History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

The minutes of the Conference of 1791 are noteworthy in several particulars. Wesley having died
in March, of this year, the following change is made in the Episcopal deliverances of the bishops.
" Q. Who have been elected by the unanimous suffrages of the General Conference to superintend
the Methodist Episcopal Church in America? A. Thomas Coke, Francis Asbury. Q. Who are the
persons who exercise the Episcopal Office in the Methodist Church in America? A. Thomas Coke,
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Francis Asbury, by regular order and succession." The questions since the death of Wesley are
mere duplicates. They show, however, that there was absolutely no distinction in the minds of Coke
and Asbury between superintendent, bishop, and the episcopal office, and in consequence Dr.
Emory's reply to the charge that they had made Wesley a bishop by associating his name in the
American minutes as the origin of its Episcopal succession, is the surest quibble, unworthy of a fair
controvertist, namely, that they published him only as exercising the "Episcopal Office."
The numerical increase of white members this year was over seventeen thousand, but there is no
corresponding increase among the blacks only about one thousand, for unexplained reasons. There
were seventeen conferences called for 1791-92. Bishop Asbury published an Address which is
appended to the minutes: "To the Brethren of the United Societies of the Methodist Episcopal
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Church in America." It related to the establishment of industrial Sabbath-schools, separating the
sexes, under suitable unpaid teachers. It was along the line of his Sunday-school work, and a
conception worthy of his eminently practical, devout, and far-seeing mind. "A recommendatory
caution" is also appended, warning the preachers not to "receive strange preachers, unless their
names are on the minutes, or they can show a parchment or a certificate from the presiding elder, or
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some elder of the district they may say they come from." It was well timed, no doubt, for general
reasons, though Hammett claimed that it was aimed at him as a particular reason.
The third Council had been nominated for December, 1792, but, as already found, it never
assembled. Under the lead of such influential preachers as O'Kelly, Jesse Lee, Richard Ivy, Bruce,
Garrettson, Haggard, Hull, McKendree, then a young man of high promise and vigorous intellect,
and a number of others, the agitation against the Council and for a General Conference went on with
increasing fervor and widening scope. O'Kelly, as already mentioned, opened correspondence with
Dr. Coke in England, and won him over to his side. He also became a voluminous letter writer at
home, and with his associates made a powerful impression upon leading preachers and laymen, not
against the Council only, but in favor of a more liberal policy in the government of the Church.
Asbury found himself beset with a combination of influences — a current against him which it was
impossible to stem; besides, he was sick, weary, and mentally depressed over a situation he had
prepared by his own crowning attempt to free himself from all Conference control. There is
something amazing audacious in his attitude. Unchecked hitherto, with an unlimited confidence in
his own triple office of legislator, judge, and executor, he reached for the summit of power, led on
by a blind sincerity and an honest intention which enabled him prayerfully to evoke to his aid Divine
interposition. The exigency was not greater than that at Fluvanna and in 1787, and it may be doubted
whether he would not again have exhibited his overmastering strategy and daring personal usurpation
as to the Council, had he not been disabled by impaired health enfeebling his will and enervating his
mind. It was a crucial period in his career and in the history of the Methodist Church. It seems
reasonable to conclude that Wesley was apprised of the situation, though now in the declining
months of his eventful life. Did he give Coke the same encouragement he had given Hammett about
this time? If the evidence existed, it has been suppressed, as his letter to Hammett was for fifty years.