Methodism Mocked: The Satiric Reaction to Methodism in the Eighteenth Century

In these days, when satire is a fashionable form of rhetoric, no book could make more fascinating reading than this. By comparison with the satire revealed in this book, the modern variety seems pale and mild. Methodism Mocked examines the hostile literary reaction expressed in satire to Methodism and the Methodist leaders, John Wesley and George Whitefield, in the eighteenth century. It considers the basis for satiric attacks on such Methodist practices as field preaching and hymn-singing and on the theological doctrines emphasized by the Methodists, particularly justification by faith and perfection. By considering the attacks on Methodism in terms of eighteenth-century religious thought and literary practice, Methodism Mocked makes comprehensible a reaction long considered as only spiteful and malicious.