Wesley's Free Grace (Reaction to Calvinist Influence)

Wesley’s Free Grace should be re-titled “An Absolute Critique of Calvinist-Pre-Destination”. If we can understand Wesley as an Anglican Priest rather than being a prisoner to present-ism and the UMC-lens we all wear, than how do we understand his harsh rhetoric towards another Christian denomination?

In reading this sermon, I assume we are operating under the Elizabethan settlement which resulted in the return of refugees from Geneva, and their obvious Calvinist influence. I know we have mentioned how important it is to understand anti-Catholic sentiment in relation to these movements, but can we attempt to understand the anti-Calvinist sentiment behind Wesley’s movement as well? Is it easy to wrap our minds around Catholics versus Protestant binaries, but skip over the blatant protestant-on-protestant crime manifest in Wesley’s Free Grace?

Once again the issue revolves around the anxiety & assurance of faith. We have begun to see Wesley’s anxiety over his own personal assurance of salvation, and in many ways this was the anxiety of the time period. I have always understood Calvin’s theology to be a pastoral response to this growing anxiety. By reading into Wesley’s response to Calvin’s pastoral message of salvation can we learn how Wesley interacted with other pastors? Was John Wesley better at giving theology rather than receiving theology? However, Wesley seems to be obsessed with issues over double-pre-destination. From my understanding of Calvin’s Institutes, this obsession is a narrow interpretation. What was Wesley’s interaction with Calvin’s Institutes? Or is this Wesleyan judgment solely based off relations with the people called Calvinists?