John Wesley

A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (1777) by John Wesley

John Wesley 28 June [O. S. 17 June] 1703 - 2 March 1791) was an English Anglican cleric and theologian who, with his brother Charles and fellow cleric George Whitefield, founded Methodism. Educated at Charterhouse School and Christ Church, Oxford, Wesley was elected a fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1726 and ordained a priest two years later. He led the "Holy Club", a society formed for the purpose of study and the pursuit of a devout Christian life; it had been founded by his brother Charles, and counted George Whitefield among its members. After an unsuccessful ministry of two years at Savannah in the Georgia Colony, Wesley returned to London and joined a religious society led by Moravian Christians. On 24 May 1738 he experienced what has come to be called his evangelical conversion, when he felt his "heart strangely warmed". He subsequently departed from the Moravians, beginning his own ministry.