Undated — Address to Conference of 1816

Proceedings of Wesley Historical Society, II, 203, description of a printed leaflet owned by H.W. Ball, to which Asbury has added in writing the “Supplement.” Transcribed by Frank Baker. The original is in Drew University Library. One part of it is reproduced here.

ADDRESS TO CONFERENCE OF 1816

This is Asbury’s last address to a General Conference. It was written on January 8, 1816. Two addresses were read to the General Conference which met in Baltimore in May. One was the valedictory address (not this as some historians say) which was written to Bishop McKendree in 1813 and which is included in this volume of letters. The address of 1816 was also read to the conference as Thomas L. Douglass, the secretary, affirms at the end of this document.

Copies of the address of 1816 were printed in the New York and Nashville Advocates. The address appeared in the New York Advocate of March 16, 1916, page 344. It also appeared in the Nashville Christian Advocate, March 10, 1916, page 305, though the copies differed. The original of the New York Advocate copy is not in the handwriting of Asbury. The original of the Nashville Christian Advocate copy is in the Wofford College library. This also is not in the handwriting of Asbury. Both of them are thought to be the handwriting of Thomas Mason who served as Asbury’s amanuensis for the Joseph Benson letter of January 15, 1816, which follows.

The copy used here has been taken from the New York Advocate. It has been compared with the Wofford College copy. The original of the copy in the New York Advocate is in the Drew University library. It is interesting to note how great a part the O’Kellyite schism played in the life of early American Methodism and how Asbury even twenty-four years after had it so much upon his mind. By that time the Christian Church (Republican Methodist) had become a very important movement in eastern Virginia and North Carolina.

In this address Asbury has much to say about the Book Concern, and he makes suggestions about the constitution with some proposed changes. Also there are references to other matters to be brought before the conference. This letter and the Benson letter were written at the home of John Whetstone near St. Matthew’s in Calhoun County, South Carolina, and dictated to John Mason, the presiding elder.

UP THE RIVER SANTEE,

70 MILES FROM CHARLESTON, SO. CA.

January 8, 1816

Francis Asbury Senr. Superintendent in the 45th year of his charge in and over the Methodist Episcopal Church in America, in his address, counsels, and advices to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church appointed to be held in Baltimore the first of May, 1816. Most dearly beloved in the Lord:

My loving confidential Sons in the Gospel of the grace of God, in Christ Jesus, great grace rest upon you. The God of glory cover your assembly and direct all your acts and deliberations for the Apostolic order and establishment of the Church of God in holy succession to the end of time. Only recollect as far as your observation or information will go, what God hath done by us in Europe and America in about 70 years in Europe, and less than 50 years in America, and what wonderful things he may do for us and our successors in future years if we stand fast in the Gospel doctrine and pure Apostolic ordination, discipline and government into which we have been called and now stand.

We are prepared, and, if called upon, to prove and demonstrate even in your assembly, not from uncertain Church Histories and testimonies, but from the pure Oracles of the New Testament,—Three distinct ordinations, their distinct powers rising in gospel order by constituted degrees, one over another, and under the government, and distinct in names, that is to say Apostles, Elders, and Deacons. We will enter the sanctuary of divine truth, here we shall stand, this is our ground.

If we were called upon to prove and demonstrate 1st, the doctrine of depravity, 2nd the doctrine of redemption and justification through the Son of God, and 3rd, the doctrine of Sanctification, we would rest it wholly upon the pure Oracles of God; and as Church-order, government and discipline must be of God we believe, though it is not of equal consequence to the great and essential doctrines, we believe according to its importance and weight, plain and pure.¹ Apostolic example and testimonies from the word of God. We reject all human authorities, because they are human authorities. We receive all divine testimonies as testimonies from God and the Son of God.

We think that among the very best, and greatest human authors who have written to admiration on the great truths of God, yet have written large volumes on different subjects and have made large extracts from other authors, have been led into seeming or real inconsistencies, which might be made use of by their enemies as contradicting some of the great truths of gospel doctrine and order, which they had nobly defended in some of their other writing, and that by oversight, and that we scruple not to say of our great John² the divine.

You yourselves having only read his own works think and believe you find some strong Calvinistic expressions in his own writing and doubtless you would find many more if they are not corrected in the fifty volumes of his Christian Library extracted from Puritan-Calvinistic writers. Our old Father in the last grand Fletcher controversy was most severely pressed by his Calvinistic opponents on these Calvinistic phrases left in his own works and in the Christian Library. Your Father³ when a youth became possessed of Mr. Wesley’s writings, and for some years almost laid aside all other books but the Bible, and applied himself exceeding closely in reading every book that Mr. Wesley had written because he had such ways and means of obtaining the use of them without a purchase. And lastly it is an argument of leaden weight with us against human authorities, that reformers in all ages have been exceedingly shackled by human authorities, and granting their validity when they would contend with the ancient Idolatry and superstition of the ancient and corrupt churches, they should be told that this great saint, and that great saint, and the other great saint, in the first second, third and fourth centuries, and that they had written or spoken in favor of pardons and penances and prayers to the Saints, and masses, transsubstantiation and all the abominations of the ancient and fallen churches still more horrid and abominable.

With respect to the General Conference, not only the Senior Superintendent but many of the Eldership who are men of deep understanding and sound judgment and long experience, have lamented exceedingly that the Genl. Conference have not found out a happier method as well as temper of mind in doing their business; that they did not put upon themselves a stronger gospel bridle and a more spiritual curb and an Apostolic helm to steer like the Jerusalem and the Antiochian Conferences. They elected their Apostles or Bishops,—Barnabas and Saul, and ordained them by most solemn fasting and prayer and laying on of hands, possibly the hands of those which had been ordained by the Son of God himself, chief men, men of highest order of God in the Church. As it respects the substance of the business which is to be done, it is common and plain and must come in order in every sitting, like the business which must be done every sitting in the Annual Conferences and brought forward by the President and that although it is very different from the Annual Conference, yet to be brought forward to regular and steady order by the president.

The Bishops and the most judicious Elders that have been members once, twice, thrice of Genl. Conference are of opinion that we ought to have a wise and most judicious and standing Genl. Committee of safety, of good council, men that know or ought to know what the Israel of God ought to do and deliver it in all cases of motions brought into Conference of a critical and doubtful nature, with the members of Genl. Conference in Conference, and that they should be committed to the Genl. Committee for their most serious deliberation and consideration in order to know if possible their bearing and operation, through all the Conferences; and whether they are constitutional according to the established order of things in our Oeconomy and whether these motions tend to order or disorder, to union or disunion, through the whole body. Let every individual in the Church of God be assured and every body of ministers know that holy and good men in every age of the Church, that hundreds with us both godly and united and loving people believe it to be an evil and bitter thing, a sin of sins, a mass⁴ of evils hardly to be described or enumerated, to divide the true spiritual body and members of Christ; and so destroy a number of souls for which Christ hath died, and to make those who are united in bonds of sacred union, to turn them into enemies to each other and to put weapons of destruction into each other’s hands, and to be like one that⁵ had been a great sinner—a great Saint—Witness of the grace of God, led away by James O’K.⁶ to groan upon a dying bed with a backslidden heart! Oh! that unhappy division, witness Captain Butt, who died not far from Norfolk in Virginia. We believe that a correct testimony could be taken of this case and signed by his surviving Christian friends and kinsmen in the profession of religion, who know him well. Ah! nor he alone, but how many simple brethren and sisters and perhaps hundreds and thousands of poor slaves, when the Local preachers and leaders who had charge of large bodies of them were taken from us by James O’K.

A brother Hobbs of Brunswick county in Virginia, a respectable citizen and good member of society had the charge of about two hundred coloured people a few years⁷ ago, and possibly at this time, and kept them in good order, defended them from violence and watched over their souls as one who should give an account of them to the preachers and to God. And what was the plea, or what were the reasons which many of these simple people gave who followed James O’K. He told them that the Bishop was so & so, and so, and of such a character—and the Discipline was so, and so, and so, as some of you must have heard or read. The people had been blessed and their passions had been moved under Mr. O’K. this was one reason. The second, “He was a wise and understanding man, he must know—he was too good a man to tell known and wilful lies upon men and things.”

Indeed some of the most respectable men in the counties of Virginia were led away. Witness, Genl. Wells, whose brother Willis Wells was a faithful local preacher, liberated all his slaves in the midst of opposition, had a great charge, was a very useful man, influential among the white people and a great, great useful man among the slaves. This good man and his flocks scattered and broken would not come near us nor be seen by us till at a Camp Meeting near Suffolk. God reached Willis Wells’ heart,— he came back deeply affected with the last and least remains of his flocks, and his family connections lived a few years and died with us we hope in the Lord. O the mercy! O the goodness! and the depth and the riches of the grace of God! Genl. Wells, of whom we wrote above, it is reported, we did not ask him the truth of it ourselves, but we have some confidence in our friends that at the beginning of the division, as one of the chief officers of the county of Surry, when he heard the public report, delivered in sermonizing, concerning that “English man and Bishop,” that he said “If he was that bad man as represented, he ought not to be suffered to travel through the country, but ought to be taken up and put in prison.” This same Genl. Wells was afterwards we trust happily converted to God, he and his family united to the Methodists, and after a few years we hope died in the Lord. The Senr. Superintendent had a few happy interviews with the Genl., in one of which he told the Superintendent that his Bro. Willis after he had left the Methodists and had joined, what they called themselves “The Republican Methodist,” began to be uneasy in his mind concerning men and things and the order of their Church; and told his troubles to his elder brother—the Genl., and the Genl. advised him to “go back to the old side,” but no; not ‘till he came within sight of us and had the cork of prejudice taken out of the bottle neck, and had the power of God to reach his heart as at the first, and cause him to know that God was with us still. I was not able to attend the South Carolina Conference, but was seriously afflicted about 32 Miles off, and the Junr. Bishop⁸ must know fully, that Mr. Hammett’s⁹ people, after many troubles and distresses, came over and joined themselves with us, a few of whom had once been members of our Church before, but a considerable number of them never had. But now after a partial union for several years we are told they are willing to come and stand in the same relations to us as that all our houses and congregations are. And where are the scattered remains of the followers of James O’K.? Is there a small body at Ruff Creek, Mecklenburg County, Virginia where the division first began? Have they signified a great desire to return? and possibly have been prevented by our having had a Diotrephes¹⁰ instead of a Barnabas for a leading character. Is there a small body in Caroline County old Virginia?¹¹ It must be small after Philetus¹² has scattered, torn and done his wicked part among them.¹³ First, on your grand stationary concern, in what City will you settle it? [New] York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore? Will you have it near the centre of 2000 miles of the Atlantic coast, where the disadvantage of shipping your books will not be great contrasted with any other port? Will you establish it on the United States grand Western road, preferable to any other road, where waggoners may drive 20-30 miles a day, no desperate rocks, no dead horses, no broken leg waggoners, horrible! horrible! It is almost a sin to trade upon the Pitt road. Will you establish the Book Concern where in about 280 miles you can have your books landed at Wheeling or elsewhere and shipped in good order to Chilicothe, to Cincinatti, at the mouth of Kentucky River, Louisville, Nashville,¹⁴ Natchez, New Orleans, the whole Western country which promises to be the glory of America and a market for one third, if not one half of your books. Will you appoint your agents in every place where your books are to be unshipt and shipped, except where they are immediately consigned to the Presiding Elder in his District? Will you give commissions to your agents as other men do that you may have your business well done? Will you appoint three agents, or book Stewards? First an Editor, secondly a clerk, and thirdly one to enumerate and pack and ship all your books in good order. Shall they be men that come to your employment not as apprentices or journeymen, but as complete masters of the business? and shall each in his order be accountable to the Annual Conference and Senior effective Bishop, each man for the failure of his own department and be subject to be put out of office, and another to be put in his place ‘till the sitting of the next Genl. Conference and that by the Conference where the concern is stationed and the Steward may be a member of the Conference? How will you keep your press pure? both from any new publications presented from Europe or America: not to print anything against established doctrines which you hold sacred, discipline and Church government? How will you order reimpressions of books in common use, how will you correct some things which many preachers and people now complain; that they ought to be expunged? How will you gather up broken fragments of Books? Will you charge every Presiding Elder to take care of these, to number and sell those that are saleable and to take the money to Conference and take the direction of the Senr. Bishop, as also to recover all doubtful debts—and that the Senr. Bishop shall hasten and direct all remittances in the best order. He shall enquire as he passes through the Annual Conferences what books are most wanting and not to be had and order an immediate impression. Shall he read, revise and correct all books which shall be printed or reprinted at your press? Shall he do it or cause it to be done? Will you make him strictly responsible for this work? If he shall want aid he can command it, either out of the junior Superintendents, or the Presiding Elders, but make him accountable to the Genl. Conference.

And will you order that the Stewards in the Book Concern shall be held to a strict accountability to the Senr. Bishop and Conference where the concern is established and carried on? And now you know the man and his communication I recommend to you to put your concern in the grand office of Insurance, by giving away annually $1000 or $1200 worth of books. Let every annual Conference be equally privileged to give away $100 worth of books of what is called unsaleable, books which our purchasers of taste either have purchased, or do not choose to purchase, but books which our poor, and other poor people will gladly receive and profit by them; and let the Senr. Bishop or junior by his order call for the account of books given away to that amount in every Conference in the union. See a part of the duty of a Bishop in Form of Discipline, Sec. 4.— Ques. 3. What are the duties of a Bishop?

Ans. To travel through the connection at large.

5. To oversee the temporal and spiritual business of the Societies. And why should not this extend to the building of the houses, and not only to the collection and appropriation of monies to every claimant in the conference, and be more immediately exerted in our grand Book Concern in which should there be a failure or an insolvency and a defraud what a lasting blot upon us as a branch of the Church or God! And who is security for us? and how shall our creditors be preserved from suffering by us? What confidence can they have now in us but that we have been able to meet our payments equal to, or perhaps beyond many other concerns; and that we have now stock in hand, and that our religious character and our oeconomy is such, that we shall be fair and honest and confidential traders. The approaching General Conference we have confidence has been made up of men of such sound judgment and long experience, and such faithful labourers and coming together from such distances, at such labour and expense, not only equal to, but superior to all former conferences, that they will be purely Apostolic; that they will do away from among them deceit and guile and everything like electioneering, and any thing like what we call religious swindling in sacred things, open faces and united souls. On the amendment of the Constitution, which they are authorized to do in the constitution, to reduce the delegation and representation, that is, instead of one member for 5,—one member for 7.¹⁵ The¹⁶ propriety, i.e. the reasonableness, justice, of the measure, at present we can say but little; but at a proper time and place, if called on, fill a small volume of argument. First should the Genl. Conference be located to the centre of the Atlantic coast? Here are four ancient Conferences, one is the centre and seat; what more, a second is little more than a hundred miles distance, and a third another hundred more, and a fourth another hundred more. How easy of access is the Genl. Conference to these Conferences. How light their labour and expense, how much smaller their loss of time, how much greater security that every member of them will take his seat. Only take a short view and see the distances, and difficulties, and vacancies. And suppose forty-five Presiding Elders and thirty-five men of equal talents, great and highly responsible stations, in Towns and Cities where we have manifestly taken the lead and stand almost alone; and other societies pretty generally out of blast. Such prodigious congregations of white and black, and such large Societies of both—now to have such consequential preachers absent from their respective charges three, four, five, some six months—again be it known to us, to all, some member or members of this General Conference must come, must come twelve hundred miles, one thousand miles, eight hundred miles, seven hundred miles and six hundred miles the least. Several of them leave not only their charge, but their wives and children through changeable seasons and hard rides to Genl. Conference. Take it from the life, South Carolina and Georgia, one six, the other seven hundred miles, representatives to come to Genl. Conference. Six large highly consequential Districts, every One of the P. Elders elected, nine important Town Stations, and twelve preachers in these nine stations and six of them elected. You will not start, for many of you must see and know something of that great and yet unexplored and unsettled part of the great western country promising to be not only the glory of America but the glory of the whole Earth.

We think it our duty to inform you that before the sitting of the Genl. Conference in 1820 it will be our duty to have an Annual Conference for every month of the year, seven upon the Atlantic coast, members numerous, and in the Western country five, and for all the Bishops to attend according to order and old establishment of things, as many Conferences as they can, if their number is large and never be absent if they can possibly attend together unless the necessity of things should compel them to meet according to seasons, and circumstances and distances, to meet two Conferences at one time and to have time to cross the vast arrangement of hills and mountains from Tennessee to South Carolina, properly to begin the annual round.

Why we have not formed the Mississippi Conference, one of the Superintendents nearly superannuated, the wilderness at the seasons we had to go and return often impossible and impassable. But oh, what we have felt,¹⁷ for the forming a flourishing Genesee Conference,¹⁸ treatment! Oh! severer for severe! but not from any of you. O let the Lord judge and give judgment in this important case. We have suffered, we have suffered, but our judgment is with God. There is a clause in the minutes that shews, as we think, serpentine crooks,¹⁹ form new Conferences if we had a sufficient number of new circuits, and that we should not do as we always have done, take any old circuits from ancient Conferences, without the consent of the Annual Conferences. Now where is our right to do as we always have done and been judged to do right? We must form a given number of circuits, a given number of districts and then form a Conference, and what number of circuits, and what number of districts, and yet be open to implication, from vicious minded men? And, by the bye, where is the right of the Genl. Conference? May it not be suspended by the Episcopacy’s forming all the future Conferences? may it not be usurped by an annual Conference? How will you secure your own rights, the rights and claims of the Superintendency in this business? Suppose you should direct the Senr. officiating Bishop for several years to gather the Eastern, Western, Northern lines and boundaries of the different Conferences, and suppose, what possibly will be the case with three Conferences, they can be settled and bounded, East, North and South, but the West unlimited, new purchases, new settlements, going out towards the South Sea. Suppose then for safety and good order and to give each his right, you should make it the duty of your Senr. officiating Bishop to prepare and lay before you a most correct statement and plan of each Conference, lines and boundaries, and give each its nomination. Then present it to the Genl. Conference that they may according to their order of doing things, approve and confirm, or condemn and reject.

There is one case that may be submitted to you after first observing that your Senr., almost Superannuated, Superintendent may doubt of his having done right in the goodness of his heart to lighten his load,²⁰ to silence the cry of power, power, and designing men who know how to exaggerate and make the worst of everything. “You can’t have a Conference but when the Bishop pleases, and where he pleases, and he is wiser than hundreds of you. He cannot be mistaken. He is so virtuous he will always do right, and O that this could be so said and proved by large and wise bodies.” Suppose you should not take away the right of the Annual Conference in this case but give it a laudable direction and a regulating rule to go by, that if there are four, five, six or seven districts in the Conference, then and in that case the Annual Conference should take their seats in order, regularly through the whole. Yet still the Annual Conference shall have full liberty to choose any place they please within the district which may give a very agreeable choice, and their accommodations now exceeding greatly²¹ excel those places where the first and second generation of the travelling preachers almost²² commonly and constantly assembled in old times. This will prevent any Conference, or Conferences, if so disposed in future to sit in one place 13 times in 17 years and 10 times in 15 years, and the latter removed by compulsive necessity twice to other places, and when possibly there might be found in the districts composing this Conference half a dozen or a dozen, comfortable, good places, and the brethren in these places sending petition after petition, solicitation after solicitation, till they have been wearied, grieved, offended and might justly cry out, “Why this partiality?”

But O the great and grand and important question. How many additional Bishops shall we have? Shall we certainly want to oversee and direct this great work of God? Fear not, look to the great head of the Church. Your governors shall come forth out of yourselves, and the Holy Ghost shall direct your choice as in the Antiochian Conference. When they had fasted and prayed, the Holy Ghost said, by one holy man, separate me Barnabas and Saul, yea, and why not, Timothy and Titus, for the work whereunto I have called them. They must be formed in all things after the pattern shewed us in the mount, able Ministers of the New Testament, real Apostolic men filled with the Holy Ghost. But what does our order of things require of them? Not such as can be performed by superannuated or supernumerary preachers, but by men just past the meridian, that have already proved themselves not only servants but mere slaves, who with willing minds have taken with cheerfulness and resignation frontier stations, with hard fare, labouring and suffering night and day, hazarding their lives by waters, by lodging indoors and out, and where Indian depredations and murders have been committed once a month or perhaps once a quarter, by the sides of the path they have trod, and in the houses and cabins where they have lodged, and upon some of the persons they have been in social habits and intimacy with, and even upon their own brethren of the local and travelling ministry. They ought to be men who²³ can ride at least three thousand miles and meet ten or eleven Conferences in a year, and by their having had a charge of local Conferences from sixty to an hundred Official characters, to have presided in and to have directed well all the business of the whole with every member, having received and graduated exhorters, preachers, deacons, and elders in the local line, ready to all the duties of their calling, always pleasant, affable, and communicative,—to know how to behave in all company, rich or poor, impious or pious, ministers and professors of our own and all denominations, but more abundantly to remember to the poor the gospel must be preached, and always to condescend to men of low estate. But on the management of our temporal concerns we are not fully satisfied how they are to be corrected and made better, what part the Genl. Conference ought to take and have taken, and the Bishop should take in the annual Conferences, should be held and strongly bound, and to set justice always before mercy; and we have printed and told other churches and ministers and any persons who could read our books, that Single men should receive so much, Married men so much, and the preachers’ wives and widows so much, and preachers’ children so many dollars to seven years and so many dollars till fourteen years of age, and so the Orphans of preachers, that have died in the work. We have formed dwarf and stagnated funds and what have they yielded to pay these great demands? $340 per Conference.

In 1800 with long debate and a small majority the Genl. Conference raised the quarterage from 64 to 80 dollars, and have one sixth, nay, one seventh of the traveling connexion²⁴ been paid up according to our order of things? Have not many received one third, others two thirds, and have gone from the Conference very easy and very happy, knowing that the Conferences had done them justice and they had no more for them, by fixing the standard and giving each man his dividend? If we pay up or attempt it, we must know what we have to pay. Doubtless many of our people and abundance of our preachers,—to be paying money to preachers’ children till they are fourteen years of age,—we shall never be satisfied or reconciled to it, whether they claim it from the circuit or from the funds of the Conference, because it will draw almost incredible numbers to claim upon us! Moreover, many of these children may have been born afore their parents were either Local or travelling preachers, and may be as it sometimes is the case that good men may have the very vilest of children. And we have known cases in which the Conferences have had deep exercises in their minds from year to year about employing preachers apparently because of the wickedness of their children. And possibly we may be giving money to children of desperate characters—who ought to be put to some business at eight years of age. This is the ground we, i.e. the action, recommend to the Genl. Conference. We will meet here and embrace a great number that have been born in the Church of God under the Ministry of their parents.

We will give to all children of travelling preachers twenty dollars or their parents may claim it first in the Circuits and Stations where they labour and be permitted to bring forward their own deficiencies and each man the deficiency of his wife and all his children not eight years of age and at that period they shall be dismissed and have no more claims on the Conferences, whether their parents are alive or if they are the Orphans of preachers that are dead. But what method shall we take? Add to all our other collections the General and universal mite subscription and that every preacher that has a charge in a Station, in a Town, or in a Circuit, to all the male and female members, to all the friendly people that shall come into his way or he shall go into their way, and bring his money to Conference in a proper book with every one’s name and every one’s money, and let every Annual Conference be watched and charged that they pay to every faithful labourer what is their due and no more; that they shall not receive from any person or persons sums of money or make any appropriations of them but to answer just demands of their Conference, and let every One of the Superintendents take care, and especially the Senr. Superintendent, that all surplus of money shall be handed along till the whole of all the Conferences receive in justice what is due to them as quarterage, if not the whole yet as high and as equitable as we can possibly go.

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I certify that the preceding unfinished Address was left by Bishop Asbury, in its present form, at his death, and was read in General Conference in Baltimore in May, 1816.²⁵

THOMAS L. DOUGLASS, SECY.