The Man, John Wesley and the Tenets of Early Methodism.

Seminar presentation at The Holy Club Maiden Conference , HOLYCLUB NETWORK, Ilesa.

Introduction: Worthy is the Lamb! Halleluyyah. It is my joy to be part of this maiden Holy Club Conference 2025, organised by the Holy Club Network, Ilesa. I appreciate and thank our father, the Archbishop of Ilesa, His Grace, Most Rev Amos Akindeko for the opportunity extended to me to be part of this missional initiative. Thank you, Your Grace.

It is very important to remember, on this day, 5th April, 1788, the remains of Methodist hymn writer, Charles Wesley were laid to rest in Marylebone Parish Churchyard, London. Indeed, he and his brother, John Wesley lives on as we gather here today at Ilesa, for the Maiden edition of the Holy Club Conference. The vision of Holy Club Network, which was birthed in February 2025, is to restore the true virtues of Methodism to the hearts of Methodist youth and their friends globally.

From an early age, John Wesley had the calling to serve God and humanity. He was educated at Charterhouse School in London and then at Oxford University. Throughout every phase of his life, John Wesley was a man of missional influence. As he turned his attention to education, religion, social justice and politics throughout his lifetime, he was recognised as a missional leader. During his ministry, John Wesley rode over 250,000 miles on horseback, a distance equal to ten circuits of the globe along the equator. He preached over 40,000 sermons! Though not a Doctor of Medicine, John Wesley invented many cures for diseases. He wrote a book on medicinal cures for the masses and started clinics for the poor. If this were not enough to show him an interest in medicine, he also experimented on the effects of electric shock to treat nervous disorders and treated thousands this way—none had adverse side effects from the treatments! The story of John Wesley resonates with over 60 million people worldwide today. John measured five-feet-three inches tall and weighed 128 pounds.

To do justice to the theme of this conference, let us articulate some of the distinctives that make us Methodist. John once wrote a tract called “The Character of a Methodist.” By his definition, a Methodist is happy, full of love, prayerful, pure in heart, servant-minded, and known by his fruit. To be Methodist means to recognise the primacy of Scriptural authority. In a letter in 1739, John unequivocally stated: “I allow no other rule, whether of faith or practice, than the Holy Scriptures….” Wesley was so serious about Scripture playing the primary role in his thoughts and how he lived that his sermons and letters were infused with Scriptural phrases. It became part of his very language.

John’s primacy of Scriptural authority, which shaped the tenets of the early Methodists, is as valid as it was in his days. Methodists are historically and missionally known for their adherence to the doctrine of nonconformity to the world, reflected by their traditional standards of a commitment to sobriety, prohibition of gambling, regular attendance at class meetings, and weekly observance of the Friday fast. I pray that this maiden Holy Club Conference of the HOLYCLUB NETWORK, Ilesa, will become a renewed inspiration for a local and global Methodist reawakening.

The question for our reflection in response to this conference’s theme is, ‘Why do you believe what you believe? ‘I became a Christian because of the influence of my parents and church. But I became a Methodist under the influence of that shape—which Methodist scholars called “The Wesleyan Quadrilateral.” Let us start this presentation with a brief understanding of John Wesley as we reflect on the tenets of early Methodism.

The man John Wesley, a ‘Brand plucked out of fire.’

John Wesley, the second son of Samuel, a former Nonconformist, dissenter from the Church of England, and rector at Epworth, and Susanna Wesley was born in 1703. John’s mother, Susanna, was the daughter of a noted Puritan divine who imbued in her children the Puritan concern for righteousness based on the principles derived from the revealed Word.

John was one of eighteen children, eight of whom died in infancy. I learned and read from one of my visits to the family home where John grew up, the Epworth parsonage, the story of John Wesley, a ‘brand plucked out of fire.’

“On the evening of February 9, 1709. As the Wesley household slept, the Epworth parsonage was mysteriously set ablaze sometime between eleven and twelve o’clock at night. The roof of the corn room burned through before anyone noticed. Some of the fire came through the thatch roof and fell on Hetty’s bed, waking her.

At once, she ran to find her father, crying out, “Fire! Fire!” As smoke and flames quickly overtook the house—the roof was falling fast—Samuel and Susanna gathered the children and hurried them outside. They had no time to grab either clothes or possessions. Only a thin wall kept the flames from cutting off their escape route as they descended the stairs. Susanna, who was near term with their last child, suffered some burns on her legs and face as she strained against the flames to make sure all her children had escaped.

Once outside, everyone was accounted for except one—five-and-a-half-year-old John. John was upstairs asleep behind the curtains drawn around his bed. He awoke groggily to the light flickering on the other side of the drapes. Thinking that it was morning and not wanting to stir before it was time, he laid still, wondering why no one had called him to come down for prayer.

At last, he stuck his head out of the canopy to find the room engulfed in flames. He jumped from the bed and cried out, but no one was in the house to hear him. Through the door and down the hall, he saw a terrible inferno. He ran to the window, climbed up on a chest, and saw several servants and neighbours scurrying about below, trying to quench the fire.

His mother was searching frantically for him outside. Samuel made two attempts to re-enter the house, using his breeches as a shield over his head, but the fire was too much for him to penetrate. Failing, he gathered his family around him in the garden to pray, commending John to God.

At first, no one noticed as young John waved his arms from the second-story window and shouted for help. But as the flames began to swallow the upper level of the house, he caught the eye of a neighbour, who quickly climbed atop another man’s shoulders and pulled John to safety mere moments before the remainder of the roof collapsed. In a matter of a few more minutes, the entire rectory was burned to the ground.

When John was brought to his father, the rector cried, “Come, neighbours, let us kneel; let us give thanks to God! He has given me all my eight children: let the house go, I am rich enough.” Afterwards, Samuel Sr. famously remarked, “Is not this [John] a brand plucked out of the burning?” From that point on, Susanna was convinced that John had a special call of God on his life.

John’s perilous escape from the fire made his mother much more attentive to his education. Two years after the fire, she noted in her Journal; I do intend to be more particularly careful of the soul of this child, that Thou hast so mercifully provided for, than ever I have been, that I may do my endeavour to instil into his mind the principles of Thy true religion and virtue. Lord, give me grace to do it sincerely and prudently, and bless my attempts with good success.’

John entered Christ Church, Oxford University, in 1720. Graduating in 1724, he resolved to become ordained a priest; in 1725, he was made a deacon by the bishop of Oxford. In 1726, he was elected a fellow of Lincoln College at Oxford, and in the following year, he left Oxford temporarily to act as curate to his father, the rector of Epworth and Wroot. Wesley was ordained a priest in the Church of England on September 22, 1728, and returned to Oxford in 1729.

Back in Oxford, John joined his brother Charles and others, including Robert Kirkham and William Morgan, in a religious study group called the Holy Club. This group was derisively called the “Methodists” because of its emphasis on methodical study and devotion. When John and Charles Wesley founded the “Holy Club” at Oxford in 1729, not more than five or six House of Commons members went to church.

John helped to grow the group in numbers. The “Methodists,” also called the Holy Club, were known for their frequent communion services and fasting twice a week. From 1730, the group added social services to their activities, visiting Oxford prisoners, teaching them to read, paying their debts, and attempting to find employment. The Methodists also extended their activities to workhouses and poor people, distributing food, clothes, medicine, and books and running a school. When the Wesleys left the Holy Club in 1735, the group disintegrated. The Wesley lost their father, Samuel Wesley, in April 1735.

JOHN WESLEY’S FIRST MISSION.

In 1735, John Burton, an Oxford friend of John Wesley and Col James Oglethorpe, governor of the colony of Georgia in North America, persuaded John Wesley to oversee the spiritual lives of the colonists and to missionise the Native Americans as an agent for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Accompanied by Charles, who was ordained for this mission, John was introduced to some Moravian emigrants who appeared to possess the spiritual peace he had been searching for.

Sadly, ‘the mission to the indigenous peoples proved abortive, nor did Wesley succeed with most of his flock. He served them faithfully, but his stiff, high churchmanship antagonised them. He had a naive attachment to Sophia Hopkey, niece of the chief magistrate of Savannah, who married another man, and Wesley unwisely courted criticism by repelling her from Holy Communion. In December 1737, he fled from Georgia; misunderstandings and persecution stemming from the Sophia Hopkey episode forced him to return to England. Unsuccessful in their pastoral work and having done no missionary work, the brothers returned to England conscious of their lack of genuine Christian faith.

WESELY’S WARMED HEART EXPERIENCE.

On Sunday, January 25, 1736, Wesley is on board a ship bound for America and observes the Moravians during life-threatening storms. Wesley wrote, ‘At seven, I went to the Germans. I had long before observed the great seriousness of their behaviour. Of their humility, they had given continual proof by performing those servile offices for the other passengers, which none of the English would undertake, for which they desired, and would receive no pay, saying, “it was good for their proud hearts,” and “their loving Saviour had done more for them.” They had to show meekness every day, which no injury could move. If they were pushed, struck, or thrown down, they rose again and went away, but no complaint was found in their mouth. There was now an opportunity to try whether they were delivered from the Spirit of fear and that of pride, anger, and revenge. Amid the psalm wherewith their service began, the sea broke over, split the main sail into pieces, covered the ship, and poured in between the decks as if the great deep had already swallowed us up. A terrible screaming began among the English. The Germans calmly sang on. I asked one of them afterwards, “Was you not afraid?” He answered, “I thank God, no.” I asked, “But were not your women and children afraid?” He replied mildly, “No, our women and children are not afraid to die.”

From them, I went to their crying, trembling neighbours and pointed out the difference in the hour of the trial between him that feareth God and him that feareth him not. At twelve, the wind fell. This was the most glorious day which I have hitherto seen.’

In London, John met a Moravian, Peter Böhler, who convinced him he needed faith. He also discovered Martin Luther’s commentary on the Letter of |Paul to the Galatians, which emphasised the scriptural doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone. On May 24, 1738, in Aldersgate Street, London, during a meeting composed primarily of Moravians under the auspices of the Church of England, Wesley’s intellectual conviction was transformed into a personal experience while Luther’s preface to the commentary to the Letter of Paul to the Romans was being read.

John Wesley summarises his life-changing conversion experience in his Journal at a Moravian service on Wednesday, May 24, 1738:

‘In my return to England, January 1738, being in imminent danger of death, and very uneasy on that account, I was strongly convinced that the cause of that uneasiness was unbelief; and that the gaining a true, living faith was the “one thing needful” for me. But still, I fixed not this faith on its right object: I meant only faith in God, not faith in or through Christ. Again, I knew not that I was wholly void of this faith; but only thought, I had not enough of it. So that when Peter Boehler, whom God prepared for me as soon as I came to London, affirmed of true faith in Christ, (which is but one,) that it had those two fruits inseparably attending it, “Dominion over sin, and constant Peace from a sense of forgiveness,” I was quite amazed. I looked upon it as a new Gospel. If this was so, it was clear I had no faith. But I was not willing to be convinced of this. Therefore, I disputed with all my might and laboured to prove that faith might be where these were not; especially where the sense of forgiveness was not: For all the Scriptures relating to this I had been long since taught to construe away; and to call all Presbyterians who spoke otherwise. Besides, I saw that no one could, in the nature of things, have such a sense of forgiveness and not feel it. But I felt it not. If there was no faith without this, all my pretensions to faith dropped immediately.

When I met Peter Boehler again, he consented to put the dispute upon the issue which I desired, namely, Scripture and experience. I first consulted the Scripture. But when I set aside the glosses of men and considered the words of God, comparing them together, endeavouring to illustrate the obscure by the plainer passages, I found they all made against me, and was forced to retreat to my last hold, “that experience would never agree with the literal interpretation of those scriptures. Nor could I therefore allow it to be true, till I found some living witnesses of it.” He replied that he could show me such any time if I desired it, the next day. And accordingly, the next day, he came again with three others, all of whom testified, of their own personal experience, that a true living faith in Christ is inseparable from a sense of pardon for all past, and freedom from all present sins. They added with one mouth that this faith was God’s gift, the gift, and that he would surely bestow it upon every soul who earnestly and perseveringly sought it. I was now thoroughly convinced, and, by the grace of God, I resolved to seek it unto the end: 1. By absolutely renouncing all dependence, in whole or in part, upon my own works or righteousness, I had really grounded my hope of salvation, though I knew it not, from my youth up. 2. By adding to the constant use of all the other means of grace, continual prayer for this very thing, justifying, saving faith, a full reliance on the blood of Christ shed for me; a trust in Him, as my Christ, as my sole justification, sanctification, and redemption.

I continued thus to seek it (though with strange indifference, dullness, and coldness, and unusually frequent relapses into sin) till Wednesday, May 24. I think it was about five this morning that I opened my Testament on those words: “There are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, even that ye should be partakers of the divine nature.” (2 Pet. i. 4.) Just as I went out, I opened it again on those words, “Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God.” In the afternoon, I was asked to go to St. Paul’s. The anthem was, “Out of the deep have I called unto thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice. O let shine ears consider well the voice of my complaint. If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who may abide it? For there is mercy with thee; therefore, shalt thou be feared. O Israel, trust in the Lord: For with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. And He shall redeem Israel from all his sins.”

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 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.’

On June 11 1738, eighteen days after his conversion, John Wesley preached his famous sermon before the University of Oxford on “By grace are ye saved through faith “–the keynote of his entire ministry. That sermon is the first of those that form the Methodist belief standard. That great doctrine he now began to preach with experimental fervour. His conviction of its importance was deepened by his visit to Herrnhut, in Bohemia (July-September 1738), where he studied with enthusiasm and sympathy the beliefs and practices of the pious Moravians. On the way, he spent a fortnight at Marienborn in company with Count Zinzendorf, the chief man of the Moravian brotherhood; the day after his return to London, he began, to use his own words, “to declare in my own country the glad tidings of salvation, preaching three times and afterwards expounding the Scripture to a large company in the Minories,” one of the localities in which his brother had been zealously preaching and working. Here, a woman “cried out as in the agonies of. death,” so poignant was her conviction of sin. It is important to note that John also had a lifelong interest in the Eastern Orthodox Church but became more enamoured with Moravian pietism.

Charles Wesley reported a similar experience on May 21, 1738, which he described as a “renewal of faith” and a newfound sense of peace with God through Jesus Christ. To celebrate his conversion, he wrote the hymn “And Can it be That I Should Gain?”

On New Year’s Eve, 1738-9, seven of the Oxford Methodists and some sixty others held a watch-night service and love feast in a religious society whose rooms were in Fetter Lane, London. The seven were ministers of the Church of England. Wesley writes of the ushering in of this most notable year in Methodist annals:

“About three in the morning, as we were continuing instant in prayer, the power of God came mightily upon us, insomuch that many cried out for exceeding joy, and many fell to the ground. As soon as we were recovered a little from that awe and amazement at the presence of his majesty, we broke out with one voice, ‘We praise thee, 0 God, we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.'” George Whitefield pronounced this to be “the happiest New Year’s Day he had ever seen.”

Some months later, George Whitefield, also an Anglican clergyman who had undergone a ‘conversion experience,’ invited his friend John Wesley to come to the city of Bristol to preach to the colliers of Kingswood Chase, who lived and worked in the most debased conditions. Wesley accepted the invitation and found himself, much against his will, preaching in the open air on April 2, 1739. This enterprise was the beginning of the Methodist Revival.

When the seven clergymen met again, Whitefield says: “What we were in doubt about, after prayer, we determined by lot, and everything else was carried on with great love, meekness, and devotion. We continued in fasting and prayer till three o’clock and then parted, with a full conviction that God was going to do great things among us.” Whitefield began to preach in the open air, and he did so at first because the churches would not hold the multitudes who came to listen. At Kingswood, beside Bristol, on Saturday, February 17, 1739, before a congregation of two hundred colliers, he first defied ecclesiastical rules or fashions by preaching in the open air. “I thought,” says he, “it might be doing the service of my Creator, who had a mountain for his pulpit and the heavens for a sounding board, and who, when his Gospel was refused by the Jews, sent his servants into the highways and hedges.” Wesley, who came to Whitefield aid at Bristol, ‘shrank from the practice, but bethought himself of the Sermon on the Mount as “one pretty remarkable precedent of field preaching,” and soon “submitted to be more vile,” preaching to a crowd of four thousand from a hillock near the city from the words: “The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.”

John formulated a missional church organisation that worked on many levels, from the repentant individual to the class to the society to the conference to the church (or in the early days to Wesley himself). John stressed the involvement of laypersons on each level, and he differentiated his workers according to their gifts as exhorters, lay preachers, stewards, and the like. Wesley drew up Rules of the Band Societies for such groups in December 1738.

John’s preaching after his warmed heart, life-changing experience on Aldersgate Street in London in May 1738 was considered so radical and controversial that he was banned from the pulpit in the Anglican church. Without a pulpit, John saw the great need to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ. In a missional approach, from the Anglican hierarchical practice, John’ preached in the fields, the city squares, and outside the coal mines to anyone who would hear … changing what it meant to minister to a particular community.’ John was accused of ‘crossing parish lines and therefore “trespassing” on the work that belonged to the priest assigned to that geographic area, i.e. parish.’ In response to critics of his methods of ministry, he said, “I look upon all the world as my parish; thus far I mean, that, in whatever part of it I am, [it is my] duty to declare unto all that are willing to hear, the glad tidings of salvation. This is the work which I know God has called me to, and sure, I am that his blessing attends it.” (from Wesley’s journal entry on June 11, 1739).

Before John died on March 2, 1791, he was one of the most influential missional leaders and evangelists who ever lived. In his book, John Wesley: The Man, His Mission and His Message, David Malcolm Bennet described John as a great evangelist. Wesley toured the British Isles for fifty years in the eighteenth century, preaching in churches, tiny chapels, village squares, and vast open areas, where he attracted enormous crowds. By the 1770s, he was the most recognisable man in Britain and travelled a lot. He was also a sensitive counsellor, a concerned pastor, a thoughtful theologian and a brilliant organiser. Some believe that his influence was so significant that he and his associates saved England from the ravages of a revolution like that which occurred in France at the end of that century. John’s last word on March 2, 1791, “The best of all is God is with us,” continues to inspire Methodism as the contemporary lasting revival movement.

The Tenets of Early Methodism: ‘Wesleyan Quadrilateral.’

The parishes of Wesley’s era were defined by geography. When geography defined a parish in all its facets, it was a church on Sundays and holidays and for baptisms, weddings, and funerals.

The strength of the early Methodist revival shaped by its tenets was that it was a movement, witness, and mission emphasising personal and social holiness that could only come through authentic Christian discipleship. Methodism was a movement that broke down the limits of the traditional parish to share that message.

The early Methodists’ tenets are grounded in John Wesley’s teaching (1703-1791). John and his brother Charles were Oxford-trained, ordained clergymen in the Church of England shaped by the Anglican three-fold authority of scripture, tradition, and reason. Wesley added experience from the pietist tradition. John’s experience mattered—it was key to his understanding. This suggests that the foundation of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral is scripture, with the other three elements standing on scripture’s more extensive foundation. It is helpful to note that the Quadrilateral is both a tool of formation and revelation. The guidelines identify how God is revealed to us, primarily through scripture, but not without our faith tradition, experience, and personal reason. As Wesley put it, the essence of the tenets of early Methodism is “downright Bible-Christians; taking the Bible, as interpreted by the primitive church (early church fathers) … for their whole and sole rule.”

John’s theology was profoundly impacted and influenced by experience. John spent much of his early ministerial career wrestling with doubts. It was not until he experienced a profound sense of God’s forgiveness that Wesley understood God’s grace—though he had read numerous scriptures and heard numerous sermons attesting to it. It was through his personal experience that Wesley understood God’s whelming love. His experience made God’s love real.

Wesley’s teaching, which shaped the foundation of the Christian faith, reminds us that People are all, by nature, “dead in sin.” They are justified by faith alone. Faith produces inward and outward holiness.

Beloved, the question for you and me to answer now is, ‘What experiences formed your understanding of God?’

References/websites:

The Wesley Bible, New King James Version, A Personal Study Bible for Holy Living, 1990

Okegbile, Deji, Bishop on Horseback: Towards a Missional Episcopacy, London, 2024.

Jackson ed., The Works of John Wesley, ‘Journal entry 30 September 1767.’

Wesley, Minutes of the Methodist Conferences, 450-451.

“A Short History of Methodism,” (1765) WJW, 9: 348.