Cook(E), Joseph
Cook(e), Joseph an English Wesleyan preacher, became prominent as an advocate of certain theological tenets, which resulted in his exclusion from that body. He had travelled without objection from 1795. While on the Rochdale Circuit, 1803-5, he began to state the doctrines of justification and the witness of the Spirit differently from the received view. According to Myles, he hardly implied experimental religion, but a firm belief in what the Scriptures declare on these subjects. Promising not to promulgate his opinions, he was removed to the Sunderland Circuit. His friends in Rochdale, not so discreet as their late pastor, published his two sermons on the above subjects without his knowledge. This, of course, led to his arraignment before the conference, and, although treating him with respect and tenderness on account of the esteem in which he was held, they excluded him from their number in 1806, Cooke refusing to renounce his opinions. He then went to Rochdale, where he became the minister of a part of his former Wesleyan society. He published a defense of his doctrines, which was answered by Dr. Coke (q.v.) and Edward Hare (q.v.). Hare's treatise on justification has become a classic. Cooke died in 1811. "The breach which he made is not yet healed in the town of Rochdale" (Myles, 1813). See Myles, Chronol. Hist. of the Methodists, s.v. 1806; Smith, Hist. of Wesleyan Methodism, 2:430, 432.
