History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

to be a mere formality, likely to recommend his delegate to the favor of the Methodists in America;
Coke in his ambition wished and intended it to be considered as an ordination to the bishopric." [4]
So much for traditional English sentiment down to 1870. Whitehead, contemporary with the
event, does not see this method of relief for Wesley's consistency; but, like Charles Wesley, whose
views of ordination he supported, says ironically: "He complied with the doctor's wish, by
consecrating him one of the Bishops, and Mr. Whatcoat and Vasey Presbyters of the new Methodist
Episcopal Church in America. No doubt the three gentlemen were highly gratified with their new
titles; as we often see both young and old children gratified with gilded toys, though clumsily made,
and of no real worth or valuable use, except to quiet the cries of those for whom they are prepared."
[5]
Moore strongly objects to this lampooning by Whitehead, and twits him on his own alleged
application to Wesley for ordination, and it may be admitted that he allowed his feelings to get the
better of his judgment in his strictures. Bangs, whose "History of the Methodist Episcopal Church,"
written about 1838, is severely partisan, dismisses the momentous event with a simple quotation of
what occurred from Moore. He takes it for granted that Wesley made Coke a Bishop, and that he
made Asbury a Bishop in turn, and so on in succession. Stevens, more candid and impartial, finds
in it the knottiest question of his historic task, and he tackles it manfully, and in an argument
covering seventeen pages of his "History of Methodism," Vol. II., he has built up a colossal fallacy,
an ingenious weaving together of everything he could marshal to establish the validity of Coke's
ordination, not as a third-order bishop, but as an office superior to the eldership, and made such by
Wesley's ceremony at Bristol; and of Wesley's recommendation of the Episcopal form for the
American Church, and his approval of all that Coke and Asbury did in the premises. It is exhaustive
for that side, and by far the ablest defense that has ever been written. It was penned thirty-five years
ago, and it is doubtful whether he would reproduce it today as satisfactory in view of the light since
shed upon it. The literature that has grown up around the issue, as initiated by Alexander McCaine
and others from 1827 down, and its controversion would make a volume of itself. All that is salient
and essential in it on both sides may receive farther analysis later, but the thread must here be
dropped, that the embarkation of Coke and his companions may not longer be delayed.
In the sixteen days that elapsed between the setting apart of the three and their departure from
England it had found the ears of some of the preachers. Wesley probably, in his ingenuous way, on
being interrogated as to the ceremony, spoke of it; for, as Charles said of him, "He never could keep
a secret in his life;" and Coke was too full of it to keep silence, and the presumption is established
that he aired himself as a Bishop for America among his friends. Henry Moore was within the
confidential circle of both of them, and his unimpeached testimony is given to the public — it is true
not until thirty-five years after — that he was present at some interview between Wesley and Coke
in which the former took occasion to remind the latter that he meant no such inconsistent thing by
the ceremony in his chamber as to make him a Bishop. Moore does not mince or qualify the matter:
"With respect to the title of bishop, I know that Mr. Wesley enjoined the doctor and his associates,
and in the most solemn manner, that it should not be taken. In a letter to Mrs. Gilbert, the widow of
the excellent Nathaniel Gilbert of Antigua, a copy of which now lies before me, he states this in the
strongest terms. In this and every similar deviation, I cannot be the apologist of Dr. Coke; and I can
state, in contradiction of all that Dr. Whitehead and Mr. Hampson have said, that Mr. Wesley never
gave his sanction to any of these things; nor was he the author of one line of all that Dr. Coke
published in America on this subject. His views on these points were very different from those of