John Wesley – (1703-1791) 

The primary figure in the eighteenth century Evangelical Revival and founder of Methodism. Wesley was born in Epworth, England, to Samuel and Susanna Wesley, one of nineteen children. Although both his grandfathers distinguished themselves as Puritan Nonconformists, his parents returned to the Church of England, where his father for most of his ministry held the livings of Epworth (1697– 1735) and Wroot (1725-35). Wesley spent his early years under the careful direction of his remarkable mother, who sought to instill in him a sense of vital piety leading to a wholehearted devotion to God.

Wesley was educated at Charterhouse, a school for boys in London, and then Christ Church, Oxford, where he received the B.A. degree in 1724 and the M.A. degree in 1727. Although a serious student in both logic and religion, Wesley was not to experience his "religious" conversion until 1725. He was then confronted with what to do with the rest of his life. He decided (through the influence of his mother, a religious friend, and the reading of Jeremy Taylor and Thomas a Kempis) to make religion the "business of his life." He was ordained deacon (1725), elected to a fellowship at Lincoln College, Oxford (1726), and served as his father's curate at Wroot (1727-29). He then returned to Oxford and became the leader of a small band of students organized earlier by his younger brother, Charles. This band, dubbed the "Holy Club," would later be called "Methodist" for their prescribed method of studying the Bible and for their rigid self-denial which included many works of charity. During this period (1729-35) both John and Charles fell under the influence of the nonjuror and mystic William Law. Although Wesley confessed that he did not at that time understand justification by faith (seeking instead justification by his own works-righteousness), it was during this period that he formulated his views on Christian perfection, the hallmark of Methodism.

In 1735 (Wesley's Journal begins at this point and continues until shortly before his death) Wesley went to Georgia as a missionary to the Indians. Although the Indians eluded him, he did serve as priest to the Georgia settlers under General James Oglethorpe. During a storm in crossing Wesley was deeply impressed with a group of Moravians on board ship. Their faith in the face of death (the fear of dying was constantly with Wesley since his youth) predisposed disastrous experience in Georgia, he returned to England (1738) and met the Moravian Peter Bohler, who exhorted him to trust Christ alone for salvation. What had earlier been merely a religious conversion now became an "evangelical" conversion. At a Moravian band meeting on Aldersgate Street (May 24, 1738), as he listened to a reading from Luther's preface to his commentary on Romans, Wesley felt his "heart strangely warmed." Although scholars disagree as to the exact nature of this experience, nothing in Wesley was left untouched by his newfound faith. After a short journey to Germany to visit the Moravian settlement of Herrnhut, he returned to England and with George Whitefield, a former member of the Holy Club, began preaching salvation by faith.

Although Wesley was not a systematic theologian, his theology can be described with reasonable clarity from the study of his published sermons, tracts, treatises, and correspondence. In essence, Wesley's theology, so akin to the Reformation, affirms God's sovereign will to reverse our "sinful, devilish nature," by the work of his Holy Spirit, a process he called prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying grace (grace being nearly synonymous with the work of the Holy Spirit).

Prevenient or preventing grace for Wesley describes the universal work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts and lives of people between conception and conversion. Original sin, according to Wesley, makes it necessary for the Holy Spirit to initiate the relationship between God and people. Bound by sin and death, people experience the gentle wooing of the Holy Spirit, which prevents them from moving so far from "the way" that when they finally understand the claims of the gospel upon their lives, he guarantees their freedom to say yes. This doctrine constitutes the heart of Wesley's Arminianism. (From EVANGELICAL DICTIONARY OF THEOLOGY edited by Walter Elwell © Copyright 1984, by Baker Book HouseCompany.)

 

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