The causes – evils - and cures - of heart and church divisions
((...)"TO
THE MINISTERS AND MEMBERS
OF THE
METHODIST EPI...)
(...)"TO
THE MINISTERS AND MEMBERS
OF THE
METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.
DEAR BRETHREN,—In the course of my reading, some years ago, I met with an old book, written by a worthy pastor in the church, Mr. Jeremiah Burroughs, on Heart Divisions, the Evil of our Times. Feeling at that time the pain of a partial separation in spirit and practice from some who were as my brethren and sons in the gospel, that book proved as a balm and a blessing to my soul. I saw so clearly the evil consequences 'of a division, and how good and pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity, that I began to abridge my obsolete, but valuable book, and earnestly wished, prayed, and strove, for unanimity.
Soon after, I met with another old book, entitled The Cure of Church Divisions; written by that venerable servant of God, the John Wesley of his day, in wisdom, affection, zeal, and a pacific spirit; I mean Mr. Richard Baxter, of precious memory. Being highly pleased with his evangelical sentiments, I concluded to make an extract from both, not doubting but it might be of great service to the church of Christ.
And now I recommend it to all ministers of the gospel, and professing Christians of every denomination, into whose hands it may come, beseeching them to read it carefully, and with much prayer, that they may cultivate a spirit of unity and brotherly love.
I remain, dear brethren, your servant for Christ's sake,
FRANCIS ASBURT.
(...)"
Journal of Rev. Francis Asbury, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Vol. 1 of 3: From August 7, 1771, to December 31, 1786 (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Journal of Rev. Francis Asbury, Bishop of th...)
Excerpt from Journal of Rev. Francis Asbury, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Vol. 1 of 3: From August 7, 1771, to December 31, 1786
As I have had no certain dwelling-place in America, my manuscripts have frequently been exposed to be lost and de stroyed; but, by the permission of Divine Providence, I have collected them together.
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Journal of Rev. Francis Asbury: Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church Volume 3
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Francis Asbury was one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States.
Background
Francis Asbury was born on August 20, 1745 in Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, West Midlands, England.
His parents, Joseph Asbury and Elizabeth Rogers, were in humble circumstances. The father was a tenant-farmer, or gardener for two well-to-do families in the parish; the mother was of Welsh stock with much of the traditional emotional susceptibility of the race. It was the mother who left the greater impress upon the son.
The death of an infant daughter had plunged her into the deepest melancholy for several years, until "God was pleased to open the eyes of her mind. "
Hitherto a worldly woman, she now turned for consolation to religion, seeking the company of religious people, attending services, and poring for hours over devotional books. Her house became a rendezvous for "people of God. " Before the birth of her son, according to a family tradition, she had a vision in which God appeared to her, announcing that her child would be a boy and would become a great religious leader.
Cherishing this vision, she lavished upon the boy all the affection which the infant daughter had inspired.
Francis grew up under the sheltering care of this emotional woman and developed a mother-love which seems to have inhibited, with one possible exception, every normal inclination toward the other sex.
An interest in Methodism seems to have been kindled by his mother, who sent him to the neighboring village of Wednesbury to hear itinerant preachers.
From this time on he consorted more and more with Methodists, meeting with them for reading and prayer and even holding devotional exercises in his father's house.
For the first time he saw men and women on their knees, shouting their Amens in an ecstacy of religious devotion.
He also accompanied his mother to fortnightly meetings of women, where he read the Scriptures at first and then ventured "to expound and paraphrase a little on the portion read. "
Education
He had a very limited schooling and at the age of thirteen and a half was apprenticed to learn "a branch of business, " which may have been that of blacksmith.
Career
He remained an apprentice for some six years, meantime at the age of fourteen experiencing a religious awakening.
Before long he was a full-fledged local preacher, visiting the surrounding shires and at the same time pursuing his calling.
Four years of itinerant preaching followed on different circuits; and then in 1771, at the Conference at Bristol, he and Richard Wright volunteered to go as missionaries to America.
The reasons for this eventful decision have seemed to Methodist biographers too obvious to need elaboration.
Ten years later, he gave another motive: the Journal when published would let his friends and the world see "how I employed my time. "
The following week he started out on the first of his itineraries to join Richard Boardman.
There is much that is significant for his whole career in his first experiences.
On November 24, 1771, without asking leave of Boardman, he started off on a borrowed horse through the villages of Westchester County, preaching wherever chance offered--in taverns, in jails, by the wayside. He spared neither himself nor his mount; and as winter approached he defied rain and snow.
As yet unacclimated, he took a severe cold but continued to preach even when suffering from chills and fever. Then he finally collapsed and had to take to his bed for three weeks.
He did not hesitate to shut offending brothers and sisters out of meeting, in spite of protests. "While I stay, " he wrote in his Journal, "the rules must be attended to and I cannot suffer myself to be guided by half-hearted Methodists".
But in June 1773 he had to surrender his authority to Thomas Rankin, newly arrived from England. In the end Rankin complained to Wesley, who summoned Asbury to return home in 1775. It was a critical moment in Asbury's career.
With a prescience of coming events, he determined to stay on, believing that it would be "an eternal dishonor" to leave 3, 000 souls in this time of danger.
There may also have been in his mind the unuttered thought that if Rankin and others departed eventually, as seemed likely, he would have a unique place in the upbuilding of a Methodist organization.
Keener observers than Asbury scented independence as the goal of the colonies.
As yet, in the words of Jesse Lee, the Methodists "were only a religious society, not a church. " Strawbridge and Southern preachers were already administering the sacraments as though they were a separate organization.
Two revolutions thus seemed imminent.
For various reasons, for which Wesley, Rankin, and his associates were chiefly responsible, the Methodists fell quite generally under suspicion as Loyalists during the Revolution and suffered some persecution.
Asbury himself refused to take the oath of allegiance required by the State of Maryland and was forced to take refuge in Delaware. There he remained for the space of twenty months (1777-1778) while Rankin and his colleagues fled the country.
Asbury became a citizen of Delaware. Though Asbury made this enforced sojourn in Delaware a means of bringing some 1, 800 souls into the Methodist fold, he was temporarily in eclipse.
A split in the Methodist organization seemed inevitable after the Southern Conference took its stand in the Conference at Fluvanna in 1779.
The Baltimore Conference of 1782 confirmed his position and put an end once for all to the sacramental controversy. A month later, down in Virginia, Asbury heard "the good news" that Britain had acknowledged the independence of America. To deal with this new situation, Wesley resolved in 1784 upon a course which he had long had under consideration.
Coke met Asbury for the first time in Barratt's Chapel in Kent County. Extended conferences followed. Again Asbury evinced his practical shrewdness.
Almost at once, however, he began to refer to himself as bishop, a course which Wesley deprecated strongly, but the title stuck and appeared in the Conference minutes of 1787. Theoretically, he shared his episcopal functions with Coke, but the frequent absences of the latter left practical control and direction of the organization to his American colleague.
With an eye single to the glory of God he appointed preachers without the slightest regard to their wishes or to the preference of parishioners. There were often loud complaints and more than once his autocratic power was challenged.
It was Asbury who planned those great campaigns which sent preachers to fight the great Adversary not only in the remote parts of the old states but over the Alleghanies on the hazardous frontiers of Kentucky and Ohio. Asbury asked no more of his skirmishers and shock-troops than he was himself prepared to undergo.
He sought out the Adversary for personal combat in every field from New Hampshire to Georgia, not once but many times.
It has been said that he traveled all told nearly 300, 000 miles. Much of this incessant traveling was over roads that beggared description and under physical tension that would have speedily worn down a man of less resolute will. He suffered from all sorts of maladies which he undoubtedly aggravated by injudicious treatment. Blood-letting and blistering were his favorite remedies for nearly every complaint from boils and worse skin-diseases to intestinal disorders. His condition was made worse by bad food, exposure, and lack of ordinary sanitation in the frontier cabins where he took refuge.
In all these long years, he had no fixed abiding place that could be called home; and, except when sheer exhaustion forced him to a sick-bed, no rest from his labors. Yet he gloried in his sufferings and desired posterity should know what he had undergone for the salvation of souls.
He was a familiar figure as he journeyed through Methodist America. With the election of William McKendree as bishop to succeed Whatcoat, who died in 1806, the reins of government began to slip from Asbury's hands.
More and more he left details to his "assistant bishop" as he persisted in calling his associate.
There is no evidence that he threw his hearers into those religious frenzies in which his itinerant preachers saw the working of Providence.
Yet he preached on the same themes with profound conviction--sin and redemption with hope of Heaven and fear of Hell.
He pushed himself to the end. After preaching what was to be his last sermon, he was so weak he had to be carried to his carriage.
His legacy continued with the 4, 000 Methodist preachers he had ordained: by the Civil War, American Methodists numbered 1. 5 million.
((...)"TO
THE MINISTERS AND MEMBERS
OF THE
METHODIST EPI...)
Religion
If his own account may be trusted, he was always a serious lad with "a particular sense of the being of God, " greatly fearing both an oath and a lie, abhorring fighting and quarreling, and never imbibing the vices of his wicked companions.
Politics
Asbury tried to remain politically neutral.
He hated slavery and petitioned George Washington to enact antislavery legislation.
Views
Asbury found much to criticize in New York: he thought the discipline lax; he did not approve of preachers staying in town; he believed frequent changes of circuit desirable "to avoid partiality and popularity. "
Life was to him only a temporary abode for a soul in transit.
He was essentially an ascetic, devoid of interest in temporal affairs. He flagellated his mind as he did his body, taking a grim satisfaction in doing the hard thing.
Quotations:
"My spirit was grieved at the conduct of some Methodists that hire slaves at public places to the highest bidder, to cut skin, and starve them. "
Personality
Asbury was a tall spare man with fine forehead and keen eyes, dressed in a plain frock-coat and small clothes, and wearing a low-crowned broad-brimmed hat.
He always had a serious, almost austere, aspect to which in later life his flowing white locks added a patriarchal dignity.
Passion for superiority and thirst for domination were always characteristic of him, according to one who knew him well.
Asbury was not a learned man. He read much by the way, to be sure, but his intellectual curiosity was easily satisfied. Nor was he a great preacher, from all accounts.
Connections
There is some evidence that he had formed an attachment to a young woman which was not favored by his mother. This seems to be the only suggestion of romance in his life.