John Wesley’s Awakening

John Wesley (1703-1791) was an English cleric, theologian and evangelist who was a leader of a revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The societies he founded became the dominant form of the independent Methodist movement that continues to this day.

“The old-time, narrow, sectarian view of Wesley as the Founder of Methodism, and therefore the patron-saint and peculiar property of one denomination, dispraised and undervalued by all others, has largely given way to the world-view which ranks him with the major prophets, apostles, and saints of all time. His tablet is in Westminster Abbey, with the memorials of monarchs, statesmen, empire-builders, philanthropists, and men of letters. The scholars of two continents have begun to recognize him as belonging in the grand succession of Saint Paul, Saint Augustine, Martin Luther, and John Wesley—the great awakeners of the human soul—themselves awakened by the touch of God.

“This book owes its existence to a call for something which should present in brief compass and in non-theological language the personality and work of John Wesley, with special reference to the spiritual experience at Aldersgate, which marked the turning-point in his career.”