History of the M.E. Church, Vol. IV - Media Sabda Org

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and threatened to return home. Consultations ensued, and, four days later, the question was again
resumed by motions of George, Roszell, Soule, Pickering, and Lee. On the twenty-fourth the report
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of the committee was substantially adopted, "almost unanimously." It provided that one
representative for every five members of the annual Conferences shall be sent to the General
Conference; that the latter shall have "full powers" to make "rules and regulations" for the Church
under certain "restrictions," to wit, that it shall not change the Articles of Religion; nor allow more
than one delegate for every five, nor less than one for every seven members of an annual Conference;
nor do away episcopacy or the itinerancy of the episcopate; nor change the "General Rules;" nor
abolish the right of trial and appeal of accused preachers and members; nor "appropriate the produce
of the Book Concern or Chartered Fund," except for the benefit of ministers and their families. These
restrictions could, however, be suspended by the joint recommendation of all the annual
Conferences, together with a majority of two thirds of the General Conference. Such are what are
usually called the Restrictive Rules of the Methodist Episcopal Church. With the "Articles of
Religion;" and the "General Rules," they compose the organic or constitutional law of the
denomination. They are attributed chiefly to Joshua Soule; a sub-committee of the fourteen,
consisting of Soule, Cooper, and Bruce, having prepared them. In their form, at this time, they leave
open to change, the fundamental interests of the Church, even its theology and terms of membership,
without representation of the laity; but, in 1832, the proviso giving this power, was justified, making
the Articles of Religion unalterable, and requiring a vote of three fourths of the members of the
annual, and two third of the General, Conferences to effect any of the other specified changes. The
ratio of representation has been repeatedly altered.
The relation of Bishop Coke to the American Church was much debated at this session. He was
still absent in Europe. The Conference addressed him a cordial letter, consenting to his remaining
abroad, at the request of the Wesleyan Conference, till recalled by the American Church, and
retained his name among those of the bishops, with a proviso that he is "not to exercise his episcopal
office among us" till recalled. The debate on his case was complicated with the report of his attempt,
in 1791, to negotiate, with Bishop White, a union of the Methodist Episcopal and Protestant
Episcopal Churches. I have heretofore alluded to this fact, so often and fallaciously cited, by
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opponents of the Church, as proof that Coke distrusted his episcopal consecration by Wesley." The
threatened disturbances of the O'Kelly controversy, which soon after broke out, together with the
treatment which both Wesley and Coke had received from the American Conferences, alarmed the
doctor. He rashly but conscientiously supposed that a union with the Protestant Episcopal Church
might give stability to Methodism. His correspondence with White was strictly personal and
confidential, and was designed solely to ascertain the possibility of the union, before he should
consult Asbury and the other American leaders respecting it. Before he left the country, after writing
to White, he did submit the question to Asbury, at New Castle, Del., where he embarked. Asbury
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"gave no decisive opinion on the subject." The correspondence was kept confidential by White till
1804, when he revealed it to Simon Wilmer, of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and John
McClaskey, of the Philadelphia Conference. He, still later, gave L copy of Coke's letter to "Rev. Dr.
Kemp, of Maryland, and it was at last published in a controversy of the diocese." Of course it raised
a storm of prejudice against Coke; but his explanatory letter to the present Conference allayed all
hostility. "I had provided," he says, "in the fullest manner, in my indispensably necessary conditions,
for the security, and, I may say, for the independence of our discipline and places of worship; but I
thought (perhaps erroneously, and I believe so now) that our field of action would have been