140 History of Methodism 



raments, and required to urge their people to attend 

 the services of the Established Church, and to receive 

 the ordinances at the hands of her ministers. 



It was not from any sense of inability that Mr. Wes- 

 ley allowed his preachers in England to remain in the 

 position of laymen, and the great majority of his so- 

 cieties to continue without the administration of the 

 sacraments in their own places of worship — he fully 

 believed that he possessed the scriptural power and 

 right to supply all this want, to place his societies 

 everywhere in the position of churches, and himself 

 in the character of a scriptural bishop over the largest 

 spiritual nock in the country; but it was because he 

 considered the orders of the ministry in the Estab- 

 lished Church reasonable and useful as human ar- 

 rangements, and because he felt conscientiously bound 

 to remain all his life in communion with this Church, 

 and, as far as in him lay, to keep his people in the same 

 path. To secure this object he subjected himself and 

 them to violent persecution — from which the plea of 

 dissent would have given full protection — and retained 

 his societies in a disadvantageous and anomalous po- 

 sition. And so long as the American colonies were 

 subject to the British government, he pursued a 

 similar course in this country. When, however, the 

 United States were recognized as independent, and 

 England had renounced all civil and ecclesiastical au- 

 thority over them, then Mr. Wesley felt that in respect 

 to the societies in this country there remained no rea- 

 son why he should deprive them of those privileges 

 which, in their case especially, were necessary to their 

 religious stability; which they could obtain from no 

 other source, and which he was perfectly competent 

 to communicate. He accordingly ordained Dr. Coke 



