History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

consideration for his Lordship and the deepest humility for himself. The gist of it is the necessity,
as he saw it, of "securing the great body of Methodists in connection with the late John Wesley to
the Church of England." Various considerations are urged. The increasing number of the Methodists,
their dissatisfaction with receiving the ordinances from clergy not spotless in their moral reputation,
yet friends of the liturgy and the episcopacy. He asks for ordination at the hands of the Bishop of a
sufficient number of the preachers to administer the ordinances, or universal separation will take
place from the Established Church. Dr. Coke feels sure that he commands the situation as to the
Conference. At the same time his confessions are naive and diplomatic. He had become, he says,
"warped in his attachments to the Church of England, in consequence of my visiting the states of
America, but, like a bow too much bent, I have again returned. But I return with a full conviction that
our numerous societies in America would have been a regular Presbyterian church, if Mr. Wesley
and myself had not taken the steps which we judged necessary to adopt." He suggests an interview
with the Bishop, etc. In a short time he received an answer to the effect that he would turn it over and
consult the archbishops. In a few weeks the Archbishop of Canterbury gave final answer, which was
a simple rebuke to Coke for insinuating that any of the clergy were immoral, with his regrets that he
had nothing to suggest. The correspondence never came formally to the notice of the Conference.
Much of the zest of Dr. Coke's movements in directions like this depended on secrecy, the
assumption of responsibility: he loved to surprise his friends by discoveries of his adroitness; but
every one of his ventures ignobly failed except his organization of the Methodist Societies in
America as an Episcopal Church, of an anomalous type, with the aid and concurrence of Francis
Asbury. The methods then employed will receive full attention in regular course.
The Wesleyan Conference of 1803 was notable for the first appointment of the Committee of
Privileges. As Methodism spread in the English realm and ramified through the colonies, there was
frequent interference by the civil authority with the missions and the rights of worship among
Dissenters, with whom the Methodists were politically classed. It was found necessary to protect the
rights of the denomination from encroachment. The first Committee of Privileges consisted of Dr.
Coke and Benson, with six of the principal laymen.
Stevens gives the names of three, Butterworth and Bulmer of London, and Thomas Thomson of
Hull. A general solicitor was also appointed. The committee was named annually and was to be
consulted before resort to lawsuits should be made. This preponderance of laymen was the result of
Bunting's effort to bring this element, so long repudiated and neglected of recognition, to the front.
Stevens, commenting on this advance in liberal principles, says, The innovation was destined to go
on peacefully, but successfully, until Wesleyan Methodism should virtually have the fact, without
the theory, of lay-representation." The expression is vague with a confusion of terms. It is
understandable how a theory may exist without the fact, but the fact can obtain only by the
materializing of the theory. What was conceded by the Conference was a lay-delegation. A
lay-representation can only be by the election of such by the same class. It is this differentiation that
constituted the very ideal of representative Methodism. It has not lay-delegates selected by the
suffrages of another class, the ministers; but it has lay representatives elected by the suffrages of their
own class. This essential difference remains in the Methodisms the world over. Neither in Wesleyan
Methodism, nor in the Episcopal Methodisms, north and south in America, notwithstanding the
advances made, is there lay-representation, and they simply juggle with words, or labor under a
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confusion of ideas who make the contention for them. Not until lay-representation is a fact in these