A John Wesley Reader on Eschatology

John Wesley (1703-91) is widely recognized as a leader of the eighteenth-century Evangelical Revival and the founder of Methodism. Wesley popularized Arminian theology along with a special emphasis on the doctrine of Christian perfection. Today, scholarship on Wesley is flourishing and this has led to the publication of numerous studies on his life and thought. Still, a neglected area is a good introduction to his views on last things. The purpose of this Reader is to help fill this gap. As in other areas of theology or church practice, Wesley was not an innovator in the field of Christian eschatology. He did not introduce any new system, a new school of interpretation, or a new eschatological model. What he did do was to take the views then held by many Protestants and weave them into a vision of his own, an evangelical eschatology centered on the growth of Methodism and of the Revival.