A Christian Library: Volume 21 (John Wesleys Christian Library)

So Many Good Books: Wesley's Christian Library Volume works by Isaac Barrow, John Brown, Antoinette Bourignon's Solid Virtue.
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With the help of his preachers and assistants and class-leaders, he watched over their souls, preached, taught and explained repentance and faith and then instructed the regenerate to grow in the love of God and man. Salvation was not in creeds, or dogmas, or styles of worship, or denominational labels but through faith in the Son of God.

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Taking the world as his parish, 13 he laboured to help men and women on the way to heaven, for the catholic spirit permitted no barriers among those who practised the love of God and man. These had come into existence in the late 17th century, mostly as the work of Dr Antony Horneck. But they catered mostly for a religious elite and offered little attraction to those who were not regular worshippers or acquainted with religious matters. In the late s and early s, the Methodists were divided by wrangles over election and predestination.

An anonymous letter circulated among the converts in Bristol, warning them not to listen to John Wesley because he preached against predestination. Although the accusation was false, the rumours spread and finally Wesley preached, and then published his sermon, Free Grace. It was a strong attack on absolute predestination but no names were mentioned. George Whitefield replied with his A Letter to the Rev.

So Many Good Books: Wesley's Christian Library

The outcome of this doctrinal quarrel among former friends was that the revival split into two groups; those who followed the Wesley brothers were designated Wesleyan Methodists and those who sided with Whitefield and his supporters became known as Calvinistic Methodists. The record of this early, and lasting, breach in the work of the 18th century revival constitutes a sad and depressing chapter.

Former friends went their separate ways, fellowships were broken off, misunderstandings and half-truths proliferated and the work of God and evangelism suffered. If only John Wesley and George Whitefield had come together and, even if complete doctrinal agreement was not possible, surely there could have been a brotherly rapport that eclipsed discord and allowed the glorious work of soul-saving to prosper. Looking at both camps, with Whitefield, John Cennick and their supporters on one side, and the Wesley brothers and their preachers on the other, what potential there was to advance the work of God.

What might have been achieved if these good and godly people had been catholic enough in spirit to agree to disagree on some theological interpretations in order to support each other in evangelising the land. Writing to Whitefield in the midst of the warfare, John Wesley acknowledged that it was bigotry that divided the Evangelicals. The case is quite plain. There are bigots both for Predestination and against it. God is sending a message to those on either side. But neither will receive it, unless from one of his own opinion. Therefore for a time you are suffered to be of one opinion and I of another.

But when His time is come God will do what man cannot — namely, make us both of one mind. Over the next few years this dispute rumbled on and there was also a gap opening up between John Wesley and the Moravians. Ever since he had first met the Moravians on a voyage to America in , John Wesley had been profoundly influenced by their teaching and example of holy living. His ties with them in Georgia were very strong, and when he returned to England early in , he and Charles formed a close friendship with the Moravian Peter Bohler.

Charles Wesley found the assurance of sins forgiven on Pentecost Sunday while staying in a Moravian home in London. His record of what happened that Wednesday evening in Aldersgate Street was couched in Moravian language. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me…. The Wesley brothers and the Moravians worked together very closely in London and later in John Wesley visited the Moravian headquarters in Herrnhut in Germany and met the founder, Count Zinzendorf and other leaders.

When his itinerant preaching ministry began in Bristol in April , he had the full support of the Moravian brethren and his many letters to James Hutton, a leading English Moravian, shows how close this friendship was. This teaching advocated that seekers after God should refrain from all the means of grace, including Scripture reading, prayer and hearing sermons, and wait for the Spirit to bring to them the gift of faith.

The Wesleys opposed this emphasis, convinced that through these means of grace God mediated His Spirit to bring people to repentance and faith. There was a split in the Fetter Lane Society and a large number followed the Wesleys out of that Society and joined with them in a new fellowship, the first of the many Wesleyan Societies that would be organised in the years ahead. The Christian is not only accounted righteous but he is being made righteous. This emphasis convinced John Wesley that the Moravian teaching, unless it was expressed very carefully, opened the door to antinomianism.

This dispute with old friends who esteemed each other highly might well have been amicably resolved but for the intervention of Count Zinzendorf. On a visit to London in he met with John Wesley and was totally unsympathetic to any notion of imparted holiness. He took the initiative to call the leaders together in London in August George Whitefield responded positively and Howell Harris likewise.

Harris, a recognised leader of the revival work in Wales, was a close friend of both Whitefield and the Wesleys and a man of a truly catholic spirit. Although his theological persuasions put him closer to Whitefield than to the Wesleys, both parties regarded him with warm affection. Whitefield, Harris and the Wesley brothers convened but the Moravians were not represented. John Wesley invited one of their leading preachers, August Spangenberg, an old friend of his from their days together in Georgia, but just before the conference was due to start, Spangenberg left England for America.

Charles Wesley wrote of his disappointment when he arrived in London and heard that the meeting had been cancelled. There is clear evidence that John Wesley was deeply disappointed that the divisions among the Methodists and between the Moravians and Methodists had not been resolved. He reasoned that the two sides were divided over three main points; unconditional election, irresistible grace and final perseverance. He would accept a doctrine of unconditional election for some, provided it did not entail the necessary damnation of all the rest.

Nor would he object to an interpretation of irresistible grace, unless it implied that those on whom it worked without apparently producing any response were therefore irrevocably damned. As to final perseverance, Wesley went even further in trying to effect a harmonious unity among the leaders of the revival.

He confessed that he believed there was a state of grace from which the Christian could not fall away. In the history of theological disputes among Christian theologians, there are few examples of those who were willing to moderate previously held views for the sake of co-operation and brotherly affection. Far more often these disputes have led to protagonists hardening their attitudes, and, it is to be feared, also their hearts. He published this remarkable theological eirenicon in his Journal for all to see.

Given the time of its composition, it looks as if John Wesley had prepared these propositions for the hoped-for conference in London. Sadly, nothing came from these proposals. John Wesley had taken considerable steps to bring old friends together and even though they failed, they were welcome examples of the catholic spirit. Five years later there were still some lingering hopes that even now Whitefield and Wesley might yet establish some kind of union in the work of the revival.

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Whitefield had been in America for four years and on his return he wrote to both the Wesleys, expressing the hope that they would meet him in London. John Wesley was preaching in the north of England and Charles was in Ireland. Whitefield wrote another letter to John Wesley, expressing disappointment that they had not been able to meet in London and then asked Wesley if he had any further thoughts about union.

In the hope of yet establishing a closer relationship with Whitefield, John Wesley proposed a meeting in Bristol. It was another olive branch in another attempt to settle differences and bring the leaders of the revival closer together. The next day predestination and perfection were on the agenda.

While this meeting of the four Methodist leaders seemed very promising in the agreements reached, it is difficult to gauge what good came from it. John Wesley made no record of it in his Journal and this might be the best indicator that the outcome was disappointing.

Having convened the gathering in London and this meeting in Bristol six years later, John Wesley might well have felt he had done his utmost to bring about reconciliation. While the Bristol gathering seems to have concluded in good will and with mutual affection, it did not really bring the parties together in doctrinal harmony over the disputed matters of predestination and Christian perfection. The history of Methodism shows only too clearly that the theological divisions continued to be subjects of polemic for the decades to come.

John Wesley had certainly displayed a truly catholic spirit and both Whitefield and Harris seem to have responded in kind. But it must be said that so much more could and should have come from these gatherings of the evangelical leaders. Perhaps what was needed was an acknowledgement by Wesley and Whitefield that their publicised wrangling ten years earlier had had melancholy consequences.


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If both men had acted with less haste in vindicating their own positions, later hostilities might have been avoided. If only John Wesley had not gone to the printers with his trenchant sermon, Free Grace! And if only George Whitefield had directed his Letter to Wesley in private, rather than publishing it! All of us who truly long for open, honest, heart-felt and Spirit-inspired fellowship and co-operation among evangelicals in the twenty-first century, must learn from what happened in the eighteenth-century.

The catholic spirit certainly means that we will not attack and criticise one another openly, nor will we have any part in allowing unfounded rumours and innuendo to make us suspicious of one another. But the catholic spirit also means that, whatever convictions we hold personally on the questions of predestination, perfection theories, gifts of the Spirit, women in ministry, and such like, we will pray for, support and work with all those who believe and proclaim the great doctrines of historic orthodox Christianity.

By the late s, John Wesley found himself taking care of a rapidly growing number of people who had joined his Societies in their search for salvation. To help them in that quest and confirm those already in the way of salvation, Wesley instituted Class meetings, Band meetings, Love feasts, Quarterly meetings and other such means of grace.

Full time travelling preachers were recruited, assistants and local leaders were appointed and a circuit system was set up. John Wesley also began to compose, extract from other works, edit and publish many writings for the instruction of his preachers and the edification of his people. In he began a very ambitious publishing project. Anybody who thinks of Owen and Wesley as opposites who could never meet ought to spend a little more time reading Owen and Wesley. But give them time, or send them money, or just take up and read.

More Owen, John Smith. Lives of Eminent Christians, chiefly extracted from Clark. Fred is a systematic theologian with an emphasis on the doctrine of the Trinity. He and his wife Susan have two children, Freddy and Phoebe. They are members of Grace Evangelical Free Church. Read more about Fred here. How Could Jesus Do Miracles?

The Centaur not Fabulous; in five letters to a friend, on the life in vogue. Practical Lectures on the Church Catechism. Hymns and Sacred Poems. Letters upon Sacred Subjects, by a person lately deceased. Lefevre dated July 6, for published form, see Osborn, Poetical Works 6: The History of England, as well ecclesiastical as civil.

The Gift of my much respected and beloved fried. The Iliad of Homer. Translated by Alexander Pope. The Odyssey of Homer.


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The Works of Virgil in English Verse. Translated by Christopher Pitt and Joseph Warton. The gift of his worthy aunt". The Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity Proved. The Works of Alexander Pope esq in four volumes complete. Advices with Respect to Health. Collection of hymn pamphlets "C.

Hymns for the Nativity of Our Lord. Hymns for Our Lord's Resurrection. Hymns of Petition and Thanksgiving for the Promise of the Father. Hymns for Those that Seek and Those that have Redemption. A Collection of Prayers for Families. Imperfect copy, edition unclear. The History of America. Whitestone, Watson, et al.

Wesley" "Charles Wesley Jun r " Note: Wrongly labeled on new binding. Collection of Moral and Sacred Poems. Wrongly labeled on new binding Allestree, Richard A Guide to Syllogism; or, a manual of logic. Wesley" with "S" written over the "C" possibly given to his daughter.

John Wesley and His Ministry (biography) - J. C. Ryle / Audio Book

The General History of the World, being an abridgment The Spectator; with notes, and a general index, the eight volumes comprised in one. Wesley " Arndt, Johann The Garden of Paradise, or, Holy Prayers and Exercises; whereby the Christian graces and virtues may be planted and improved in man, the Divine Image renewed, true Christianity promoted, the Kingdom of God established, and a heavenly life raised up in the Spirit; pursuing the design of the famous treatise of True Christianity. The Practice of Divine Love Revised; being an exposition of the church catechism.

The Beauty of Holiness in the Common Prayer. An Answer to all the Excuses and Pretenses which Men ordinarily make for their not coming to Communion. The Spectator, Volume 1. Free Grace; A sermon. Thoughts on Marriage and a Single Life. An Extract of Mr.

Richard Baxter's Aphorisms of Justification. A Treatise on Christian Prudence. Extracted from [John Norris]. Reflections upon the Conduct of Human Life. An Extract of the Christian's Pattern; or, a treatise of the imitation of Christ. Collected Publications, variation of vol. An Extract from the Reverend Mr. John Wesley's Journal, from Sept. An Universal Etymological English Dictionary. The Portraicture of His Sacred Majesty in his solitudes. James of Earl's Mead, " appears to be in Mrs. Hymns of Our Lord's Resurrection. Hymns for Times of Trouble and Persecution. Hymns for the Public Thanksgiving-Day, October 9, Hymns Occasioned by the Earthquake, March 8, A Solemn Call on Count Zinzendorf.

A Communion Morning's Companion. Twelve Discourses upon the Law and the Gospel. The Book of Common Prayer, together with the Psalms. Claustrum animae; the reformed monastery; or, the love of Jesus. Discourses on Several Subjects. The Contrast; or, an antidote against the pernicious principle disseminated in the letters of the late Earl of Chesterfield. Sermons, and other miscellaneous pieces. The Gift of Charles Wesley Jr. Margaret and Elisabeth were younger sisters of Sarah Gwynne Wesley. The gift of her brother". Sermons, on Evangelical and Practical Subjects.

Essays in a Series of Letters to a Friend. June " Myles, William Sermons on Practical Subjects.

John Wesley | Wesleyana Collection | Special Collections | Collections | E.J. Pratt Library

The Critical History of the Old Testament. A Treatise of Knowledge and Love Compared. The Folly and Unreasonableness of Atheism. A Critical History of the Doctrines and Worships both good and evil of the Church from Adam to our Savior Jesus Christ; giving an account of the origin of all the idolatries of the ancient pagans, as far as they relate to the Jewish worship.

The Trial of Dr. Henry Sacheverell, before the House of Peers.

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A Collection of Articles, Canons, Injunctions, etc.. The Life of Dr. George Bull, late Lord Bishop of St. Angelographia; sive Pneumata leityrgika. Pneumatologia; or, A discourse of angels. Alciphron; or, The Minute Philosopher. Gift of Matthew Wesley" Note: Matthew is Samuel Wesley Sr. Geistriches Gesangbuch den Kern alter und neuer Lieder A Father's Advices to His Children. Do not follow order of "Collected Publications". An Extract of the Revd. John Wesley's Journal from August 12, Scriptural Christianity, a sermon. A Sermon Preached on Sunday, April 4, A Sermon on Salvation by Faith.

London; William Strahan, The Almost Christian, a sermon. Christian Perfection, a sermon. The Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Compared. An Extract of the Life and Death of Mr. A Narrative of the Late Work of God A Letter to a Friend, concerning Tea. The Nature and Design of Christianity. Extracted from [William Law]. An Extract of the Rev. John Wesley's Journal from his embarking for Georgia.

An Extract of theRev. John Wesley's Journal from February 1, to his return to England.