History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

No such sleuth-hound can be let loose upon a preacher as a charge of heresy. True or false, it
answers its purpose. It has been found that Dr. Coke tried it against Newton in the British
Conference, and others against Dr. Adam Clarke — was he not a believer in the Eternal Sonship,
etc.? Hound him down. It was so with O'Kelly in America. Let that good man, Bishop Paine,
McKendree's biographer, a veritable Boswell for his Johnson, though steeped to the lips in the
bigotry of early Methodist opinion, state the case against him: "Indeed, there is a strong probability
that, knowing he would be impeached on account of his denial of the distinct personality of the holy
Trinity, he felt himself in 'a strait between expulsion and secession.'" What Christian magnanimity
of statement! And to show that he is not underrated as a biographer, listen, "He did not withdraw
from the Church or the ministry." Asbury says, as found, "W. McKendree and R. H. [Rice Haggard]
sent me their resignations in writing." That shall be enough from him on the O'Kelly matter, but there
are other precious tidbits to come ere McKendree disappears from these pages. He is now in heaven
with O'Kelly and others of either side who could not in this world see eye to eye; and abused each
other roundly in consequence. How much truth was there in the heresy of O'Kelly? Perhaps a grain.
Make a search through the bushel of lying chaff to find it. It is worth the space and trouble, for this
man was so foully spit upon and maligned. It will not be found with any of the historians of
Methodism. But it is found with other witnesses who are not partial to him on this score. First,
perhaps, a designed word from O'Kelly incidentally wrought. Speaking in his "Apology" of the form
of ordination of his preachers he gives it, "In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, by the authority of
the Holy Scriptures, with the approbation of the Church, and with the laying on of the hands of the
presbytery, we set apart this our brother to the Holy Order and Office of Elder in the Church of God;
in the name of the 'Father', and of the 'Son', and of the 'Holy Ghost', Amen." The italics in the triune
blessing are his own. It is noteworthy in this reference by implication to his views of the Trinity is
the only one to be found in any of his writings for many years after. If in his preaching he ever
expressed a formula of belief as to it differing from that found in the Articles of Religion of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, its production is challenged. He was an original thinker, but not a
scholastic, and assuming that the error of his statement of the Trinity is truthfully given in Lee's
expression of it, as volunteered by "one of the preachers, " it will be discovered, from this and other
proofs to be furnished, that it is found in an undue emphasis upon the Divinity of Christ that "Jesus
Christ was the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." Nothing more heretical than this can anywhere
be found as evidence against him. In preaching and conversation this emphasis no doubt caught the
attention of quibblers, and in 1792 it is made the occasion for accusation of heresy. It does not matter
that the foundation is as frail as that of Dr. Coke's charge against Newton, and much less frail than
those alleged against Dr. Clarke which were passed as peccadilloes of a masterful mind; he must be
hocked in his career, and the attempt was made with as blunt an instrument as the heresy-cry.
In passing, it may be observed that but little is known of O'Kelly's antecedents or of his manner
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of life up to manhood. He must have had such educational advantages as the times afforded, and
he says, in vindication of his loyalty, that he was a private in the Revolutionary army, was taken
prisoner, and resisted bribery as a bait to disclose information against his country; he marched on
foot and was honorably discharged at the close of the war. He was thoroughly American. His name
first appears in the minutes of 1778, as a preacher "on trial," and as it is not among those admitted
on trial in 1777 it is clear that Asbury assigned him to work in the interval, and as he died October
16, 1826, in his ninety-second year, he must have been at this time about forty-three years old. That
is, born in 1734, joined Conference 1777-78, aged forty-three or four, which would make him, as