History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

of it are in the closing suggestion of this letter: "You can do all this in Mr. C_____n's house, in your
chamber, and afterward (according to Mr. Fletcher's advice) give us letters testimonial of the
different offices with which you have been pleased to invest us. For the purpose of laying hands on
brothers Whatcoat and Vasey I can bring Mr. C. [Creighton] down with me, by which you will have
two presbyters with you. In respect to brother Rankin's argument, that you will escape a great deal
of odium by omitting this, it is nothing. Either it will be known or not known; if not known, then no
odium will arise; but if known, you will be obliged to acknowledge that I acted under your direction
or suffer me to sink under the weight of my enemies, with perhaps your brother at the head of them.
I shall entreat you to ponder these things.
"Your most dutiful,
"T. COKE."
Wesley was now touring in Wales. Returning, he reached the parsonage house in Bristol, August
28. The details proposed by Coke fell in with Wesley's views. Rankin, as already found, as well as
all the returned missionaries from America, disapproved of the ordinations for America, because they
feared in concert that with their knowledge of Asbury's ulterior purposes it would mean separation
from Wesley. They had not been backward in expressing their opinions, and both Wesley and Coke
were aware of them. Hence a secret service is named by Coke, and to be kept secret, if possible, and
thus avoid the storm of criticism he knew would arise; but if it gets out, why then you must stand by
me and take the responsibility, or suffer me to sink under it, your brother Charles in the lead. It
appealed both to Wesley's courage and his friendship; in the first he never lacked and in the second
he never faltered. The receipt of this coaxing, reasoning, and plausible letter turned Wesley's
hesitation into resolution. It is worthy of note in passing that Drew, Coke's biographer, gives not the
slightest intimation of this letter to Wesley, but it is from him that the nature of his reply to Coke is
furnished, not by publishing his answer, but by declaring, "He [Coke] had not been long in London
before he received a letter from Mr. Wesley requesting him to repair to Bristol, to receive fuller
powers, and to bring with him Rev. Mr. Creighton, a regularly ordained minister, who had long
officiated at Mr. Wesley's chapels in London and assisted him in various branches of his ministerial
[2]
duties." The reader would inevitably infer from this statement that it was the only letter that passed
between Wesley and Coke from the Leeds Conference of July 25 to an unknown date late in August.
Drew's "Life of Coke" is apologetic, and this must account for his suppression of the letter he wrote
Wesley August 9. In this, like a partial biographer, he protected the memory of Coke, nor is there
any clue to what he means by "receiving fuller powers" from Wesley. Wesley's references to the
"setting apart" at Bristol are so brief as to be misleading to the casual reader; but as the matter was
to be kept secret, it may account for such language as the following: "Tuesday 31st [August] Dr.
Coke, Mr. Whatcoat, and Mr. Vasey came down from London in order to embark for America.
Wednesday, September 1. Being now clear in my own mind, I took a step which I had long weighed
in my mind, and appointed Mr. Whatcoat and Mr. Vasey to go and serve the desolate sheep in the
wilderness. Thursday — I added to them three more which I verily believe will be much to the glory
[3]
of God." This is all. Not a word of Dr. Coke's so-called ordination. Finally, as to Dr. Coke's
remarkable letter to Wesley, the query is no doubt in the reader's mind — how did it get to the light?
It was furnished by Whitehead several years after Wesley's death, who says of it, "This letter is taken
from an attested copy of the Doctor's letter, in Mr. Charles Wesley's handwriting." It is quoted in full
by Henry Moore, and this is evidence that its genuineness could not be questioned.