John Wesley Books: A Guide to All 19 and Where to Start

Sermons Holiness Church History Theology

John Wesley (1703–1791) led the Methodist revival, and he wrote and printed books all his life. Some are his own sermons, letters and defenses of Methodism. Many others are books by other Christians that he shortened and reprinted so his people could afford them. TheWay Library has nineteen Wesley books, all free to read: his Forty-Four Sermons, a collection of his teaching on Christian perfection, a book of his letters, and the first sixteen volumes of the 32-volume Works of the Rev. John Wesley printed in Bristol in the early 1770s. For his life story, see who was John Wesley.

The Works volumes are the confusing part, so this guide tells you what each one holds and whose words they are.

Where to start

If you're new to Wesley, start with Forty-Four Sermons. These are the standard sermons he published to set out what Methodists believe. Read "The Almost Christian," "The Scripture Way of Salvation," "Catholic Spirit" and "The Use of Money" first.

After that, choose by what you want:

His teaching on holiness: Christian Perfection.
His pastoral counsel: Select Letters, Chiefly on Personal Religion.
How the Methodist societies worked: Works, volume 15.
The devotional books that shaped early Methodism: Works, volumes 5 to 8.

For his best lines, see our collection of John Wesley quotes.

His three single books

Forty-Four Sermons

The standard Sermons on Several Occasions, which Wesley said contain the substance of what he had preached for eight or nine years. They run from salvation by faith and the witness of the Spirit to the new birth, thirteen discourses on the Sermon on the Mount, Christian perfection, the catholic spirit and the use of money. This edition is restored from a scan and has some misread words, so for careful study you may want the same sermons in Works volumes 1 to 4. Read Forty-Four Sermons.

Christian Perfection

A topical collection of what Wesley taught about entire sanctification, drawn from his sermons, journals, letters and conference minutes, with an introduction by W. F. Mallalieu. Chapters cover how Wesley was led to the doctrine, what perfect love is, why it is distinct from the new birth, how it is received by faith, and how it may be lost. It ends with his own Plain Account of Christian Perfection.

By perfection, I mean perfect love, or the loving God with all our heart, so as to rejoice evermore, to pray without ceasing, and in everything to give thanks.
Christian Perfection, The Nature of Christian Perfection

Read Christian Perfection.

Select Letters, Chiefly on Personal Religion

Letters chosen to show Wesley's "simplicity of purpose," with a sketch of his character by Samuel Bradburn, who knew him. There are early letters to his parents and brother, letters to William Law and Count Zinzendorf, and many letters of counsel to Methodist preachers and private friends on weakness, temptation, prayer and perfect love. Read Select Letters.

The Works, volumes 1 to 4: the sermons

The first four volumes hold Wesley's sermons in the text of his own day. They're the best place to read his preaching.

Volume 1: his preface ("plain truth for plain people") and sixteen sermons, from "Salvation by Faith" and "The Almost Christian" through two sermons on the witness of the Spirit, "On Sin in Believers," "The Great Assize" and "The Means of Grace."
Volume 2: "The Circumcision of the Heart," "The Marks of the New Birth," "The Lord Our Righteousness," and the first ten discourses on the Sermon on the Mount, where he argues that Christianity is a social religion.
Volume 3: the last Sermon on the Mount discourses, sermons on the law, "A Caution against Bigotry," "Catholic Spirit," "Christian Perfection," "The Scripture Way of Salvation," "Original Sin," "The New Birth" and "The Wilderness State."
Volume 4: "Self-Denial," "The Cure of Evil-Speaking," "The Use of Money," "The Good Steward," and his funeral sermon for George Whitefield, then his advice to Methodists on dress, a treatise on marriage he abridged from an older writer, and the start of his extract of William Law's Christian Perfection.

Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike?
The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, Vol. 3, Sermon XXXIX: Catholic Spirit

The Works, volumes 5 to 8: books he edited for his people

These four volumes are not Wesley's own writing. They are his abridged editions of other authors, which he printed so that Methodists could read the best devotional books cheaply. The words belong to those writers, shortened and lightly edited by Wesley.

Volume 5: William Law. The closing chapters of Christian Perfection and the first seventeen chapters of A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, on giving the whole of life to God. The volume has no heading naming Law, so readers may not realize whose book it is.
Volume 6: more William Law. The last two chapters of A Serious Call, then Law's Case of Reason against the deists and his answers to Dr. Trapp and Bishop Warburton.
Volume 7: Law's Spirit of Prayer, Spirit of Love, letters and Address to the Clergy, and the start of The Christian Pattern, Wesley's edition of Thomas à Kempis's Imitation of Christ.
Volume 8: the rest of The Christian Pattern, a treatise on Christian prudence, A. H. Francke's Nicodemus on the fear of man, and Henry Scougal's Life of God in the Soul of Man.

If you want to know what Wesley himself read and recommended, these are the volumes to open.

The Works, volumes 9 to 13: tracts and Christian lives

Volume 9: an account of the manners of the early Christians, an extract on salvation, faith and good works, Wesley's abridgment of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Joseph Alleine's letters from prison, and Wesley's own short tracts, A Word to a Sabbath-Breaker, to a Swearer, to a Drunkard and others.
Volume 10: Wesley's Serious Thoughts after the Lisbon earthquake, his forms of prayer for each morning and evening of the week and for families, his Address to the Clergy, and short accounts of godly deaths. Some of the later sections are incomplete and out of order.
Volume 11: lives Wesley edited: the end of Thomas Haliburton's life, a chapter of M. de Renty's, and most of the life of the Irish preacher Thomas Walsh. Some chapters are out of order.
Volume 12: the last chapter of Walsh's life, then Wesley's abridgment of Jonathan Edwards's Life of David Brainerd, the missionary to the Indians, told mostly through Brainerd's diary.
Volume 13: Brainerd's letters, the journals of young Mary Gilbert and Elizabeth Harper, and short accounts of early Methodist women and their deaths.

Except for Wesley's tracts, prayers and prefaces, these are other people's words. They are still moving reading, and they show the kind of faith Wesley hoped every Methodist would have.

The Works, volumes 14 to 16: Methodism explained and defended

Volume 14: letters and diaries of early Methodists, including the young servant Jane Cooper, then Wesley's Earnest Appeal and Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion, his case that Methodism is simply the love of God and neighbor.
Volume 15: the second part of the Farther Appeal, A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists, the General Rules of the United Societies, the minutes of the first conferences, The Character of a Methodist and a short history of Methodism.
Volume 16: Advice to the People Called Methodists, The Principles of a Methodist, and Wesley's letters answering the Bishop of London and other critics.

A Methodist is one, who has the love of God shed abroad in his heart, by the Holy Ghost given unto him: one who loves the Lord his God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind, and with all his strength.
The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, Vol. 15, The Character of a Methodist

Why read Wesley today

Wesley writes for ordinary people who want to know God and live for Him. He's clear about grace and serious about holiness, and he never lets faith stay in the head. Begin with Forty-Four Sermons or volume 1 of the Works, then go on to Christian Perfection. All nineteen books are on the John Wesley author page.