Methodists and Quakers had a particular interest in pre- and post-Reformation continental Catholic writers of a mystical, spiritual, or quietist tendency, including Thomas à Kempis, Madame Guyon, Fénelon, Antoinette Bourignon, de Molinos, and the lives of Armelle Nicolas, M. de Renty, and Gregory Lopez. This chapter indicates the ways in which knowledge of these Catholic models was disseminated by Pierre Poiret, William Law, John Wesley, and the Quakers Josiah Martin and James and John Gough, among others, and analyses the carefully abridged editions of Catholic works designed for Methodist and Quaker readers. Both Wesley and the Quakers were careful to separate the Catholic writers’ approved emphasis on inward religion and perfection from dangerous Catholic practices, and Wesley warned Methodists against quietism.
