Wesley Corpus

But what has that case to do with the case of common Clergymen? Only so much as to show how grossly this Canon has been abused, at Islington in particular; where the Churchwardens were instructed to hinder, by main force, the Priest whom the Vicar himself had appointed, from preaching, and to quote this Canon; which, as you plainly show, belongs to quite another thing. In the note you add, “Mr. Wesley being asked, by what authority he preached, replied, “By the authority of Jesus Christ conveyed to me by the (now) Archbishop of Canterbury, when he laid his hands upon me and said, Take thou authority to preach the gospel. In this reply he thought fit, for a plain reason, to leave out this latter part of the commission; for that would have shown his reader the restraint and limitation under which the exercise of the power is granted.” Nay, I did not print the latter part of the words, for a plainer reason, because I did not speak them. And I did not speak them then, because they did not come into my mind. Though probably, if they had, I should not have spoken them; it being my only concern, to answer the question proposed, in as few words as I could. But before those words, which you suppose to imply such a restraint as would condemn all the Bishops and Clergy in the nation, were those, spoken without any restraint or limitation at all, which I apprehend to convey an indelible character: “Receive the Holy Ghost, for the office and work of a Priest in the Church of God, now committed unto thee, by the impo sition of our hands. Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained. And be thou a faithful dispenser of the word of God, and of his holy sacraments, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” You proceed: “In the same Journal he declares, that he looks upon all the world as his parish, and explains his mean ing as follows: ‘In whatever part of it I am, I judge it meet, right, and my bounden duty, to declare, unto all that are willing to hear, the glad tidings of salvation.