John Angell James Books: A Guide to All 18 and Where to Start
John Angell James (1785–1859) was pastor of Carr's Lane Church in Birmingham, England, for over fifty years. Nearly all his books began as sermons or talks to his own people, and each one is written for a particular reader: the anxious seeker, the stalled believer, the church member, the husband and wife, the young man or young woman, the widow or the minister. TheWay Library has eighteen books by or about him, all free to read: seventeen of his own and the Life and Letters that tells his story. For a short biography, see who was John Angell James.
Where to start
If you're new to James, start with The Anxious Inquirer after Salvation, the book that made his name. It's short, clear and searching, and it's still one of the best books to give someone who wants to know how to be saved.
After that, choose by what you need:
- If you're a believer who feels stuck: Christian Progress.
- For a pastor's counsel in small doses: Pastoral Addresses.
- For a full study of faith, hope and love: The Course of Faith, Christian Hope and Christian Charity Explained.
- For church life: Christian Fellowship, then Christian Charity Explained.
- For a whole church that needs waking up: The Church in Earnest.
- For pastors and preachers: An Earnest Ministry.
- For marriage and the home: The Marriage Ring, then The Family Monitor.
- For a young man leaving home: The Young Man from Home and The Young Man's Friend.
- For young women: Female Piety.
- For the grieving: The Widow Directed to the Widow's God.
Every quotation below is checked against the book it comes from. For many more, see our collection of John Angell James quotes.
For seekers and growing Christians
The Anxious Inquirer after Salvation
A guide for people seriously concerned about their souls. James explains why that concern is reasonable, how to keep religious impressions from fading, why you need a clear grasp of the truth, and what repentance and faith are. Then he answers the mistakes, perplexities and discouragements that trouble seekers, like waiting for the right feelings or trying to make yourself better first, and he closes with the love of God in giving His Son.
The more and sooner you hope in Christ, the more and sooner will you mourn for sin.
The Anxious Inquirer after Salvation, Mistakes into Which Inquirers Are Apt to Fall
Christian Progress
Written for believers who have found peace with God and then stopped growing. In seven chapters James sets out the need for progress, what it looks like (growth in knowledge, faith, holiness, love and usefulness), the means of growth, common mistakes about it, what hinders it, and the motives and encouragements to press on. His picture of the stalled Christian is a door that swings on its hinges and never goes anywhere.
There must be time found and fixed for prayer, and the time fixed must be kept.
Christian Progress, The Means of Progress
The Christian Professor Addressed
First given as sermons to his congregation, this is a handbook for anyone who professes faith in Christ. James explains what a profession means and why it binds, warns against self-deception, and then speaks to the believer in many settings: youth, worldliness and amusements, influence on others, unconverted relatives, singleness, prosperity, adversity, travel, backsliding and death. The scan has scattered misread words. Read The Christian Professor Addressed.
Pastoral Addresses
Twelve monthly letters James wrote to his own congregation in 1841, each on one subject of practical religion: greater holiness in the church, spiritual and heavenly mind, assurance of hope, a profitable Sabbath, the life of faith, the spirit of prayer, private prayer and self-examination. They read like a pastor's warm, direct word to people he knew by name, and each one is short enough for a sitting.
A prayerless profession of religion will soon be thrown aside as an encumbrance.
Pastoral Addresses, Address XI, Private Prayer
Faith, hope and love
James wrote a book on each of the three graces of 1 Corinthians 13: love as a younger pastor, faith and hope near the end of his life. They can be read as a set.
The Course of Faith
First preached as weekday sermons, this book follows faith through every part of the Christian life: justification, holiness, joy, good works, victory over the world, prayer, hearing the word, assurance, earthly blessings, affliction, death and heaven. It's the fullest of the three. The scan has garbled a few chapter headings and some words.
Faith is the root, out of which grows the whole tree of our godliness — its trunk, its branches, its leaves, and its fruit.
The Course of Faith, chapter I, Faith in General
Christian Hope
Written in 1858 to stand beside his books on faith and love. James defines hope, shows its foundation in Christ and its object in heaven, and works through the Bible's pictures of it, chiefly the anchor of the soul and the helmet of salvation, before showing how weak hope can be made strong. The scanned text is badly damaged in places, with garbled words and broken chapter headings, so read it after the others.
Hope has an eye to see heaven in a cloudy day, and an anchor that can find a firm bottom to lay hold of, under a weight and depth of waters.
Christian Hope, chapter VIII, Hope as an Anchor
Christian Charity Explained
A sequel to Christian Fellowship and the first of the three to be written, working phrase by phrase through 1 Corinthians 13. James defines Christian love, insists that it is not indifference to truth or winking at sin, and then takes each mark of love in turn: its patience, kindness, humility, refusal to think evil, joy in the truth and permanence. Three closing chapters call readers to examine themselves and pray for love.
Love to man arises out of love to God; but can it be possible to love God, and not to hate sin?
Christian Charity Explained, Christian Love Is Not to Be Confounded with That Spurious Candour
Read Christian Charity Explained.
For the church
Christian Fellowship, or The Church Member's Guide
A practical handbook on church membership. James explains what a church is, why believers join one, and the duties of members to their own souls, to their pastors, to one another and to other churches, with a long chapter on particular stations, from deacons to tradesmen. It's sensible, warm and frank. The text comes from a scan and has OCR errors and stray page headers. Read Christian Fellowship.
The Church in Earnest
A call to every church and church member to be in earnest about religion. James draws lessons from Christ's letters to the seven churches, then applies earnestness to personal religion, soul-winning, family religion and the life of a congregation. He names what kills earnestness, such as the love of amusement, the pressure of trade and party spirit, and tells the stories of earnest believers like the prison visitor Sarah Martin. Read The Church in Earnest.
An Earnest Ministry the Want of the Times
The companion book for ministers. James asks whether the evangelical pulpit has lost its power, and answers that the great lack is not learning or eloquence but earnestness: an absorbing desire to save souls. He shows it in what a preacher says, how he says it and how he delivers it, and in pastoral work, with examples like Richard Baxter, and he ends with the need for the Holy Spirit.
Whatever other deficiencies we have, the chief of all lies in the heart.
An Earnest Ministry the Want of the Times, The Nature of Earnestness
Protestant Nonconformity
A history written in 1849 for his own congregation. James sketches English dissent from the Reformation through the Puritans, the Act of Uniformity and the persecutions under the Stuarts, then tells the story of the Nonconformist churches of Birmingham, down to the founding of Carr's Lane. It's for readers who want to know where his kind of church came from. The scan has noticeable errors but stays readable. Read Protestant Nonconformity.
For marriage and the home
The Family Monitor, or A Help to Domestic Happiness
Sermons on the household passages of Ephesians, turned into a guide to Christian family life. James covers the duties of husbands and wives, with love as the root of all of them; choosing a spouse in the Lord; the duties of parents, the longest chapter, on teaching, discipline, example and family prayer; and the duties of children, masters and servants. Read The Family Monitor.
The Marriage Ring, or How to Make Home Happy
A short guide to Christian marriage in four chapters: how to choose a husband or wife, what a family is for, the duties husband and wife owe each other, and the special duties Scripture gives to each. Love, religion and patience, James says, are what make a home happy. It makes a fine gift for an engaged couple.
Wherever sin or imperfection exists, there is scope for the forbearance of love.
The Marriage Ring, chapter III, Mutual Duties of Husband and Wife
For young men and young women
The Young Man's Friend and Guide through Life to Immortality
Counsel for young men setting out in life. James meets them where they are: preparing for life, undecided about religion, perplexed by controversy, succeeding or failing in business, emigrating, pleasing or grieving their parents. Chapters on Joseph and on the Book of Proverbs commend them as studies for youth, and the whole book presses decision for Christ and a life lived for eternity. Read The Young Man's Friend.
The Young Man from Home
A shorter, sharper book for young men who leave their parents' home for an apprenticeship, business or study in the city. James names the dangers of the move, shows step by step how respectable young men are led into vice, tells two such histories, and urges religion as their safety and comfort. The scan has scattered errors.
Avoid first sins: they always, or nearly so, lead on to others.
The Young Man from Home, chapter IV, The Progressive Manner and Successive Steps by Which Many Young Men Are Led Astray
Female Piety
The companion to his addresses to young men: a course of monthly sermons to young women. James traces what Christianity has done for women and their place in Scripture, then urges early conversion and a useful life, and counsels the young woman at home and away, the wife and the young mother, with studies of Rebekah, Martha and Mary. The scan misreads the first words of some chapters.
We want to see woman educated not to be man's play-thing, but his companion.
Female Piety, Woman's Mission
For the grieving
The Widow Directed to the Widow's God
A book of comfort for widows, which in its day was nearly the only one of its kind. Part I offers sympathy, counsel on submission ("Be still, and know that I am God"), consolation and the good that affliction can do. Part II studies the widows of the Bible, from Naomi and Ruth to the widow of Nain and Anna. Part III gathers letters of comfort, some written by widows themselves.
Sorrow is one of the natural affections of the soul, not to be uprooted, but cultivated.
The Widow Directed to the Widow's God, Part I: Submission
Read The Widow Directed to the Widow's God.
His life
The Life and Letters of John Angell James
This isn't a book James wrote himself, though much of it is in his own words. It was edited by R. W. Dale, his co-pastor and successor, and built around the autobiographical fragment James began in his last years, along with many of his letters. It follows his apprenticeship and conversion, his student days at Gosport, the long Birmingham ministry, the story of The Anxious Inquirer, his public causes, his struggle with depression and his death. Read The Life and Letters.
Why read John Angell James today
James is a pastor's pastor. He's plain, practical and warm, and he never lets the reader settle for a half-hearted faith. Begin with The Anxious Inquirer, then read Christian Progress to keep growing. All eighteen books are on the John Angell James author page.