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A Footnote on Methodism in Oxford

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Catharine K. Firman
Affiliation:
The Honnold Library, Claremont, California

Extract

The crime of being “righteous overmuch”—of singing psalms, of expounding the scriptures, of praying extempore— was considered sufficiently grave two hundred years ago to expel six students from the University of Oxford. There were, it is true, alleged extenuating circumstances—illiteracy and low birth—but the basis of the prosecution was that six undergraduates of St. Edmund Hall were “reputed methodists.”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1960

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References

1. SirHill, Richard, Pietas Oxoniensis: or, a Full and Impartial Account of the Expulsion of Six Students from St. Edmund Hall, Oxford (London, 1768), p. 3.Google Scholar

2. Ibid., p. 2.

3. Ibid., p. 3.

4. Nowell, Thomas, An Answer to Pietas Oxoniensis… in a Letter to the Author (Oxford, 1768), pp. 143–44.Google Scholar

5. Whitefield, George, A Letter to the Reverend Dr. Durell (London, 1768), p. 21.Google Scholar

6. Ibid., p. 7.

7. Ibid., p. 27.

8. Macgowan, John, Priestcraft Defended. A Sermon Occasioned by the Expulsion of Six Young Gentlemen, from the University of Oxford for Praying, Reading, and Expounding the Scriptures (Leeds, 1809), p. 23.Google Scholar

9. Hill, , Pietas Oxoniensis, p. 22.Google Scholar

10. Hill, , Goliath Slain: Being a Reply to the Reverend Dr. Nowell's Answer to Pietas Oxoniensis (London, 1768), p. 49.Google Scholar

11. Ibid. p. 49.

12. Ibid., p. 47.

13. Reynolds, J. S., The Evangelicals at Oxford 1785–1871 (Oxford, 1953), p. 30.Google Scholar

14. Nowell, , An Answer, p. 17.Google Scholar

15. Ibid., p. 139.

16. Ibid. p. 3.

17. Boswell, James, Boswell's Life of Johnson, ed. Hill, ; rev, by Powell, , vol. II (Oxford, 1934), p. 187.Google Scholar

18. Nowell, , An Answer, p. 1.Google Scholar