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Reviewed by Jonathan D. Marlowe, pastor of Shiloh United Methodist Church, Granite Quarry, North Carolina John and Charles Wesley: Selected Prayers, Hymns, and Sermons When I saw that Peter Gomes had been asked to write the foreword to this volume on John and Charles Wesley, I was perplexed. Peter Gomes is a great preacher and writer, I thought, but Wesley studies is not his forte. Surely, for a serious academic treatment of Wesleyan theology, the foreword would be written by someone like Heitzenrater, Maddox, or Oden. But after reading this brief sampling of Wesleyan writings, I realized exactly why the editor had asked Peter Gomes to write the foreword. For this small book does not pretend to be an exhaustive treatment of Wesleyan theology in the formal, academic sense. Rather, it seeks to give the reader a taste of Wesleyan spirituality, a window into the soul of the Wesley brothers, a sense of their journey in Christian faith. Gomes sets the tone for the rest of the book by expressing his appreciation for the Wesleyan hymns that have sustained him since childhood. The second half of the book provides the texts for forty of Charles Wesley’s most famous hymns. Although we love to sing them as hymns, it is refreshing to read them simply as poetry. Sometimes I have become so familiar with the music that the words do not have time to sink in. Reading them as poetry and as prayers makes room for a fresh perspective in so many ways, not least in our devotional lives. It was also interesting to note how the words of these hymns have changed over the last two centuries. Some of the verses that Charles Wesley originally penned are different from what we see in our hymnal today, and seeing them in their original wordings in this text gives one an appreciation for their historical nature and the way language changes over time (and usually for the wisdom of our hymnal editors over the last two hundred years!) Whereas this volume uses the hymns of Charles Wesley to display the intimacy of his faith, John Wesley’s soul is disclosed in his journals and spiritual exercises. Of particular interest to me was the way this volume puts the famous Aldersgate story in its context within John Wesley’s journal. We are so familiar with the last paragraph of his entry for May 24, 1738, but I had never read his entire entry for that day. On May 24, 1738, Wesley retraces his entire life’s spiritual pilgrimage as if it had come to a climax that evening when he “went very unwillingly to a society meeting in Aldersgate Street…” In his journal for May 24, 1738, Wesley first talks about how he had “sinned away that washing of the Holy Ghost which was given me in baptism,” how his father had “pressed him to enter into Holy Orders,” the influence of Thomas a Kempis and William Law, and how he had been frustrated in his work in Georgia. Wesley wanted to explain all this before he told us about his heart being “strangely warmed.” This gave me new appreciation for the significance of Aldersgate in Wesley’s own spiritual self-understanding, while maintaining the understanding that this was one point on Wesley’s journey, not the destination of that journey. What emerges from this little volume on the Wesleys is not a full-scale representation of all the complexities of their theology, but an invitation to join them in prayer, praise, and holy living. To do more careful academic research, one would need to turn to a resource like The Works of John Wesley on CD-Rom. This CD contains the 14-volume Jackson edition, the Bicentennial edition volumes 1-4, 7, 18-24 and the King James version of the Bible. Even for someone who is not particularly adept at navigating one’s way around a computer, this powerful research tool can be extremely useful. Once I took a few minutes to read the instructions and understand how it works, I was able to perform a variety of tasks using the software. (Note: keep the printed instructions in a convenient spot near the computer; they were very useful, especially when I first started.) How helpful it could be while working on a sermon, a paper, or a Sunday School lesson, to have this incredible wealth of information literally at your fingertips. The user can search instantly for any particular word, phrase, or biblical passage used by Wesley. Queries will also search the included commentaries by Frank Baker, Albert Outler, and Richard Heitzenrater. Highlighting, bookmarking, cutting and pasting into separate documents are all done with a few clicks of the mouse. One of the cleverest features is the way you can see when John Wesley is quoting from the King James Version of the Bible, and then click immediately to go to that passage of the Bible in its entire context. Then, one can click right back to the Wesleyan text one was reading. Even Greek and Hebrew fonts are included so that one can see how Wesley occasionally referred to the original biblical languages. Some users do not mind reading long passages directly off the computer monitor, while others prefer to print out a hard copy. Either method can be used with this software. Since the software was designed for use with Microsoft Windows 95 or higher, Macintosh users will be disappointed. However, PC users will save an incredible amount of room on the bookshelf. Imagine how much easier it would make moving day if all of our books were on CD-Rom. Although the CD-Rom is a new way of viewing Wesley’s writing, the content of the Wesleyan corpus remains the same: disciplined, pious, learned, and completely devoted to the glory of God and the building up of God’s people. I was struck with the irony of using such modern techniques to learn more about a man who lived over two hundred years ago. But I suppose Wesley would be pleased. After all, he did say to “do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” Surely a computer would be one of the means he would encourage us to use as we do good.
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