VOLUME 2 — BOOK IV — CHAPTER V
INTRODUCTION OF METHODISM INTO NEW ENGLAND

The Boston Elm — Lee Preaching beneath it — Description of his Preaching — Reasons for the Introduction of Methodism into the New England States — State of Religion — New England Theology — Edwards and Whitefield — Misapprehension of Arminianism — Reaction of Calvinism — Effect of Methodism

Near the center of the Boston Park, or Common, stands a venerable elm, the crowning ornament of its scenery. Its decayed limbs are held together by clamps and rivets of iron, and a railing defends it from rude hands, for it is sacred in the traditions of New England. It is especially sacred to the Methodists of the eastern metropolis. On a serene afternoon of July, 1790, a man of middle age, of a benign but shrewd countenance, and dressed in a style of simplicity which might have been supposed the guise of a Quaker, took his stand upon a table to preach beneath its branches. Four persons approached, and gazed upon him with surprise, while he sang a hymn. It was sung by his solitary voice; at its conclusion he knelt down upon the table, and stretching forth his hands, prayed with a fervor so unwonted in the cool and minute petitions of the Puritan pulpits, that it attracted the groups of promenaders who had come to spend an evening hour in the shady walks, and by the time he rose from his knees they were streaming in processions, from the different points of the Common, toward him. While he opened his small Bible and preached to them without "notes," but with "the demonstration of the Spirit and of power," the multitude grew into a dense mass, three thousand strong, eagerly catching every utterance of the singular stranger, and some of them receiving his message into "honest and good hearts."

For years the theological opinions of New England had been in violent fermentation. The most contradictory doctrines prevailed. There were Calvinistic Antinomians, and Arminian Pelagians; and the relation of faith and works was a rife question. Both are wrong, cried the stranger from his table. Faith is one oar, works another; he that rows with one does not advance, but only whirls about; he that rows with the other only whirls in the opposite direction; he that works both, in harmony, moves forward and heavenward! A spectator who heard him at or about this time says "When he stood up in the open air and began to sing, I knew not what it meant. I drew near, however, to listen, and thought the prayer was the best I had ever heard. He then read his text, and began, in a sententious manner, to address his remarks to the understandings and consciences of the people; and I thought all who were present must be constrained to say, 'It is good for us to be here.' All the while the people were gathering he continued this mode of address, and presented us with such a variety of beautiful images, that I thought he must have been at infinite pains to crowd so many pretty things into his memory. But when he entered upon the subject matter of his text, it was with such an easy; natural flow of expression, and in such a tone of voice, that I could not refrain from weeping; and many others were affected in the same way. When he was done, and we had an opportunity of expressing our views to each other, it was agreed that such a man had not visited New England since the days of Whitefield. I heard him again, and thought I could follow him to the ends of the earth." [1]

This evangelist was Jesse Lee, the founder of Methodism in New England; and although the preceding year must be admitted as its true epoch, yet the year of his appearance in the Eastern metropolis, 1790, may be considered the period in which it assumed a definite and secure position. He had arrived in Connecticut in June, 1789, and preached at Norwalk, New Haven, and many other places, and toward the end of the year formed a class in Stratfield, a parish of Stratford, and another at Reading, but these were only preliminary movements. He was alone, surveying the ground. The classes in Stratford and Reading consisted, the first of but three, and the last of but two, members; the former was formed but about three months, and the latter only about three days, prior to 1790. It was in the latter year that a detachment of preachers, Jacob Brush, George Roberts, and Daniel Smith, arrived to prosecute the plans of Lee, and the labors of Methodism in New England were fairly begun. It was also in this year that the Annual Minutes report, for the first time, returns of members from New England towns. [2]

After five years of delay, occasioned chiefly by the hesitancy of his brethren, Lee had at last accomplished his ardent wish of planting the Methodistic standard in the Eastern States. The denomination had spread into all the Atlantic States out of New England; it had penetrated into the primeval wildernesses of the West, and its itinerant heralds were marching in the van of that vast emigration which has since covered the immense regions of the Ohio and Mississippi with magnificent states. It had even entered Canada, and, passing along the waters of New England, had established itself in Nova Scotia. Why had it not entered the Eastern States earlier? and what special reasons justified its introduction there now? The influence of New England on its subsequent fortunes has been important enough to justify us in pausing here briefly to survey the new field, though we can, in the present volume, but introduce upon it its Methodism pioneers.

Doubtless the greater moral wants of the rest of the country had hitherto diverted its attention from the older and less necessitous communities of the Northeast; but now that it had attained the vigor of a numerous and organized body, and had projected its comprehensive plans over all the rest of the land, has deemed befitting that its quickening message should be heard among the venerable but languishing Churches of the Puritans.

Its movement in this new direction was rendered expedient by the undeniable condition of the New England Church.

The civil relations of the Church in these states had created other than spiritual motives for the profession of religion. None could hold office or vote, in her early days, unless he were a member of the Church. It would be superfluous to comment upon the inevitable influence of such a fact; religion becomes more a matter of form than of principle — a qualification for the states, for society, or for patronage in business, rather than preparation for heaven — and Pharisaism and hypocrisy are more likely to prevail than a sincere personal faith. One of the highest authorities of the New England Church — the "venerable Stoddard " — published in a sermon, "That sanctification [holiness] is not a necessary qualification for partaking of the Lord's supper," and subsequently he wrote an "Appeal to the Learned, being a Vindication of the Right of Visible Saints to the Lord's Supper, though they be destitute of a Saving Work of God's Spirit in their Hearts." Though vigorously opposed, his views were adopted by his own people at Northampton, and prevailed extensively in New England. In the last mentioned work he defends the ministry of unconverted men, contending that they may rightfully execute the official functions of religion though destitute of its personal experience. It is well known that similar views existed throughout the Calvinistic Churches of the whole land. In the Presbyterian Church of the Middle States a majority of the Synod contended that all persons baptized, and not heretical or scandalous, should be allowed the Lord's supper; and that such persons, if educated for the purpose, should be admitted to the ministry. Regeneration they considered not ascertainable "by investigation, and not necessary to Church membership or the ministerial office." The Tennents and their coadjutors labored strenuously to reform these crude opinions, but against an opposition that distracted and rent the denomination for years. Gilbert Tennent's "Nottingham Sermon," on "The Dangers of an Unconverted Ministry" — a terribly scathing discourse — was occasioned by this opposition. He declares in it that "The body of the clergy are as great stranger to the feeling experience of the new birth as was Nicodemus." He and his associates were excluded from the synod the next year — the prime cause of which is called in the history of the Presbyterian Church "The Great Schism." The Methodist ministry had to combat these defective and dangerous views through the length and breadth of the land.

They were not uncommon in New England. Dr. Chauncy, a prominent character among the Boston clergy, in writing against Whitefield's opposition to an unconverted ministry, declared that "Conversion does not appear to be alike necessary for ministers in their public capacity as officers of the Church as in their private capacity," and not a few clergymen and theological students acknowledged Whitefield as the instrument of their conversion. Whitefield said, "many, perhaps most, that preach, I fear, do not experimentally know Christ." [3] At the time of his third visit there were not less than twenty ministers in the vicinity of Boston who had been converted through his instrumentality after they had entered upon the sacred office, or their studies preparatory for it. [4] The author of "The Great Awakening" asserts this deplorable state of the New England Church. He says, "There were many in the Churches, and some in the ministry, who were yet lingering among the supposed preliminaries of conversion. The difference between the world and the Church was vanishing away, Church discipline was neglected, and the growing laxness of morals was invading the Churches. And yet never, perhaps, had the expectation of reaching heaven at last been more general and more confident." [5]

The devout-minded Edwards lifted up a standard for the remnants of the faithful. The providence of God directed the course of Whitefield among the decaying Churches, and Gilbert Tennent followed in his track. A widespread impression was produced. Revivals occurred, attended with all those remarkable phenomena which in later years attended Methodism.

That the religious sensation of 1740 produced a permanent impression on the Calvinistic Churches of New England cannot be questioned; but they owe their later prosperity chiefly to later influences, and not a little to that general spirit of revival, that philanthropic activity and spiritual emulation, which all must acknowledge to have been coexistent with, if not consequent upon, the extraordinary outspread of Methodism through the country.

The great revival of 1740 subsided. Owing to the fanaticism of Davenport and others, it was turned into reproach. The civil courts interfered unfavorably. A host of clergymen, with Chauncy, of Boston, at their head, arrayed themselves against it, opposing it through both the press and the pulpit. In 1743 the annual Convention of pastors in the Province of Massachusetts Bay issued their protest, ostensibly against its "errors," but actually against the revival; and, though opposed by a counter protest, their attack had an effectual influence on its subsequent history. Bitter controversies were rife; and when Whitefield arrived on his second visit, sick and prostrated by the voyage, he found the whole community in agitation. The contrast between this and his former visits is painfully affecting. The propriety of inviting him to the pulpits was discussed in the newspapers. A number of "Associations" published "Testimonies" against him. Some who had been among his most cordial friends were now among his bitter opponents. The faculties of both Yale and Harvard, where he had been received before with affectionate warmth, published "Declarations" against him, and it was obvious that a widespread revulsion had taken place. The change proceeded still farther, until we find at last Edwards, the luminary of the times, dismissed from his charge, the first scene of the revival, and the spiritual prospects of the New England Church beclouded by a general dissension and settled gloom. In Boston itself, the number of parishes in 1785, five years prior to Lee's arrival, was actually less than a half century before. [6] Methodism felt that it had a work to do in such circumstances.

But further: Even in the best days of the Puritan Church it had failed to exalt the standard of Christian experience to what Methodists deemed its scriptural altitude. Though we meet in the New England theology with the phrase "Assurance of faith," yet that experience was supposed to be limited to a few anomalous cases, and, as a necessary sequence of the doctrine of election, was applied to the eternal as well as the present condition of the favored saint. The personal "knowledge of sins forgiven," as the common privilege of true believers, was denounced as presumption and heresy. Even the devout Edwards, in vindicating himself against his opponents, repelled the charge of teaching it. Methodism, with St. Paul, held this heresy as a most wholesome truth, and very full of comfort. Its people were taught never to rest satisfied with their spiritual experience till the Spirit itself should bear witness with their spirits that they were the children of God. It felt itself called upon to attempt to rectify the vagueness and superficiality of Christian experience in New England by supplying this deficiency in its theology.

Not only in regard to the evidences of personal religion, but more especially in regard to its extent, did it deem the New England theology deficient. That theology taught the necessary continuance of sin in believers through life. It interpreted St. Paul's personation of the awakened sinner under the law (Rom. vii, 7-25) as the necessary experience of saints under the evangelical covenant. This was, in the judgment of Methodism, a deplorable error, depreciative alike of the efficacy of the grace of God and the practical standard of the Christian life, and liable to perilous applications. Methodism, on the contrary, taught that men should "go on to perfection," not as a mere aspiration to an ideal virtue, the pursuit of what can never be attained, but as a legitimate and practical object of Christian faith. While it denied the possibility, in this life, of absolute, angelic, or Adamic perfection, or a perfection that admitted not of continued additions of grace — while it taught the necessary continuance of human infirmity and temptation to the end of the Christian pilgrimage, it nevertheless proclaimed the privilege of all saints to be delivered from all voluntary depravity. This high experience it considered to be what the New Testament Scriptures designate and enjoin as "Perfection," (Matt. V, 48; 2 Cor. xiii, 2;) meaning thereby, as has been shown, more a negative than a positive perfection — a perfection not according to the law, but according to the modified relation which believers sustain to the law under the evangelical covenant.

Methodism deemed, then, that it had a momentous message for New England in this respect.

It came also with the voice of remonstrance against some of the principal doctrines of the Puritan Church, which it deemed derogatory to the Gospel, and of dangerous practical consequence. Such were the tenets of Pre-election, Pre-reprobation, Final Perseverance, Infant Damnation, etc. We shall see hereafter that some of these were considered fundamental truths at the time of Lee's visit to New England, and that some of his most serious, as well as his most ludicrous rencounters, arose from them.

Few forms of religious belief were more repulsive to the people of New England, at the time of the introduction of Methodism among them, than what is called Arminianism. It is curious to observe what distorted ideas of its doctrines were then current The author of "The Great Awakening" says: "There was then a horror of Arminianism, such as is difficult now to understand. Men had not then forgotten the tremendous evils which had grown out of the doctrine of salvation by works ... The argument most constantly used against Arminianism, in those days, was its tendency to prepare the way for Popery ... There had been a gradual and silent increase of Arminianism. Scarce any would acknowledge themselves Arminians; but, in many places, the preaching more and more favored the belief that the unconverted might, without supernatural aid, commence and carry on a series of works preparatory to conversion; and that those who could do it were doing very well, and were in little danger." It is evident that the author of the work from which I quote is not himself exempt from similar objections to Arminianism. And yet no system of religious opinions can be more hostile than this to the very evils ascribed to it. From no passage in the works of Arminius can the "doctrine of salvation by works" be fairly deduced. It was a leading proposition of his system, that salvation is by faith; and that "true faith cannot proceed from the exercise of our natural faculties and powers, nor from the force and operation of free will," but from the energy of the holy Ghost. [7] The followers of Wesley teach the same. No modern Christians have proclaimed more emphatically the doctrines of original sin, the exclusive merit of the atonement, justification by faith alone, and kindred tenets. They are reiterated every Sabbath in all Methodist pulpits. The alleged errors are not Arminian; they are Pelagian. Arminians have become Pelagians, but not from the legitimate tendency of Arminianism. Calvinists have often become Antinomians; but would the followers of Calvin hold themselves responsible for such a result? Yet it is believed by many to be the logical issue of their system; while no such relation can be asserted between Arminianism and Pelagianism. The capital difference between Calvinists and Methodists relates to the subject of unconditional election, and its necessary consequences, the final perseverance of the elect, and the reprobation of the non-elect. The only ground that the Calvinist has for alleging that Methodists teach "salvation by works" is the fact that they deny the tenet of unconditional election. But how does this denial logically involve the rejection of the doctrine of justification by faith, so pertinaciously attributed to Arminianism?

Methodism attempted the correction of these misapprehensions, and the attempt has not been unsuccessful. Prejudice has yielded to better information. The Calvinists of New England have seen that men can believe themselves sinners, and acknowledge the full merit of the atonement, without receiving the "horrible decretum," as it was properly named by Calvin himself. It is a fact which cannot be denied, that the Genevan theology is, to say the least, dormant in New England. Some still avow its doctrines, but they seldom receive a distinct enunciation in the public assembly. There is a universal conviction that the popular mind will not tolerate them; and this, too, be it remarked, not at a period of spiritual declension, but of advanced religious interest. Methodism has had an agency in this change without doubt. It has scattered through New England thousands of laymen and hundreds of preachers, who glory in the doctrine of universal redemption. Their numbering and unrivaled activity have had effect. Thousands and tens of thousands have received, with gladness and devout praise, their enlarged views of the divine compassion of the Father and the atoning merit of the Son, and these views have begun to find utterance in all the pulpits of the land.

The entrance of Methodism into New England was eminently providential in another respect. The rigid theology of her old Churches was rapidly producing that disastrous reaction which has attended it in every other land. Rationalistic opinions and semi-infidelity had been germinating under its shade. They have grown and borne fruit since, but not to the extent they would had not a more benign creed been presented to the community. One of the most rigid organs of Puritanism declare that "The Unitarian apostasy has involved a large proportion of the Churches which were first organized by the first settlers of New England. In the Plymouth colony the original Churches were first in the apostasy, and the Church in South Marshfield is now the oldest Orthodox Church in that colony. And, in the Massachusetts colony, the six first in order, of the time of organization, have gone, and the Church in Lynn is now the oldest Orthodox Church of the Massachusetts colony. All that were established before it have despised their birthright, and are in hostility to the doctrines and religion of the Puritans and of the Reformation." [8]

It is well known that all the Puritan Churches of Boston became infected with Arianism, until only one (the Old South) maintained a dubious acknowledgment of the Genevan faith.

It was the horror which the despondent doctrines of Calvin inspired that led to these remarkable changes; and we have reason to believe that Methodism has afforded an intermediate and safe ground for thousands who, in their revolt from Calvinism, would otherwise have passed over to the opposite and more perilous extreme.

Such were the circumstances which justified and demanded the introduction of Methodism into New England. That it did not mistake its mission has been demonstrated by the result. Besides its own prosperous growth, the Churches of the Eastern States are again alive, and their moral energies active for the salvation of the world. What agency has effected the change, under the divine Spirit? Has the existence of nearly a thousand preachers, traversing these states and ceaselessly laboring, and some hundred thousand laymen, proverbial for energy and zeal, been without effect on the public mind? Has it had no part, no highly important part, in the resuscitation of religion? Could such an agency operate anywhere, even in a heathen community, without important effect? What other special agency has operated meanwhile? The fact is unquestionable, that Methodism, with its preparatory labors of Whitefield, with its subsequent circuits and districts intersecting the whole land, its revivals, its innumerable class-meetings and prayer-meetings, its emphatic mode of preaching, and its assiduous pastoral labors, has aroused New England, provoking its Churches by its example. The assumption cannot be gainsaid. Not only is it matter of history, but of sober and irresistible inference, that such universal and powerful appliances must have had effect, and extraordinary effect. Within view of almost every Congregational Church in New England, the successors of Lee have erected a temple whose altar has been habitually bedewed with the tears of the penitent and the purified. While Methodism has thus set an example to its predecessors, and provoked their zeal, it is a well-known fact that a large proportion of its converts have been gathered into their Churches, carrying with them more or less of its own energetic spirit.

But though thus justified by both the reasons and the results of its introduction into New England, its progress there has, from the beginning, cost untold exertions on the part of its ministry and people. Let us now proceed to trace these exertions more directly.

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ENDNOTES

1 Ware's Memoir, chap. xlii.2 "Memorials of the introduction of Methodism into the Eastern States, etc., p. 14. Boston. 1848. I have already intimated (see preface) that this work, and also a second volume of similar title, were but the preliminary publication of my New England material.

3 Great Awakening, p. 104.

4 Ibid, chap. ii, p. 393.

5 Ibid.

6 Episcopal Observer, Boston, 1846.

7 See Watson's Theological Dictionary, and Bangs's Life of Arminius.

8 New England Puritan, September, 1842.