History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

week of Wesley's death he wrote: "My soul trembles for the ark of the Lord. There are men of so
many different judgments in our Connection, all of whom now claim an equal authority, especially
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the senior preachers, that I fear we may have divisions." Not a few of them had special and
positive reasons for fearing Dr., now Bishop Coke, the title having been assumed by him and Asbury
some four years prior in America, but never worn in England, where it was most distasteful to the
Conference preachers. In his piety, evangelical spirit, self-sacrifice, and entire consecration to
Methodistic religion they had unqualified confidence; but his overweening ambition to succeed
Wesley as primate of the Methodists he could not conceal, — it thoroughly dominated the human
side of him. In many elements he was the best qualified among them all, and he was conscious of
it. He was now all the more anxious by reason of the fact that his bishopward ambition had been
thwarted by Asbury by his superior tactics and force of character, and he had been compelled to step
down from the equality of even a "joint superintendent," as Wesley intended him to be in America.
In that tentative letter to Wesley of April 17, 1784, from which citation has already been made, he
says, "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." When Wesley appointed him, as Superintendent, to America, he expected him
to remain there; no other supposition is congruous with the purpose of it. And it must be assumed
that Dr. Coke expected himself to remain in America; but six months' traveling with Asbury taught
him that there could be no primacy for him in that land. He returned in June, 1785, and from that
time to Wesley's death he flitted from shore to shore washed by the broad Atlantic a number of
times. As has already been found, he was Wesley's appointee as President of the Irish Conference,
a position in which he was very popular, and efficient as well, for a series of years. During Wesley's
life he presided alternately with him, and after his death for twenty-two successive years he was
President, except four times. No man had so successfully ingratiated himself into the confidence and
affection of Wesley, though he knew his weaknesses and often rebuked and corrected him. About
a year after he was received, Wesley wrote of him to Walter Churchy, a legal friend, "He has hitherto
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behaved exceeding well, and seems to be aware of his grand enemy — applause." He was also
rash, impetuous, and meddlesome; it was his nature. In the matter of the Dublin Methodists, who
were in the habit of attending Dissenting service at Church hours, he ordered changes without
Wesley's knowledge or consent. Tyerman says of this episode, "Coke's assumption to act as Wesley's
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vicar gave great offense, and the new arrangement had to be abandoned." It had overridden Henry
Moore's authority as assistant on Dublin circuit, and Wesley wrote him an appeasing letter under
date, "Leeds, May 6th, 1788. The Doctor is too warm. He ought to have had more regard for so
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respectable a body of men as applied to him." He countermanded Coke's order in the same letter.
The reader is requested to note these estimates of Coke, and the evidence from under Wesley's own
hand, supported by abundant contemporary opinion, as future use will be made of them in an
important connection. Too much significance, therefore, cannot be attached to Coke's precipitate
return to England. He honestly believed that he was in the succession, and he sincerely hoped he
would be named by the Conference for Wesley's chair.
The fermentation throughout the United Societies was extreme. The Deed of Declaration was
attacked with severity by nearly all not included in its provisions, and popular liberty was rife in civil
England and could not be tabooed in ecclesiastical England. Paine's "Rights of Man" was the
opposite of Wesley's "Thoughts on the Origin of Power," as it grounded authority in the will of the
people, and was as influential for human progress as his "Age of Reason" was mischievous to all