This volume from "The Classics of Western Spirituality" series is a very good overview of the writings of John and Charles Wesley. The book is divided into 3 parts: Selected writings of John Wesley; Selected Hymns of Charles Wesley; and John Wesley's "A Plain Account of Christian Perfection." The last is the strongest part of the book, but it has an unfair advantage of being the only piece published in its entirety. The "Plain Account" gives a very clear of what John Wesley meant by "perfection" (which is quite different than what we might assume it to mean). Though it is a relatively short work, it is one that is worthy of further study.

The selections of hymns by Charles Wesley are wonderful, but I had two misgivings about them. First, it is quite difficult to read 121 hymns consecutively; this would constitute quite a long poetry collection. Second, without the music, it was often hard to hear the hymns as they were intended. Since Charles Wesley wrote them to be sung, I couldn't help but wish for the music. If there was one problem with the selection, it was that the ordering did not seem to make clear sense to me.

The first section, which had a wide variety of John Wesley's writing, was the least successful. In part, the weakness is in the genre of "Selected Writings" generally. The works are mostly extracts and thus are out of place contextually. The important extracts are here: Wesley's description of his heart being "strangely warmed" and his letter to Wilberforce encouraging him in his fight against slavery are both welcome additions to any collection. The most memorable of the other pieces were some of the letters John wrote to his sisters as he encouraged them in their faith.

For people interested in the Methodist movement or in the religious history of 18th century England, this is an excellent volume. I look forward to reading further volumes from this series. ( )