File Name: Wesley, John - A Christian Library (30 Vols)
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File Submitted: 23 Sep 2012
File Category: Reference Books (topx)
Author: John Wesleye-Sword Version: 9.x - 10.x
Suggest New Tag:: John Wesley, Writings of wesley, Abridgements, Extracts, wesley, methodist, christian, library
This work was divided into 2 files due to its size. Part 1 and Part2 each consisting of 15 Vols. Each part has got Table of Contents that details the topics avaible in each of those 15 Volumes.
Its worth reading and you never regret for time spent on this work of John Wesley.
About Library
John Wesley lived by the Bible and claimed to be a man of one book (homo unius libri). But his single-minded focus on Scripture did not result from failing to read other books. It was something he achieved on the far side of wide reading and much learning. Wesley knew how to learn from Christians of all ages and denominations, and he wanted to pass that privilege along to as many people as he could.
As a result, Wesley spent considerable time editing and publishing books that he considered helpful. He wanted his people to be reading widely in the best works available. In 1750 he brought out a fifty-volume set of books called A Christian Library. The sub-title was “Extracts from and Abridgments of the Choicest Pieces of Practical Divinity Which Have Been Published in the English Tongue.” dissertations have been written about what he chose and how he chose it, but a quick look shows that he was not trying to find simply the best or most important books in the history of Christianity. He mostly ignores the church fathers (represented only by the apostolic fathers and Macarius), the great medieval scholastics, and the reformers. Instead, he focuses on recent centuries (from as far back as the sixteenth up to his contemporaries like Jonathan Edwards in the eighteenth), English works (including both Puritans and Established churchmen who took turns persecuting each other), and above all, “Practical Divinity.” Wesley does include works originally written in German, French, Spanish, and Latin, but all Englished and already influential in his homeland.
Wesley’s judgment is so demonstrably keen that he deserves the benefit of the doubt as an editor. Undeservedly obscure writers like Bishop Ken, Isaac Ambrose, and Robert Leighton are spiritual powerhouses, and Wesley has selected some of their best work. There’s a revival of interest in John Owen lately, but several of his greatest books (Communion with God!) are reprinted here in Wesley’s Christian Library. Anybody who thinks of Owen and Wesley as opposites who could never meet ought to spend a little more time reading Owen and Wesley.
Table of Contents
Volume 1: The Apostolic Fathers, Macarius of Egypt, Johann Arndt’s True Christianity.
Volume 2: Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.
Volume 3: More Foxe’s Martyrs, with supplements
Volume 4: More Foxe supplements, Bishop Hall’s Meditations, extracts from Robert Bolton.
Volume 5: more Bolton, John Preston.
Volume 6: more Preston, Richard Sibs, Thomas Goodwin.
Volume 7: more Goodwin, William Dell, Thomas Manton, Isaac Ambrose.
Volume 8: more Isaac Ambrose (Looking Unto Jesus).
Volume 9: more Ambrose, Jeremy Taylor, Francis Rouse’s Academia Celestis, Ralph Cudworth, Nathanael Culverwell.
Volume 10: more Culverwell, John Owen (Mortification of Sin, Christologia, Communion with God).
Volume 11: More Owen, John Smith.
Volume 12: Herbert Palmer, extracts from The Whole Duty of Man, William Whateley, sermons of Bishop Robert Sanderson.
Volume 13: James Garden’s Comparative Religion,
Volume 14: Pascal’s Pensees, John Worthington’s Self-Resignation, Bishop Ken’s Exposition of the Catechism.
Volume 15: Lives of Eminent Christians, chiefly extracted from Clark.
Volume 16: Life of Bishop Bedell, Life of Archbishop Butler, Letters of Samuel Rutherford, Anthony Horneck’s Happy Ascetic and Lives of Primitive Christians.
Volume 17: works by Hugh Binning, Matthew Hale, and Simon Patrick’s Christian Sacrifice.
Volume 18: Richard Allen (Vindication of Godliness, Rebuke to Backsliders, Necessity of Godly Fear)
Volume 19: Dr. Cave’s Primitive Christianity, Bunyan’s Holy War, Stuckley’s Gospel-Glass.
Volume 20: Cowley’s Essays, Goodman’s Evening Conference, works by Robert Leighton, Bishop Beveridge.
Volume 21: works by Isaac Barrow, John Brown, Antoinette Bourignon’s Solid Virtue, sermons by Mr. Kitchen and Mr. Pool.
Volume 22: Richard Baxter’s Saint’s Everlasting Rest, Edward Crane’s Prospect of Divine Providence,
Volume 23: Fenelon, Molinos, Henry More, Stephen Charnock, Dr. Calamy, Henry Scougal.
Volume 24: Sermons by Dr. Annesley, Richard Lucas’ Inquiry after Happiness.
Volume 25: sermons of Bishop Reynolds, devotions.
Volume 26: Sermons of Dr. South, Young, Howe’s Thoughts, Juan d’Avila, the anonymous Parson’s Advice,
Volume 27: works by Archbishop Tillotson, John Flavel’s Husbandry Spiritualized, Lives of Sundry Eminent Persons.
Volume 28: Life of John Howe, The Living Temple, Philip Henry, George Trosse, John Eliot.
Volume 29: more Eminent Persons, Alleine’s Letters, Francke’s Nicodemus.
Volume 30: Norris on Christian Prudence; Edwards on Revivals of Religion; Religious Affections.
About John Wesley
The Wesley family was made famous by the two brothers, John and Charles, who worked together in the rise of Methodism in the British Isles during the 18th century. They were among the ten children surviving infancy born to Samuel Wesley (1662 - 1735), Anglican rector of Epworth, Lincolnshire, and Susanna Annesley Wesley, daughter of Samuel Annesley, a dissenting minister.
John Wesley was born June 28, 1703, died Mar. 2, 1791, and was the principal founder of the Methodist movement. His mother was important in his emotional and educational development. John's education continued at Charterhouse School and at Oxford, where he studied at Christ Church and was elected (1726) fellow of Lincoln College. He was ordained in 1728.
After a brief absence (1727 - 29) to help his father at Epworth, John returned to Oxford to discover that his brother Charles had founded a Holy Club composed of young men interested in spiritual growth.
John quickly became a leading participant of this group, which was dubbed the Methodists. His Oxford days introduced him not only to the rich tradition of classical literature and philosophy but also to spiritual classics like Thomas a Kempis's Imitation of Christ, Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Dying, and William Law's Serious Call.
In 1735 both Wesleys accompanied James Oglethorpe to the new colony of Georgia, where John's attempts to apply his then high-church views aroused hostility. Discouraged, he returned (1737) to England; he was rescued from this discouragement by the influence of the Moravian preacher Peter Boehler. At a small religious meeting in Aldersgate Street, London, on May 24, 1738, John Wesley had an experience in which his "heart was strangely warmed." After this spiritual conversion, which centered on the realization of salvation by faith in Christ alone, he devoted his life to evangelism. Beginning in 1739 he established Methodist societies throughout the country. He traveled and preached constantly, especially in the London-Bristol-Newcastle triangle, with frequent forays into Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. He encountered much opposition and persecution, which later subsided.
Late in life Wesley married Mary Vazeille, a widow. He continued throughout his life a regimen of personal discipline and ordered living. He died at 88, still preaching, still traveling, and still a clergyman of the Church of England. In 1784, however, he had given the Methodist societies a legal constitution, and in the same year he ordained Thomas Coke for ministry in the United States; this action signaled an independent course for Methodism.
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