“..on May 24, 1738, Wesley felt his heart “strangely warmed,” an event that is rightly celebrated in Methodism. In this conversion experience, he was like any number of pious Anglican clergymen. Yet what brought this pious clergyman into the center of a revival that would “reform the nation, especially the church,” was an event that has received much less attention within the denominations that stem directly from this movement. This event, which included outward as well as an inward manifestation of the Holy Spirit’s power, took place seven months after Aldersgate at a New Year’s watchnight service at Fetter Lane. Here, Wesley proclaimed, “The power of God came mightily upon us.” Judging from Wesley’s journal account of the fourteen months after Aldersgate, it was actually this communal experience of the Holy Spirit at Fetter Lane on January 1, 1739, that was the real catalyst for the encounters of Spirit power that came to typify the Methodist Revival.”
“On January 1, 1739 at Fetter Lane, the Holy Spirit poured out on Wesley and the others as on Pentecost. Judging from the next seven months in his Journal, it is evident that the manifest power of the Holy Spirit played an increasingly central role, and that the Methodist Revival had begun”
Extract from ‘Aldersgate or Fetter Lane?’ by Douglas Fox, Firebrand Magazine, April 20, 2021
