Doctrinal and Controversial Treatises III (The Works of John Wesley, <i>volume 14</i>)

This latest volume in the Bicentennial Edition of The Works of John Wesley completes the three-volume subset devoted to his doctrinal and controversial treatises. The four sections cover, respectively, Wesley’s critical engagement with the Moravians, Roman Catholic doctrine and practice, the theology and practice of baptism, and assorted other treatises. Appendix A indicates the textual history of each treatise, including brief details of every edition published during Wesley’s lifetime, together with a guide to variant readings. Appendix B provides convenient access to four manuscript items that help document and illuminate Wesley’s interest in the primitive church during his last five years at Oxford University (1730–35). The volume concludes with indexes to the three-volume subset. Besides the Index of Scriptural References and General Index, a meticulously presented Bibliographical Index opens numerous avenues for detailed study. The bibliography includes published items of authors abridged, quoted, or otherwise mentioned by Wesley in the collection of doctrinal and controversial treatises contained in volumes twelve to fourteen of the Bicentennial Edition of his works, as well as items cited by the editors in their introductory essays, comments, and footnotes.The editors are established scholars in the field of Methodist and Wesley studies. Sarah Heaner Lancaster is Professor of Theology at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio; Randy L. Maddox is Professor Emeritus of Theol­ogy and Wesleyan Studies at Duke Divinity School; Kelly Diehl Yates is Adjunct Professor of Professional Studies at Southern Nazarene University and author of a relevant book on Wesley’s understanding of ‘Catholic Spirit’. The editors each contribute an introductory essay to their respective sections: ‘Treatises Emerging from Debate with the Moravians’ (Lancaster); ‘Treatises on Roman Catholic Belief and Practice’ (Yates and Maddox); ‘Treatises on the Theology and Practice of Baptism’ (Maddox); ‘Other Doctrinal and Controversial Treatises’ (Maddox). Concise introductory comments on each item assist the reader in understanding the material.Several of these treatises are frequently cited in the field of Wesley studies but often in isolation and rarely with sufficiently close attention to detail and historical context or even their setting within the Wesleyan corpus and the development of Wesley’s thought over more than half a century. Others are relatively obscure and seldom feature in studies of Wesley’s prodigious output in the maelstrom of eighteenth-century theological controversy. Since many of the contentious issues that Wesley addressed have proved to be remarkably resilient in subsequent centuries, his engagement with Reformation and Enlightenment thought continue to be of interest in the twenty-first century, if only within the sphere of historical theology and the history of ideas. Even by contemporary intellectual standards, Wesley’s understanding and critique of Roman Catholic belief and practice was either outdated or inadequate. Methodists steeped in Protestantism will be surprised to discover how Wesley never lost his High Church interest in restoring the practices of the primitive church (appendix B). The editors’ selection of material to include in this collection, together with their deft editorial commentary, provides the reader with a reliable means of reading Wesley in controversial and doctrinal mode.In completing the three-volume subset dealing with Wesley’s doctrinal and controversial treatises, volume fourteen provides Wesley and Methodist scholars with an invaluable resource for further research. By locating Wesley’s writings in their historical and intellectual context, the editors have set a standard for future studies on some of the most significant of Wesley’s writings. By grouping treatises in chronological order according to their overarching theme, the editors highlight the complexity and development of Wesley’s thought. Thus warned, the reader is discouraged from various anachronisms such as reading Wesley through the lens of late twentieth-century ecumenism with its theological convergence, which tends to obscure continuing doctrinal divergence.Methodist theologians and others interested in the enduring theological concerns of the eighteenth century will find rich material in this edited collection of Wesley’s doctrinal and controversial treatises. By no means is this scholarly edition exclusively of antiquarian interest, given the relevance of Wesley’s writing to topics of live interest today. Here editor and reader alike are helped by Wesley’s direct theological approach, even if his literary style is often discursive. The editors allow Wesley to speak and be understood across the cultural divide between the centuries, providing copious footnotes to give the reader much useful background or explain obscure references. General readers in Methodist and church history will find in this volume a window into an influential period of theological controversy and strident pamphleteering among the various Christian traditions and intellectual movements in eighteenth-century England.

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