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These are articles related to people, both of the past and present who in some way we feel have something to say to us today.

A-PEOPLE-06-04-04-001--The Elect Lady—Selina, Countess of Huntingdon. 1707-1791--Robert Farrell

The Elect Lady—Selina, Countess of Huntingdon. 1707-1791.

The grey dawn broke over the residence of the Selina, Countess of Huntingdon. Job like in her life's experiences, this illness looked as though it could be her last. Her personal chaplain George Whitfield, who had preached in all of her houses to most of her noble friends, now moved purposefully towards the window. Cracking it open, the voices below of (1)thousands of admirers came prayerfully to the end of their petitioning hymn:

Uphold this star in thy right hand
Crown her endeavors with success;
Among the great ones may she stand,
A witness of thy righteousness,
Till many nobles join Thy train
And triumph in the lamb that's slain.

Eighteenth century England was a hard and brutal world to live in. Alcohol and poverty proved a malevolent mix for the masses of the lower classes. There was many a highway man roaming the heaths along roads into London. Poverty, inequality and drunkenness became a heady cocktail for violence. However, it was not only Whitfield and Wesley that feared not the mobs whilst loving the masses and preaching Christ to the forgotten and poverty stricken. Selina, since her conversion, had become very active and compassionate amongst the poor, visiting them and praying for them in their sickness with such love and concern that when they died, they left their children to her as a legacy that they might be cared for by the Countess!

However it must be remembered that not only did she care for the lowly, but also for the high and the mighty. Selina was a regular visitor to the Royal Court, even appealing at one point directly to the king concerning the lifestyle of the then Archbishop and his wife. Her witness indeed was to both to pig sties and palaces. However Selina was more than a kind benefactor. She was a woman of great vision, zeal, courage, continuance, sacrifice, understanding, and discernment. Though an unfortunate participatory in the Calvinistic and Armenian controversy raging at the time between Wesley and Whitfield, they both had nevertheless preached in her pulpits and at her college, along with other famous Evangelical preachers of the day such as such as, Fletcher, Harris, and Toplady. From her thorough theological comprehension, the Countess was a Calvinist of ardent fervor, and was no stranger to fighting for her beliefs. She was very courageous concerning her beliefs.

The Upper Class did not mingle with the minions in education, society, health or amenities. The Evangelical preachers call to conviction, confession and repentance may have been well understood and received by the masses, but on the whole it was rejected by the nobility. Indeed the then Duchess of Buckingham did not believe that people with 'blue blood' had to listen to such humiliating truths. Sneering at the then growing sect of the Methodists she wrote, (2) "Their doctrines are most repulsive and strongly tinctured with impertinence and disrespect towards their superiors, in perpetually endeavoring to level all ranks, and do away with distinctions. It is monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl the earth….." It took a woman of courage like Selina to place the claims of Christ before such people.
(3)She used to say she thanked God for the letter 'M' in 1 Cor 1:26 "For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called." NKJV

(4)"It is estimated that through the tireless efforts of the Countess of Huntingdon no less than 200 chapels and mission stations were opened. In 1828 forty years after her death, there were some 35,000 people regularly attending these places of worship, cared for by 72 officiating ministers." Though at the time Oxford and Cambridge were still the only places where men could train for the ministry, Trevecca house near Talgarth in Breconshire was set up by the Countess and had more than 150 preachers passing through it, dispatching them all over England and even to the Americas! Indeed Missionaries sent to the southern state of Georgia in 1772, though there primarily to preach to the Indians and set up a (5)college for the Indian nations became instrumental along with Whitfield, in the conversion of many Africans then in the south. Following their emancipation some 2000 are reported to have left for Sierra Leone in 1792. (6) At least half of them were associated with the Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion. A group of Connexion churches still exist today in Sierra Leone and are in fellowship with the remaining Chapels of the Connexion in England.
Paul had his (7) Lydia, and Whitfield his Countess. Maybe today many pastors are still in need of godly and powerful patronage? Possibly we should be praying that more fish shall be caught, and found to have (8) money in their mouths, and mercy in their gills. (9) "The story is told of a bishop who complained about the Countess's Ministers who had created some kind of sensation in his diocese. His majesty offered a solution –"Make bishops of them-- make bishops of them." The prelate replied: "that might be done, but please your Majesty, we cannot make a bishop of Lady Huntingdon." At that point the Queen interposed, "It would be a lucky circumstance if you could, for she puts you all to shame."

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Sources:-

(1) Gilbert w Kirby, The Elect Lady (The Trustees of the Connexion. Stanley L Hunt (printers) Ltd, Northants England 1972) 29
(2)Ibid, 18.
(3)She was thankful that the text did not read: not any nobles are called as opposed to not Many nobles are called.
Gilbert w Kirby, The Elect Lady (The Trustees of the Connexion. Stanley L Hunt (printers) Ltd, Northants England 1972) 54
(4)Ibid, 59
(5)Ibid, 60
(6)Acts 16:14 One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. NIV
(7)Acts 16:40 After Paul and Silas came out of the prison, they went to Lydia's house, where they met with the brothers and encouraged them. Then they left. NIV
(8)Matthew 17:27 "But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours." NIV
(9)Gilbert w Kirby, The Elect Lady (The Trustees of the Connexion. Stanley L Hunt (printers) Ltd, Northants England 1972) 36

A-PEOPLE-06-19-04-002- William Huntington. S.S.---Saved Sinner--Robert Farrell

The Redeemed 'Coal heaver' William Huntington S.S. 1745-1813

After a light lunch, Huntington and two preacher friends took it upon themselves to visit the local insane asylum to minister to the mentally ill contained therein. On arrival they knocked hard on the heavy door. In answer to such determination the door creaked ajar, and the warder, an angular faced woman, the keys to 'bedlam' jingling around her waste demanded of the men their business. Their explanation was met with a question "Do you belong to Mr. Whitefield or Mr. Wesley?" Huntington replied that he belonged to neither of them but shared the same doctrines as Mr. Whitefield. The wary woman, who happened to be an Arminian, slammed the door upon the three witnesses refusing Huntington permission to visit the patients.

18th Century England was a doctrinal mine field and the explosion of one these issues underneath you, especially the Antinomian charge, could sever your reputation below the knees in an instant. The slamming of a door in ones face was a mild rejection compared to some of the most vitriolic language that was spewed out against fellow brothers in the faith, and fellow workers in the Vineyard. The Calvinistic and Arminian controversy had clear battle lines, and the weapon of choice on both sides seemed to be the charge of Antinomianism with the purpose of the ruining of reputations.

Certainly in no small measure this and other charges have been laid at the feet of Huntington. Indeed concerning him the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography does not paint a rosy picture , accusing him of "at an early age changing his name to avoid detection after he seduced a young girl and then abandoned her and his child upon the child's birth; forming a connection with Mary Short, with whom he had 13 children; converting and then joining the Calvinistic Methodists for a time, until beginning to preach on his own, building himself a chapel in London which burned to the ground but easily raising a further 10,000 to build a larger chapel; taking care to have the freehold vested in himself and thus the rest of his life deriving a handsome income from his pew-rents and publications; enabling a villa at Cricklewood and the keeping of a carriage. Mary Short who died in Huntington's lifetime had her death hastened by gin and chagrin induced by a scandalous intimacy which Huntington formed about 1803 with an evangelical lady, Elizabeth, relict of Sir James Sanderson, bart; Huntington married this lady on 15 Aug. 1808." So runs the worlds judgment of a sinful man saved by glorious grace.

Not neglecting this mans background and sins, it seems the offence here, was how God used this most oily rag to 'buff up' the brass work of His church! There is no doubt that this trophy of grace, full of homespun learning and rustic manners though birthed into the most humble of conditions, was a sure sinner who was even more surely saved by Grace. A called and gifted writer of over 100 books and essays articulate sturdy and sometimes prickly preacher ardent for God and for His truth. He stands in the same vein as the slave trader Newton, the twister Jacob, the scoundrel Judah, the adulterer David, the drunkard Noah, and the murderer and abuser Paul. Indeed he is a man of Biblical proportions in that he was a man of Biblical failings and that never the less had great usefulness riding on their backs.

A few years ago, I made my way to the only totally timber built Calvinistic place of worship in England. Jireh Chapel, in the ancient market town of Lewes in East Sussex, had recently received a restoration grant from English heritage. Part of the project was the erection of housing adjacent to the chapel. In the only courtyard of this new complex lay the purpose of my visit, that being the tomb of Huntington. It was in a sad state of repair, but the text on the surface, no doubt contrived by Lady Sanderson herself, could still be read.

"HERE LIES THE COALHEAVER:- BELOVED OF HIS GOD; BUT ABHORRED OF MEN. THE OMNISCIENT JUDGE AT THE GRAND ASSIZE SHALL RATIFY AND CONFIRM THIS TO THE CONFUSION OF MANY THAUSANDS; FOR ENGLAND AND ITS METROPOLIS SHALL KNOW THAT THERE HATH BEEN A PROPHET AMONG THEM. W.H.

Huntington came into this world the product of sin and shame, who by a fighting spirit became one of the greater David's mighty men, fighting furiously and sometimes failing miserably, who even so, lived to be a mighty instrument used by God in pointing thousands to the way of salvation "At his death two noblemen were made his legatees and the streets of London were almost deserted on the day of his funeral as crowds thronged to Lewes to attend the service." Today as we examine our pastoral candidates maybe we should heed more the observation of Henry V before the battle of Agincourt. "Besides, there is no king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all unspotted soldiers."