OF WORKS IN REFUTATION OF METHODISM, From its Origin in 1729, to the Present Time. OF THOSE BY METHODIST AUTHORS ON LAY-REPRESENTATION, METHODIST EPISCOPACY, Z PRELIMINARY REMARKS. THE compiler of the following Catalogue humbly conceives that he has done some service to the cause of truth, by presenting a list of the various publications which have appeared from the pens of the opponents of Methodism. He finds his compensation for the laborious drudgery he has gone through, in the belief that his compilation will greatly facilitate the labours of future historians, by furnishing them with an index to materials for the ecclesiastical history of the last century. He may lament, but shall not be surprised to find that this publication draws down upon him the heavy displeasure of his Methodist friends, for it is as true now as it was fifty years ago, that "the most candid investigation of Methodism, has always provoked from its professors the most perverse cavils, and outrageous reproaches. In whatever view you consider it, you are from that moment abhorred, or despised, or pitied by the whole Society. This circumstance is surely suspicious. If their system of religion be founded on truth, the greater cause they will have of rejoicing: if on error, the sooner they are convinced of their mistake, the higher must be their obligation to those who discover to them the uncertain foundation on which their edifice is raised. But I have been repeatedly told by some of their most distinguished mem bers, that could they be convinced that Methodism is a delusion, they would still continue in it."* In the Catalogue will be found a number, but by no means a complete list, of works on ecclesiastical reform by Methodist writers; several of them being in controversy with their Episcopal brethren of that sect, who in the exercise of an arbitrary aristocracy' have ever rejected their petitions for a Republican form of ecclesiastical government, by allowing a representation of the Laity. There are also the titles of several political pamphlets, occasioned by the publication of Mr. Wesley's "Calm Address to our American Colonies," which provoked from the celebrated Junius this memorable rebuke—“ You have forgotten the precept of your Master, that God and Mammon cannot be served together; you have one eye upon a pension, and the other upon heaven,-one hand stretched out to the king, the other raised up to God; I pray the first may reward you, and the last forgive you." The Catalogue embraces two hundred and seventy-seven anti-Methodistical works, fifty-five by Methodist authors, eighty-two miscellaneous, and twenty political. But those who have made special bibliography their study, are aware of the difficulty, if not impossibility, of making a list in any one department perfect. The compiler regrets that he has been unable to procure the titles of several pamphlets which have been written by Messrs. Hammett, Kilham, O'Kelly, O'Bryan, Bailey, Averell, Stilwell, Dr. Warren, Scott, and others, who have left the main body of Methodists both in England and America. No attempt has been made, four instances only excepted, to indicate * Vide Clapham's Sermon on Methodism. the numerous anti-Methodistical essays occurring in British and American periodical literature. A copy of each work in the Catalogue, with an asterisk prefixed, (amounting in all to one hundred and sixty,) has been collected by the compiler, and deposited (together with a large number of Methodistical books and engravings) in the library of the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. Where this mark † is prefixed, a duplicate copy is also placed on the shelves of the library of St. Timothy's Hall, Baltimore County, Maryland. They were found to be very rare, owing in a great measure to their having been bought up and suppressed by the Methodists. The compiler would be doing great injustice towards his publisher, as well as to his own feelings, in omitting to acknowledge his valuable aid in this compilation. Philadelphia, January, 1846. H. C. D. |