Benjamin Flower, Cambridge, to Alexander Kilham, Sheffield, 23 October 1797.

Cambridge   Oct. 23. 1797.

Dear Sir

  In reply to your Favour I transmit you on the other side a copy of the letter you mention, and I fear I must give it to the public together with the resolutions referred to, and which are not other than those figured by Dr Coke and Mr Bradburn Leeds Aug 1797. but which really have nothing to do with the famous resolution about “Sedition and the Established Church,” and I wish entirely to avoid any dissention respecting the interior management of religious societies which those resolutions more particularly refer to.

  I have already brought on myself some ill will and the charges of partiality, and making myself a party man in the controversy now carrying on amongst the Methodists. To get rid of the charge of Partiality I must publish the note of the Lover of Truth, to let the public see I was justified in my remarks. As to the other charges I regard them not. In this age of extreme degeneracy, (I fear of all sects that have yet a name) I earnestly wish there could be found a party of honest enquirers after Truth, who have no other views in their enquiry, that they may be made thereby wiser and better, more intimately acquainted with their own characters, as they appear in the sight of God, and more ardently concerned for the welfare of all mankind. Such a party I hope I am willing to declare myself in favour of let it be called by any name, which either a great or a little man may please, as the whim or caprice or just judgment of mankind may direct. Names are nothing, but the Reality is all in all.

  I sent a paper with my Remarks on the letter of the “Lover of Truth,” directed to Mr Bradburn, I want to get at his conscience. As to Dr Coke, and all the ministers of the Church of England, to a man, I have charged them so repeatedly and in such plain home language of Prevarication and Prying, that I have nothing more to say to them. I know not whether you have seen what I have said on these subjects in my Remarks on the French Constitution, and in the “Necessity of a Reformation in Church and State,” a £6/8vo both Editions published in ’92; and “National Sins considered in Letters to the Revd T. Robinson of Leicester &c” a 2/6 pamphlet published 96. If you will inform me how I can send you these or if I can leave them for you in London I shall request your acceptance of them. I will likewise thank you to inform me where the Methodist Monitor is printed in London.

  With respect to the second Letter in the Courier, I have my doubts whether it would be proper to publish it. It only confirms what was in the former Letter, and refers to Letters & resolutions which were I not to insert, would have the appearance of partiality. I think I had better now leave the adresse[e] party to attack what I have already said or to answer the first letter. If they do not think the triumph on the side of the Rights of Conscience, and of the Rights of Man, is complete, so far as relates to the Controversy in my paper. I can not help remarking, that if Priestcraft had not deeply insituated itself, or rather did it not form a part of the essence of the souls of some people, they could not bear the strong language I used respecting Dr Coke or the insinuation respecting Mr Bradburn without a reply. You mention in your letter that the above party “are now obliged to fly to the secular arm to defend their plan.” Does this allude to the resolution at Leeds, or to any particulars of their Conduct?  If the latter I must wish to be informed of it, as anything of the kind, I would be sure to inform the public of thro’ the medium of my paper, which notwithstanding the new duty, has still an extensive circulation amongst I believe all sects and parties from the High Churchman, to the lowest Unitarian. Dr Priestley has a set sent him to America by every conveyance. 

  I have only to add, that it is my sincere wish, that the principles on which your new societies profess to act, may be preserved inviolate, for I am persuaded that it is only in proportion as they are so, that pure vital christianity as taught by the precepts and example of our common Lord & Master can possibly flourish or spread 

                                                                        Yrs Respectfully

                                                                        B Flower

On the back is a copy of the letter to Flower by “A Lover of Truth”:

Sir,

Lately reading in your instructive and useful paper of the 29th of Sept. an address to the people called Methodists; I was much concerned at the falshood [sic] and misrepresentation with which that address is replete. The author either wants information or integrity, or both. As the following address will fully evince+ the readiness of the Conference to meet the wishes of the people in every thing consistent with the preservation of the beautiful Structure of Methodism; and as you are no less the patron of Truth and Justice than of Religious liberty; I doubt not but you will have the goodness to insert the address as soon as possible. 

                                                                                 A Lover of Truth

+Address to the Methodist Societies

dated—Leeds Aug. 7. ’97, signed by Dr C. & Mr B— 

P.S. Altho’ I am obliged to insist on postage from the common herd of writers, or I should be ruined both in time & money, but I never expect it from a private correspondent whose letters I at all think worth reading. Your Letters will be always welcome, & I shall expect to pay the postage of them in future myself. 

Text: Timothy Whelan, Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845 (Macon: Mercer UP, 2009), pp. 83-86 (annotated version); also Methodist Archives, Alexander Kilham Correspondence, John Rylands University Library of Manchester. Benjamin Flower (1755-1829) was the radical editor of the Cambridge Intelligencer from 1793 to 1803, worshiping at St. Andrew's Street under Robert Hall, 1793-1799. Alexander Kilham (1762-98) founded the Methodist New Connection in 1797. Thomas Coke (1747-1814) was John Wesley’s assistant and leader among the Methodists in England and America. Samuel Bradburn (1751-1816) was one of the leading Methodist itinerant ministers during the 1790s. ]The two works mentioned above are Flower’s The French Constitution: With Remarks on Some of its Principal Articles: in which their Importance in a Political, Moral and Religious Point of View is Illustrated: and the Necessity of a Reformation in Church and State in Great Britain, Enforced  (1792); and  National Sins Considered, in Two Letters to the Rev. Thomas Robinson on his Serious Exhortation to the Inhabitants of Great Britain with Reference to the Past  . . . to which are added a Letter from Rev. Robert Hall, to the Rev. Charles Simeon, and the Reflections on War, by the late Rev. W. Law (Cambridge, 1796). The periodical mentioned above is The Methodist Monitor, published by Kilham.