B. The Architects of American Methodism
1. Wesley’s Plan
By the end of the American Revolution, the Methodists in America were in a unique situation; they were in the position to either flourish or fade into insignificance. Despite all of its hindrances, Methodism grew during this war years. Between the time of Asbury’s arrival in 1771 and 1784, Methodism grew from about five hundred persons to over fifteen thousand. However, the
Methodist preachers were desperate for a unique ordination system and system of organization that was democratic, yet endowed with meaningful power.
The American Revolutionary War came to a conclusion with the surrender at Yorktown in 1781 and the Peace of Paris in 1783. With peace reestablished between England and America, the persecution and tension aimed against
Methodists was lessened. Moreover, interchange between the Methodists in both England and America was made possible again. The renewed interchange made it possible for the religious movement’s head, John Wesley, and the British Conference to address the crisis concerning the ordinances in the newly formed United States.
Practically since the establishment of the first societies in the New World, the issue of administering the ordinances preoccupied the American Methodists.
This situation was amplified further by the close of the American Revolution.
49 Minutes of the Methodist Conferences, 37.
During the period immediately following the Revolution, those Methodists who continued to consider themselves members of the Church of England found themselves with a shortage of parishes in which to receive the ordinances.
Virginia was hit particularly hard. Prior to the American Revolution, the Church of England was Virginia’s established religion. At the time of the outbreak of the war there were 95 churches, 91 clergymen, and 164 churches. However, by the end of the war, many of the clergy persons had retreated to England. As a result, 34 parishes were without ministers and an additional 23 parishes were
abandoned.50
Asbury, who had spent considerable time in the 1770s convincing his brethren to hold out on making their own decision regarding the administering of the sacraments until John Wesley and the English Conference was given an opportunity to act, wrote to the religious movement’s founder on numerous occasions requesting aid from Wesley specifically or for the sending of some other ordained clergyman.51 Wesley was not unsympathetic to the American plight. He rejected offers to come to America, citing such issues as “being
detained by the building of a new chapel.”52However, he did petition the Bishop of London to ordain one or several of the Methodists for work in North America.
He was, of course, denied in his request.53By 1783, Wesley realized that the only
50 E. Clowes Chorley, Men and Movements in the American Episcopal Church (New York: Scribner’s, 1946), 27.
51 Asbury, 1: 378; 3: 24.
52 Bangs, History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1: 77. From a letter received by Francis Asbury on May 6, 1773.
53 John Vickers, Thomas Coke: Apostle of Methodism (London: Epworth, 1969), 71.
true solution to the ordinance crisis among the North American Methodists was in an American episcopate. At the present juncture, there was no episcopacy in the United States. In fact, until 1784 all ordained clergy persons in the Church of England were required to take the oath of allegiance, even if they were not citizens of England.54
Traditionally, in the Church of England, the notion of the episcopacy rested on the idea that there were two separate types of ordination, episcopal and presbyter. In practice both types of ordination were bestowed through the efforts of the bishopric, or those who held episcopal ordination. In 1746, John Wesley read Lord Peter King’s Account of the Primitive Church. King’s work
convinced Wesley that the two orders were, in fact, identical. As such, he came to believe that a presbyter – such as himself – had as much right to ordain others to the priesthood as a bishop.55 Wesley’s reading of Edward Stillingfleet’s 1659 work, The Irenicon, strengthened these views. Stillingfleet’s work was written in order to help reconcile the Episcopalians and Presbyterians of his day. This work demonstrated to Wesley’s satisfaction that in the early church presbyters and bishops were, basically, the same. Furthermore, Stillingfleet denied that any form of church government, let alone the episcopacy, was divinely sanctioned. In a 1755 letter to James Clark, Wesley wrote,
As to my own judgment, I still believe "the Episcopal form of Church
government to be both scriptural and apostolic": I mean, well agreeing with the practice and writings of the Apostles. But that it is prescribed in
Scripture I do not believe. This opinion (which I once heartily espoused) I have been heartily ashamed of ever since I read Dr. Stillingfleet's Irenicon. I
54 Ibid., 71-72.
55 John Wesley, The Letters of Rev. John Wesley, ed. John Telford (London: Epworth, 1931), 3: 136, 18; 4: 7:21.
think he has unanswerably proved that neither Christ or His Apostles prescribed any particular form of Church government, and that the plea for the divine right of Episcopacy was never heard of in the primitive Church.56 Despite arriving at the conclusion that there was no difference between episcopal and presbyter ordination thirty years earlier and that he possessed the right to ordain, Wesley had been slow to exercise this power. In letter dated June 1780 he wrote, “I see abundance of reasons why I should not use that right unless I was turned out by the Church.”57 While he had been determined to preserve the peace and to not “violate the established order of the national Church to which I belonged.”58 However, Wesley believed that Church of England’s virtual
abandonment of the American context, as well as the established Church’s refusal to aid him in his efforts to ordain Methodist preachers for America, had effectively forced his hand.
So, in 1784 Wesley decided to respond to the plight of the American Methodists in a definitive way. This brings us full circle to Thomas Coke. On September 1 in Bristol, Wesley, with the assistance of Thomas Coke and James Creighton, ordained Richard Whatcoat (1736-1806), and Thomas Vasey as deacons. Furthermore, Coke was set aside as a General Superintendent over the Methodists in America. Coke, Vasey, and Whatcoat were equipped with a new prayer book, a plan for setting up an independent Methodist Church in North
56 Ibid., 3: 182.
57 Ibid., 7:4.
58 Ibid., 7: 237.
America, a new version of A Collection of Psalms and Hymns for the Lord’s Day, and revised Articles of Religion.59
Thomas Coke, who was to be Wesley’s right hand man in America, remains a controversial figure in the history of Methodism. Many of his contemporaries blamed Coke for exercising undue influence upon Wesley.
Among Coke’s chief critics were Charles Wesley and John Wesley’s one-time traveling companion, Joseph Bradford. In 1794, three years after John’s death, Bradford wrote a letter to Richard Rodda in which he blamed Coke for being behind John Wesley’s decision to ordain some persons in the English Methodist Conference of 1785. Bradford wrote, “…he [John Wesley] was so much hurt by Dr. Coke’s conduct in persuading the people to dissent from the original plan that he threatened him in a letter to have no more to do with him if he did not desist from so persuading the people.”60
And, in some respects, Coke had been controversial his entire career in ministry. During his time as a parish priest in South Petherton, Coke was
discontent and constantly enmeshed in difficulties. Coke established friendships with and read tracts written by Dissenters, enthusiastic Anglicans, and
Methodists. Partially due to this influence, Coke began a series of fairly controversial activities in his churches; he started the practice of preaching extemporaneously and in an enthusiastic style and he tried to institute a weekly communion at a time when it was customary for people to celebrate the
59 Richard Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People Called Methodists (Nashville:
Abingdon Press, 1995), 287f.
60 Quoted in Vickers, Thomas Coke, 107. Letter to Rodda dated May 28th, 1794.
Eucharist four to six times a year.61 The result of these changes to his ministry was that Coke’s congregations grew, but so did his number of opponents.
Finally, the conflict between his detractors and Coke met a climax in the spring of 1777. On Easter Sunday (March 30),62 Coke was publicly dismissed from his parish in front of the entire congregation. Immediately after he was excused from the church, a new curate, who had been hired in secret earlier that week, stepped into the pulpit and gave a sermon condemning Coke. As Coke exited the church, the bells were rung and several people began celebrating his dismissal by drinking cider in the city streets.63
The controversy surrounding Coke’s life in ministry certainly cannot be attributed to lack of learning on his part. Coke was among the best educated of Methodist preachers. He received a B.A., M.A., and doctorate in Civil Law from Jesus College of Oxford University.64 Coke was also an ordained priest in the Church of England; he was ordained a deacon in 1770 and a priest in 1772.
Subsequently, he served as mayor of Breton and as a curate at South Petherton, before joining the Methodist Connection at some point in time before June 30, 1777.
Certainly, Wesley realized that Coke was – at times – prone to impulse and hasty decisions. He wrote in a letter to Adam Clarke in 1788, “The Doctor is
61 Vickers, Thomas Coke, 26f.
62 The date is not certain; however, there is a record of Coke presiding on the March 23 marriage register and no record of his presiding at the March 30 Easter vestry.
63 Ibid., 35. See also, Henry Moore, The Life of John Wesley (London: John Kershaw, 1825), 2: 310.
64 Vickers, Thomas Coke, 11.
often too hasty.”65 On another occasion he remarked, “Dr. Coke and I are like the French and the Dutch. The French have been compared to a flea, and the Dutch to a louse. I creep like a louse, and the ground I get I keep; but the Doctor leaps like a flea, and is sometimes obliged to leap back again.”66 And, for that matter, Wesley did not include a spiritual memoir when Coke’s portrait appeared on the cover of the May 1779 issue of the Arminian Magazine. This omission was
irregular for Wesley.
However, Wesley found Coke to be a useful ally. In particular, John Wesley utilized Coke’s legal abilities on numerous occasions. Coke helped Wesley prepare a Deed of Declaration, which enlisted a Legal Hundred, or one hundred ministers that were the legal Conference of the Methodists. The result of this move was that a legal focus of authority for Methodism, beyond John
Wesley, was put into place. Furthermore, Coke helped Wesley secure preaching- houses on the Conference plan, which kept the ownership of the preaching- houses in the hands of the Methodist Conference. Wesley sincerely believed Coke to be a well-intentioned man, passionately committed to the Methodist cause. John Wesley wrote, “I believe Dr. Coke is as free from ambition as from covetousness. …He is now such a right hand to me as Thomas Walsh was.”67 And, for these reasons, Wesley found Coke to the perfect candidate to aid the Americans.
65 Ibid., 46. Letter to Adam Clarke 5th November, 1788.
66 Jonathan Crowther, Life of the Rev. Thomas Coke (Leeds: Edward Baines, 1815), 233.
67 Wesley, Letters, 7: 288.