Observations upon the Conduct and Behaviour of a Certain Sect, Usually Distinguished by the Name of Methodists
An anonymous pamphlet of 1744 against the Methodists. It charges that their preachers had not qualified under the Act of Toleration and that they preached in the fields in defiance of the law.
The pamphlet opens with the law. Its first sections argue that the Act of Toleration protects only those dissenting preachers who take the oaths, subscribe the articles and register their meeting places, that the Methodists have done none of these, and that preaching in the fields is forbidden by a statute of Charles II. Later parts go on to the Methodists’ practice at communion and their teaching, and put a series of queries.
It is cited in this wiki as the voice of the Methodists’ opponents within the Church of England. The pamphlet does not name its author; the Internet Archive’s record, following library catalogues, gives it to Edmund Gibson. See John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism.
Cited in
- 24 May 1689, firm date
- 24 May 1738, firm date