Revolutionary Methodism: 1769–84

Responding to pleas from the infant Methodist societies in North America (S 1768), John Wesley sent over successive pairs of itinerants. Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmore came in 1769 (S 1769, 1771). Francis Asbury and Richard Wright followed in 1771, Thomas Rankin and George Shadford in 1773, and James Dempster and Martin Rodda in 1774. Preachers coming on their own included John King, Joseph Yearbry, and William Glendenning. Wesley's itinerants came to bring order to Pietist ferment.

Pilmore and Boardman

Joseph Pilmore, educated at Wesley's Kingswood School near Bristol, followed Wesley's precept and example by keeping a journal, as would Francis Asbury, Thomas Rankin, Thomas Coke, and other preachers. Landing October 22, Pilmore encountered Captain Webb, "a real Methodist," and discovered the Philadelphia society. Boardman, the senior of the two and Wesley's assistant for America, preached the next day, "on the call of Abraham to go forth into the Land of Canaan." Employing biblical self-images, Methodist itinerants imagined themselves as Abrahams or Pauls and so crafted their journals. A more accurate biblical type might have been Ezra or Nehemiah. Itinerants rebuilt walls, restored temples, and renewed covenants. Ezra and Nehemiah duties completed the Wesleyan system—preaching in the open air, itinerating on a planned basis, making and meeting appointments, inviting into connection all of any confession who would "flee the wrath to come," admitting the same as probationers, organizing classes, holding love feasts, maintaining the society's boundaries, establishing circuits, and cultivating good relations with the churches and their clergy. Implementing the Wesleyan system meant also discerning those who could serve in leadership—steward, class leader, exhorter, local preacher—and appointing them to these key local posts.

Two weeks after arriving, Pilmore "read and explained the Rules of the Society to a vast multitude of serious people." In late November, he cooperated with Webb in acquiring a shell of a building from the "Dutch Presbyterians" (German Reformed), St. George's (a UMC Heritage Landmark). Ten days later, Pilmore laid out the "Wesleyan" order to the Philadelphia society, distilling the General Rules into eight-point guidelines for the newly acquired property (H 16) and for "those of every Denomination who being truly convinced of sin, and the danger they are exposed to, earnestly desire to flee from the wrath to come."

In enumerating Methodist rules, insisting that "the Methodist Society was never designed to make a Separation from the Church of England or be looked upon as a Church," and referencing deeds and plan of settlement, Pilmore declared colonial uniformity with Methodist standards, connection to Wesley, submission to his ordering, and prohibition against (irregular) celebration of the sacraments by unordained preachers. The references (Society, Deeds, Plan) and their import—colonial compliance with organizational protocols determined at the 1763 Leeds conference—doubtless mystified some auditors. Pilmore specified that American Methodism would run according to the "Large Minutes," the compilation (or Discipline) Wesley had made of his conversations with his preachers in conference over matters of doctrine and discipline, copies of which each preacher, in full connection with Wesley, carried as an operational manual. The "Large Minutes" of 1763 included a "Model Deed" and trust clause, which required a pattern of ownership for Methodist properties obliging trustees to allow Wesley "and such other persons as he shall from time to time appoint, and at all times, during his natural life, and no other persons, to have and enjoy the free use and benefit of the said premises." It provided further "that the said persons preach no other doctrine than is contained in Mr. Wesley's Notes Upon the New Testament, and four volumes of Sermons."

Order(s)

Pilmore and Boardman endeavored, as did their missionary successors to make good on these commitments and bring Wesleyan order to colonial Methodism. They discovered, for instance, that the John Street property had been legally secured "essentially wrong," not on the plan of the "Model Deed," the trustees enjoying "absolute power" without "being accountable to any one ... contrary to the whole occonemy [economy] of the Methodists [and] ... likely to prove hurtful to the Work of God." They succeeded in persuading the trustees to "fix" the deed.

Wesley's appointees faced three large challenges. The ecclesiastical challenge was how to stay within the Church of England and, in general, how to sustain the Methodist commitment, as Pilmore explained it, not "to make divisions ... or promote a Schism but to gather together in one the people of God that are scattered abroad, and revive spiritual religion." A second challenge, essentially theological, was how to advance Methodist doctrines, particularly those of free grace and free will, in a context where "rigid predestinarians" took pains to keep their families and servants from hearing the Methodist gospel. The third, a social challenge, was how to negotiate the social and class structure of American society and especially to make space among the Methodists and in a slaveholding context for the many "poor Affricans" who proved "obedient to the faith." Pilmore established the leadership imperatives: sustain Wesley's commitment to remain within the Church of England; do battle with the Calvinists; build a biracial fellowship (S 1769, 1771).

Wesley's next appointees, Francis Asbury and Richard Wright, arrived in late 1771. Asbury had explored his intentions on shipboard: "Whither am I going? To the New World. What to do? To gain honour? No, if I know my own heart. To get money? No: I am going to live to God, and to bring others so to do. In America there has been a work of God." He then needed only to participate in God's ordering. With a mandate from God, not just Wesley, Asbury would lead and direct, notwithstanding whoever else might be humanly so delegated. Though not officially in charge, Asbury judged defective the order that Boardman and Pilmore had achieved. The societies in New York and Philadelphia did not sufficiently heed Methodist discipline, and Boardman and Pilmore did not sufficiently heed the Methodist preacher's self-discipline—itinerancy. They were content "to be shut up in the...