And be it further enacted, that every certificate of appointment or admission of any such minister, or of any person to officiate as such minister, or of any such probationer pursuant to this Act, shall be subscribed with the respective proper names of the several persons granting the same in their own hand writing, and in the usual manner of their writing and subscribing the same, and in the presence of the person or persons who is or are to be the witness or witnesses to verify the same before the Court of General Session of the Peace in the manner herein directed.
And be it further enacted, that this Act shall be deemed and taken to be a public Act, and shall be judicially taken notice of as such by all Judges, Justices, and others, without being specially pleaded.”
The reader will immediately see, that this Bill would have had a strong operation upon the economy of the Methodists, but the extent of that operation it was impossible to foresee. However, no sooner was the Bill read, than its effects were sufficiently understood to fill them with great alarm and apprehension for their societies, upon which it would have had the most destructive influence. The members of their “Committee of Privileges” were immediately summoned to meet, which they did, May 14, 1811, when they formed, and afterwards published the following resolutions:
AT A MEETING OF THE GENERAL COMMITTEE OF THE SOCIETIES OF THE LATE Rev. JOHN WESLEY.
Convened for the purpose of taking into consideration a Bill, brought into the House of Lords by the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Sidmouth, intituled, “An Act to explain and render more effectual certain Acts of the first year of the Reign of King William and Queen Mary, and of the nineteenth year of the Reign of his present Majesty, so far as the same relate to Protestant dissenting ministers,”
Held at the New-Chapel, City-Road, London,
The 14th of May, 1811;
IT WAS RESOLVED,
I. That the said Bill, if carried into a law, will be a great infringement of the laws of religious toleration, and will be subversive of the most valuable rights and privileges which we as a religious society enjoy.