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Lady Huntingdon's Reformation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

John R. Tyson
John R. Tyson
Affiliation:
professor of theology at Houghton College, Houghton, New York.
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Extract

Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon (1707–1791), was a central figure in the eighteenth-century religious revival that swept across England and Wales. A faithful daughter of the Church of England, Lady Huntingdon became a “Methodist” when that term described a style of piety rather than denominational affiliation. She was a pivotal figure in early Methodism, around whom the Calvinistic and Arminian wings of the movement revolved. Selina frequently described herself as being engaged in “this present Reformation” of England. A close examination of her piety—which stressed justification by faith—and her many ministerial works suggests that Lady Huntingdon was indeed a significant religious reformer; this examination offers a divergent path to the complicated roots of early Methodism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 64 , Issue 4 , December 1995 , pp. 580 - 593
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

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5. In CHF MS 89, for example, Lady Huntingdon quoted John Milton's Paradise Lost, and reports that she was reading John Gell's Commentary on the Pentateuch.

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18. ibid., Rule 3.

19. ibid., Rule 4.

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25. ibid.

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30. The “Large Minutes” of 1746 delineate the Wesleyan approach to the means of grace. Jackson, , ed., The Works of John Wesley (London, 1876), 8: 322–324.Google Scholar On faith and works, see Article 12 of The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, “Albeit that Good Works, which are the fruits of Faith, and follow after Justification … yet are they pleasing to God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively Faith; insomuch that by them a lively Faith may be evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit.” Schaff, Philip, ed., The Creeds of Christendom (Grand Rapids, Mich., 1977), 3: 494.Google Scholar

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43. Howel Harris (1714–1773), a former school teacher from Talgarth, was, with Lady Huntingdon's patronage, the founder of Welsh Calvinistic Methodism. John Fletcher (1729–1785) was vicar at Madeley.

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51. ibid, 2:95–100. The text of this section of Charles' journal is incomplete because the editor could not read the shorthand entries which Charles interspersed with the longhand record. For the complete text see Tyson, Charles Wesley, pp. 325–336.

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55. ibid.

56. These letters of Lady Huntingdon are not extant, but their general contents can be constructed from the quotations that appear in John Wesley's replies. Telford, John, ed. John Wesley's Letters (London, 1931), 5: 258–260, 274–275.Google Scholar

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62. ibid.

63. Schorrenberg, Barbara, with Hunter, Jean, “The Eighteenth Century English Woman,” in Kanner, Barbara, ed., The Women of England (Hamden, 1977), pp. 183–228.Google Scholar

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65. Cheshunt MS Item F-1464A, B.

66. Among her chaplains were priests George Whitefield, William Romaine, Henry Venn, James Habersham, and Rowland Hill, a deacon.

67. One of these Class Tickets is extant among the Eugene Russell Hendrix Papers, manuscript department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University. The text of the ticket reads: “This Ticket admits Jane Cave to all the various Privileges in all my Chapels; as Private meetings, Love Feasts, Sacraments, in Bath, Sussex, Kent, or elsewhere. 3 February 1771. S. Huntingdon.”

68. The letters of Lady Huntingdon to Archbishop Seeker pertaining to the ordination of Richard Elliot illustrate this process well. See Seeker MS, Items 120, 122, 124, 126, 128, and 130, Lambeth Palace Archives, London.

69. It was precisely this same issue that caused John Wesley to ordain Methodist clergy for service in North America, and thereby begin a de facto separation from the Church of England in 1784.

70. Cheshunt MS Item F-1464(A, B).

71. Lady Huntingdon's correspondence with William Sellon, and the Bishop of London, February 1779, Cheshunt MSS E 3/2/1; E 3/2/2a; E 3/2/3; E 3/2/11; E 3/2/14; E 3/2/5; E 3/2/7; and E 3/2/8.

72. Cheshunt MS E 3/3/10, 30 June 1780.

73. Cheshunt, Prof. Murray's Papers, MS 21.

74. Seymour, , Life and Times, 2:493–494, 494–495.Google Scholar