John Wesley led one of the greatest Christian revivals in the history of England, and his open air preaching saw many thousands of conversions all across Great Britain. The ‘Forty-Four Sermons’ which he compiled for use by Methodist Local Preachers remains a timeless classic, and a definitive collection of core Wesleyan doctrine, along with his Notes on the New Testament. 

Forty-Four Sermons was first published in 1759, over 250 years ago, and since then the English language has changed and evolved to the point that his works can no longer be easily read and understood in their original dialect. Therefore, to preserve Wesley’s message and to bring it to life for a new generation, this project has been undertaken. 

The sermons are translated sentence by sentence, carefully and prayerfully. The aim has been to communicate both word-for-word and thought-for-thought, choosing clarity of communication in simple English over archaic sentence structure where necessary, and preferring the original word order when there is no difference.

Wesley used the King James Bible in his original sermons, whereas to remain consistent with the word-for-word and thought-for-thought method used in these translations, the New International Version and New Living Translation have been used instead. Each original sermon is also included. All forty-four sermons will be translated and published in order, and when the series is completed, they will be published as one volume.