Charles Wesley was a man with real hymnographic genius, and not surprisingly it is chiefly for his poetic legacy that he is remembered. However, he was much more than just a hymn‐writer, and along with his brother John, played a huge part in the birth and early growth of Methodism. To enable him to be assessed at his proper worth, major scholarship is required to bring all his prose works before a wider audience. Only twenty‐three sermons survive of the thousands he preached in his long life as a travelling evangelist, and as a more settled preacher. This volume collects together all these ser ... More

Charles Wesley was a man with real hymnographic genius, and not surprisingly it is chiefly for his poetic legacy that he is remembered. However, he was much more than just a hymn‐writer, and along with his brother John, played a huge part in the birth and early growth of Methodism. To enable him to be assessed at his proper worth, major scholarship is required to bring all his prose works before a wider audience. Only twenty‐three sermons survive of the thousands he preached in his long life as a travelling evangelist, and as a more settled preacher. This volume collects together all these sermons, and presents a detailed text‐critical reading of them, with notes and indexes—including an index of the scripture quotations and allusions with which Wesley's work was totally saturated.