History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

METHODIST REFORM
Edward J. Drinkhouse, M.D., D.D.
APPENDIX C
This reference of Asbury in his Journal to the letter he wrote Wesley by "desire of the Virginia
Conference" is deemed too important to be passed by the Book Agent at New York, who annotated
in places the Journal when it was published about 1822. Dr. Bangs was Book Agent from 1816-24,
and the foot-note is probably his work. It is so adroit as containing an implication of Episcopacy by
regular succession that it must be cited in full with comments. It reads: "The answer to this letter was
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made through Dr. Coke, Richard Whatcoat, and Thomas Vasey, in 1784, who all came to America
properly ordained. And here I will take occasion to correct a mistake into which Dr. Whitehead has
fallen in his 'Life of Wesley.' It is in that work stated that, had Mr. Wesley obtained the consent of
the American preachers and people, he might have sent ministers regularly ordained to the society
in that part of the world; the truth is that the American Methodists, both preachers and people,
wished to have such ministers among them, that they might partake, like other Christian societies,
of the ordinances of the Church of God; and when ministers did thus come, they received them
generally and joyfully. I will farther presume that Wesley received few letters from America in which
that subject was not pressed upon him." Dr. Bangs correcting Dr. Whitehead, considering their
respective opportunities of knowing, is a spectacle. Mr. Wesley himself tells that he besought the
Bishop of London to ordain only a few of his preachers, that he might send them to America; but he
refused, because as Methodist preachers he could not ordain them without violating the canons of
the National Church. When Whitehead asserts that Wesley might have sent "regularly ordained"
ministers, he meant clergy of the National Church, some one or more of those who were cooperating
with Wesley at the time in England, the fact being that Whitehead always scouted the idea of Wesley
ordaining any one as an Episcopalian. It was impossible for Dr. Bangs to know the contrary of
Whitehead's assertion. "The truth is," that while the American preachers and people wished the
ordinances and ordination, they wished them on a Presbyterian basis; witness the whole controversy
now pending between Asbury and the large majority of preachers and people. They were impatient
of the whole Episcopal business, and were as much out with it as they were with King George, who
represented both the Church and the Crown, and they were repudiating both. Even Asbury did not
want "regularly ordained clergy" of the National Church sent over; for, as firmly as he was wedded
to the hierarchy as a system of government in the Church, he knew that such a proceeding would
supersede him in authority, and thus destroy his primacy in America. What he really wanted was for
Wesley to come over in person, ordain him, quell the Presbyterian element among the preachers and
people, and leave him as head of the societies in America, as Wesley was head of the societies
elsewhere in the world. And Wesley for a time, under the persuasions of Asbury's letters, entertained
the idea of going to America; but he was now seventy-seven years of age, and was deterred from the
voyage, as well as by the opposing opinions of the returned missionaries as to Asbury's aspirations.
There are but two sentences in this remarkable footnote of Dr. Bangs' that are not false to fact and
fallacious in argument: the opening and closing ones.
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