A scene from the Leben der heiligen Altväter (1482)

Journal Articles & Book Chapters

“The Education and Special Training of Ministers in Theological Schools”

This essay, which runs about 11 pages, was delivered to the Oecumenical Methodist Conference in London in 1881. Pope delivered it on Wednesday, September 14, during the session on education. The Proceedings of the meeting (published…

Methodist Doctrine

In this essay published in 1881, Pope sketched the ways in which Methodist doctrine stood in strong continuity with the great tradition of classic Christian theology, and also drew out the unique contribution Methodism had to…

Discourses: Chiefly on the Lordship of the Incarnate RedeemerDelivered in the Chapel of the Wesleyan Theological Institution, Didsbury. Third and Enlarged Edition.

23 chapters, 408 pages. Although it has a different title, this is actually the third edition, enlarged, of 1869’s Discourses on the Kingdom and Reign of Christ. The changes are noted below in red. The Prophecies…

Erich Haupt, The First Epistle of St. John: A Contribution to Biblical Theology.Translated with an
introduction by W. B. Pope.

Pope provides a very long “Translator’s Preface,” running to 20 pages and giving his own view of the unique characteristics of First John. It is one of Pope’s fullest statements of his view of the letter’s…

A Compendium of Christian Theology, 2nd Edition, Revised and EnlargedBeing Analytical Outlines of a Course of Theological Study, Biblical, Dogmatic, Historical

This 1879 London edition of the Compendium, 3 volumes (1361 pages plus index), is the first definitive version. (There was never a third edition, but I have noticed a few minor changes in subsequent printings through…

Sermons, Addresses, and ChargesDelivered During his Year of Office

The Prayers of St. PaulBeing an Analysis and Exposition of the Devotional Portion of the Apostle's Writings

“The substance of these Papers has appeared in the Methodist Magazine. The Writer, being requested to collect them into a volume, has taken the opportunity of expanding the original Essays and making them somewhat more complete…

Memoir of the late James Heald of Parrs Wood

Pope’s biography of James Heald (1796-1873), a devout lay Methodist banker and MP (representing Stockport in the House of Commons). 68pp Includes one of Heald’s sermons on 3 John 1:2 (“that you may prosper and be…

A Compendium of Christian Theology (1st ed.)Being Analytical Outlines of a Course of Theological Study, Biblical, Dogmatic, Historical

This is the single-volume, 752-page first edition of Pope’s Compendium. Pope greatly expanded it for the three-volume, 1361-page second edition with a general index. This first edition was so definitively superseded by the second edition that…

The Person of Christ: Dogmatic, Scriptural, Historical

The Fernley Lecture of 1871, With Two Additional Essays on the Biblical and Ecclesiastical Development of the Doctrine, and Illustrative Notes. Second Edition. London: Wesleyan Conference Office, 1875. 302pp, additions as noted in preface. Definitive statement…

A Memoir of John Fernley, Esq., J.P., Late of Clairville, Southportreprinted from the Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine, with Corrections and Additions

Pope’s memorial pamphlet for John Fernley (1796-1873), a philanthropic Methodist layman. Fernley was a cotton manufacturer who retired from business in his forties. Among his other projects, he envisioned and endowed the Fernley lectures (in which…

The Peculiarities of Methodist DoctrineAn Address delivered in the open Session of the Irish Wesleyan-Methodist Conference, June 19th , 1873

This talk, published as a 22-page booklet, came at a crucial juncture in Pope’s development: when he was publishing his translation and commentary on Winer’s Comparative View, and was pondering very broadly how Methodism fit within…

Translation of Georg Benedikt Winer’s Comparative View of the Doctrines and Confessions of the Various Communities of Christendom

(placeholder) See a description of this work here. Just the charts from Winer’s book here; cleaned-up version of them here.

Memoir of the Rev. John Hannah, D.D.in John Hannah, Introductory Lectures on the Study of Christian Theology: with Outlines of Lectures on the Doctrines of Christianity: to which is prefixed a memoir of the Rev. John Hannah, D.D., by W.B. Pope

Pope edited for posthumous publication the lectures of John Hannah (1792-1867), his own theology tutor and also his predecessor in the chair at Didsbury. Pope’s introductory memoir is 70 pages long, and reveals much about what…

The Person of Christ: A Discourse (First Edition)Delivered at the Grosvenor-Street Chapel, Manchester, July 25th, 1871 in Connection with the Assembling of the Wesleyan-Methodist Conference, Being the Second Lecture on the Foundation of John Fernley, Esq, With the History of the Doctrine of Christ's Person, and Notes

Note: This first edition of Person of Christ was superseded a few years later by the second, enlarged edition (The Person of Christ: Dogmatic, Scriptural, Historical). For almost all purposes, that second edition is the one…

Discourses on the Kingdom and Reign of ChristDelivered in the Chapel of the Wesleyan Theological Institution at Didsbury

Pope had taken the late John Hannah’s chair as tutor at Didsbury College in 1867; this book was published 1869. 21 chapters, 395pp. In 1880, Pope published a “Third and Enlarged Edition” of these sermons under…

“O Spare Me”A Sermon for the New Year

PDF link below. Here is the text cleaned up for easier browser reading, with block quotes and section headings provided by me. “O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be…

“Inaugural Address” at Disburydelivered in the College Chapel, Didsbury, on Friday, September 20th, 1867

I have not yet located this document. Stevenson reports on it: The Rev. Dr. John Hannah, who had for many years been the Theological Tutor at the Didsbury Wesleyan College, died before the Conference of 1867 ; to supply his place was not very difficult, with such a master of theology at command as William Burt Pope. He had for twenty-five years served the Connexion in circuit work ; he was therefore well acquainted with all the requirements of the people as regards ministers, and his transfer to the Theological Professor’s Chair at Didsbury, in 1867, was a wise decision of the Conference. His Inaugural Address, delivered on the occasion of commencing his duties there, forms a printed pamphlet of thirty pages, which was read with eager interest when printed, and only served to confirm the Conference in the wisdom of their choice. (“Pope,”…