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MH-1991-October-Simmons.Pdf (6.769Mb) Methodist History, 30:1 (October 1991) STORM CLOUDS OVER BEULAH LAND DALE H. SIMMONS Students of the American Holiness tradition will be familiar with the paper war which erupted in the 1850s between Hiram Mattison and the sup­ porters of Phoebe Palmer over her presentation of the doctrine of entire sanc­ tification. To date, however, the historians of the movement have ignored the role which Randolph Sinks Foster, pastor, educator, and future Methodist Episcopal bishop, played in this controversy. This is inde~d unfortunate, since without a proper understanding of Foster's role in the debate, it is difficult to understand the intensity of Palmer's response to Mattison at the outset of the conflict. Indeed, as we will show, the early years of the debate have all but escaped scholarly attention, while Palmer's personal response to Nlattison's initial critique is missing from her standard biographies. 1 The present article then is an attempt to correct this oversight and in the process to provide the wider context !n which the Mattison-Palmer controversy was played out. Who was Randolph Foster that his opinions on the "grand depositum'' of Methodism should command the attention of Phoebe Palmer? Foster was born on February 22, 1820, in the Clermont County jail (his father was the jail keeper) in Williamsburg, Ohio. While he was still a youth, his parents, Israel and Polly (Kain) Foster, moved the family to Kentucky. Soon after, Foster entered Augusta College, in Kentucky, the earliest Methodist college west of the mountains, "where a little faculty, headed by the versatile Mar­ tin Ruter, and numbering such future leaders as John P. Durbin and Henry B. Bascom, was trying to light a torch for the sons of the pioneers."2 1Randolph Foster's name does not appear in any connection in the pages of Richard Wheatley's The Life and Letters ofMrs. Phoebe Palmer (New York: Palmer & Hughes, 1884), whereas her controversy with Hiram Mattison runs throughout (cf. 93ff, 112-3, 115-7, 131, 311, 342, 495, 553). Charles White, while acknowledging that Mattison wrote articles against Palmer, cites only those which appeared in the pages of the New York Christian Advocate and Journal. Charles Edward White, The Beauty ofHoliness: Phoebe Palmer As Theologian, Revivalist, Feminist, and Humanitarian (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1986), 53, 245-6. To his credit, Raser is aware of the existence of the articles published in the Northern Christian Advocate; however, it is also clear that he is unaware of their content since he maintains that Palmer did not respond directly to Mattison's attacks until November 15, 1855\ Harold E. Raser, Phoebe Palmer: Her Life and Though_~ (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1987). All three sources downplay the extent of the earlier controversy, despite the fact that Palmer herself saw it as inflicting "far reaching harm" (Wheatley, 552), and none of the above sources mention Palmer's stinging attack on Foster, which will be discussed shortly. 2James Richard Joy, ed., The Teachers of Drew 1867-1942: A Commemorative Volume Issued on the Occasion of the 75th Anniversary of the Founding of Drew Theological Seminary, October 15, 1942 (Madison, NJ: Drew University, 1942), 45. Joy points out that Foster's grandfather, while adventuring into Kentucky from Virginia, had been killed by the Indians in that 'dark and bloody ground.'" 31 32 Methodist History It is often mentioned by his biographers that "unwise friends" advised him to leave college during his sophomore year, but, while we do not doubt that this was the case, it is also true that he needed very little encourage­ ment in this direction. Indeed, at age seventeen he "found more satisfaction in preaching up and down the countryside than in listening to lectures on theology or Greek literature and mathematics. "3 As a result, he left Augusta and went to the September session of the Ohio Conference in 1837 to seek admission on trial, at which time he was appointed as a junior preacher of the Charleston circuit and began riding throughout the Ohio Valley. 4 In July 1840 he married Sarah A. Miley of Cincinnati, of whom little is said outside of noting her passing in 1871-the year before her husband was elected bishop. 5 During the following years, Foster began to realize that he had made a mistake in leaving college, and to make up for this he applied every means of education within his reach. Slowly, but steadi­ ly, he gained a reputation as an inspiring preacher. It is generally admit­ ted, however, that much of the effect of his preaching was due to his commanding personal appearance. Foster was long and slender, and his erect posture along with his piercing eyes, his sullen countenance, and his thick hair and beard (which did not thin with age although it did turn pure "iron-grey"), combined to make a powerful impression before he had uttered a word. However, it is owing to his pen, rather than his personal appearance, that Randolph Foster would make his presence felt among the Methodists. Foster's first literary endeavor was born more out of necessity than from any desire on his part for a career in writing. Foster was only twenty­ nine at the time and was pastor at Wesley Chapel in Cincinnati. The struggle between Calvinsim and Arminianism was at its height in that sec­ tion of the country, largely because of a Presbyterian minister, Nathan Lewis Rice, who had recently authored a work which dealt with the doctrines of election and free grace in a challenging way. Forty-one years old at the time, Rice was a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary (in 1830) and pastor of the Central Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati. A perusal of the literature on Rice indicates that he made a career out of agitation. 6 Clearly Foster felt that the book and its claims were serious 3/bid. 4/bid. Foster was ordained a deacon in 1839 and elder in 1841. See Jesse A. Earl and Albea Godbold, "Randolph Sinks Foster," The Encyclopedia of World Methodism, ed. Nolan B. Harmon, Vol. I (United Methodist Publishing House, 1974), 868. 50f all the articles written on Foster's life, only Earl and Godbold mention Sarah Foster, and even they allow her only one line [868]. 6For example, in 1843 Rice debated with Alexander Campbell on the meaning and mode of baptism, in Lexington, Kentucky, printing the contents of the debate in his A Debate Between Rev. A. Campbell and Rev. N. L. Rice on Christian Baptism, 1844. Another work, Roman ism the Enemy of Free Institutions and Christianity, 1851, prompted a libel suit against its author. Who U1as Who in America: 1607-1896 (Chicago: A. N. Marquis, 1963), 440. Storm Clouds Over Beulah Land 33 enough to warrant his attention even though the demands on his time were perhaps greater than any other time in his career. As Foster tells us: The book was prepared amid the numerous and weighty labors of a large pastoral charge, and that when ordinary duties were greatly exceeded by a season of unparalleled affliction-during the prevalence of the cholera-at a time when, from day to day and week to week, the author was ministering to many of those who were dying with that most dreaded scourge, and when his own life, as the life of all, seemed uncertain from hour to hour. 7 Rice's book called for a response, and although he was reluctant to do ·so, Foster took on his learned Calvinist colleague through a series of letters published in the Western Christian Advocate, of which Matthew Simpson 8 was then editor. · The object of Foster's response was simply to present a statement of Calvinsim, and objections thereto -nohto examine its defense- not to build up an opposite system- not to contrast it with other schemes- simply to state it, and deduce its consequences- believing that these con­ sequences are sufficient to overthrow and destroy it. 9 In pursuing this simple presentation, Foster quotes at length from the accepted creeds and commentaries of the Calvinist faith so that the reader will have a clear understanding of the ,exact positions to which he is responding. 10 What is more, in the 1860 edition Foster includes an appendix in which he prints Rice's response to his critiques as well as his rejoinders to Rice. The work is polemic at times, but Foster is careful to point out that the Calvinists are fellow laborers in the Lord's field and that Calvinism "despite her errors, . has many surpassing excellences­ many which my own Church may well and wisely emulate. "11 To be sure, Calvinism did not wither and die from this westerner's attacks, but among his peers Foster was hailed far and wide as the champion of the Wesleyan faith. "His stature loomed so high that he had invitations from Atlantic seaboard churches, and was soon preaching to the principal congregations of New York, and associating on equal terms with the leaders of Methodism." 12 Of particular interest to the present study 7Randolph Sinks Foster, Objections to Calvinism As It Is, in a Series of Letters Addressed to Rev. N. L. Rice, D.D. (Cincinnati: Swormstedt & Poe, 1860), 20. 8Foster's reluctance to respond to Rice was also due to the fact that for quit~e some time "peace and Christian union" had prevailed and he had hopes that the storm created by Rice would blow over. However, silence "only seemed to whet the envenomed appetite of an adversary who seemed intent to devour us. The greater our reluctance, the greater his ferocity." Ibid., 13-14.
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