A LITTLE HEAVEN BELOW:
THE LOVE FEAST AND LORD'S SUPPER IN
EARLY AMERICAN METHODISM
by
Lester Ruth
"I was as in a little Heaven below,
and believe Heaven above will differ more
in quantity than in quality." 1
In addition to the well-known preaching services conducted by the nearly legendary circuit riders, early American Methodists participated in a variety of lesser known but equally important services. Foremost among these additional forms of worship were the Love Feast and the Lord's Supper. Each was an expression of fellowship, which was the dominant ecclesiological concept for early American Methodists. In each, Methodist fellowship was expressed both in the manner in which the services were conducted and in the way they were commonly interpreted.
Early Methodists designated these services as "private," that is, access was normally restricted, sometimes to the point of curtailing the ability of non-participants to see and hear the rituals.2 For early Methodists, the necessity of restriction was a crucial feature rooted in their polity. Inherited from Wesley, the polity required that meetings of the societies themselves, the bands and classes, and the love feast be restricted to those who were active members. Individual exceptions were limited. After creation of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1784 and the concomitant result of having Methodist preachers ordained to administer sacraments, the polity likewise included the Lord's Supper in this sphere of private - as opposed to public - worship.
But fidelity to polity was not the only reason Methodists gave for conducting private worship. The polity was often confirmed by the intense fellowship experienced in private worship. Struggling to find words adequate for their experience of themselves as church, Methodists frequently relied on eschatological explanations, expressed in the poetic, affective idiom common to their piety. Simply put, Methodists believed that what they frequently experienced in these restricted rituals was nothing less than a foretaste of the quality of life in heaven. While the eschatological focus could be on the act of worship itself or on the coming of God in power to save, very often early Methodist eschatological interpretation highlighted a quality of church fellowship which itself revealed heaven.
The contrast between private and public worship raises the issue of the relationship between worship and evangelism in early Methodism. Generally, private worship provided the larger context for overtly evangelistic activities, including the well-known preaching service. Specifically, the exhibition of Methodist fellowship in private worship made visible the goal of evangelism (inclusion in a worshiping fellowship), renewed the dedication of Methodists to evangelize, and, frequently, was itself the occasion for individual experiences of grace, from conviction through sanctification. This balance between and breadth of types of services offers suggestions to those imbued with recent emphases of the modern Liturgical Movement and to those flush with the excitement of seeker services and other forms of "contemporary" worship.
Privacy: The Love Feast
Perhaps the most visible aspect of love feasts was their restricted nature.3 In its most basic form, an American Methodist love feast consisted of a sharing of bread and water and a time of testimonies. This form was apparently little changed from its British roots. Because of the desire to limit participation to Methodists and a few exceptions, entrance into the love feast was normally closely guarded.
On an official level, polity set the criteria for admission to love feasts, even from the first annual conference held in America in 1773. At that time, the preachers affirmed that no one was "to be admitted into our love-feasts oftener than twice or thrice unless they become members."4 After creation of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1784, American Disciplines continued the restriction in specific detail. In response to the question of how often strangers could be present at love feasts, the Disciplines answered: only a very few times ("twice or thrice") and only with the utmost caution.5
Actual restriction of access was accomplished by a doorkeeper. Most frequently, the preachers-itinerant or local, singularly or in combination-assumed the responsibility for staying at the door and deciding who could enter.6 If someone slipped by the doorkeepers, removal was not unknown, as in the case of one man removed by a "large, athletic" Irish Methodist who reportedly escorted the intruder to the door and ushered him out with the bottom of his foot while exclaiming, "There, go! and the blessing of the Lord go wid ye."7
Doorkeepers used a variety of criteria for admission. In love feasts held within a particular society, possession of a current ticket would guarantee admission.8 Also common were special notes of permission which allowed admission at a particular Quarterly Meeting's love feast, for instance.9 Granting these notes was not a foregone conclusion, as in the case of a man who was required to follow the disciplinary provisions for holding his slave, namely, submitting facts of the purchase to the Quarterly Meeting Conference for its ruling on how long the slave could be held before manumission.10
Early Methodists offered a variety of reasons why love feast privacy was so important.11 The most obvious was the desire to safeguard the atmosphere so participants felt able to speak freely in testimony. In some ways, personal testimonies were synonymous with the love feast itself, and so creating the best atmosphere possible for speaking was a self-lefting goal. As the bishops noted in 1798, including unawakened persons could "cramp, if not entirely destroy. . . liberty of speech" in love feasts.12 A particular concern was preserving the liberty of women members since some non-Methodists opposed women speaking in the church.13
The freedom to testify to Christian experience openly-and the concomitant Methodist understanding that God's presence was experienced anew in these testimonies-was closely tied to a more explicitly theological reason for restricting access to love feasts. Simply put, early Methodists considered that God was uniquely present in their midst when they gathered as God's distinct people. Mixture with unawakened outsiders voided the condition by which God was present and revealed. Methodists restricted admission to their worship because there they experienced the glorious presence of God.
The strongest statement of this idea was in the bishops' commentary in the 1798 Discipline. Explaining limited access to the love feast and to meetings of the society itself, the bishops noted:
It is manifestly our duty to fence in our society, and to preserve it from intruders; otherwise we should soon become a desolate waste. God would write Ichabod upon us, and the glory would be departed from Israel.14
The bishops' statement is interesting in that it refers to fencing the "society," not just "the table" or some other liturgical act or place. This reference implies that the bishops considered the pre-eminent place of God's revealed presence as the fellowship itself and secondly the liturgical acts of this fellowship. Moreover, the bishops' statement demonstrates the role of polity in their ecclesiology: the discipline existed not just as provisions for existing as an institution, but so Methodists could be a distinct people in whom God was uniquely manifest. In a special way, by following its polity Methodism showed itself as an exceptional fellowship in which God dwelled.15 The symbol of and the occasion for this manifestation was often a love feast.
In connection with their restricted love feasts, Methodists used a variety of terms to distinguish themselves from those excluded. Faithful Methodists were, as one hymn put it, "faithful followers of the Lamb" who were "the same in heart and mind/And think and speak the same." When at love feasts "all in love together dwell/The comfort is unspeakable."16 Methodists were also the "good" in contrast to the "bad" or the "wicked."17 These sorts of terms provided additional justification for the restricted rituals. One Presiding Elder, trying to answer why privacy was the best mode for love feasts, argued that the Scriptures taught not "to give that which was holy to dogs, or to cast our pearls before swine."18
The contrasting terms for the two groups reinforced the propriety of a love feast's privacy. If "thoughtless and profane" people were mingled with the "devout," as one itinerant argued, a love feast was that in name only.19 How much better, the Methodists thought, to have congruence between the symbols (the bread and water), the symbols used (the love feast itself), and the loving fellowship symbolized (the assembled Methodists).
Privacy: The Lord's Supper
The manner of restricting access for the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was more fluid than for the love feast. The precise manner in which admission to the Lord's Supper was restricted was directly tied to the setting in which it was administered.20 When attached to a love feast, as was often done, admission to communion was much more restricted, synonymous with the level of privacy safeguarded for a love feast. In this situation, the criteria and method involved for limiting access were the same as for a love feast. Admission to the love feast meant admission to the sacrament (and the reverse). When administered in connection with a preaching service, however, the restriction was often not as tight. Because non-communicants were not excluded from the space, such a Lord's Supper had a higher degree of visibility to a bystander than did the normal love feast.21
Nonetheless, early Methodism consistently maintained a sense that admission to actual communion should be limited, even though the rite was administered in a public setting. As the Southern preachers in 1779 formed a presbytery and began to anticipate their own regular administration of the Lord's Supper, their Annual Conference defined who was eligible to commune: "those under our care and Discipline."22 After creation of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1784, the Disciplines continued a similar concern, although the polity tended to weaken the direct connection to Methodist membership implied in the 1779 requirement. The provision in the 1785 Discipline, for example, presumes that non-members will be communing with the Methodists and thus establishes guidelines for admission: "Let no Person who is not a Member of the Society, be admitted to the Communion without a Sacrament-Ticket, which Ticket must be changed every Quarter."23 In 1787 this provision was modified by adding a requirement for examination before communion and by changing the reference from "ticket" to "token."24 After 1785, no mention is ever made of the eligibility of members in good standing to commune; their membership provided automatic qualification.25
A connection between membership standards and admission to communion continued in the polity, but the connection was always written in a limited way, preserving a presumption that non-members would commune under certain circumstances. In the 1785 Discipline, for instance, the polity disallowed communing anyone who had been expelled or voluntarily withdrawn for not complying with the rules concerning manumission of slaves. This Discipline also sought to prevent any such person from joining the Methodists or communing unless they had complied.26 Although these passages were dropped in the following year's Discipline, a similar - albeit more general - provision was added in 1792: "No person shall be admitted to the Lord's Supper among us, who is guilty of any practice for which we would exclude a member of our society."27 This sort of passage presumes that non-members were communing. Rather than attacking this practice itself, the polity accepted it and tried only to define those instances when non-member communion would be inappropriate. The one disciplinary exception in the printed polity was the stipulation from 1788 onward that, if a member had been tried and expelled from the society, that person lost not only the "privileges of society" but also admission to the sacrament.28
Accounts of the Lord's Supper in open, public settings give hints as to some of the unofficial standards used. On one occasion, Bishop Coke granted permission to "any serious person of the congregation who desired it" to commune with Methodists.29 At another, Bishop Asbury preached that "true penitents and real believers" were proper communicants.30 Other itinerants used similar criteria. At an 1823 Quarterly Meeting, the invitation to commune was given "to the pious, & to all that were desirous."31 At another time, the elder administered the sacrament "in an open way & invited all Christians to come."32 Such latitude did not mean, however, that the elders did not restrict access or that everyone in attendance did commune. At a 1793 Quarterly Meeting, for example, a preacher explained to the congregation "who ought, and who ought not partake of the supper of the Lord" before it was administered.33 Occasionally, the same restrictive function was accomplished by sermons which sought to explain the Lord's Supper. Such sermons, preached immediately prior to administration of the sacrament, fulfilled this function by exploring the proper subjects of the sacrament.34
Sometimes, restriction was done on a more individual basis. At one Quarterly Meeting, for example, the Presiding Elder refused to admit a woman who had applied for admission but, upon examination, was disclosed to hold Arian views on the divinity of Christ, which the elder considered heretical.35 Sometimes the restriction was voluntary. Alfred Brunson, newly a Methodist, was surprised at his first Methodist communion to see his class leader not commune. When asked why, the class leader responded that he had an unresolved conflict with other Methodists and thus he could not receive without disobeying Christ's command.36 Therefore, even if the sacrament was conducted outdoors in a public setting with a large congregation from a preaching service, the number of communicants could be a minority of those in attendance.37
Accounts of the Lord's Supper in early American Methodism indicate that some things were usually not required. One was a previous conversion experience. Serious mourners, whether or not they were members, were frequently welcomed.38 Recognizing the gracious activity of God during a sacrament, even on the unconverted, was commonplace in eighteenth-century Methodism, which traced its belief that the sacrament could be a "converting ordinance" back to Wesley himself.39 Accounts sometimes describe how a mourner's justification occurred at the very moment of communing. On one occasion, for example, Bishop William McKendree administered the sacrament to a mourner to whom "pardon was communicated" just as she tasted the wine.40 Similarly, at a Delaware peninsula Quarterly Meeting, a mourner named Mary Broughten "was powerfully converted with the bread in her mouth" and fell to the ground.41 Baptism also was not strictly required before admission to communion.42 Membership in another church also did not disqualify someone from communing with the Methodists.43
Notwithstanding the relative open admission to communion when administered in a public setting like a preaching service, there were always some-sometimes a sizable majority-who did not commune.44 As in the case of love feasts, and perhaps with an even higher degree of visibility, two groups were created: those who participated and those who oversaw and heard the activities. For example, at one Quarterly Meeting the sacramental table stood in the green outside a barn where preaching was held. At the time of administration, the congregation was divided into two groups: those who communed and the "spectators" who formed a ring around them.45 This same dynamic - spectators observing the gracious activity of God in the sacrament - occurred in other Methodist sacramental administrations. One early itinerant described such a scene:
The disciples of Jesus came forward with boldness and owned their divine Teacher in this holy ordinance, whilst hundreds of spectators were looking on with amazement to see the mighty display of God's power, for many were overwhelmed with the loving presence of God during this season of commemorating one of the greatest events ever exhibited to human view.46
In such a case, the spectators were privy to a double manifestation of God's grace. They saw not only the symbols of commemoration of Christ's death-the bread and wine - but also a fellowship which revealed the present beneficiaries of this act of love.
Public testimonies by those communing only accentuated this witness. At one 1804 Delmarva Quarterly Meeting, for instance, "some bore (before a gasping multitude) a feeling testimony of their sins being forgiven by Faith in Christ, and love of God shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Ghost."47 For receptive spectators, such testimonies made their social peers specific, visible representations of the grace Methodists said God shared in the sacrament.
Heaven on Earth
Early Methodists' understanding of their worship had a strong eschatological aspect. Among a myriad of images they used to explain their worship experience, this eschatological one was constantly recurring. What Methodists lacked in sophistication in their theology at this point, they made up in insistence. Specifically, Methodists referenced their worship to heaven; they understood their worship as manifesting heaven. Although they made this assertion about all their worship, not just the Love Feast and Lord's Supper, they often perceived a special heavenly intensity in relation to these latter rituals.
Methodists used several means to describe how heaven was manifested in their worship. For example, they emphasized the coming of God in saving power as being the opening of heaven. Often they referred to the opening of the "gate," "door," or "windows" of heaven. They also shifted the emphasis in this initial image in order to better focus on the human enjoyment of the gracious coming of God. To do this they talked in refreshment metaphors. If God opened heaven to pour out blessings on worshipers, then these worshipers could be said to have eaten of "heavenly manna" or to have been "refreshed with the Dew of Heaven." They could be said to have drunk of the "Sweet Refreshing Wine of Heaven's Eternal Love" or even to have fed on "Angels' food."48
Another way Methodists spoke of heavenly manifestation in their worship was to note the eternal quality of the act of worship itself. Worshiping God is the essential, eternal activity of heaven.49 Methodist worship anticipated the adoration that saints and angels continually offered to God in heaven, whether in specific acts or in the sheer vividness of the entire experience.50 This eschatological interpretation was rooted in and sparked by an experience of Christian fellowship which anticipated and shaped their understanding of eschatological fulfillment. In their estimation, their fellowship, specifically in worship, revealed the power and promise of heaven; it was even a participation in heaven. Their language struggled to keep pace with the intensity of this experience.
Thus, Methodists especially explained heaven's manifestation in their worship by emphasizing the revelatory quality of their fellowship together. Specifically, they saw the unity they felt when they loved each other as being a participation in the life of heaven itself. As one noted, "how like heaven it is to be where Christians love each other."51 Therefore, whenever the loving bonds of their fellowship became obvious, Methodists would speak of their vivid - even if proleptic - enjoyment of the fellowship of heaven. On August 9, 1789 in Baltimore, Maryland, for example, Ezekiel Cooper spoke of Quarterly Meeting participants in the Love Feast as approaching eternity, dwelling as it were in the "suburbs of heaven":
Love-feast began at 8 o'clock, and a feast of love it was. The flame kindles through the church, as though every heart had brought the fire of love burning with them.... There seemed to flow words of fire from every mouth, while one after another, full of rapture and love, arose and humbly declared the great goodness of God to their souls. It was as a Pentecost indeed, and like unto the very suburbs of heaven. We stood as on the top of Pisgah, and viewed the land of which the Lord had said, "I will give it to you."52
It was their love - it was a "feast of love indeed" - which had brought them to the suburbs of heaven. The loving fellowship's intensity demanded a point of reference beyond earth and normal human existence. Not surprisingly, very many of these types of references were linked to private Methodist services, the Lord's Supper and particularly the Love Feast.53
The pain Methodists often experienced in parting after worship served to sharpen their understanding of worship as eschatological in nature. Countless accounts exist of the pain they felt when they had to say farewell. Their honest tears at saying goodbye told them that the manifestation of heaven experienced in their worshiping fellowship was not yet permanent. In addition, the pain of parting served to sharpen the nature of their eschatological hope. Specifically, their worship experience caused them to envision heaven as a place where they would never have to part from their fellow Methodists again. The reunion they anticipated in heaven was not primarily portrayed as being with actual family-although this was a part-but with their Christian family, their society of friends.54 "I never knew till now what Christian fellowship could do," Kentuckian Benjamin Lakin said after a 1795 Quarterly Meeting, concluding: "I was unable to converse. . .by reason of sorrow of heart to think of seeing them no more in time, may the Lord bring us to meet in heaven where parting is no more."55
The reunion in heaven would be wonderful, they thought. As one Methodist speculated on heavenly joys, the only thing he could think of which could add to the joy of communing with God was the joy of Methodist fellowship:
I have thought that if any thing can add to the Joys of happy Souls above Except the Immediate presence of God & our blessed Redeemer it will be the delight of our souls to meet our departed friends, relations & fellow worshipers.56
Of special attraction to this Methodist was the purpose of this re-union: worship. The joy of this fellowship would be "Especially in that happy uniformity of mind which will then possess the whole heavenly Quire both of Saints & angels."
Thus, early Methodists understood their worship not as an individualistic experience of God, nor as narrowly focused on God alone. Rather, in this corporate activity God and heaven were made manifest. Consequently, they saw their worshiping fellowship as a true anticipation of the eternal worshiping fellowship of all God's people. They longed for the fulfillment of their proleptic experience:
Our hearts by love together knit
Cemented mix'd in one,
One hope, one heart, one mind, one voice,
'Tis heaven on earth begun.
Our hearts did burn while tears spake
And glow'd with sacred fire,
We stop'd and talk'd and fed and bless'd
And fill'd the enlarge Desire.
Chorus:
A Savior let creation sing,
A Savior let all Heaven ring.
He's God with us, we feel him ours,
His fullness in our souls he pours.
'Tis almost done, 'tis almost o'er,
We are joining them that gone before,
We then shall meet to part no more,
We then shall meet to part no more.57
Prose could express the same sentiments:
Our love feast was one of the best I ever was in. We sat together in heavenly places; and to express myself in the words which I immediately wrote down, I was as in a little Heaven below, and believe Heaven above will differ more in quantity than in quality. Our eyes overflowed with tears, and our hearts with love to God and each other. The holy fire, the heavenly flame, spread wider and wider, and rose higher and higher. O! happy people whose God is the Lord, may none of you ever weary in well doing. May we after having done the work allotted us, meet in our father's Kingdom to tell the wonders of redeeming love, and part no more.58
The Usefulness of Private and Public Worship Designations
Private worship's effectiveness in creating and exhibiting Christian fellowship provides the broader background for early Methodism's evangelism. The regular rhythm between private and public services was a basic context in which people experienced the grace of God in Methodism's evangelistic efforts. An important aspect of this context was that the experience of fellowship - particularly when it seemed to manifest a greater spiritual reality - made plain and visible one goal of salvation: inclusion in an eschatological people worshiping before the God of grace. Participation in private worship confirmed this vision for Methodists time and time again, re-awakening sensibility to their own graced status and providing the impetus to extend grace to outsiders.
At one Quarterly Meeting, for instance, preacher James Horton slipped into a vision as the bread and water were passed around at a Love Feast.59 In his vision Horton heard God speak to him: "Behold, dear child, none but the pure in heart can come here." As he looked around in heaven, Horton saw a congregation of millions gathered around God's throne. When the vision ended, he found himself standing on his chair with his hands uplifted. Looking around at the Methodist fellowship in worship, Horton noted that to him "they looked like the shining ones in whose company I seemed to be the moment before in the heavenly world."
Horton could not be silent. First, he began to speak to the Love Feast participants. Then he went to the window and exhorted those outside. Given leave by the Presiding Elder to go outside to "do your duty," Horton continued his exhorting among the bystanders. His experience of fellowship provided the zeal and the content of his exhortation. He ministered against a vivid, visible backdrop of separated Methodist fellowship, of which the spectators were aware. To conclude his account of this episode, Horton noted that he would lean against the church whenever he felt exhausted in exhorting. His phrase has both a literal and figurative meaning: not only did he physically rest against the church building, but his reawakened sense of grace through the Love Feast fellowship provided support for his ministry to those outside the fellowship.
Moreover, the exhibition of this fellowship in private worship sometimes provided the immediate catalyst for individual experience. For some non-members, the plain fact that they were excluded from the fellowship's private worship created a dilemma about their own spiritual state. Sometimes the exclusion brought about a deep sense of conviction for sin.60 For some, this sense of separation from the people of God had a particular eschatological note, a realization of one's danger of being cut off from God's people at the upcoming judgment.61
For other non-members, a much coveted admission to private worship often intensified their longing to be part of the Methodists' fellowship and their desire to accept their God. For example, Benjamin Paddock's observation of private worship at a Quarterly Meeting staggered him by its seeming heavenly quality and angelic nature. His resulting attraction to the Methodist fellowship created a twofold resolve: the desire to be part of Methodism and the desire to accept the God the Methodists worshiped. The latter seemed dependent on the former based on the way Paddock expressed his resolve: "This people shall be my people, and their God my God."62 The fellowship's centrality in Paddock's ongoing spiritual experience cannot be denied. Although most of his newly adopted Methodist brothers and sisters were total strangers to him, nonetheless Paddock insisted that "his soul was so knit to them that they were dearer to him than any earthly relations."63
For others, the vividness of loving fellowship in private worship often triggered the desired experience of grace. Admitted for the first time to private worship, William Keith, a New York State Methodist, was justified while attending a Quarterly Meeting Love Feast. As he saw and heard the Methodist fellowship exhibit itself in unity and love through Love Feast testimonies, he reported a tremendous experience:
I went in to the Lovefeast, and while they were telling the feelings of their hearts, I sensibly felt a change in my feelings. My load of guilt was removed, and every thing about me seemed to be changed.... I saw such a sufficiency in the savior's merits that I thought I was not afraid to die. There seemed such a union subsisting between Christ and my soul, that I thought I should love and praise him if he sent me to hell.64
In the midst of the most intense manifestation of Methodist fellowship at a Quarterly Meeting, while acquaintances and others testified to the grace of God, William Keith reported that he had his own transforming experience. According to Keith, his journey in quest of a satisfying experience of God's grace and for Christian fellowship ended simultaneously.
This manner in which early Methodists both guarded and exhibited their fellowship in private worship perhaps offers some suggestions to various parties currently engaged in "worship wars."65 On one side of the battle are those who consider themselves "liturgical" types, eager to appropriate the scholarship of this century's Liturgical Movement-especially accepting the normal status of a "Word and Table" order-and often eager to renounce seeker and other "contemporary" services. In an opposing camp are ardent promoters of the latter services, eager to use worship - all worship - to reach the unchurched. To both sides, the Methodist rhythm of private and public services offers some correctives.
To "liturgical" types, the Methodist distinction between public and private worship serves as a reminder that the phrases "Word and Table" or "Word and Sacrament" describe not only a particular order of worship, but also distinctive modes of worship, namely, worship generally open to all and worship restricted in access. These categories help us see that there can be a variety in services and in their goals. Private worship-essentially sacramental and focused on creating a liturgical fellowship-should not negate the possibility of evangelistic activities involving the unchurched in large settings, that is, in public services. A distinction between private and public worship offsets making creation of a liturgical assembly the goal of every church service. As evangelism, seeker services have a usefulness and a kind of historic precedent within Methodism.
Promoters of seeker services and other forms of worship, driven by a desire to reach the unchurched, should not be too arrogant about citing Methodist precedent, however. The early Methodist category of private worship serves as a reminder that there needs to be opportunity for the church to gather separately as a liturgical fellowship for its own benefit. Private worship allowed Methodists to create and make visible themselves as a worshipping fellowship, using highly symbolic rituals and ultimately focused on offering praise to God. In most churches using seeker services, this goal seems to be not sufficiently addressed. The question "what is beyond the seeker service?" still begs to be answered in many cases.
Early Methodism's polity and practices-including distinction between private and public worship, use of mandatory class meetings, and rigorous membership standards-offer a possible answer here. Not only did private worship not detract from Methodism's evangelistic efforts, but it was a main contributor to its "success." To conduct all worship as essentially seeker or unchurched driven is to lose the balance-and power-which early Methodism had.
Endnotes
1William Watters, A Short Account of the Christian Experience, and Ministereal Labours, of William Watters (Alexandria: S. Snowden, 1806), 75-6.
2"Private" worship was a common colloquialism among early Methodists. See Ezekiel Cooper, Journal, Ms., Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary Library, Evanston, IL, 7 August, 1791; [John Smith], "The Journal of John Smith, Methodist Circuit Rider, of his Work on the Greenbrier Circuit, (West) Virginia and Virginia," The Journal of the Greenbrier Historical Society 1, 4 (October 1966): 25. Preaching services were considered "public" worship.
3Important literature on love feasts - both British and American - includes Frank Baker, Methodism and the Love-Feast; John Bishop, Methodist Worship in Relation to Free Church Worship (Scholars Studies Press, Inc., 1975), 88-92; Emory Stevens Bucke, "American Methodism and the Love Feast," Methodist History 1 (July 1963): 8-13; Leslie F. Church, More about the Early Methodist People (London: Epworth Press, 1949), 237-42, 282-5; Richard O. Johnson, "The Development of the Love Feast in Early American Methodism," Methodist History 19, 2 (January 1981): 67-83; and C. R. Stockton, "The Origin and Development of Extra-liturgical Worship in Eighteenth Century Methodism" (D. Phil. diss., University of Oxford, 1969), 89ff. Generally, Americans conceived of the love feast as having essentially two parts, the food ritual and the testimonials. Summary references to a love feast, for example, often briefly mention these two parts or, in fact, only the testimonials. The exact order, allowing for some variation, was a little fuller than that. As Nathan Bangs, a preacher who first itinerated in 1802, summarily described a typical love feast (A History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 3rd ed., New York: Mason and Lane, 1840, 1:249), it proceeded in this order: hymn, prayer, eating of bread and water, testimonies, monetary collection, hymn, prayer, benediction. American love feasts had nearly the same components as their British counterparts and their order was essentially the same, with one important exception: the location of the monetary collection. Whereas descriptions of British love feasts seemingly locate the collection between food distribution and testimonials, in America the collection occurred at the end of the testimonials. One consequence is that Americans frequently used the collection as the point to fuse administration of the Lord's Supper to the love feast, a very common occurrence. In those instances, the love feast was said to have "closed" with the sacrament. Love feasts could also culminate with an invitation to mourners or with an eruption of the "work of God," a period with shouting and exhorting by believers and crying by "mourners." Admission of new members was also a possible addition to the order.
4Minutes of the Methodist Conferences, annually held in America: from 1773-1813, inclusive (New York: D. Hitt and T. Ware, 1813), 6.
5Minutes of several conversations between the Rev. Thomas Coke, LL.D., the Rev. Francis Asbury, and others, at a Conference begun in Baltimore, in the State of Maryland, on Monday, the 27th of December, in the year 1784 (Philadelphia: Cist, 1785; reprint ed., Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992), 5; the 1787 Discipline: A Form of Discipline, for the Ministers, Preachers, and Members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America (New York: W. Ross, 1787; reprint ed., Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992), 32, added the reference to thrice. For the period through 1824, this provision had no other changes.
6Charles Giles, Pioneer: A Narrative of the Nativity, Experience, Travels, and Ministerial Labours of Rev. Charles Giles (New York: G. Lane & P. P. Sandford, 1844), 250-1; Benjamin Lakin, Journal, Ms. on microfilm, Washington University Library, St. Louis, MO, 14 April 1811; Nathaniel Mills, Journal, Ms., United Methodist Historical Society, Lovely Lane Museum, Baltimore, MD, 10 February 1811; John Littlejohn, "Journal of John Littlejohn," Ts., Louisville Conference Historical Society, Louisville, KY, 79 (11 November 1777); George Coles, My First Seven Years in America (New York: Carlton & Porter, 1852), 181; William Colbert, "A Journal of the Travels of William Colbert Methodist Preacher thro' parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, and Virginia in 1790 to 1838," Ts., Drew University Library, Madison, NJ, 4:143; Jeremiah Norman, Journal, Ms., Stephen Beauregard Weeks Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, 26 February 1797.
7W. P. Strickland, ed., Autobiography of Dan Young, A New England Preacher of the Olden Time (New York: Carlton & Porter, 1860), 105-6.
8Originally, these tickets, distributed quarterly by the senior itinerant in the circuit, were technically tickets of admission for class meetings. However, in America, their function and name changed. First in an unofficial sense, the class tickets became love feast tickets. In 1820 the Discipline updated its language about renewal of tickets to recognize this. See Frank Baker, "The Americanizing of Methodism," Methodist History 13, 3 (April 1975): 6 and the 1820 Discipline, 39.
9Coles, First Seven Years, 181; Norman journal, 20 September, 1800; Cooper journal, 2 January, 1787. Doorkeepers seemed to have had some level of discretion. Generally, doorkeepers had the discretion to admit members and those who were genuine, serious "seekers" of religion or, at times, members from other denominations.
10Norman journal, 16 March, 1799. The 1798 Discipline (The Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America, with Explanatory Notes by Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury, 10th ed., Philadelphia: Hall, 1798, reprint ed., Rutland, VT: Academy Books, 1979, 170) required the Quarterly Meeting Conference to make this determination.
11Some Methodist preachers themselves felt uncomfortable with limiting access. This minority of preachers argued that exclusion would be an "insult" to non-Methodists. Typically this view was opposed by more traditional preachers. See Lakin journal, 13 April, 1811; Cooper journal, 11 November, 1787.
121798 Discipline, 73. See also Colbert journal, 1:143.
13See the quote from the 1838 Christian Advocate and Journal in John H. Wigger, "Taking Heaven by Storm: Methodism and the Popularization of American Christianity 1770-1820" (Ph.D. diss., Notre Dame, 1994), 266 and Johnson, "Development of the Love Feast," 75.
141798 Discipline, 154.
15I am indebted to the argument by Russell Richey that early American Methodism had essential unity between crucial elements of its existence, namely between its "structure and mission," "organization and life," or "form and substance." See Russell E. Richey, Early American Methodism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 13, 19, and 71. Richey sees an important change occurring in Methodism during the nineteenth century as "sacrality eventually attached itself to the form, to the surface, to the structure-not to the religious life originally borne by those externalities," surely a rebuke to subsequent Methodism, including modern versions. See Early American Methodism, 16-7.
16Thomas Haskins, "The Journal of Thomas Haskins (1760-1816)," Ts., Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN, 22.
17Lakin journal, 7 April, 1811; [Richard Sneath], "Diary," in The History of Bethel Methodist Episcopal Church, Gloucester County New Jersey, 1945, comp. Mrs. Walter Aborn Simpson (No publisher, 1945), 66.
18James B. Finley, Autobiography of Rev. James B. Finley; or, Pioneer Life in the West, ed. W. P. Strickland (Cincinnati: Methodist Book Concern, 1853), 287. His argument alludes to Matthew 7:6.
19Giles, Pioneer, 176.
20Methodists showed great flexibility in choosing the setting for and manner of administering the Lord's Supper. Attaching the sacrament to the end of a love feast was very common, especially at a Quarterly Meeting, itself one of the more regular settings for sacramental administration. See Lester Ruth, "A Little Heaven Below: Quarterly Meetings as Seasons of Grace in Early American Methodism" (Ph.D. diss., Notre Dame, 1996). In addition, the Lord's Supper could be administered in the manner of a love feast, using a similar order with an extended time of testimonies. Finally, the sacrament could exist as an independent, floating ritual, perhaps attached to the end of a preaching service or a class meeting.
21See, for example, the case of the itinerant who had planned to hold a "private" sacrament but, because the house was not immediately available in the morning, had to wait until after the preaching service to have a "public" sacrament. See Lakin journal, 25 December, 1809.
221779 ms. minutes in Philip Gatch, Papers, Ohio Wesleyan University Library, Delaware, OH.
231785 Discipline, 17.
241787 Discipline, 29. Despite the fact that this passage remained unchanged in the Disciplines well into the nineteenth century, the exact nature of these sacramental tickets/tokens remains a mystery. The primary material for the period is virtually silent on their use and nature.
25Throughout this early period, very little mention is ever made of immediate sacramental discipline for Methodists in order to be eligible for communion. John Bowmer's assessment of British practice ("A Converting Ordinance and the Open Table," Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society 34 (1964): 111-2) that the ongoing accountability of Methodist membership was a sort of continual sacramental discipline seems likewise accurate for American Methodists.
261785 Discipline, 16.
27The Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America, 8th ed. (Philadelphia: Hall, 1792), 40.
28A Form of Discipline for the Ministers, Preachers, and Members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America (Elizabeth-Town: Kolloc, 1788; reprint ed., Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992), 41.
29Thomas Coke, Extracts of the journals of the Rev. Dr. Coke's five visits to America (London: G. Paramore, 1793), 107.
30Francis Asbury, The Journal and Letters of Francis Asbury, ed. J. Manning Potts (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1958), 1:728.
31Mills journal, 12 January, 1823.
32William Ormond, Journal, Ts., William Ormond Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University Library, Durham, NC, 11 April, 1802.
33Colbert journal, 1:150.
34For an example, see the account of the 22 May, 1814 Quarterly Meeting in John Early, "Journal of Bishop John Early who lived Jan. 1, 1786-Nov. 5, 1873," Ts., Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC.
35Giles, Pioneer, 240-2.
36Alfred Brunson, A Western Pioneer: or, Incidents of the Life and Times of Rev. Alfred Brunson, A.M., D.D., Embracing a Period of over Seventy Years (Cincinnati: Hitchcock and Walden; New York: Carlton and Lanahan, 1872; reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1975), 1:58-9.
37See, for example, the "Sacrament in public under the Trees" before a large congregation in Cumberland, Maryland in 1825 in Marjorie Moran Holmes, "The Life and Diary of the Reverend John Jeremiah Jacob (1757-1839)" (M.A. Thesis, Duke University, 1941), 325-6.
38For instance, see Robert Drew Simpson, ed., American Methodist Pioneer: The Life and Journals of The Rev. Freeborn Garrettson (Rutland, VT: Academy Books, 1984), 130-1.
39See John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, 3rd ed. (London: Wesleyan Methodist Book Room, 1872; reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1978), 1:279-80 for an early use of this concept. Some scholars' argument that the American Methodists no longer saw the sacrament as a converting ordinance because they restricted access is not persuasive since they typically overlook the fact that a conversion experience was never the threshold for membership. See Kenneth B. Bedell, Worship in the Methodist Tradition (Nashville: Tidings, 1976), 53. One could be a Methodist member in good standing and still be only a mourner. Thus, even if admission to the sacrament was restricted to members only, there would have been opportunity for some mourners to have experienced grace in it as a converting ordinance.
40Finley, Autobiography, 401-2.
41Colbert journal, 4:14-15.
42Gayle Carlton Felton, This Gift of Water: the Practice and Theology of Baptism among Methodists in America (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992), 55, 74-9. For an example, see Ebenezer Francis Newell, Life and Observations of Rev. E. F. Newell, who has been more than Forty Years an Itinerant Minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church (Worcester, MA: C. W. Ainsworth, 1847), 69-70.
43Indeed, the 1785 Discipline even allowed joint membership and privilege of communion. According to this Discipline, if a person would comply with the Methodist membership rules, she or he could still worship at another church and commune there. See 1785 Discipline, 47-8. This provision was omitted in subsequent Disciplines. Examples of intercommunion-particularly by Presbyterians and particularly after the start of the Second Great Awakening-are numerous and are found in accounts of administration of the sacrament in a variety of settings, including Quarterly meetings and Annual Conferences.
44To some outside critics, the differing standards of restriction for the love feast and the Lord's Supper appeared to be backwards: the love feast was often more restricted than communion. One Methodist reply was to distinguish between the love feast and the sacrament as different types of means of grace. The love feast was classified as a prudential means of grace-one specifically given to Methodists and thus essential for Methodist nurture-whereas the sacrament was an instituted means of grace-one commanded of all Christians. See Johnson, "Development of the Love Feast," 77-8. See also the 1798 Discipline, 120, where the bishops' commentary uses this distinction in connection with limiting sacramental access. Compare James B. Finley, Sketches of Western Methodism: Biographical, Historical, and Miscellaneous, ed. W. P. Strickland (Cincinnati: Methodist Book Concern, 1854; reprint, New York: Arno Press & the New York Times, 1969), 81. For a fuller definition of the types of means of grace, see Henry H. Knight III, The Presence of God in the Christian Life: John Wesley and the Means of Grace, Pietist and Wesleyan Studies no. 3 (Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1992), 3.
45Newell, Life and Observations, 135. An invitation was given to mourners after the sacrament, during which many "eagerly rushed forward."
46Nathan Bangs, Journal, Ms., Nathan Bangs papers, Drew University Library, Madison, NJ, 5 October, 1805. See also Finley, Autobiography, 304.
47Henry Boehm, Journal, Ms., Henry Boehm Papers, Drew University Library, Madison, NJ, 17 June, 1804.
48Respectively, Boehm journal, 24 May, 1800; Richard Whatcoat, Journal, Ts., Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary Library, Evanston, IL, 15 November, 1795 and 22 February, 1795; and John Smith, "Journal," 34, 38.
49References to human participation with angels in worshiping God is a frequent feature in Methodists' dreams and visions of heaven. See, for example, the dream in Reuben Peaslee, The Experience, Christian and Ministerial of Mr. Reuben Peaslee (Haverhill, MA: Burrill & Tileston, 1816), 28-9.
50Jessop journal, 21 January, 1790; Thomas Mann, Journal, Ms., Special Collections Library, Duke University Library, Durham, NC, 5 August, 1810; Finley, Autobiography, 290; Colbert journal, 3:40-1; William K. Boyd, "A Journal and Travel of James Meacham," Annual Publication of Historical Papers of the Historical Society of Trinity College 10 (1914): 95. See, for example, James B. Finley's experience at his first love feast in a Quarterly Meeting (Autobiography, 186) and a two-hour discussion of sanctification by Bishop Francis Asbury at the 1804 New York Annual Conference (letter from William Thacher to Robert Emory, 14 December, 1840, Drew University Library, Madison, NJ).
51Sneath, "Diary," 92.
52Ezekiel Cooper, "A brief account of the work of God in Baltimore: written by E. C. in an Epistle to Bishop Asbury," Ts., Barratt's Chapel & Museum, Frederica, DE; George A., Phoebus, comp., Beams of Light on Early Methodism in America (New York: Phillips & Hunt; Cincinnati: Cranston & Stowe, 1887), 95. Compare Ezekiel Cooper, "An Account of the Work of God at Baltimore, in a Letter to -----," The Arminian Magazine (August 1790): 409-411. The scriptural allusion is to Deuteronomy 33 where Moses is shown the land promised to Abraham from the top of Mount Pisgah.
53An example of this sort of language for the Lord's Supper is the description of the sacrament in Abel Stevens, Memorials of the Early Progress of Methodism in the Eastern States (Boston: C. H. Pierce and Co., 1852), 57, quoting Jesse Lee: "Then we administered the Lord's Supper, and our good God was pleased to meet us at his table, and we did sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Additionally, this type of reference could be applied to other private meetings, like class meetings or even Annual Conferences. See Asbury, Journal and Letters, 3:363: "our [annual] conferences in general are as the anti-chamber of heaven."
54"Friends" was a frequently used term for other Methodists.
55Sweet, Religion on the American Frontier, 4:209. See similar statements in J. B. Wakeley, The Patriarch of One Hundred Years; Being Reminiscences, Historical and Biographical of Rev. Henry Boehm (New York: Nelson & Phillips, 1875; reprint, Abram W. Sangrey, 1982), 153; Colbert journal, 1:35-6; Cooper journal, 24 August, 1788, 15 November, 1790, 27 May, 1794; James Meacham,Journal, Ms., Special Collections Library, Duke University Library, Durham, NC, 27 March, 1789; Edward Dromgoole to Philip Gatch, 27 October, 1813; Philip Gatch Papers, Ohio Wesleyan University Library, Delaware, OH; and Mary Avery Browder to Edward Dromgoole, 2 December, 1777; Edward Dromgoole Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill, NC. See also Asbury's statement after parting with Thomas Coke once (Journal and Letters, 2:118): "Strangers to the delicacies of Christian friendship know little or nothing of the pain of parting."
56Daniel Grant to Chisley Daniel, 27 October, 1791, David Campbell Papers, Special Collections Library, Duke University Library, Durham, NC.
57Untitled, undated hymn in the Henry Bradford, Hymnbook, Ms., Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill, NC.
58Watters, A Short Account, 75-6. Watters was describing his last Quarterly Meeting on the Baltimore circuit in 1780.
59The full account can be found in Horton, A Narrative of the Early Life, 85-6.
60Coles, First Seven Years, 181; William M. Wightman, Life of William Capers, D.D., One of the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal church, South; Including an Autobiography (Nashville: Southern Methodist Publishing House, 1858), 81-2.
61See in comparison [John N. Maffitt], Tears of Contrition; or Sketches of the Life of John N. Maffitt: With Religious and Moral Reflections (New London: Samuel Green, 1821), 28-9.
62Zechariah Paddock, Memoir of Rev. Benjamin G. Paddock, with Brief Notices of Early Ministerial Associates (New York: Nelson & Phillips; Cincinnati: Hitchcock & Walden, 1875), 48. His phrase is an allusion to Ruth 1:16.
63Ibid. Although Paddock does not include it in his account, others make specific reference to the role their observation of genuine love among the Methodists played in their attraction to this fellowship. See Billy Hibbard, Memoirs of the Life and Travels of B. Hibbard, Minister of the Gospel, Containing an Account of his Experience of Religion; and of his Call to and Labors in the Ministry, for Nearly Thirty Years (New York, 1825), 63, where Hibbard was especially attracted by the love Methodists showed each other and him, too. On a broader level, Methodists were not unaware of the connection between the quality of love to each other and resultant revivals. See, for example, [James Jenkins], Experience, Labors, and Sufferings of Rev. James Jenkins, of the South Carolina Conference (Printed for the author, 1842), 95, where love among preachers at an Annual Conference seems causally connected to a revival which attended that Conference.
64William Keith, The Experience of William Keith. [Written by Himself.] Together with Some Observations Conclusive of Divine Influence on the Mind of Man (Utica: Seward, 1806), 12.
65For a perceptive and more detailed assessment of the battle being fought, see Thomas H. Schattauer, "The Clamor for the Contemporary: The Present Challenge for Baptismal Identity and Liturgical Tradition in American Culture," Cross Accents: Journal of the Association of Lutheran Church Missions 6 (July 1995): 3-11.
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