History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

ENDNOTES
1 Moore's " Life of Wesley," Vol. II. pp. 272, 273.
2 "Life of Coke," p.73.
3 "Journal," Vol. II. p.602. "On Thursday I added to them three more." Whatcoat, in his Journal,
says, presently quoted, that on this Thursday, or September 2, he set apart Coke as a superintendent,
and Whatcoat and Vasey as elders, and so Wesley makes the "three more." It is in proof that in his
eighty-second year his memory was failing, unless he meant "three more" added to Asbury.
4 "Life of Wesley," Vol. III. pp. 433, 434.
5 Written some years after the fact.
6 "Life of Wesley," Vol. II. pp. 279, 280.
7 This is the case, and it is of great moment. August 9 and 30, 1876, Rev. Dr. Lovick Pierce of
Georgia wrote two letters to his friend, Rev. Dr. Perrine, in which he makes the disclosure that, while
traveling with Bishop Asbury in 1811, he said one day after a long and lonely ride, "I judge the time
will come when our people will seek a representative power in our Legislative Conference," etc. The
italics are supplied. So it seems that Dr. Pierce kept this a secret for sixty-five years, and he excuses
his concealment on the ground that he makes it at the "only time I think in which it has ever been
called for by the pending issues." Marvelous indeed! Was not the controversy of 1820-30 such a
proper time? And is it not plain that Dr. Pierce did not then reveal it because himself opposed to the
Reform movement of that period? How powerfully it would have helped this cause had he opened
his lips in candor, and revealed what he knew of Asbury's vaticinations [sic]. See the whole matter
discussed by the author in the Methodist Protestant, of October 7, 1876, of which paper he was then
editor. The only difference between Moore and Pierce is that the former concealed what he knew for
thirty-five, and the latter sixty-five years. Further comment is unnecessary.
8 Tyerman's "Life of Wesley," Vol. III. p.444.
9 About this matter one is struck with the iteration of Stevens in his "History," like the following
foot-note — "Asbury's consecration to the episcopate was the first Protestant ordination of the kind
in the New World, but Coke's was the first for it." Again— "The first Protestant bishop of the New
World," and much to the same purpose, running through his work. On the theory that Coke was
made a true bishop by the ceremony of Wesley at Bristol, you can partly account for this exultation
over priority. Yes, Coke was set apart September 2, 1784, and Seabury, not until November 14,
1784, so Coke is ahead by two months and a half. And yet Stevens and M. E. Church authors
generally scout the idea in their sober moments that Coke was made a bishop hierarchically
understood. The bishopric is an office, not an order, they say, that is, since 1844, but like an
efflorescence it blooms out ever and anon. Asbury was the first bishop of the New World. In the