”…The extract of the letter from the Rev. Thomas Ware, whom we have the pleasure to know, contains a passage both candid and sensible, and very much in point And when it is recollected that the inquiry is not as to the title by which Mr. Wesley wished our bishops or our episcopacy to be designated, but as to the office or thing itself, substantively and in fact, there is nothing in Mr. Ware’s letter which in the slightest degree impugns our positions; but very much that strengthens and supports them, and shows the honesty and good faith with which our fathers, and himself among them, acted. In what shape Mr. M’Caine proposed his inquiries to Mr. Dromgoole, Mr. Forrest, and Mr. Ware, does not appear, except from the tenor of the ‘mutilated’ answers, if extracts be mutilations. It has never been contended by us, however, that the abridged prayer book, it’ regarded merely in reference to the prayers contained in it, was a recommendation of episcopacy; but that the forms of ordination contained in it, as prepared by Mr. Wesley for our use, and recommended in common with the rest of the book, were a recommendation of such an institution in fact, though not in name. From this view we very much doubt whether Mr. Ware would dissent; and the following testimony, contained in his letter of December 1828, is highly satisfactory. ‘I am fully persuaded [says Mr. Ware] the preachers in 1784 believed they were acting in accordance with the will of Mr. Wesley, when they adopted the episcopal form or the plan of general superintendency.’ Here Mr. Ware obviously speaks of’ the episcopal form’ or ‘the plan of general superintendency,’ as one and the same in substance and in fact. He then adds, ‘ This plan we know Mr. Wesley approved, and we called it episcopal.’ He adds also , that he did not believe Mr. Wesley wished us to give it that appellation.’ This may be. Yet this is not the question, nor in any way material to it.”

Reference Data:

The Methodist Magazine and Quarterly Review, Vol. 12, New Series Vol. 1, 1830, page 218