THE JOURNAL OF SACRED LITERATURE. EDITED BY JOHN KITTO, D.D., F.S.A. VOLUME III. ⠀⠀⠀ YO LONDON: C. COX, 12, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND. OLIVER AND BOYD, EDINBURGH; AND J. ROBERTSON, 1849. THE JOURNAL OF SACRED LITERATURE. No. V.-JANUARY, 1849. JOHN WESLEY, AND THE PRINCIPLES DEVELOPED IN HIS CAREER. BY THE REV. O. T. DOBBIN, LL.D., Trin. College, Dublin.. The Life of Wesley; and Rise and Progress of Methodism. By Robert Southey, Esq., LL.D. Third Edition. With Notes by the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Esq. And Remarks on the Life and Character of John Wesley, by the late Alexander Knox, Esq. Edited by the Rev. Charles Cuthbert Southey, M.A., curate of Cockermouth. In Two Volumes. London. Longmans. 1846. THE length of time which has elapsed since the death of the founder of Methodism, together with the unusually full details of his personal history we possess, and a century's experience of the working of his system, put us in a fairer position than those who lived at an earlier period to pass an equitable judgment upon the merits of that extraordinary man. This opening remark is a keynote to the strain of the observations that will follow upon John Wesley. We are not blind to his faults, but even these will be found to have sprung from the sincerity, openness, and native simplicity of his character. Southey evidently did not understand him, although not wanting in a due share of admiration for the subject of his memoir; while in all those qualities which make the expert craftsman he claims an eminence exclusively his own. Neither Hampson nor Whitehead, nor Coke and More, nor Watson |