JULY 26
The Great Salvation is at hand, if you will receive it as the gift of God.
Letter, 21st April, 1787
Lord King’s Account of the Primitive Church convinced me many years ago that bishops and presbyters are the same order, and consequently have the same right to ordain. For many years I have been importuned from time to time to exercise this right, by ordaining part of our travelling [sic] preachers. But I have still refused; not only for peace sake, but because I was determined as little as possible to violate the established order of the national Church to which I belonged.
But the case is widely different between England and North America. Here there are bishops who have a legal jurisdiction. In America, there are none, neither any parish ministers. So that for some hundred miles together there is none either to baptise [sic] or administer the Lord’s Supper.
To American Methodists, 1784
