John Wesley Feels His Heart Strangely Warmed

On the evening of 24 May 1738, an ordained Anglican clergyman named John Wesley reluctantly attended a meeting of a Christian society on Aldersgate Street in London. Wesley had recently returned from an exhausting and disappointing two-year mission in the American colony of Georgia, where pastoral difficulties and legal disputes had prompted him to depart abruptly. Depressed and troubled by a perceived lack of spiritual confidence, he listened as someone read aloud Martin Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans. As the reader described the inward change that God works through faith, Wesley recorded that he felt his heart strangely warmed, experiencing an assurance of personal salvation that transformed his approach to ministry.

Raised in Lincolnshire by devout parents and educated at the University of Oxford, Wesley had long pursued a rigorous, methodical religious life. Elected a fellow of Lincoln College in 1726, he returned to Oxford and joined his brother Charles and other young scholars in a small student society that critics mockingly called the Holy Club. Its members practiced intensive scripture reading, kept precise schedules of devotional duties, took weekly communion, fasted regularly, and visited local prisoners. Yet despite years of strict self-discipline and formal church service, Wesley remained unsatisfied with his inward piety until his contact with Moravian Christians during his transatlantic voyage and subsequent meetings in London turned his attention toward personal faith.