BURTON, ASA
(August 1752, Stonington, CT-l May 1836, Thetford VT. Education: B.A., Dartmouth College, 1773, studied theology with Levi 'Hart, Preston, CT, 1777-79. Career: minister, Thetford, VT, 1779-1836.
Asa Burton, minister of Thetford, Vermont, for more than half a century, was a strong-willed pastor and theologian who is best known for his "taste scheme" of redemption. During his teens Burton was occupied clearing fields for his father, a Vermont pioneer. He did not enter college until he was twenty-one, when he became one of the first students at Dartmouth. Undergraduate life must have given him a sense of deja vu because he began life at Dartmouth by helping clear the woods to make way for college buildings. He did well as a student, and experienced a religious awakening shortly before graduation. The conversion was a deeply felt sense of personal depravity, followed by a sense of joy and calm. College President Eleazar Wheelock· explained to him that these feelings suggested that he had received saving grace. Soon afterwards Burton preached at nearby Norwich on the subject, "Justification by Faith."
Burton was called to be minister at Thetford, Vermont, a parish so poor that for some time the congregation worshipped in a barn. There he fostered several local revivals. The most notable began in 1794. A young man led the choir in church one Sunday, and died the following week. At the next service when the choir rose to sing, they were so overwhelmed, that one after another burst into tears and sat down, "until scarcely enough remained to perform the service." In the following months many members of the community experienced a sense of conversion. Through his evangelical preaching and intermittent revivals, Burton brought some five hundred people into his church during his years as pastor-a large number for a small town. But he opposed Methodist revivalists, and other revivalistic schemes that appeared to him to produce superficial and short-lived "conversions."
As minister Burton upheld a rigid moral code for his community and conducted monthly religious meetings for the young people. He was strong willed and managed to prevent any denomination other than his own from taking root in Thetford. He exercised this power despite a certain laconic quality in his speech. When a parishioner complained that he was silent so often, he replied in a manner worthy of fellow Vermonter Calvin Coolidge, "You did not give me any thing to talk about." Burton was a local institution, and his picture hung on the walls of many houses in the town.
His parishioners knew Burton mainly as an effective pastor, but he was also a theologian and philosopher. An adept teacher, Burton educated at least sixty ministerial candidates in his home, and he helped found Thetford Academy and Kimball Union Academy, as well as the University of Vermont. Beginning in 1809 he edited the Advisor: or Vermont Evangelical Magazine. One of his students recalled that he had a small library, but read all the important tracts of his day, and spent three months studying three words, free moral agency.
During the early nineteenth century Congregationalists were not only debating with the Unitarians about the nature of God and humanity, but were also disputing among themselves such matters as the nature of redemption. Nathaniel Emmons· argued that Christian love was "activity itself," and that regeneration took the form of "holy exercises." Following Timothy Dwight* and Jonathan Edwards*, Burton argued that the essence of regeneration was the imparting to the mind of a "taste" for the good. The publication of Burton's Essays on Some of the First Principles of Metaphysicks, Ethicks, and Theology (1824) has been described as a "profound and exciting" revolution in psychology.
The taste idea was embraced by many Congregationalists with an enthusiasm that can be explained only by reference to the world in which they lived. Americans in the new nation were attracted to tangible things-the steam boat, canals, power looms. Burton told them that salvation too was tangible. It was not simply a theologian's words. It was something you could "taste."
Bibliography
A: The Works of God (Kennebunk, Maine, 1811); Essays on Some of the First Principals of Metaphysics (Portland, Maine, 1824; republished with an introduction by James G. Blight, New York, 1973).
B: AAP 2, 140-47; DAB 3, 340-41.
Asa Burton, minister of Thetford, Vermont, for more than half a century, was a strong-willed pastor and theologian who is best known for his "taste scheme" of redemption. During his teens Burton was occupied clearing fields for his father, a Vermont pioneer. He did not enter college until he was twenty-one, when he became one of the first students at Dartmouth. Undergraduate life must have given him a sense of deja vu because he began life at Dartmouth by helping clear the woods to make way for college buildings. He did well as a student, and experienced a religious awakening shortly before graduation. The conversion was a deeply felt sense of personal depravity, followed by a sense of joy and calm. College President Eleazar Wheelock· explained to him that these feelings suggested that he had received saving grace. Soon afterwards Burton preached at nearby Norwich on the subject, "Justification by Faith."
Burton was called to be minister at Thetford, Vermont, a parish so poor that for some time the congregation worshipped in a barn. There he fostered several local revivals. The most notable began in 1794. A young man led the choir in church one Sunday, and died the following week. At the next service when the choir rose to sing, they were so overwhelmed, that one after another burst into tears and sat down, "until scarcely enough remained to perform the service." In the following months many members of the community experienced a sense of conversion. Through his evangelical preaching and intermittent revivals, Burton brought some five hundred people into his church during his years as pastor-a large number for a small town. But he opposed Methodist revivalists, and other revivalistic schemes that appeared to him to produce superficial and short-lived "conversions."
As minister Burton upheld a rigid moral code for his community and conducted monthly religious meetings for the young people. He was strong willed and managed to prevent any denomination other than his own from taking root in Thetford. He exercised this power despite a certain laconic quality in his speech. When a parishioner complained that he was silent so often, he replied in a manner worthy of fellow Vermonter Calvin Coolidge, "You did not give me any thing to talk about." Burton was a local institution, and his picture hung on the walls of many houses in the town.
His parishioners knew Burton mainly as an effective pastor, but he was also a theologian and philosopher. An adept teacher, Burton educated at least sixty ministerial candidates in his home, and he helped found Thetford Academy and Kimball Union Academy, as well as the University of Vermont. Beginning in 1809 he edited the Advisor: or Vermont Evangelical Magazine. One of his students recalled that he had a small library, but read all the important tracts of his day, and spent three months studying three words, free moral agency.
During the early nineteenth century Congregationalists were not only debating with the Unitarians about the nature of God and humanity, but were also disputing among themselves such matters as the nature of redemption. Nathaniel Emmons· argued that Christian love was "activity itself," and that regeneration took the form of "holy exercises." Following Timothy Dwight* and Jonathan Edwards*, Burton argued that the essence of regeneration was the imparting to the mind of a "taste" for the good. The publication of Burton's Essays on Some of the First Principles of Metaphysicks, Ethicks, and Theology (1824) has been described as a "profound and exciting" revolution in psychology.
The taste idea was embraced by many Congregationalists with an enthusiasm that can be explained only by reference to the world in which they lived. Americans in the new nation were attracted to tangible things-the steam boat, canals, power looms. Burton told them that salvation too was tangible. It was not simply a theologian's words. It was something you could "taste."
Bibliography
A: The Works of God (Kennebunk, Maine, 1811); Essays on Some of the First Principals of Metaphysics (Portland, Maine, 1824; republished with an introduction by James G. Blight, New York, 1973).
B: AAP 2, 140-47; DAB 3, 340-41.