolition of each other’s work, but har-moniously uniting.’ In terms of theological reflection, the principle of lay representation was said to be an expression of the Protestant notion of the priesthood of all believers. The Methodist New Connexion Magazine claimed in 1872, ‘When the royal priesthood of believers – of all believers – is under-stood, this question will be happily settled.’ It was routinely argued that

Chapter

every other of practical importance, Reason and Revelation are seen – not in hostile attitude, employed in the demolition of each other’s work, but har-moniously uniting.’ In terms of theological reflection, the principle of lay representation was said to be an expression of the Protestant notion of the priesthood of all believers. The Methodist New Connexion Magazine claimed in 1872, ‘When the royal priesthood of believers – of all believers – is under-stood, this question will be happily settled.’ It was routinely argued that

ABSTRACT

Whatever views it might hold of Congregationalism, the New Connexion’s witness against the Wesleyan system was much more germane to its raison d’être. Simply put, it justified its existence on the grounds that while Methodism was a good and necessary thing, the principle of lay representation was sufficiently important to make continuance within a denomination which did not recognize it an unacceptable compromise. The jubilee volume justified the denomination’s existence with a rather sharp analogy:

Popery necessitated Protestantism, and so long as the Church of Rome cleaves to its errors and corruptions, so long must Protestantism be perpetuated, both as a witness against it, and as a means of reforming it. And so long as the Wesleyan constitution and government remain unaltered, so long must the New Connexion remain a system of antagonism.28