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words were, "what will my father say, when he sees that I am got to heaven!"

Of the few clergymen who entered into Mr. Wesley's views, and heartily co-operated with him, Mr. Grimshaw was the most eccentric; Mr. Fletcher the most remarkable for intellectual powers; the one who entered most entirely into the affairs of the Society was Thomas Coke. This person, who held so distinguished a place among the Methodists, and by whose unwearied zeal, and indefatigable exertions, that spirit, which Mr. Wesley had kindled in England, was extended to the remotest parts of the world, was born at Brecknock, in the year 1747, the only child of respectable and wealthy parents. The father died during his childhood, and the youth, in his seventeenth year, was entered as a gentleman commoner at Jesus' College, Oxford. He escaped from the university with fewer vices than in those days were generally contracted there; but he brought away a taint of that philosophical infidelity which was then beginning to infect half-learned men. The works of Bishop Sherlock reclaimed him he enter ed into holy orders, and being in expectation of some considerable preferment, took out his degree of doctor of laws. The disappointment which he experienced from certain persons in power, to whom he had looked as patrons, was of little consequence to him, being possessed of a fair patrimony. He accepted the curacy of South-Petherton, in Somersetshire, and entered upon the duties of his office with more than ordinary zeal. His preaching soon filled the church; more room was wanting for the congregation; and, as the vestry would not be persuaded to erect a gallery, he built one at his own expense. This, and the style of his discourses, raised a suspicion that he was inclined to Methodism. The growing inclination was strengthened by conversation with Maxfield, who happened then to be residing in the neighbourhood, and confirmed by the perusal of * Alleine's Alarum to the Unconverted. He now

"A book which multitudes will have cause for ever to be thankful for," says Calamy. "No book in the English tongue (the Bible except

preached extemporaneously, established evening lectures, and introduced hymns into the church; but, by thus going on faster than the parishioners were prepared to follow, he excited a strong spirit of opposition; complaints against him were preferred to the bishop and to the rector: the former merely admonished him; by the latter he was dismissed in a manner which seems to have been studiously disrespectful, before the people publicly, on the Sabbath day and his enemies had the indecency to chime him out of the church. These insults roused his Welsh blood, and he determined, with more spirit than prudence, to take his stand near the church on the two following Sundays, and preach to the people when they came out, for the purpose of vindicating himself, gratifying his adherents, and exhorting his opponents to repentance. These, who were probably the more numerous, were so provoked at this, that they collected stones, for the purpose of pelting him, on his second exhibition; and the Doctor would hardly have escaped, without some serious injury, if a young lady and her brother, whom the people knew and respected, had not placed themselves one on each side of him. He now took the earliest opportunity of being introduced to Wesley. The latter soon came into Somersetshire in his rounds, and thus notices the meeting in his Journal: "Here I found a clergyman, Dr. Coke, late a gentleman commoner of Jesus' College, in Oxford, who came twenty miles on purpose to meet me. I had much conversation with him; and an union then began, which, I trust, shall never end."

This was in the year 1776. Dr. Coke immediately became a member of the Methodist society, and was soon regarded as the most efficient of all Mr. Wesley's fellow-labourers. Having wholly given

ed) can equal it for the number that hath been dispersed; for there have been 20,000 of them printed and sold under the title of the Call, or Alarum to the Unconverted, in 8vo. or 12mo.; and 50,000 of the same book have been sold under the title of the Sure Guide to Heaven, 30,000 of which were at one impression.”—Account of the Ejected Ministers, vol. ii. 577.

himself up to the Connexion, the second place in it was naturally assigned to him; no other of its active members was possessed of equal fortune and rank in society; and all that he had, his fortune, to every shilling, and his life, to every minute that could be employed in active exertions, were devoted to its interests. He was now considered as Mr. Wesley's more immediate representative; and, instead of being stationed, like the other preachers, in a circuit, he travelled, like Mr. Wesley, as a general inspector, wherever his presence was thought needful. In Ireland, more particularly, he visited the Societies alternately with Mr. Wesley, so that an annual visitation was always made. Before Mr. Wesley became acquainted with Dr. Coke, Mr. Fletcher had been looked to as the fittest person to act as his coadjutor, and succeed to as much of his authority as could be deputed to any successor. But Mr. Fletch

er shrunk from the invidious distinction, and from the difficulties of the task: he had found his place, and knew where he could be most usefully employed for others, and most happily for himself.

The want of clerical assistants had been severely felt by Wesley. Notwithstanding his attachment to the Church of England, and his desire not only to continue in union with it himself, but to preserve his people from forming a schism, the tendency to separation became every year more apparent, from various causes, of which some were incidental, but others arose inevitably from the system which he had established. A hostile feeling toward the Church was retained by the dissenters who united themselves to the Methodists: these proselytes were not numerous, but they leavened the society. It is likely too, that, as Methodism began to assume consistency and importance, just at the time when the Non-jurors were on the point of dissolution, a considerable proportion of that party would rather ally themselves with it, than with the sectarians or the Establishment; and these persons also would bring with them an unfavourable disposition toward the church. But the main cause is obviously to be found in the growing

influence of the lay-preachers, their jealousy of the few clergymen who acted with them, their natural desire of placing themselves upon a level with the ministers of other denominations, and the disrespect with which the Establishment began to be regarded by most of those persons who preferred the preaching at the chapel to that in the church. And though Wesley often and earnestly warned them against this, neither his language nor his conduct were at all times consistent. In controversy, and in self-defence, he was sometimes led to speak of the unworthy ministers of the Establishment in terms of indignation, not considering that his remarks would be generally applied by many of his followers,

The growing desire of the itinerants to raise themselves in rank, and of the societies to have the sacrament administered by their own preachers, induced Wesley, who, in the continual bustle of his life, sometimes acted without due consideration, to take the strange means of obtaining orders for some of his lay-assistants from a Greek, who called himself Erasmus. and appeared in London with the title of Bishop of Arcadia. This measure was, in every point of view, injudicious. Charles was decidedly hostile to it, and would never allow the preachers who had been thus ordained to assist him at the communion table. Staniforth was one; and he found it so invidious among his colleagues, that he never thought proper to exercise the ministerial functions. On the other hand, some, both of the local and itinerant preachers, coveted the distinction, and prevailed upon the obliging bishop to lay his hands upon them, without Mr. Wesley's consent Displeased at this disregard of his authority, he acted with his wonted decision, and at once excluded from the Connexion those who would not forego the powers with which they supposed themselves to be invested. It was doubtful whether this Erasmus* was what he

*Toplady saw a certificate given by this vagrant, as he calls him, to the persons whom he pretended to ordain. It confirmed him in his opinion that the man was an impostor, because it was written, not in the modern Greek, but in the ancient, and of a very mean sort. This is the

pretended to be; and the whole transaction gave Wesley's enemies an opportunity of attacking him, which they did not fail to use. They charged him with having violated the oath of supremacy, by thus inducing a foreign prelate to exercise acts of ecclesiastical jurisdiction within this realm; and they alleged that he had even pressed the Greek to consecrate him a bishop also, that he might then ordain what Ministers he pleased. Erasmus was said to have refused, because, according to the canons of the Greek Church, more than one bishop must be present to assist at the consecration of a new one. Charles Wesley was even accused, in the Gospel Magazine, of having offered the Greek forty guineas, if he would perform the ceremony. This is palpably false; nothing can be so incredible as that Charles Wesley would have made such an offer, except that a bishop of Arcadia in London should have refused it. The charge of simony is beyond all doubt, purely calumnious, in the spirit of that slander which the Gospel Magazine breathed in all its numbers. But there seems reason to believe that Wesley was willing to have been episcopized upon this occasion.

Both brothers retained the fancy of baptizing by immersion, after they had out-grown many other eccentricities; and Wesley followed this mode some

translation: "Our measure from the grace, gift, and power of the allholy and life-giving Spirit, given by our Saviour Jesus Christ to his divine and holy apostles, to ordain sub-deacons and deacons, and also to advance to the dignity of a priest! Of this grace, which hath descended to our humility, I have ordained sub-deacon and deacon, at Snowfields Chapel, on the 19th day of Nov. 1764, and at West-street Chapel, on the 24th day of the same month, priest, the Rev. Mr. W. C., according to the rules of the holy apostles and of our faith. Moreover, I have given to him power to minister and teach, in all the world, the pel of Jesus Christ, no one forbidding him in the church of God. Where fore, for that very purpose, I have made this present letter of recommendation from our humility, and have given it to the ordained Mr. W. C. for his certificate and security.

gos

"Given and written at London, in Britain, Nov. 24, 1764.
"ERASMUS, Bishop of Arcadia."

Mr. Nightingale says, that inquiry concerning him was made of the patriarch of Smyrna, and that it appeared he really, was Bishop of Arcadia, in Crete.

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