As for Wesley, an unrelenting thoroughness marked at every stage
his temper in religion. He would have no uncertainties, no
easy and soft illusions. Religion as a divine gift, as a human
experience, was something definite. No intermediate stage was
thinkable. And with a wise--but almost unconscious--instinct
he put his theology to the one final test. He cast it into
the alembic of experience. He tried it by the challenge of
life; of its power to color and shape life. He spent the next
thirteen years in that process, trying his creed with infinite
courage, with transparent sincerity, and often with toil and
suffering, by the rough acid of life, till at last he reached
that conception of Christ and His gospel which lifted his
spirit up to dazzling heights of gladness and power.--W. H.
FITCHETT, “Wesley and His Century.”
(995)
See THEOLOGY SHAPED BY EXPERIENCE.