“Being further ambitious to serve my God, my king, and my country, I sacrificed my affections, and left my native soil, in order to begin and carry on an Orphan House in the infant colony of Georgia, which is now put upon a good foundation. This served as an introduction, though without design, to my visiting the other parts of his Majesty’s dominions in North America; and I humbly hope that many in that foreign clime will be my joy and crown of rejoicing in the day of the Lord Jesus.
“Nay, my lord, if I were not assured that the blessed Redeemer has owned me for the real conversion and turning of many from darkness to light, the weakness of my decaying body, the temptations that have beset my soul, and the violent opposition with which I have met, would long since have led me to accept some of those offers that have been made me to nestle, and by accepting which I might have screened myself from the obloquy and contempt which, in some degree or other, I meet with every day. But, hitherto, without eating a morsel of the Church of England’s bread, I still continue to use her Liturgy, wherever a church or chapel is allowed me, and preach up her Articles, and enforce her Homilies. Your lordship, therefore, judgeth me exceeding right, when you say, ‘I presume you do not mean to declare any dissent from the Church of England.’ Far be it from me. No, my lord, unless thrust out, I shall never leave her; and even then I shall still adhere to her doctrines, and pray for the restoration of her discipline, to my dying day.
“Fond of displaying her truly protestant and orthodox principles, especially when Church and State are in danger from a cruel and popish enemy, I am glad of an opportunity of preaching, though it should be in a meeting-house; and I think it discovers a good and moderate spirit in the Dissenters, who quietly attend on the Church service, as many have done, and continue to do at Long Acre chapel, while many, who style themselves the faithful sons of the Church, have endeavoured to disturb and molest us.
“If the lessor of this chapel has no power to let it, or if it be not legally licensed, I have been deceived; and if, upon enquiry, I find this to be the case, I shall soon declare, in the most public manner, how I have been imposed upon. But if it appears that the lessor has a right to dispose of his own property, and that the place is licensed, and as some good, Itrust, has been done by this foolishness of preaching, surely your lordship’s candour will overlook a little irregularity, since, I fear, that, in these dregs of time wherein we live, we must be obliged to be irregular, or we must do no good at all.
“My lord, I remember well (and O that I may more than ever obey your lordship’s admonition!) that awful day, wherein I was ordained priest, and when authority was given me, by my honoured friend and father, good Bishop Benson, to preach the word of God; but never did I so much as dream that this was only a local commission, or that the condition annexed, ‘Where you shall be lawfully appointed thereunto,’ was to confine me to any particular place, and that it would be unlawful for me to preach out of it. It is plain my Lord Bishop of Gloucester did not think so; for when his secretary brought a license for me, his lordship said, it would cost me thirty shillings, and therefore I should not have it. And when, after being presented to the late Bishop of London, I applied to him for a license, his lordship was pleased to say I was going to Georgia, and needed none. Accordingly, I preached in most of the London churches, under his lordship’s immediate inspection; and why any other license than my letters of orders should now be required, I believe no substantial, I am positive no scriptural, reason can be assigned.
“It is true, as your lordship observes, there is one canon that says, ‘No curate or minister shall be permitted to serve in any place, without examination and admission of the Bishop of the Diocese.’ And there is another, as quoted by your lordship, which tells us, ‘Neither minister, churchwarden, nor any other officers of the Church shall suffer any man to preach within their chapels, but such as, by shewing their license to preach, shall appear unto them to be sufficiently authorised thereunto.’ But, my lord, what curacy or parsonage have I desired, or do I desire to be admitted to serve in? or, into what church or chapel do I attempt to intrude myself, without leave from the churchwardens or other officers? Being, as I think, without cause, denied admission into the churches, I am content to take the field, and, when the weather will permit, with a table for my pulpit, and the heavens for my sounding-board, I desire to proclaim to all the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ. Besides, my lord, if this canon should be always put into full execution, I humbly presume, no bishop or presbyter can legally preach at any time out of the diocese in which he is appointed to serve; and, consequently, no city incumbent can even occasionally be lawfully assisted by any country clergyman; or even can a bishop himself be lawfully permitted to preach a charity sermon out of his own diocese, without a special license for so doing.
“As for the other canon which your lordship mentions, and which runs thus, ‘Neither shall any minister, not licensed as is aforesaid, presume to appoint or hold any meetings for sermons, commonly termed, by some, prophecies or exercises, in market towns or other places, under the said pains,’—I need not inform your lordship, that it was originally levelled against those who would not conform to the Church of England, and that, too, in such high-flying times as not one of the present moderate bench of bishops would wish to see restored. If this be so, how, my lord, doesthis canon belong to me, who am episcopally ordained, and have very lately published a small tract recommending the communion office of the Church of England?
“But, my lord, to come nearer to the point in hand. And, for Christ’s sake, let not your lordship be offended with my using such plainness of speech. As in the presence of the living God, I would put it to your lordship’s conscience, whether there is one bishop or presbyter, in England, Wales, or Ireland, who looks upon our canons as his rule of action? If this opinion be true, we are all perjured with a witness, and, in a very bad sense of the word, irregular indeed. If the canons of our Church are to be implicitly obeyed, may I not say, ‘He, who is without the sin of acting illegally, let him cast the first stone at me, and welcome.’ Your lordship knows full well, that canons and other Church laws are good and obligatory, when conformable to the laws of Christ, and agreeable to the liberties of a free people; but, when invented and compiled by men of little hearts and bigotted principles, to hinder persons of more enlarged souls from doing good, or being more extensively useful, they become mere bruta fulmina; and, when made use of as cords to bind the hands of a zealous few, who honestly appear for their king, their country, and their God, they may, in my opinion, like the withes with which the Philistines bound Samson, very legally be broken. As I have not the canons at present before me, I cannot tell what pains and penalties are to be incurred for such offence; but, if any penalty is incurred, or any pain to be inflicted on me, for preaching against sin, the Pope, and the devil, and for recommending the strictest loyalty to the best of princes, his Majesty King George, in this metropolis, or in any other part of his Majesty’s dominions, I trust, through grace, I shall be enabled to say,—
‘All hail reproach, and welcome pain!’
“There now remains but one more particular in your lordship’s letter to be answered,—your lordship’s truly apostolical canon, taken out of 2 Cor. x. 16,—upon reading of which, I could not help thinking of a passage in good Mr. Philip Henry’s life. It was this. Being ejected out of the Church, and yet thinking it his duty to preach, Mr. Henry used, now and then, to give the people of Broad-Oaks, where he lived, a gospel sermon; and one day, as he was coming from his exercise, he met with the incumbent, and thus addressed him: ‘Sir, I have been taking the liberty of throwing a handful of seed into your field.’ ‘Have you?’ said the good man. ‘May God give it His blessing! There is work enough for us both.’ This, my lord, I humbly conceive, is the case, not only of your lordship, but of every minister’s parish in London, and of every bishop’s diocese in England; and, therefore, as good is done, and souls are benefited, I hope your lordship will not regard a little irregularity, since, at the worst, it is only the irregularity of doing well. But, supposing this should not be admitted as an excuse at other seasons, I hope it will have its weight at this critical juncture, wherein, if there were ten thousand sound preachers, and each preacher had a thousand tongues, they could not be too frequently employed in calling upon the inhabitants of GreatBritain to be upon their guard against the cruel and malicious designs of France, of Rome, and of hell.