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Published in The Encyclopedia of Protestantism

 

Coke, Thomas

 

Thomas Coke (1747-1814) was one of first two Methodist bishops and the most important early proponent of Methodist missions outside of the England and United States.

            Coke, a Welshman, earned a doctorate in law from Oxford before becoming an Anglican priest.  After six years of parish ministry, Coke was dismissed from his parish on account of his Methodist sympathies in 1777 and began serving as the primary assistant to John Wesley.  In 1784, Wesley appointed Coke as the first superintendent of the Methodist Episcopal Church and sent him to America to appoint Francis Asbury as his co-superintendent.  The Christmas Conference in Baltimore elected Coke and Asbury joint superintendents of the Methodist Episcopal Church.  (To Wesley’s dismay, each later assumed the title of “bishop.”)

            His frequent travels between America and Britain (18 crossings of the Atlantic) maintained ties between the Methodists in America and Britain in spite of the hostilities created by the American Revolution.  Although Coke spent only three years in America and never renounced his British citizenship, he significantly expanded Methodism’s geographical reach by appointing missionaries to the Channel Islands, Scotland, Ireland, the West Indies, north Wales, Africa, Ceylon, and India.  Coke assumed almost single-handed financial responsibility for these missionaries, exhausting his personal fortune and those of his two wives.  He was buried at sea while traveling to India.

            Coke, a prolific author, penned a Bible commentary, tracts and sermons.  He was instrumental in establishing Methodism’s polity with bishops and superintendents.

References and Further Reading

Coke, Thomas. A Commentary on the Holy Bible. London: George Whitfield, 1801.

______. Extracts of the Journals of the Late Rev. Thomas Coke, L.L.D. Dublin:

R. Napper, 1816.

Lloyd, Gareth. Catalogue of the Thomas Coke Papers. Manchester: The Centre, 1991.

Vickers, John A. Thomas Coke: Apostle to Methodism. Sussex: World Methodist

Historical Society, 1969.

 

Thomas E. Phillips, Colorado Christian University, USA

 

300 words