The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying 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