David Simpson [1745-1799] was, like Philip Doddridge, a friend of the Great Awakening who chose to remain in the Anglican Church. A close friend of John Wesley's, he invited Wesley to preach more than a dozen times in his church. This was of course forbidden by the Anglican church. Simpson was a pioneer of Evangelical theology in the Anglican church and of congregational hymn singing, under the influence of Charles Wesley and others.
Simpson and Wesley seem to have bonded, at least in part over their mutual appreciation of the supernatural. They both believed the miraculous to be a continuing phenomena for the Church, in the appearances of the ghosts of the dead, and of the ongoing importance of dreams and visions for the Church age.
The present has been said by many to be the last serious Christian writing attempting to theologize and orient dreams and visions into the thought life of the Church. With the rise of spiritualism in the 19th century, these subjects were left in the dustbin of Church history largely until the rise of Pentecostalism in the early 20th century. Though Methodism always had small strains of those who sought to understand the role of the miraculous in the Church.
Simpson, David. A Discourse on Dreams and Night-Visions, with Numerous Examples Ancient and Modern. Macclesfield : printed by Edward Bayley, and sold by Dilly, London; Spence, York; Bulgin, Bristol; Swinney Birmingham; Clarke, Manchester; Bayley, Macclesfield; Fletcher, &c. 1791. First Edition. 134pp.
Title 80% lacking, all else complete, though badly worn, thumbed, trimmed closely at margins, and in need of resewing. No other copies on the market at any price and the only one to our recollection we have handled.