History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

METHODIST REFORM
Edward J. Drinkhouse, M.D., D.D.
Volume I
CHAPTER 16
Methodism in America — Robert Strawbridge and Philip Embury; the pioneer preachers of
Maryland and New York — The priority of their arrival and preaching considered, 1760 or 1766?
— Captain Webb in the New York rigging loft, 1767 — John Street chapel, 1768 — Strawbridge's
log chapel in Frederick County, Md. — Richard Owens and William Watters — Boardman and
Rankin — Robert Williams and John King — Richard Boardman and Joseph Pilmoor — Asbury and
Richard Wright — Asbury the monumental man; descriptions and characteristics; original
pen-sketch of him; arrival in Philadelphia, 1771; appointed "Assistant," superseding Boardman, and
is in turn superseded by Rankin; jealousies among them; effects of the autocratic principle —
Snethen's view — Shadford.
Methodism in America now demands our investigation and study. It has been found that the
Wesleys were no strangers to the virgin land of civil and religious liberty a quarter of a century
before the first Methodist pioneers landed upon her shores. The two brothers, under the missionary
impulse which followed them through life, labored in Savannah and its vicinage, Charles for about
six months or from early in 1736 to July of the same year, and John from the same period to the close
of 1737, or about twenty months. In 1739 they began their evangelical work in England under a new
experience of saving grace, regeneration, assurance, and sanctification, doctrines as old as the
Reformation, but overlaid with the thick crust of formalism, except in the case of a few devout
pastors and spiritual people scattered among the Reformed churches. There is no stimulation to the
human mind and heart like the love of God shed abroad therein through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
by the power of the Holy Ghost. It unlooses the tongue of the stammering, and the joy of the new
birth must be uttered, it cannot be hid. All else is trivial, and it runs to the ends of the earth that the
gladsome story may be told. It breaks down the barriers of sacerdotalism and inaugurates a
priesthood of the people, which, like that at Pentecost, fulfilled the prophecy of Joel: "Your sons and
your daughters shall prophesy, . . . and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in
those days of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy."
Among the converts of Wesley and his helpers in the early days were Robert Strawbridge and
Philip Embury, the former from the county Leitrim, and the latter from the county Limerick, Ireland.
They became class leaders and local preachers in their respective neighborhoods, and were eminently
successful in their work of preaching the gospel while laboring for a living for their families. They
turned their gaze toward the new land of promise in the wilds of America and emigrated thither. The
question of the priority of their arrival in America has perplexed Methodist antiquarians and is not
fully settled to this day. Embury arrived with a small company of Methodists, notably Paul and
Barbara Heck, on the 10th of August, 1760, in the harbor of New York. It is claimed that Robert
Strawbridge and his company arrived in the same year. This is the view of Lednum, Dr. Roberts,
who made careful investigation, and Dr. Hamilton, who also sides with them. On the other hand,
Wakeley and Shillington, an Irish authority, hold that he did not arrive until 1764 or 1765. Embury
and his company, under the stress of their surroundings, became lukewarm, and some of them fell