Biography
Thomas Coke was born on September 28, 1747, in Brecon, in Wales, the only son of Bartholomew Coke, a prosperous apothecary, and his wife, Ann. His family was well off, and he grew up in comfort. He was a small, lively boy, with a quick mind. He was sent to Jesus College, Oxford, where he studied law and divinity. He was a good student and took his degree in 1768. Later, he took a doctorate in civil law. He was a man of ambition. After his time at Oxford, he returned to Brecon, where he became a prominent citizen. In 1772, at the age of twenty-five, he was elected mayor of the town. He was a young man with a bright future in the world.
He was ordained in the Church of England in 1770 and became a curate in South Petherton, in Somerset. At first, his religion was formal. He was a young man who cared for his standing. But he began to read the works of the Puritans and to feel a lack. In 1771, he was influenced by a friend, a Methodist preacher, who showed him the need for a personal faith. He sought a deeper experience, and he began to preach in a new way. He said later that in 1776, he was converted in the full sense, after a period of struggle. In the same year, he met John Wesley, at Kingston, near Taunton, and he was drawn to him. He was ready to throw in his lot with the Methodists.
His parishioners did not like it. On Easter Day, 1777, the rector dismissed him from his post, on the ground that he was too Methodist. It is said that the church bells were rung in the village as a sign of mockery. He turned to Wesley, who took him in, and he became one of the closest helpers of the old man. He gave up his comfortable career and his prospects. He traveled with Wesley, preached and organized. He raised money. He was a man of great energy. For years, he rode thousands of miles each year. Wesley called him his right hand and thought of him as a possible successor.
In 1784, Wesley made a crucial decision. The Methodist societies in America had been left without ordained ministers after the Revolution, as the Church of England clergy had gone home. The people had no sacraments. Wesley, who held that he had the right, as a presbyter in the church, to ordain, on September 2, 1784, in Bristol, ordained Coke as a superintendent, to take charge of the societies in America. He sent Coke, with two other men, Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey, who were ordained elders. They sailed for New York. At the Christmas Conference, in Baltimore, in December 1784, the Methodist Episcopal Church was formed. Coke and Francis Asbury were named as its superintendents, which they changed to bishops. Coke ordained Asbury as a deacon, an elder and a superintendent in the course of three days.
He made several trips to America in the following years. He helped to organize the church and to raise funds for its work. He was an opponent of slavery, and he and Asbury took a petition against slavery to George Washington in 1785. He was also a man of a missionary heart. In 1786, he set sail for Nova Scotia, with a party of missionaries. His ship was driven off course by a storm, and it landed in the West Indies, at Antigua, on Christmas Day. He took it as a sign. He started the work of the Methodists in the Caribbean. He visited the islands many times, and he preached to the planters and the slaves. By the time of his death, there were many thousands of Methodists in the West Indies, most of them black.
He was a pioneer of missionary organization. He raised funds for the missions in the West Indies, in Sierra Leone, in Ireland and in Wales. He started a society for the support of missions, which became the Methodist Missionary Society. He published a number of works, among them a history of the West Indies and a commentary on the Bible, and, with Henry Moore, a Life of Wesley. He was a man of enormous generosity, who gave away his private fortune for the work. He was also a man who was criticized for his vanity and for his love of rank. He was somewhat theatrical. He and Asbury had a number of disagreements about the government of the church, and the two were not always friends. Some thought that he was too eager for power.
He was married twice. His first wife, Penelope, died in 1811 and his second wife, Anne, died in 1812. At the age of sixty-five, he conceived a plan for a mission to Ceylon and India. He sailed in December 1813, with a group of missionaries. On the voyage, in the Indian Ocean, on May 3, 1814, he was found dead in his cabin, of apoplexy. He was buried at sea. His companions went on to Ceylon and began the work. His life shows the effect of a man who gave up a career and an inheritance for the work of God. He is the father of Methodist missions.