History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

Philadelphia, George Shadford (to change in six months with Rankin); New Jersey, John King,
William Watters; Baltimore, Francis Asbury, Robert Strawbridge, Abraham Whitworth, Joseph
Yearbry; Norfolk, William Wright; Petersburg, Robert Williams. Watters was received at this
Conference. The numbers in society were: New York, 180; Philadelphia, 180; New Jersey, 200;
Maryland, 500; Virginia, 100; total, 1160.
Stevens says of this juncture: "Asbury labored hard to conform the American societies to Wesley's
model, but met with no little resistance from both preachers and people; Rankin had been sent out
for this purpose, and to these two thorough disciplinarians we owe the effective organization of the
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incipient Methodism of the New World." This must be granted as to the peculiar system, but in
view of all the consequences that followed in American history its wisdom may be doubted. Wesley's
plan for England and that same plan for America, with its differentiation of environment, was like
an attempt to make an exotic of an indigenous plant. The friction complained of, and the
insubordination experienced by these leaders were much of it due to this difference; but the preachers
and the societies were laid upon the Procrustean bed and shortened or lengthened accordingly. It
must be admitted, however, that no satisfactory argument can be made before the facts against the
system that did prove itself effective and potential. In tracing its outworkings it is a curious and
instructive study of human nature when it is discovered how early the official, not the personal,
relations of these two leaders were strained. The allegations against Asbury were that he was too
rigid in his discipline of preachers and people. It is not long before it is found that Asbury takes up
this very charge against Rankin, his superior. To gore and to be gored are different operations. For
nearly fourteen months after Rankin's arrival there is scarcely a reference to him in Asbury's Journal
until, August 15, 1774, the following is noted: "I felt some convictions for sleeping too long; and my
mind was troubled on account of a conversation which had passed between Mr. R. (Rankin), Mr. S.
(Shadford), and myself. But the great Searcher of hearts knoweth my intentions; and to him I submit
all future events." Stevens says, "The disciplinary views of Rankin, enforced during the preceding
year upon the preachers and societies, with a rigor which seemed to some of them hardly tolerable,
had produced salutary effects generally." And again, "Even Asbury hesitated at his rigor, but was
conciliated by seeing his own judgment followed in detail, though 'stubbornly opposed' at first." [4]
Asbury had already settled it in his own mind that Methodists in America, when the time should
be ripe for it, should be organized on an Episcopal basis. The necessities of the societies in the wilds
of America made ultimate separation from Wesley a foregone conclusion, and he patiently bided his
time. Rankin, with no such ulterior purpose, furthered unconsciously the plan. The local preachers
who had preceded Wesley's missionaries and the native preachers, as they arose, had clear
convictions of their scriptural right to govern themselves and "feed the flock of Christ over which
the Holy Ghost had made them overseers" by administering the ordinances. The logic of the situation
was all on their side. Stevens candidly admits it, though carefully guarding his admissions: "A great
proportion of the colonists had no traditional attachment to the Anglican Church; the submissive
policy of Wesley in England was therefore irrelevant in America. He was too distant to perceive the
fact; and his representatives were too Anglican to recognize it, but many of the American
Methodists, and some of their preachers, were wiser. They insisted upon their right to the sacraments
from their own pastors. Theoretically, none of us now can dispute their claim; . . . the men who then
seemed radical in this respect were so simply because they had a superior foresight of the predestined
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importance and needs of American Methodism." Every year, and its events, only strengthened the