Description

Prevenient grace, or as Wesley sometimes ironically called it, “preventing grace” should not be confused with either Calvin’s notion of common grace, nor with justifying or saving grace. What Wesley has in mind is the grace which comes before conversion and enables “whosoever will” to repent of their sins and respond to the Gospel. As such it is seen as a necessary enabler of a fallen person who otherwise would be still be “bound in sin and nature’s night.” Wesley tended to think this grace was universal in scope, just as God’s mercy is over all his works. The key however is that for Wesley this grace is not seen as irresistible, else it would be hard to explain why some draw on this grace and respond positively to the offer of salvation, and some do not (bearing in mind Wesley most certainly did not believe in God foreordaining some to be saved and some to be lost from before the foundation of the world).