John Wesley’s Appropriation of Thomas à Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ

John Wesley treasured Thomas à Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ as a foundational text and lifelong companion in his theological development and spiritual journey. Moreover, he cited it as an inspiration for the origins of Methodism itself. Of the over 400 works he published, the Imitation was among the most successful and influential. The book had a deep and lasting impact on Wesley’s sacramental and holiness theology. It aligned with his lifelong passion for holiness with its telos in Christian perfection. The imitation of Christ was one of his most common ways of defining and describing the nature of his cherished doctrine of Christian perfection. Therefore, he promoted the Imitation as an authoritative Methodist text by repeatedly exhorting Methodists to read it and declared that it should be available in every Methodist society and home. This chapter examines the formative influence of the Imitation on Wesley, the edition and extracts of it that he published, and his use of the imitatio Christi ideal in his seminal work: A Plain Account of Christian Perfection. It concludes with reflections on commonalities between Wesley, the Imitation of Christ, and the wider Devotio Moderna movement.