John Wesley entered
Oxford University in 1720. He completed
his master's degree in 1727 and was ordained a priest in the Church of England
in 1728. After a brief period of assisting
in his father's parish John returned to Oxford in 1729 as a Fellow (a kind of
tutor or junior faculty member.)
Meanwhile, John's
younger brother Charles had arrived at Oxford in 1726 and by 1727 had begun to
meet with other serious Christian students for intensive Bible study, prayer,
support, and accountability. They would also
soon begin collecting money and items for the poor in town and visiting the
sick and those in prison.
Other students referred
to this group as the "Holy Club," "Bible Moths," or
"Methodists," due to their methodical practice of Christianity. Of course the name Methodists would
stick.
When John returned to
Oxford in 1729 he took over leadership of the group. By 1733 there were 27 “Methodists.” The group continued to meet even after John
and Charles left for Georgia in 1735.
On October 14th,
1735 John and Charles set sail for the Georgia Colony becoming the first of the
great Reformers to set foot on American soil.
John was to be the priest to the church in Savannah and a missionary to
the Native Americans. Charles was a chaplain to the fort and colony
at Fort Frederica.
Neither found success
in their ministries in America. Their
American parishioners found them to be too strict for their tastes. Charles returned to England on July 26, 1736.
John's American
experience was more eventful. John began
courting a woman named Sophie Hopkey, the niece of a colonial official. However, the socially awkward John courted
too slowly and Sophie married another man.
A short time later, John refused to serve Communion to Sophie on a
technicality. Sophie's husband and uncle
charged John with defamation of her character.
John
fled Georgia a wanted man on December 22, 1737 and returned to England as
failure in his own eyes.
During the years at
Oxford and his time in America John was a very strict religious man but had not
yet had a spiritual awakening or an experience of conversion. Up until this point in his life John based his
religion on, in his words, "Not being as bad as other people."
Among the Wesley's
shipmates on the voyage to America were a group of Moravian Christians from
Germany. Their faith and peace during a
storm at sea impressed John and he began to ask them question. John discovered that the Moravians had a
personal faith in Jesus Christ and an assurance of salvation that were entirely
foreign to him and for which he deeply longed.
When he landed back in
England John was at the lowest point in his life; he wrote in his journal,
"I
went to America, to convert the Indians; but oh! who shall convert
me?" It was in this state that John
was ripe for the spiritual experience that would change his life forever. I include below the most famous passage of
John Wesley’s journal. From May 24, 1738
as John describes his experience at a Moravian meeting in London.
In
the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where
one was reading Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter
before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart
through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust
in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me that he
had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.
Pastor
Brian
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