Page:Records of the Life of the Rev. John Murray.djvu/224

214 with them, as their settled minister; and, in the month of December, in the year 1780, did appoint, set apart, and ordain him to the work of the ministry, and to be their teacher of piety, religion, and morality; that ever since that period, he has considered himself, and has been considered by the people he has statedly laboured amongst, as their ordained minister, and though your petitioner has, on sundry occasions, visited, and laboured amongst his Christian friends, in other places, it has always been with the consent of his people, they still looking on him, and he on himself, as their ordained minister. It also appears, that the people, among whom your petitioner has frequently laboured, have considered him in the same light; as they have formally requested license of his people of Gloucester, who, after consultation, granted that license. Another circumstance, that tended to confirm your petitioner in the belief of his being an ordained minister in the strictest sense of the word, and according to the letter and spirit of the law, was the verdict given in favour of him and his people, by the Honourable Supreme Court and jury, when, after suffering much abuse from their persecuting opponents in Gloucester, they were reduced to the necessity of applying to the laws of their country, for redress and protection. But their opponents, dissatisfied with the verdict then obtained, demanded a review; after which review, the former verdict was confirmed by the full, and decided opinion of the honourable court given in their favour.

"Being thus by constitutional right, and legal decision, established as an independent minister, settled with, and ordained by, the joint suffrages of the members of that Religious Society, your petitioner supposed his troubles from his persecuting enemies were at an end. And upon consulting council learned in the law, who gave it as their decided opinion that he was an ordained minister, he proceeded to perform the ceremony of marriage to such of his hearers, who made application to him for that purpose. But some of his opponents, unacquainted with the independent mode of ordination, and presuming your petitioner was not ordained, because the same ceremonies were not made use of in his ordination, to the use of which they were accustomed, brought the question of your petitioner's right of officiating as an ordained minister, before the Judges of the Supreme Judicial Court, who gave it as their opinion, that he was not an ordained minister, in the sense of the law, as the forms of his ordination were not sufficienly [sic] notorious. Your petitioner, and the people who ordained him, conceived his ordination was sufficiently notorious, as the article was subscribed by every member of the society; and the honourable court considered him a public