Mr. Wesley's religious experience deserves special notice. If he was raised up by God for any purpose, it was to revive spiritual Christianity, which included justification by faith, entire sanctification, and the witness of the Holy Spirit. To understand his own experience on these doctrines is the object of this chapter.

Let us first notice the external religious life which Mr. Wesley maintained prior to the wonderful change which occurred soon after his return from America. From his journals we learn that he said prayers both public and private, and read the Scriptures and other good books constantly. He experienced sensible comfort in reading À Kempis, resulting in an entire change in his conversation and life. He set apart two hours each day for religious retirement, and received the sacrament every week. He watched against every sin, whether in word or deed. He shook off all his trifling acquaintances, and was careful that every moment of his time should be improved. He not only watched over his own heart, but urged others to become religious. He visited those in prison, assisted the poor and sick, and did what he could with his presence and means for the souls and bodies of men. He deprived himself of all the superfluities and many of the necessaries of life that he might help others. He fasted twice each week, omitted no part of self-denial which he thought lawful, and carefully used in public and private at every opportunity all the means of grace. For the doing of these things he became a byword, but rejoiced that his name was cast out as evil. His sole aim was to do God's will and secure inward holiness. Sometimes he had joy, sometimes sorrow; sometimes the terror of the law alarmed him, and sometimes the comforts of the Gospel cheered him. He had many remarkable answers to prayer, and many sensible soul comforts.

Let us next notice Mr. Wesley's estimate of his own religious state at this time.

He found that he had not such faith in Christ as kept his heart from being troubled in time of danger, for in a storm he cried unto God every moment, but in a calm he did not. His words he discovered to be such as did not edify, especially his manner of speaking of his enemies. By these he was convinced of unbelief and pride. He gives a dark picture of his state at this time, much darker than the light of after years justified. "I went to America," he says, "to convert the Indians, but O, who shall convert me? O, who will deliver me from this fear of death?"

On landing in England he writes: "It is now two years and almost four months since I left my native country in order to teach the Georgia Indians the nature of Christianity, but what have I learned myself in the meantime? Why, what I least of all expected—that I, who went to America to convert others, was never myself converted to God."

He further says: "This, then, have I learned in the ends of the earth—that I am fallen short of the glory of God, alienated from the life of God; I am a child of wrath, an heir of hell."

In later years, when carefully reconsidering his early experience, Mr. Wesley was not disposed to form the same severe judgment of his religious state. He wisely added several qualifying remarks which should not be omitted when his early language is employed. He could not say that he was not converted at this time, or that he was a child of wrath. To the expression, "I was never myself converted to God," is added this note: "I am not sure of that," strongly intimating that he believed he was then converted.

To the expression, "I am a child of wrath, an heir of hell," is added this note: "I believe not." It seemed to his own mature judgment that he was not the wretched sinner he had fancied himself to be in those sad hours of his early history. He says, "I had then the faith of a servant, though not that of a son." What he means by this expression may be gathered from a sermon which he preached some fifty years later. He says: "But what is the faith which is properly saving? what brings eternal salvation to all those that keep it to the end? It is such a divine conviction of God and the things of God as even in its infant state enables everyone that possesses it to fear God and work righteousness. And whosoever in every nation believes thus far, the apostle declares, is accepted of him. He actually is at that very moment in a state of acceptance. But he is at present only a servant of God, not properly a son. Meantime let it be well observed that the 'wrath of God' no longer abideth on him.

"Indeed, nearly fifty years ago, when the preachers commonly called Methodists began to preach that grand scriptural doctrine, salvation by faith, they were not sufficiently apprised of the difference between a servant and a child of God. They did not clearly understand that everyone who feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of him. In consequence of this they are apt to make sad the hearts of those whom God hath not made sad. For they frequently asked those who feared God, 'Do you know that your sins are forgiven?' And upon their saying 'No,' immediately repeated, 'Then you are a child of the devil.' No, that does not follow. It might have been said (and it is all that can be said with propriety), 'Hitherto you are a servant; you are not a child of God.' The faith of a child is properly and directly a divine conviction whereby every child of God is enabled to testify, 'The life that I now live I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.' And whosoever hath this, the Spirit of God witnesseth with his spirit that he is a child of God."

Again he says: "The faith of a servant implies a divine evidence of the invisible world so far as it can exist without living experience. Whoever has attained this, the faith of a servant, 'feareth God and escheweth evil;' or, as is expressed by St. Peter, 'feareth God and worketh righteousness.' In consequence of which he is in a degree, as the apostle observes, 'accepted with him.' Elsewhere he is described in these words: 'He that feareth God and keepeth his commandments.'"

A careful examination of these quotations will convince anyone that the difference in Mr. Wesley's opinion between being a servant and a son is not that one is converted and the other is not, not that one is accepted by God and the other rejected, but that one has the direct witness of the Spirit that he is a child of God and the other has not. This was Wesley's religious state when he returned to England. He was not that lost soul, that heir of hell, which he reckoned himself to be, but an accepted servant of God without the direct witness of the Spirit to his sonship.

Meeting Peter BÖhler, February 7, 1738, he (BÖhler) was made the instrument of a great blessing to his soul. BÖhler was a Moravian, nine years the junior of Wesley; a most devout man, deeply versed in spiritual things, and well qualified to lead the earnest Oxford student into the path of peace. Wesley was astonished at the announcement of BÖhler that true faith in Christ was inseparably attended by dominion over sin, and constant peace arising from a sense of forgiveness. He could in no way accept the doctrine until he had first examined the Scriptures and had heard the testimony of three witnesses adduced by BÖhler. But what staggered him most was the doctrine of instantaneous conversion. This he could not accept. But a careful appeal to the Bible and the testimony of BÖhler's witnesses settled the question. Thus "this man of erudition," says Mr. Tyerman, "and almost anchorite piety sat at the feet of this godly German like a little child, and was content to be thought a fool that he might be wise."

But the time drew near when the veil was to be rent, and he who had been for half a score of years a seeker was to behold the glories of the inner temple. His brother Charles had already received the gift of the Spirit, and Whitefield was rejoicing in the same blessing; but John still lingered. He became so oppressed with his spiritual state that he thought of abandoning preaching; but BÖhler said: "By no means. Preach faith till you have it, and then because you have it you will preach it." So he began. He uttered strong words at St. Lawrence's and St. Catherine's, and was informed that he could preach no more in either place. At Great St. Helen's he spoke with such plainness that he was told he must preach no more there. At St. Ann's he spoke of free salvation by faith, and the doors of the church were closed against him. The same result attended his preaching at St. John's and St. Bennett's, until he found the words of a friend addressed to his brother true in his own case, that "wherever you go this 'foolishness of preaching' will alienate hearts from you and open mouths against you."

The simplicity of faith staggered the youthful philosopher. BÖhler, in writing of the Wesleys to Zinzendorf, says: "Our mode of believing in the Saviour is so easy to Englishmen that they cannot reconcile themselves to it; if it were a little more artful, they could much sooner find their way into it."

Wesley's distress of soul continued until the 24th of May. At five in the morning of that auspicious day he opened his Testament and read: "There are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these ye may be partakers of the divine nature." Later in the day he opened the word and read: "Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." Having attended St. Paul's Cathedral in the afternoon, where the anthem was a great comfort to his soul, he went with great reluctance to a society meeting at night at Aldersgate Street. There he found one reading Luther's preface to the Romans; and at about a quarter before nine, while the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ was being described, "I felt," he says, "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; and then I testified openly to all there what I now felt in my heart."

From this moment a new spiritual world opened upon the mind and heart of John Wesley. He not only began at once to pray for those who had ill-used him, but openly testified to all present what God had done for his soul. And from that hour onward, for fifty-three years, he bore through the land a heart flaming with love.

In 1744, more than six years subsequent to that blessed experience at Aldersgate, Mr. Wesley relates another experience which we must not overlook. It is related in these words: "In the evening while I was reading prayers at Snowfield I found such light and strength as I never remember to have had before. I saw every thought, as well as action or word, just as it was rising in my heart, and whether it was right before God or tainted with pride or selfishness. I never knew before—I mean not at this time—what it was to be still before God. I waked the next morning by the grace of God in the same spirit; and about eight, being with two or three that believed in Jesus, I felt such an awe and tender sense of the presence of God as greatly confirmed me therein; so that God was before me all the day long. I sought and found him in every place, and could truly say, when I lay down at night, 'Now I have lived to-day.'"

In 1771, referring to this experience, he says: "Many years since I saw that 'without holiness no man shall see the Lord.' I began by following after it, and inciting all with whom I had any intercourse to do the same. Ten years after God gave me a clearer view than I had before of the way how to attain it; namely, by faith in the Son of God. And immediately I declared to all, 'We are saved from sin, we are made holy, by faith. This I testified in private, in public, in print; and God confirmed it by a thousand witnesses. I have continued to declare this for about thirty years; and God has continued to confirm the work of grace."

These experiences flamed out in his whole life. He claimed that he knew whereof he affirmed. While he advocated strongly the doctrines of Christianity, he was most earnest in promoting the experience of personal holiness.

A question has been propounded here eliciting much controversy, namely, "Did Mr. Wesley ever profess to have experienced the blessing of entire sanctification?" It does not appear to us to be a question of as much importance as many seem to imagine. The more important question is: Did Mr. Wesley believe and teach that such an experience was possible in this life? Did he encourage his people to seek such a blessing, and, when obtained, profess it in a humble spirit? This question among others was submitted to Dr. James M. Buckley: "Have we any record of Mr. Wesley's professing to be entirely sanctified; if so, where may it be found?" His answer will be regarded as entirely satisfactory to all unprejudiced minds.

"This question reappears from time to time, as though of great importance. We know of no record of his explicitly professing or saying in so many words, 'I am entirely sanctified;' no record of uttering words to that effect. But we have no more doubt that he habitually professed it than that he professed conversion. The relation John Wesley sustained to his followers, and to this doctrine, makes it certain that he professed it, and almost certain that there would be no special record of it.

"1. All Wesley's followers assumed him to be what he urged them to be. Before they were in a situation to make records his position was so fixed that to record his descriptions of this state would have been unthought of.

"2. He preached entire sanctification, and urged it upon his followers.

"3. He defended its attainability in many public controversies.

"4. He urged and defended the profession of it, under certain conditions and safeguards; made lists of professors; told men they had lost it because they did not profess; and said and did so many things, only to be explained upon the assumption that he professed to enjoy the blessing, that no other opinion can support it."[L]

Soon after this experience at Aldersgate Chapel Mr. Wesley made a journey to Herrnhut, Germany, to visit the Moravian brethren, but soon withdrew from them because of their errors in doctrine. He antagonized the dogma of Zinzendorf, that men are entirely sanctified at the moment when they are converted. His opinion of the count differed materially from his estimation of BÖhler.