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This book brings to publication all of the famous hymn-writer Charles Wesley's sermon material. Included are four substantial introductory chapters which place Charles Wesley's preaching in the context of early Methodism and the eighteenth century more generally. Annotations on the texts themselves are substantially text-critical and include discussion of Charles's use of Byrom's shorthand, the script in which a significant portion of the material is written. Other notes include an attempt to trace Charles's use of sources, specifically the Bible, the Homilies, and the Book of Common Prayer.
About the author
Kenneth Newport is a graduate of the University of Oxford where he studied under E.P. Sanders. After teaching for three years in Hong Kong, he returned to the UK in 1991 and taught at the University of St Andrews and then at the University of Manchester. While at Manchester he was appointed Research Fellow at the John Rylands Research Institute where he has conducted extensive research into the Methodist Archives, which are on permanent deposit at the John Rylands University Library. In 1999 he was appointed Reader in Christian Thought at Liverpool Hope University College, where he currently teaches and conducts research. He is an ordained Anglican minister. He lives in Bury, Lancashire with his wife Rose-Marie and three children.
Summary
Charles Wesley (1707-1788) is widely recognized as one of the greatest writers of the English hymn. The importance of Charles, however, extends well beyond his undoubted poetic abilities, for he is a figure of central importance in the context of the birth and early growth of Methodism, a movement which today has a worldwide presence. It was Charles and not John who first started the Oxford 'Holy Club' from which the ethos and structures of organised Methodism were eventually to emerge. It was Charles rather than John who first experienced the 'strange warming of the heart' that characterised the experience of many eighteenth-century evangelicals; and in the early years it was Charles no less than John who sought to spread, mainly through his preaching, the evangelical message across England, Wales, and Ireland. Eye witness testimony suggests that Charles was a powerful and effective preacher whose homiletic work and skill did much to establish and further the early Methodist cause.
In this book this other side of Charles Wesley is brought clearly into focus through the publication, for the first time, of all of the known Charles Wesley sermon texts. In the four substantial introductory chapters a case is made for the inclusion of the 23 sermons here presented and there is discussion also of the significant text-critical problems that have been negotiated in the production of this volume. Other chapters present a summary of Charles's life and preaching career and seek to show by example how the sermons, no less than the hymns, are significant vehicles for the transmission of Charles's message. This book hence makes a plea for a reassessment of the place of Charles Wesley in English Church history and argues that he deserves to be recognised as more than just 'The Sweet Singer of Methodism'.
Additional text
Scholars of Methodist history and theology are greatly in debt to Dr Newport for the published outcome of his research project ... Dr Newport's work is the outcome of careful and scholarly research ... This book will be a vital tool for all those wishing to trace the development of the Methodist movement and the impact of its theological ideas ... this is a major contribution to Wesley studies.
