23 July 2024

John Wesley and Aldersgate

Abstract

This article considers the significance of John Wesley’s experience on 24 May 1738 when his heart was “strangely warmed”. It argues against attempts to dilute the evangelical significance of this experience.

I.   Introduction

John Wesley (1703–91), destined to become one of the most prominent figures in the eighteenth-century evangelical awakening in Britain, as well as leader of the Arminian Methodists, recorded in his journal some highly significant words concerning the evening of 24 May 1738:

In the evening 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. 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.[1]

He had at last found a personal assurance of salvation, through faith in Jesus Christ. Given the importance of what happened to John Wesley at Aldersgate, it is regrettable, although not surprising, that some modern academics, arguing from a variety of perspectives, have tried to dilute the evangelical significance of Aldersgate to Wesley. This article briefly explores and answers this revisionism.

II.   Commemorating Aldersgate

It is certainly surprising that the centennial and sesquicentennial anniversaries of Aldersgate passed without formal commemoration within Methodism. It was not until 1924 that the observance of ‘Wesley Day’ on 24 May was inaugurated. By its bicentennial anniversary in 1938 though, the commemoration of the day was widespread within Methodism.[2]

Historians have also mused on the relative lack of comment about Aldersgate in Wesley’s published works. Theodore Jennings wrote provocatively: “In the many histories of the Methodist movement published by Wesley there is never any mention made of Aldersgate… From Wesley’s own point of view, then, Aldersgate had no importance in the history of Methodism”. Jennings decried the popular conversionist view of Aldersgate and even claimed that “Aldersgatism” is “a pious fraud”.[3] But this extreme view, which denies the importance of Aldersgate to Methodism even “from Wesley’s own point of view”, is not sustained by the evidence.[4] Although Wesley’s references to Aldersgate may be fewer than expected, he certainly considered Aldersgate important. This point can be defended from more than one angle.[5]

III.   Wesley’s references to Aldersgate

Wesley’s review of his life in his journal was explicitly designed to make 24 May 1738 “the better understood” by his readers. The review, amounting to thirteen substantial paragraphs of nearly 3,000 words and climaxing with the account of Aldersgate cited above, underlines that Wesley regarded what took place there as a pivotal event.[6]

Contrary to Jennings’ assertion, Wesley also alluded to Aldersgate and the period immediately before and after it as a turning-point on a considerable number of occasions, even if not as often as might be expected.[7]

To give just two examples of Wesley citing 1738 as a turning point in his ministry: first, in correspondence with one Thomas Church, he compared his preaching before and after this year:

(1) From the year 1725 to 1729 I preached much, but saw no fruit of my labour. Indeed, it could not be that I should: for I neither laid the foundation of repentance nor of believing the gospel; taking it for granted that all to whom I preached were believers and that many ‘needed no repentance’. (2) From the year 1729 to 1734, laying a deeper foundation of repentance, I saw a little fruit. But it was only a little, and no wonder: for I did not preach faith in the blood of the covenant. (3) From 1734 to 1738, speaking more of faith in Christ, I saw more fruit of my preaching and visiting from house to house than ever I had done before; though I know not if any of those who were outwardly reformed were inwardly and thoroughly converted to God. (4) From 1738 to this time — speaking continually of Jesus Christ; laying Him only for the foundation of the whole building, making Him all in all, the first and the last; preaching only on this plan, ‘The kingdom of God is at hand; repent ye, and believe the gospel’ — ‘the word of God ran’ as fire among the stubble; it ‘was glorified’ more and more; multitudes crying out, ‘By grace are ye saved through faith’.[8]

Second, he spoke of 24 May 1738 as a turning-point in correspondence with “John Smith”:[9]

It is true that, from May 24, 1738, ‘wherever I was desired to preach, salvation by faith was my only theme’, that is, such a love of God and man as produces all inward and outward holiness, and springs from a conviction, wrought in us by the Holy Ghost, of the pardoning love of God; and that, when I was told, ‘You must preach no more in this church’, it was commonly added, ‘because you preach such doctrine!’ And it is equally true that ‘it was for preaching the love of God and man that several of the clergy forbade me their pulpits’, before that time, before May 24, before I either preached or knew salvation by faith.[10]

IV.   Wesley’s doctrine of grace

Was there a theological reason behind Wesley’s relative reticence about Aldersgate? Almost certainly, yes; and one that was located in his understanding of how grace works.

Wesley developed a complex, non-predestinarian view of God’s grace, based around the idea of “prevenient grace”. His mature view of this found expression in a sermon preached in old age (1785), entitled “On Working Out Our Own Salvation”:

Salvation begins with what is usually termed (and very properly) preventing[11] grace; including the first wish to please God, the first dawn of light concerning his will, and the first slight transient conviction of having sinned against him. All these imply some tendency toward life; some degree of salvation; the beginning of a deliverance from a blind, unfeeling heart, quite insensible of God and the things of God.

Salvation is carried on by convincing grace, usually in Scripture termed repentance; which brings a larger measure of self-knowledge, and a farther deliverance from the heart of stone.

Afterwards we experience the proper Christian salvation; whereby, ‘through grace’, we ‘are saved by faith’; consisting of those two grand branches, justification and sanctification. By justification we are saved from the guilt of sin, and restored to the favour of God; by sanctification we are saved from the power and root of sin, and restored to the image of God.[12]

Prevenient grace, according to Wesley, is something every person experiences. It is “the first dawn of light concerning [God’s] will, and the first slight transient conviction of having sinned against him”. People can reject this dawning light and so hinder God from giving further, “convincing” grace that would lead to repentance. Or they can respond positively, and this will lead, through “convincing grace”, to “the proper Christian salvation”.

The Spirit works prevenient grace in every soul. Even these workings ‘”imply some tendency toward life; some degree of salvation”. But the Spirit withdraws this grace if a person resists. As Wesley put it in his own case, “I believe, till I was about ten years old I had not sinned away that ‘washing of the Holy Ghost’ which was given me in baptism”.[13]

There is something synergistic, even if not fully semi-Pelagian (a synergistic understanding of salvation that acknowledges the necessity of divine grace, but with a greater priority given to human initiative)[14] in Wesley’s view of grace.[15] While, to him, grace is resistible,[16] it is still, somewhat illogically, due to grace that a person co-operates with prevenient grace.[17]

In short, Wesley believed that what happened to him at the society meeting in Aldersgate Street, London, on 24 May 1738 was “the final Christian salvation”,  but there had been before Aldersgate — and there would be after it — other workings of God’s grace, taking him along the path of holiness, if he responded positively to the Spirit. This grace continues towards “perfect love” or Christian perfection.[18] As he put it in his sermon “On Faith”:

And, indeed, unless the servants of God halt by the way, they will receive the adoption of sons. They will receive the faith of the children of God by his revealing his only-begotten Son in their hearts … And whosoever hath this, the Spirit of God witnesseth with his spirit that he is a child of God.[19]

Wesley affirmed that, until 24 May 1738 he did not preach or know “salvation by faith”; Aldersgate had been vital.[20] But he did not want to so focus on Aldersgate as to detract from other workings of God’s grace in his life.

Over time, he modified his view of Aldersgate’s importance within his own more continuous theology of grace, but still maintained Aldersgate was the moment of “proper Christian salvation”. No doubt, because the main body of Wesleyan Methodists accepted John Wesley’s writings, including his sermons, as well as his brother Charles’ (1707–88) hymns, as normative for Methodist doctrine and experience,[21] they also were relatively reticent about Aldersgate, at least until the early twentieth century.

Some scholars have averred that Wesley’s view of the operations of grace was one of ‘once-born’ continuity, but, for all its eccentricities, his post-Aldersgate understanding of grace remained ‘twice-born’. For example, his “Explanatory Note” on the word “elect” in 1 Peter 1:2, while erroneously minimising the foreordaining purpose of God in election, asserts the need to believe and be saved in order to “receive the precious gift of faith”:

The true predestination, or fore-appointment of God is, 1. He that believeth shall be saved from the guilt and power of sin. 2. He that endureth to the end shall be saved eternally. 3. They who receive the precious gift of faith, thereby become the sons of God; and, being sons, they shall receive the Spirit of holiness to walk as Christ also walked.[22]

A twice-born view of salvation informed Wesley’s advice to Joseph Cownley (1723–92), one of his preachers: ‘Let the law always prepare for the gospel. I scarce ever spoke more earnestly here of the love of God in Christ than last night; but it was after I had been tearing the unawakened in pieces’.[23]

Justification or salvation by faith continued as an integral part of Wesley’s twice-born convictions. Those convictions were centred on what happened to him at Aldersgate Street in May 1738. Moreover, the changes that took place in his ministry after Aldersgate were too great to be discounted. From that date his life was, more than most Christian leaders of his era, filled with itinerating, preaching, praying, writing, editing and corresponding, as he established and cared for the burgeoning Methodist societies.

 Footnotes:

[1] John Wesley, The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley (4 vols.; London: J.M. Dent, 1906), 102 (24 May 1738).

[2] Randy L. Maddox, “Aldersgate: A Tradition History,” in Aldersgate Reconsidered (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1990), 133–46.

[3] Theodore W. Jennings, “John Wesley Against Aldersgate,” Quarterly Review 8, no. 3 (Fall 1988): 3. [cited 23/12/20]. Online: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/13209892/fall-1988-quarterly-review.

[4] Other critics of the conversionist view of Aldersgate are surveyed in Maddox, Aldersgate Reconsidered, 12–15.

[5] A taxonomy of scholarly views concerning the significance of Aldersgate for Wesley is included in Frederick E. Maser, “Second Thoughts on John Wesley,” The Drew Gateway 49, no. 2 (Winter 1978), 28–53.

[6] Wesley, Journal, 96-102 (24 May 1738).

[7] J. Ernest Rattenbury, The Conversion of the Wesleys A Critical Study (London: The Epworth Press, 1938), 20–24; Kenneth J. Collins, ‘Twentieth-Century Interpretations of John Wesley’s Aldersgate Experience: Coherence or Confusion’, Wesleyan Theological Journal Vol. 24 (1989): 23–4. [Cited 21/7/22]. Online: http://wesley.nnu.edu.

[8] Letter to Thomas Church, 17 June 1746, Wesleyan Heritage Publishing, Wesley Center for Applied Theology (WCAT).; John Wesley, The Principles of a Methodist Farther Explained, n.p. [Cited 1 November 2021]. Online: http://www.godrules.net/library/wesley/274wesley_h18.htm.

[9] Many identify “John Smith” with Thomas Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury (1758–68).

[10] William Arnett, “What happened to Wesley at Aldersgate,” The Asbury Seminarian 18, no. 1 (1964): 16. [cited 20 July 2021]. Online: https://place.asburyseminary.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2041&context=asburyjournal.

[11] “Preventing” is synonymous for “prevenient”. Wesley may have been alluding here to the Church of England’s Article X that states: “Wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us, when we have that good will”.

[12] Sermon 85, “On Working Out Our Own Salvation,” The Sermons of John Wesley (ed. Thomas Jackson, 1872). Re-edited by John Wesley Sermon Project (JWSP), General Editors: Ryan N. Danker and George Lyons, Wesley Center at Northwest Nazarene University, Nampa, Idaho 83686, USA. [Cited 1 November 2023] Online: http://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/the-sermons-of-john-wesley-1872-edition/the-sermons-of-john-wesley-chronologically-ordered.

[13] Wesley, Journal, 96 (24 May 1738).

[14] Christopher T. Bounds, “How are people saved? The major views of salvation with a focus on Wesleyan perspectives and their implications,” Wesley and Methodist Studies 3 (2011): 37.

[15] Leo G. Cox, “Prevenient grace — a Wesleyan view,” Journal of The Evangelical Theological Society 12, no. 3 (1969): 147–8.

[16] Randy L. Maddox and Jason E. Vickers eds., The Cambridge Companion to John Wesley (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 200.

[17] Compare The Westminster Confession of Faith: “All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, He is pleased in His appointed and accepted time effectually to call, by His Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God; taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by His almighty power determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ: yet so, as they come most freely, being made willing by His grace” (10.1).

[18] “Perfect love” was Wesley’s preferred term for “entire sanctification” or “Christian perfection”.

[19] Sermon 106, “On Faith,” Hebrews 11:6, 9 April 1788, JWSP.

[20] William Arnett, “What happened to Wesley at Aldersgate,” The Asbury Seminarian, 18, no. 1 (1964): 16. [cited 20 July 2021]. Online: https://place.asburyseminary.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2041&context=asburyjournal

[21] Philip Turner, “What Methodists believe: an exploration of normative and lived theologies,” The Oxford Institute of Methodist Theological Studies, n.p. [cited 8 October 2021]. Online: https://oimts.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/2018-09-turner.pdf

[22] John Wesley, “1st Peter,” in John Wesley’s Notes on the Bible (1755), WCAT. [cited 8 October 2021]. Online: http://wesley.nnu.edu/john-wesley/john-wesleys-notes-on-the-bible/notes-on-the-first-epistle-general-of-st-peter

[23] Letter, 12 April 1750, WCAT; quoted in Bruce D. Hindmarsh, ‘“My Chains Fell off, My Heart Was Free”: Early Methodist Conversion Narrative in England’, Church History 68, no. 4 (December 1999): 925.