There can be few names in British Methodism that are as recognizable as that of W. E. Sangster. In W. E. Sangster: Herald of Holiness Andrew Cheatle explores this great Methodist preacher's understanding of what it means to live a holy life in the context of a world torn apart by two global wars and the looming threat of nuclear destruction. Sangster turned for inspiration to John Wesley's view of salvation that included a full restoration of the moral image of God in this life. Was Wesley scriptural? Was he too optimistic, or had he understood the heart of the gospel? Sangster approached these questions from the perspective of twentieth-century scientific and theological thought. His aim was to recover the meaning of holy living for a church in a world of crisis.

Listened to by huge congregations in Britain, and perhaps the most recognizable British Methodist voice in the mid-twentieth century, W. E. Sangster was, in anyone's estimation, a giant of Methodism. "A preacher without peer in the world," "a prince of preachers," are just two of the labels attached to this preacher/theologian of the Methodist tradition. This volume captures the preaching of Sangster in his prime, on the occasion of the 1956 World Methodist Conference in Junaluska, North Carolina. Cheatle's research brings into the public domain ten sermons, nine previously unpublished in this form, delivered by Sangster at that great gathering of World Methodism. These sermons, being transcripts from recordings, picked up Sangster "in the raw," at his most powerful, engaging with his listeners. This book is a resource, therefore, that aids students of homiletics and pastors in encountering a master at work, without the editorial polish of his extant sermons. The sermons on aspects of Christian holiness would be Sangster's first and last sequential series on the subject, placing before the reader some of his most mature thought on holiness and its application in daily life.

Stephen Holmes offers the reader a clear and thorough examination of the doctrine of Testament to the present day. Taking the late twentieth century revival of the doctrine of the Trinity as a context, doctrine from the biblical text to the present day. The book traces the exegetical and philosophical debates that led to the settling of the ecumenical doctrine of the Trinity in the fourth century, and then explores how this doctrine was developed, questioned and received throughout history.

Wesley and Methodist Studies (WMS) publishes peer-reviewed essays that examine the life and work of John and Charles Wesley, their contemporaries (proponents or opponents) in the eighteenth-century Evangelical Revival, their historical and theological antecedents, their successors in the Wesleyan tradition, and studies of the Wesleyan and Evangelical traditions today. Its primary historical scope is the eighteenth century to the present; however, WMS will publish essays that explore the historical and theological antecedents of the Wesleys (including work on Samuel and Susanna Wesley), Methodism, and the Evangelical Revival. WMS has a dual and broad focus on both history and theology. Its aim is to present significant scholarly contributions that shed light on historical and theological understandings of Methodism broadly conceived. Essays within the thematic scope of WMS from the disciplinary perspectives of literature, philosophy, education and cognate disciplines are welcome. WMS is a collaborative project of the Manchester Wesley Research Centre and The Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History, Oxford Brookes University.

This monograph presents the most comprehensive investigation yet made into the healing activity of the Early Church. In contrast to early skeptics such as B. B. Warfield, the author is convinced that there was a vigorous healing ministry in the centuries that followed the apostles, though it fluctuated somewhat and changed its mode. Exorcism is prominently attested throughout the period. The pre-Nicene Fathers recognized its great apologetic value as a dramatic demonstration of the superiority of Jesus Christ over pagan gods. Interest in healing miracles per se appears to have been particularly characteristic of the less educated members of the Church and those who were chaste in their devotion to the cause of Christ. Among these groups, gifts of healing were found, becoming rare it seems by the mid-third century but well attested again later in monastic circles.

This new edition expands and updates the only general interpretation of the rise and influence of perfectionist revivalism in America and Europe. Fifteen years of expanding research on the holiness movement reinforce this volume's continuing seminal value to cultural and social research. The new concluding essay describes the history of the revival through the turn of the century. This book expands our understanding of the fragmentation and coalescence of American religion by analyzing the factors which created numerous new holiness denominations. Dieter also outlines the historical and theological factors that separate this largely Wesleyan and Methodist wing of evangelicalism from the fundamentalism of Reformed evangelicals. The identification of such nuances will prove especially helpful to those struggling with the extreme diversity in American religion, especially in evangelicalism. For students and scholars of American religious movements as well as students of the feminist, temperance, abolitionist, and populist movements in American society.