History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

apparently. Moore's denial was not published until thirty years afterward, when Whitehead had been
twenty years in his grave. Deny such an error and the issue is indeterminable. The grave charge is
made by Moore in his "Life of Wesley," wherein he resurrects the whole stale controversy with no
living Whitehead to confront in in, that "the doctor's indelible dishonor was his absolute refusal to
suffer the manuscripts to be examined," etc. And yet this is not true. He proposed to the Conference
party that the manuscripts should be fairly and impartially examined by Coke, Moore, and himself,
and "such portions as they unanimously agreed to be unfit for publication should be burned and the
residue left with Whitehead" to complete the biography. The proposals were rejected by the
Conference, but, as long as they stand, Whitehead's refusal was conditional only and not absolute.
In looking at the causes of the controversy it will be found that not the Wesley family, nor the
Methodist people as such, were aggrieved, but Coke and Moore and the Conference party. It was
because after 108 pages of the biography of Charles Wesley had been published, they contained hints
that Whitehead intended to tell all he knew and found about the Wesleys and Methodism. Finding
that they could not control him for a partisan history, they left nothing undone to hinder him in the
work. More than this, the Conference party at once appointed Coke and Moore to write a history.
Hampson's had already appeared, and it was severely unfavorable to Wesley and his close friends.
Whitehead's would appear and tell the truth between Hampson and the Coke party. Both must be
countervailed. Within a year Coke and Moore's History was on the market and largely sold, but
finally abandoned by even its friends as unreliable and deficient. Whitehead's "Life of the Wesleys"
was considerably delayed, the last volume not appearing until 1796. He explains as reasons two
causes: the bitterness of the persecution against him, which sometimes unfitted him for impartial
writing, and when he found his mind so affected he laid aside his pen; the bankruptcy of his printer,
for he published the work at his own charges, delayed its appearance. Drew, in his "Life of Coke,"
repeats much of the story from the Conference view, but thirteen years after Whitehead's decease.
But it remained for Moore, in 1823-24, to publish a "Life of Wesley," in which, while he stigmatizes
and blackens the memory of Whitehead, he borrows nearly the whole work from his biography. Out
of 600 pages making the two volumes of the Stockton edition of 1845, published in Philadelphia,
there are but 133 pages of Moore's biography which are free from the pilfering from Whitehead.
Large portions of it are appropriated without credit. Whitehead's work is mentioned only when it
snits a purpose. It is a shameless plagiarism. Let any impartial reader examine the two page by page.
The spurious edition of Whitehead's "Life" was issued in 1805, one year after his decease. The
original work was suppressed wherever possible. Its republication in the interests of liberal
Methodism in America in 1845, by an enterprising Methodist layman, W. S. Stockton, in two
editions, many of which have found their way into public and private libraries, defeated forever the
design of his opponents. Dr. Coke, the coadjutor of Moore, does not compare favorably with the man
he would have buried in oblivion, as well as the story he tells. T. H. Stockton's Introduction to
Whitehead's original work traverses his record in full, and it need not here be produced, as in other
connections the same facts must be used. As a plagiarist, however, he out-Herods Herod. His Bible
Commentary is taken almost bodily from Dr. Dodd's, with Drew as his amanuensis. So with other
writings bearing the imprint of Dr. Coke as author. The only apology for such conduct is in the fact
that it was a period of loose ideas as to literary property; for, as it has been found, even Wesley's
"Christian Library" is a mere compilation without credit, and other instances. All the annalists of
Methodism to this day, save Tyerman, join in the old hue and cry against Whitehead. The apology
for them is, they were mere echoes of the Coke, Moore, Conference party.