Wesley Corpus

I answered: (1) ‘Your argument proves too much. If it be allowed just as you propose it, it proves that no priest has authority either to preach or administer the sacrament in any other than his own congregation.’ You reply, ‘Is there no difference between a thing’s being done occasionally and its being done for years together’ Yes, a great one; and more inconveniences may arise from the latter than from the former. But this is all wide; it does not touch the point. ‘Still, if our Church does expressly limit the exercise of the sacerdotal powers to that congregation whereunto each priest shall be appointed, this precludes him from exercising those powers at all in any other than that congregation.’ I answered: (2) ‘Had the powers conferred been so limited when I was ordained priest, my ordination would have signified just nothing. For I was not appointed to any congregation at all, but was ordained as a member of that “College of Divines” (so our Statutes express it) “founded to overturn all heresies and defend the catholic faith.”’[Bishop Fleming's object in founding Lincoln College.] You reply, ‘I presume it was expected you should either continue at your college or enter upon some regular cure.’ Perhaps so; but I must still insist that, if my sacerdotal powers had been then expressly limited to that congregation whereunto I should be appointed, my ordination would have signified nothing. I mean, I could never, in virtue of that ordination, have exercised those powers at all; seeing I never was appointed to any single congregation--at least, not till I went to Georgia. I answered: (3) ‘For many years after I was ordained priest this limitation was never heard of. I heard not one syllable of it, by way of objection to my preaching up and down in Oxford or London, or the parts adjacent, in Gloucestershire or Worcestershire, in Lancashire, Yorkshire, or Lincolnshire. Nor did the strictest disciplinarian scruple suffering me to exercise those powers wherever I came.’