To "Our Brethren in America,"
THE THEOLOGIAN SELF-INTERPRETED
ray. [I have no] direct witness (I do not say that [I am a child of God]) but of anything invisible or eternal.
And yet I dare not preach otherwise than I do, either concerning faith, or love, or justification, or perfection. And yet I find rather an increase than a decrease of zeal for the whole work of God and every part of it.
I am <j>epop.ev<K ["so swept along"] (I know not how) that I can't stand still. I want all the world to come to or OVK olSa. ["what I do not know myself"]. Neither am I impelled to this by fear of any kind. I have no more fear than love. Or if I have [any fear, it is not of falling] into hell, but of falling into nothing.
I hope you are with Billy Evans. If there is an Israelite indeed, I think he is one. O insist everywhere on full redemption, receivable by faith alone; consequently, to be looked for now. You are made, as it were, for this very thing. Just here you are in your element. In connexion I beat you, but in strong, pointed sentences you beat me. Go on, in your own way, [in] what God has peculiarly called you to. Press the instantaneous blessing. Then I shall have more time for my peculiar calling, enforcing the gradual work.
We must have a thorough reform of the preachers. I wish you would come to Leeds,3 with John Jones in the machine. It comes in two days; and after staying two days, you might return. I would willingly bear your expenses up and down. I believe it will help, not hurt, your health.
My love to Sally.
Copyright © 1980. Oxford University Press USA - OSO. All rights reserved.
To "Our Brethren in America" 1
Bristol, September 10, 1784 i. By a very uncommon train of providences, many of the provinces of North America are totally disjoined from their mother country and erected into independent states. The English government has no author3. An appeal to Charles to attend the upcoming conference, and to lend a helping hand. i. Letters, VII, 238-39. This was issued as a broadsheet circular (with which this text has been collated). This "encyclical" to the American Methodists is as interesting a single document as we have from the tangled affair of Wesley's "ordinations" for America. Wesley is here conceding American independence with no enthusiasm and yet without recrimination. He cites Lord King's authority for appointing Coke and Asbury as "joint superintendents" and Whatcoat and Vasey "to act as elders."
Wesley, John. John Wesley, edited by A. C. Outler, Oxford University Press USA - OSO, 1980. ProQuest
Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nottingham/detail.action?docID=684619.
Created from nottingham on 2021-10-22 14:50:48.
SELF-IMAGES IN THE LETTERS
ity over them, either civil or ecclesiastical, any more than over the States of Holland. A civil authority is exercised over them, partly by the Congess, partly by the provincial Assemblies. But no one either exercises or claims any ecclesiastical authority at all. In this peculiar situation some thousands of the inhabitants of these states desire my advice, and in compliance with their desire I have drawn up a little sketch.
2. Lord King's account of The Primitive Church2 convinced me many years ago that bishops and presbyters are the same order and consequently have the same right to ordain. For many years I have been importuned from time to time to exercise this right by ordaining part of our travelling preachers. But I have still refused, not only for peace' sake, but because I was determined as little as possible to violate the established order of the national Church to which I belonged.
3. But the ease is widely different between England and North America. Here there are bishops who have a legal jurisdiction. In America there are none, neither any parish ministers, so that for some hundred miles together there is none either to baptize or to administer the Lord's
Supper. Here, therefore, my scruples are at an end, and I conceive myself at full liberty, as I violate no order and invade no man's right by appointing and sending labourers into the harvest.
4. I have accordingly appointed Dr. Coke and Mr. Francis Asbury to be joint superintendents over our brethren in North America; as also
Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey to act as elders among them, by baptizing and administering the Lord's Supper. And I have prepared a liturgy little differing from that of the Church of England (I think the Copyright © 1980. Oxford University Press USA - OSO. All rights reserved.
He reasserts his pastoral authority over the American Methodists and at the same time allows for the separation that was already de facto. When Coke arrived in Maryland and broached the idea to Asbury, the latter declined to act as superintendent, "by Mr. Wesley's appointment," unless unanimously elected by the preachers
(Francis Asbury, Journal and Letters, Elmer T. Clark, ed. [1958], I, 471). Dr. Coke's
"ordination certificate" (of Asbury) omits all mention of Wesley's name or authority (cf. ibid., 474). The liturgy mentioned here (the "Sunday Service"), was a more drastic revision of the B.C.P. than Wesley indicates. It was nominally accepted by the Americans, but then quietly dropped from general use. At the same time, however, Wesley's abridgment of the Thirty-nine Articles (the so-called "Twenty-five
Articles") was added to his Sermons on Several Occasions (1746-60) and Explanatory Notes on the New Testament (1755), as comprising what The Discipline of 1812 refers to as "our present existing and established standards of doctrine."
2. An Enquiry into the Constitution, Discipline, Unity and Worship of the Primitive Church (1691). Wesley never mentions the fact, if he ever knew it, that Lord
King had subsequently altered his views in this area, and had repudiated the main thesis of his Enquiry long before Wesley had first read it.
Wesley, John. John Wesley, edited by A. C. Outler, Oxford University Press USA - OSO, 1980. ProQuest
Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nottingham/detail.action?docID=684619.
Created from nottingham on 2021-10-22 14:50:48.