John Wesley (1703–91) was fascinated by the Enlightenment and tried to apply a scientific and systematic “method” to spirituality: his Methodists followed a strict regimen of prayer, scripture study, fasting, and good works. But he insisted that religion was not a doctrine in the head but a light in the heart. “We do not lay the main stress of our religion on any opinions, right or wrong,” he explained. “Orthodoxy or right opinion is at best but a very slender part of religion, if it can be allowed to be any part of it at all.”
