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Truth Advances in Britain
147
Wesley’s Heart “Strangely Warmed”
On his return to England, Wesley arrived at a clearer understand-
ing of Bible faith under the instruction of a Moravian. At a meeting
of the Moravian society in London a statement was read from Luther.
As Wesley listened, faith was kindled in his soul. “I felt my heart
strangely warmed,” he says. “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.
Now he had found that the grace he had toiled to win by prayers
and fasts and self-abnegation was a gift, “without money and without
price.” His whole soul burned with the desire to spread everywhere
the glorious gospel of God’s free grace. “I look upon all the world
as my parish,” he said; “in whatever part of it I am, I judge it meet,
right, and my bounden duty, to declare unto all that are willing to
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hear, the glad tidings of salvation.
He continued his strict and self-denying life, not now as the
ground, but the result of faith; not the root, but the fruit of holiness.
The grace of God in Christ will be manifest in obedience. Wesley’s
life was devoted to preaching the great truths he had received—
justification through faith in the atoning blood of Christ, and the
renewing power of the Holy Spirit upon the heart, bringing forth
fruit in a life conformed to the example of Christ.
Whitefield and the Wesleys were contemptuously called
“Methodists” by their ungodly fellow students—a name which is
at the present time regarded as honorable. The Holy Spirit urged
them to preach Christ and Him crucified. Thousands were truly con-
verted. It was necessary that these sheep be protected from ravening
wolves. Wesley had no thought of forming a new denomination, but
he organized them under what was called the Methodist Connection.
Mysterious and trying was the opposition which these preachers
encountered from the established church—yet the truth had entrance
where doors would otherwise remain closed. Some of the clergy
were roused from their moral stupor and became zealous preachers
in their own parishes.
10
Ibid., p. 52.
11
Ibid., p. 74.