NETTLETON, ASAHEL
(21 April 1783, Killingworth, CT-16 May 1844, East Windsor, CT). Education: B.A. Yale College, 1809; studied theology, Milford, CT, 1809-11. Career: Evangelist, 1811-44; occasional lecturer, East Windsor, later Hartford Theological Seminary.
As a young man Asahel Nettleton read about the work of English missionaries and planned to follow them in preaching the Gospel to non-Christian peoples. But a weak constitution and opportunities in America kept him closer to home. He was in certain respects an eccentric: a bachelor who never became a settled pastor, an itinerant evangelist who preferred not to commit himself to a pulpit more than a few days before preaching. And yet he was one of the most respected preachers of his day.
Nettleton sought to inculcate in his audience a sense of peril, comparable to the anxiety that preceded his own conversion. He had attended a Thanksgiving ball in the fall of 1800. The next day thinking back on the party, he was suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of death and judgment. He struggled for weeks with a sense of his own worthlessness, then came to feel that he could be saved by Christ's grace. As a preacher he was especially effective in communicating these experiences in simple, sincere phrases. His sermons were said to be so solemn "that the effect could scarcely have been heightened by an announcement of the opening of the judgment day." One man remembered forty years later, in a manner that still made his ears "tingle," the way Nettleton said, "Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes." Another remembered a sermon on the parable of the lost sheep, and his moving way of saying "lost, LOST, LOST."
Nettleton struck a balance between the extremes of rationalism and emotionalism that divided Christians of his time. Loyal to traditional Calvinistic ideas about sin and salvation, he wanted to bring men and women to a profound sense of their religious condition. But he was repelled by the "excesses" of religious enthusiasm and the tendency of some Christians-particularly in James Davenport's* old stronghold of eastern Connecticut-to reject settled ministers. Nettleton always worked closely with local pastors in nourishing an awakening. But although he sought to affect people's emotions, he discouraged ecstatic gestures and crying out in church, or the so called "new measures" of other revivalists, such as Charles Finney. He favored a combination of awakening preaching with pastoral visits and instruction. His Calvinism led him to oppose the New Haven Theology and join together with other conservatives to found the Connecticut Pastoral Union in 1833 and a school that became the Hartford Theological Seminary in 1865.
In certain respects-in his efforts to balance reason and emotion, and his emphasis on the traditional understanding of sin and salvation-Asahel Nettleton can be considered a seventeenth century Congregationalist, living in the nineteenth century. In other respects, particularly his itinerancy and his sense of the church transcending parish boundaries, he was a child of his own times.
Bibliography
A: Village Hymns for Social Worship, Selected and Original (Hartford, Conn., 1824).
B: AAP 2, 542-54; BSGYC 6, 270-73; DAB 13,432-33; DARB, 328-29; RHAP, 421; SH 8, 127; Bennet Tyler, Memoir of the Life and Character of Rev. Asahel Nettleton (Hartford, CT, 1844).
As a young man Asahel Nettleton read about the work of English missionaries and planned to follow them in preaching the Gospel to non-Christian peoples. But a weak constitution and opportunities in America kept him closer to home. He was in certain respects an eccentric: a bachelor who never became a settled pastor, an itinerant evangelist who preferred not to commit himself to a pulpit more than a few days before preaching. And yet he was one of the most respected preachers of his day.
Nettleton sought to inculcate in his audience a sense of peril, comparable to the anxiety that preceded his own conversion. He had attended a Thanksgiving ball in the fall of 1800. The next day thinking back on the party, he was suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of death and judgment. He struggled for weeks with a sense of his own worthlessness, then came to feel that he could be saved by Christ's grace. As a preacher he was especially effective in communicating these experiences in simple, sincere phrases. His sermons were said to be so solemn "that the effect could scarcely have been heightened by an announcement of the opening of the judgment day." One man remembered forty years later, in a manner that still made his ears "tingle," the way Nettleton said, "Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes." Another remembered a sermon on the parable of the lost sheep, and his moving way of saying "lost, LOST, LOST."
Nettleton struck a balance between the extremes of rationalism and emotionalism that divided Christians of his time. Loyal to traditional Calvinistic ideas about sin and salvation, he wanted to bring men and women to a profound sense of their religious condition. But he was repelled by the "excesses" of religious enthusiasm and the tendency of some Christians-particularly in James Davenport's* old stronghold of eastern Connecticut-to reject settled ministers. Nettleton always worked closely with local pastors in nourishing an awakening. But although he sought to affect people's emotions, he discouraged ecstatic gestures and crying out in church, or the so called "new measures" of other revivalists, such as Charles Finney. He favored a combination of awakening preaching with pastoral visits and instruction. His Calvinism led him to oppose the New Haven Theology and join together with other conservatives to found the Connecticut Pastoral Union in 1833 and a school that became the Hartford Theological Seminary in 1865.
In certain respects-in his efforts to balance reason and emotion, and his emphasis on the traditional understanding of sin and salvation-Asahel Nettleton can be considered a seventeenth century Congregationalist, living in the nineteenth century. In other respects, particularly his itinerancy and his sense of the church transcending parish boundaries, he was a child of his own times.
Bibliography
A: Village Hymns for Social Worship, Selected and Original (Hartford, Conn., 1824).
B: AAP 2, 542-54; BSGYC 6, 270-73; DAB 13,432-33; DARB, 328-29; RHAP, 421; SH 8, 127; Bennet Tyler, Memoir of the Life and Character of Rev. Asahel Nettleton (Hartford, CT, 1844).