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John Wesley (1703-1791)
John Wesley was born in Lincolnshire, England. He was the son of an Anglican vicar and came from a long line of ministers. When he was six years old the rectory in which the family lived was destroyed by fire. They all survived but John Wesley almost died, being rescued from the flames in the nick of time.
In 1713 John went to Charterhouse School in London. He then to Christchurch College, Oxford in 1720 and received his Masters degree in 1727. In 1925 he was ordained a deacon and returned to Oxford two years later having helped his father as a curate.
He then became the president of what was known as the Oxford Holy Club which had been started by his brother Charles. They became involved in good works, such as prison visiting and various acts of 'self discipline'. They felt that they needed to 'earn' salvation and went to extremes in this quest. These attempts to force God to act were ridiculed by people outside of the group who referred to them as 'methodists'.
John Wesley went with his brother Charles and two others to Georgia to take up a post as chaplain. They had a difficult time and had all returned within two and a half years. By then it was 1738 and John Wesley had been a priest since 1728 but he still needed to be converted. George Whitefield, the great preacher, had been the first of the Holy Club to be truly converted but John knew that God's saving faith had not yet come upon him!
At a Moravian meeting in Aldersgate, London, John Wesley was listening to a reading of Luther's Epistle to the Romans. As he listened to scripture which he undoubtedly knew by heart, God's Word was suddenly alive to him and John Wesley knew the assurance of salvation. He knew that his sins had been removed and that he was saved from the law of sin and death.
Events moved quickly after this occurred. During the next fifty three years John Wesley travelled over 250,000 miles, much of it on horseback, and preached over 40,000 sermons. He wrote over 200 printed works of all kinds. He was a remarkable itinerant evangelist.
John Wesley clashed with George Whitefield, calling him 'a fiend from hell'. Whitefield eventually went to America where he was instrumental in a hige revival.
In 1740 Wesley started to establish local Methodist societies which were the beginning of the Methodist church.
His biggest problem came when he got married. Against everyone's advice he married Mary Vazeille. The marriage was a total failure. When John Wesley went to preach somewhere his wife would follow him and loudly denounce him as a liar and a cheat.
John Wesley died in 1791. In the first 12 years of his life as a preacher he knew Jesus Christ with head knowledge. But following his conversion, now with a heart of flesh replacing the heart of stone, John Wesley spent over fifty years preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to the people of England.