[As some American Methodists have expressed dissatisfaction with Mr.
Tyerman’s views (vol. iii., p. 426 _et seq._) of Wesley’s ordination
of Coke and organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the
following exhaustive review of the question is cited from Dr. Abel
Stevens’s History of Methodism, vol. ii., p. 209 _et seq._]
It is another of the great providential facts of Wesley’s history that
the same year which gave a constitutional security to Methodism in
Great Britain was signalized by its episcopal organization in America,
a measure which, by its consequences, may well be ranked among the
most important events of Wesley’s important life. Here again did he
follow, with simple wisdom, the guidance of that divine Providence,
the recognition of which in the affairs of men, and especially in the
affairs of the Church, was the crowning maxim of his philosophy and
the crowning fact of his policy. He had been providentially preparing
for this new and momentous exigency by that gradual development of
his personal opinions which we have already traced. Bigoted even,
as a High-Churchman, at the beginning of his career, we have seen
him, year after year, attaining more liberal views of ecclesiastical
policy. Nearly forty years before his ordinations for America, he
had, after reading Lord King’s “Primitive Church,” renounced the
opinion that a distinction of order, rather than of office, existed
between bishops and presbyters.[788] Fifteen years later he denied the
necessity, though not the expediency, of episcopal ordination. Bishop
Stillingfleet had convinced him that it was “an entire mistake that
none but episcopal ordination was valid.”[789] Henceforth he held that
presbyters and bishops, identical in order, differing only in office,
had essentially the same right of ordination. It was not possible
for a man like Wesley, keen, quick, fearless, and candid, to remain
long in any ecclesiastical prejudice now that he was on this track of
progressive opinions. He soon broke away from all other regard for
questions of Church government than that of Scriptural expediency;
and as early as 1756, when in his maturest intellectual vigor, he
declares: “As to my own judgment, I still believe ‘the episcopal form
of Church government to be Scriptural and apostolical’--I mean, well
agreeing with the practice and writings of the apostles; but that it is
prescribed in Scripture I do not believe. This opinion, which I once
zealously espoused, I have been heartily ashamed of ever since I read
Bishop Stillingfleet’s ‘Irenicon.’ I think he has unanswerably proved
that ‘neither Christ nor his apostles prescribe any particular form
of Church government, and that the plea of divine right for diocesan
episcopacy was never heard of in the primitive Church.’”[790]
It was, then, by no new assumption in his old age--in his imbecility,
as some of his critics allege, that he now met the necessities
of American Methodism by ordaining men to provide for them. His
keenest-eyed associates could as yet detect no declension of his
faculties; and if they could, still his course in this case was in
accordance with the reasonings of his best days, and he but repeats
his long-established opinions when he now asserts, “I firmly believe
I am a Scriptural _episcopos_ as much as any man in England, for the
uninterrupted succession I know to be a fable, which no man ever did or
can prove.”[791]
Methodism had spread rapidly in America, notwithstanding the war of
the Revolution. It now comprised eighty-three traveling preachers,
besides some hundreds of local preachers, and about fifteen thousand
members and many thousands of hearers, and its ecclesiastical plans
were extending a network of powerful agencies over the country.
The Revolution had not only dissolved the civil, but also the
ecclesiastical relations of the colonies to England. Many of the
English clergy, on whom the Methodist societies had depended for
the sacraments, had fled from the land, or had entered political or
military life, and the Episcopal Church had been generally disabled.
In Virginia, the centre of its colonial strength, it had rapidly
declined, morally as well as numerically. At the Declaration of
Independence it included not more than one third of the population of
that province.[792] At the beginning of the war the sixty-one counties
of Virginia contained ninety-five parishes, one hundred and sixty-four
churches, and ninety-one clergymen. At the conclusion of the contest
many of her churches were in ruins, nearly a fourth of her parishes
“extinct or forsaken,” and thirty-four of the remaining seventy-two
were without pastoral supplies; twenty-eight only of her ninety-one
clergymen remained, and these, with an addition, soon after the war,
of eight from other parts of the country, ministered in but thirty-six
parishes.[793] In the year in which Wesley ordained an American
Methodist bishop, “memorials” to the Virginia Legislature for the
incorporation of the “Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia,” and
for other advantages to religion, were met by counter petitions that
“no step might be taken in aid of religion, but that it might be left
to its own superior and successful influence.”[794] The memorials were
postponed till the next session, and then rejected; but a bill for the
“incorporation of all religious societies which may apply for the same”
was adopted. In other parts of the country the English Church never had
been numerically strong, and its existence was now precarious, except
in two or three large cities.
Under these circumstances the Methodists demanded of their preachers
the administration of the sacraments. Many of the societies had
been months, some of them years, without them. The demand was not
only urgent, it was logically valid, but by the majority of the
preachers it was not deemed expedient. The prudent delay which Wesley,
notwithstanding his liberal ecclesiastical principles, had practiced in
England, afforded a lesson which their good sense could not disregard.
They exhorted their people, therefore, to wait patiently till he could
be consulted. Thomas Rankin, one of Wesley’s missionaries, presiding at
the Conference of Deer Creek, Maryland, 1777, induced them to delay one
year. At the next session the subject was again prudently postponed,
as no English preacher was present, Rankin having returned to England,
and Asbury being absent and sick. In 1779 the question occasioned a
virtual schism, the preachers of the South being resolute for the
administration of the sacraments, those of the North still pleading for
patient delay. The latter met in Conference at Judge White’s residence,
the retreat of Asbury, in Delaware; the former at Brockenback Church,
Fluvanna County, Virginia, where they made their own appointments, and
proceeded to ordain themselves by the hands of three of their senior
members, unwilling that their people should longer be denied their
right to the Lord’s Supper, and their children and probationary members
the rite of baptism. At the session of 1780 Asbury was authorized to
visit the Southern preachers, and, if possible, conciliate them. He met
them in Conference; they appeared determined not to recede, but at last
consented to suspend the administration of the sacraments till further
advice could be received from Wesley. The breach was thus happily
repaired, but must evidently soon again be opened if redress should not
be obtained.[795]
What could Wesley do under these circumstances? What but exercise the
right of ordination which he had for years theoretically claimed, but
practically and prudently declined? He had importuned the authorities
of the English Church in behalf of the Americans. In this very year
he had written two letters to Lowth, Bishop of London, imploring
ordination for a single preacher, who might appease the urgency of the
American brethren by traveling among them as a presbyter, and by giving
them the sacraments; but the request was denied, Lowth replying that
“there are three ministers in that country already.” “What are these,”
rejoined Wesley, “to watch over all that extensive country? I mourn
for poor America, for the sheep scattered up and down therein--part
of them have no shepherds at all, and the case of the rest is little
better, for their shepherds pity them not.”[796] If there was any
imprudence on the part of Wesley in this emergency, it was certainly
in his long-continued patience, for he delayed yet nearly four years.
When he yielded, it was only after the triumph of the American arms and
the acknowledged independence of the colonies; and not then till urged
to it by his most revered counselors. Fletcher, of Madeley, was one of
these. That good man’s interest for American Methodism should endear
his memory to the American Church. He had thoughts at one time of going
to the New World and of giving himself to its struggling societies, but
his feeble health forbade him.
Fletcher was present with Wesley and Coke at the Leeds Conference of
1784, and there, with his assistance,[797] the question was brought to
an issue. Wesley had previously consulted with Coke respecting it. He
represented to Coke that as the Revolution had separated the United
States from the mother country, and the Episcopal Establishment was
utterly abolished in the States, it became his duty, as providentially
at the head of the Methodist societies, to obey their demand and
furnish for them the means of grace. He referred to the example of
the Alexandrian Church, which, at the death of its bishops, provided
their successors through ordination by its presbyters--a historical
fact exemplified during two hundred years. Recognized as their founder
by the American Methodists, required by them to provide for their new
necessities, and unable to induce the English prelates to do so, he
proposed to appoint Coke, that he might go to the American societies
as their superintendent or bishop, ordain their preachers, and thus
afford them the sacraments with the least possible irregularity. Coke
hesitated, but in two months wrote to Wesley accepting the office.[798]
Accordingly, accompanied by Rev. James Creighton, a presbyter of
the Church of England, Coke met him at Bristol, and on the second
of September, 1784, was ordained _superintendent or bishop of the
Methodist societies in America_, an act of as high propriety and
dignity as it was of urgent necessity. Richard Whatcoat and Thomas
Vasey were at the same time ordained presbyters; and on the third of
November, attended by his two presbyters (the number necessary to
assist a bishop in ordination, according to the usages of the English
Church), Coke arrived in the Republic, and proceeded to ordain Francis
Asbury, first as a deacon, then as a presbyter, and finally as a
bishop, and to settle the organization of American Methodism, one of
the most important ecclesiastical events (whether for good or evil)
of the eighteenth century, or indeed since the Reformation, as its
historical consequences attest.
The Colonial English Church being dissolved by the Revolution, its
dwindled fragments were yet floating, as had been the Methodist
societies, on the stormy tide of events. Methodism preceded it in
reorganization. The Methodist bishops were the first Protestant
bishops, and Methodism was the first Protestant Episcopal Church of
the New World;[799] and as Wesley had given it the Anglican Articles
of Religion (omitting the seventeenth, on Predestination), and the
Liturgy, wisely abridged, it became, both by its precedent organization
and its subsequent numerical importance, the real successor to the
Anglican Church in America.
Of course this extraordinary but necessary measure met with opposition
from Charles Wesley. He still retained his High-Church opinions;
he denounced the ordinations as schism; with his usual haste he
predicted that Coke would return from “his Methodist Episcopal Church
in Baltimore” to “make us all Dissenters here.” The poet was no
legislator; he became pathetic in his remonstrances to his brother;
“alas!” he wrote, “what trouble are you preparing for yourself, as well
as for me, and for your oldest, truest, best friends! Before you have
quite broken down the bridge, stop and consider! If your sons have no
regard for you, have some for yourself. Go to your grave in peace; at
least suffer me to go first, before this ruin is under your hand.”
He did soon after go to his grave in peace, except the alarms of his
imaginary fears, and the only evidence of the predicted “ruin” is seen
to-day in the prevalent and permanent success of Methodism in both
hemispheres.
The next year after the ordination of Coke, Wesley records in
his Journal: “I was now considering how strangely the grain of
mustard-seed, planted about fifty years ago, had grown up. It spread
through all Great Britain and Ireland, the Isle of Wight, and the Isle
of Man; then to America, through the whole continent, into Canada, the
Leeward Islands, and Newfoundland. And the societies in all these parts
walk by one rule, knowing religion is holy tempers, and striving to
worship God, not in form only, but likewise in spirit and in truth.”
His policy becomes more and more liberal as he now finds it necessary
to fortify his cause before his approaching death. The following
year (1786) he ordained six or seven more preachers, sending some to
Scotland, and others to the West Indies,[800] but he ordained none as
yet for England, where he and his clerical friends could partially
supply the sacraments. Three years later he ordained Mather, Rankin,
and Moore.[801] About a score of lay preachers received ordination
from his hands, and for no other purpose but that they might administer
the sacraments in cases of necessity.
Thus did providential events give shape and security to Methodism, as
its aged leader approached his end.
No act of Wesley’s public life has been more misrepresented, if
not misunderstood, than his ordination of Coke, and the consequent
episcopal organization of his American societies. Churchmen, so called,
have especially insisted that he did not design to confer upon Coke
the character of a bishop; that Coke’s new office was designed to be
a species of supervisory appointment, vague and contingent--something
widely different from episcopacy, however difficult to define; and
that, therefore, the distinct existence of American Methodism, as an
episcopal Church, is a fact contrary to the intention of Wesley.
No extant forensic argument, founded upon documentary evidence, is
stronger than would be a right collocation of the evidence which
sustains the claim of American Methodism respecting this question. All
Methodist authorities, British as well as American, support that claim;
its proofs have been more or less cited again and again, but they have
not usually been drawn out in detail. Presented in their right series,
they become absolutely decisive, and must conclude the controversy with
all candid minds. It is appropriate, at this point of our narrative, to
review the argument. In stating the facts which compose it, in their
successive relations one to another, some repetition will be necessary;
but the highest logic--mathematical demonstration itself--is that in
which not only the postulates, but the successive proofs most often
recur to strengthen the advancing demonstration.
It has been seen that, as before the American Revolution the two
countries were under one government, the two Methodist bodies were
also. Wesley’s “Minutes” were the discipline of the American as well as
the British Methodists; and Asbury represented his person in America,
vested with much greater powers than have since belonged to the
American Methodist bishops. Thus was the American Church governed for
years by the paternal direction of Wesley. It has been further shown
that, as none of the American preachers were ordained, the societies
were dependent for the sacraments upon the clergy of the English Church
in the colonies; that at the Revolution most of these left the country,
and the Methodists were thereby deprived of those means of grace; that
many societies insisted upon having them without ordination; that a
general strife ensued, and a large portion of the Southern societies
revolted; that a compromise was effected until they could apply to
Wesley for powers to ordain and to administer the sacraments; and
that, in meeting their demand, he ordained and sent over Dr. Coke,
with episcopal powers, under the name of superintendent, to ordain
Francis Asbury a “joint superintendent,” and to ordain the preachers
to the offices of deacons and elders. He sent also a printed liturgy,
or “Sunday Service,” containing, besides the usual prayers, forms for
“ordaining superintendents, elders, and deacons,” the “Articles of
Religion,” and “A Collection of Psalms and Hymns.” Coke also bore from
him a circular letter to the societies, stating reasons for the new
measures, the chief one being the demand of the American societies.
When Coke arrived, the preachers assembled in Baltimore to receive him
and the new arrangements borne by him from Wesley. The adoption of the
provisions thus made by Wesley, at the request of “some thousands of
the inhabitants of these states,” is what is called the “organization”
of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The “Minutes,” which had before
been the law of the Church, were continued, with such additions as
were required by these new arrangements. There was no revolution of
the Church polity, and no new powers were imparted to Asbury, except
authority to ordain. Every thing proceeded as before, except that the
American societies no longer depended upon the Church of England for
the sacraments, but received them from their own preachers. Thus, then,
it appears that the so-called “organization” of the Methodist Episcopal
Church at Baltimore was simply and substantially the adoption of the
system appointed by Wesley. In respect to the very term “episcopal”
itself, the Conference of Baltimore said, in their “Minutes” of the
so-called organization, that, “following the counsel of Mr. John
Wesley, _who recommended the episcopal mode_ of Church government,
we thought it best to become an episcopal Church.”[802] The Minutes
containing this declaration were, six months afterward, in the hands of
Wesley, and were published in England without a word of disapprobation
from him; and when Coke was attacked in an English pamphlet for his
proceedings at Baltimore, he publicly defended himself by declaring
that he had “done nothing without the direction of Mr. Wesley.” This he
did in a publication, under the eye of Wesley.[803]
It should be frankly admitted, however, that Wesley, while he
established the American episcopacy, did not approve the use of the
title of “bishop,” because of the adventitious dignities associated
with it. But let it be borne in mind that the American societies
had been in existence nearly four years under the express title
of an “Episcopal Church,” with the uninterrupted approbation of
Wesley, before the name bishop was personally applied to their
superintendents.[804] Not till this term was so applied did he demur.
He then wrote a letter to Bishop Asbury objecting strongly to his being
“called a bishop.” And it is on this letter, more than any thing else,
that the opponents of Methodism have founded their allegation that
Wesley did not design to establish the American Methodist episcopacy,
but that Coke and the Baltimore Conference exceeded his intentions in
assuming it. Quotations from this letter have been incessantly given
in a form adapted only to produce a false effect, for the letter can
be rightly comprehended only by the aid of the historical facts of the
case.
Did Wesley, then, design, by his ordination of Coke, to confer on
him the office of a bishop, and to constitute the American Methodist
societies an episcopal Church? Three things are to be assumed as
preliminary to this inquiry:
1. That Wesley was a decided Episcopalian. What man was ever more
attached to the national episcopacy of England? We have already cited
proofs that he believed the “episcopal form of Church government to
be Scriptural and apostolical,” that is, “well agreeing with the
practice and writings of the apostles,” though that it is prescribed in
Scripture he did not believe.
2. That Wesley, while he believed in episcopacy, belonged to that
class of Episcopalians who contend that episcopacy is not a distinct
“order” (in the usual technical or ecclesiastical sense of the term),
but a distinct office in the ministry; that bishops and presbyters,
or elders, are of the same order, and have essentially the same
prerogatives; but that, for convenience, some of this order may be
raised to the episcopal office, and some of the functions originally
pertaining to the whole order, as ordination, for example, may be
confined to them; the presbyter thus elevated being but _primus inter
pares_--the first among equals--a presiding officer.[805]
3. That the words _episcopos_ (Greek), _superintendent_ (Latin), and
bishop (English)[806] have the same meaning, namely, an overseer.
With these preliminaries, we recur to the questions, Did Wesley appoint
Coke to the episcopal office? Did he establish the American Methodist
episcopacy? Let us look at the evidence.
1. Wesley mentions, in Coke’s certificate of ordination, as a reason
for ordaining him, that the Methodists in America desired “still to
adhere to the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England.”[807]
That Church in America was dissolved by the Revolution; he therefore
appointed Coke, with an episcopal form of government, a ritual, and
articles of religion, to meet the exigency. If Coke was appointed
merely to some such indefinite and contingent supervisory office
as “Church” writers allege, if he possessed not the authoritative
functions of episcopacy, wherein did his appointment answer the purpose
mentioned by Wesley--“the discipline of the Church of England?” Wherein
consists the main feature of the discipline of the English Church?
In its episcopal superintendence. Wherein does American Methodism
resemble it? Certainly not in class-meetings, itinerancy, and other
characteristic peculiarities, but in its episcopal regimen. Wesley’s
language is without sense if this is not its meaning.
2. Why did Wesley attach so much importance to the appointment if it
was of the secondary character alleged? He says in his circular letter
respecting Coke’s ordination, “For many years I have been importuned,
from time to time, to exercise this right by _ordaining_ part of our
traveling 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 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 are none either to baptize or administer the sacrament. Here,
therefore, my scruples are at an end!”
Scruples! What could have been his “scruples” about sending Coke on
such a secondary errand as the opponents of the Methodist episcopacy
assert? He had already sent Asbury and others to America, and to Asbury
he had actually assigned such a special yet secondary office, but
unaccompanied with the ordination and authority of episcopacy. This he
had done years before, without any scruple whatever; but during all
this time he had been scrupling about this new and solemn measure,
till the Revolution relieved him by abolishing the jurisdiction of the
English bishops in the colonies. There is certainly sheer absurdity in
all this if Wesley merely gave to Coke and Asbury a sort of indefinite
though special commission in the American Church, not including in it
the distinctive functions of episcopacy. We can conceive of nothing in
the nature of such a commission to excite such scruples--a commission
which had long since been given to Asbury.
Again: When Wesley proposed to Coke his ordination to this new office,
some six or seven months before it was conferred, Coke “was startled
at a measure so unprecedented in modern days,” and doubted Wesley’s
authority to ordain him, as Wesley himself was not a bishop.[808]
Wesley recommended him to read Lord King’s Primitive Church, and gave
him time to reflect. Coke passed two months in Scotland, and, on
satisfying his doubts, wrote to Wesley accepting the appointment, and
was afterward ordained, with solemn forms and the imposition of hands,
by Wesley, assisted by presbyters of the Church of England. What could
have possibly been the pertinency of all these former scruples of
Wesley, this surprise, and doubt, and delay of Coke, this reference to
ecclesiastical antiquity, and to a book which demonstrates the right of
presbyters to ordain bishops in given cases, and these solemn forms, if
they related merely to the alleged species of appointment, especially
as this very species of commission had already existed for some years
in the person of Asbury?
3. It is evident, beyond all question, that Wesley did not consider
this solemn act in the subordinate sense of an appointment, but as
an “ordination,” using the word in its strictest ecclesiastical
application. In his circular letter he says, “For many years I have
been importuned ... to exercise this right by _ordaining_ a part of
our traveling preachers; but I have still refused ... because I was
determined as little as possible to violate the established order of
the national Church.... Here my scruples are at an end.” Here the
word ordaining is expressly used; and if the new appointment was not
a regular “ordination,” but a species of nondescript commission,
solemnized by the mere forms of ordination, how could it be an
interference with the “established order of the national Church?”
How, especially, could it be such an interference, in any important
sense different from that which Wesley had already, for years, been
exercising without “scruple,” in sending to America his unordained
preachers? It was clearly an ordination, in the ecclesiastical sense
of the term; but there have been only three ordinations claimed in the
Christian world, namely, to the offices of, 1. Deacons; 2. Elders or
presbyters; and, 3. Bishops. If, then, Coke was ordained by Wesley,
and was not ordained a bishop, it becomes at once a pertinent but
unanswerable question, To what was he ordained? He had been a presbyter
for years. To what, then, did Wesley ordain him, if not to the next
recognized office?
Let it be remembered that Whatcoat and Vasey were ordained elders
for America at the time of Coke’s ordination, but by a distinct act.
If Coke did not receive a higher ordination (that is, episcopal, for
this is the only higher one), why was he ordained separately from
them, though on the same occasion? And why did Wesley, in his circular
letter, declare to the American Methodists that, while Whatcoat and
Vasey were “to act as elders among them,” Coke and Asbury were “to be
joint superintendents over them?”
4. Wesley, in his circular letter, appeals to Lord King’s Sketch of
the Primitive Church to show that he, as a presbyter, had a right,
under his peculiar circumstances, to perform these ordinations. Lord
King establishes the second of the above preliminary statements, and
the right of presbyters to ordain. And Wesley cites particularly his
reference to the Alexandrian Church, where, on the decease of a bishop,
the presbyters ordained his successor.
Why now this reference to Lord King and the Alexandrian Church--proving
that presbyters could ordain--in justification of Wesley’s proceedings,
if he did not ordain? And if he did ordain Coke, it may again be
asked, as Coke was already a presbyter, To what was he thus ordained,
if it was not to the only remaining office--the episcopacy? And still
more pointedly may it be asked, What propriety was there in Wesley’s
justifying himself by referring to the ordination of bishops by the
presbyters of Alexandria if he himself had not ordained a bishop?
5. Wesley prepared at this time a Prayer-Book for the American
Church--an abridgment of the English Liturgy--to be used under the new
arrangement. It contains the forms for the ordination of, 1. Deacons;
2. Elders; 3. Superintendents; and directs expressly that all preachers
elected to the office of deacon, elder, or superintendent shall be
presented to the superintendent “to be ordained.” Let it be remarked
then, 1. That here the very word ordain is used. 2. We have here the
three distinct offices of the ministry stated in order, according
to the understanding of Wesley, and of all Episcopalians throughout
the world. 3. That not only is the name of bishop changed to that
of superintendent, but the name of presbyter, or priest, to that of
elder--the new names being in both cases synonymous with the old ones.
If the change of the former name implies a difference in the office
also, why does not the change in the latter imply the same? 4. These
forms of ordination were taken from the forms in the English Liturgy
for the ordination of deacons, presbyters, and bishops, the names of
the latter two being changed to synonymous terms, namely, elders and
superintendents. The opponents of the Methodist episcopacy readily
grant that elder means presbyter, yet, as soon as superintendents are
mentioned as bishops, they protest. 5. These forms show that Wesley
not only created the Methodist episcopacy, but designed it to continue
after Coke and Asbury’s decease; they were printed for permanent use.
6. By reading Coke’s letter to Wesley, consenting to and directing
about his proposed ordination, it will be seen that Whatcoat and Vasey
were ordained presbyters at Coke’s request, because “propriety and
universal practice,” he says, “make it expedient that I should have
two presbyters with me in this work.”[809] That is, Coke requests, and
Wesley grants, that two presbyters shall be ordained to accompany Coke
in his new office, because “propriety and universal practice” require
that two presbyters assist a bishop in ordaining; and yet Coke was
not appointed to the office of a bishop! Coke in this letter, let it
be repeated, requests that these two men should be made “presbyters;”
Wesley complies; and yet, in the forms of the Prayer-Book, or
Discipline, they are called “elders.” The name only was changed,
therefore, not the thing; why, then, is not the inference just, that
the other change in these forms, that of bishop to superintendent, is
only in the name, not in the thing? The rule certainly ought to “work
both ways.”
7. Charles Wesley was a rigid High-Churchman, and opposed to all
ordinations by his brother. The latter knew his views so well that he
would not expose the present measure to interruption by acquainting him
with it till it was consummated. Though Charles Wesley was a presbyter
of the Church of England, and in the town at the time, yet other
presbyters were summoned to meet the demand of “propriety and universal
practice” on such occasions, while he was carefully avoided. Now why
this remarkable precaution against the High-Church prejudices of his
brother respecting ordinations if he did not in these proceedings
ordain? If it be replied that Charles was not only opposed to his
brother’s ordaining a bishop, but equally to his ordaining to the other
offices of the ministry, and, therefore, the ordinations might have
been confined to the latter, and yet such precautions be proper, it
may then be asked again, How can we suppose Coke to be now ordained
to these lower offices when he had already received them, and had
exercised them for years?
8. As soon as Charles Wesley learned these proceedings he was
profoundly afflicted. His correspondence with his brother[810] shows
that he understood them in the manner that the American Methodists do,
and Wesley never corrected this interpretation. He defends himself,
but never denies the facts. Charles Wesley speaks of Coke’s “Methodist
Episcopal Church in Baltimore,” alluding to the name assumed by the
American Church at its organization in that city. Wesley, in his reply,
utters not a word in denial or disapproval of this title, but simply
vindicates the necessity of his course in respect to the American
Methodists. Charles Wesley, in response, speaks of the doctor’s
“ambition” and “rashness.” Wesley, though he knew the Church had been
organized at Baltimore with the title of “Episcopal,” and had used
the very word “bishop,” but not as a personal title, says, “I believe
Dr. Coke as free from ambition as covetousness. He has done nothing
rashly that I know.” Charles Wesley, in his letter to Dr. Chandler,
a clergyman about to sail for America, speaks of his brother having
“assumed the episcopal character, ordained elders, _consecrated a
bishop_, and sent him to ordain our lay preachers in America,” showing
thus what the office really was, though the name was changed. Evidently
it was only the appellation of bishop, applied to the superintendents
in person, that Wesley disapproved.
9. The Conference at which the Church was organized terminated
January 1, 1785. The Minutes were published by Coke, with the title
“General Minutes of the Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church
in America.” The Minutes, as has been stated, expressly say that the
American societies were formed into an Episcopal Church, and this,
too, at the “recommendation” of Wesley. By July, Coke was with Wesley
at the British Conference. By the 26th of the preceding June, his own
Journal, containing this phrase, was inspected by Wesley. Coke also
took to England the American Minutes, and they were printed on a press
which Wesley used, and under his own eye. The Baltimore proceedings
were therefore known to Wesley, but we hear of no remonstrance from
him. They soon became known, by the Minutes, to the public; and when
Coke was attacked publicly for what he had done, he replied, as we
have seen, through the press, that “he had done nothing but under
the direction of Mr. Wesley.” Wesley never denied it. How are all
these facts explicable on the supposition that Coke and Asbury had
ambitiously broken over Wesley’s restrictions?
10. One of Charles Wesley’s greatest fears was, as we have noticed,
that the English preachers would be ordained by Coke. He had prevailed
upon his brother to refuse them ordination for years. He now writes,
with deep concern, that “not a preacher in London would refuse orders
from the doctor.” “He comes armed with your authority to make us all
Dissenters.” Now, why all this sudden disposition of the English
preachers to receive “orders from the doctor,” if it was not understood
that he had received episcopal powers, and they despaired of ever
getting ordination from the national bishops? If it is replied, they
believed, with Wesley, that, under necessary circumstances, presbyters
could ordain, and therefore desired it from Coke, not in view of
his new appointment, but because he was a presbyter of the Church
of England, then it may be properly asked, why did they not seek it
before? for Coke had been a presbyter among them for years. Why start
up with such a demand all at once as soon as they learned of the new
position of Coke? And how could Charles Wesley say in this case, “He
comes armed with your authority?” for his authority as a presbyter
he obtained from a bishop of the English Church years before he knew
Wesley.
11. The term bishop was not personally applied in the Discipline
to the American superintendents till about three years after the
“organization” of the Church, and Wesley’s objurgatory letter to Asbury
was not written till four years after it. During all this interval,
however, the American societies were called an “Episcopal Church.”
Six months after adopting the name, its Minutes were, as stated,
inspected by Wesley, and published under his auspices; they were called
the “Minutes of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America;” and they
expressly declare that, “following the counsel of Mr. John Wesley, who
recommended the episcopal mode of Church government, we thought it best
to become an Episcopal Church;” yet, as has been shown, during this
long interim Wesley never uttered a syllable against this assumption!
When his brother writes him, accusing Coke of rashness, he replies that
“the doctor has done nothing rashly;” and when Coke is accused through
the press, he declares, under Wesley’s eye, and without contradiction,
that “he had done nothing without the direction of Mr. Wesley.” What,
now, do all these incidents imply? What but that Wesley did approve the
American episcopacy--that it was established by his direction? Yet four
years after, when the appellation of bishop had been applied personally
to the American _episcopoi_, this letter of Wesley was written.
What further does this imply? What but that it was not the thing he
condemned, but the name? The thing had existed for years uncondemned,
nay, defended by him; the very name “Episcopal,” so far as it applied
to the Church collectively, he did not condemn; the title “bishop,” as
a definition or synonym of “superintendent” in the Minutes, he did not
condemn; but the personal title of bishop he disapproved, because of
its objectionable associations. Is it possible to escape this inference?
Thus we see that, whatever view we take of the subject, we are
compelled to one conclusion: that Wesley did create and establish the
American Methodist episcopate. The man who gainsays such evidence must
be given up as incorrigible. There can be no reasoning with him.
And now, what is the sum of this evidence? It has already been
presented with sufficient detail, but let us retrace the successive
and decisive steps of the argument. Here we have Wesley proposing to
establish “the discipline of the Church of England” among the American
Methodists, and to do so he ordains for them bishops, and gives them
an episcopal regimen; yet, according to their antagonists, he never
designed them to be a distinct Church, but only a “society” in the
Protestant Episcopal Church! Wesley and Coke have “scruples,” delays,
references to antiquity, imposition of hands, and other solemn forms,
conforming to the “universal practice” of episcopal ordination, and
yet all concerning some nondescript kind of appointment, analogous to
that which is conferred upon a missionary in charge over his brethren
in a foreign station! Wesley speaks of it as “ordaining,” and of his
refusing to use the right before the Revolution because it would have
interfered with the “established order of the national Church;” and
yet a mere secondary commission of Coke, such a one as had existed in
the person of Asbury for years, is the momentous interference with the
established order of the national Church--though there was nothing in
that order with which it could interfere, the national Church never
having had any such appointments! Wesley solemnly “ordains” Coke; and
yet it is not to the episcopal office, though he had been ordained to
all the other offices to which ordination is appropriate years before!
Wesley ordains two other men to the office of elders, and at the same
time separately and formally ordains Coke, who had already borne this
office; but still Coke’s new office is not the only remaining one that
could be conferred upon him! Wesley refers to the ordination of bishops
by the presbyters of Alexandria in justification of his ordination of
Coke, and yet he does not ordain Coke a bishop! Wesley prepares for
the American Church a Prayer-Book, abridged from that of the Church
of England, prescribing the English forms for the three offices
of deacons, presbyters, and bishops; the two former are admitted
unquestionably to be what they are in England, and yet the latter is
explained into something new and anomalous, answering to nothing ever
heard of in the Church of England or in any other episcopal Church! In
these forms the old names of two of the offices are changed to new but
synonymous appellations--that of presbyter or priest to elder, that of
bishop to superintendent; in the former case, the change of the name
is not for a moment supposed to imply a change of the thing, and yet,
in the other case, the change of the name invalidates entirely the
thing, without a particle more evidence for it in one case than in the
other! Charles Wesley, being a High-Churchman, is kept unaware of his
brother’s proceedings till they are accomplished, though he is in the
town at the time of the ordination; and yet it is no ordination, but
a species of appointment against which he could have had no episcopal
prejudice whatever! When he learns the facts he is overwhelmed with
surprise, and in his correspondence exclaims against his “brother’s
consecration of a bishop,” and “Dr. Coke’s Methodist Episcopal
Church” at Baltimore; and Wesley, in his replies, never denies these
titles, but simply vindicates his ordinations, and says that Coke had
“done nothing rashly;” yet there was no bishop, no episcopal office
appointed, no distinct episcopal Church established, but Coke had
fabricated the whole! When the preachers in England, trained, from
childhood, under episcopacy, hear of Coke’s new office, they are, to
the great alarm of Charles Wesley, suddenly seized with a desire to be
ordained by Coke, though they fully know that he is no bishop, but the
same presbyter that he had been among them for years! In six months
after the organization of the American Church, Coke publishes its
Minutes, with the title “Methodist Episcopal Church in America,” in
London, under the eye of Wesley, and in these Minutes it is declared
that Wesley “recommended the episcopal mode of Church government;” but
no remonstrance is heard from Wesley! When Coke is condemned through
the press for his proceedings, he publicly replies that he had done
“nothing without the direction of Mr. Wesley;” no rebuke follows
from Wesley, but Coke goes on as usual, active in his Conferences,
and maintained in his new position; and yet his American proceedings
were an ambitious plot, contrary to the will of Wesley! The American
Methodists had borne the title “Episcopal Church,” with Wesley’s full
approval, for four years, when, on the use of the personal title of
bishop, Wesley writes his letter to Asbury; and yet it is not the mere
personal title he condemns, but the office which for four years he had
left uncondemned, nay, had vindicated!
And now, looking again at this series of arguments, will not the
American Methodists be acquitted of presumption when they assume
that they may here make a triumphant stand, surrounded by evidence
altogether impregnable? The mighty ecclesiastical system under which
it has pleased God to give them and their families spiritual shelter
and fellowship with his saints, and whose efficiency has surprised
the Christian world, is not, as their opponents would represent, an
imposition of their preachers, and contrary to the wishes of Wesley,
but was legitimately received from his hands as the providential
founder of Methodism.
If Wesley’s strong repugnance to the mere name of bishop had been
expressed before its adoption by the American Church, it would probably
not have been adopted. Still, the American Church was now a separate
organization, and was at perfect liberty to dissent from Wesley on a
matter of mere expediency. The Church thought it had good reasons to
use the name. The American Methodists were mostly of English origin.
The people of their country among whom Methodism was most successful
were either from England or of immediate English descent, and had been
educated to consider episcopacy a wholesome and apostolical government
of the Church. The Church approved and had the office, why not, then,
have the name? especially as, without the name, the office itself would
be liable to lose, in the eyes of the people, its peculiar character,
and thereby fail in that appeal to their long-established opinions
which Methodism had a right, both from principle and expediency,
to make? The English Establishment having been dissolved in this
country, and the Protestant Episcopalians not being yet organized on
an independent basis, and the episcopal organization of the Methodists
having preceded that of the Protestant Episcopalians, the Methodist
Church had a clear right to present itself to the American public as
competent to aid in supplying the place of the abolished Establishment,
having the same essential principles without its peculiar defects.
And may not the circumstance of the assumption of an episcopal
character, nominally as well as really, by the American Methodists, be
considered providential? Episcopacy, both in America and England, has
reached an excess of presumption and arrogance. The moderate party,
once declared by Bishop White, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, to
include a large majority of American Episcopalians,[811] has nearly
disappeared. Was it not providential, under these circumstances, that a
body of Christians should appear, exceeding every other in success, and
nominally and practically bearing an episcopal character, without any
of its presumptuous pretensions? Amid the uncharitable assumptions of
prelatical Episcopalians, the Methodist Episcopal Church stands forth
a monument of the laborious and simple episcopacy of the early ages,
its success, as well as its humility, contrasting it signally with its
more pretentious but feebler sister. It has thus practically vindicated
episcopacy as an expedient form of ecclesiastical government, and
assuredly it needs vindication in these days.
Such, then, is the evidence which should, with all men of
self-respectful candor, conclude decisively the question of Wesley’s
design and agency in the organization of American Methodism.
Driven from this ground, objectors retreat to an equally untenable
one by alleging that the episcopal organization of the societies in
America is to be attributed to the influence of ambitious counselors
over Wesley in the imbecility of his old age. It has already been shown
that he as yet betrayed no such imbecility; but it has still more
conclusively been demonstrated that the ecclesiastical opinions which
sanction this great act were adopted in the prime of his manhood. They
were the well-considered and fully demonstrated convictions of two
score years, before he yielded to the unavoidable necessity of giving
them practical effect. Few facts in the history of Methodism are more
interesting and instructive than the gradual development of Wesley’s
own mind and character under his extraordinary and accumulating
responsibilities; it has therefore been studiously traced throughout
the preceding pages. No reader who has followed our narrative will
accept this last objection to the American Methodist episcopacy, and
no possible ground of argument remains for its opponents but the
prelatical charge against its legitimacy, founded in the traditional
and exploded ecclesiasticism of obsolete ages. Methodists are content,
with Wesley, to pronounce the apostolic succession “a fable which no
man ever did, or ever can prove,” and believe that, in this age, they
need not anxiously challenge any advantage which their opponents can
claim from a pretension so incompatible alike with the letter and the
charity of the Gospel, as well as with the Christian enlightenment of
modern times.[812]
[Attempts have been made to impugn Coke, as having overweeningly led
Wesley into this important measure.[813] The charge, however, were
it valid, could not affect the validity of the measure itself as
genuinely Wesleyan, and as giving to American Methodism an Episcopal
organization. After the preceding review, no one can doubt that the
whole proceeding was in accordance with Wesley’s own views of Church
government. He was, as we have seen, a decided Episcopalian, and he
designed to give the American Methodist, as he says, “the discipline
of the Church of England;” that is to say, an Episcopal regimen. His
appeal to Lord King’s proof, that the presbyters of Alexandria ordained
bishops, could otherwise have no relevancy. His use of this proof with
Coke, while the latter hesitated, shows what was his original design,
and it is impossible to conceive what merely Presbyterian system,
without a “superintendency” or episcopate, could at this time fit into
the itinerant ministerial scheme of the American Church, where Rankin
and Asbury had hitherto been superintendents, though without ordination
or the power to ordain.
Whether Coke influenced Wesley or not does not, then, let it be
repeated, affect the main question. Whether Wesley was influenced or
not, he did construct and solemnly appoint the Episcopal system of
the American Methodists, such as it was adopted by the Conference of
1784; he did provide for its perpetuation by abridging, printing, and
sending over with Coke the English Liturgy, containing its forms of
ordination for the threefold ministerial functions recognized in the
Anglican Church, and all these acts were in strict accordance with his
long-avowed ideas of Church government.
Coke’s character alone, then, is concerned in this charge. That
character, however, is dear to all Methodists, and important, not
to the validity, but to the historical character of the American
episcopate. He is to stand forever as its first representative. I have
elsewhere sketched his remarkable life and character.[814] Though he
had essential greatness, he had, doubtless, characteristic weaknesses
also. There have been few great men without them. The faults of such
men become the more noticeable, either by contrast with or by partaking
of their greatness; and the vanity of ordinary human nature is eagerly
disposed, in self-gratulation, to criticise, as peculiar defects
of superior minds, infirmities which are common to all. Practical
energy was his chief intellectual trait, and, if it was sometimes
effervescent, it was never evanescent. He had a leading agency in the
greatest facts of Methodism, and it was impossible that the series of
momentous deeds which mark his career could have been the result of
mere accident or fortune. They must have been legitimate to the man.
Neither Whitefield nor Wesley exceeded him in ministerial travels. It
is probable that no Methodist of his day, it is doubtful whether any
Protestant of his day, contributed more from his own property for the
spread of the Gospel. His biographer says that he expended the whole
of his patrimonial estate, which was large, on his missions and their
chapels. He was married twice; both his wives were like-minded with
himself, and both had considerable fortunes, which were used like
his own. In 1794 was published an account of his missionary receipts
and disbursements for the preceding year, from which it appeared
that there were due him nearly eleven thousand dollars; but he gave
the whole sum to the cause. Flying, during nearly forty years, over
England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland; crossing the Atlantic eighteen
times; traversing the United States and the West Indies; the first who
suggested the organization of English Methodism by Wesley’s Deed of
Declaration; the organizer, under Wesley, of American Methodism; one of
the first, if not the very first, of Protestant bishops in the Western
hemisphere; the founder of the Methodist missions in the West Indies,
in Africa, and in Asia, as well as in Ireland, Wales, and England;
the official and almost sole director of the missionary operations of
the denomination during his long public life, and the founder of the
first Tract Society in the world, he must be recognized as one of the
chief representative men of modern religious history, if not, indeed,
as Asbury pronounced him, “the greatest man of the last century as a
minister of Christ.”
Asbury, who hesitated not thus to place him above Wesley “as a
minister of Christ,” knew him well, and especially knew him in those
transactions for which he has been most blamed. A settled and wealthy
clergyman of the Establishment, bearing the highest literary title
which its universities could give, a man of high family and high
prospects, he forsook, under the influence of deepened religious
feelings, all his apparent advantages, to become a wandering evangelist
in Wesley’s despised but heroic band of itinerants. He became, as
Wesley called him, “the right hand” of the great founder. His spirit
flamed with evangelic zeal. He expressed truly his own character in the
exclamation, recorded on the high seas, when passing for the first time
to America, “I want the wings of an eagle and the voice of a trumpet,
that I may proclaim the Gospel through the East and the West, the North
and the South.” He seemed almost ubiquitous in the United States,
superintending its ministry, and in the United Kingdom, administering
the affairs of the Wesleyan Church, founding and conducting its
Irish, its Welsh, its “Domestic,” and its Foreign Missions, virtually
embodying in his own person the whole missionary enterprise of English
Methodism. When an old man of nearly seventy years he conceived the
project of introducing Methodism into Asia. He presented himself before
the British Conference, and, against great opposition, entreated, with
tears, to be sent as a missionary to India, offering to defray the
expenses of himself and seven chosen colleagues. The Conference could
not resist his appeal, and at length, on the 30th of December, 1813,
he departed with his little band, consisting of nine persons besides
himself. He died on the voyage, and was buried in the Indian Ocean;
but, though the great leader was no more, his spirit remained, and the
successful East Indian Missions of Methodism are the sublime results.
History should respect the reputation of such a man.
The charge of his leading Wesley into the measures for the organization
of the American Church is made in spite of the express testimony of
Drew, his intimate friend and biographer, who says that “Wesley, in
his study, ‘City Road,’ first divulged his purpose to Coke,” and that,
arguing with him there on the ordination of bishops by presbyters in
the Alexandrian Church, he concluded by proposing “that, being himself
a presbyter, Coke should accept ordination from his hands, and proceed
to the continent of America to superintend the societies in the United
States.”[815]
A letter from Coke to Wesley, proposing that a messenger should be
sent to America to inspect the field and report to Wesley, has been
cited as proof of Coke’s overweening wish for such an appointment.[816]
The hostile critic seems not to be aware that this letter was written
_after_ Wesley’s proposition to send Coke as superintendent. The
conversation in Wesley’s London study was in February, 1784. Coke’s
letter, proposing a preliminary inspection and report of the wants
of the American societies, was not written till the middle of April
[“Near Dublin, April 17, 1784”]. It was actually sent while he was yet
considering Wesley’s proposition. It showed his hesitancy rather than
his eagerness for the new office.
Thus far, then, no solicitation, no selfish management, is apparent
in the course of Coke. If, contrary to Drew’s express statement, the
particular act of Coke’s ordination by Wesley was by the request of
Coke himself, it does not materially affect the question of either
the American Church system or Coke’s character. Wesley undoubtedly
designed, as we have seen, that the former should be a system of
superintendency, of practical episcopacy “conformed to the discipline
of the Church of England,” as he expressly says--such as, in fact, it
had hitherto been, except that its superintendents had not yet the
function of ordination, which was now to be supplied. If he had not
at first designed to ordain Coke (according to his reasoning about
the Alexandrian example), it was doubtless because he had assumed
that Coke, being already a presbyter, could, in accordance with that
example, ordain Asbury a superintendent, and complete the organization
of the American Church. Now Wesley had, as we have seen, for years
believed in the essential parity of presbyters and bishops, and their
equal right to ordain. Coke’s request (if any there were) for more
formal authorization by Wesley himself was perfectly correspondent
with Wesley’s theory and design, and, this being the fact, it was
indisputably expedient, as Wesley himself saw. The agitations and
debates among the American Methodists rendered it necessary that he
should bear with him the highest possible sanction of Wesley, who
was recognized as founder and superintendent of the whole Methodist
cause. Coke’s liability to disaffected criticism at home, especially
from Charles Wesley (whose opinions were well known), gave him a right
to claim, as he did in his letter to Wesley, that the latter should
“be obliged to acknowledge that I acted under your direction”--a
phrase which would have been inadmissible had not Wesley’s designs
corresponded fully with his own. This objection to Coke, then, is not
relevant. His course was logical; it was prudent; it was necessary; and
its historical results have proved its supreme wisdom.
Almost every other disputed act of Coke’s life has been adduced to
confirm the unfounded objection to his course in this great measure.
It has been alleged that he wrote to Bishop White, of Philadelphia,
that “he would like the Methodists of America to be reunited to the
English [American Protestant Episcopal] Church on condition that he
himself were ordained to be their bishop.”[817] Coke was already a
bishop, and Asbury another, in America; their denomination was already
more extended than the Protestant Episcopal Church, and it had an
immeasurably better prospect in the new republic. Coke’s impulsive
zeal and catholicity led him to think, what many Churchmen, if not
Methodists, have since thought, that a union of the two bodies would
be a blessing to common Christianity. If he was imprudent, he was
nevertheless charitable in his desire. It did more credit to his heart
than discredit to his head. He did not propose it, as alleged, in order
to be “ordained their bishop.” He included his Episcopal colleague,
Asbury, and all his ministerial brethren. The union was to be made
“on terms which in no wise compromised the honor or rights of the
Methodist Episcopal Church.”[818] “I never did apply,” says Coke, “to
the General Convention, or any other Convention, for reconsecration. I
never intended that either Bishop Asbury or myself should give up our
episcopal office if the junction were to take place.”
It has been alleged against him, as an “unpleasant fact,” and as
illustrating his course in the present case with Wesley, that he
solicited the “Prince Regent and the government to appoint him their
bishop in India,” and this “within twelve months of his lamented
death.”[819] This aspersion is founded in incidents connected with
that last heroic mission to India above noticed, for which, in his old
age, he sublimely sacrificed his property, his episcopal functions in
America, and his life, but founded the whole East India Methodist work.
The British domination there had, to his eyes, opened a door for the
Gospel to all Asia. For some years he had been planning and working
for a mission to the Hindoos; the East India Company’s government
“had steadily opposed” their evangelization; Coke knew that he could
not accomplish his grand designs without authority from the home
government in an episcopal appointment; for this reason he sought
that appointment. He was still a priest of the national Church, and
the Wesleyans were all yet considered as members of that Church. He
proved the purity of his purpose when his application failed, for
then, as we have seen, he stood, an aged and broken man, before the
British Conference, and extorted, by his entreaties, his tears, and the
pledge of his own property, its consent to let him go, with a corps of
Methodist evangelists, and attempt the great work in the only way that
remained for him.[820]
Again, it is alleged that “in 1794 he secretly summoned a meeting of
the most influential of the English preachers, and passed a resolution
that the Conference should appoint an order of bishops to ordain
deacons and elders, he himself, of course, expecting to be a member
of the prelatical brotherhood.”[821] The real facts of this case, as
in the others, need but to be correctly stated to fully vindicate
Coke. Wesley had been dead some three years; the Wesleyans were in
the greatest anxiety and distraction respecting their permanent
organization during these years; the very existence of the body
seemed periled; ministerial disputes and popular agitation prevailed,
ending at last in the Kilham schism; the people were clamoring for
the sacraments--the preachers were not empowered, by ordination, to
administer them. “At present we really have no government,” wrote
Pawson, the president of the Conference, toward the latter part of
1793. “It will by no means answer our ends to dispute one with another
as to which is the most scriptural form of Church government. We should
consider our present circumstances, and endeavor to agree upon some
method by which our people may have the ordinances of God, and, at the
same time, be preserved from division. I care not a rush whether it
be Episcopal or Presbyterian; I believe neither of them to be purely
scriptural. But our preachers and people in general are prejudiced
against the latter; consequently, if the former will answer our end, we
ought to embrace it. Indeed, I believe it will suit our present plan
far better than the other. The design of Mr. Wesley will weigh much
with many, which now evidently appears to have been this: He foresaw
that the Methodists would, after his death, soon become a distinct
people; he was deeply prejudiced against a Presbyterian, and was as
much in favor of an Episcopal form of government. In order, therefore,
to preserve all that was valuable in the Church of England among the
Methodists, he ordained Mr. Mather and Dr. Coke bishops. These he
undoubtedly designed should ordain others. Mr. Mather told us so at
the Manchester Conference, but we did not then understand him. I see
no way of coming to any good settlement but on the plan I mentioned
before. I sincerely wish that Dr. Coke and Mr. Mather may be allowed
to be what they are, bishops. We must have ordination among us at any
rate.”[822] It was in these circumstances that Coke met some of the
most venerable and devoted preachers at Litchfield. He “addressed them
on the agitated state of the Connection, and the perils which menaced
it; he referred to the success of Methodism in the New World under its
Episcopal organization, and the relief which Wesley’s establishment
of this form of government there had given to a similar controversy.
He offered ordination to the brethren who were present. His motive
was disinterested, for he already possessed the Episcopal office and
dignity, conferred by an authority which they all venerated above
that of any archbishop of the realm. Most of the meeting approved his
proposition, but Moore, who had been ordained by Wesley, very wisely
suggested that they should confine their proceedings to the discussion
of its practicability, and defer its decision to the next Conference.
He, however, pronounced the measure a scriptural and suitable
expedient for the government of any Christian Church. Mather concurred
with Moore. They adjourned after adopting a series of resolutions
which were to be submitted with all their signatures to the Annual
Conference.”[823] It is certainly remarkable that a sinister motive
could be imputed to Coke in these circumstances--to him who had already
a diocese co-extensive with the United States of America.
An impartial revision, then, of all the facts directly or indirectly
involved in this discussion, results, first, in a vindication of the
Episcopal government, adopted at Baltimore in 1784, as the genuine work
of Wesley himself, accordant with his previously declared opinions on
the subject; and, secondly, of Coke’s conduct respecting it, as also
in the other above facts alleged against him. Wesley was just when,
after the whole measure had transpired, he declared Coke to “have
done nothing rashly,” and that he was “as free from ambition as from
covetousness.”]