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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
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.
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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.
6. CHF MS 107.
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9. Drew A MSS 2, 7, 25, and 98.
10. Seymour, , Life and Times, 2: 399–401; 459–60Google Scholar; The Bridwell Manuscript Collection, MS 93, Bridwell Library, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas (Bridwell); The Rylands English Manuscript Collection, 338, MS 5, John Rylands University Library, Manchester, England.
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17. ibid., Rule 2.
18. ibid., Rule 3.
19. ibid., Rule 4.
20. Isaac Watts (1674–1748), Philip Doddridge (1702–1751), and Augustus Toplady (1740–1778) were notable hymn writers of the period. Watts and Doddridge were Dissenters. Toplady was converted to extreme Calvinism in 1758, and became one of the champions of Calvinism within the Church of England. William Romaine (1714–1795), an Anglican divine, was a graduate of Christ Church, Oxford. He held several curacies in the London area, and was appointed to a lectureship at St. Dunstan's-in-thewest (1749), and St. George's, Hanover Square (1750). Edward Stillingfleet, namesake and grandson of the Anglican bishop and divine (1635–1699), was chaplain to Lord Dartmouth and incumbent at Shawbury. Another of Edward's grandsons, James Stillingfleet, was dean of Worcester and rector of Hartelbury.
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22. ibid.
23. Bridwell MS 93.
24. Cheshunt MS E 3/2/9, 23 July 1776.
25. ibid.
26. Seymour, , Life and Times, 1:10. Seymour's description of the Countess as “Lady Bountiful” is based on a character from Farquhar's Beau Strategem (1707); it was commonly used in the nineteenth century to describe the philanthropy of aristocratic women. See Oxford English Dictionary, 2: 445.Google ScholarThe pattern of paternalism and social sanctifica deference which Jessica Gerard observed in “Lady Bountiful: Women of the Landed Classes and Rural Philanthropy,” Victorian Studies 30 (1987): 183–209, does not seem to have been at work in Lady Huntingdon's philanthropy of almost a century earlier.Google Scholar
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29. Huntingdon, Selina, Copy of a Letter from the Countess of Huntingdon to One of Her Students, March 1, 1785 (n.p., n.d.).Google Scholar
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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34. Works of JW, vol. 2, Sermons, ed. Outler, Albert (Nashville, 1985), pp. 96–126. It was published as a tract in 1741. See CHF MS 1.Google Scholar
35. ibid.
36. ibid.
37. CHF MS 105.
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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.
44. Letters of Mary Wortley Montagu, p. 416. Lady Francis Gardiner, Lady Jane Nimmo, the Countess of Buchan, Lady Maxwell, Lady Glenorchy, and Wilhemina Countess of Leven were among the prominent women that met at her London home.Google Scholar
45. Bridwell MS 50 includes letters from the women's society at Lady Huntingdon's home in Brighthelmstone (Sussex), to their “Wiltshire Sisters” who met under the leadership of Mrs. Wadsworth in the home of her brother “the Rev'd. Mr. Townsend,” in Pewsey. Lady Huntingdon's letter offers greetings from Mary Beach, Joan Collins, Mary Dean, Mary Williard, Prudence Smart, and “more than 30 others.”Google Scholar
46. Journal of CW 1: 178.Google ScholarSee Outler, Albert, ed., John Wesley (New York, 1964), pp. 425–491,Google Scholarand Tyson, , Charles Wesley (New York, 1989), pp. 287–310, for documents pertinent to the controversy.Google ScholarFor a useful overview see Gunter, W. Stephen, The Limits of Divine Love (Nashville, 1989), pp. 227–266.Google Scholar
47. See McGrath, Alister, “The Emergence of the Anglican Tradition on Justification, 1600–1700,” The Churchman 98 (1984): 28–43. Seen in this larger context, the Wesleyans represent the position of the Caroline Divines, and the Whitefieldites follow the Puritans (as well as many of the pre-Commonwealth Divines).Google ScholarSee McGrath, Alister, “Justification in Earlier Evangelicalism,” The Churchman 98 (1984): 217–228.Google Scholar
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50. ibid, 2:81.
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.
52. Works of JW, vol. 22, Journals and Diaries V, eds. Ward and Heitzenrater, p. 57.Google Scholar
53. ibid.
54. Jackson, , ed., The Works of John Wesley, 13:337.Google Scholar
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
57. Toplady, Augustus, The Church of England Vindicated from the Charge of Armmianism (London, 1769);Google ScholarThe Doctrine of Absolute Predestination Stated and Asserted (London, 1769);Google Scholarand Historic Proof of the Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England (London, 1774), among many others.Google Scholar
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59. CHF MS 85, letter to Charles Wesley, 13 July 1742.
60. CHF MS 89.
61. Bridwell MS 93.
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
64. Seymour, , Life and Times, 2: 493–495.Google Scholar
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
