Wesley S Forms Of Prayer 1733

This 1733 publication, John Wesley's first, arose out of his own devotional life. Originally, it was a collection of prayers compiled for his pupils and colleagues at Oxford. The content was drawn from a popular Anglican devotional manual first published twelve years earlier (1721), The True Church of England Man's Companion in the Closet; or, A Complete Manual of Private Devotion.The book, compiled by Nathaniel Spinckes, included prayers for morning and evening every day of the week, beginning with Sunday. Wesley not only revised the prayer which he reprinted from Spinckes, but assigned them to different days and times. He used other sources in addition to Spinckes, and may have added original prayers of his own.The preface is clearly Wesley's own, which he revised after sharing a draft with his father. Wesley also added a list of "particular questions" for self-examination before evening prayer each day and a briefer series of "general questions" for use every morning prefixed to the prayers for Monday. Here Wesley was following a practice of Western spiritual advisers from Robert Nelson and others in the 17th century back to Ignatius of Loyola in the 16th century.When Wesley revised the book for its fifth edition in 1740, he omitted the questions for self-examination and made the volume more suitable for general use by substituting "family" for "college" in several places. The elimination of the questions may have been in response to brother Samuel Wesley's criticism that the emphasis on self-examination was "mystic nonsense." Editions after 1755, including that in Wesley's collected works, restored the questions. Along the way, hymns were also added making later editions a popular book of worship for Methodist families and societies.

The leaders of the Methodist revival that swept 18th-century England, John and Charles Wesley reveal a spirituality that synthesized into a unique blend elements from the Church Fathers, Catholic mystics and Protestant Reformers. The major works of the Wesleys appear in this volume, including John Wesley's Plain Account of Christian Perfection and Charles Wesley's Hymns.

This is the first book length study of John Wesley's period as a missionary in colonial Georgia. The mission was a laboratory for implementing his views of primitive Christianity. The ideal of restoring the doctrine, discipline, and practice of the early church in the Georgia wilderness was a prime motivation for Wesley's missionary activity.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1872. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.