The Anglican priest John Wesley, who penned many an elaborate diary entry about his Christian experiences, wrote this from London on 24 May, 1738. I quote:

‘In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading [Martin] 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.’ [https://www.ccel.org/ccel/wesley/journal.vi.ii.xvi.html]

Methodists deeply value the record of Wesley’s warmed heart experience. It sticks with them and encourages them, not least because it describes the business of the heart more than that of the head. John Wesley was an Oxford educated theologian; an academic; a voracious reader and writer. All these things equipped him cerebrally for his working life as an Anglican priest. But when the Holy Spirit’s strange but beautiful warmth enveloped his heart in May 1738, at a meeting he hadn’t actually wanted to go to – does that strike any chords with anyone? – nothing was ever the same again.

‘Look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the quarry from which you were dug,’ urges Isaiah in chapter 51:1. The prophet speaks to the people of Israel and references their foremothers and forefathers, Sarah, Abraham and the like. These ones hold precious history and ancestry for you. Don’t forget their faithfulness and witness.

In the same way, we shouldn’t forget John Wesley’s influence on Church life and Christian history. His warmed heart seeded a movement of Christians passionate about the gospel connecting to the hearts of all people, whatever their background and status. Aldersgate convinced him that the Holy Spirit could connect personally with, and transform, every human soul. He coined the ‘Four Alls’ – all need to be saved; all can be saved; all can know they are saved; all can be saved to the uttermost. And then spent the rest of his life working out what that salvation looked like in very practical ways. His heart may have been strangely warmed but it didn’t become soppy and over-spiritualised. ‘Being saved,’ for him, was about responding to God’s grace in ways that made a real difference to real lives. Let me share two examples of Wesley wisdom on this.

In 1775, Wesley preached on the Trinity, desiring to keep it simple and relatable. He knew that as a concept the Three-in-One was confusing, so he used the basic analogy of air. You believe there is such a thing as air, don’t you? You know it both covers you as a garment and embraces this earth. But can you comprehend air and how this is possible? No. We don’t comprehend air, but we nevertheless breathe it! If we don’t breathe it until we comprehend it, we die! Wesley, who would have studied Trinitarian theology in intricate detail, now only wanted it to comfort not confuse.

Then in 1786, Wesley’s topic is even more practical: the pastoral task of visiting the sick, using Matthew 25:36 as his text. Some had asked whether visits to the sick in person mattered that much. May we not relieve them at a distance? Does it not answer the same purpose if we send them help as if we carry it ourselves? It certainly does not, said Wesley defiantly, arguing that the rich had little sympathy for the poor because they so seldom visited them. He then praised Parisian nobility of the time, even the Royal Family, who constantly visited the sick, relieved their wants, attended their sick beds and dressed their sores. Church today be warned. The pastoral visit by phone or video chat wouldn’t cut it for Wesley.

These examples, and there are many more, show what the warmed heart experience did for Wesley at that time and can do for us now. A heart strangely warmed longs for God’s nature, grace and love to be profoundly known, intimately felt and practically actioned. May our hearts be touched by Aldersgate.