‘Are you prepared, in the name of our heavenly Master, to stand forth for a new anti-slavery, anti-intemperance, anti-every-thing wrong, church organization?’ —Rev. Orange Scott in 1842‘...We believe that the sale and trafficking of tobacco, alcohol and other nonmedicinal drugs is a social evil which is draining and corrupting to society, and thus we believe that the best position is to practice total abstinence, protesting both the legal and illegal trade of such substances.’
Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia, 1997, ‘Statement on Social Issues’, , National Conference Minutes, p. 104
See also: Duty to denounce alcohol by Rev. Adam Crooks, Wesleyan Methodist Church
‘Are you prepared, in the name of our heavenly Master, to stand forth for a new anti-slavery, anti-intemperance, anti-every-thing wrong, church organization?’ —Rev. Orange Scott in 1842
‘Life of Orange Scott’, p. 202
True Wesleyans never compromise. Be proud of your history. Can the anti-holiness intoxicated slaveholding evolutionary eugenics compromisers be so proud of theirs?
‘Touch not with the poison thy lips,
If thou wouldst be free from its pains;
For he is in danger who sips—
He only is safe who abstains.’
The anti-poison hymns were printed adjacent to the anti-slavery ones.
See early ‘Wesleyan Methodist hymnbook’ 1846, p. 403
He attacked ‘the new doctrine of compromise,’ and organized the Wesleyan Methodist Connection in 1843.
‘John Wesley and his coadjutors in England, braved public opinion. When Mr. Wesley was expelled from the churches, he preached in grave-yards, public markets, and open fields! And though public opinion commanded Mr. Wesley to desist through the medium of mobs, still he stood it out! Shame on his compromising sons!’
Rev. Orange Scott, ‘Public Opinion’, Life of Orange Scott, p. 94
‘As the pastor of a small company of [Wesleyan Methodist] Christians worshipping in this city ... whose terms of membership require total abstinence from all intoxicating drinks—and non-fellowship for all slave-holding, I am more than content with my lot.’
Rev. Lucius C. Matlack, 1845, ‘Narrative of the Anti-Slavery Experience’
‘We may not innocently stand by and permit the infliction of injuries by others’ ‘by forces, both moral and legal, we prevent all others from the worse than murderous traffic in liquors that can intoxicate.’
Rev. Adam Crooks, 1870, ‘Duty to denounce alcohol by Rev. Adam Crooks’, Wesleyan Methodist Church
‘But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and be drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him...’ —Jesus Christ our Lord
Luke 12:45,46