History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

METHODIST REFORM
Edward J. Drinkhouse, M.D., D.D.
Volume I
CHAPTER 8
Wesley at eighty-two a marvel of activity — Ordination of Mather the same as the ordination of
Coke, nothing more — Rare London pamphlet giving curious revelations of Wesley — Deductions
from it — Perronet and Fletcher — Deed of Declaration causes secessions — Methodist laity
conservative — Dr. Coke, father of missions — Wesley ordains as an illogical Churchman —
Charles Wesley's death — Coke and service during Church hours — Farewell to Ireland — Wesley's
old age — An autocrat to the last — Blind to judicial distinctions — Last Journal entry — The
preachers outwit Wesley — He never abused his power; the error in trying to entail it — His last
testimony against separation from the Church.
1785, and Wesley at eighty-two, finds him spending five days of January walking the streets of
London in slush and snow, begging 200 for the poor and visiting the destitute in their own houses.
He met the London classes and received the weekly contributions, out of which he paid himself his
quarter's salary of 15. He also preached in some of the National churches, invitations being now
plentiful.
He was a marvel of activity and consecration. He wrote a letter to Mr. Stretton of Newfoundland,
February 25, in which he says, "Last autumn Dr. Coke sailed from England, and is now visiting the
flock in the midland provinces of America, and setting them on the New Testament plan, to which
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they all willingly and joyfully conform." Coke had carried a letter to them from him for public use,
in which he declares that the Revolutionary War had set them free from "the State and the English
hierarchy; we dare not entangle them again, either with the one or the other. They are now at full
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liberty, simply to follow the Scriptures and the primitive Church." Explaining his ordination of
Mather as a Superintendent for Scotland he wrote: "After Dr. Coke's return from America, many of
our friends begged that I would consider the case of Scotland . . . at length consented to take the
same steps for Scotland which I had done with regard to America. But this is not separation from the
Church . . . Whatever then is done in America or Scotland, is not separation from the Church of
England." Dear old man! Guileless, ingenuous, unsuspicious, unmindful now that in these things he
should be logically consistent, it was his idea of a "New Testament plan" to preserve his primacy
over the world's Methodists, appointing Superintendents for sections not convenient for him to
supervise personally, as in America and Scotland, to which Ireland would probably have been added
but for the fact that Coke, the most available man for the position, and who held the Conference
Presidency by Wesley's appointment for a series of years, was made his choice for America. It did
not enter into his dream, even, that what he did would or could be perverted into the organization
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of a Church independent of him, either in Scotland or America. How the "joint superintendents"
for America became bishops in due time, and how an Episcopal Church was organized, is a tale that
will be worth the telling in its proper place.
At the previous Conference he had assigned William Moore to Plymouth. He was one of the
dissatisfied with the Deed of Declaration and broke away from Wesley's authority and severed the