SARAH CROSBY
(1729 – 1804)
Sarah Crosby has already been mentioned as one of Mary Fletcher’s assistants; she also was a correspondent of Wesley, and one of his most esteemed female co-laborers, addressing meetings, not only in houses but in the fields, holding a service almost daily at five o’clock in the morning, (as was customary among the Methodists,) as well as in the afternoon and evening. Wesley guided her in these labors, and maintained an intimate Christian correspondence with her. “It comforts me,” he wrote, “to hear that your love does not decrease; I want it to increase daily. Is there not height and depth in Him with Whom you have to do, for your love to rise infinitely higher, and to sink infinitely deeper, into Him than ever it has done yet? Are you fully employed for Him? And yet so as to have some time, daily, for reading and other private exercises? If you should grow cold, it would afflict me much. Rather let me always rejoice over you.”
Again he writes: “Hitherto I think you have not gone too far. You could not well do less. I apprehend all you can do more is when you meet again, tell them simply, ‘You lay me under a great difficulty. The Methodists do not allow of women preachers. Neither do I take upon me any such character. But I will just nakedly tell you what is in my heart.’ This will, in a great measure, obviate the grand objection, and prepare for J. Hampson’s coming. I do not see that you have broken any law. Go on calmly and steadily. If you have time, you may read to them the Notes on any chapter before you speak a few words, or one of the most awakening sermons, as other women have done long ago.”
Again he says: “You oblige me much by speaking so freely. What an admirable teacher is experience! You have great reason to praise God for what He has taught you hereby, and to expect that He will teach you all things. But whatever you find now, beware you do not deny what you have once received. I do not say ‘a divine assurance that you should never sin, or sustain any spiritual loss.’ I know not that ever you received this. But you certainly were saved from sin, and that as clearly, and in as high degree, as ever Sally Ryan was. And if you have sustained any loss in this, believe, and be made whole.”
Still again he writes: “It is a long time since I heard either of you or from you. I hope you think of me oftener than you write to me. Let us but continue in prayer,
‘And mountains rise, and oceans roll,
To sever us in vain.’
I frequently find profit in thinking of you, and should be glad if we had more opportunities of conversing together. If a contrary thought arises, take knowledge from whom it comes. You may judge, by the fruit of it; for it weakens your hands, and slackens you from being instant in prayer. I am inclined to think I found the effect of your prayer at my very entrance into this kingdom―Ireland. And here, especially, we have need of every help, for snares are on every side. Who would not, if it could be done with a clear conscience, run out of the world, wherein the very gifts of God, the work of God, yea, His grace itself, in some sense, are all the occasion of temptation?
“I hope your little family remains in peace and love, and that your own soul prospers. I doubt only whether you are so useful as you might be. But herein look to the anointing which you have of God, being willing to follow where He leads, and it shall teach you of all things.”
In another letter he says: “I advise you as I did Grace Walton formerly, l, pray in private or public as much as you can: 2, even in public, you may properly enough intermix short exhortations with prayer. But keep as far from what is called preaching as you can. Therefore never take a text. Never speak in a continued discourse, without some break, above four or five minutes. Tell the people, ‘We shall have another prayer-meeting, at such a time and place.’”
She wrote, at Wesley’s request, an account of her Christian experience. Like her friend Sarah Ryan, she complains of the frivolity of her early life―her passionate love of “singing, dancing, playing at cards, and all kinds of diversions.” Her religious awakening was profound, and her conversion, about her twentieth year, peculiarly joyful. But she subsequently passed through deep waters of trial. “I know not,” she writes, “that for several years after I knew the Lord, I was ever a day together without being tempted; and the inward conflicts I endured day and night, added to outward labors and continued abstinence, weakened my body and hurt my constitution much.”
Clearer light, attained by mature experience, relieved these sufferings. “I am now perceived,” she adds, “that God had restrained the tempter, and began to inquire what condemnation there was in my soul. There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. How is it that, in all that I have suffered, I have not felt the least inclination to turn back from the path of life, or entertained one hard thought of God? I then appealed to Him, ‘Lord, dost Thou not know that all my aims and intentions are upright before Thee?’ and I felt a witness in myself that it was so. I further thought, Has not Jesus Christ borne all my sins in His own body on the tree? If so, has He not answered for all my deviations from the perfect law of God too? Then God cannot be merciful and just and send my soul to hell; I shall never go there!
“I now felt my soul fully cast on the Lord Jesus, and found a rest which before I had not known, while peace and love filled my heart. The day after, at church, the Lord showed me that many things which I had thought were sins were only temptations, and also what a little thing it was for Him to take the root of sin out of my heart. I feared to believe He had done it; but the next day I could not help believing that God had taken full possession of my heart; for although I felt myself weaker than ever, yet the Lord was my strength.
“Day and night I was amazed at the blessed change my soul had experienced; but I said nothing to any one, because I was not, as yet, sure what the Lord had done for me. I had always promised, if the Lord would but fully save me, I would declare His goodness, although I believed it would expose me to various exercises, both from ministers and people. I now prayed much that God would show me if He had taken away the root of sin out of my heart; and also, if I had been saved from sin in the temptations that were past. And He showed me that as ‘many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it;’ so neither had these floods of temptations, which He had brought me through, quenched the love He had given me to Himself, for it was love that never faileth.
“I was now exceedingly happy, yet I prayed if any further witness was necessary the Lord would give it me. Soon after, the glory of the Lord shone around me. I saw by faith the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; and now I was assured of the Father’s love. The Spirit then powerfully spoke to my soul, saying, ‘I will dwell in thee for ever.’ I said in my heart, ‘There is no fear in love; perfect love casteth out fear.’ Frequently the Lord assures me He will manifest Himself more fully than He has yet done. This I am waiting for.” Such reflections, however mystical they may seem to any of us, would have delighted St. John “the Divine.”
After the removal of Mary Fletcher to Madeley as the wife of its rector, Sarah Crosby devoted herself quite exclusively to public Christian labor, traveling from place to place and holding meetings under the sanction of Wesley. She had begun public speaking involuntarily. “I expected,” she says, “to meet about thirty persons in class; but, to my great surprise, there came near two hundred; I found an awful, loving sense of the Lord’s presence, and was much affected both in body and mind. I was not sure whether it was right for me to exhort in so public a manner, and yet I saw it impracticable to meet all these people by way of speaking particularly to each individual. I therefore gave out a hymn, and prayed, and told them part of what the Lord had done for myself, persuading them to flee from all sin.”
Her journals show that in a single year she traveled nine hundred and sixty miles to hold two hundred and twenty public meetings, and about six hundred select meetings, besides writing one hundred and sixteen letters, many of them long ones, and holding many conversations in private with individuals who wished to consult her on religious subjects.
In her old age she continued her labors as her strength would allow. Miss Tripp, her associate at Mary Fletcher’s home, was still her sympathizing and helpful companion. When nearly seventy years old she wrote, “My soul in general dwells in peace and love. I live by faith in Jesus, my precious Savior, and find my last days are my best days. I am surrounded with mercies. My dearest friend, Sister Tripp’s care and kindness to me is not the least. May God reward her, and never let her want a friend to assist her in her weakness, if I should be first called home, as it is most likely I shall.”
Her old friend was to see her safe “through the gates into the city.” She writes, that “all the week preceding her death she was indisposed, but did not abate anything of her usual exercises. Her spirit often seemed on the wing, for she frequently sung more than she had done for some months; so that I said, ‘I think, my dear, you have tuned your harp afresh.’ On Saturday she wrote two letters, went to the select band in the evening, and bore a blessed testimony for her Lord. On Sunday, though poorly, she attended preaching forenoon and evening; but returned, after the evening meeting, very ill. . . . She passed into “Life” in the year of our Lord 1804.