[May —, 1804] — to Ezekiel Cooper] (?)

The General Conference of 1804 was presided over by the three bishops, Coke, Asbury, and Whatcoat. That point is important here, as the date and place, as well as the person to whom addressed, are not in the original. Reference is made within the letter to “every one of the bishops,” which naturally refers to more than two. At the General Conference of 1800 there were only two bishops until Whatcoat was elected. Before the conference of 1808 Whatcoat had died, and Coke was not present. Neither the conference of 1800 nor 1808 fits into the statements of this letter. Attacks were made in the conference on the episcopacy. Provision was made to elect a president of an annual conference “by ballot, without debate, from among the presiding elders.” Provision was made for the trial of a bishop. A limitation was put on the bishops prohibiting a bishop from appointing a pastor to a charge for longer than two years. Bangs, Jesse Lee, Phoebus, Tees, and others discuss the Conference of 1804.

[BALTIMORE, MARYLAND]¹

[May —, 1804]

[TO EZEKIEL COOPER] (?)²

[Dear Brother]

The minute you have to consider tomorrow morning has neither sense nor meaning in it. You might turn it to criminate or clear every one of the bishops. If ours is a travelling episcopacy, how can we exercise it if we do not travel, and how can we commit ourselves? Without motion there is no transgression. If we travel at large where? Through England, Scotland and Ireland, or any or all Europe, or the world or through the United States or British Provinces? Oh, mend it or end it. The stationed preacher knows where he is to travel, the circuit preacher hath his circuit, the presiding elder hath his bounds. He ought to attend every quarterly meeting. Then give your bishops their work and all the men that are ambitious for the honour, give them all the honour and all the labour and all the reproach. They must travel at large, to meet all the seven conferences in a conference year, if able, and if not able as many as they can. Let no excuse be admitted but lameness or blindness or a total incapacity to ride. Now is your time, and see ye what the noble sons of America will do. Make what bishops you please but fix their bounds of labour as well as power. Let them never stop, but by a council of the ablest physicians that shall declare them unfit for duty. Never, never, never, admit a bishop before you have his work laid out. Let him, let his ministry, let his people know what he has to do. This is one way, this is the only way to secure yourselves as a Conference. Let them³ sit mute, while you work out their lines and if your present bishops will continue to serve you upon such conditions, well; if not they may refuse. Let a man know what he has to do then he will know when he has done. If it is five hundred or five thousand miles to ride in a year he can then tell when he has done the work appointed him. I came from my knees to write. I will not sign my name.⁴ You may take and make all the good out of this you can. P.S. It shall not be estimated to have the appearance of a degradation if at the end of 4 years or any period of time a preacher is taken by the bishops out of the eldership of the Districts and put into the towns or circuit stations.

P.S. This done in some form will grace the appointments of the above nature that have and may hereafter take place and that the preachers themselves in the first instance, and all their friends in the second that do not know the causes of such changes, may be assured it is not for any fault or is anything like a degradation.

Methodist Historical Society of the Baltimore Conference (Lovely Lane Museum)