History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

onward. As the minutes were not again reprinted until 1813, and the volume of 1795 had become
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very scarce and rare in the eighteen intervening years, but few of the preachers knew that such
sentences had ever been in the old minutes as inserted by Coke and Asbury, and after 1813, so
oblivious had they become of it that, when McCaine exhumed these old records in his investigations
into the origin of Methodist Episcopacy, it startled the Church of his day, 1827-30.
These questions and answers after this preliminary examination call for interpretation. "Q. Who
are the persons who exercise the Episcopal office in the Methodist Church of Europe and America?
A. John Wesley, Thomas Coke, and Francis Asbury, by regular order and succession." McCaine
directed attention to this change of phraseology and stated, "By this answer Mr. Wesley is announced
as one of the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church" by Asbury and Coke — for these questions
and answers are evidently their joint work — and that while Asbury had Wesley's letter, the "bitter
pill," in his possession, informing him how absolutely he rejected the title for himself and forbade
it to any of his "sons in the gospel," and specifically, Coke and Asbury. McCaine's averment is based
upon the fact that there is no difference between the "Episcopal office" and "bishop." The only
attempt ever made to show a difference was by Dr. Emory, who made the quibbling answer: "this
is not correct [enumerating Wesley as one of the bishops]. They did enter him as exercising 'the
Episcopal office,' but they did not entitle him bishop. The former was not offensive to him. He well
knew the distinction between the title and the office. The latter he did exercise and asserted his right
to exercise it;" and then he crawfished and beclouded the water by citing Wesley's declaration: "I
firmly believe that I am a scriptural Episcopos as much as any man in England or in Europe. For the
uninterrupted succession I know to be a fable which no man ever did or can prove." But did Wesley
mean that he had, therefore, a right to create an order or an office superior to his own, as a Presbyter
of the Church of England? No sane or honest man will so affirm, though the literature of this
controversy is full of it; and if not, then there could be no difference in Wesley's mind between the
Episcopal office and the order of Bishop. And the farther puerility of Emory that these Minutes, so
worded afterward, came under Wesley's notice and "this gave him no offense." How does he know
it did not? There was only one way — by some written word or spoken utterance of Wesley's to that
effect. Not a shadow of such a thing can be produced, while there is abundant collateral evidence that
he was not conciliated by this substitution of Episcopal office for his own chosen designation,
Superintendent. Why then did Asbury and Coke, when they printed the minutes of 1789, make this
substitution? The hint has been disclosed. Coke knew that the title of Bishop was most offensive to
Wesley, for he had solemnly charged that it was not to be taken when he reached America, while
Asbury held Wesley's letter just received, denouncing them both for this violation of trust. Asbury,
if not Coke, had escaped the "rusty fetters" of apostolical succession, but as intimated not far back,
he had also reached the conclusion that he was in some well-defined sense an Apostle himself, and
these questions and answers, as formulated for the minutes of 1789, were intended to express the
new Methodist Succession. And to give it a legitimate beginning, it was found expedient for this
reason; and it might reconcile Wesley to restore his name to the minutes as the first link in the new
succession; and as McCaine nervously phrases it, "His name was placed at the head of the American
minutes as one of their bishops," but under the evasive title "the Episcopal office." This view of its
intention makes the whole record consistent, and suggests the need of the qualification "in regular
order and succession." The foot-note already cited, although not inserted until 1795, only confirms
the view that it was not the Church of England's uninterrupted succession, but the new Methodist
Succession in regular order. How? Wesley — Coke — Asbury. Dr. Emory himself unwittingly adds