Lives of Methodist bishops

Preface

HISTOEY is only a compilation of biographies, and the true study of history is from the stand-point of the men who make it. But because it is philosophical, it is none the less pleasurable thus to study it. There, is enough of romance in the personal struggles, ambitions and successes, disappointments and defeats, of the historic men in the world, to exhilarate the mind through a deal of otherwise dull and distasteful details concerning simple events. And some such romance must go into the account of ecclesiastical events, or Church history will find few persons either pious enough or studious enough to read it, much less to study it. The histories which are the most read are the biographies which are the best written.

In these Life Sketches we have furnished the reader with a history of Episcopal Methodism from the stand-point of the men who have come down to us from the beginning of the Societies, and who, because of their position and influence, have not only had much to do with formulating the doctrines and polity of the Church, but were themselves personally related to preachers and people throughout the connection.

Methodism is rich in the biographies of her people, and many eminent and worthy ministers who were not bishops, as well as many eminent and worthy laymen, have afforded their biographers an abundance of material for the best of life-stories. But no one of all the bishops has made it impossible, by a stain of character, for his biography to be written and read as a creditable legacy to the Church. !N^ot even the Churches laying claim to an uninterrupted succession of bishops by Divine appointment have been as fortunate in this regard. Our chief pastors have brought no dishonor to our communion.

These pen portraits reveal a sagacity of mind, a depth of piety, and a strength of character belonging to the men, worthy of the high

8 Preface.

calling to which they had been chosen. In no instance has the office been one of ease or emolnment. Not nnfrequently have the men, like the first apostles, after much sacrifice and toil, suffered martyrdom.

We have chosen to write in fnll concerning only the deceased bishops — tlie men whose work is ended — that no personal element might enter into a judgment of their characters or ministry. But an Appendix has been added in which is given a brief outline of the life of each living bishop, to make the succession complete.

While an occasional biography of some one of the bishops has appeared at intervals in the history of the Church, this volume will present tlie only complete and connected account of all the men and their Avork which has been published. In selecting the men to write the sketches, we sought always to find persons who, by reason of their relations to the deceased bishops, or some sj)ecial study of their lives, were best able to give full and impartial estimates of their characters and work. We may speak freely, as our work has been chiefly that of editors. The task of bringing together so many excellent things in the unity of a book will be abundantly compensated by the pleasure of possessing such an admirable collection of rare portraits by eminent artists — a gallery in itself.

The preparation of such a volume has also given an opportunity for collecting many important but hitherto unwritten facts and incidents from the older men among us, which ought to be preserved in some permanent form before their generation shall have passed away.

The order of arrangement in the plan of the book has been to follow the different branches of the Church in the natural order of their development. And no attempt has been made to show the organic unity of Methodism, or to claim superior excellence in any particular of doctrine or government for one branch of the Church over another. We have simply given the story of how these men wrought their work in the Church, finished their course in the world, and kept their faith in the Son of God.

The plates used for the illu stmt ions have been obtained with great difficulty and at no little expense. In some instances we were almost ready to abandon the search for pictures of the earlier bishops, when from some neglected quarter we would receive through distant relatives an indistinct daguerreotype, or a much worn portrait on wood.

Preface. 9

These tlie artists have been able to use so satisfactorily as to obtain plates for even better engravings than the most intimate friends and relatives of the bishops could have anticipated.

It is with great pleasure we acknowledge our indebtedness to the many contributors who have so readily and cheerfully acceded to our requests, in devoting their time and study to the preparation of the sketches, which has necessarily called them aside from a great pressure of duties in other and not infrequently official directions. For valuable assistance and advice we recognize special acknowledgment due to the Rev. Bishop Matthew Simpson, D.D., LL.D. ; and to the memories of the late Eev. Bishops E. S. Janes, D.D., LL.D., Edward Ra,ymond Ames, D.D., LL.D., and Gilbert Llaven, D.D., LL.D. We also return thanks to many of our brethren in the ministry, and to the relatives of many of the deceased bishops, for the interesting and important material they have furnished for preparing the sketches, and the great assistance they have rendered in procuring the pictures and portraits.

The enterjDrising Agents of the Methodist Book Concern, Messrs. Phillips & Hunt, are justly entitled to the great credit they have secured to themselves by the character of the engravings with which ihe book is illustrated, and the style in which it is prepared.

While, as Editors, we have only produced the first volume of a series which must remain incomplete as long as bishops continue in the Church, we have hoped that it might, at least in the estimate of Episcopal Methodists, retain its place as Yolume First in the Lives of the Methodist Bishops.

John W. Hamilton, Theodore L. Flood.

Introduction

THE office of a bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church was providentially conferred upon, and assumed by, the father and founder of the Wesleyan Societies in England and America. But it was never wholly conferred upon him in an ecclesiastical way, nor arbitrarily assumed in an wnecclesiastical way. The first preacher who exercised the office of bishop among the Methodists was not elected to the episcopacy by any body of Christian believers, and was not, so far as we know, ordained to that office in accordance with the usage of any branch of the Christian Church. The second preacher who exercised the episcopal functions, but who has usually been called the first bishop, was appointed to the office without an election, and ordained by the imposition of the hands of the first. But the Methodist Church has never offered an apology for the existence of her Episcopacy, and will allow no one to question the right of a single one of her bishops to exercise the duties of his office.

The Greek word episcopos, Latin episcopus, and English bishop, have occasioned frequent controversies in the Church, and often separated the disputants into widely differing denominations. But these very differences have proved the safeguards of the spirit-life in the Church.

To believe one definition of episcopos right, is not to argue another wrong. Episcopalians may and do differ among themselves as widely as they may differ from Presbyterians. " It ought to be understood," says Dr. Samuel Miller, "that among those who espouse the episcopal side, there are three classes.

" The first consists of those who believe that neither Christ nor his apostles laid down any particular form of ecclesiastical government to which the Church is bound to adhere in all ages. That every Church is free, consistently with the divine will, to frame her own constitution agreeably to her own views, to the state of society, and the exigencies of particular times. These prefer the episcopal government, and some of them believe it was the primitive form ; but they consider it

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resting on the ground of hwman expediency alone, and not of divine appointment.

This is well known to have been the opinion of Archbishops Cranmer, Grindal, Whitgift, Leighton, and Tillotson ; ^of Bishops Jewel, Reynolds, Burnet, and Croft ; of Drs. Whitaker, Stillingfleet, and of a long list of the most learned and pious divines of the Church of England, from the Reformation down to the present day.

"Another class of Episcopalians go further. They suppose that the government of the Church by bishops, as a superior order to presbyters, was sanctioned by apostolic example, and that it is the duty of all the Churches to imitate this example. But while they consider episcopacy as necessary to the perfection of the Church, they grant that it is by no means necessary to her existence ; and accordingly, without hesitation, acknowledge as true Churches of Christ many in which the episcopal doctrine is rejected and presbyterian principles made the basis of ecclesiastical government. The advocates of this opinion, also, have been numerous and respectable, both among the clerical and lay members of the Episcopal Churches in England and the United States. In this list appear the venerable names of Bishop Hall, Bishop Downham, Bishop Bancroft, Bishop Andrews, Archbishop Usher, Bishop Forbes, the learned Chillingworth, Archbishop Wake, Bishop Hoadley, and many more.

"A third class go much beyond either of the former. While they grant that God has left men at liberty to modify every other kind of government according to circumstances, they contend that one form of government for the Church is unalterably fixed by divine appointment ; that this form is episcopal ; that it is absolutely essential to the existence of the Church ; that, of course, wherever it is wanting there is no Church, no regular ministry, no valid ordinances ; and that all who are united with religious societies not conforming to this order are ' aliens from Christ,' ' out of the appointed way to heaven,' and have no hope but in the uncovenanted mercies, of God."

"It is confidently believed," continues Dr. Miller, "that the two former classes, taken together, embrace at least nineteen parts out of twenty of all the Episcopalians in Great Britain and the United States ; while, so far as can be learned from the most respectable writings, and other authentic sources of information, it is only the small remaining proportion who hold the extravagant opinions assigned to the third and last of these classes."

Introduction. 1 3

Dr. Coke and Mr. Asbury, in tlieir Notes to the Discipline, published at the request of the General Conference shortly after tliey were made bishops, declared that '' the most bigoted devotees to religious establishments (the clergy of the Church of Rome excepted) are now ashamed to support the doctrine of the apostolic, uninterrupted succession of bishops ; and yet nothing but an apostolic, uninterrupted succession, can possibly confine the right of episcopacy to any particular Church. The idea of an apostolic succession being exploded, it follows that the Methodist Church has every thing which is scriptural and essential to justify its episcopacy."

We have said that the office of bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church was providentially conferred, and this we have said believing " plain John Wesley the fountain of our episcopal authority." Called of God to his place in the history of the Christian Church as certainly as Paul was called to be an apostle to the Gentiles, he was providentially appointed and spiritually ordained a bishop from his very relation to his followers, who in England were discarded by the Establishment, and in America were shepherdless wanderers. This is the divine element in our Wesleyan episcopacy. Mr. Etheridge, Doctor in Philosophy in the University of Heidelberg, says in his life of Rev. Thomas Coke, " Both Mr, Wesley and Dr. Coke recognized an apostolical succession, viewed as implying a due transmission of the Christian ministry. How could they do otherwise, believing as they did the promise of Christ : ' Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world ? ' — words which indicate the certainty of a perpetual succession, with the persons composing which Jesus declares he would be always. The Methodists, who retain the sentiments of their founder, believe in the perpetuation of the Christian ministry in its pure teachings, its holy zeal, its earnest labors, and its saving effects, by the agency of men spiritually qualified for it, and openly recognized and appointed as the servants and ministers of Christ, and under him the pastors and shepherds of his Church. This succession is an historical and visible fact. This it was which led Mr. Wesley to the headship in the college of Methodist bishops. He had a clear discernment of the providential leadings in the matter. *You,' said he to Mr. Asbury, 'are the elder brother of the American Methodists ; I am, under God, the father of the whole family. Therefore I naturally care for you all in a manner no other person can. Therefore I, in a measure, provide for you all.' "

And Mr. Moore, in his " Life of Wesley," tells us that Mr. Wesley did

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himself assert that he believed himself to be a scriptural emaKonog, copos, as much as any man in England or Europe. Mr. Coke, in giving his consent to receive the Wesleyan ordination prior to sailing for America, wrote to Mr. Wesley as follows : —

"The more maturely I consider the subject the more expedient it seems to me that the power of ordaining others should be received by me from you by the imposition of your hands, . . . An authority formally received from you will (I am conscious of it) be fully admitted by the people, and my exercising the office of ordination without that formal authority may be disputed, if there be any opposition on any other account. I could, therefore, earnestly wish you would exercise that power in this instance, which I have not the shadow of a doubt but God hath invested you with, for the good of the Connection."

But the episcopacy had a legitimate human appointment. Mr. Wesley had been ordained both a 'deacon and a presbyter in the Church of England. Dr. Emory, in "A Defense of our Fathers," says : " Lord King maintains that bishops and presbyters in the Primitive Church were the same order. Yet he expressly says that the bishops, when chosen such from among the presbyters, were ordained as bishojys by imposition of hands." " The extension of the jurisdiction of the bishop," he continues, "in consequence of the extension of the Church, is not the creating any new office, and certainly cannot make it less proper that he should be solemnly ordained by imposition of hands, and furnished with suitable credentials. The revival of such an itinerant, extensive, personal oversight and inspection, is the revival of the apostolic practice, and, as Mr. Wesley says, v.'ell agrees both with their practice and with their writings." And " the idea that equals," he forcibly remarks, " cannot, from among themselves, constitute an officer who, as an officer, shall be superior to any of those by whom he was constituted, is contradicted by all experience and history, both civil and ecclesiastical, and equally by common sense. The contrary is too plain to require illustration."

The third ordination in the Christian ministry is therefore to a jurisdictional office whose functions are peculiar to itself, and do not belong in the privileges and duties of a presbyter. They are not wholly governmental, as the Church, which is " the true original subject of all power," has committed to this office, wherever it exists, the right to ordain. Certainly no greater necessity could have existed for the assumption of such jurisdictional office than that found in the neglect of the Wesleyan

Introduction. 15

Societies by the English Church. And, as Dr. Bangs declared, "Mr. Wesley possessed a right over the Methodists which no man else did or could possess, because they were his spiritual children, raised up under his preaching and superintendence, and hence they justly looked to him for a supply of the ordinances of Jesus Christ." It was incumbent upon him as founder of his Societies, and not simply because of any right inherent in him as a presbyter, to institute a jurisdictional episcopacy, and ordain men to the office to assist him in the government of his people, and perpetuate their organization after his death.

If he had not provided for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he would have denied the faith, and been worse than an infidel. And the choice that he made in selecting an episcopal form of government comported well with his own training, as well as with wliat he deemed to be the need of the people whom he served, for his wish to the last was, that they would conform themselves to "the discipline of the Church of England."

Taken Mr. Wesley's right of relation to his followers as father and founder, and the right of the presbytery to originate an episcopate, what ordination ever was or could have been accomplished more " decently and in order," than the appointment and consecration of the Rev. Dr. Coke to the office of bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church ? Four presbyters of the Established Church were present to assist in the ceremonies. " Looked at from the canonical side," says Mr. Etheridge, " we admit it w^as an irregularity, and one which, to his own feelings as a churchman, was warranted only by necessity. But considered from a scriptural point of view it was no irregularity at all, but a transaction in thorough harmony with apostolic principle and practice. And indeed," he adds, " there were once bishops of this presbyterian type in the British Church. Beda, mentioning Cedda, one of the most active missionaries among the Saxons, writes that he had received episcopal consecration from a bishop who had himself been ordained by the presbyters of lona." But when Dr. Coke was ordained a bishop the Methodist episcopate was not yet perfected. So far it was only a Wesleyan and English appointment and ordination.

When the Christmas Conference which convened in Baltimore, A.D. 1784, for the reception of Dr. Coke and the organization of the Methodist Episcopal Church, at the suggestion of Mr. Asbury had voted unanimously to receive the bishop who had been appointed and ordained for them, and had also elected and witnessed the ordination of

1 Introduction".

Mr. Asbur}" as joint bishop, the work was ended, and the episcopal order established. Had the American Societies remained a part of the English work, both the appointments and ordinations of Mr. Wesley would have remained a valid and sufficient episcopacy. But once separated from Mr. Wesley, the right to appoint and ordain bishops reverted to the presbyters, the only remaining representatives of the Church in such matters — just where the right would rest to-day were all the bishops to die.

It is true the bishops were called superintendents, but Mr. Wesley considered the terra "superintendent" as synonymous with "bishop." The Rev. Wm. Watters, who was present at the organization of the Church, also declares, "from first to last the business of general assistant, superintendent, or bishop, has been the same ; only since we have become a distinct Church he has, with the assistance of two or three elders, ordained our ministers." Mr. Wesley objected to the name " bishop " because of the English association, but never to the functions and duties of the office. The name of "bishop" was substituted for " superintendent " in the " Discipline " printed by Dr. Coke and Mr. Asbury two or three years after they came into the office, and at the next Conference the change was approved by the preachers. The superintendents came to be styled, as they now remain, bishops in the Methodist Episcopal Church, having the executive authority and office in the Church. Hence, by an original providential selection and a scripturally authoritative ordination, and an unmistakably Wesleyan succession, we have a genuinely apostolic bishopric among the Methodists. And, as Dr. Stevens has said, "The Methodist bishops were the first Protestant bishops, and Methodism was the first Protestant Episcopal Church of the New World ; and as Wesley had given it the Anglican Articles of Religion and the Liturgy, wisely abridged, it became, both by its precedent organization and its subsequent numerical iniportance, the real successor to the Anglican Church in America."

JoHN^ W. Hamilton^, Theodore L. Flood.

Contents

PAGE

Introduction 11

Sketch of Methodist Episcopal