History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

subscribed to sentiments of political liberty utterly incongruous with the monarchy of England and
the Wesleyan polity over Methodists. Drew gives the answer of Washington but not the address of
the bishops to him, but out of its chronological connection, or on page 113, evidently doing his
deceased friend the favor of concealing from Englishmen the sentiments of the address to which
Coke had affixed his name. Among the sentiments it contained it may be well to quote: "Those civil
and religious liberties which have been transmitted to us by the providence of God, and the glorious
Revolution." "The most excellent Constitution of these States, which is at present the admiration of
the world."
No marvel his English brethren could not see how he could be a monarchist and a republican at
the same time. Nor can any one see how he could reconcile these representative sentiments with his
answer to the petitioners for lay-delegation as made to the British Conference soon after Wesley's
decease, "Sirs, the Conference considers the plan of electing by votes of the people and sending
delegates to Conference, and district meetings, committees, is founded on the principles of
Jacobinism, principles which we abhor. . . . We are certain that our late venerable father in the gospel
detested these principles as much as any man on earth; we are, therefore, determined in the most
resolved manner, and with the most unanimous spirit, to reject the plan of delegates, in whatever
[1]
shape or manner it may be presented." If it be possible to esteem him honest in his admiration of
representative principles in the American States, then in view of the deliverance just cited to the
British laymen, he must be recognized as the prototype of a class in the Methodist Episcopal Church
who strenuously maintain that non-representation in the Church and its opposite in the State are
concurrently consistent. For nearly a hundred years in American controversial Methodism this
scriptural and dialectical absurdity has not been wanting in advocates. Happily the race is about
extinct.
Both Drew and Bangs endeavor to excuse Coke on the ground that he had a double character to
maintain, one as Bishop of the American Church, and one as a member of the British Conference.
To which it is necessary only to say that double characters of every kind are infamous, and this
[2]
double relation of Coke is no less inconsistent. Bangs thinks the position of Asbury in the matter
entirely proper, inasmuch as "he had become an American citizen," etc. There is no evidence
whatever that Asbury ever was naturalized. The most he ever did to save himself from farther
molestation while at Judge White's in Delaware, was to take the test-oath of that colony because it
was more moderate than others and did not afflict his conscience as a non-juror. Bangs is severe in
his invective against McCaine for assigning to these addresses the date of 1785, while Dr. Emory
cuts him with the razor-edge of his sarcasm all to pieces. Both of them, if they had had a mind, might
have referred to Drew, and so discovered that he had led McCaine astray as to dates, or, if they had
given the least attention to McCaine's own statement, that Drew misled him; but it seems that neither
was magnanimous enough to forego the advantage it gave him to discredit McCaine's general
argument and masterful array of facts by this and a few other mistakes in his "History and Mystery."
Indeed, as to crimination and recrimination, McCaine, Emory, and Bangs seem to revel over this
matter. McCaine was not only misled by Drew as to the date, but was excusable farther in that by
a singular coincidence, when he came to his investigation of Methodist Episcopacy, he found that
Dr. Coke's name was left off the minutes of the British Conference in 1786, and this seemed to
confirm his theory that Coke's name was thus left off by reason of his complicity in the Christmas
Conference doings and not the address to Washington. Emory gives as explanation of this omission