Strangely warmed: the Wesleys and the Evangelical Awakening | Christian History Magazine

On May 24, 1738, John Wesley was converted launching the Methodist movement; it is celebrated annually by Methodists as Aldersgate Day. From the article:

"Turning-point
The most significant fact was that only eighteen days before preaching this sermon, Wesley had experienced an evangelical conversion. His heart had been ‘strangely warmed', as he put it, at a little meeting in Aldersgate Street, London, where someone read from Martin Luther’s preface to Paul’s letter to the Romans. The passage describes the nature of faith - the faith that brings a man into a right relationship with God. Wesley had already accepted the doctrine of justification by faith with his mind. Now, under the instruction of his Moravian friend, Peter Bohler, he began to seek the reality of it for himself. On 24 May 1738, he became truly aware of it for the first time, and received an assurance that the death of Jesus Christ had indeed freed him from the punishment he deserved for his sin."