Wesley. The Church of Christ at Melcomb.

Bishop. That factious and heretical church!

Wesley. May it please you, Sir, I know no faction or heresy that that church is guilty of.

Bishop. No! Did not you preach such things as tend to faction and heresy ?

Wesley. I am not conscious to myself of any such preaching.

Bishop. I am informed by sufficient men, gentlemen of honour of this county, viz. Sir Gerrard Napper, Mr. Freak, and Mr. Tregonnel, of your doings. What say you?

Wesley. Those honoured gentlemen I have been with, who, being by others misinformed, proceeded with some heat against me.

Bishop. There are the oaths of several honest men who have observed you, and shall we take your word for it that all is but misinformation?

Wesley. There was no oath given or taken. Besides, if it be enough to accuse, who shall be innocent? I can appeal to the determination of the great day of judgment, that the large catalogue of matter laid against me are either things invented or mistaken.

Bishop. Did not you ride with your sword in the time of the committee of safety, and engage with them?

Wesley. Whatever imprudences in matters civil you may be informed I am guilty of, I shall crave leave to acquaint your lordship, that his Majesty having pardoned them fully, and I having suffered on account of them since the pardon, I shall put in no other plea, and wave any other answer.

Bishop. In what manner did the church you speak of send you to preach? At this rate every body might preach.

Wesley. Not every one. Every body has not preaching gifts and preaching graces. Besides, that is not all I have to offer to your Lordship to justify my preaching.

Bishop. If you preach it must be according to order; the order of the Church of England upon an ordination.

Wesley. What does your lordship mean by an ordination?

Bishop. Do not you know what I mean?

Wesley. If you mean that sending spoken of Rom. x. I had it.

Bishop. I mean that. What mission had you?

Wesley. I had a mission from God and man.

Bishop. You must have it according to law, and the order of the Church of England.

Wesley. I am not satisfied in my spirit therein.

Bishop. Not satisfied in your spirit! You have more new coined

phrases than ever were heard of! You mean your consience, do you not?

Wesley. Spirit is no new phrase. We read of being sanctified in body, soul, and spirit: but if your lordship like it not so, then I say I am not satisfied in conscience, touching the ordination you speak of.

Bishop. Conscience argues science, science supposes judgment, and judgment reason. What reason have you that you will not

be thus ordained?

Wesley. I came not this day to dispute with your lordship; my own inability would forbid me to do so.

Bishop. No, no: but give me your reason.

Wesley. I am not called to office, and therefore cannot be ordained.

Bishop. Why then have you preached all this while?

Wesley. I was called to the WORK of the ministry, though not to the office. There is, as we believe, vocatio ad opus, et ad munus. Bishop. Why may you not have the office of the ministry? You have so many new distinctions! O, how are you deluded!

Wesley. May it please your lordship, because they are not a people that are fit objects for me to exercise office-work among them.

Bishop. You mean a gathered church: but we must have no gathered churches in England; and you will see it so. For there must be unity without divisions among us; and there can be no unity without uniformity. Well then, we must send you to your church that they may dispose of you, if you were ordained by them.

Wesley. I have been informed by my cousin Pitfield and others concerning your lordship, that you have a disposition inclined against morosity. However, you may be prepossessed by some bitter enemies to my person, yet there are others who can and will give you another character of me. Mr. Glisson hath done it; and Sir Francis Fulford desired me to present his service to you, and being my hearer, is ready to acquaint you concerning me.

Bishop. I asked Sir Francis Fulford whether the presentation to Whitchurch was his. Whose is it? He told me it was not his. Wesley. There was none presented to it these sixty years; Mr. Walton lived there. At his departure, the people desired me to preach to them; and when there was a way of settlement appointed, I was by the trustees appointed, and by the triers approved.

Bishop. They would approve any that would come to them, and close with them. I know they approved those who could not read twelve lines of English.

Wesley. All that they did I know not: but I was examined touching gifts and graces.

Bishop. I question not your gifts, Mr. Wesley. I will do you any good I can: but you will not long be suffered to preach, unless you do it according to order.

Wesley. I shall submit to any trial you shall please to make. I shall present your lordship with a confession of my faith; or take what other way you please to insist on.

Bishop. No. We are not come to that yet.

Wesley. I shall desire several things may be laid together which I look on as justifying my preaching. 1. I was devoted to the service from my infancy. 2. I was educated thereto, at school and in the university.

Bishop. What university were you of?

Wesley. Oxon.

Bishop. What house?

Wesley. New Inn Hall.

Bishop. What age are you?

Wesley. Twenty-five.

Bishop. No sure, you are not!

Wesley. 3. As a son of the prophets, after I had taken my degrees, I preached in the country, being approved of by judicious able Christians, ministers, and others. 4. It pleased God to seal my labour with success, in the apparent conversion of several souls.

Bishop. Yea, that is, it may be, to your own way.

Wesley. Yea, to the power of godliness, from ignorance and profaneness. If it please your lordship to lay down any evidences of godliness agreeing with the Scriptures, and if they be not found in those persons intended, I am content to be discharged from my ministry; I will stand or fall by the issue thereof.

Bishop. You talk of the power of godliness such as you fancy. Wesley. Yea, the reality of religion. Let us appeal to any common place book for evidences of grace, and they are found in and upon these converts.

Bishop. How many are there of them?

Wesley. I number not the people.

Bishop. Where are they?

Wesley. Wherever I have been called to preach. At Radpole, Melcomb, Turnwood, Whitchurch, and at sea. I shall add another ingredient of my mission. 5. When the church saw the God going along with me, they did by fusting and prayer, in a day set apart for that end, seek an abundant blessing on my endeavours.

presence

of

Bishop. A particular church?

Wesley. Yes, my lord. I am not ashamed to own myself a member of one.

Bishop. Why, you mistake the apostle's intent. about to convert heathens, and so did what they did. warrant for your particular churches.

They went You have no

Wesley. We have a plain, full, and sufficient rule for Gospel worship in the New-Testament, recorded in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles.

Bishop. We have not.

Wesley. The practice of the apostles is a standing rule in those cases which were not extraordinary.

Bishop. Not their practice, but their precepts.

Wesley. Both precepts and practice. Our duty is not delivered to us in Scripture only by precepts; but by precedents, by promises, by threatenings mixed; not common-place wise. We are to follow them, as they followed Christ.

Bishop. But the Apostle said, This speak I, not the Lord; that is, by revelation.

Wesley. Some interpret that place, This speak I now, by revelation from the Lord; not the Lord in that text before instanced, when he gave answer to the case concerning divorce. May it please your lordship, we believe that cultus non institutus est indebitus. Bishop. It is false.

Wesley. The second commandment speaks the same, Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image.

Bishop. That is, forms of your own invention.

Wesley. Bishop Andrews, taking notice of non facies tibi, satisfied me that we may not worship God but as commanded.

Bishop. You take discipline, church government, and circumstances, for worship.

Wesley. You account ceremonies a part of worship.

Bishop. But what say you? Did you not wear a sword in the time of the committee of safety, with Demy and the rest of them? Wesley. My lord, I have given you my answer therein: and I farther say, that I have conscientiously taken the oath of allegiance, and faithfully kept it hitherto. I appeal to all that are round about me. Bishop. But nobody will trust you. You stood it out to the last gasp.

Wesley. I know not what you mean by the last gasp. When I saw the pleasure of Providence to turn the order of things, I did submit quietly thereunto.

Bishop. That was at last.

Wesley. Yet many such men are trusted, and now about the king. Bishop. They are such as though on the Parliament side during the war, yet disown those latter proceedings: but you abode even till Haselrig's coming to Portsmouth.

Wesley. His Majesty has pardoned whatever you may be informed of concerning me of that nature. I am not here on that account. Bishop. I expected you not.

Wesley. Your lordship sent your desire by two or three messengers. Had I been refractory, I need not have come: but I would give no just cause of offence. I think the old Nonconformists were none of his majesty's enemies.

Bishop. They were traitors. They began the war. Knox and Buchanan in Scotland, and those like them in England.

Wesley. I have read the protestation, of owning the king's supremacy.

Bishop. They did it in hypocrisy.

Wesley. You used to tax the poor Independents for judging folks' hearts. Who doth it now?

Bishop. I did not; for they pretended one thing and acted another. Do not I know them better than you?

Wesley. I know them by their works; as they have therein delivered us their hearts.

Bishop. Well then, you will justify your preaching, will you, without ordination according to the law?

Wesley. All these things laid together, are satisfactory to me for my procedure therein.

Bishop. They are not enough.

Wesley. There has been more written in proof of preaching of gifted persons with such approbation, than has been answered by

any one yet.

Bishop. Have you any thing more to say to me, Mr. Wesley? Wesley. Nothing. Your lordship sent for me.

Bishop. I am glad I heard this from your own mouth. will stand to your principles, you say?

You

Wesley. I intend it, through the grace of God; and to be faith

ful to the king's majesty, however you deal with me.

Bishop. I will not meddle with you.

Wesley. Farewell to you, Sir.

Bishop. Farewell, good Mr. Wesley.

Calamy's Nonconformists' Memorial, Vol. II. p. 165.

There is no evidence that the bishop forfeited his word by giving Mr. Wesley any disturbance. How he was treated by others we