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John Wesley

John Wesley (28 June 1703 – 2 March 1791) was an English cleric and theologian who was one of the founders of Methodism.

Biography[]

John Wesley was born in Epworth, Lincolnshire, England in 1703, the brother of Charles Wesley. He became a fellow at Lincoln College, Oxford in 1726 and was ordained as an Anglican priest two years later. John, his brother Charles, and George Whitefield sought to study and pursue a devout Christian life, and Wesley was involved with the Moravian Church in Georgia before undergoing an evangelical conversion in 1738. He left the Moravians and began his own ministry, and he travelled and preached outdoors, moving across Great Britain and Ireland. He appointed itinerant and unordained ministers to travel and preach, and Methodists became leading advocates of abolitionism and prison reform. Wesley argued against the Calvinist concept of predestination and supported the idea that salvation is due to the grace of God, and that people should experience Jesus personally. He died in London in 1791, having become the best loved man in England.

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