This book - Centro de Estudos Anglicanos

JJARRATT, DEVEREUX (17 January 1733, New Kent County, Va.–29 January1801, Dinwiddie County, Va.). Education: Attended a local school until 1744–45; continued study on his own. Career: Rector, Bath Parish, Dinwiddie County,Va., 1763–1801.One of the best known and most effective of the eighteenth-century Anglicanclergy in the South, Devereux Jarratt was born in New Kent County, Virginia,the youngest of six children. Raised a nominal Anglican, he was far more interestedas a young man in training racehorses and preparing gamecocks for competitionthan in Christianity. However, the influence of a family of “New Light”Presbyterians with whom he lived, together with spiritual reading and the adviceof friends, eventually encouraged his conversion to a vital evangelical faith. Believingthat he would have the greatest opportunity for Christian service as apriest in the Church of England, he sailed for London in October 1762 to beordained. Returning to Virginia the following summer, he began 38 years ofministry at Bath Parish in Dinwiddie County, Virginia.Traveling tirelessly through nearly 30 counties in Virginia and North Carolina,Jarratt played a major role in the southern phase of the Great Awakening. Between1764 and 1772, he led religious revivals, undertook lengthy evangelistic tours(often preaching five days in the week), and organized religious societies designedto foster spiritual growth. He was very critical of other Anglican clergy, whomhe accused of holding only lukewarm religious convictions. A forceful preacherhimself, Jarratt begged his congregations to seek refuge in Jesus Christ, and,having done so, to “enter more and more into the Spirit of the gospel, and thedepths of holiness.”In the early 1770s Jarratt joined forces with the Methodists and welcomed theirwork in reviving the spiritual life of southern Anglicanism. He became a close