The Standard Sermons of John Wesely
Intended to provide patterns of preaching and teaching for the people called Methodists, John Wesley published several editions of his sermons, beginning in 1746, to set down what he found as “the way to heaven, with a view to distinguish this way of God from all those which are the inventions of men.” The compilation of forty-four of those sermons were intended to provide a “model deed” for what was preached from a Methodist pulpit in the ongoing life of the church. These particular sermons were regarded by Wesley as being of distinct value, and intended to serve as “standards” for teaching Christian doctrine in the church:
1. Salvation by Faith
2. The Almost Christian
3. Awake, Thou That Sleepest
4. Scriptural Christianity
5. Justification By Faith
6. The Righteousness of Faith
7. The Way to the Kingdom
8. The First-Fruits of the Spirit
9. The Spirit of Bondage and of Adoption
10. The Witness of the Spirit – Discourse I
11. The Witness of our own Spirit
12. The Means of Grace
13. The Circumcision of the Heart
14. The Marks of the New Birth
15. The Great Privilege of those that are Born of God
16-28. Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount (13 Discourses)
29. The Original, Nature, Property and Use of the Law
30-31. The Law Established through Faith Discourse (2 Discourses)
32. The Nature of Enthusiasm
33. A Caution against Bigotry
34. Catholic Spirit
35. Christian Perfection
36. Wondering Thoughts
37. Satan’s Devices
38. Original Sin
39. The New Birth
40. The Wilderness State
41. Heaviness through Manifold Temptations
42. Self-Denial
43. The Cure of Evil Speaking
44. The Use of Money
The 1771 edition of Wesley’s Works included nine additional sermons:
The Witness of the Spirit
On Sin in Believers
The Repentance of Believers
The Great Assize
The Lord Our Righteousness
The Scripture Way of Salvation
The Good Steward
The Reformation of Manners
On the Death of George Whitefield
In addition to the forty-four, these nine sermons were adopted as standards of doctrine for the American church in 1784. The 1787-88 edition of Wesley’s sermons included only the forty-four, in keeping with the stipulations of the model deed.
The additional nine sermons supplement the original forty-four, providing additional teaching on matters of practical divinity and other topics.