tingdon
acquired the building in her own right, changed the earlier name of
Northampton Chapel into Spa Fields Chapel, and appointed Dr. Haweis, one
of her chaplains, to preach. Sellon again applied to the Ecclesiastical
Courts, and obtained an inhibition prohibiting any clergyman of the
Established Church, whether Lady Huntingdon's chaplain or not, from
preaching in Spa Fields.

Lady Huntingdon rose to the occasion. She was not the woman to allow an
altogether unworthy opposition to defeat what she felt to be God's work.
Since the law upheld Sellon, she in her turn invoked it. Under the
Toleration Act she claimed and exercised her rights. "I am reduced," she
wrote, "to turn the finest congregation, not only in England, but in any
part of the world into a Dissenting meeting." Mr. Wills and Mr. Taylor,
two clergymen who were prominent at this time among the Countess's
helpers, both determined to secede from the Established Church; and thus
once and for ever she disposed of Mr. Sellon's claims and prerogatives.
Mr. Wills became the regular minister of the church. It was in this
building that the first annual sermon of the London Missionary Society
was preached by Dr. Haweis, and for over a hundred years Spa Fields
Chapel was a centre of light and help and healing for that part
of London.

This legal conflict had placed those numerous and able clergymen who had
been in the habit of preaching in Lady Huntingdon's chapels in a very
awkward position. They had to choose between two masters. Not
unnaturally they remained in the Established Church. Hence from 1779
Romaine, Venn, Jones, and many others, though still in full sympathy
with the Countess's work, ceased to preach in her chapels.

The students educated at Trevecca now rendered services of great value.
In addition to their itinerating labours, they gradually filled the
pulpits thus left vacant in the chapels. Hitherto the great majority of
them had sought ordination in the Church of England, such having always
been Lady Huntingdon's desire for them. This being no longer possible,
the first public ordination of Trevecca students took place at Spa
Fields March 9, 1783, when Mr. Wills and Mr. Taylor ordained six young
men to the work of the ministry. It was on this occasion that the
well-known Fifteen Articles, subscription to which became essential for
entrance into the college, or into any of the pulpits under Lady
Huntingdon's control, were first publicly read.

"L