Chapter XXXI: Part 31

Wesley’s remains were interred, behind the chapel in City Road, on the 9th of March. Such was the excitement created by his death, that, within twelve hours only before the funeral took place, it was determined, in order to prevent the assembling of an inconvenient crowd, that the funereal solemnities should be performed at the early hour of five a.m. The notice to his friends was short; but hundreds attended; and to each one was given a biscuit, in an envelope, engraven with a beautifully executed portrait of the departed, dressed in canonicals, surmounted by a halo and a crown.

Much remains unsaid; but our space is gone. Whilst the present pages are passing through the press, we learn, that “a most eligible site, in Westminster Abbey, has been courteously offered,” by the dean of that noble edifice, for the erection of a “public monument” to Wesley and his brother Charles; and that arrangements are being made to secure the services of “a first class sculptor,” at the cost of about £800. Thus the wheel turns round. One hundred and thirty years ago, Wesley was shut out of every church in England; now marble medallion profiles of himself and his brother, accompanied with suitable inscriptions, are deemed deserving of a niche in England’s grandest cathedral. The man who, a century since, was the best abused man in the British isles, is now hardly ever mentioned but with affectionate respect. In the literature of the age; in its lectures and debates; in chapels and in churches; in synods, congresses, and all sorts of conferences; by the highest lords and the most illustrious commoners, the once persecuted Methodist is now extolled; and the judgment of Southey, in a letter to Wilberforce, is tacitly confirmed: “I consider Wesley as the most influential mind of the last century,--the man who will have produced the greatest effects, centuries, or perhaps millenniums hence, if the present race of men should continue so long.”

In person, Wesley was rather below the middle size, but beautifully proportioned, without an atom of superfluous flesh, yet muscular and strong; with a forehead clear and smooth, a bright, penetrating eye, and a lovely face, which retained the freshness of its complexion to the latest period of his life.

In _general_ scholarship and knowledge, he had few superiors; whilst such was his acquaintance with the New Testament, that, when at a loss to repeat a text in the words of the authorised translation, he was never at a loss to quote it in the original Greek.

As an author, the chief characteristics of his style are brevity, perspicuity, and strength. He abhorred verboseness, and constantly endeavoured to say everything in the fewest words possible. “I never think,” said he, “of my style at all, but just set down the words that come first. Only when I transcribe anything for the press, then I think it my duty to see that every phrase be _clear_, _pure_, _proper_, and _easy_. Conciseness, which is now as it were natural to me, brings _quantum sufficit_ of strength.” Not for want of genius, but for want of time, and for want of disposition to make it otherwise, his style is one of naked and self dependent strength, unaccompanied with gaudy colouring, and equally undiluted with the pretentious puerilities of weak and little minds. It is impossible to abridge his writings without omitting thoughts as well as words. Who can abridge Euclid’s Elements without maiming them? And who can take from the works of Wesley without reducing their specific gravity?

In the pulpit, Wesley’s attitude was graceful and easy; his action calm, natural, pleasing, and expressive; and his voice, not loud, but clear and manly. Whitefield was the greater orator; Wesley the better divine. Wesley’s preaching was without Whitefield’s Demosthenic eloquence; but it had the accuracy of a scholar, the authority of an ambassador, the unction of a saint, the power of God. It was always searching; but not often terrible and severe, except when addressed to congregations rich, respectable, and polite. “Sir,” said a friend to him, after he had preached to a genteel audience from the words, “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” “Sir,” said Wesley’s offended hearer, “such a sermon would have been suitable in Billingsgate; but it was highly improper here”; to whom Wesley quietly, but significantly, remarked: “If I had been in Billingsgate, my text should have been, ‘Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.’” The poor need to be told the terribleness of their danger, and the rich more; but, unfortunately, the poor hear most of this, and the rich least. Wesley was a faithful minister to both.

In social life, Wesley was a Christian gentleman, and, with perfect ease, accommodated himself to both the high and low, the rich and poor. Placid, benevolent, and full of anecdote, wit, and wisdom, his conversation was not often equalled; and was generally concluded with two or three verses of a hymn, applicable to what had just been spoken. Though never trifling, he was always cheerful; sometimes saying, “I dare no more _fret_ than _curse_ or _swear_.” His sprightliness among his friends never left him; but was as conspicuous at eighty-seven as at seventeen. He was at home in mansions, and equally in cottages; courteous to all, and especially to the young, often remarking, “I reverence the young, because they may be useful after I am dead.”

Of his piety nothing need be said. “His modesty,” writes Bradburn, “prevented him saying much concerning his own religious feelings. In public, he hardly ever spoke of the state of his own soul; but, in 1781, he told me that his experience might almost at any time be expressed in the following lines:

‘O Thou, who camest from above,
The pure celestial fire to’ impart,
Kindle a flame of sacred love
On the mean altar of my heart!

There let it for Thy glory burn,
With inextinguishable blaze,
And trembling to its source return,
In humble love and fervent praise!’”

His industry is almost without a parallel. In many things, he was gentle and easy to be entreated; but, in his earnestness in redeeming time, he was decisive and inexorable. While kept waiting for his carriage, on one occasion, he passionately exclaimed, “I have lost ten minutes for ever!” “You have no need to be in a hurry!” said a friend: “Hurry,” he replied, “I have no time to be in a hurry.” It has been calculated, that, during the fifty years of his itinerant ministry, he travelled a quarter of a million of miles, and preached more than forty thousand sermons. In these volumes, we have seen him rising with the lark, travelling with the sun, preaching throughout the three kingdoms, and always acting in harmony with his own well known utterance, “The world is my parish!” Looking at his travelling, the marvel is how he found time to write; and, looking at his books, the marvel is how he found time to preach. His hands were always full; but his action was never fluttered. He was always moving, and yet, in the midst of his ceaseless toils, betraying no more bustle than a planet in its course. His mission was too great to allow time for trifles.

Was Wesley without faults? Not so; no man but “_the Man Christ Jesus_” ever was. Wesley, for instance, was naturally irritable; but even that was better than being apathetic. “Tommy,” said Wesley once, “touch that!” pointing to a dock. The itinerant did so. “Do you feel anything?” asked Wesley. “No,” replied his friend. “Touch that!” continued Wesley, pointing to a nettle. His companion obeyed, and, in consequence, was stung. “Now, Tommy,” remarked Wesley, “some men are like docks; say what you will to them, they are stupid and insensible. Others are like nettles; touch them, and they resent it. Tommy, you are a nettle; and, for my part, I would rather have to do with a nettle than a dock.”

Numberless instances of Wesley’s wit and repartee might easily be given. “Stop that man from speaking!” exclaimed Charles Wesley at one of the early conferences, when a preacher rose up, and, full of the love of Christ and irrepressible emotion, began to relate his religious experience. “Stop that man from speaking!” said Charles; “let us attend to business!” but still the good man proceeded. “Unless he stops, I’ll leave the conference,” continued Charles. Wesley himself, revelling in the itinerant’s religious recital, effectually cooled the warmth of his brother’s temper by quietly remarking, “Reach him his hat!”

On another occasion, when about to dine with a rich Methodist, one of his preachers, who was present, with more piety than politeness, cried out: “O sir, what a sumptuous dinner! Things are very different to what they were formerly! There is now but little self denial amongst the Methodists!” Wesley pointed to the abundantly furnished table, and then silenced the preacher’s untimely eloquence by saying, “My brother, there is a fine opportunity for self denial now.”

Thus was Wesley always “instant in season, and out of season.” Always and everywhere he was ready to turn passing incidents to practical account. “Pray, sir, let us go,” said one of his friends, whilst two women, near Billingsgate market, were quarrelling most furiously, and using language far more forceful than pious: “Pray, sir, let us go; I cannot stand it.” “Stay, Sammy,” replied Wesley, as he looked at the viragoes, who were evidently _inspired_, though not from heaven. “Stay, Sammy,” answered the man who had eyes for everything; “stay, and learn how to preach!”

We must close. Taking him altogether, Wesley is a man _sui generis_. He stands alone: he has had no successor; no one like him went before; no contemporary was a coequal. There was a wholeness about the man, such as is rarely seen. His physique, his genius, his wit, his penetration, his judgment, his memory, his beneficence, his religion, his diligence, his conversation, his courteousness, his manners, and his dress,--made him as perfect as we ever expect man to be on this side heaven. “A greater poet may rise than Homer or Milton,” writes Dr. Dobbin, “a greater theologian than Calvin, a greater philosopher than Bacon, a greater dramatist than any of ancient or modern fame; but a more distinguished revivalist of the churches than John Wesley, never.” “He was a man,” says Lord Macaulay, “whose eloquence and logical acuteness might have rendered him eminent in literature; whose genius for government was not inferior to that of Richelieu; and who devoted all his powers, in defiance of obloquy and derision, to what he sincerely considered the highest good of his species.”

But, in the case of a man like Wesley, panegyric is out of place. He is one of the very few, whose memory can afford to do without it. His well won and world wide fame requires no inscription on his monumental marble,--whether in England or in America, in Westminster or in Washington,--more elaborate than this:

JOHN WESLEY,
Born, A.D. 1703.
Died, A.D. 1791.

FOOTNOTES:

[768] Clarke’s Life, vol. i., pp. 278, 283.

[769] _Wesley Banner_, 1852, p. 275; and _Wesleyan Times_,
June 1, 1866

[770] This was probably “An Essay on the Liberty of Moral
Agents,” published consecutively in the first five
numbers of the _Arminian Magazine_ for 1791, and
concerning which Wesley writes: “I do not remember to
have ever seen a more strong and beautiful treatise
on moral liberty than the following; which I,
therefore, earnestly recommend to the consideration
of all those who desire ‘to vindicate the ways of God
with man.’”

[771] Wesley’s Works, vol. xiii., p. 157.

[772] Dunn’s Life of Clarke, p. 80.

[773] Wesley’s Works, vol. xiii., p. 146.

[774] Memoir of Miss A. Cambridge, p. 39.

[775] Sprague’s “Annals of the American Methodist Pulpit.”

[776] _Methodist Magazine_, 1804, p. 46.

[777] Wesley’s Works, vol. xiii., p. 147.

[778] Everett’s Life of Clarke.

[779] _Wesleyan Times_, June 1, 1866.

[780] Manuscript letter, kindly lent by Mr. Dimbleby of
Malvern.

[781] Life of James Rogers.

[782] Wilberforce’s Life, vol. i., p. 297; and Moore’s Life
of Wesley, vol. ii., P. 437.

[783] Jacob Jones, Esq., however, seems to have been called
in. He was then a young man, and had just joined
the Methodists. He died, in Finsbury Square, in
1830.--(_Methodist Magazine_, 1830, p. 511.)

[784] Smith’s “History of Methodism,” vol. i., p. 608.

[785] In compliance with his wish, ten thousand copies were
printed, and gratuitously distributed. (Rogers’ Life.)

[786] James Rogers’ Life.

[787] “Authentic Narrative,” 1791.

APPENDIX.

[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.