Wesley's Heart “Strangely Warmed”

When he returned to England, Wesley gained a clearer understanding of Bible faith under the instruction of a Moravian. At a meeting of the Moravian society in London someone read a statement from Luther. As Wesley listened, faith stirred in him. “I felt my heart strangely warmed,” he says. “I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation, and God gave me assurance that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”^{10John Whitehead, Life of the Rev. Charles Wesley, page 52.}LF 109.1

Now he had found that the grace he had worked so hard to win by prayers and fasts and self-denial was a gift, “without money and without price.” His whole heart filled with the desire to spread the glorious gospel of God's free grace everywhere. “I see all the world as my parish,” he said. “In whatever part of it I am, I consider it fitting, right, and my solemn duty, to declare the glad tidings of salvation to all who are willing to hear.”^{11John Whitehead, Life of the Rev. Charles Wesley, page 74.}LF 109.2

He continued his strict and self-denying life, but now it was not the basis for his faith, but the result of it; not the root, but the fruit of holiness. The grace of God in Christ will show itself in obedience. Wesley devoted his life to preaching the great truths he had received—justification through faith in Christ's atoning blood, and the renewing power of the Holy Spirit on the heart, which produces fruit in a life that follows Christ's example.LF 109.3

In their university days, George Whitefield and the Wesleys were contemptuously called “Methodists” by their ungodly fellow students—a name regarded as honorable today. The Holy Spirit urged them to preach Christ and Him crucified, and thousands were truly converted. It was necessary to protect these sheep from the prowling wolves. John Wesley had no thought of forming a new denomination, but he organized the converts under what was called the Methodist Connection.LF 109.4

The opposition that these preachers met from the established church was mysterious and trying, but the truth found entrance where doors would otherwise remain closed. Some of the pastors awoke from their moral stupor and became zealous preachers in their own districts.LF 109.5

In Wesley's time, people of different gifts did not agree on every point of doctrine. At one point, the differences between Whitefield and the Wesleys threatened to divide them, but as they learned meekness in the school of Christ, mutual restraint and goodwill brought them back together. They had no time to dispute while error and sin were all around them.LF 109.6