The influence of pietism on John Wesley as revealed in his journal

John Wesley's Journal, based on his diaries and covering a period of fifty years, proves a rich source of the record of his spiritual, theological, and personal relationships. A part of this study has been devoted to examining the history of these diaries and the Journal extracts which Wesley produced, some for private and some for general reading in the Methodist societies.

The first Journal extracts preserve the record of the experiences of John and Charles Wesley on their journey to Georgia, their attempt to serve the colonists, their attraction to the demonstrated serenity and faith of the Moravian Pietists, and the problems in interpersonal relations which caused both brothers to return to England. Later Journal extracts reveal John Wesley's growing absorption with the quality of the Christian life as well as his desire to remain in harmony with the Thirty-Nine Articles, the Homilies, and the Book of Common Prayer—these three constituting the body of doctrines held in common by the members of the Anglican faith.

This study has attempted to determine, largely from Wesley's Journal, which doctrines and practices held by the early Methodist societies seem rooted in Wesley's steady concern with Pietist doctrines and practices demonstrated by Pietists from Halle, Moravia, and Herrnhut. In addition to the Journal information, the study has attempted to document the existence of such beliefs and their gradual adoption into standard practice in Wesley's societies as depicted in available copies of contemporary pamphlets, letters, magazines, and music—the latter being the music John and Charles Wesley produced for the Methodist societies.

This study concentrates on seven major doctrines which Wesley developed and refined for introduction among the Methodist societies— assurance with its accompanying free grace and consequent rejection of predestination, perfection, apostolic succession, a theory and practice of hymnnody, and a distinctive philosophy of education—and with the exception of his stand against apostolic succession, Wesley's Journal evidences each doctrine to be heavily indepted to Pietism.