History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

Magaw of Philadelphia, and Mogden of New Jersey. He says that he traveled four thousand miles
a year. The letter is fervent, spiritual, exultant, and closes with a burst of enthusiastic loyalty: "O
America! America! it certainly will be the glory of the world for religion! I have loved and do love
America. I think it became necessary after the fall that government should lose it. Your old national
pride as a people has got a blow. You must abate a little."
He also writes to Wesley as the next Conference approached. It was opportune; for he was now
seriously engaged in the solution of the American question as to the ordinances, and Coke was
urging him on to overstep the old restrictions of the National Church. It does not need imagination
to show how Wesley's fellow-feeling would be appealed to, and how he would be influenced
favorably toward the man who would so write: "You know, sir, it is not easy to rule, nor am I pleased
with it. I bear it as my cross; yet it seems that a necessity is laid upon me. Oh, pray for me that I may
be filled with light and power, with zeal and prudence, and above all with humility." It was written
March 20, 1784 (see Arminian Magazine, Vol. 9, p. 681). It was just such language as Czar Nicholas
might privately address to a brother emperor; as the Pope might address to the conclave of cardinals.
They reign by the grace of God, and they waver under the fearful responsibility. Providentially
ordained to their mission, schooled into the full persuasion that to resign the burden that so oppresses
them would be sacrilege, the solace is compensating that they could not, if they would, be or do
otherwise. Wesley had a full realization of this autocratic instinct, and it was still growing in Asbury.
But are they not honest and sincere? Just as much so as any other form of lunacy, there is no sincerity
like it. In 1801 he was reading Ostervald's "Christian Theology," and met with the sentiment that in
the "primitive Church there was always a President who presided over others, who were in a state
of equality with himself," etc. He had also been reading Cave's "Lives of the Fathers," who was a
high Churchman, and Asbury is quite in accord with him, so he combats Ostervald's Presbyterian
view in these words, "There is not, nor indeed in my mind can there be, a perfect equality between
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a constant president, and those over whom he always presides." He cannot mean by this that a
presiding officer officially and while in the chair is superior to those over whom he is called to
preside, as that would be a bald truism. He evidently means that such an officer, by reason of the
perpetual relation, becomes in a well-defined sense a superior person as well. Dr. Coke grew into
it earlier, as early as 1796, at the General Conference of that year in Baltimore. Alfred Griffith, well
known to American Methodism, in his sketch of Nelson Reed says, illustrative of his moral courage:
"Dr. Coke, one of the superintendents of the church, was present; and one of the striking features of
his character was that he was impatient of contradiction, and not wholly insensible to his own
personal importance. He had on this occasion introduced some proposition in the General
Conference, which seemed to some of the preachers a little dictatorial; and one of them, an Irishman
by the name of Mathews, who had been converted in his native country from Romanism and had fled
to this country from an apprehension that his life was in danger, sprang to his feet and cried out,
'Popery, Popery, Popery!' Dr. Coke rebuked the impulsive rudeness of Mathews, when he replied in
his Irish manner, 'Och,' and sat down. While the Conference was now in a state of great suspense and
agitation, Dr. Coke seized the paper containing his own resolution, and, tearing it up, not in the most
moderate manner, looked around upon the preachers and said, 'Do you think yourselves equal to me?'
Nelson Reed instantly arose, and, turning to Bishop Asbury, who was also present, said, 'Dr. Coke
has asked if we think ourselves equal to him; I answer, yes, we think ourselves equal to him,
notwithstanding he was educated at Oxford and has been honored with the degree of Doctor of Laws,
and, more than that, we think ourselves equal to Dr. Coke's king.' Coke had now cooled off, and