History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

preachers, and give the societies the ordinances. Asbury had written his last urgent letter under date
of March 20, 1784, calling for Wesley to come or to send a minister. Dr. Coke eagerly fell in with
the suggestion to send him. He saw in it an opportunity to gratify the pet ambition of his life. April
17, 1784, he writes to Wesley from near Dublin, and in this and a subsequent letter his diplomacy
is exhibited. The first of them is a manuscript letter, which came into the possession of Tyerman, and
is cited by no other previous author in consequence. As it is the writer's opinion that this letter, and
one under date of August 9, 1784, furnish the key to the strange inconsistency of Wesley's conduct
in the ordination of Dr. Coke, the full text is here given: —
Honored And Very Dear Sir, — I intended to trouble you no more about my going to America;
but your observations incline me to address you again on the subject.
If some one in whom you could place the fullest confidence, and whom you think likely to have
sufficient influence and prudence, and delicacy of conduct for the purpose, were to go over and
return, you would then have a source of sufficient information to determine on any point or
propositions. I may be destitute of the last mentioned essential qualification (to the former I lay claim
without reserve); otherwise my taking such a voyage might be inexpedient. [8]
By this means you might have fuller information concerning the state of the country and the
societies than epistolary correspondence can give you; and there might be a cement of union,
remaining after your death, between the societies and preachers of the two countries. If the awful
event of your decease should happen before my removal to the world of spirits, it is almost certain,
that I should have business enough, of indispensable importance, on my hands in these kingdoms.
I am, Sir, your most dutiful and affectionate son,
Thomas Coke. [9]
Tyerman says, and what he says is enough for the present: "This is a curiously expressed letter;
but if it means anything, it means, that if Wesley would be good enough to think and say, that Coke
had 'sufficient influence and prudence and delicacy of conduct,' he was willing to become Wesley's
envoy to the American Methodists."
Matters rested in this shape, so far as information is obtainable, until the Leeds Conference which
met July 25, ensuing. The question was then referred to a select committee of Wesley's appointment.
Pawson, one of the prominent preachers, was a member and present when it met. Wesley revealed
his plan to ordain Coke, Whatcoat, and Vasey, for America. Pawson says, in his manuscript memoir
of Dr. Whitehead: "The preachers were astonished when this was mentioned, and, to a man, opposed
it. But I plainly saw that it would be done, as Mr. Wesley's mind appeared to be quite made up." [10]
Coke, Whatcoat, and Vasey, when the Plan of Appointments was read, were announced for America.
If Wesley had any hesitation as to Coke, already a presbyter and therefore as fully qualified to ordain
Wesley as Wesley was to ordain Coke in the Churchman sense, it was turned into decision when,
only six days after the Conference adjourned, Dr. Coke, fully intent upon his ulterior purpose, wrote
him the following letter, marked in every line of it with the most ingenious diplomacy, and plausible