The Conversion of John Wesley
…John embarked on the Simmonds, a not-too-large vessel, for the new colony. God had timed his going so that he was to travel with twenty-six Moravians, who were to play a fascinating role in leading John to Aldersgate….
John had previously been thinking about his soul’s welfare, and when a storm arose on November 23, he entered in his diary, “Sun. 23. At night I was awakened by the tossing of the ship… and plainly showed I was unfit, for I was unwilling, to die.”
While the storm was raging, John looked at the Moravians, whom previously he had thought of as heavy-minded and dull-witted folk, and they were calmly singing a hymn. The wilder the waves became, the calmer the Germans sang. The storm passed as all of God’s storms do when their missions are fulfilled…
Going to the Germans he asked them, “Were you not afraid?”
“I thank God, no,” came the answer from one whose soul had been anchored to the Rock of Christ.
…”But were not your women and children afraid?”
…”No, our women and children are not afraid to die.”
…when he had gone through that sail-ripping, ship-soaking, skin-drenching storm and had come out alive, he was certain those Moravians had an experience to which he was a total stranger.
…It was a distant Light, but for the first time he knew of its true existence. It was this Light which at Aldersgate was to become a personal experience.
…he met the Moravian pastor, Spangenberg, …
Spangenberg’s first question rocked John back on his mental heels when he asked, “My brother, I must first ask you one or two questions. Have you the witness within yourself? Does the Spirit of God bear witness with your spirit that you are a child of God?”…
Again the Moravian asked, “Do you know Jesus Christ?” This was closer to John’s thinking, and so he replied, “I know He is the Saviour of the world.” “True” came the pastor’s rejoinder, “but do you know He has saved you?”
…”I hope He has died to save me,” to be countered by Spangenberg’s, “Do you know yourself?” John finally managed to mumble, “I… do.”
This… set the mental machinery of John’s cranium whirling for two years trying to produce a true basis in his own life for the doctrines he preached… when he made the entry in his Journal, he added, “I fear they were vain words.”
…John being a High churchman could not get it out of his system, and he began to let his Anglicanism come to the fore, even to crowd justice and good sense to the rear. He went so far as to refuse the Lord’s Supper to all who had not been Episcopally baptized. Nor would he bury those who had not received the Church of England’s seal of acceptance by the rite of baptism.
…he began reading “Pandectae Canonum Conciliorum,” which turned his attention to the Scripture as the source of religious authority. He also heard a Presbyterian minister at Darien actually offer an extempore prayer. This shocked and astonished John at first, only in the end to help him realize that such praying in public freed the soul from the mere confines of a set ritualistic approach to God.
“Religion is love,” he said to a friend at this time, “and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost… so it is the cheerfulest thing in the world… utterly inconsistent with moroseness, sourness and with whatever is not according to the gentleness of Christ Jesus.”
This, however, he had not discovered in the springs of his own soul, merely quoting these words from the memory of having read them somewhere.
…The entry of his Journal under date of Tuesday, January 24, 1738, is tragical:
“I went to America to convert the Indians; but O! who shall convert me? Who, what is he that shall deliver me from this evil heart of unbelief? I have a fair summer religion. I can talk well; nay, and believe myself while no danger is near; but let death look me in the face, and my spirit is troubled. Nor can I say, “ To die is gain”… I show my faith by my works by staking my all upon it… O who will deliver me from this fear of death?”
When he landed in England on the first of February,… his Journal tells the turbulent story thus:
“This then have I learned in the ends of the earth, that I ‘am fallen short of the glory of God’; that my whole heart is ‘altogether corrupt and abominable’… that my own works, my own suffering, my own righteousness, are so far from reconciling me to an offended God… I want that faith which enables everyone that hath it to cry out, ‘I live not… but Christ liveth in me’… I want that faith… when ‘the Spirit itself beareth witness with his spirit that he is a child of God.’ “
It took his Georgia’s errors in judgment, his love entanglement which resulted in a court trial, to produce this self-abasement. God had brought John safely by the hand from the high pinnacle when he hoped to work his way into the kingdom, to where now he felt that only through faith in Christ’s atoning merit could he live above the storm that would sweep his soul in his terrible tomorrows.
…”I who went to America to convert others, was never myself converted,…
This turbulency of soul caused John to despair of ever preaching again, and he told Bohler that he would “leave off preaching. How can you preach to others, who have not faith in yourself?” Bohler urged him to continue his gospel work, to which John retorted, “But what can I preach?”
“Preach faith until you have it; and then because you have it, you will preach faith,” came the Moravian’s response.
John was not long in starting on this adventure, for he says, “Accordingly, Monday 6, I began preaching this new doctrine, though my soul started back from the work. The first person to whom I offered salvation by faith alone was a prisoner under sentence of death.”
The condemned man arose from prayer and exclaimed, “I am now ready to die. I know Christ has taken away my sins, and there is no condemnation for me.”
Charles (Wesley, the composer of many Christian hymns, brother of John Wesley - note mine) caught the sunrise first, after reading Luther’s “Commentary on Galatians,” praying, conversing with spiritually minded people. It was on Whitsunday, 1738, while he was at the home of a poor woman, a recent convert. Said the woman to the man sick in body and soul: “In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, arise and believe, and thou shalt be healed of all thy infirmities.”
A friend read the words, “Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” Charles’ eyes fell on the verse, “He hath put a new song in my mouth…” as the hallelujah chorus swung into living action, and God’s redemptive work was accomplished in his soul.
On this Charles’ s believing and receiving day, John attended the Church of St. Mary-le-Stand, grieving still that his redemption had not taken place. Returning from service, he wrote to a friend, “Let no one deceive us by vain words, as if we had already attained unto this faith. By its fruits we shall know, Do we already feel peace with God and joy in the Holy Ghost?... Does the Spirit bear witness?... alas with mine he does not… Let us be emptied of ourselves and then fill us with all peace and joy in believing.”
He was on a soul search which should cease only when he had found this glorious peace. His spiritual quest went on by the hour until Wednesday, May 24, arrived.
During that memorable soul-shaping day everything seemed to point John to one thing – redemption as a soon-wrought work in his life. When evening came down Aldersgate Street not far from St. Paul’s, John was unwillingly dragged to a meeting.
“In the evening,” he says, “I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed…”
The change had been wrought, the divine work accomplished. He had arrived at the peak’s top and there was the sunrise of glory in his soul.
“I felt I did trust in Christ,” he goes on to relate, “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.”
…Emptying himself of self, God had come in.
What happened at Aldersgate? It is best to let John’s own testimony stand as to the change which his heart-warming experience brought about. Before May 24, 1738, he felt he was not a Christian. After that date, he knew he was, and the Spirit bore witness with his spirit that he was a child of God…
The biographers have debated long and hard as to what really happened at Aldersgate. Some affirm, and these the older, that John there dropped all ritualistic attachment to the Church of England and at that moment Methodism was born.
“Newman renounced justification by faith,” affirms Riggs, “and clung to apostolic succession; therefore he went to Rome. Wesley embraced justification by faith, and renounced apostolic succession; therefore his people are a separate people from the Church of England.”
Judged by the products of Wesley’s life, Adersgate stands by far as the brightest spot in his life, or in the life of anyone of his century. Before Aldersgate he was a bungler; after Aldersgate he was a lion in God’s kingdom who knew no defeat.
(My note: John Wesley was the founder of the Methodist Church and together with George Whitefield wrought the revival of the 18th century in England, Europe and America and the world. Just like Jesus, his beloved Master, John Wesley moved in signs and wonders and preached to open-air crowds of tens of thousands, bringing hope, salvation and a new life to many.)
Excerpts from “John Wesley,” by Basil Miller, Bethany Fellowship, Inc. Minn, USA, Zondervan Publishing Copyright 1943 (pp 45-48, 50-54, 57, 58, 60-63).
John Wesley Preaching painting from http://www.wesleyschapel.org.uk
