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    Wesley's Revision of The Shorter Catechism
    Wesley's Revision of The Shorter Catechism
    Wesley's Revision of The Shorter Catechism
    Ebook124 pages1 hour

    Wesley's Revision of The Shorter Catechism

    By John Wesley

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    The formation of the Christian faith in the hearts and minds of believers was of supreme importance in John Wesley’s evangelical ministry. It was so important that he placed this revision of the Westminster Shorter Catechism in his Christian Library intending for it to be read by his preachers as a part of their ongoing theological education.

    Wesley’s Revision of the Shorter Catechism serves as a crucial work in The John Wesley Collection as it demonstrates the extent to which foundational Christian doctrine was important to Wesley’s view of the Christian life. Not only does his revision establish the significance of catechesis to the Wesleyan theological tradition, it also helps us to understand those points of divergence between Wesley’s Arminian perspective and the Reformed perspective of the Shorter Catechism. This edition also contains the thorough commentary prepared by James Alexander MacDonald.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSeedbed
    Release dateJun 21, 2016
    ISBN9781628242614
    Wesley's Revision of The Shorter Catechism

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      Wesley's Revision of The Shorter Catechism - John Wesley

      Wesley’s Revision of The Shorter Catechism

      Wesley’s Revision of The Shorter Catechism

      The Westminster Shorter Catechism of 1648 as revised by Rev. John Wesley, M.A. with Notes Explanatory of Wesley’s Alterations

      The John Wesley Collection

      Andrew C. Thompson

      Executive Editor

      Copyright 2016 by Seedbed Publishing

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.

      Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version, Cambridge, 1796 or from John Wesley’s own translation.

      Printed in the United States of America

      Paperback ISBN: 978-1-62824-259-1

      Mobi ISBN: 978-1-62824-260-7

      ePub ISBN: 978-1-62824-261-4

      uPDF ISBN: 978-1-62824-262-1

      Cover design by Strange Last Name

      Page design by PerfecType

      Wesley, John, 1703-1791.

      Wesley’s revision of the shorter catechism : the Westminster shorter catechism of 1648 as revised by Rev. John Wesley, M.A. with notes explanatory of Wesley’s alterations. – Frankin, Tennessee : Seedbed Publishing, ©2016.

      xxiii, 94 pages ; 21 cm. – (John Wesley collection)

      Includes bibliographical references.

      ISBN 9781628242591 (paperback)

      ISBN 9781628242607 (Mobi)

      ISBN 9781628242614 (ePub)

      ISBN 9781628242591 (uPDF)

      1. Westminster Assembly (1643-1652). Shorter catechism. 2. Catechisms, English – History and criticism.    I. Title.   II. Westminster Assembly (1643-1652). Shorter catechism.

      BX9184.A5 W47 2016                    238/.52                    2016940939

      SEEDBED PUBLISHING

      Franklin, Tennessee

      seedbed.com

      CONTENTS

      Publisher’s Foreword

      Preface to the 1906 Edition

      Introduction

      Wesley’s Revision of the Shorter Catechism

      Notes on Wesley’s Revision of the Shorter Catechism

      PUBLISHER’S FOREWORD

      John Wesley’s profound legacy and impact on world Christianity in his lifetime and since can be viewed through several lenses. The revival that arose under his leadership changed the social and political structure of eighteenth-century England as the poor and lost found hope in the gospel of Jesus Christ rather than in revolution against the crown. The influence of Wesley’s Spirit-inspired teaching continued unabated as the Methodist movement spread scriptural holiness across the American continent and lands far beyond.

      Wesley’s influence as a publisher represents an astonishing record in its own right. Wesley lived in a time when Gutenberg’s invention of movable type, which had immediately preceded Luther’s reformation, had coalesced into specialized printing trades in London. Typefounders and printeries offered exciting new pathways for the spread of the gospel through inexpensive printed text.

      Perhaps more than any other figure of his day, Wesley embraced this new technology and issued sermons, tracts, commentaries, abridgments, biographies, and a host of other items that he considered relevant to the spiritual growth of maturing Christians.

      Wesley was vitally driven by the reality of the inner witness of the Holy Spirit. His teaching on entire sanctification, or Christian perfection, is the capstone of his legacy. He worked tirelessly to abridge and republish seminal works by historical figures of previous generations, reaching as far back as the apostolic fathers of the first-century church. He constantly curated voices that communicated the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing believers into the fullness of salvation and lives of holy love.

      These writings resourced the early Methodists in their quest to spread the gospel by providing the intellectual and spiritual moorings for the messengers of the movement. Seedbed believes these writings are as relevant today as they were in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

      With great joy we present The John Wesley Collection. In the years ahead, Seedbed will reissue selections from this vast collection, which includes his fifty-volume Christian Library, some 150 sermons, countless items from his journals and letters, as well as innumerable tracts, hymns, poems, and other publications, most of which have been out of circulation for decades, if not centuries. We encourage you to enter these texts with determination. Readers who persevere will soon find themselves accustomed to the winsome tenor and tempo of Wesley’s voice and vernacular.

      Seedbed’s editors are constantly examining the more than 250 years of vital spiritual writing by Wesley and successive generations to find the most relevant and helpful messages that will speak to today’s body of believers. We commend this old-new publishing work to you as one ready to be transformed by the latent power of these ancient truths. It is our prayer that these timeless words will add fuel to the fire of an awakening ready to ignite once again across the world.

      Sola sancta caritas! Amen.

      Andrew Miller

      Seedbed Publishing

      PREFACE TO THE 1906 EDITION

      John Wesley’s edition of the Shorter Catechism is found in his Christian Library, vol. xiv., p. 387, entitled An Extract from the Assembly’s Shorter Catechism; with the proofs thereof out of the Scriptures. We do not know that it was ever printed separately; though such a publication would have been highly useful, both in Scotland and elsewhere, in order to set forth clearly the points of agreement and difference between his system of theology and that of the Westminster Divines. The method followed in the present edition is that of taking the Catechism as it is ordinarily printed for use in Scotland, and showing by deletions and alterations . . . , exactly what changes Wesley made in the text. As the reason of some of these alterations was liable—as, for example, in the instance of adoption—to be misunderstood, it was found necessary to add notes of explanation.

      John Wesley’s opinion of the Westminster Catechisms is expressed in his treatise on Original Sin, where he has devoted thirteen pages to defend the Assembly of Divines against the strictures of Dr. John Taylor of Norwich. Of their Larger Catechism he says: To this I never subscribed; but I think it is in the main a very excellent composition, which I shall therefore cheerfully endeavor to defend, so far as I conceive it is grounded on clear Scripture (Works, vol. ix., p. 261).

      The time appears opportune for the consideration of the relations between the doctrinal systems of the Presbyterian and Methodist Churches. In Canada, efforts are being made for union between the two large bodies of Christians. The Declaratory Acts of the Scottish United Free Churches show clearly that the Arminian doctrines are no longer held to disqualify those who hold them from membership or ministry. The Act of Parliament signed by the king on August the 10th, 1905, appears to be opening the way for a larger adhesion to the Established Church of Scotland of many who hold the sum and substance of the Reformed religion. Wesley’s Revision of the Shorter Catechism may fairly raise the question whether he and his followers are to be regarded as rightly in the succession and fellowship of the Reformed Churches.

      In John Wesley, we may trace the influence and union of many different streams of piety. Anglicanism and Puritanism affected him from his fathers. Moravianism powerfully assisted him to grasp the principle of justification by faith, and the influence of Scottish piety left a deep stamp upon him at the most formative period of his life through Henry Scougal’s Life of God in the Soul of Man. The principles of the Scottish Prayer Societies were reproduced in Wesley’s classes—religious societies originally designed to flourish and abide within the fold of the Established Churches.

      This life of God in the soul of man is the essence of true Christianity. It is the secret of Pentecost, again and again revealed in new power when the church tends to perish in coldness and unbelief. Such movements as those of Keswick exemplify the energy of the divine Spirit in our own day, and indicate that a renewal of the prayer life of the church is the way to the renewal of her youth and power.

      A general effusion of the Holy Spirit’s grace would most surely tend to bring various bodies of scattered Christians into living union. It is not by the efforts of ecclesiastical politics that such unions will be most successful. In the present state of religious division and perplexity in Scotland—if not in England and the empire at large—it might fairly be asked whether the time will not come for calling once more an Assembly of Divines, in order to learn on what points the great masses of Protestants are agreed. We have seen a successful union for the revision of the English Bible. Why should we not see a similar effort to revise our Confessions? The Scottish Confession of 1560, at any rate, invites future ages to this task. What greater service could our gracious King Edward the Seventh render to the distracted churches than to command such a council to convene?

      . . . As far as we can judge, there is but one

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