November 14, 1809 — to John Robinson

A Letter of the Rev. William Spencer to the

Rev. John Robinson Concerning James O’Kelly

Here are introduced a letter and a part of the Journal of William Spencer whose unpublished manuscript The Experience &c. has been preserved. The letter throws light on the O’Kelly controversy in the South District of Virginia by a preacher who served under O’Kelly, the presiding elder on the Williamsburg Circuit in Virginia 1789. O’Kelly was the leader of the schism which split the church in 1792.

November 14, 1809¹

[TO JOHN ROBINSON]²

Well-beloved Brother:

You will receive this as a mark of pure, disinterested Christian friendship. I think you may with propriety say that if you are acquainted with no other man upon earth, you are, at least, acquainted with me. Our friendship and Christian acquaintance began about the memorable year of our Lord, 1788; and notwithstanding there has been, since that time (from appearance, at least) some little differences between us, which caused much sorrow to my mind, yet I can, with much truth say, that I have never lost sight of old times, when, like a well-match’d yoke, we sweetly, and blessed be God, most successfully pulled together in the Gospelplough,³ to the astonishment of multitudes, who were constrained to acknowledge the finger of God! The blind did indeed receive their sight, the lame walk, yea, leap and praise God with joyful lips; the spiritually deaf heard the joyful sound of salvation, and great was the consolation of believers. Numbers told me that it was the most convincing proof that it was God’s peculiar prerogative to send by whom he would send, that ever they knew in all their lives. They had been favoured with what is commonly called wise and great preachers, and yet no visible good was done! A sad gloom seemed to rest upon the minds of the people, when, all on a sudden (as it were) two poor little, unimproved striplings entered the circuit, with nothing scarcely, but “Repent or perish, believe or be damned, turn or burn; Hell fire will be the doom of all the ungodly, &c.” The mighty power of God attended these poor Endeavours! At the sound of these Rams’ horns (crooked as they were) the towering walls of Jericho fell flat to the ground! The devil’s strongholds were attacked, and many, yea, vast numbers of his faithful subjects deserted their infernal prince, and came over on the side of our adorable King Jesus. Surely if ever there was a Work of God since the World began, it was this! Robinson and Spencer never performed such wonders as these! God does, sometimes, yea, commonly, make choice of such instruments to carry on his work, as man would never think of; and his reason for so doing is very obvious, namely, that “no flesh (as Father Paul asserts) should glory in his presence.” God will have the honour of all the good that is done upon earth: and O! how glad my soul is of it.

What transpired this first year of my endeavouring to sound the Gospel trumpet, left such a blessed, sweet, reviving, animating savour upon my spirit, that it has never worn off, and I hope in God, never will, in time, nor through Eternity. I hope to meet many in the Day of the Lord, who were brought home to our dear Jesus this memorable year! Some are gone before us, and many are still behind, “burning and shining lights,” who do, by their upright and holy lives, “shew forth the praises of him who hath called them out of the darkness into his marvellous light.” When it so happened, my dear Brother that by the means of one poor, fallible man (you know who I mean [O’Kelly]) a spirit of division crept in among us, my soul did truly mourn in secret places before the Lord. Instead of “Glory to Jesus, Glory to God, I am happy I am bound for Heaven, O Brother! I love you, O! Sister, I am bound to meet you in Heaven, &c.” I say, instead of this blessed, heavenly talk, it was “Government, Government, Government, we shall all be ruined, we shall be oppressed to death, we and our children are lorded over! Popery, popery! Despotism! Despotic power, and whatnot!”⁴

Now it was that Hell triumphed with infernal joy! Now it was that Brother had his sword, oh! the ugly-looking sword of contention, drawn against Brother and even Sister and Sister were at it too! Was this a work of God? No! No! No! Well, what is the upshot of the whole? Let truth speak for itself. In the name of God, I ask, where is the fine Church that poor man talked so much about? I have never seen nor heard of it yet.⁵ Poor man, sure enough; well he may be dejected. I do by no means “rejoice at calamities;” far from it: at the same time, I am glad, and do most heartily rejoice when I see such characters mortified; because I am fully convinced that nothing else under heaven is likely to give them a true sight of themselves.

Mr. Bunyan talks about one “Will-be-Will.” “This Will-be-Will (says he) is a clever fellow when he is in the right, but, when he is in the wrong, he is a terrible, mischievous fellow indeed.” O! when a man has truth on his side, or even has probability in view, in the name of God, let him be bold, let him be zealous and courageous. But before all this appears, a man ought to be possessed with good evidences that he is in the right. All is not gold that shines; neither is everything that looks like zeal, true and genuine zeal. Jehu had a mighty zeal, but what sort of a zeal was it? Exactly such a zeal in my humble opinion, as poor old, unhappy Dadda O’Kelly has.

Meantime, I would ask, what has become of the old despotic church, its government, its human heads, its rules, &c. &c. &c. Answer, Glory to God, I am quite willing it should answer for itself. Where is the despotism? Glory to God, I feel it not. I, for one, am a blessed, happy, free member of this oppressive church, as it is called by some: and it is at this very day in a growing, thriving condition.

Now, my beloved Brother let me tell you my whole heart (as it were) about you. From my first, happy acquaintance with you, I have looked upon you, not only as a man of genuine piety, but as a man of good sense and sound understanding, and therefore, a man of this description, will, I think, when he is convinced that he is in an error, retract, and pursue a different course. “What is honour?” (says one.) Answer “To confess what is wrong, and do what is right.” Now, is there anything dishonourable or ugly in this? By no means. No man living is in a state of infallibility; therefore, it is noble for me and all to say to God and man, “What I know not, teach thou me.” My dear, I am by no means, labouring to convince you that you erred in leaving the Methodists; the matter is so plain that no argument is necessary. You are fully convinced, I make no doubt: but I do not think you erred so much yourself in any thing, as in putting too great and too implicit a confidence in the judgment of a poor, fallible man. I, myself, loved the same man, even to a fault, and if there was a man upon earth better calculated than any other, to proselyte or lead me astray, he was the very man: this I believe, you think is the real truth; and I was, in reality upon the very tilt (as it were) of following you and him when you turned your backs upon us; but, if I had, I should, in a little time, have acknowledged my mistake, and taken shelter again most joyfully, in the old fold, with my beloved, happy, free Brethren. Our present new Bishop William M’Kendree, broke off when you and others did, but in a little time, saw his error, acknowledged it, and behold, what he has come to! Has he dishonoured himself by acknowledging that he was not infallible? I write to you, my dear Brother in the manner I do, because, since we were together at Rough-Creek, it has been hinted to me that you do not intend to come back into the old fold. I was surprized to hear this because, if you remember, in our conversation the night we staid at Sister Madison’s you told me that you fully expected to come back, and moreover, you said that I might tell it to whom I pleased. I am, by no means persuading you to come back; if you can grow, and thrive, and fatten in your present pastures, better than you can among us, do pray, my dear, enjoy yourself where you are. I only tell you what I do think will be best for you and your rising family, as well as for those who stand off with you: if you do not see and think as I do, no harm done, no harm done! If there are defects in our Government, we are still improving, and often meeting together, to see what amendments can be made for the better. Our Church Rules are not like the laws of the Medes and Persians: all these things you know, therefore, come back, come back, and help to fight the devil, &c., and gain more souls to Jesus. Farewell! “Come on, my Whitefield, since the strife is past,

“And friends at first, are friends again at last.”

These were Charles Wesley’s words to George Whitefield, after a long separation between them. Let David and Jonathan now come and unite closer than ever, and live and die in the Gospel-harness. Amen. I remain your loving Brother,

WILLIAM SPENCER

N.B. You may, if you please, communicate the main drift of this letter to Brother Almond, as equally intended for him. W.S.

The following is quoted from The Experience &c. of William Spencer, Volume 1. This part of The Experience &c. is in journal form; and the excerpt is an account of what happened at

Chickahominy Church, Virginia, in 1789. The first and last volumes of Spencer’s books belong to Dr. Robert B. Pierce, pastor of Broadway Methodist Church, Indianapolis. The other volumes have not been found but are supposed to be in Williamsburg, Virginia. Asbury gives a similar account of his visit to Chickahominy Church on September 3, 1790. See Journal for that date.

“I shall never forget a meeting I had one memorable Sabbath Day at a noted, large, brick church called Chickahominy Church in James City County near the town of old Williamsburg. No doubt but that they and the awful things that happened there that day are still fresh in the memory of the inhabitants of James City. A vast multitude of people used to assemble at this church both from the town of Williamsburg as well as the country round about, and on this day there was (as usual) a numerous congregation. Numbers who met here came for no other purpose but to make sport of the worship of God, to curse the preachers, and mock and laugh at those who would cry aloud to God for mercy, or shout the praises of their blessed Redeemer. Such bold champions for the devil would take care to be at church time enough to get choice of the pews, and the most advantageous parts of the galleries to serve their turn, in order that they might have a clear view of the shouting Christians, or, noisy fools, as they were pleased to call them; and after they had diverted themselves with them in the church, they would go out in great numbers and set up a mighty huzza in the churchyard, by way of derision. But on this memorable, awful day, of which I am now speaking, it pleased Almighty God to give these daring, infidel rebels such an alarm, that they entirely forgot their devillish sport.

“As I was riding by myself to the church, thinking how I had been repeatedly grieved at the shameful, ill behaviour of many who attended here and fully expected to meet with the same trial again to-day, unless God was pleased to work in some unusual way to prevent it, I turned out into the woods, alighted from my horse, fell on my knees, and cried to God to make use of some means that day that might alarm those daring enemies to religion, who might be at church with no other design but to mock at, and despise his worship, &. I went on my way to the church; vast numbers were there before me, and they were still coming on every side. “It was in the month of August, and the weather amazing sultry. I began to preach about 12 o’clock; presently after, thunder was heard, and an awful cloud came up, which looked terrible indeed! The people ran out to secure their saddles, &, in the mean time I gave out a hymn, which was sung till the congregation was composed: presently the rain began to descend, the lightnings to flash, and the thunder to roar! The poor, daring, wicked rebels were pretty quiet and tame, while the Almighty seemed to threaten them with immediate death and destruction! A trifling countenance could not be seen among them! It was the most awful cloud that I remember to have seen in my life, and it lasted a considerable time. A carriage was struck with the lightning but a few steps from the door, and such alarming peals of thunder never did I hear before! There was no running out of the church now! All were glad to keep their places. So we had a listening multitude for once, at this place.

“It was awful to behold the fine ladies in their rustling silks, almost frightened to death with the streams of lightning and the awful thunder. They would catch hold of one another, in the greatest consternation, as if they expected every moment to be struck dead, or, as if they expected Christ was then coming in the clouds to judge the world! I made use of the opportunity; and while my awful God was thundering from heaven, I endeavoured to thunder out the terrors of his holy law against the workers of iniquity! Christians shouted aloud the praises of King Jesus, while mourners fell and cried for mercy and every sinner’s countenance was as pale as death! In the midst of this truly awful meeting, one woman got powerfully converted, and a shout of praise and thanksgiving seemed to pierce the very heavens! Who but the devil will refuse to praise God when a poor sinner finds mercy and obtains forgiveness for all his sins? Jesus says ‘there is joy in heaven among the angels when a poor sinner repents and turns to God;’ and surely, there is great reason to praise him upon earth for the same mercy. This woman leaped up, and praised God with a loud and joyful voice, while the dear children of God joyfully joined in the heavenly work. Sinners were astonished to see Christians happy at such a time as this! The louder it thundered, the louder the Christians shouted, and the more awful did the poor sinners look! It brought to my mind that terrible day, when ‘the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.’

“Between three and four hundred souls were added to the church this year in Williamsburg Circuit. The people were constrained to acknowledge that this was indeed the work of God, and not of man. I heard some of the old professors observing that ‘they had had wise and experienced preachers among them for several years past, and that they saw little or no revival of religion. God was pleased to send two striplings, Robinson and Spencer, among them, and a great revival through their instrumentality had taken place!’”

The Experience &c. of the Reverend William Spencer.

Property of Dr. Robert B. Pierce, Broadway Methodist Church, Indianapolis, Indiana