of Arcadia in Crete, of whose episcopal character he had ‘abundant unexceptionable credentials’ (Works, x. 432). Erasmus knew no English, and his candidates knew no Greek ({sc|Hampson}}, iii. 188). It is not stated whether Erasmus ordained them to the priesthood; it is certain that two of them, John Jones and Lawrence Coughlan, on leaving Wesley, were again ordained by the bishop of London. Toplady and Rowland Hill (1744–1833) [q. v.] affirmed that Wesley had asked Erasmus to consecrate him bishop and been refused, a statement denied by Wesley in both its parts (Olivers's Letter to Toplady, 1771, p. 50). Much later (20 Sept. 1788) he writes ‘men may call me a knave or a fool, a rascal, a scoundrel, and I am content; but they shall never, by my consent, call me a bishop’ (Works, xiii. 71). Yet he considered (8 June 1780) that he had ‘as good a right to ordain as to administer the Lord's Supper’ (Works, xii. 137). However in August 1780 he made a second application to Robert Lowth or Louth [q. v.] for the ordination of a preacher for America, and was refused because the candidate was no classical scholar. Two of Lady Huntingdon's clergy (Wills and Taylor), having been prosecuted for irregularity, seceded from the Anglican church, and held a public ordination on 9 March 1783. Wesley must have strongly felt the pressure of this example.
On 28 Feb. 1784 he executed the ‘deed of declaration,’ which was enrolled in the court of chancery, and constitutes the charter of Wesleyan methodism and the beginning of its modern history. Its object was to settle the uses of the methodist chapels (359 in number) after the deaths of Wesley and his brother; and for this purpose to create a legal ‘conference,’ limiting its number to a hundred preachers (selected out of 192), and defining its powers and procedure. In this measure, Wesley's chief adviser was Thomas Coke [q. v.], whom he first met in 1776; the limitation and selection of the ‘legal hundred’ was Wesley's own act, overriding Coke's judgment. Coke was destined, with Francis Asbury [q. v.], to act as joint superintendents of the methodists in America (a chapel had been opened in New York in 1767). At Bristol, on 1 Sept. 1784, Wesley in conjunction with Coke and James Creighton, an Anglican clergyman [see Scarlett, Nathaniel], ordained Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey as presbyters for the American mission. On 2 Sept. Coke, in presence of Creighton and others, was ‘set apart as a superintendent’ by the imposition of Wesley's hands (certificate in Drew's Life of Coke, 1817, p. 66). Next Christmas, Coke and his coadjutors exercised their ordaining powers on Asbury; Wesley severely rebuked Coke's assumption of the title of bishop. On 1 Aug. 1785 Wesley ‘set apart’ John Pawson, Thomas Hanby, and Joseph Taylor for Scotland. At the conference of 1786 Joshua Keighley and Charles Atmore were ‘set apart’ for Scotland, William Warrener for Antigua, and William Hammet for Newfoundland. In 1787 five were ‘set apart.’ In 1788 John Barber and Joseph Cownley were ‘set apart’ in Scotland; and, at the conference of that year, seven others, Alexander Mather being set apart as a superintendent. On Ash Wednesday (27 Feb.) 1789 Wesley, with Creighton and Peard Dickenson, an Anglican clergyman (1759–1802), set apart Henry Moore (1751–1844) [q. v.] and Thomas Rankin as presbyters (certificate in Smith's Life of Moore, 1844, p. 121). These were the last ordained. Entitled to administer sacraments and transmit this right, they were to exercise it as Wesley's deputies, within a defined sphere of labour. ‘Whatever is done in America and Scotland,’ wrote Wesley in 1786, ‘is no separation from the church of England’ (Tyerman, iii. 442), an argument inapplicable to the last three cases. Creighton affirms that Wesley repented of his action (Hampson, ii. 216; Tyerman, iii. 441). His sermon on ‘the ministerial office’ (Cork, 4 May 1789) denies that the unordained may administer sacraments, and was regarded, somewhat unreasonably, as receding from his earlier position (see criticism in Moore, ii. 339). As early as 1760 methodists at Norwich had taken the benefit of the Toleration Act. On 3 Nov. 1787 Wesley, under legal advice, decided to license all his chapels and travelling preachers ‘not as dissenters but simply “preachers of the gospel”’ (Journal). Owning that he ‘varied’ from the church (Cork sermon) he would never allow that this amounted to separation; he laid stress on the fact that he was under no ecclesiastical censure. His position was not unlike that of Richard Baxter [q. v.], whose spirit he contrasts (Journal, 1 May 1755) with the bitterness of Michaijah Towgood [q. v.] With few exceptions (e.g. Doddridge) he had no personal relations with dissenters, though be expresses high admiration of the ejected nonconformists of 1662, as known to him through Neal.
Wesley writes (26 June 1785), ‘I am become, I know not how, an honourable man.’ His attitude (from 1775) towards the revolt of the American colonies (earlier he had somewhat favoured their cause) contributed to his popularity, and severed him from the
