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To meet their wants, in this crisis of their affairs, was his
imperative duty; and the only question was as to the manner
in which this could be the most effectually done. With respect
to America, he might have requested one of the English
Prelates to ordain some of his Preachers; but he had no hope
from this quarter, having some time before asked the Bishop
of London to ordain one, and been refused. In the present
case it was requisite that the American Preachers in general
should be ordained, or the necessities of the societies could
not be met, scattered as they were over an immense tract of
country and what English Bishop could have access to them.
all? or would lay his hands upon them, if they were even
brought across the Atlantic for the purpose? The King of
Denmark is said to have directed his Bishops, in this emer-
gency, to ordain for the American ministry such persons
as they might deem qualified. But what affinity existed
between the Danish Bishops and the American Methodists?
or between the American Methodists and Dr. Seabury,
who returned to the United States about twelve months
after Dr. Coke had gone thither invested with Mr. Wesley's
authority? Had any Bishops, whether English, Scottish, or
Danish, appointed the Methodist Preachers of America to the
sacred office, they would, of course, have expected to direct
and control the proceedings of the men whom they had thus
sanctioned; and it is impossible to say how far this would
have interfered with the free and apostolic labours to which
these itinerant Evangelists had been accustomed, and which
the Lord had so greatly blessed. "As our American bre-
thren," says Mr. Wesley, "are now totally disentangled both
from the State, and from the English hierarchy, we dare not
entangle them again, either with the one or the other. They
are now at full liberty simply to follow the Scriptures and the
primitive church. And we judge it best that they should
stand fast in the liberty wherewith God has so strangely
made them free."* For a Bishop to ordain any Methodist
Preachers for Scotland was out of the question. They must
be ordained by Mr. Wesley himself, or not at all.

No principle has been more distinctly recognised in the
Methodist Connexion, and more sacredly guarded, than this,

• Works, vol. xiii., p. 219.

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--that personal piety, and an inward call of the Holy Spirit, are essential to the ministerial office. Every man therefore who is appointed to that office among them is required to give satisfactory evidence of unfeigned repentance, of a vital faith in Christ, and of the renewal of his heart by the power of the Holy Ghost; as well as that he possesses competent gifts as a Preacher, and is actually owned of God in the conversion of sinners from the error of their way. It is satisfactory to know that these principles were preserved in the Methodist ordinations for America. Dr. Seabury, the American Bishop, would have ordained those of the transatlantic Preachers whom he might deem duly qualified; but would he have submitted to such a searching examination respecting his own personal reconciliation with God, the regeneration of his heart, and the inward call of the Holy Spirit, as they had all undergone? and without this, how could they, with their principles and usages, accept ordination at his hands? It would have been a strange inconsistency to require spiritualmindedness in one another, as essential to the pastoral office, and yet receive their appointment to that office from a man of whose spirituality they had not satisfactory proof. Mr. Charles Wesley, in his eagerness for Episcopacy, would have sacrificed the principles upon which the Methodists had hitherto invariably acted; but his sharp-sighted brother spared the American Preachers the pain and dishonour of such inconsistency in the most solemn transaction of their lives. It is not intended by these remarks to insinuate that Bishop Seabury was not a converted man. But in the absence of all direct evidence on the subject, it is gratifying to know that he was not employed in conferring the ministerial character upon the numerous and important body of Preachers belonging to the Methodist Church in America. In their case, as well as in that of their brethren in Great Britain, the doctrine of a special divine call to the Christian ministry, and given only to spiritual men, was preserved inviolate.

In ordaining Ministers for America and Scotland, Mr. Wesley did not think that his only justification arose from the necessity of the case. He believed that the act was right in itself, as being in full accordance with the doctrine of holy Scripture, and the practice of the early Christians. It had

long been his conviction that, in the apostolic churches, Presbyters and Bishops were of the same order, and therefore had an equal right to ordain. This principle is well known to have been avowed by Archbishop Cranmer, and by most of the Protestant Reformers on the European continent. The ordination of Ministers in the Church of Scotland, and in the Reformed Churches of Holland, France, and Switzerland, is performed not by Bishops, as a distinct order, but by Presbyters, such as Mr. Wesley himself was; so that if his ordinations were invalid, such have been those of a large proportion of the Clergy of Protestant Christendom for the last three hundred years. And yet Mr. Wesley did not object to Episcopacy, as being in itself unlawful, or necessarily an evil. When several Ministers are united together, as in a national Church, or in a religious Connexion like that of the Methodists, there must be government; and government supposes authority and subordination. What he objected to was the assumption, that diocesan Episcopacy, possessing the exclusive power of ordination and government, was instituted by Christ, and is binding in all ages upon the universal church. He learned from St. Paul, not only that the Presbyters might (6 'rule," but also "rule well;" and that the Presbyters of the church at Ephesus were made Bishops by the Holy Ghost, and yet were known as Presbyters still. Lord King's book on the "Constitution of the primitive Church," and the "Irenicum" of Bishop Stillingfleet, were works to which he generally referred in proof of the correctness of his views. He did not deny that there has been, from the apostolic age, a succession of men to whom the name of Bishop was applied; but he did deny that they had existed from the beginning, and by divine appointment, as a peculiar order, each of them having had a special ordination to the episcopal office, as essentially distinct from that of a Presbyter. Such a succession he declared no man could prove. If in the case of any Bishop such special ordination has been wanting, the succession for which the strict and rigid Episcopalians contend is vitiated; the chain is broken; and the ordinations that have been subsequently performed in the same line, though they should be even the acts of an Archbishop, are not a whit better than those of the Presbyter John Wesley; for no man can communicate to another what he does not himself possess.

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Few writers have expressed themselves with greater clearness on this subject than an episcopal Clergyman of a former age. The Rev. George Lawson, Rector of More, in Shropshire, in the reign of Charles II., one of the ablest theologians of that period, thus expresses himself:-"Though both the definition and the institution of a Bishop be uncertain, and there is no universal consent in respect of either, yet I think a constant Superintendent, not only over the people, but the Presbyters, within a reasonable precinct, if he be duly qualified and rightly chosen, may be lawful, and the place agreeable to Scripture: yet I do not conceive that this kind of Episcopacy is grounded upon any divine special precept of universal obligation, making it necessary for the being of a church, or essential constitution of Presbyters. Neither is there any scripture which determines the form, how such a Bishop, or any other, may be made. Yet it may be grounded upon general precepts of Scripture concerning decency, unity, order, and edification; but so that order and decency may be observed any other way, and unity and edification obtained by other means.

"But there are many in these our days which make Episcopacy, invested with the power of ordination at least of that necessity, that if Ministers are not ordained by them, they are no Ministers. They make the being of the ministry, and the power of the sacraments, to depend on them and they further add, that without a succession of these Bishops we cannot maintain our ministry against the Church of Rome. But, 1. Where do they find in Scripture any special precept of universal and perpetual obligation, which doth determine that the imposition of hands of the Presbytery doth essentially constitute a Presbyter; and that the imposition of hands, if it did so, was invalid without an hierarchical Bishop, or a certain constant Superintendent, with them? And if they will have their doctrine to stand good, such a precept they must produce; which they have not done, which I am confident they cannot do. 2. As for succession of such Bishops, after so long a time, so many persecutions, and so great alterations in the churches of all nations, it is impossible to make it clear. Eusebius himself doth so preface his Catalogue of Bishops, that no rational man can so much as yield a probable assent unto him in that particular. But

suppose it had been far clearer, yet it could not merit the force of a divine testimony: it would have been only human, and could not have been believed but with a probable faith. Nay, Irenæus, Tertullian, Eusebius, and others, do not agree in the first and immediate successors of the Apostles; no, not of the Roman Church. For Irenæus makes Clemens the third, whom Tertullian determines to be the first, from the Apostles. Yet they all agree in this, that the succession of persons, without succession of the same doctrine, was nothing. Tertullian confesseth that there were many churches which could not show the succession of persons, but of doctrine, from the Apostles; and that was sufficient. And the succession of persons is so uncertain, that whosoever shall make either the being of a church, or the ministry, or the power of the sacraments, depend upon it, shall so offend Christ's little ones, and be guilty of such a scandal, as 'it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea.' The power of saving men's souls depends not upon succession of persons, according to human institutions, but upon the apostolical doctrine, accompanied by the divine Spirit. If upon the exercise of their ministerial power men are converted, find comfort in their doctrine and the sacraments, and at their end deliver up their souls unto God their Redeemer, and that with unspeakable joy; this is a divine confirmation of their ministry, and the same more real and manifest than any personal succession.

"To maintain the ministry of England from their ordination by Bishops, and the Bishops by their consecration according to the canons of the Council of Carthage, was a good argument ad hominem; yet it should be made good (as it may be) by far better arguments, and such as will serve the interest of other Protestant and Reformed Churches, who have sufficiently proved their ministry legal; and by experience, through God's blessing upon their labours, have found it effectual. But suppose the succession of our English Episcopacy could be made good since the Reformation; it is to little purpose, except you can justify the Popish succession up to the time of the Apostles; which few will undertake, none (I fear) will perform. Divers reasons persuade me to believe they cannot do anything in this particular to purpose; but among the rest this doth much sway with me, that there

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