METHODIST REFORM Edward J. Drinkhouse, M.D., D.D.
Volume I
concerned those who held the keys of power set themselves in opposition to all innovations on Wesley's plan. But the sands cannot prevent the rising of the sea. The outcome will show that the opening statement of this chapter was true; the times could not have been more inauspicious for the Deed of Declaration as a peace measure among Methodists. Stevens' opening chapter for this period admits in most eloquent sentences the inauspiciousness, but for opposite reasons. The bias of his point of view leads to a denunciation of the French Revolution as a refutal of the political apothegm that revolutions never go backwards. It serves his argument in a contrast he institutes with England securing her Constitution by reformation, seemingly overlooking the revolution of Magna Charta, seminal of all her liberty; and the world will be slow to admit that the principles of the French Revolution, maugre its horror and blood, were a retrograde movement for popular enfranchisement.
He sees in the agitations of the times only the discipline of adversity, and a derivation of strength for English institutions and Methodistic preservation through the Deed of Declaration. If indeed history is philosophy teaching by example, the example cited, it is confidently affirmed, cannot be claimed as demonstrating the wisdom of entailed Paternalism.
Stevens mentions as standard-bearers whom Wesley had left, Coke, Benson, Moore, Hopper, Mather, Taylor, Creighton, Dickenson, Brackenbury, Pawson, Bradburn, Bramwell, Olivers, Adam Clarke, Reece, Entwistle, and scores of others. Properly enough, he names first Dr. Thomas Coke.
He had gone again to America, one of a number of voyages he made to the far-off Republic, in October, 1790. Wesley died March 2, 1791, and the news reached Coke while traveling with Asbury at Port Royal, Va., April 29, and not the 20th, as Drew states it. In proof Asbury's Journal says:
"Friday, 29th April. The solemn news reached our ears that the public papers had announced the death of that dear man of God, Rev. John Wesley . . . Brother Coke was sunk in spirit and wished to hasten home immediately.
Dr. Coke, accompanied by Brother C_____ and Dr. G_____, set out for Baltimore in order to get the most speedy passage to England; leaving me to fill the appointments . . . at Alexandria Dr. Coke had certain information of Mr. Wesley's death." Stevens says he reached England May 14, 1791,[1]
but Drew, his biographer, says he embarked from Newcastle, Del., in America, May 14, for London direct. Drew is not reliable as to dates, but Stevens gives no proof that he is right, so that the exact date of Coke's arrival is uncertain, but it is not material. Stevens, commenting, quizzically adds, "He quickly perceived the public danger, by the 'severe and irritating trials' which he met from some of his ministerial colaborers, who unfavorably suspected the motive of his sudden return." He is[2]
borrowing from Drew, and what he says is, remembering that he is always partial to Coke, "The supposed occasion of Dr. Coke's arrival in England at this particular crisis of the Methodistic connection, though pleasing to some, was by no means gratifying to all the preachers . . . the wounds which were inflicted by his associates at home were in a measure healed by the balm which grew in the western world." Why his return should make such a sensation is thus adroitly parried.[3]
An explanation might have been ventured; he was one of Wesley's literary executors, etc., but it is evident that something else could be said, but is not. Drew knew what it was, and Stevens is not so dull that he fails to see it, and after the manner of historians who have a preconceived theory to maintain, he ventures a general remark as a justification for the skip-over, "It would be neither interesting nor relevant to record the details of the internal strifes of Methodism which followed the death of Wesley." Entwistle, one of the standard-bearers Wesley left, lets out the secret. The same
week of Wesley's death he wrote: "My soul trembles for the ark of the Lord. There are men of so many different judgments in our Connection, all of whom now claim an equal authority, especially the senior preachers, that I fear we may have divisions." Not a few of them had special and[4]
positive reasons for fearing Dr., now Bishop Coke, the title having been assumed by him and Asbury some four years prior in America, but never worn in England, where it was most distasteful to the Conference preachers. In his piety, evangelical spirit, self-sacrifice, and entire consecration to Methodistic religion they had unqualified confidence; but his overweening ambition to succeed Wesley as primate of the Methodists he could not conceal, — it thoroughly dominated the human side of him. In many elements he was the best qualified among them all, and he was conscious of it. He was now all the more anxious by reason of the fact that his bishopward ambition had been thwarted by Asbury by his superior tactics and force of character, and he had been compelled to step down from the equality of even a "joint superintendent," as Wesley intended him to be in America.
In that tentative letter to Wesley of April 17, 1784, from which citation has already been made, he says, "If the awful event of your decease should happen before my removal to the world of spirits, it is almost certain that I should have business enough, of indispensable importance, on my hands in these kingdoms." When Wesley appointed him, as Superintendent, to America, he expected him to remain there; no other supposition is congruous with the purpose of it. And it must be assumed that Dr. Coke expected himself to remain in America; but six months' traveling with Asbury taught him that there could be no primacy for him in that land. He returned in June, 1785, and from that time to Wesley's death he flitted from shore to shore washed by the broad Atlantic a number of times. As has already been found, he was Wesley's appointee as President of the Irish Conference, a position in which he was very popular, and efficient as well, for a series of years. During Wesley's life he presided alternately with him, and after his death for twenty-two successive years he was President, except four times. No man had so successfully ingratiated himself into the confidence and affection of Wesley, though he knew his weaknesses and often rebuked and corrected him. About a year after he was received, Wesley wrote of him to Walter Churchy, a legal friend, "He has hitherto behaved exceeding well, and seems to be aware of his grand enemy — applause." He was also[5]
rash, impetuous, and meddlesome; it was his nature. In the matter of the Dublin Methodists, who were in the habit of attending Dissenting service at Church hours, he ordered changes without Wesley's knowledge or consent. Tyerman says of this episode, "Coke's assumption to act as Wesley's vicar gave great offense, and the new arrangement had to be abandoned." It had overridden Henry[6]
Moore's authority as assistant on Dublin circuit, and Wesley wrote him an appeasing letter under date, "Leeds, May 6th, 1788. The Doctor is too warm. He ought to have had more regard for so respectable a body of men as applied to him." He countermanded Coke's order in the same letter.[7]
The reader is requested to note these estimates of Coke, and the evidence from under Wesley's own hand, supported by abundant contemporary opinion, as future use will be made of them in an important connection. Too much significance, therefore, cannot be attached to Coke's precipitate return to England. He honestly believed that he was in the succession, and he sincerely hoped he would be named by the Conference for Wesley's chair.
The fermentation throughout the United Societies was extreme. The Deed of Declaration was attacked with severity by nearly all not included in its provisions, and popular liberty was rife in civil England and could not be tabooed in ecclesiastical England. Paine's "Rights of Man" was the opposite of Wesley's "Thoughts on the Origin of Power," as it grounded authority in the will of the people, and was as influential for human progress as his "Age of Reason" was mischievous to all
religion, though it was designed as an antidote to hierarchal priestly rule and the superstitions of Romish doctrine. These were the causes of the fermentation in the Methodist societies. The Legal Hundred of the Poll-Deed were secure enough, and men seldom voluntarily part with power once secured. Two hundred out of three hundred preachers were excluded. If the one hundred were content, conceding that Wesley had the right to make any selection he liked, it is equally true that those rejected had the same right to grumble and dissent, and they did it.
Antecedently one would surmise that his selection would be made by seniority, seeing he had determined to limit the number; but among the seniors rejected, as Tyerman shows, were John[8]
Hampson, 31 years in conference; Thomas Lee, 36; John Atley, 21; Joseph Thompson, 25; John Poole, 25; William Ashman, 19; Jonathan Hern, 15; Williams Eels, 12; Thomas Mitchell, 36; Joseph Pilmoor, 19; Thomas Wride, 15; Thomas Johnson, 31, and others; while among the included were, Joshua Keighley, 3; Joseph Cole, 3; Jonathan Cousins, 3; William Green, 3; Joseph Taylor, 6;
William Hoskins, 1; William Myles, 6; William Simpson, 4; James Wray, 2; and Henry Foster, 3.
An apologist will at once say he wanted some young men as representatives. If so, having rejected Hampson, it would have been a kindly thing to have named his son, six years in conference; but he rejected him with his father. On what apparent principle, then, did he act? He sifted out all the suspects. All who entertained liberal principles, and all whom he suspected of disloyalty to any part of his plan for perpetuating Methodism as he understood it. Hampson was a republican in politics,
— it was sufficient to exclude him; and so through the list of conference names. In this, from Wesley's point of view, he did just what any other man would have done in like circumstances and imbued with the same purpose. He intended his Poll-Deed to be a cohesive, peace measure, — a hand that would hold together the people and the preachers. Future investigations will show that it held together the Legal Hundred and their successors, thus perpetuating a Wesleyan party through the power of property to this day; but it was the direct incentive of perpetual strife, distraction, and division among the excluded preachers and people.
William Thompson was a leading man among those named by Wesley, cautious and far-seeing.
He took in the salient points of the almost tumultuous situation after the Father and Founder's death, and within a month he issued a private circular addressed to "the preachers in general and the assistants in particular." It set forth the dangers impending to Methodism, declared the impossibility of a personal substitute for Wesley, and proposed that vacancies in the corporate body of the Legal Hundred should be filled by seniority, a president, secretary, and stewards to be elected for one year, a member designated to preside at the Irish Conference, the whole work to be districted, and committees authorized to manage their affairs in the intervals of Conference. It was intended as a compromise measure, and was favorably received by the Wesley party. Private meetings of leading preachers were held at Halifax and at Leeds a few weeks after. The preachers in Bristol and vicinity approved, as did also those of Wales, and Adam Clarke influenced those of Dublin to the same purpose. These private meetings were an interesting object lesson to the 1200 local preachers and the 70,000 members who had no part or lot in the disposal of the authoritative remains. Stevens says:
"The lay members of the societies, unwilling that their pastors should have the exclusive control of the question, were soon in motion. An important convention of Cornish Methodists was held in Redruth on the 14th of June, and sent to every preacher of the Conference a private account of its proceedings, which virtually pronounced the Halifax circular defective in the most essential points, and proposed revolutionary changes respecting the appointment of leaders, local stewards, circuit
stewards, the admission and expulsion of members and preachers, the alteration of circuits, and even the powers of the annual Conference that Wesley himself had fixed by his Deed of Declaration.
Meanwhile the officers of the Birmingham societies met, and issued a printed circular opposed to all these changes, and to any important modification of the economy of the body as left by Wesley.
Stevens says: "The diversified opinions of the Connection were, in fine, resolving themselves into three classes, and giving rise to as many parties, composed respectively of men who, from their attachment to the Establishment, wished no change unless it might be greater subordination to the National Church by the abandonment of the sacraments in those cases where Wesley had admitted them; of such as wished to maintain Wesley's plan intact, with official provisions which might be requisite to administer it; and such as desired revolutionary changes, with a more equal distribution of powers among laymen and preachers." This is a fair statement of the situation, and his chapter[9]
upon the period intervening from Wesley's death to the ensuing Conference of 1791 is a sad commentary upon its truth, and in demonstration of the utter failure of the Poll-Deed to accomplish what its author intended. Meetings and countermeetings of preachers and laymen distinctively, like Jews and Samaritans, were held throughout the societies. Leading members of the Conference, and even those who had been named as the Legal Hundred, differed as to expediency and polity. The ordinations and the sacraments were the hones of contention, but beneath it all, as is seen, the unbalanced government Wesley left could not be brooked by the laity, while the locality were eager to secure some more pronounced recognition. A preference is given to Stevens' account, as he cannot be suspected of a leaning towards the dissentients and the disaffected. Indeed, he construes this hurly-burly of discontent and dissensions and expulsions and secessions into a providential moral discipline necessary to prepare the Legal successors of power and property for a prosperous career.
It is an easy philosophy of the situation to be accepted by those who can so view it.
"Early in this controversy a man of great energy, and destined to become historically distinguished as the founder of a Methodist sect, began a course of persistent agitation on the subject by printed pamphlets." In this way Stevens formally introduces Alexander Killiam. He gives full space and treatment to his biography, but it cannot be followed under the limitation of the objective of this History. He was born at Epworth, July 10, 1762, and at eighteen years of age was converted among the Methodists. He was of impetuous, resolute temper, and accompanied Brackenbury, an irregular itinerant of wealth and social position, as his servant, and shared with him in the preaching during the Channel Islands' labors for Methodism. He was received by Wesley as a regular itinerant in 1785.
He was a Dissenter in his principles from the beginning, and three years before Wesley's death designed to petition the Conference, "Let us have the liberty of Englishmen, and to give the Lord's Supper to our societies." He was a stranger to the thrall of sacerdotalism; and better would it have been for the unity and success, great as the latter has been, of Methodism the world over, if the whole hierarchal figment of a divine touch — an actual succession of preaching grace — had been thrown to the winds and the simple New Testament practice followed of self-government for local churches;
preachers called of God, and elected by the people, with an installment of laying on of hands of other preachers; an itinerancy of evangelists, with the apostles as exceptional rulers of the Church, whose special functions ceased with their death. There are but two consistent systems of Church government, the Presbyterian and the Episcopalian. It will be seen in the sequel how the Wesleyan Conference came at last to the former as a system essentially, and thus swung away from the National Church and Wesley's preference; and how the American Methodists were organized as an
Episcopal Church through the preference of Coke and Asbury, despite the same natural tendency to Presbyterianism in the people, — a government analogous both with the New Testament ideal and the civil regime under which they lived. Kilham was of heroic mold and met the violence of mobs as he afterward met his opponents polemically. Roughhewn and rugged both in physique and intellect, and an untamed eloquence which frequently bore his audiences away with him, he comes conspicuously into notice from the fact that in May eighteen laymen of Hull issued a protest against the allowance of the sacrament in Methodist chapels, and to the same effect in other places, while counter-declarations were frequent from many towns and often from the same societies. The Hull petition aroused the lion in him, and he wrote a reply which he signed anonymously. It produced great excitement, for he had put the case of the popular rights of the people against the National Church so forcibly that it rallied as a party those who were of his way of thinking, and engendered the resentment of the opposite party.
Amid the turmoil, the forty-eighth Conference met at Manchester, July 26, 1791. It was attended by over three hundred preachers, being the whole body, with few exceptions, as there was now no discriminating selection as under Wesley's reign. It remained in session thirteen days. Perhaps the same number of preachers never before met with so devout a spirit, and in sentiment so divided.
William Thompson was elected President; it was the first exercise of the voting privilege for such a purpose. He was an Irishman of sixty years of age, cool, conservative, and in his opinions of church government moderate, so that all parties regarded him as a safe man. Dr. Coke was elected Secretary.
He was a ready scribe, and the Conference by this act showed their respect for him personally, but cooled the ardor with which he was generally charged as an aspirant for headship. Organized, the first act was to receive from Joseph Bradburn, Wesley's traveling companion, and to whom he had intrusted it, the letter already adverted to, he wrote the body as a posthumous legacy. It was addressed to the Legal Hundred, and besought them to take no advantage of their position as discriminating in the appointments and to preserve the order he had left them. It had a moving effect upon the Conference, and they resolved to follow the advice of their sainted father and founder. The suggestions of Thompson for districting the work, etc., were adopted. Seventeen districts in England, five in Ireland, two in Scotland, And one in Wales. The preachers within these bounds were to elect a chairman and a committee of their number, who were to prepare a plan of appointments, the whole to be submitted to the annual Conference when it assembled. They determined that the appointments should be restricted to two years and not three, as Wesley proposed, but with a proviso, that in case of revivals it might be extended. One from each district was to meet the delegate of the British Conference two days before the Irish Conference for the same purpose. Thus was inaugurated the
"Stationing Committee." All the preachers were heard through their chairman of the district, and the final "plan of appointments" was submitted to the Conference for adoption or to be referred back and amended. It included the preachers' right of appeal. Coke was designated to preside at the Irish Conference. The statistical returns showed the year to have been prosperous; fifteen candidates were put on a probationary list, a new feature of business, as they were not immediately needed in the work. The Wesleyan Conference of 1791 adjourned without division, and in much outward peace.
No sooner, however, were the preachers back to their appointments than the old controversy broke out afresh, each party contending that the resolve of the Conference "to follow strictly Mr. Wesley's plan" meant that their plan should prevail. Kilham was a leader in the renewed polemical fray, and pamphlets and circulars filled the air with dissentient views. He did not mince his language, for he