METHODIST EPISC. CHURCH 170 METHODIST EPISC. CHURCH
Wesley had believed that bishops and presbj-ters consti- tuted but one order, with the same right to ordain. He know that for two centuries the succession of Ijishops in the Church of Alexandria was preserved throu>j;h ordi- nation by jiresbyters alone. '• I iirmly believe," he said, '• I am a scriptural t;ri<Tic()7ror, as much as any man in ]Cnj,'land or in Kurojie; for the uninterrupted succession I know to be a fable wliich no man ever did or can prove;" but he also held that "neither Christ nor his apostles prescribe any particular form of Church gov- ernment." He was a true bishop of the flock which (jod had given to his care. He had hitherto refused " to exercise this right" of ordaining, because he would not come into needless conflict with the order of the English Church to which he belonged. Hut after the Kcvolution, his ordaining for America woidd violate no law of the Church ; and when the necessity was clearly apiiareiit, his hesitation ceased. '•There does not ap- liear," he said, " any other way of supplying them with ministers." Having formed his purpose, in February, 17^4, he invited Dr. Coke to his study in City Koad, laid the case before him, and proposed to ordain and send liim to America. Coke was startled at first, doubting M'esley's right to ordain him, though why, if the ordi- nation were not to the office of bishop, the next higher to that which he already held, is inexplicable. He finally assented, and wrote, "The power of ordaining others should be received by me from you, by the im- jiosition of your hands." 3. History records no other )ilan as proposed tlian that of an Episcopal organization. Tliis is what was laid before the few preachers called for counsel immediately after Coke's arrival in Amer- ica. The title assumed by the Church is " Episcopal." The Minutes of the organization say that this was done, '• following the counsels of Mr. John Wesley, who recommended the Episcopal mode of Church govern- ment, making the Episcopal office elective, and tlie elected superintendent, or bishop, amenable to the body of ministers and preachers;" and he had no reproof for the statement or the title, though the document was lirintcd under his eye. The Minutes of 1780 say of him : '■ i'referring the Episcopal mode of Church government, ho set apart Thomas (,'oke for the Episcopal office, and having delivered to him letters of Episcopal orders, di- rected him to set apart Francis Asbury for the same ICpiscojial office, in consetpience of which the said Fran- cis Asbury was solemnly set apart for the said Episcopal ollice," which statements A\'esley never disputed, and none of these things did he condemn. If Coke and the Jlelhodists of that day misunderstood or exceeded his intentions and acts, that he took no pains to correct their error is the strangest and most unaccountable thing of all. 4. The language of Charles Wesley is to the point. He certainly knew what was done, and the intention in doing it. He says that his brother "assumed the Epis- copal character, ordained elders, consecrated a bishop, and sent him to ordain our lay preachers in America." He wrote bitterly to his brother .lohn of Coke's "Methodist Episcopal Church in IJaltimore," of the readiness of the London ])reachers to receive orders from him, of Coke's aniliiiion and raslniess. Coke distinctly said, after his return to England, that " he had done nothing but under the direction of I\[r. Wesley;" and Wesley replied to Charles that Coke " has done nothing rashly." Silence in such circumstances becomes assent. 5. Wesley, then, intended an Episcopal Church. 15ut an Episcopal Church must have an Episco])acy, autl therefore an tTriffKoTTor, bishop, or superintendent, names alike in sig- nification. He preferred the latter, as did Coke, wJio spoke in his sermon at Asbury 's ordination of " our liish- ops, or superintendents, as we rather call them." When it began to be a]>plied as a personal title to the incum- bents of the otfice, Wesley wrote, " How can you, how dare you, suffer yourself to l)c called bishop?" though lie well knew that an Episcojial Church must have its bishop. To the title, not to the thing, he did oltject, and most strongly, for as it met him in England, its
pomp and pretentiousness were far removed from that character of simplicity which he had so laijoriously stamped upon Methodism. "I study to be little," he truly said in the same letter; but when he added, " Voii stutly to be great," he took counsel of his fears, and showed how little he knew the real character of Asbury, to whom he was writing, 'i'he truth is, he made a bishop, and called him superintendent. American Methodists early saw fit to sometimes use the other word. C. " The eldership is by scriptural precedent, and by the natural course of things, as embodying the mass of the mature ministry, the main body and trunk of the ministerial strength and power. As such it is naturally and crudely the undeveloped one order. Just as, naturally, and by sa- cred precedent and expediency, it resen-es tiie diaconate order as its preparatory pupilage, so it flowers up into the Episcojiacy as its concentrated representative order. Fundamentally, there may thus be one order; subsidia- rily, a second order; and derivatively, yet superior in function, a third order. The ordership and organic per- manence is constituted in all three cases, according to sacred precedent, by ordination. The highest of the three orders is especially, as it happens, perpetuated by a series of ordaining hands, passing from i)redccessor to successor, bishop authenticating bishop, as elder does not authenticate elder, or deacon, deacon. Hence, though, as derivative, it is in origin less an order, and an inferior order, yet, as constituted, it becomes more dis- tinctively an order than either of the other two. The New Testament furnishes, indeed, no decisive precedent of an ordained and permanently fixed superpresbytcrial order; but it does furnish classes and instances of men exercising superpresbytcrial authority, so that pure and perfect parity of office is not divinely enjoined. Such classes and cases are the apostles, perhaps the evange- lists, St, James of Jerusalem, and Timothy and Titus. . . . Wesley held that the episcopate and eldership