History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

ENDNOTES
1 McCaine's "Letters on the M. E. Church," p. 143.
2 Wesley never would have tolerated such a double character, and did not in the case of Coke,
inasmuch as he looked upon him and Asbury, and Whatcoat, and others, to the day of his death, as
subject to him, and an integral part of British Methodism, thus giving another tacit proof of his utter
repudiation of Asbury's Separation from him and the Church of England. The fact of separation
remained, but by no act or word of his did Wesley recognize it.
3 If omission of Coke's name from the Conference minutes was counted a severe penalty for the year
1789, then Emory's explanation of the omission of his name in 1786 as a mere clerical error, or to
note Coke's absence in Nova Scotia, is not satisfactory, for the idea of penalty must be associated
with it also. McCaine so considered it, and his position that it was punitive, for the part he took in
the Christmas Conference, is not so easily disposed of. And it is singular that no one of the historians
of Methodism took any account of it until McCaine called attention to it. If, however, it was a
punitive act by the Conference of 1785, omitting his name for 1786, it is equally difficult to
understand why both Moore and Tyerman make no reference to it. Emory plays the part of a trickster
in logic when he charges that McCaine alleged that the omission occurred in 1785, and then
triumphantly showing that the omission occurred in 1786. McCaine made no such allegation for
1785, but for 1786, and the minutes bear him out in it, as the writer has personally verified from the
British minutes.
4 "General Conference Debates," 1844, p. 179.
5 Hammett had appealed to the British Conference for sympathy and aid early in 1792, but Coke was
now among them, and had changed his mind as to Hammett, and influenced them against his appeal.
The Conference made official answer by addressing a letter, not to Hammett, but: "To Mr. Asbury,
and all the American preachers." (In passing, the reader will not fail to note how this official letter
carefully eschews both the "office" of Bishop Asbury, and the name Methodist Episcopal Church.)
One paragraph of it only need be cited: "They esteem union and concord among brethren as one of
the greatest blessings, and therefore do most deeply disapprove of the Schism which Wm. Hammett
has made in the city of Charleston, and do acknowledge no farther connection with him who could
attempt to rend the body of Christ.
See Kewley's pamphlet, p. 32.
"Signed in behalf of the Conference,
"Alex Mather, President,
"Thomas Coke, Secretary.
"London, August 15, 1792."