1. Bretherton, Francis Fletcher, The Countess of Huntingdon (London, 1940);Google ScholarBrown, Earl Kent, The Women of Mr. Wesley's Methodism (New York, 1983);Google ScholarKnight, Helen, Lady Huntingdon and Her Friends (New York, 1853);Google ScholarSeymour, Aaron, The Life and Times of Selina Countess of Huntingdon, (London, 1844);Google ScholarStevens, Abel, The Women of Methodism (New York, 1866);Google Scholar and Davis, Mollie C., “The Countess of Huntingdon: A Leader in Missions for Social and Religious Reform,” in Keller, Rosemary Skinner, Queen, Louise L., and Thomas, Hilah F., eds., Women in New Worlds (Nashville, Tenn., 1982), 2: 162–176.Google Scholar

2. Johnson, R. Brimly, ed., Letters From Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (London, 1906), p. 416.Google Scholar

3. Stock, Phyllis, Better Than Rubies: A History of Women's Education (New York, 1978), pp. 101, 81–104.Google Scholar

4. The Countess of Huntingdon Folio, MS 2, Methodist Archives, John Rylands University Library of Manchester, Manchester, England (CHF); Huntingdon Manuscript Collection: A, MS 3, Methodist Archives and Research Center, Drew University, Madison, New Jersey (Drew A); The Osborn Files, 18, 405, Cheshunt Foundation Archives, Westminster College, Cambridge, England (Cheshunt); and Cheshunt MS E 3/3/1.

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.

7. Brown, , Women of Mr. Wesley, p. 177.Google Scholar

8. CHF MS 4, to John Wesley, 31 January 1742; Cheshunt MS A, 3/15/3a.

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.

11. Keller, , Women in New Worlds, 2: 17.Google Scholar

12. See Tyerman, Luke, The Oxford Methodists (New York, 1873), pp. 57–154, for an account of Benjamin Ingham.Google Scholar

13. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu reported a scandal that accompanied the news that the daughter of the Earl of Huntingdon had “disposed of herself to a poor, wandering Methodist.” Wharncliff, Lord, ed., The Letters and Works of Mary Wortley Montagu, with a New Memoir by W. Moy Thomas (New York, 1970), 2: 88.Google Scholar

14. Seymour, , Life and Times, 1: 14;Google ScholarTyerman, , Oxford Methodists, p. 121.Google Scholar

15. A layman, James Hutton was the son of the cleric John Hutton. He was converted when John Wesley preached at his father's home. He was a prominent lay leader among the English Moravians, while maintaining a friendly relationship with the Methodists. Henry Piers was the vicar of Bexley, in Kent. He was converted to Methodism by Charles Wesley and the Moravian missionary John Bray. The Wesleys often preached from his pulpit until Archbishop Potter forbade them. Jackson, Thomas, ed., The Journal of Charles Wesley AM (Journal of CW) (London, 1849), 1: 154.Google Scholar

16. The Works of John Wesley (Works of JW), vol. 18, Journal and Diaries I, eds. Ward, W. Reginald and Heitzenrater, Richard P. (Nashville, 1988), p. 236.Google Scholar

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.

21. Whitefield, George, The Works of the Rev. George Whitefield, M.A. (London, 1771), 2:380–381.Google Scholar

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

27. Knox, Ronald, Enthusiasm (New York, 1961), p. 485.Google Scholar

28. CHF MS 17, letter to Charles Wesley (4 June 1743); letter from John Wesley, 14 September 1772.Google ScholarJackson, Thomas, ed., The Works of John Wesley (London, 1876), 12: 262–263; to William Romaine, 29 July 1773, published in Seymour, Life and Times, 2: 290–291.Google Scholar

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

31. Jackson, Journal of CW 1:230–240; Tyson, John R., ed., Charles Wesley: A Reader (New York, 1989) pp. 260–286;Google ScholarWorks of JW, vol 19, Journals and Diaries II, eds. Heitzenrater, and Ward, , pp. 151–162.Google Scholar

32. Works of JW 19: 312–372.Google Scholar

33. CHF MS 1, letter to John Wesley, 24 October 1741.Google Scholar

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.

38. Whitefield, , Works, 2: 163–169.Google Scholar

39. Vulliamy, C.E., John Wesley (London, 1958), p. 169.Google Scholar

40. Seymour, , Life and Times, 1: 64–65.Google Scholar

41. Whitefield, , Works, 2: 164;Google ScholarBrown, Mr. Wesley's Women, p. 191.Google Scholar

42. On the “Bluestockings” see OED, 2: 329–330, and Anderson, Bonnie S. and Zinner, Judith P., A History of Their Own: Women in Europe From Prehistory to the Present (New York, 1988), 2: 103–129.Google Scholar

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

48. Works of JW, vol. 3, Sermons 3, ed. Outler, Albert (Nashville, 1986), Sermon 110, “Free Grace,” pp. 542–563.Google ScholarFor Whitefield's reply, see George Whitefield's Journals (London, 1960), pp. 571–588, 242–243, 260–261, 289, 564–568.Google Scholar

49. Jackson, . Journal of CW 1: 283.Google Scholar

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

58. Telford, , Wesley's Letters 5: 166.Google Scholar

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