IV. FIRST TWO YEARS AT MADELEY.
FROM OCTOBER 17, 1760, TO NOVEMBER 22, 1762.
ALMOST of necessity, the life of a clergyman in a small country town is an uneventful and quiet one; and, therefore, the first ten years that Fletcher spent at Madeley were unmarked by stirring incidents, such as were perpetually occurring in the lives of his friends Wesley and Whitefield.
Madeley is a market town in the county of Salop. It is beautifully situated in a winding glen, through which the river Severn flows. In 1800, fifteen years after Fletcher’s death, it contained, according to the parliamentary returns, 291 houses, and 4,758 inhabitants. The church is dedicated to St. Michael; and the parish includes Coalbrook Dale and Madeley Wood, noted for their coal mines and their iron-works. Colliers and iron-workers at Madeley, in the days of Fletcher, were quite as ignorant and brutal as they were elsewhere. His mission was a trying one; and its burdensomeness was not lessened by the fact that there was not a single clergyman in the county of Salop who approved of his Methodist doctrines, or sympathized with his Methodist endeavours. Further, he was without parochial experience. He had preached for the Wesleys and for the Countess of Huntingdon; and, on a few rare occasions, he had been permitted to occupy the pulpits of the Established Church; but, notwithstanding the temporary assistance he had rendered to his Madeley predecessor, he had never held a curacy. In parish work he was a novice; but he was not dismayed. A few months before his induction, he had been with Berridge, who, with the exception of Mr. Hicks at Wrestlingworth, was as much without clerical sympathy and help in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire, as Fletcher himself was now in Salop. Berridge had seen marvellous results of his denounced ministry, and why should not Fletcher see the same? Hence, on January 6, 1761, he wrote as follows to the Countess of Huntingdon:—
“I had a secret expectation to be the instrument of a work in this part of our Church; and I did not despair of being soon a little Berridge. Thus warmed with sparks of my own kindling, I looked out to see the rocks broken, and the waters flowing out; but, to the great disappointment of my hopes, I am now forced to look within, and see the need I have of being broken myself. If my being stationed in this howling wilderness is to answer no public end as to the Gospel of Christ, I will not give up the hope that it may answer a private end as to myself, in humbling me under a sense of unprofitableness.
“As to my parish, all that I see in it, hitherto, is nothing but what one may expect from speaking plainly, and with some degree of earnestness; a crying out, ‘He is a Methodist—a downright Methodist!’ While some of the poorer say, ‘Nay, but he speaketh the truth!’ Some of the best farmers, and most of the respectable tradesmen, talk about turning me out of my living as a Methodist or a Baptist. My Friday lecture took better than I expected, and I propose to continue it till the congregation desert me. The number of hearers at that time is generally larger than that which my predecessor had on Sunday. The number of communicants is increased from thirty to above a hundred; and a few seem to seek grace in the means. I thank your ladyship for mentioning Mr. Jones as a curate. There is little probability of my ever wanting one. My oath obliges me to residence, and, when I am here, I can easily manage all the business, and only wait for opportunities of oftener bearing witness to the truth.”[70]
Footnote 70:
“Life and Times of the Countess of Huntingdon,” vol. i., p. 240.
Fletcher’s troubles were various. He was dissatisfied with himself; a visionary convert caused him anxiety; and many of his parishioners maligned him. Writing to Charles Wesley on March 10, 1761, he remarked:—
“I feel more and more that I neither abide in Christ, nor Christ in me; nevertheless, I do not so feel it, as to seek Him without intermission. ‘Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from’ this heart of unbelief? Blessed be God, who has promised me this deliverance, through our Lord Jesus Christ!
“My new convert has, with great difficulty, escaped the wiles of the devil; who, by fifty visions, had set her on the pinnacle of the temple. Thanks be to God, she has come down without being cast headlong. I have had more trouble with her visions than with her unbelief. Two other persons profess that they have received the consolations of Divine love: I wait for their fruits.
“A few days ago, I was violently tempted to quit Madeley. The spirit of Jonah had so seized upon my heart that I had the insolence to murmur against the Lord; but the storm is now happily calmed, at least for a season. Alas! what stubbornness there is in the will of man; and with what strength does it combat the will of God under the mask of piety, when it can no longer do so with the uncovered, shameless face of vice! ‘If a man bridleth not his tongue,’ all his outward ‘religion is vain.’ May we not add to this, if a man bridleth not his will, which is the language of his desires, his inward religion is vain also? The Lord does not, however, leave me altogether; and I have often a secret hope that He will one day touch my heart and lips with a live coal from the altar; and that then His word shall consume the stubble, and break to pieces the stone.
“The question, which you mean to repeat at the end of the winter, is, I hope, whether you shall be welcome at Madeley? My answer is, you shall be welcome; for I have already lost almost all my reputation, and the little that remains does not deserve a competition with the pleasure I shall have in seeing you.”[71]
Footnote 71:
Letters, 1791, p. 107.
Notwithstanding his dejection, and the opposition he had to encounter, Fletcher continued to labour with unflagging diligence. To his Friday night lecture he now added the catechising of children on Sunday afternoons, but relieved himself of the toil of preparing a second Sunday sermon, by reading the sermons of other men. He also began to see a prospect of commencing services at Madeley Wood and at Coalbrook Dale. Hence, in another letter to Charles Wesley he wrote as follows:—
“MADELEY, April 27, 1761.
“When I first came to Madeley, I was greatly mortified and discouraged by the smallness of my congregations; and I thought if some of our friends in London had seen my little company they would have triumphed in their own wisdom. But now, thank God, things are altered in that respect. Last Sunday, I had the pleasure of seeing some in the churchyard who could not get into the church.
“I began a few Sundays ago to preach in the afternoon, after catechising the children; but I do not preach my own sermons. Twice I read a sermon of Archbishop Usher’s; and last Sunday one of the Homilies, taking the liberty of making some observations on such passages as confirmed what I had advanced in the morning; and, by this means, I stopped the mouths of many adversaries.
“I have frequently had a desire to exhort in Madeley Wood and Coalbrook Dale, two villages of my parish; but I have not dared to run before I saw an open door. It now, I think, begins to open. Two small Societies of about twenty persons have formed of themselves in those places, although the devil seems determined to overturn all. A young person, the daughter of one of my rich parishioners, has been thrown into despair, so that everybody thought her insane, and, indeed, I thought so too. Judge how our adversaries rejoiced; and, for my part, I was tempted to forsake my ministry, and take to my heels; I never suffered such affliction. Last Saturday, I humbled myself before the Lord on her account, by fasting and prayer; and I hope the Lord heard my prayer. Yesterday, she found herself well enough to come to church.
“You will do well to engage your colliers at Kingswood to pray for their poor brethren at Madeley. May those at Madeley, one day, equal them in faith, as they now do in that wickedness, for which they (the Kingswood colliers) were famous before you went among them.
“Mr. Hill has written me a very obliging letter, to engage me to accompany the elder of my pupils to Switzerland; and if I had any other country than the place where I am, I should, perhaps, have been tempted to go. At present, however, I have no temptation that way, and I have declined the offer as politely as I could.”[72]
Footnote 72:
Letters, 1791, p. 109.
The case of the young woman just mentioned was to Fletcher a great trial. In a letter written to Lady Huntingdon[73] on the same day as the foregoing letter to Charles Wesley, he states, that, previous to this, reports had been spread that he drove the people mad, and he had borne such scandals “patiently enough,” but this “glaring instance,” which seemed to confirm the rumours circulated against him, had thrown him into “agonies of soul.” To a great extent, Fletcher had yet to learn a lesson which the Wesleys and Whitefield had long ago been taught: “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you” (1 Peter iv. 14).
Footnote 73:
“Life and Times of the Countess of Huntingdon,” vol. i., p. 241.
The scandals were continued; and even the pulpit was used in lampooning the Madeley preacher. Hence the following, addressed to Charles Wesley:—
“MADELEY, August 19, 1761.
“I know not whether I mentioned to you a sermon preached at the Archdeacon’s Visitation. It was almost all levelled at the points which are called the doctrines of Methodism, and, as the preacher is minister of a parish near mine, it is probable he had me in his eye. After the sermon, another clergyman addressed me with an air of triumph, and demanded what answer I could make. As several of my parishioners were present, besides the churchwardens, I thought it my duty to take the matter up; and I have done so by writing a long letter to the preacher, in which I have touched the principal mistakes of his discourse, with as much politeness and freedom as I was able; but I have had no answer. I could have wished for your advice before I sealed my letter; but, as I could not have it, I have been very cautious, entrenching myself behind the ramparts of Scripture, as well as those of our Homilies and Articles.
“I know not what to say to you of the state of my soul. I daily struggle in the Slough of Despond, and I endeavour every day to climb the Hill Difficulty. I need wisdom, mildness, and courage; and no man has less of them than I.
“As to the state of my parish, the prospect is yet discouraging. New scandals succeed those that wear away; but ‘offences must come.’ Happy shall I be if the offence cometh not by me. My churchwardens speak of hindering strangers from coming to the church, and of repelling them from the Lord’s table; but on these points I am determined to make head against them. A club of eighty working men, in a neighbouring parish, being offended at their minister, determined to come in procession to my church, and requested me to preach a sermon for them; but I thought proper to decline doing so, and have thereby a little regained the good graces of the minister, at least for a time.”[74]
Footnote 74:
Letters, 1791, p. 111.
The preacher, at the Archdeacon’s visitation, was the Rev. Mr. Prothero;[75] and the “long letter” to him may be found in Fletcher’s collected works (vol. viii.), where it fills twenty-eight octavo pages, and is entitled a “Defence of Experimental Religion.” It is dated “Madeley, July 25, 1761.”
Footnote 75:
Methodist Magazine, 1821, p. 17.
Mr. Prothero’s “elegant sermon,” as Fletcher terms it, seems to have consisted of two parts: a defence of revealed religion against Deists and Infidels; and a warning against religious superstition and enthusiasm. The first part gave Fletcher “exceeding great satisfaction,” and the design of the second part was good, for, as Fletcher remarks, “It is the duty of a preacher to keep the sacred truths committed to him, as well from being perverted by enthusiasts, as from being crushed by infidels. Boasting of communion with God, and peculiar favours from heaven, is hurtful to the cause of Christ, when people’s lives show them to be actuated by a spirit of delusion; and setting up impulses in the room of repentance, faith, hope, charity, obedience, has done no small mischief in the Church of God.”
But, while Fletcher praises Mr. Prothero for “the goodness of his design,” he passes strictures upon the execution of it. He condemns Mr. Prothero for “representing, in general, that virtue, benevolence, good-nature, and morality, are the way to salvation;” and shows, that according “to the Word of God and the teaching of our Church,” sinners are saved by the exercise of faith in Christ. He objected to Mr. Prothero’s doctrine, that, by nature, and without the assistance of Divine grace, man “has the same power to enter the paths of virtue as to walk across a room.” He censured the way in which the preacher discountenanced the doctrine of the necessity of the new birth; and he maintained, at great length, that to “set aside all feelings in religion, and to rank them with unaccountable impulses,” is not consistent with the teachings of the Bible, and with the Liturgy, Articles, and Homilies of the English Church.
Soon after this, Fletcher was in another trouble. Hence the following letter written to Charles Wesley:—
“MADELEY, October 12, 1761.
“MY DEAR SIR,—You have always the goodness to encourage me, and your encouragements are not unseasonable; for discouragements follow one after another with very little intermission. Those which are of an inward nature are sufficiently known to you; but some others are peculiar to myself, especially those I have had for eight days past, during Madeley wake.
“Seeing that I could not suppress these bacchanals, I did all in my power to moderate their madness; but my endeavours have had little or no effect. You cannot well imagine how much the animosity of my parishioners is heightened, and with what boldness it discovers itself against me, because I preached against drunkenness, shows, and bull-baiting. The publicans and maltmen will not forgive me. They think that to preach against drunkenness, and to cut their purse, is the same thing.
“My church begins not to be so well filled as it has been, and I account for it thus: the curiosity of some of my hearers is satisfied, and others are offended by the word; the roads are worse; and if it shall ever please the Lord to pour His Spirit upon us, the time is not yet come. The people, instead of saying, ‘Let us go up to the house of the Lord,’ exclaim, ‘Why should we go and hear a Methodist?’
“I should lose all patience with my flock if I had not more reason to be satisfied with them than with myself. My own barrenness furnishes me with excuses for theirs; and I wait the time when God shall give seed to the sower and increase to the seed sown. In waiting that time, I learn the meaning of this prayer, ‘Thy will be done.’
“Believe me your sincere, though unworthy, friend, “J. FLETCHER.”[76]
Footnote 76:
Letters, 1791, p. 112.
Fletcher’s faithful preaching offended the publicans, and, judging of his sermons in general by the following specimens, it is not surprising that his preaching offended others. The extracts are taken from a sermon delivered in the month of December 1761, and first published in the Dublin edition of the Methodist Magazine for 1821 (pp. 249–258).[77] The text was, “Thou shalt speak My words to them, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear, for they are most rebellious” (Ezek. ii. 7). After challenging his congregation to assert their innocence, Fletcher proceeded:—
“Supposing you never allowed yourself to dishonour the name of God by customary swearing, or grossly to violate His Sabbaths, or commonly to neglect the solemnities of His public worship; supposing, again, that you have not injured your neighbours in their lives, their chastity, their character, or their property, either by violence or by fraud; or that you never scandalously debased your rational nature by that vile intemperance which sinks a man below the worst kind of brutes; supposing all this, can you pretend that you have not in smaller instances violated the rules of piety, of temperance, and of chastity? Does not your own heart prove you guilty of pride, of passion, of sensuality, of an excessive fondness for the world and its enjoyments; of murmuring, or at least secretly repining, against God under the strokes of an afflictive Providence; of misspending a great deal of your time; of abusing the gifts of God’s bounty to vain, and, in some instances, to pernicious purposes; of mocking Him when you have pretended to engage in His worship, drawing near to Him with your lips while your heart has been far from Him? Does not your conscience condemn you of some one breach of the law at least? and by one breach of it, does not the Holy Ghost bear witness (James ii. 10) that you are become guilty of all, and are as incapable of being justified before God by any obedience of your own, as if you had committed ten thousand offences? But, in reality, there are ten thousand and more to be charged to your account. When you come to reflect on all your sins of negligence, as well as on your voluntary transgressions; on all the instances in which you have failed to do good when it was in your power to do it; on all the instances in which acts of devotion have been omitted, especially in secret; and on all those cases in which you have shown a stupid disregard to the honour of God, and to the temporal and eternal happiness of your fellow-creatures; when all these, I say, are reviewed, the number will swell beyond all possibility of account, and force you to cry out, ‘I am rebellious, most rebellious; mine iniquities are more than the hairs of my head!’ They will appear in such a light before you that your own heart will charge you with countless multitudes; and how much more then that God, ‘who is greater than your heart, and knoweth all things’?”
Footnote 77:
Fletcher seldom wrote his sermons, and more rarely read them. More than one hundred and forty sermons of Wesley’s have been published, and at least sixty of Whitefield’s; but of Fletcher’s, who had much more leisure than either Wesley or Whitefield, only about a dozen. All the rest are mere outlines. The following are copied from Fletcher’s MSS., and have not before been published. They may be taken as fair specimens of Fletcher’s pulpit preparations and pulpit helps. They are skeletons of two sermons, preached from Matt. xxii. 36–39:— W “I. Why we must love God.
“II. How we must love Him.
“III. What we must do in order to love Him.
“He is our Creator, Preserver, Redeemer, Sanctifier. He commands us to love Him. Out of His love there is no happiness. Love of God contains all. He loved us first.
“With all our soul, heart, and strength. Above all things. More than our life, wives, children, estate, honour, ourselves.
“Be convinced we do not love Him. Abhor ourselves for our rebellion. Confess, repent, and believe. Keep a sense of our forgiveness. Pray to Him. Praise Him. Walk with Him. Seek but Him. Refuse all comfort unless we feel His love. Keep a constant communion with Him by seeing His glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
“How have we fulfilled this great duty? Try yourselves. Pray an hour by yourselves. If you do not love, you hate. What fury to hate all that is good, great, and lovely! What madness to set our love on creatures! It must fall with them. Love God in Christ. Look to Christ. Believe in Christ, to love God. If you do not love Him, you are in your lives in the devil’s state. You can no more go to heaven than the devil. Choose which you will love. The world calls. Let us give all for all.“
“Love thy neighbour. All men; though never so distant in place, different in opinions, interests. Because made by the same hand; partakers of the same nature; bought with the same blood; capable of the same happiness.
“As ourselves. Not judging; not thinking evil; not speaking evil; not defrauding; not coveting; doing them good; praying for them; honouring them
“Because all made in image of God. None but in something better than ourselves; none but is a child of God, or may become so.
“Put the best construction on words or actions, much more upon thoughts. Relieve necessities. This is imitating God. What we give is lent to God.
“Love universally, constantly, impartially, sincerely; from a sense of Christ’s love.”
This was plain speaking, but very characteristic of the preaching of the Church of England Methodists. Space will permit only one other extract from this sermon.
“And now, sinner, think seriously with yourself what defence you will make to all this? Will you fly in the face of God and that of your conscience so openly as to deny one of the charges of rebellion, yea, of aggravated rebellion, I have advanced against you? Have you not lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven? Have you not sided with His sworn enemies—the world and the flesh? What part of your body, what faculty of your soul, have you not employed as an instrument of unrighteousness? When did you live one day before God with the dependence of a creature, the gratitude of a redeemed creature, the heavenly frame of a sanctified creature? Nay, when did you live one hour without violating God’s known law, either in word, or thought, or action? Have not you done it almost continually by the vanity of your mind and the hardness of your heart, if not by the open immorality of your life? And, what infinitely aggravates your guilt, have you not despised and abused God’s numberless mercies? Have you not affronted conscience, His deputy in your breast? Have you not resisted and grieved His Spirit? Yea, have you not trifled with Him in all your pretended submissions or solemn engagements? Thousands are, no doubt, already in hell whose guilt never equalled yours; and yet God has spared you to see almost the end of another year, and to hear now this plain representation of your case. And will you not yet consider? Shall nothing move you to shake off that amazing carelessness and stupid disregard of your salvation? Will you never begin to ‘work it out with fear and trembling’? Will you slumber in impenitency till eternal woes crush you into destruction? Is death, is judgment, is the bottomless pit so distant that you dare put off from week to week the day of your conversion? You have read in God’s Word that there is mercy with Him that He may be feared; but where did you read that there is mercy with Him for those who fear Him not? Show me such a place; I shall not say anywhere in the Bible, but in any book written by a moral heathen. And yet you hope you can be saved in this way.
“Sinner, despise me here if thou wilt; call me here an enthusiast, and laugh at the concern I feel for thy perishing soul; but hereafter thou wilt do me justice, clear me before the Lord Jesus, and acknowledge that thy blood is upon thine own head, that thou art undone because thou wouldst be undone, because thou wouldst take neither warning nor reproof.”
To give the reader a further idea of the faithfulness and searching character of Fletcher’s preaching at this early period of his Madeley ministry, the subjoined extracts are given from sermons preached during the first three months of 1762.
In January, 1762,[78] he delivered a discourse upon the words, “Ye will not come unto Me, that ye might have life;” in which he described “four classes of sinners who will not come to Christ that they might have life;” and proved “that unbelief, or not coming to Christ for life, is the most abominable and damning of all sins.” One brief extract on the latter point must suffice:—
“Unbelief is a sin of so deep a dye that the devils in hell cannot commit the like. Our Saviour never prayed, wept, bled, and died for devils. He never said to them, ‘Ye will not come unto Me, that ye might have life.’ They can never be so madly ungrateful as to slight a Saviour. Mercy never wooed their stubborn, proud hearts as it does ours. They have abused grace, it is true, but they never trampled mercy underfoot. This more than diabolical sin is reserved for thee, careless sinner. Now thou hearest Christ compassionately say in the text, ‘Ye will not come unto Me,’ and thou remainest unmoved; but the time cometh when Jesus, who meekly entreats, shall sternly curse; when He who in tender patience says, ‘Ye will not come unto Me,’ shall thunder in righteous vengeance, ‘Depart from Me, ye cursed; depart unto the second death,—the fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’ In vain wilt thou plead then as thou dost now, ‘Lord, I am no adulterer; I am no extortioner; I used to eat at Thy table; I was baptized in Thy name; I was a true churchman; there are many worse than I am.’ This will not admit thee into the kingdom of Christ. His answer will be, ‘I know you not; you never came to Me for life.’”
Footnote 78:
Methodist Magazine, 1821, p. 651.
Plain preaching such as this was not likely to please the easy-going Pharisees of the age in which Fletcher lived, any more than it is likely to be popular among the same class of people at the present day. To utter such truths required courage then; and it requires courage now. Fletcher, one of the gentlest of human beings, possessed this courage.
No doubt there were many occasions when his sermons were full of the richest comfort to those who had truly repented, and unfeignedly believed Christ’s holy Gospel; but he never failed faithfully to fulfil an Old Testament commission, binding upon the ministers of God throughout all time: “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show My people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins” (Isa. lviii. 1).
At the risk of wearying the reader, further extracts must be given, exemplifying Fletcher’s fearless fidelity.
On January 4, 1762, England declared war against Spain; and, a few days after, proclamations were issued for a general fast to be observed in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, in the month of March.[79] Fletcher, as a loyal Churchman, preached on this occasion;[80] his text was Ezek. xxxiii. 7–9. After a few preliminary remarks respecting the king’s “pious proclamation,” he proceeds to say,—
“We must attack, unmask, and overthrow vice with holy violence, and strike at the heart of sin with the boldness of John the Baptist, and in the spirit of Elijah. Without any apology for my plainness, I shall endeavour to convince the wicked man both of his wickedness and danger.”
Footnote 79:
London Magazine, 1762, p. 48.
Footnote 80:
Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 1822, p. 153.
Fletcher begins with “practical atheists”
“Thousands there are, who, by gross ignorance, shameful neglect of instruction, and abominable contempt of godliness, are in the front of the battle, and next to the prince of darkness. Their heart is darkened by the mists of pride and the clouds of presumption, and they are such utter strangers to their want of spiritual light and divine grace, that they seldom or never call upon God for help with any solemnity. The unhappy heathenish families who are of that stamp meet regularly every day to eat, drink, and make provision for the flesh; but how seldom do they meet to read and pray. You will find almost as much godliness among the wild Indians as among these practical atheists. But why should I call them atheists? They have many gods. The world is their god; pleasure is their god; vanity is their god; money is their god; their belly is their god; to some or other of these idols, they sacrifice their hearts and their time. As for the God of heaven, the great and eternal Jehovah, they put Him off with a careless attendance on His public worship on Sunday morning, if the weather suits them; and it is well if to this they add sometimes the babbling over of the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed, which, after all, in the manner in which they do it, is no better than a solemn mockery of the Saviour, whom they constantly crucify afresh. Do you belong to such a heathenish, prayerless family? If you do, suffer me to deliver my soul by telling you, that you are the very first person to whom I am bound to say, ‘Thou shalt surely die.’ Read your sentence in Psalm lxxix. 6. What! shall the indignation of the Lord fall upon prayerless families among the heathen, and shall it pass by the nominally Christian, but prayerless family to which you belong? No, no; the Judge of all the earth will do right; He will repay you to your face.”
“The wicked is often known, to others and to himself, by his injustice, oppression, cruelty, deceit, and unfair dealing. Did you ever make a prey of the poor and helpless? Are you like the horse-leech, crying, ‘Give, give,’ still wanting more profit, and never thinking you have enough? Do you take more care to lay up treasures on earth than in heaven? Have you got the unhappy secret of distilling silver out of the poor man’s brow, and gold out of the tears of helpless widows and friendless orphans? Or, which is rather worse, do you, directly or indirectly, live by poisoning others, by encouraging the immoderate use of those refreshments, which, taken to excess, disorder the reason, ruin the soul, and prove no better than slow poison to the body? If your business calls you to buy or sell, do you use falsehood? do you equivocate? do you exaggerate or conceal the truth, in order to impose upon your neighbour, and make a profit of his necessity or credulity? If any of these marks be upon you, God’s word singles you out, and drags you to the bar of Divine justice to hear your doom in the text, ‘The wicked shall surely die.’ O, see your danger; repent, and make restitution! Why should you meet the unjust steward in hell, when you may yet follow Zaccheus into heaven?”
“There is another fearful sin, which has in it no profit, no pleasure, no, not sensual sweetness enough to bait the hook of temptation. The only enticement to it is the diabolical disposition of the wicked man, and the horrid pride he takes in cutting a figure among the children of Belial. I speak of oaths and curses,—those arrows shot from the string of a hellish heart, and the bow of a Luciferian tongue, against heaven itself; these are some of the sparks of hell-fire, which, now and then, come out of the throat of a wicked man. Do they ever come out of thine? A year ago, I laid before you the horror of that sin, and besought you to leave it to Satan and his angels, and to act no more the part of an incarnate devil. Have you strictly complied with that request? Has not heaven been pierced with another fiery dart? Have not good men, or good angels (if any attend you still) shuddered at those imprecations, which you have used, perhaps without remorse?”
“But, perhaps, your conscience bears you witness that you are not a swearing Christian, or rather a swearing infidel. Well; but are you clear in the point of adultery, fornication, or uncleanness? Does not the guilt of some vile sin, which you have wickedly indulged in time past, and perhaps are still indulging, mark you for the member of a harlot, and not the member of Christ? Do you not kindle the wrath of heaven against yourself and your country, as the men and women of Gomorrah did against themselves and the other cities of the plain? If you cherish the sparks of wantonness, as they did, how can you but be made with them to suffer the vengeance of eternal fire? Do not flatter yourselves with the vain hope, that your sin is not so heinous as theirs. If it be less in degree, is it not infinitely greater in its aggravating circumstances? Were these poor Canaanites Christians? Had they Bibles and ministers? Had they sermons and sacraments? Did they ever vow, as you have done, to renounce the devil, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh? Did they ever hear of the Son of God sweating great drops of blood, in an agony of prayer, to quench the fire of human corruption? O acknowledge your guilt and danger, and, by deep repentance, prevent infallible destruction.
“I cannot pass in silence the detestable, though fashionable, sin, which has brought down the curse of heaven, and poured desolation and ruin upon the most flourishing kingdoms,—I mean pride in apparel. Even in this place, where poverty, hard labour, and drudgery would, one should think, prevent a sin which Christianity cannot tolerate even in kings’ houses, there are not wanting foolish virgins, who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and betray the levity of their hearts by that of their dress. Yea, some women, who should be mothers in Israel, and adorn themselves with good works as holy and godly matrons, openly affect the opposite character. You may see them offer themselves first to the idol of vanity, and then sacrifice their children upon the same altar. As some sons of Belial teach their little ones to curse, before they can well speak, so these daughters of Jezebel drag their unhappy offspring, before they can walk, to the haunts of vanity and pride. They complain of evening lectures, but run to midnight dancings. O that such persons would let the prophet’s words sink into their frothy minds, and fasten upon their careless hearts: ‘Because the daughters of Sion are haughty, and walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, the Lord will smite with a sore the crown of their head, and discover their shame: instead of well-set hair, there shall be baldness, and burning instead of beauty.’”
These abbreviated extracts of Fletcher’s descriptions of “the wicked” are followed by his directions to humble themselves before Almighty God; to confess their sins with deep sorrow, and to return to the Lord with prayer and fasting; to meditate on the universality, commonness, and boldness of the nation’s wickedness; to begin a visible and thorough reformation; and to seek personal salvation in Christ. The bold preacher cries:—
“From the gilded palace to the thatched cottage, our guilt calls for vengeance. Wickedness is become so fashionable, that he who refuses to run with others into vanity, intemperance, or profaneness, is in danger of losing his character, on one hand; while, on the other, the son of Belial prides himself in excesses, glories in diabolical practices, and scoffs with impunity at religion and virtue. O England! England! happy, yet ungrateful island! Dost thou repay fruitfulness by profaneness,—plenty by vanity,—liberty by impiety,—and the light of Christianity by excesses of immorality?
“As you regard the prosperity of the king, the good of our Church, and the welfare of our country;—as you would not bring a private curse upon yourself, your house, and your dearest friends;—as you value the honour of Almighty God, and dread His awakened wrath;—as you would not force Him to make our land a field of blood, or to break the staff of our bread, and send famine, pestilence, popery, or some other fearful judgment among us;—I pray you, I beseech, I entreat each of you, my dear brethren! as upon my bended knees,—in the name of our Lord Jesus, and by those bowels of Divine mercy against which we have madly kicked in times past, and which, nevertheless, still yearn over us,—I entreat you not to rest in outward humiliation and reformation. Christians must go one step beyond the Ninevites. O seek then, with all true Christians, a righteousness superior to that of the Scribes and Pharisees. Seek it in Christ. Never rest, till you are sure of your interest in Him; till you feel the virtue of His blood applied to your hearts by the power of His Spirit. Without this, all the rest will stand you in little stead.”[81]
Footnote 81:
Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 1822, p. 222.
This, in truth, was thunder and lightning preaching,—no doubt greatly needed then, as, indeed, it is greatly needed now; preaching likely to give offence, but the faithfulness of which God always honours, and crowns with marked success. It raised up against Fletcher bitter enemies; but it was the means of converting not a few of his godless parishioners.
One of these was Mary Matthews, who, listening to the reproaches cast upon Fletcher, was greatly prejudiced against him. At length, she went to hear him. Mary thought herself very good, but Fletcher showed she was very vile. For two years, she was an earnest penitent, and then, by faith in Christ, found peace with God. Mary was brought before magistrates for opening her little house, in Madeley Wood, for preaching, but she continued faithful; and, in 1788, passed away to heaven, her last words being, “I am almost at home. Farewell! God bless you! God for ever bless you!”
Another was Mary Barnard, who lived to the age of ninety, was very lame, but always crawled to Madeley church when the weather would permit. Totally without education herself, she had a son who became a Methodist local preacher. Her death occurred in 1797, and her last message to Fletcher’s widow was,—“The covenant is signed and sealed between my Lord and me. I am His by a marriage bond; and He is mine. And now I set to my seal, that the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin.”[82]
Footnote 82:
Methodist Magazine, 1800, pp. 219–223.
Such conversions were among Fletcher’s encouragements; and he greatly needed them. His preaching saved some, but offended others. In one of his unpublished manuscripts, dated “Madeley, February 28, 1762,” he notes a somewhat remarkable occurrence:—
“Last Sunday, only one objection was made against the doctrine I preached in this church, and that, I think, was a poor one, as it was supported by no argument and no Scripture. The sum of it was this, ‘It is hard to say that one breach of the law brings a man under the curse, and exposes one out of Christ to the damnation of hell.’ To this I answer by four arguments.
“The first is taken from matters of fact in the Word of God. By one sin, and by the offence of one, condemnation came upon all men, namely by the one sin of Adam’s eating the forbidden fruit. And a more awful example you have in the sudden destruction of Ananias and Sapphira his wife for having told one single lie.
“The second argument is taken from common sense, which tells us that one leak in a ship unstopped will sink it in time, as certainly as a hundred; one piece broken out of a glass makes it a useless glass, as much as if it was dashed into twenty pieces; one stab of a dagger through the heart kills a man as much as a hundred would. And so one sin uncancelled by Christ’s blood will as surely destroy an unconverted man as a hundred, though his destruction will not be so terrible as that of him who has committed a hundred.
“The third argument is taken from the exactness of human laws and the practice of earthly judges. They all condemn a man for one single offence. If one can be proved it is enough. Let a murderer kill one man, he is to be hanged as well as if he had killed a hundred. Let a highwayman take one pound from one single person, the law condemns him for a felon, and sends him to the gallows, as well as if he had taken a thousand pounds from a thousand different travellers. The law of the land, to the breach of which the penalty is annexed, is as effectually broken by one act of felony as by a hundred; and the law of God is as much, though not so heinously, broken, by one sin as by a hundred: consequently the law of God curses and damns for one sin as well as for a hundred.
“The fourth argument is taken from Deuteronomy xxvii. 26, ‘Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them.’ Also, Galatians iii. 10, ‘Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.’ And James ii. 10, ‘Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.’ He violates the law, despises the law, incurs the punishment threatened.”
Passing by Fletcher’s arguments and logic, this fugitive manuscript is of some importance, as intimating not only that objections were made to Fletcher’s doctrines, but also that he was accustomed publicly to notice and answer them in his parish church.
Fletcher had other troubles besides those arising from objections to his teaching. In his Fast-day sermon, preached on March 12, 1762, he had cried:—
“‘Because of swearing the land mourneth.’ If the prophet of old had lived in our degenerate days, he would have added, ‘Because of perjury the land groaneth.’ To go no farther than the place we inhabit, how many of us, who have been entrusted with public offices, have wilfully broken the oaths administered unto us? How many open and notorious drunkards, fighters, sabbath-breakers, blasphemers of God’s Word, and cursers of men, have escaped deserved censure, I shall not say by the accidental neglect, but by the downright perjury of officers?”
This bold accusation stimulated one of Fletcher’s young parishioners to put the law in force against one of the culpable parish officers; by which act the young man brought himself into trouble, and also Fletcher, who protected him.
Further, in the small house of Mary Matthews, built upon the rock in Madeley Wood, Fletcher had begun to hold preaching services; the congregation assembling there had been called “the Rock Church;” and Mary Matthews had been fined £20 for permitting such assemblies in her humble dwelling. Fletcher refers to these incidents in the following letter to Charles Wesley:—
“MADELEY, May 16, 1762.
“Since my last, our troubles have increased. A young man having put in force the Act, for suppressing swearing, against a parish officer, he stirred up all the other half gentlemen to remove him from the parish. Here I interposed, and, to do so with effect, I took the young man into my service. By God’s grace, I have been enabled to conduct myself, in this matter, so as to give them no handle against me; and, in spite of all their cabals, I have got the better of them.
“What has greatly encouraged them is the behaviour of a magistrate, who was at the first inclined to favour me, but afterwards turned against me with peculiar malevolence, and proceeded so far as to threaten me and all my flock of the Rock Church with imprisonment. Hitherto, the Lord has stood by me, and my little difficulties are nothing to me; but I fear I support them rather like a philosopher than a Christian. We were to have been mobbed with a drum last Tuesday, at the Rock Church; but their captain, a papist, behaved himself so very ill, that they were ashamed of him, and are made peaceable for the present.”[83]
Footnote 83:
Letters, 1791, p. 114
Fletcher wrote to this persecuting papist the following letter, which is now for the first time published:—
“SIR,—The indecent and profane manner in which you broke upon those of my parishioners who came to me for private exhortations at Mrs. Matthews’, lays me under an absolute obligation to present you at Ludlow Court as a person notoriously guilty—1, Of drunkenness; 2, of cursing; 3, of disturbing me in the discharge of the private labours of my ministry; 4, of profane disregard to the Liturgy of the Established Church; 5, of want of respect for the Royal Family, openly intimated in indecent interruption while I prayed for them, and obliging me to get up from my knees and make you go out of the room before I could conclude the collect in peace; and 6, of cursing, and making game of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity.
“Though I told you upon the spot, that you should be informed of for your profane behaviour, I think it my duty to acquaint you of it more particularly, that you may prepare your answers to the above mentioned charges.
“I assure you, Sir, that malice, or any private pique, is entirely out of the question. I heartily wish you well, and am ready to do you any service but that of sacrificing the interests of religion and virtue to open profaneness and immorality.
“The following considerations weigh much with me to make me insist on the churchwardens putting you in their presentment; and they will, I hope, convince you that I act only according to the dictates of Christian prudence.
“1. Most of the things laid to your charge were grown into habit before they broke out in my presence. It is not the first time that you have been seen in liquor, and been heard to use profane expressions, and to make sport of the things of God, and turn my labours into ridicule.
“2. So public an offence absolutely demands a public punishment, and the officers, whom I have informed of your behaviour, must be perjured if they present you not, and an irreparable blow will be given to the honour of religion and morality.
“3. The regard I have for our Church, and the peace of the parish, obliges me to resist in you the persecuting spirit of opposition your Church is so noted for.
“4. Part of my business here as a clergyman of the Church of England is to withstand the propagation of your dangerous principles, and to oppose the increase of the blind persecuting zeal which some seem to breathe after you. If you are suffered openly to excite that profane zeal with impunity, how will your misled companions be confirmed in their errors. If you, who have so many laws to curb you, can offend with impunity, how daring will others grow in wickedness.
“5. A person of note in the parish has lately undergone the severity of the law for part of the above-mentioned charges. What intolerable partiality would it be in the officers and me to take no notice of you who are guilty of the whole.
“Lastly. If I do not get you presented, I shall for ever deprive myself of the liberty of repressing profaneness, immorality, and persecution in my parish. Every drunkard, every swearer, every railer, etc., etc., will (and not without reason) say to me, ‘You could spare Mr. Haughton, who was notoriously guilty of our errors; why should you be stricter with Protestants than with Papists?’
“I flatter myself that these reasons will convince you that I am led by Christian prudence and a calm resolution to oppose triumphing profaneness, and not at all by any private views or uncharitable motives. And, wishing that, if you are convicted, the course of human laws may lead you to the harbour of temperance and piety,
“I remain, Sir, your humble and obedient servant, “J. FLETCHER.”
Of course, opinions differ as to the expediency of trying to make men moral by Acts of Parliament; but there can be no doubt of Fletcher’s Christian sincerity in the action he took against Mr. Haughton. His effort, however, was a failure. Writing to Charles Wesley, in the month of July, 1762, he said:—
“Your letter arrived some days too late, to prevent my taking a false step respecting the papist in question. Three weeks ago, I went to Ludlow to the Bishop’s visitation, and I thought the occasion favourable for my purpose; but the churchwardens, when we were on the spot, refused to support me, and the court has paid no regard to my presentation. Thus I have gained some experience, though at my own cost. The sermon did not touch the string with which I was whipped at the last visitation; and I afterwards had the boldness to go and dine with the Bishop.
“Many of my parishioners are strangely disconcerted at my bringing my gown back from Ludlow. With respect to the magistrate I mentioned to you in my last, because he acted as judge of the circuit two years ago, he now believes himself as able a lawyer as Judge Foster; but, for the present, he contents himself with threatenings. I met him the other day, and, after he had called me Jesuit, etc., and menaced me with his cane, he assured me that he would soon put down our assemblies. How ridiculous is this impotent rage!
“I have attempted to form a Society, and, in spite of much opposition and many difficulties, I hope to succeed. I preach, I exhort, I pray; but, as yet, I seem to have cast the net on the wrong side of the ship. Lord Jesus, come Thyself, and furnish me with a Divine commission!
“For some months past, I have laboured under an insuperable drowsiness: I could sleep day and night; and the hours which I ought to employ with Christ on the mount, I spend like Peter in the garden.”[84]
Footnote 84:
Letters, 1791, p. 115.
Poor Fletcher’s troubles continued and increased. A month later, he wrote again to Charles Wesley, as follows:—
“I have still trials of all sorts. First, spiritual ones. My heart is hard; I have not that contrition, that filial fear, that sweet, humble melting of heart before the Lord, which I consider essential to Christianity.
“Secondly, the opposition made to my ministry increases. A young clergyman, who lives in Madeley Wood, where he has great influence, has openly declared war against me, by pasting on the church door a paper, in which he charges me with rebellion, schism, and being a disturber of the public peace. He puts himself at the head of the gentlemen of the parish (as they term themselves), and, supported by the Recorder of Wenlock, he is determined to put in force the Conventicle Act against me. A few weeks ago, the widow who lives in the Rock Church, and a young man, who read and prayed in my absence, were taken up. I attended them before the magistrate, and the young clergyman with his troop were present. They called me Jesuit, etc.; and the magistrate tried to frighten me, by saying that he would put the Act in force, though we should assemble only in my own house. I pleaded my cause as well as I could; but, seeing he was determined to hear no reason, I told him he must do as he pleased, and that, if the Act in question concerned us, we were ready to suffer all its rigours. In his rage, he went the next day to Wenlock, and proposed to grant a warrant to have me apprehended; but, as the other magistrates were of opinion that the business did not come under their cognizance, but belonged to the Spiritual Court, he was obliged to swallow his spittle alone.
“Mr. Madan,[85] whom I have consulted, tells me the Act may be enforced against the mistress of the house, the young man, and all who were present. The churchwardens talk of putting me in the Spiritual Court for meeting in houses, etc.; but what is worst of all, three false witnesses offer to prove upon oath that I am a liar; and some of my followers (as they are called) have dishonoured their profession, to the great joy of our adversaries.
“In the midst of these difficulties I have reason to bless the Lord, that my heart is not troubled. Forget me not in your prayers.”[86]
Footnote 85:
The Rev. Martin Madan, who, before he became a clergyman, was a barrister-at-law.
Footnote 86:
Letters, 1791, p. 117.
All this braggart persecution seems to have ended in threats. Fletcher wrote again to Charles Wesley, on November 22, 1762:—
“The debates about the illegality of exhorting in houses (although only in my own parish) grew some time ago to such a height, that I was obliged to lay my reasons before the Bishop; but his lordship very prudently sends me no answer. I think he knows not how to disapprove, and yet dares not approve this methodistical way of procedure.”[87]
Footnote 87:
Letters, 1791, p. 124.
Such is a bird’s-eye view of Fletcher’s ministry and ministerial trials during the first two years after his appointment to the living of Madeley in 1760. As an earnest evangelical clergyman of the Church of England, he almost stood alone. Shropshire had produced one like-minded minister; but he, the Rev. Mr. Hatton, was now in the Isle of Man. To this gentleman, Fletcher, in his solitude, wrote as follows:—
“MADELEY, August 4, 1762.
“REV. SIR,—There are so few of our profession in this county who are not ashamed of the cross of Christ, and of the Homilies and Articles of our Church, that it gave me no small pleasure to hear you are not led away with the generality into dry empty notions of morality and formality,—the two legs on which fashionable religion stalks through this so-called Christian land. May the Lord Jesus convince us daily more and more, by His Spirit, of sin in ourselves, and of righteousness in Him! May we, in the strength of our dying Samson, pull down the buildings of self-righteousness, though the consequence should be to see all our hopes of preferment and esteem buried in the ruins! May we never be led to preach another Gospel than that of Christ! ‘He that believeth shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned’ (Mark xvi. 16).
“I hope, Sir, you will not be discouraged. Regard not the wind, but sow your seed early and late; and the Lord of the harvest will give the increase, as seemeth best to His heavenly wisdom. I meet with many trials in my parish, but our faithful Lord opens always a door for me to escape; and so He will for you.
“I should be thankful to Providence, if your way should be made plain into this neighbourhood. You owe yourself to Shropshire in particular; and no county needs hands for the spiritual harvest more than this does. I pray that the Lord of the harvest may thrust you among us.
“I bespeak a sermon when you come to Salop; trusting that you will not be ashamed to bear witness to the truth as it is in Jesus, from so despised a pulpit as that of, dear Sir, your affectionate and weak fellow servant in the Gospel,
“J. FLETCHER.”[88]
Footnote 88:
Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 1829, p. 175.
Fletcher longed for clerical sympathy and co-operation; but he had to wait for them. In all respects his position was a trying one. The Rev. Mr. Gilpin, who afterwards was well acquainted with him, writes:—
“Celebrated for the extensive ironworks carried on within its limits, Madeley was remarkable for little else than the ignorance and profaneness of its inhabitants, among whom respect to man was as rarely to be observed as piety towards God. In this benighted place, the Sabbath was openly profaned, and the most holy things contemptuously trampled under foot; even the restraints of decency were violently broken through, and the external form of religion held up as a subject of ridicule.
“Immediately upon his settling in this populous village, Mr. Fletcher entered upon the duties of his vocation with an extraordinary degree of earnestness and zeal. He saw the difficulties of his situation, and the reproaches to which he should be exposed by a conscientious discharge of the pastoral office; but, as a steward of the manifold grace of God, he faithfully dispensed the word of life, according as every man had need; instructing the ignorant, reasoning with gainsayers, exhorting the immoral, and rebuking the obstinate. Not content with discharging the stated duties of the Sabbath, he counted every day as lost in which he was not actually employed in the service of the Church. As often as a small congregation could be collected, he joyfully proclaimed to them the acceptable year of the Lord, whether it were in the church, in a private house, or in the open air.”
“It was a common thing, in his parish, for young persons of both sexes to meet together for what was called recreation; and that recreation usually continued from evening to morning, consisting chiefly in dancing, revelling, drunkenness, and obscenity. These licentious assemblies he considered a disgrace to the Christian name, and determined to exert his ministerial authority for their total suppression. Frequently he burst in upon them with a holy indignation, making war upon Satan in places peculiarly appropriated to his service.”
“His enemies wrested his words, misrepresented his actions, and cast out his name as evil; but whether he was insulted in his person, or injured in his property; whether he was attacked with open abuse, or pursued by secret calumny, he walked amid the most violent assaults of his enemies, as a man invulnerable; and while his firmness discovered that he was unhurt, his forbearance testified that he was unoffended.”
“Had he aimed at celebrity as a public speaker, furnished as he was with the united powers of learning, genius, and taste, he might have succeeded beyond many; but his design was to convert and not to captivate his hearers; to secure their eternal interests, and not to obtain their momentary applause. Hence his ‘speech and his preaching were not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.’ He spake as in the presence of God, and taught as one having Divine authority. There was an energy in his preaching that was irresistible. His subjects, his language, his gestures, the tone of his voice, and the turn of his countenance, all conspired to fix the attention and affect the heart. Without aiming at sublimity, he was truly sublime; and uncommonly eloquent without affecting the orator.”[89]
Footnote 89:
“The Portrait of St. Paul.”
Such is the testimony of a gentleman who, for a season, lived in Fletcher’s house, and for many years lived in the neighbourhood of Fletcher’s parish. It would be worse than foolish to add anything to it, except the remarks of Fletcher’s friend and first biographer, John Wesley:—
“Mr. Fletcher settled at Madeley in the year 1760, and from the beginning he was a laborious workman in his Lord’s vineyard. At his first settling there, the hearts of several were unaccountably set against him, insomuch that he was constrained to warn some of these that if they did not repent God would speedily cut them off. And the truth of these predictions was shown over and over by the signal accomplishment of them.[90] But no opposition could hinder him from going on his Master’s work, and suppressing vice in every possible manner. Those sinners who endeavoured to hide themselves from him he pursued to every corner of his parish by all sorts of means, public and private, early and late, in season and out of season, entreating and warning them to flee from the wrath to come. Some made it an excuse for not attending church that they could not awake early enough to get their families ready. He provided for this also. Taking a bell in his hand, he set out every Sunday at five in the morning, and went round the most distant parts of the parish, inviting all the inhabitants to the house of God.
“Yet, notwithstanding all the pains he took, he saw for some time little fruit of his labour; insomuch that he was more than once in doubt whether he had not mistaken his place; whether God had indeed called him to confine himself to one town, or to labour more at large in His vineyard. He was not free from this doubt when a multitude of people flocked together at a funeral. He seldom let these awful opportunities slip without giving a solemn exhortation. At the close of the exhortation which was then given, one man was so grievously offended that he could not refrain from breaking out into scurrilous, yea, menacing language. But, notwithstanding all his struggling against it, the Word fastened upon his heart. At first, indeed, he roared like a lion; but he soon wept like a child. Not long after, he came to Mr. Fletcher in the most humble manner, asking pardon for his outrageous behaviour, and begging an interest in his prayers. This was such a refreshment as he stood in need of. In a short time, this poor broken-hearted sinner was filled with joy unspeakable. He then spared no pains in exhorting his fellow-sinners to flee from the wrath to come.
“It was not long after, when, one Sunday evening, Mr. Fletcher, after performing the usual duty at Madeley, was about to set out for Madeley Wood, to preach and catechise as usual. But just then notice was brought (which should have been given before) that a child was to be buried. His waiting till the child was brought prevented his going to the wood; and herein the providence of God appeared. For at this very time, many of the colliers, who neither feared God nor regarded men, were baiting a bull just by the meeting-house; and, having had plenty to drink, they had all agreed, as soon as he came, to bait the parson. Part of them were appointed to pull him off his horse, and the rest to set the dogs upon him. One of these very men afterwards confessed that he was with them when this agreement was made; and that afterwards, while they were in the most horrid manner cursing and swearing at their disappointment, a large china punch-bowl, which held above a gallon, without any apparent cause (for it was not touched by any person or thing) fell all to shivers. This so alarmed him that he forsook all his companions, and determined to save his own soul.”[91]
Footnote 90:
Jonathan Crowther, President of the Methodist Conference in 1819, relates, in his unpublished autobiography, the following anecdote: “Mrs. Fletcher told me that one Sunday, after the forenoon service, Mr. Preston, a gentleman farmer near Madeley, very grossly insulted Mr. Fletcher in the churchyard, and evinced great enmity against his faithful ministry. In his sermon in the afternoon, Mr. Fletcher said, he had a powerful impression that before the next Sabbath God would give a signal mark of His displeasure against the enemies of His cause and truth. The week was drawing to a close; nothing remarkable had happened; but on Saturday night, Mr. Preston, when returning home from market in a state of intoxication, fell from his horse and died on the spot.”
Footnote 91:
Wesley’s “Life of Fletcher.”
V. THREE QUIET, SUCCESSFUL YEARS.
1762–1765.
IN the autumn of 1762 Methodism in London was in perilous confusion. Two years before, Wesley had appointed Thomas Maxfield, one of his first preachers, to meet a select band, who professed to be entirely sanctified. Some of the members of this band soon had dreams, visions and impressions, as they thought, from God; and Maxfield, instead of repressing their whimsies, encouraged them, so that their vagaries were soon regarded as proofs of the highest state of grace. Some of the preachers rebuked these visionaries. This excited resentment, and they refused to hear their rebukers preach. They became the avowed followers of Maxfield, who told them they were not to be taught by man, and especially by those who had less grace than themselves. George Bell, converted in 1758, and sanctified in 1761, joined them, and became wilder than the wildest of them. The result was, when Wesley returned to London in October, 1762, he found the Society there in a disgraceful uproar, and the followers of Maxfield and Bell formed into a sort of detached connexion.[92] They called themselves “the witnesses.” Wesley and his brother were in great distress. The latter wrote to Fletcher, and received the following reply:—
“MADELEY, September 20, 1762.
“‘Crede quod habes, et habes,’ is not very different from those words of Christ, ‘What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.’ The humble reason of the believer, and the irrational presumption of the enthusiast, draw this doctrine to the right hand or the left; but to split the hair—here lies the difficulty. I have told you that I am no party man; I am neither for nor against the witness for Christian perfection without examination. I complain of those who deceive themselves; I honour those who do honour to their profession; and I wish we could find out the right way of reconciling the most profound humility with the most lively hopes of grace. I think you insist on the one and Maxfield on the other; and I believe you both sincere in your views. God bless you both; and if either of you goes too far, may the Lord bring him back!”[93]
Footnote 92:
For a fuller account of this unhappy schism, see Tyerman’s “Life and Times of Wesley,” vol. ii., pp. 432–444.
Footnote 93:
Letters, 1791, p. 121.
“MADELEY, November 22, 1762.
“Brother Ley[94] arrived here yesterday, and confirms the melancholy news of many of our brethren overshooting sober and steady Christianity in London. I feel a great deal for you and the Church in these critical circumstances. Oh that I could stand in the gap! Oh that I could, by sacrificing myself, shut this immense abyss of enthusiasm which opens its mouth among us!
“The corruption of the best things is always the worst of corruptions. Going into an extreme of this nature, or only winking at it, will give an eternal sanction to the vile aspersions cast on all sides on the purest doctrines of Christianity; and we shall sadly overthrow, overthrow in the worst manner, what we have endeavoured to build for many years.
“I have a particular regard for Maxfield and Bell—both of them are my correspondents. I am strongly prejudiced in favour of the witnesses, and do not willingly receive what is said against them; but allowing that what is reported is one-half mere exaggeration, the tenth part of the rest shows that spiritual pride, presumption, arrogance, stubbornness, party spirit, uncharitableness, prophetic mistakes, in short, every sinew of enthusiasm is now at work in many of that body. I do not credit any one’s bare word, but I ground my sentiments on Bell’s own letters.
“May I presume to lay before you my mite of observation? Would it be wrong in me calmly to sit down, with some unprejudiced friends and lovers of both parties, and to fix with them the marks and symptoms of enthusiasm; and then insist, at first in love, and afterwards, if necessary, with all the weight of my authority, upon those who have them or plead for them, either to stand to the sober rule of Christianity, or openly to depart from us?
“Fear not, dear Sir, the Lord will take care of the ark. Have faith in the Word, and leave the rest to Providence. ‘The Lord will provide’ is a comfortable motto for a believer.”[95]
Footnote 94:
One of Wesley’s Itinerant Preachers.
Footnote 95:
Letters, 1791, p. 126.
Thus by proposing to act as mediator between the Wesleys and their distracted followers in London did Fletcher end the eventful year of 1762. In the middle of the year he told Charles Wesley that he had “attempted to form a Society,” and hoped to succeed. He drew up rules for this Society.[96] First of all, he described “the nature of a Religious Society,” and quoted Malachi iii. 16, Psalm lxvi. 16; Luke viii. 1–3; Acts i. 15, ii. 42–47; Heb. iii. 12, 13, x. 25; Col. iii. 16; 1 Cor. xiv. 29–31; 1 Thess. v. 11–14; James v. 16; and Jude i. 18–21. “Encouraged by these texts,” said he, “a few of us design to unite in a Religious Society to support and animate each other in the ways of godliness.” He proceeds:—
“In order to be admitted into the Society, one only condition is previously required, namely, a sincere desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to seek salvation from the servitude of sin according to the Gospel, and the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, especially the ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth, which are earnestly recommended to the perusal of every person who would be a member.
“It is, however, expected that the sincerity of such a desire be evinced by putting on the form of godliness, which we apprehend to consist in three things: 1. Doing no harm, Isa. i. 16; Rom. xii. 9. 2. Doing good, Isa. i. 17; Rom. xii. 9. 3. Using the means of grace, Luke i. 16, Isa. lv. 6.”
Footnote 96:
He also drew up the following rules of daily self-examination for himself:—
“1. Did I awake spiritual, and was I watchful in keeping my mind from wandering this morning when I was rising?
“2. Have I this day got nearer to God in times of prayer, or have I given way to a lazy, idle spirit?
“3. Has my faith been weakened by unwatchfulness, or quickened by diligence this day?
“4. Have I this day walked by faith and eyed God in all things?
“5. Have I denied myself in all unkind words and thoughts; have I delighted in seeing others preferred before me?
“6. Have I made the most of my precious time, as far as I had light, strength, and opportunity?
“7. Have I kept the issues of my heart in the means of grace, so as to profit by them?
“8. What have I done this day for the souls and bodies of God’s dear saints?
“9. Have I laid out anything to please myself when I might have saved the money for the cause of God?
“10. Have I governed well my tongue this day, remembering that ‘in a multitude of words there wanteth not sin’?
“11. In how many instances have I denied myself this day?
“12. Do my life and conversation adorn the Gospel of Jesus Christ?”[97]
Footnote 97:
“Thirteen Original Letters, by the Rev. John Fletcher. Bath: 1791,” p. 38.
Under the first of these rules Fletcher mentions “taking the Lord’s name in vain, either by profane cursing, swearing, or trivial exclamations;” sabbath-breaking; uncleanness; drunkenness, or tippling, or going into a public house, or staying without necessity; fighting; quarrelling; brawling; railing, uncharitable conversation; filthy talking; jesting; evil speaking; attendance at balls, plays, races, cock-fightings and bull-baitings; gaming; song-singing; reading unprofitable books; softness; needless indulgence; putting on gaudy and costly apparel; smuggling; taking advantage of a neighbour, etc.
Under the second, he includes doing good to the bodies of men; doing good to the souls of men; discountenancing profaneness and immorality; diligence in business; taking up the cross daily, etc.
Under the third, he names, the public worship of God in the church; the ministry of the Word either read or expounded; the Lord’s Supper; family prayer; private prayer; Scripture reading; fasting; and singing hymns and psalms.
It is needless to tell Methodist readers that Fletcher’s rules are substantially the same as the rules which Wesley drew up and published for the Methodists in 1743, and which, excepting two or three trivial alterations, introduced in 1744, are the same now as they were then. Fletcher, however, attached an “Appendix” to his rules, to the following effect:—
1. That any one practising the Rules “is to give in his or her name to the Director of the Society and the major part of the members; and they shall be joyfully admitted, be they high or low, old or young, learned or unlearned.”
2. If any member fell into sin, he must be expelled.
3. If the expelled member wished to be re-admitted, he must acknowledge his error, and if, after a trial of three months, he appeared to be reformed, his re-admission should take place.
4. The members were to meet together one evening every week between seven and eight o’clock.
5. They were to watch over each other in love.
6. They were not to be angry with those who spoke against the Society.
The probability is that Fletcher did not print his Rules, as Wesley had done. Indeed, there was no need for this, as his Societies were few in number, and existed within a comparatively small area. It was an easy thing for Fletcher to read the rules to each Society as occasion required, and, perhaps, they were inscribed in the registers of attendance. Three years after Fletcher’s death, the Rev. Melville Horne, his successor at Madeley, printed and published them, and stated, in a Preface, that Fletcher drew them up soon after his settlement at Madeley, and revised and corrected them about the year 1777.
In another production, entitled “Heads of Examination for Adult Christians,” Fletcher set up a higher standard than his “Rules” contained. The following is an abridgment of the questions he wished his people to propose to themselves:—
“Do I feel any pride? Am I dead to all desire of praise? If any despise me, do I like them the worse for it? Or if they love and approve me, do I love them more on that account? Is Christ the life of all my affections and designs, as my soul is the life of my body? Have I always the presence of God? Does no cloud come between God and the eye of my faith? Am I saved from the fear of man? Do I speak plainly to all, neither fearing their frowns, nor seeking their favours? Am I always ready to confess Christ, to suffer with His people, and to die for His sake? Do I deny myself at all times, and take up my cross? Am I willing to give up my ease and convenience to oblige others, or do I expect them to conform to my hours, ways, and customs? Are my bodily senses and outward things all sanctified to me? Am I poor in spirit? Have I no false shame in approaching God? Do I not lean to my own understanding? Do I esteem every one better than myself? Do I never take that glory to myself which belongs to Christ? Does meekness bear rule over all my tempers, affections, and desires? Do I possess resignation, seeing God does, and will do, all for my good? Am I temperate, using the world, and not abusing it? Am I courteous, not severe; suiting myself to all with sweetness; striving to give no one pain, but to gain and win all for their good? Am I vigilant, redeeming time, and taking every opportunity of doing good? Do I perform the most servile offices, such as require labour and humiliation, with cheerfulness? Do I love God with all my heart? Do I constantly present myself, my time, my substance, talents, and all I have, a living sacrifice? Is every thought brought into subjection to Christ? Do I love my neighbour as myself? Do I think no evil, listen to no groundless surmises, nor judge from appearances? How am I in my sleep? If Satan presents any evil imagination, does my will immediately resist or give way to it? Do I bear the infirmities of age or sickness without seeking to repair the decays of nature by strong liquors? Or do I make Christ my sole support, casting the burden of a feeble body into the arms of His mercy?”[98]
Footnote 98:
Letters, 1791, p. 434.
This was the life Fletcher himself strove to live; and this was the life he urged his Methodists to live.
Fletcher’s Methodist Society at Madeley was formed as early as the year 1762; and one of its members soon involved him in trouble. Hence the following, taken from a letter addressed to Charles Wesley:—
“MADELEY, January 5, 1763.
“As to my parish, we are just where we were. We look for our Pentecost, but we do not pray sufficiently to obtain it. We are left in tolerable quiet by all but the sergeant, who sent a constable to make enquiry concerning the life of His Majesty’s subjects, upon information that the cry of murder had been heard in my house on Christmas Day.
“This report originated in the cries of a young woman, who is of our Society, and whom Satan has bound for some months. It seems to me as if that old murderer proposed to ruin the success of my ministry at Madeley, as he did in London, in the French Church, by means of Miss A——d.
“The young woman here emaciates her body by fastings; falls into convulsions, sometimes in the church, and sometimes in our private assemblies; and is perpetually tempted to suicide. Her constitution is considerably weakened, as well as her understanding. What to do in this case I know not; for those who are tempted in this manner pay as little regard to reason as the miserable people in Bedlam. Prayer and fasting are our only resources. We propose to represent her case to the Lord on Tuesday next, and on all the following Tuesdays. Aid the weakness of our prayers with all the power of yours.”[99]
Footnote 99:
Ibid., 1791, p. 127.
This was a greater trial to Fletcher than, at first sight, appears. It seems to have led him to entertain the thought of resigning his living. More than six months afterwards, in another letter to Charles Wesley, he wrote:—
“MADELEY, July 26, 1763.
“Everything here is pretty quiet now. Many of our offences die away; though, not long ago, I had trials in abundance. One of them might have made me quit Madeley; but the young person I mentioned as being sorely tempted of the devil, is happily delivered.”[100]
Footnote 100:
Ibid., p. 133.
Fletcher’s life at Madeley, during the year 1763, seems to have been a quiet one. Maxfield’s quarrel with Wesley still continued, and Fletcher took an interest in it. Wesley’s annoyance was great, and his forbearance with the London fanatics exposed him to the censure of his friends. John Downes, in a letter to Joseph Cownley, wrote:—
“I consider the follies and extravagance of the witnesses as the devices of Satan, to cast a blemish upon a real work of God. The more I converse with the solid ones, the more I long to experience what they do. It is a state worthy of a Christian. As to the follies of the enthusiasts, Mr. Charles hears every week less or more. He threatens, but cannot find in his heart to put in execution. The consequence is, the talk of all the town, and entertainment for the newspapers.”
On February 1, 1763, Charles Wesley wrote:—
“Satan has made sad havoc of the flock. Four years ago, I gave warning of the flood of enthusiasm which has now overflowed us.”
A week later John Wesley remarked:—
“The mask is thrown off. George Bell, John Dixon, etc., have quitted the Society. I wrote to Thomas Maxfield, but was not favoured with an answer. This morning I wrote a second time, and received an answer indeed! The substance is, ‘You take too much upon you.’”[101]
Footnote 101:
Tyerman’s “Life and Times of Wesley,” vol. ii., p. 462.
These brief extracts are given to indicate the great commotion that at this time existed. The excitement was not confined to London. It was shared by Mr. Samuel Hatton and Miss Hatton, both of them Fletcher’s friends and correspondents, and who seem to have resided at the ancient town of Wem, about twenty miles from Madeley.[102] In a letter to Miss Hatton, Fletcher expressed his views, as follows:—
“MADELEY, March 14, 1763.
“Mr. Maxfield’s reply to Mr. Wesley seems to me just in some points, and in others too severe. Mr. Wesley is, perhaps, too tenacious of some expressions, and too prone to credit what he wishes concerning some mistaken witnesses of the state of fathers in Christ. Mr. Maxfield, perhaps, esteems too little the inestimable privilege of being perfected in that love which casts out fear. But, in general, I conceive that it would be better for babes, or young men in Christ, to cry for a growth in grace, than to dispute whether fathers in Christ enjoy such privileges.”[103]
Footnote 102:
Letters, 1791, p. 182.
Footnote 103:
Letters, 1791, p. 130.
A few weeks later, in a letter to Mr. Samuel Hatton, Fletcher wrote:—
“MADELEY, April 22, 1763.
“I am quite of your opinion about the mischief that some professors do in the Church of Christ under the mask of sanctity; but my Master bids me bear with the tares until the harvest, lest, in rooting them up, I should promiscuously pull up the wheat also. As to Mr. Wesley’s system of perfection, it tends rather to promote humility than pride, if I may credit his description of it in the lines following:—
“‘Now let me gain perfection’s height, Now let me into nothing fall, Be less than nothing in Thy sight, And feel that Christ is all in all!’
“More than this I do not desire, and I hope that, short of this, nothing will satisfy either my dear friend or me.”[104]
Footnote 104:
Ibid., p. 132.
The following letter, to Charles Wesley, refers to the same disturbance; but it also mentions another matter of great interest. Six years ago, Fletcher had become acquainted with Miss Bosanquet. During the present year, he had commenced a correspondence, in the highest degree religious, with Miss Hatton. He was a lone man, living among colliers. He had lately been with Charles Wesley. Charles was an eminently social man, and had suggested to Fletcher that he would do well to marry. Fletcher replied as follows:—
“MADELEY, September 9, 1763.
“MY DEAR SIR,—I see that we ought to learn continually to cast our burdens upon the Lord, who alone can bear them without fatigue and pain. If Maxfield returns, the Lord may correct his errors, and give him so to insist on the fruits of faith as to prevent antinomianism. I believe him sincere; and, though obstinate and suspicious, I am persuaded he has a true desire to know the will and live the life of God. I reply in the same words you quoted to me in one of your letters,—‘Don’t be afraid of a wreck, for Jesus is in the ship.’ After the most violent storm, the Lord will, perhaps, all at once, bring our ship into the desired haven.
“You ask me a very singular question with respect to women; I shall, however, answer it with a smile, as I suppose you asked it. You might have remarked that, for some days before I set off for Madeley, I considered matrimony with a different eye to what I had done; and the person who then presented herself to my imagination was Miss Bosanquet. Her image pursued me for some hours the last day, and that so warmly, that I should, perhaps, have lost my peace if a suspicion of the truth of Juvenal’s proverb, ‘Veniunt a dote sagittae,’ had not made me blush, fight, and fly to Jesus, who delivered me at the same moment from her image and the idea of marriage. Since that time, I have been more than ever on my guard against admitting the idea of matrimony, sometimes by the consideration of the love of Jesus, which ought to be my whole felicity; and, at others, by the following reflections.
“It is true that the Scripture says that a good wife is the gift of the Lord; and it is also true that there may be one in a thousand; but who would put in a lottery where are nine hundred and ninety-nine blanks to one prize? And, suppose I could find this Phœnix, this woman of a thousand, what should I gain by it? A distressing refusal. How could she choose such a man as I? If, notwithstanding all my self-love, I am compelled cordially to despise myself, could I be so wanting in generosity as to expect another to do that for me, which I cannot do for myself—to engage to love, to esteem, and to honour me?
“I will throw on my paper some reflections which the last paragraphs of your letter gave rise to, and I beg you will weigh them with me in the balances of the sanctuary.
“Reasons for and against matrimony.
“1. A tender friendship is, after the love of Christ, the greatest felicity of life; and a happy marriage is nothing but such a friendship between two persons of different sexes.
“2. A wife might deliver me from the difficulties of housekeeping, etc.
“3. Some objections and scandals may be avoided by marriage.
“4. A pious and zealous wife might be as useful as myself; nay, she might be much more so among my female parishioners, who greatly want an inspectress.
“1. Death will shortly end all particular friendships. The happier the state of marriage, the more afflicting is the widowhood; besides, we may try a friend and reject him after trial; but we cannot know a wife till it is too late to part with her.
“2. Marriage brings after it a hundred cares and expenses; children, a family, etc.
“3. If matrimony is not happy, it is the most fertile source of scandal.
“4. I have a thousand to one to fear that a wife, instead of being a help, may be indolent, and consequently useless; or humoursome, haughty, capricious, and consequently a heavy curse.
“Farewell! Yours, “J. FLETCHER.”[105]
Footnote 105:
Letters, 1791, p. 144.
This is a curious letter. Eighteen years after the time when it was written, Fletcher married Miss Bosanquet. Probably the “reasons for matrimony” had been, in substance, suggested by Charles Wesley. Fletcher’s “reasons against matrimony” were undoubtedly sincere, but they were unintentionally selfish, and were unworthy of him. Experience taught him wisdom.
Before proceeding further, a remarkable occurrence must be noted. The church at Madeley is dedicated to St. Michael, whose feast-day is September 29. On that day, in 1763, Fletcher preached from Dan. iii. 14, and concluded his discourse in words like these:—
“From the dedication of our church, from days set apart to be kept holy, Satan takes occasion to enforce the worship of his threefold image, profit, honour, pleasure. Now remember the duty of God’s people, and quit yourselves like men. Some petty Nebuchadnezzars have sent to gather together, not princes, but drunken men; and have set up, not a golden image, no, nor a golden calf, but a living bull.[106] O ye that fear God, be not afraid of their terror; be not allured by their music; confess the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. ‘No other God can deliver after this sort,’ said the heathen; and give me leave to add, ‘No other God can punish after this sort.’ The burning furnace of His indignation is heated; and eternity is the duration of its torments.”[107]
Footnote 106:
The reference obviously is to a bull-baiting.
Footnote 107:
Fletcher’s Works, vol. viii., p. 76.
The way in which Fletcher was led to preach this sermon on “the Wake-Sunday” was told by himself, and the story, after his death, was published in a small tract, entitled, “The Furious Butcher Humbled: a true and remarkable story, as related by the late Rev. Mr. Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley.” The substance of it was also inserted in the Evangelical Magazine for the year 1798. From that account, the following is taken.
“One Sunday,” said Mr. Fletcher, “when I had done reading prayers at Madeley, I went up into the pulpit, intending to preach a sermon, which I had prepared for that purpose; but my mind was so confused, that I could not recollect either my text or any part of my sermon. I was afraid I should be obliged to come down without saying anything. But, having recollected myself a little, I thought I would say something on the First Lesson, which was the third chapter of the book of Daniel, containing the account of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego being cast into the fiery furnace. I found, in doing this, such extraordinary assistance from God, and such a peculiar enlargement of heart, that I supposed there must be some peculiar cause of it. I therefore desired, if any of the congregation found anything particular, they would acquaint me with it in the ensuing week.
“In consequence of this, the Wednesday after, a woman came and gave me the following account:—
“‘I have been for some time much concerned about my soul. I have attended the church at all opportunities, and have spent much time in private prayer. At this, my husband (who is a butcher) has been exceedingly enraged, and has threatened me severely as to what he would do to me if I did not leave off going to John Fletcher’s church; yea, if I dared to go again to any religious meetings whatever. When I told him I could not in conscience refrain from going, at least, to the parish church, he became outrageous, and swore dreadfully, and said, if I went again, he would cut my throat as soon as I came back. This made me cry to God that He would support me; and, though I did not feel any great degree of comfort, yet, having a sure confidence in God, I determined to do my duty, and leave the event to Him. Last Sunday, after many struggles with the devil and my own heart, I came downstairs ready for church. My husband said he should not cut my throat, as he had intended, but he would heat the oven, and throw me into it, the moment I came home. Notwithstanding this threat, which he enforced with many bitter oaths, I went to church, praying all the way that God would strengthen me to suffer whatever might befall me. While you were speaking of the three children whom Nebuchadnezzar cast into the burning fiery furnace, I found all you said belonged to me. God applied every word to my heart; and, when the sermon was ended, I thought, if I had a thousand lives, I could lay them all down for Him. I felt so filled with His love that I hastened home, fully determined to give myself to whatsoever God pleased; nothing doubting that He either would take me to heaven, if He suffered me to be burnt to death; or that He would in some way deliver me, as He did His three servants that trusted in Him. When I got to my own door, I saw flames issuing from the oven, and I expected to be thrown into it immediately. I felt my heart rejoice, that, if it were so, the will of the Lord would be done. I opened the door, and, to my utter astonishment, saw my husband upon his knees, praying for the forgiveness of his sins. He caught me in his arms; earnestly begged my pardon; and has continued diligently seeking God ever since.’”
Such was the poor woman’s story. After listening to it, Fletcher cried, “Now I know why my sermon was taken from me, namely, that God might thus magnify His mercy.”
Nothing need be added, except that to attribute these strange occurrences to anything less than the direct interference of Him who has supreme authority over all human minds and hearts would be infidelity of the most impious kind.
Nothing is known of Fletcher’s life during the year 1764. It is a singular fact, that only three of his letters, belonging to this period, have been published, and these were all addressed to his friend, at Wem, Miss Hatton. They are entirely devoid of incident; but are full of piety. The following are extracts:—
“Madeley, March 5, 1764. Your dulness in private prayer arises from the want of familiar friendship with Jesus. To obviate it, go to your closet, as if you were going to meet your dearest friend; cast yourself at His feet; bemoan your coldness; extol His love to you; and let your heart break with a desire to love Him. Get recollection,—a dwelling within ourselves,—a being abstracted from the creature, and turned towards God. For want of such a frame, our times of prayer are frequently dry and useless; imagination prevails, and the heart wanders; whereas we pass easily from recollection to delightful prayer.”[108]
“Madeley, September 3, 1764. With respect to the hindrances your worldly business lays in your way, the following means, in due subordination to faith in Jesus, may be of service to you you:—
“1. Get up early and save time, before you go to business, to put on the whole armour of God, by close meditation and earnest prayer.
“2. Consider the temptation that most easily besets you, whether it be hurry, or vanity, or lightness, or want of recollection to do what you do as unto God.
“3. When your mind has been drawn aside, do not fret, or let yourself go down the stream of nature, as if it were vain to attempt to swim against it; but confess your fault, and calmly resume your former endeavour, but with more humility and watchfulness.
“4. Steal from business now and then, though for two or three minutes only, and, in the corner where you can be least observed, pour out your soul in confession; or utter a short ejaculation for power to watch, and to believe that Jesus can keep you watching.”[109]
“Madeley, December, 1764. I am sensible how I want advice in a thousand particulars, and how incapable I am to direct anyone; but the following observations came to my mind on the reading of your letter, and I venture to send them.
“You cannot expect to attain to such a carriage as will please all you converse with. The Son of God, the original of all human perfection, was blamed, sometimes for His silence, and sometimes for His speaking; and shall the handmaid be above her Master?
“There is no sin in wearing such things as you have by you, if they are necessary for your station, and characterize your rank.
“There is no sin in looking cheerful. ‘Rejoice evermore:’ and, if it is our duty always to be filled with joy, it is our duty to appear what we are in reality. I hope, however, your friends know how to distinguish between cheerfulness and levity.
“Beware of stiff singularity in things barely indifferent: it is self in disguise; and it is so much the more dangerous when it comes recommended by a serious, self-denying, religious appearance.
“I hope the short-comings of some about you will not prevent you eyeing the prize of a glorious conformity to our blessed Head. It is to be feared that not a few of those who profess to have attained it, have mistaken the way. They are still something; whereas I apprehend that an important step towards that conformity is to become nothing; or rather, with St. Paul,—to become in our own eyes the chief of sinners, and the least of saints.”[110]
Footnote 108:
Letters, 1791, p. 147.
Footnote 109:
Ibid., 1791, p. 151.
Footnote 110:
Letters, 1791, p. 153.
These fragmentary extracts are of some importance, because they indicate the matters respecting which Fletcher was consulted, and also exhibit his own habitual frame of mind.
Before leaving the year 1764, one incident must be mentioned, far too interesting to be omitted. So far as there is evidence to show, there had been no interview, and, indeed, no correspondence, between Fletcher and Wesley since the year 1760, when Fletcher, contrary to the advice of Wesley, accepted the living of Madeley. There is not the slightest proof of any estrangement of affection having taken place; but Fletcher had been too much occupied to visit Wesley in London; and Wesley, considering the opposition Fletcher had to encounter, had, hitherto, not deemed it expedient to visit Fletcher at Madeley. As to epistolary correspondence, Charles Wesley was Fletcher’s chosen adviser; and that, for the present, was quite enough. The Madeley persecutions had now subsided; and, hence, in the month of July, 1764, the Arch-Methodist ventured to invade the parish of the Madeley vicar. He wrote:—
“1764, Saturday, July 21. I rode to Bilbrook, near Wolverhampton, and preached at between two and three. Thence we went on to Madeley, an exceedingly pleasant village, encompassed with trees and hills. It was a great comfort to me to converse once more with a Methodist of the old type, denying himself, taking up his cross, and resolved to be”.bn 117.png
“Sunday, July 22. At ten, Mr. Fletcher read prayers, and I preached on those words in the Gospel,”The church would nothing near contain the congregation; but a window near the pulpit being taken down, those who could not come in stood in the churchyard, and I believe all could hear. The congregation, they said, used to be much smaller in the afternoon than in the morning; but I could not discern the least difference, either in number or seriousness. I found employment enough for the intermediate hours in praying with various companies who hung about the house, insatiably hungering and thirsting after the good word. Mr. Grimshaw, at his first coming to Haworth, had not such a prospect as this. There are many adversaries indeed; but yet they cannot shut the open and effectual door.
“Monday, July 23. The church was pretty well filled even at five, and many stood in the churchyard. In the evening, I preached at Shrewsbury, to a large congregation, among whom were several men of fortune. I trust, though hitherto we seem to have been ploughing on the sand, there will at last be some fruit.”[111]
Footnote 111:
Wesley’s Journal.
Wesley’s first visit to Madeley was, to himself, eminently satisfactory; and his report of it shows that, notwithstanding the “many adversaries,” Fletcher’s labours had been crowned with great success.
Truly might Wesley designate Fletcher “a Methodist of the old type, denying himself, and taking up his cross.” The following letter, addressed “to Mr. Henry Perronet, at Mr. Wright’s, at the Boot, in Old Street, St. Luke’s Parish, London,” will partly illustrate Wesley’s meaning.
“MADELEY, November 6, 1765.
“SIR,—I have received both your letter and Mr. Charles Wesley’s, and shall be exceeding glad of an opportunity to oblige or serve you in anything in my power.
“As you seem to me a stranger to the situation of the country, I would have you come down first, and choose for yourself a spot that may suit your taste. I live here in a little market-town, three or four miles from the foot of the Wrekin, at the south-east of that hill; so that you may easily take a walk or ride with me to some of the spots or villages where you may prefer to fix your abode, if this does not please you. I live alone in my house, having neither wife, child, nor servant. I can, therefore, without inconveniency, spare you a room in the meantime. If you choose to provide your food, you shall have conveniences for it; if you choose to table with a neighbour, as I do, you may.
“You seem to be cut out for contemplation and retirement, Sir; I hope you have made choice of Jesus for the chief subject of your meditations. May you find much of His presence everywhere!
“If you choose to venture into Shropshire, you may take the Shrewsbury coach at the Swan, in Lad Lane, somewhere in the city, and in two days and a half you will be at Shiffnal, eighteen miles short of Shrewsbury, and three from Madeley. If you send me word when you are to set out, I will send my mare to meet you at the Red Lion, in Shiffnal, the day that the coach passes through the town.
“That the Lord may direct and prosper you in all things is the wish of, Sir, your affectionate servant in Christ,
“J. FLETCHER.”[112]
Footnote 112:
Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 1825, p. 744.
As a farther illustration of Fletcher’s simplicity of living, and of his habitual piety, an incident may be introduced, belonging to about this period, and published in a sermon preached on the occasion of the death of Fletcher’s widow, in 1816, by the Rev. John Hodson. Mr. Hodson says:—
“A few days ago, I was in company with a pious female, who, for many years, was intimately acquainted with Mr. Fletcher. She said Mr. Fletcher sometimes visited a boarding-school at Madeley. One morning he came in just as she and the other girls had sat down to breakfast. He said but little while the meal lasted, but when it was finished he spoke to each girl separately, and concluded by saying to the whole, ‘I have waited some time on you this morning, that I might see you eat your breakfast; and I hope you will visit me to-morrow morning, and see how I eat mine.’ He told them his breakfast hour was seven o’clock, and obtained a promise that they would visit him. Next morning, they went at the time appointed, and seated themselves in the kitchen. Mr. Fletcher came in, quite rejoiced to see them. On the table stood a small basin of milk and sops of bread. Mr. Fletcher took the basin across the kitchen, and sat down on an old bench. He then took out his watch, laid it before him, and said, ‘My dear girls, yesterday morning I waited on you a full hour, while you were at breakfast. I shall take as much time this morning in eating my breakfast as I usually do, if not rather more. Look at my watch!’ and he immediately began to eat, and continued in conversation with them. When he had finished, he asked them how long he had been at breakfast. They said, ‘Just a minute and a half, Sir.’ ‘Now, my dear girls,’ said he, ‘we have fifty-eight minutes of the hour left;’ and he then began to sing,—
‘Our life is a dream! Our time as a stream Glides swiftly away, And the fugitive moment refuses to stay.’
After this, he gave them a lecture on the value of time, and the worth of the soul. They then all knelt down in prayer, after which he dismissed them with impressions on the mind the narrator never ceased to remember.”
At Wesley’s yearly Conference of 1765, Alexander Mather was appointed to “Salop” circuit, with William Minethorpe as his colleague. Mr. Mather was now in the thirty-third year of his age. During the last eight years, he had been an itinerant preacher, and had passed through strange and painful vicissitudes. In 1760 his circuit had been “Staffordshire;” in which circuit he had “built a preaching-house at Darlaston, and hired a large building at Birmingham.” He had extended his labours as far as Shrewsbury, Coventry, Stroud, and Painswick; and, by Wesley’s directions, had visited the “Societies” in Wales. At Birmingham, Mather and the poor Methodists had been repeatedly in danger of being murdered by persecuting crowds; and at Wolverhampton the mob had pulled down the newly-built meeting-house; and had threatened to do the same at Dudley, Darlaston, and Wednesbury. He had also preached at several places in Shropshire, and now, in 1765, the county was made a Methodist circuit, in which he was appointed to act as Wesley’s “Assistant.” Fletcher had already formed two or three Societies, which, without being so designated, were, ipso facto, Methodist Societies. He warmly welcomed Mather, and was more than willing to be a Methodist co-worker. Hence the following letter addressed to the brave itinerant:—
“MY DEAR BROTHER,—I thank you for your last favour. If I answered not your former letter it was because I was in expectation of seeing you—not from the least disregard. I am glad you enjoy peace at Wellington; and I hope you will do so at the Trench when you go there. My reasons for stopping there were not to seize upon the spot first, but to fulfil a promise I made to the people, of visiting them. I desire you will call there as often as you have opportunity. An occasional exhortation from you or your companion,[113] at the Bank,[114] Dale,[115] etc., will be esteemed a favour; and I hope that my going, as Providence directs, to any of your places (leaving to you the management of the Societies), will be deemed no encroachment. In short, we need not make two parties; I know but one heaven below, and that is Jesus’s love. Let us both go and abide in it; and when we have gathered as many as we can to go with us, too many will still stay behind.
“I find there are in the ministry, as in the common experience of Christians, times which may be compared to winter. No great stir is made in the world of grace beside that of storms and offences, and the growth of the trees of the Lord are not showy; but when the tender buds of brotherly and redeeming love begin to fill, spring is at hand. The Lord give us harvest after seed time! Let us wait for fruit, as the husbandman; and remember, that he who believes does not make haste. The love of Christ be with us all. Pray for
“J. FLETCHER.”[116]
Footnote 113:
William Minethorpe, Mather’s colleague.
Footnote 114:
A place about five miles from Madeley, where Fletcher had gathered a small Society.
Footnote 115:
Coalbrook Dale.
Footnote 116:
Letters, 1791, p. 163.
Thus began Methodism in the county of Salop, which circuit, in 1766, contained 587 members. It is only right to say, however, that, in the Minutes of Conference, the name of the circuit was, in that year, changed to “Staffordshire,”—a name which it retained till 1782, though it embraced a number of towns and villages in the county where the Madeley vicar lived and laboured.
In 1765 Fletcher made two evangelistic visits. The first of these was to Breedon, in Leicestershire. Walter Sellon had been one of the first masters of Wesley’s Kingswood school, had acted as one of Wesley’s preachers, and, by the influence of the Countess of Huntingdon, had received episcopal ordination. At this period, he held two curacies, one at Smisby and the other at Breedon-on-the-Hill. His churches were generally crowded, and his ministry was attended with uncommon power. He lived in the house of Mr. Hall, of Tonge, the leader of Methodist Society classes at Breedon, Worthington, and Diseworth, and who, after living all his life in the house where he was born, peacefully fell asleep in Jesus in the year 1813, at the age of eighty-one.[117] Of course Fletcher’s reputation was well known by Sellon; and now, in 1765, for a brief season, they exchanged pulpits. Immense crowds assembled; and exceedingly picturesque must have been the sight of long processions of pious people climbing the lofty hill on the top of which Breedon church was built, and singing as they went their sweet songs of Zion. The church was crammed when Fletcher preached; numbers stood outside; and as many as could clambered to the windows to look at the seraphic minister to whom they wished to listen.[118] Mr. Benson, in his “Life of Fletcher,” relates an incident which must not be omitted here. Human nature is the same all the world over, and throughout all generations.
Footnote 117:
Methodist Magazine, 1818, pp. 49–57.
Footnote 118:
Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 1856, pp. 36–38.
We are told the clerk of Breedon church was offended because the crowds attending it increased his labour in cleaning it. Turning his worldly-wisdom to practical account, he began to charge persons, from other parishes, a penny each for admission, and stood at the church door to collect the money. Whilst he was doing this, Fletcher was prayerfully ascending the steep hill, and reverentially contemplating the solemn service upon which he was about to enter. One of the congregation went to meet him, and told him of the clerk’s worldliness. Fletcher was shocked at the behaviour of his ecclesiastical subordinate, and hastening up the steep ascent, exclaimed, “I’ll stop his proceeding.” The clerk, however, was more nimble than the priest. Before Fletcher could reach the money-gate the clerk was in his desk, ready to read responses and perform all the other duties pertaining to his office. Perhaps he thought he had cleverly escaped detection and reproof, but the sordid creature was mistaken. Fletcher went through the service, and then remarked, “For sixteen years I have not been so moved as I have been to-day. I am told that the clerk beneath me has demanded, and has actually received, money from strangers before he would suffer them to enter the church. I desire all who have paid the money to come to me, and I will return what they have paid; and as to this iniquitous clerk, his money perish with him!”
This interesting story is not without its use, for it exhibits Fletcher’s almost stern fidelity, and also the spirit of parish clerks more than a hundred years ago. It would be unfair, however, to ostracize the Breedon official as one whose worldly wickedness is without a parallel; for there is little room to doubt that even at the present day largess is often levied upon congregations, if not by responding clerks, by doorkeepers and other officials belonging to the ecclesiastical edifices of an age which thinks itself greatly in advance of its predecessors.
Fletcher made another and more important Gospel tour during the year 1765. For the first time, he visited Bath and Bristol. In the former city, Lady Huntingdon had erected a chapel, and had summoned six clergymen of the Church of England to assist at the opening; namely, Whitefield, Romaine, Venn, Madan, Shirley, and Townsend. This took place on October 6, 1765.[119] Fletcher came after them, and preached to the aristocratic congregations in her ladyship’s meeting-house with extraordinary zeal and earnestness. The Countess wrote:—
“Deep and awful are the impressions made on every hand. Dear Mr. Fletcher’s preaching is truly apostolic. The Divine blessing accompanies his word in a very remarkable manner. He is ever at his work, is amazingly followed, and is singularly owned of God.”[120]
Footnote 119:
See “Life of Whitefield,” vol. ii., p. 489.
Footnote 120:
“Life and Times of the Countess of Huntingdon,” vol. i., p. 469.
During his stay at Bath, Fletcher wrote his first pastoral letter, which was addressed, “To those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in or about Madeley. Peace be multiplied to you from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ, through the operations of the Holy Ghost. Amen.” The letter was dated “Bath, October 30, 1765,” and the following is the substance of it:—
“By the help of Divine Providence, and the assistance of your prayers, I came safe hither last Saturday se’nnight. I was and am still a good deal weighed down under the sense of my insufficiency to preach the unspeakable riches of Christ to poor dying souls. This place is the seat of Satan’s gaudy throne; but the Lord hath nevertheless a few names here that are not ashamed of Him, both among the poor and among the rich. There are not many of the latter, but blessed be God for any one! It is a great miracle if one camel passes through the eye of a needle; or, in other words, if one rich person enters the kingdom of God. I thank God that none of you are rich in the things of this world. You are freed from a dreadful snare, even from Dives’ portion in this world. May you know the happiness of your state! It is a mercy to be driven to the throne of grace even by bodily want, and to live in dependence on Divine mercy even for a morsel of bread.
“I have been sowing the seed, that the Lord hath given, both in Bath and Bristol; and, though I have not been able to discharge my office as I would, the Lord has in some measure stood by me, and overruled my foolishness and helplessness. I am much supported by the thought that ‘you pray for me.’ With regard to the state of my soul, I find, blessed be God! that as my day is, so is my strength to travel on, without minding much either good or bad report.
“My absence from you answers two good ends in regard of me. I feel more my insufficiency, and the need of being daily ordained of Christ to preach His Gospel; and I shall value the more the worth of my privilege with you if I return safely to you. I had yesterday a most advantageous offer made me of going free of cost to my own country, to see my mother, brothers, and sisters in the flesh, whom I have not seen for near eighteen years; but I find my relations in the spirit are nearer and dearer to me than my relations in the flesh. I have therefore refused the kind offer, that I might return to you, and be comforted by the mutual faith of you and me.
“I hope, my dear brethren, that you improve much under the ministry of that faithful servant of God, Mr. Brown,[121] whom Providence blesses you with. Make haste to gather the honey of knowledge and grace as it drops from his lips; and may I find the hive of your heart so full of it at my return, that I may share with you in the heavenly store!
“In order to this, entreat the Lord to stir up your hunger and thirst after the flesh and blood of Jesus, and to increase your desire for the sincere milk of the Word. When people are hungry they will find time to go to their meals; and a good appetite does not think a meal a day too much. Be not satisfied with knowing the way to heaven, but walk in it constantly and joyfully. Be thoroughly in earnest. You may impose upon your brethren by a formal attendance on the means of grace, but you cannot deceive the Searcher of hearts. Let Him then see your heart struggling towards Him; and if you fall through heaviness, sloth, or unbelief, do not make a bad matter worse by continuing hopeless in the ditch of sin and guilt. Up and away to the blood of Jesus! It will not only wash away the guilt of past sins, but strengthen you to trample all iniquity under foot in the time to come. Never forget that the soul of the diligent shall be made fat; and that the Lord will spue the lukewarm out of His mouth. Get, therefore, that love which makes you diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.
“I beg you will not neglect the assembling of yourselves together, and, when you meet in Society, be neither backward nor forward to speak. Let every one esteem himself the meanest in the company, and be glad to sit at the feet of the lowest. If you are tempted against any one, yield not to the temptation; and pray for much of that love which hopeth all things, and puts the best constructions even upon the worst of things. I beg, for Christ’s sake, I may find no division and no offence among you at my return. ‘If there be any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels of mercy, fulfil ye my joy, that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem the others better than himself.’
“I earnestly beg the continuance of your prayers for me, that the Lord may keep me from hurting His cause in these parts, and that when Providence shall bring me back among you (which I hope will be this day fortnight), I may be thoroughly furnished for every good word and work. That the blessing of God may crown all your hearts and your meetings, is the earnest prayer of, my very dear brethren,
“Your unworthy servant in the Gospel of our common Lord,
“JOHN FLETCHER.
“P.S.—I had not time to finish this letter yesterday, being called upon to preach in a market town in the neighbourhood. The dragon showed some of his spite and venom to little purpose. A gentleman churchwarden would hinder my getting into the pulpit, and, in order to this, cursed and swore, and took another gentleman by the collar in the middle of the church. Notwithstanding his rage, I preached. May the Lord raise in power what was sown in weakness!”[122]
Footnote 121:
A clergyman whom James Ireland, Esq., of Brislington, near Bristol, had obtained to supply Fletcher’s pulpit at Madeley. See a subsequent letter, dated April 27, 1767.
Footnote 122:
“Thirteen Original Letters.” By the Rev. J. Fletcher. Bath: 1791, p. 10.
From this interesting letter, it appears that Fletcher spent four Sundays at Bath and Bristol. No doubt, he was the guest of the Countess of Huntingdon; but, at the same time, he formed an acquaintance with the excellent James Ireland, Esq., of Brislington, with whom he commenced a correspondence two or three months afterwards, which was continued to the end of life. There can hardly be a doubt that Mr. Ireland was the gentleman who offered to take Fletcher to Switzerland, free of cost. At this time, Mr. Ireland’s daughter was out of health, and for many years afterwards he was accustomed to go to the south of France for the benefit of himself and his family.
Eighteen years had elapsed since Fletcher had seen his mother, his brothers, and his sisters, and of course he wished to visit them; but there was his work at Madeley, and that was enough to make him forego what, under other circumstances, must have been an unspeakable pleasure. Some will accuse him of the want of natural affection, and will say he owed duties to his distant and long unseen relatives, as well as to his parishioners. Probably, in answer to such a charge, he would have quoted the words of his supreme Master: “Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.”
It is evident, from Fletcher’s pastoral epistle, that his preaching in the west of England was not confined to Bath and Bristol; but, except the disgraceful incident of the profane churchwarden swearing and almost fighting to keep him out of the pulpit of a church in some neighbouring market town, no details of his tour have been preserved. The letters and journals of Wesley and Whitefield abound with facts and adventures, full of interest and instruction: the letters of Fletcher were of another character. They are rich in truth and piety; but not always in materials for biography. His habitual self-abnegation kept in the shade thousands of facts which the curiosity of the Christian world would like to know.
The first two years he spent at Madeley were rough and stormy. He worked with all his might, but with small results. The next three years were comparatively calm and prosperous. Opposition gradually died. His labours were attended with success. He formed several Societies of converted people; and his friend Wesley made the county of Salop a Methodist circuit. For nearly five years he had confined his evangelistic efforts to his own immediate neighbourhood; after this, to a considerable extent, he became an itinerant. Let us follow him.
VI. TWO YEARS MORE.
1766 AND 1767.
FLETCHER began the year 1766 in mournfulness, and yet full of love and loyalty to Christ. In a letter to Miss Hatton, he wrote:—
“MADELEY, January 13, 1766.
“MADAM,—This evening I have buried one of the warmest opposers of my ministry—a stout, strong young man, aged twenty-four years. About three months ago, he came to the churchyard with a corpse, but refused to come into the church. When the burial was over, I went to him, and mildly expostulated with him. His constant answer was, that he had bound himself never to come to church while I was there; adding, that he would take the consequences. Seeing I got nothing, I left him, saying, with uncommon warmth, though, as far as I can remember, without the least touch of resentment, ‘I am clear of your blood; henceforth it is upon your own head; you will not come to church upon your legs, prepare to come upon your neighbours’ shoulders!’ He wasted from that time, and, to my great surprise, has been buried on the spot where we were when the conversation passed between us. When I visited him in his sickness, he seemed tame, as a wolf in a trap. O may God have turned him into a sheep in his last hours!
“This last year has been the worst I have had here,—barren in convictions, fruitful in backslidings.
“I have filled my page, but not with the name of Jesus. Let your heart contain what my letter wants,—Jesus and His precious blood,—Jesus and His free, glorious salvation. Live to Him; breathe for Him; buy, sell, eat, drink, read, write for Him. Receive Him as yours altogether, and give Him your whole self. Take us, Lord, into Thy gracious favour; stamp us with Thy glorious image, and conduct us to Thy eternal kingdom!”[123]
Footnote 123:
Letters, 1791, p. 165.
Fletcher was depressed. His labours at Madeley, during the past year, had not been fruitful; and concerning his success even at Bath he was doubtful. Mr. Brown, his temporary curate, however, seems to have been useful; and so also were Wesley’s itinerant evangelists; on account of which he thankfully rejoiced. In another letter to Miss Hatton, he wrote:—
“MADELEY, May 27, 1766.
“The coming of Mr. Wesley’s preachers into my parish gives me no uneasiness. As I am sensible that everybody does better, and is more acceptable than myself, I should be sorry to deprive any one of a blessing; and I rejoice that the work of God goes on, by any instrument, or in any place. How far it might have been expedient to have postponed preaching regularly in my parish, till the minister of —— had been reconciled to the invasion of his; and how far this might have made my way smoother, I do not pretend to determine: time will show it, and in the meanwhile I find it good to have faith in Providence.
“I fear I have left as great a stink at Bath as Mr. Brown a sweet savour here. Everything is good to me that shows me my unprofitableness; but I desire to grieve, that the good of my private humiliation is so much overbalanced by the loss of many about me.”[124]
Footnote 124:
Letters, 1791, p. 169.
Thus did Fletcher depreciate himself. The truth is, he was in feeble health, and hardly knew it. At this time, also, two of his dear friends were dying—Miss Hatton, of Wem, and Miss Ireland, the only daughter of James Ireland, Esq., of Brislington, Bristol. Miss Hatton had been at Madeley, and Miss Ireland was about to migrate to the south of France. To these ladies, he wrote as follows:—
“MADELEY, June 21, 1766.
“MY DEAR FRIEND,—I am much concerned to hear, by Mrs. Tower, that you are so weak; but my concern has greatly increased, since I was told that the foundation of your illness was laid at Madeley; and, I am afraid, by my imprudence in taking you to the woman with whom we received the sacrament. I ask God’s pardon and yours for it; and I hope it will be the means of humbling me, and of making me more tender of my friends.
“The advice you give me about my health is seasonable. I hope to follow it. I am not conscious of having neglected it; but I will endeavour that there be not so much as the shadow of a call for repeating it.
“If the air at Wem does not agree with you, could you not come to Madeley? Though I am no nurse, and though I have been the contrary of one to you, I hope we should wait upon you with more tenderness than when you were here last. Mrs. Power would nurse you, and I would talk to you of the love of Jesus as well as I could. You know I perceived your bodily weakness when you were here, and charged you with a neglect of your body. If I was right, I hope you will follow the advice you give me.
“Offer yourself to God for life or death, for ease or pain, for strength or weakness. Let Him choose or refuse for you; only do you choose Him for your present and eternal portion.”[125]
Footnote 125:
Letters, 1791, p. 170.
Seven months after this, Miss Hatton peacefully expired.[126] Miss Ireland lived more than two years longer. To her, he wrote the following:—
“MADELEY, July —, 1766.
“MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,—The poor account your father has brought us of your health, and his apprehensions of not seeing you any more, before that solemn day when all people, nations, and tongues shall stand together at the bar of God, make me venture to send you a few lines.
“First, then, my dear friend, let me beseech you not to flatter yourself with the hopes of living long here on earth. These hopes fill us with worldly thoughts, and make us backward to prepare for our change. I would not, for the world, entertain such thoughts about myself. I have now, in my parish, a young man who has been two years under the surgeon’s hands. Since he was given up, about two months ago, he has fled to the Lord, and has found in Him that saving health, which a thousand times surpasses that with which the surgeon flattered him; and he now longs to be with Christ, which is far better.
“Secondly. Consider, my dear, how good the Lord is to call you to be transplanted into a better world, before you have taken deeper root in this sinful world. If it is hard to nature to die now, how much harder would it be if you lived to be the mother of a family, and to cleave to earth by the ties of new relations, schemes of gain, or prospects of success!
“Thirdly. Reflect that, by your illness, the Lord, who forecasts for us, intimates that long life would not be for His glory, nor your happiness. I believe He takes many young people from the evil to come, and out of the way of those temptations, or misfortunes, which would have made them miserable in time and in eternity.
“Fourthly. Your earthly father loves you much: witness the hundreds of miles he has gone for the benefit of your health; but your heavenly Father loves you a thousand times better; and He is all wisdom, as well as all goodness. Allow, then, such a loving, gracious Father to chose for you; and, if He chooses death, acquiesce, and say, ‘Good is the will of the Lord! His choice must be best!’
“Fifthly. Weigh the sinfulness of sin, both original and actual, and firmly believe the wages of sin is death. This will make you patiently accept the punishment; especially if you consider that Jesus Christ, by dying for us, has taken away the sting of death, and turned the grave into a passage to a blessed eternity.
“Sixthly. Try to get nearer to the dear Redeemer. He offers rest to the heavy laden, pardon to the guilty, strength to the feeble, and life to the dead.
“Seventhly. When you have considered your lost state, as a sinner, together with the greatness, the freeness, and the suitableness of Christ’s salvation, believe in Him. Be not afraid to venture upon and trust in Him. Cast yourself on Him by frequent acts of reliance, and stay your soul on Him by means of His promises. Pray much for faith, and be not afraid of accepting, using, and thanking God for a little.
“Eighthly. Beware of impatience, repining, and peevishness, which are the sins of sick people. Be gentle, easy to be pleased, and resigned as the bleeding Lamb of God. Wrong tempers indulged, grieve, if they do not quench, the Spirit.
“Ninthly. Do not repine at being in a strange country, far from your friends; and, if your going to France does not answer the end proposed for your body, it will answer a spiritual end to your soul.
“Tenthly. In praying, reading, hearing any person read, and meditating, do not consult feeble, fainting, weary flesh and blood; for, at this rate, death may find you idle, and supine, instead of striving to enter in at the strait gate; and, when your strength and vigour fail, remember that the Lord is the strength of your life and your portion for ever.”[127]
Footnote 126:
Ibid, p. 190.
Footnote 127:
Letters, 1791, p. 174.
Not many even faithful ministers of Christ would have written in such a strain as this to a young lady, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, leaving her native land, and apparently dying; but Fletcher, like all the first Methodists, was intensely in earnest, and never thought of sacrificing fidelity for the sake of seeming courtesy.
The young lady’s father had given Fletcher a hamper of wine, and a parcel of broadcloth to be made into a suit of clothes, kindly requesting him not to send his coat again to be patched. In acknowledging this generous present, the needy and somewhat seedy Vicar wrote as follows:—
“MADELEY, July —, 1766.
“MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,—You should have a little mercy on your friends, in not loading them with such burdens of beneficence. How would you like to be loaded with kindnesses you could not return? Were it not for a little of that grace which makes us not only willing, but happy to be nothing, to be obliged and dependent, your present would make me quite miserable. I submit to be clothed and nourished by you, as your servants are, without the happiness of serving you. To yield to this is as hard to friendship as it is to submit to be saved by free grace, without one scrap of our own righteousness. However, we are allowed, both in religion and friendship, to ease ourselves by thanks and prayers, till we have an opportunity of doing it by actions. I thank you then, my dear friend, and pray to God that you may receive His benefits as I do yours.
“Your broadcloth can lap me round two or three times; but the mantle of Divine love, the precious fine robe of Jesus’s righteousness, can cover your soul a thousand times. The cloth, fine and good as it is, will not keep out a hard shower; but that garment of salvation will keep out even a shower of brimstone and fire. Your cloth will wear out; but that fine linen, the righteousness of saints, will appear with a finer lustre the more it is worn. The moth may fret your present, or the tailor may spoil it in cutting it; but the present, which Jesus has made you, is out of the reach of the spoiler, and ready for present wear. Let me beseech you, my dear friend, to accept of this heavenly present, as I accept of your earthly one. I did not send you one farthing to purchase it: it came unsought, unasked, unexpected, as the seed of the woman came. It came just as I was sending a tailor to buy me cloth for a new coat, and I hope when you next see me, it will be in your present; now let Jesus see you in His. Accept it freely. Wear no more the old rusty coat of nature and self-righteousness. Send no more to have it patched. Make your boast of an unbought suit, and love to wear the livery of Jesus.
“You will then love His work. It will be your meat and drink to do it; and, that you may be vigorous in doing it, as I shall take a little of your wine for my stomach’s sake, take you a good deal of the wine of the kingdom for your soul’s sake. Every promise of the Gospel is a bottle, a cask that has a spring within, and can never be exhausted. Draw the cork of unbelief, and drink abundantly. Be not afraid of intoxication; and if an inflammation follows, it will only be that of Divine love. Be more free with the heavenly wine, than I have been with the earthly, which you sent me. I have not tasted it yet, but whose fault is it? Not yours certainly, but mine. If you do not drink daily out of the cup of salvation, whose fault is it? Not Jesus’s, but yours. Jesus gives you His righteousness to cover your nakedness, and the consolations of His Spirit to cheer and invigorate your soul. Accept and use. Wear, drink, and live to God.”[128]
Footnote 128:
Letters, 1791, p. 178.
Fletcher was religious in everything, and all his faculties were sanctified. He could not even acknowledge the kindness of his friend without introducing religion; but, to do this gracefully, he exercises, not his manly understanding, but his sportive fancy. “Fancy,” said fanciful Thomas Fuller, “can adorn whatever it touches, can invest naked fact and dry reasoning with unlooked-for beauty, make flowerets bloom even on the brow of a precipice, and, when nothing better can be had, can turn the very substance of the rock itself into moss and lichens.” Few men have possessed a finer fancy than Fletcher did; but his was rarely used except for religious purposes. He might have been an accomplished allegorist; but he preferred to be a scriptural reasoner. His creed was founded, not upon fancies, but upon facts. Hence, in the same month that he wrote the foregoing letter to Mr. Ireland, he wrote as follows to Miss Hatton:—
“MADELEY, July 17, 1766.
“Let your faith be rational as well as affectionate. God is good. He does not want us to take His word without proof. What expectations of the Messiah from the beginning of the world! What amazing miracles and wonders were wrought in favour of that people and family, from which He was to come! What prophecies fulfilled, that we might rationally believe! What displays of the Godhead in that heavenly man, Christ Jesus! In Him dwelt, of a truth, the fulness of the Godhead bodily. You see the power of God in His miracles; the goodness of God in His character; the justice and mercy of God in His death; the truth, and faithfulness, and glory of God in His resurrection, in the coming of His Spirit, and in the preaching of His everlasting Gospel. O, my friend, we may believe rationally. We may, with calm attention, view the emptiness of all other religions, and the fulness of assurance that ours affords.”[129]
Footnote 129:
Letters, 1791, p. 180.
Soon after the date of this letter, Fletcher proceeded to London, to Brighton, and to Oathall, where he had sweet intercourse with the Countess of Huntingdon, Romaine, Venn, Sir Charles Hotham, and with a gentleman and lady from his own country, who were visiting the Countess, and Mr. and Mrs. Powys of Berwick, in Shropshire, Mr. Powys being a gentleman of high connections and of large fortune, and who had, about this period, become conspicuous, in conjunction with Sir Richard Hill and Mr. Lee, of Cotery, for zeal in the cause of God and truth.[130]
Footnote 130:
“Life and Times of the Countess of Huntingdon,” vol. i., p. 375.
While staying with Lady Huntingdon at Oathall, Fletcher wrote another pastoral letter, which could not have been more faithful, but might, perhaps with advantage, have been more gentle.
“OATHALL, SUSSEX, September 23, 1766.
“To those who love or fear the Lord Jesus at Madeley, grace, peace, and love be multiplied unto you, from our God and Saviour Jesus Christ!
“Providence, my dear brethren, called me so suddenly from among you, that I had no time to take my leave of you, and recommend myself to your prayers. But I hope the good Spirit of our God, who is the Spirit of love and supplication, has brought me to your remembrance, as the poorest and weakest of Christ’s ministers, whose hands stand most in need of being strengthened and lifted up by your prayers. Pray on then, for yourselves, for one another, and for him whose glory it is to minister to you in spiritual things, and whose sorrow it is not to do it in a manner more suitable to the majesty of the Gospel, and more profitable to your souls. My heart is with you, nevertheless I bear patiently this bodily separation for three reasons.
“1. The variety of more faithful and able ministers, which you have during my absence, is more likely to be serviceable to you than my presence among you, and I would always prefer your profit to my own satisfaction.
“2. I hope Providence will give me those opportunities of conversing and praying with a greater variety of experienced Christians, which will tend to my own improvement, and, I trust, in the end, to yours.
“3. I flatter myself that, after some weeks’ absence, my ministry will be recommended by the advantage of novelty, which (the more the pity) goes farther with some than the Word itself. In the meantime, I shall give you some advice, which, it may be, will prove both suitable and serviceable to you.
“Endeavour to improve daily under the ministry that Providence blesses you with. Be careful to attend it with diligence, faith, and prayer. Would it not be a great shame if, when ministers come thirty or forty miles to offer you peace and pardon, strength and comfort, in the name of God, any of you should slight the glorious message, or hear it as if it was nothing to you, and as if you heard it not? See then that you never come from a sermon without being more deeply convinced of sin and righteousness. In order to this,—
“Use much prayer before you go to church. Consider that your next appearance there may be in a coffin, and entreat the Lord to give you now so to hunger and thirst after righteousness that you may be filled therewith. Hungry people never go fasting from a feast. Call to mind the text I preached from the last Sunday but one before I left you,—‘Wherefore, laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as new born babes desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby’ (1 Peter ii. 1, 2).
“When you are under the Word, beware of sitting as judges, and not like criminals. Many judge of the manner, matter, voice, or person of the preacher. You, perhaps, judge all the congregation when you should judge yourselves guilty of eternal death and yet worthy of eternal life, through the worthiness of Him who stood and was condemned at Pilate’s bar for you. The moment you have done crying to God as guilty, or thanking Christ as reprieved, criminals, you have reason to believe that this advice is levelled at you.
“When you have been at a means of grace and do not find yourselves sensibly quickened, let it be matter of deep humiliation to you. For want of repenting of their unbelief and hardness of heart, some get into a habit of deadness and indolence, so that they come to be as insensible and as little ashamed of themselves as stones.
“Beware of the inconsistent behaviour of those who complain that they are full of wandering in the evening under the Word when they have suffered their minds to wander from Christ all the day long. Oh! get acquainted with Him, that you may walk in Him and with Him. Whatsoever you do or say, especially in the things of God, do or say it as if Christ was before, behind, and on each side of you. Indeed, He is so, whether you consider it or not; for when He visibly appeared on earth, He called Himself ‘the Son of Man which is in heaven;’ how much more then is He present on earth now that He makes His immediate appearance in heaven? Make conscience then to maintain a sense of His blessed presence all the day long, and all the day long you will have a continual feast. For, can you conceive anything more delightful than to be always at the fountain of love, peace, beauty, and joy,—at the spring of power, wisdom, goodness, and truth? Can there be a purer and more melting happiness than to be with the best of fathers, the kindest of brothers, the most generous of benefactors, and the tenderest of husbands? Now Jesus is all this and much more to the believing soul. Oh! believe, my friends, believe in Jesus now, through a continual now; and until you can thus believe, mourn over your unbelieving heart; drag it to Him as you can; think of the efficacy of His blood shed for the ungodly; and wait for the Spirit of faith from on high.
“Some of you wonder why you cannot believe, why you cannot see Jesus with the eye of your mind, and delight in Him with the affections of your heart. I apprehend the reason to be one of these, or perhaps altogether.
“1. You are not poor, lost, undone, helpless, despairing sinners in yourselves. You indulge spiritual and refined self-righteousness; you are not yet dead to the law, and quite slain by the commandment. Now the kingdom of heaven belongs to none but the poor in spirit. Jesus came to save none but the lost. What wonder then, if Jesus is little to you, and if you do not live in His kingdom of peace, righteousness, and joy in the Holy Ghost?
“2. Perhaps you spend your time in curious reasonings, instead of casting yourselves as forlorn sinners at the feet of Christ, leaving it to Him to bless you when and in the manner He pleases. Know that He is the wise and sovereign God, and that it is your duty to lie before Him as clay, as fools, as sinful nothings.
“3. Perhaps, also, some of you wilfully keep idols of one kind or another; you indulge some sin against light and knowledge, and it is neither matter of humiliation, nor of confession to you. The love of praise, that of the world, that of money, and that of sensual gratifications, when not lamented, are as implacable enemies to Christ as Judas and Herod were. How can ye believe, seeing ye seek the honour that cometh from men? Hew then your Agags in pieces before the Lord. Run from your Delilahs to Jesus resolutely. Cut off the right hand and pluck out the right eye that offends you. ‘Come out from among them, and be separate, saith the Lord, and I will receive you.’ Nevertheless, when you strive, take care not to make yourself a righteousness of your own striving. Remember that justifying righteousness is finished and brought in, and that your goodness can no more add to it than your sins diminish it. Shout then, ‘the Lord your Righteousness!’ And, if you are undone sinners, humbly and yet boldly say, ‘In the Lord have I righteousness and strength.’
“When I was in London, I endeavoured to make the best of my time; that is to say, to hear, receive, and practise the Word. Accordingly, I went to Mr. Whitefield’s Tabernacle, and heard him give his Society a most sweet exhortation upon love. He began by observing that when the Apostle St. John was old and past walking and preaching, he would not forsake the assembling himself with his brethren, as the manner of too many is, upon little or no pretence at all. On the contrary, he got himself carried to their meeting, and, with his last thread of voice, preached to them his final sermon made up of this one sentence, ‘My little children, love one another.’ I wish, I pray, I earnestly beseech you to follow that evangelical, apostolical advice; and till God makes you all little children, little in your own eyes, and simple as little children, give me leave to say, dear brethren, love one another, and, of course, judge not, provoke not, be not shy of one another, but bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. Yea, bear with one another’s infirmities, and do not easily cast off any one, no not for sin, except it be obstinately persisted in.
“My sheet is full, and so is my heart of good wishes for and strong longing after you all. I have just room to tell you I hope to be with you in three or four weeks’ time. Oh! let me have the comfort of finding you all believing and loving. Farewell, my dear brethren! The blessing of God be with you all! This is the earnest desire of
“Your unworthy minister, “JOHN FLETCHER.”[131]
Footnote 131:
“Thirteen Original Letters,” by Fletcher, published at Bath in 1791, p. 20.
This is a long but valuable letter—valuable for the sentiments and advice it contains, and also as showing Fletcher’s loving and faithful passion to save the souls of his parishioners. Comment upon it would be easy, but is unnecessary. When he wrote it, on September 23, he intended to return to Madeley in “three or four weeks’ time,” but at the beginning of November he was still in London. In a letter to Mr. Powys, dated the first of that month, Whitefield remarked, “Dear Mr. Fletcher is become a scandalous Tottenham Court preacher.”[132] How long he continued to officiate in Whitefield’s far-famed chapel it is impossible to tell; but at the beginning of 1767 he was at Madeley, and wrote to Miss Hatton as follows:—
“MADELEY, January 9, 1767.
“MY DEAR FRIEND,—The dream of life will soon be over; the morning of eternity will soon succeed. Away then with all the shadows of time! Away from them to the Eternal Substance—to Jesus, the First and the Last, by whom, and for whom, all things consist. If you take Jesus to be your head, by the mystery of faith, you will be united to the resurrection and the life. The bitterness of death is past, my dear friend. Only look to Jesus. He died for you—died in your place—died under the frowns of heaven, that we might die under its smiles. Regard neither unbelief nor doubt. Fear neither sin nor hell. Choose neither life nor death. All these are swallowed up in the immensity of Christ, and are triumphed over in His cross. Fight the good fight of faith. Hold fast your confidence in the atoning, sanctifying blood of the Lamb of God. Confer no more with flesh and blood. Go, meet the bridegroom. Behold He cometh! Trim your lamp. Quit yourself like a soldier of Jesus. I entreat you, as a companion in tribulation; I charge you, as a minister, go, at every breath you draw, to Him, who says, ‘Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out:’ and ‘He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.’ Joyfully sing the believer’s song, ‘O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ!’ Let your surviving friends triumph over you, as one faithful unto death,—as one triumphing in death itself.”[133]
Footnote 132:
Whitefield’s Works, vol. iii., p. 339.
Footnote 133:
Letters, 1791, p. 189.
Three weeks after this, the Christian lady thus addressed was dead.[134] Fletcher, in a letter to Mr. Ireland, wrote:—
“Poor Miss Hatton died full of serenity, faith, and love. The four last hours of her life were better than all her sickness. When the pangs of death were upon her, the comforts of the Almighty bore her triumphantly through, and some of her last words were: ‘Grieve not at my happiness. This world is no more to me than a bit of burnt paper. Grace! Grace! A sinner saved! I wish I could tell you half of what I feel and see. I am going to keep an everlasting Sabbath. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, who giveth me the victory, through my Lord Jesus Christ!’ It is very remarkable that she had hardly any joy in her illness; but God made her ample amends in her extremity. He keeps His strongest cordial for the time of need. Blessed, for ever blessed, be His holy name!”[135]
Footnote 134:
Ibid, p. 190.
Footnote 135:
Letters, 1791, p. 192.
As already stated, Fletcher, when in London, had preached in Tottenham Court Road Chapel. Whitefield wrote a letter, thanking him for his services. Fletcher’s highly characteristic reply was as follows:—
“REV. AND DEAR SIR,—I am confounded when I receive a letter from you. Present and eternal contempt from Christ and all His members is what I deserve. A sentence of death is my due; but, instead of it, I am favoured with lines of love. Your mentioning my poor ministrations among your congregation opens again a wound of shame, that was but half healed. I feel the need of asking God, you, and your hearers to pardon me, for weakening the glorious matter of the Gospel by my wretched broken manner, and for spoiling the heavenly power of it by the uncleanness of my heart and lips.
“I should be glad to be your curate some time this year; but I see no opening, nor the least prospect of any. What between the dead and living, a parish ties one down more than a wife. If I could go anywhere this year, it should be to Yorkshire, to accompany Lady Huntingdon, according to a design that I had half formed last year; but I fear I shall be debarred even from this. I set out, God willing, to-morrow morning for Trevecca, to meet her ladyship there, and to show her the way to Madeley, where she proposes to stay three or four days, on her way to Derbyshire.
“Last Sunday seven-night, Captain Scott preached to my congregation a sermon, which was more blessed, though preached only upon my horse-block, than a hundred of those I preach in the pulpit. I invited him to come and treat her ladyship next Sunday with another, now the place is consecrated. If you should ever favour Shropshire with your presence, you shall have the captain’s, or the parson’s, pulpit at your option. Many ask me, whether you will not come to have some fruit here also. What must I answer them? I, and many more, complain of a stagnation of the work. What must we do? Everything buds and blossoms about us, yet our winter is not over.
“Present my Christian respects to Mrs. Whitefield, Mr. Hardy, Mr. Keen, Mr. Joyce, Mr. Croom, and Mr. Wright. Tell Mr. Keen I am a letter in his debt, and postpone writing it till I have had such a sight of Christ as to breathe His love through every line.
“I am, rev. and dear Sir, with sincere affection and respect, your willing, though halting and unworthy servant,
“J. FLETCHER.”[136]
Footnote 136:
Evangelical Magazine, 1802, p. 346.
Captain Scott, the martial evangelist, mentioned in this letter, was a Shropshire man, and belonged to an ancient and respectable family. He had begun his military life as a cornet, and had been promoted to the rank of captain in the 7th regiment of dragoons. A short time before his first visit to Madeley, Fletcher, in a letter to the Countess of Huntingdon, remarked:—
“I went last Monday to meet Captain Scott, one of the fruits that have grown for the Lord at Oathall,—a captain of a truth—a bold soldier of Christ. God has thrown down before him the middle wall of bigotry, and he boldly launches into an irregular usefulness. For some months, he has exhorted his dragoons daily; and, for some weeks, he has preached publicly in the Methodist Meeting House, in his regimentals, to numerous congregations, with good success. The stiff regular ones pursue him with hue and cry; but, I believe, he is quite beyond their reach. God keep him zealous and simple! I believe this red coat will shame many a black one. I am sure he shames me.”[137]
Footnote 137:
“Life and Times of the Countess of Huntingdon,” vol. i., pp. 317, 318.
In the year 1767, the Countess of Huntingdon was much occupied in making preparations for the opening of her college at Trevecca, in Wales. From the commencement of this important project, Fletcher was one of her ladyship’s chosen advisers. In the month of April, he met her at Trevecca, and escorted her to Madeley, where she spent several days on her way to Yorkshire. The visit was a memorable one. Her ladyship was accompanied by Lady Anne Erskine and Miss Orton. The rich Christian communion of these three noble ladies with the poor vicar may be imagined, but cannot be described. It was, probably, at this period that the Countess was led to think of Fletcher as the future president of her college. At all events, in the following year, he was appointed to that important office.[138]
Footnote 138:
Ibid, vol. i., p. 288; ii., p. iv.
Captain Scott also was at Madeley, and though Fletcher, of course, could not allow him the use of the pulpit of the parish church, he had him mounted upon the horse-block of the parish parsonage, where he preached twice, on Sunday, to large congregations; and on the day following, in Madeley Wood, an immense concourse of people assembled to hear him, many of whom were drawn thither by curiosity, to see the famous Countess and the preaching soldier.
Up to the time of the Countess’s visit, Fletcher was in doubt whether he would be able to attend her in Yorkshire, but, before she left Madeley Vicarage, it was arranged that he should follow her immediately after Whit-Sunday. Mr. Ireland wished him to visit Bristol, and certainly he had some claim upon him; for, to say nothing of the valuable presents he had sent, for the use of Fletcher and the poor of Madeley, he had secured for them a most acceptable curate, to serve the parish during Fletcher’s absence. Fletcher, for the present, was obliged to decline his friend’s invitation. Hence the following letter to him:—
“MADELEY, April 27, 1767.
“MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,—I have just received your letter, upon my arrival from Wales with dear Lady Huntingdon, who is, of a truth, a tried stone, built upon the corner stone, and such as you have seen her, such, I am persuaded, you will find her to the last,—a soul devoted to Jesus, living by faith, going to Christ Himself by the Scriptures, instead of resting in the letter of the Gospel promises, as too many professors do.
“I thank you for your care to procure not only a supply for my church, but such an agreeable, acceptable, and profitable one as Mr. Brown. I know no one that should be more welcome than he. Tell him, with a thousand thanks for his condescension, that I deliver my charge over to him fully, and give him a carte blanche, to do or not to do, as the Lord will direct him. I have settled it, that I shall endeavour to overtake my lady at Kippax, in Yorkshire, against the Sunday after Whitsuntide.
“With regard to the Bristol journey, I must first come from the north, before I dream of going to the south. God help us to steer immovably to the grand point of our salvation,—Jesus, the Crucified! To Him I recommend myself, and you, and my noble guests. Love Him,—praise Him,—serve Him, who hath loved you, bought you, and died for you.”[139]
Footnote 139:
Letters, 1791, p. 196.
In the year 1767, Whit-Sunday occurred on June 7, and, during the week following, Fletcher joined the Countess of Huntingdon at Huddersfield, where her ladyship was staying, for a few days, with Venn, at the vicarage. On Sunday, the 14th, he preached twice in Venn’s church, to large and deeply attentive congregations. He then accompanied the Countess to Aberford, on a visit to Benjamin Ingham, who had married her niece, Lady Margaret Hastings. Whilst there, accompanied by the Rev. Joseph Townsend, Rector of Pewsey, in Wiltshire, who had preached at the opening of Lady Huntingdon’s chapel at Bath, in 1765, the whole family party at Aberford made an excursion to Haworth. Grimshaw, the brave-hearted incumbent, to whom Yorkshire Methodism owes so much, had died four years before, and had been succeeded by the Rev. Mr. Richardson, a good man, and evangelical in his principles, but averse to open-air preaching, in which his predecessor had delighted. The intended visit to Haworth having become known, and it being understood that Fletcher and Mr. Townsend would preach, an immense multitude of people assembled to hear them. Application was made for the use of what was called “Mr. Whitefield’s pulpit,” that is, a scaffold erected by the side of Haworth church, and from which Whitefield was wont to thunder his overwhelming sermons. Mr. Richardson refused the request. Lady Huntingdon remonstrated; and, though it is not stated that the scaffold was brought out, it is known that both Fletcher and Townsend preached in the churchyard.
On leaving Aberford, the Countess and her friends proceeded to Kippax, on a visit to her niece, Mrs. Medhurst. Here, at the beginning of July, they were joined by the Rev. Martin Madan; and now the village of Kippax became the centre of some of the most remarkable evangelistic efforts recorded in Methodistic annals. For some weeks, Fletcher, of Madeley; Madan, from London; Venn, Vicar of Huddersfield; Conyers, Rector of Helmsley; Burnet, Vicar of Elland; Ryland, Curate of Huddersfield; Bentley, Vicar of Kippax; and Powley, Vicar of Dewsbury, made frequent excursions not only in the immediate neighbourhood of Kippax, but to distant parts of the county, affectionately inviting the multitudes who flocked to hear them to flee from the wrath to come.[140] Unfortunately, the details of these missionary labours seem to be irrecoverably lost; and it can only be added that, in consequence of being seized with a rather alarming illness, the Countess of Huntingdon was not able to take part in many of the services. After Fletcher’s return to Madeley, he wrote to her ladyship as follows:—
“MY VERY DEAR AND HONOURED LADY,—The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who tried Israel, and led them through many a wandering to the good land—this faithful God has met with you; a rod is in His hand, but that hand bears so deep a print of love, that the design of His visitation cannot be mistaken. Nor does He come without the supporting staff. He kills to make alive. He wounds to heal. He afflicts to comfort, and to do it more deeply and effectually. My hearty prayer for your ladyship is, that you may drink the cup the Lord holds out to you as a new token of His unchangeable love. I call it unchangeable, because it is really so in its nature, though the appearances of it greatly vary for the trial of faith. ‘I am God,’ says He; ‘I change not, therefore Israel is not consumed,’ and Shadrach is kept in the burning fiery furnace.
“I have often heard your ladyship speak admirably upon knowing Christ, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings. The Lord will have you improve in that heavenly knowledge; therefore He gives you so long a lesson at this time. The lesson is hard, I grant; but the Master is so loving, the science so noble, and the scholar so used to severe exercises, that it is no wonder you are placed on the highest form. No cross—no crown! The heavier the cross, the brighter the crown!
“Till I received Lady Anne’s letter, I often wanted to persuade myself that your ladyship had got quite well soon after I left Kippax. I beg my best respects and warmest thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Medhurst, Miss Medhurst, and the dear company of your ladyship. Their kindness and patience towards me while at Kippax have laid me under a heavy burden of obligations, which I desire gratefully to acknowledge.
“Through a mistake of our good friend Ireland, dear Mr. Glascott came here the day after I arrived from Yorkshire. He stayed only one day. This stripling will throw down Goliath. I blessed that cross and accident which brought me acquainted with a young soldier that made me so ashamed of myself. Mr. Hill[141] is gone to Brighton, where I hope he will be as useful as he is in Shropshire. Captain Scott set out last Monday for York, after making a great stir for good in Shrewsbury.
“I am loth to trouble Lady Anne with a request of a line, to know how your ladyship does, yet I know not well how to give up the hope that she will once more steal two minutes for it.
“I am, with peculiar thanks to Lady Anne for her letter, and to your ladyship for numberless favours, my lady, your most indebted and obliged servant,
“J. FLETCHER.”[142]
Footnote 140:
“Life and Times of the Countess of Huntingdon,” vol. i., pp. 290, 291.
Footnote 141:
Afterwards Sir Richard Hill, Bart., one of Fletcher’s antagonists in the Calvinian controversy.
Footnote 142:
“Life and Times of the Countess of Huntingdon,” vol. i., p. 296.
No further reference to the illness of the Countess of Huntingdon is needed; but a few lines may be added concerning Mr. Glascott, whom Mr. Ireland had sent to Madeley to officiate during Fletcher’s supposed absence. This young clergyman had been ordained at Oxford in 1765. For two years, he had served the curacy of Cheveley, in Berkshire, and had been recently dismissed. He was now introduced to Lady Huntingdon, became her assistant chaplain, and laboured in her connexion till 1781. Mr. Ireland then presented him to the vicarage of Hatherleigh, in Devonshire. Here he prayed and preached for nearly fifty years; and here he died, in the full triumph of the faith of Christ, on the 18th of August, 1830.[143]
Footnote 143:
Ibid, vol. ii., p. 464.
For years past, Fletcher and Whitefield had been sympathizing and warm-hearted friends, but, up to the present, Whitefield had not been to Madeley. After Fletcher’s departure from Yorkshire, Whitefield succeeded him in that county, and glorious were the seasons which Lady Huntingdon and the great evangelist enjoyed at Kippax, Huddersfield, Leeds, and other places. Fletcher urged Whitefield to call at Madeley on his way to what he called his “winter quarters” in London; but Whitefield found it impracticable to comply with his friend’s request.[144] Thus was lost an opportunity that did not recur. Whitefield never preached in Madeley church. He died in 1770.
Footnote 144:
Ibid, vol. i., p. 299.
The Countess of Huntingdon spent the winter of 1767 chiefly at Bath, and was in constant correspondence with Fletcher concerning her college at Trevecca. Her proposal was to admit no young men except such as were truly converted to God, and resolved to dedicate themselves to His service. All admitted might stay three years, and be clothed, boarded, lodged, and educated gratuitously. Afterwards, those who desired it might enter the Christian ministry, either in the Church of England or among Protestants of any other denomination. The scheme was generous, and as free from bigotry as it could be. Her ladyship had to select first of all a president, and her choice fell upon Fletcher. He accepted her invitation. It was impossible that he should be generally resident at Trevecca, much less constantly; his duty to his Madeley parishioners would not admit of this; but he promised to attend as often as he conveniently could; to give advice respecting the appointment of masters and the admission of students; to revise the studies and conduct of the latter, and to assist their piety, and judge of their qualifications for the work of the ministry. All this was to be done without any fee or reward whatever.
The plan for the examination of candidates for admission was drawn up by her ladyship. It was then submitted to Romaine, Venn, Wesley, and others, and received their approval. The Countess finally sent it to her president elect, who returned the following answer:—
“MADELEY, November 24, 1767.
“MY DEAR LADY,—I received the proposals which your ladyship has drawn up for the examination of the young men who may appear proper candidates for the Trevecca academy; and I gratefully acknowledge your kindness in allowing me to propose suitable young men resident in my parish.
“Our Israel is small, my lady, and if among six hundred thousand only two faithful men were found of old, the Joshuas and Calebs cannot be numerous among us. After having perused the articles, and looked round about me, I designed to answer your ladyship, ‘Out of this Galilee ariseth no prophet.’ With this resolution I went to bed, but, in my sleep, was much taken up with the thought and remembrance of one of my young colliers, who told me, some months ago, that for four years he had been inwardly persuaded he should be called to speak for God. I looked upon the unusual impression of my dream as a call to speak to the young man, and at waking desired to do so at the first opportunity. To my great surprise, he came to Madeley that very morning, and I found upon enquiry that he had been as much drawn to come as I to speak to him. This encouraged me to speak of your ladyship’s design, and I was satisfied by his conversation that I might venture to propose him to your ladyship for further examination.
“His name is James Glazebrook, collier and getter of ironstone in Madeley wood. He is now twenty-three—by look nineteen. He has been awakened seven years. He has been steady from the beginning of his profession, at least so far as to be kept outwardly unblameable, but has seemed to me to walk mostly in heaviness. What I told him was as oil put into a glimmering lamp, and he seems to revive upon hearing of the little outward call. Notwithstanding his strong desire to exhort, he has not yet attempted to do so; and his not being forward to run of himself, makes me have the better hope his call is from God. He has no mean gift in singing and prayer. His judgment and sense are superior to his station, and he does not seem to be discouraged by the severest part of your ladyship’s proposals. One difficulty stood in the way. He maintains by his labour his aged mother; but this is made easy by his mother’s leave, and the promise of an elder son to maintain her if he can have his brother’s place in the pit.
“With regard to the superintendency of the college, or the examination of the candidates, I know myself too well to dream about it; nevertheless, so far as my present calling and poor abilities will allow, I am ready to throw my mite into the treasury.
“Some of our conversations upon the manifestations of the Son of Man to the heart have led me into many an hour’s consideration. The Holy Ghost alone can clear up the points to pursue. Nevertheless, I have found both comfort and profit in setting upon paper the reflections I have been enabled to make upon the mysterious subject; and they have, through mercy, set my soul more than ever against the rampant errors of Sandemanianism. Should Providence ever favour me with an opportunity, I would bespeak an hour of your ladyship’s time to ratify my views of the point, under God.
“I am happily provided with a schoolmaster to my mind, and my ministry is the last under which I would advise any one intended for a preacher to sit. Nevertheless, if the young candidate, (Mr. Eastwood) mentioned in the letter, wants retirement and a prophet’s room at my house he may have it, if he can cook for himself or find a table in the neighbourhood.”[145]
Footnote 145:
“Life and Times of the Countess of Huntingdon,” vol. ii., p. 82.
There is only one other incident, in the life of Fletcher, deserving attention and belonging to the year 1767; and as it can be summarily dispatched, it may be best to mention it at once, before returning to two matters in his letter to the Countess of Huntingdon, which will require more extended notice.
On December 1, the tenth Earl of Buchan died at Bath, and was succeeded by his son, who appointed Fletcher, Venn, and Berridge to be his chaplains. In a letter to Lady Huntingdon, referring to the appointment, Fletcher wrote:—
“I have just received a letter from Lord Buchan, in which he says, ‘Pray for me, that I also may be found faithful when our Master calls for me, and that I may live a martyr to redeeming love, and die a trophy and a monument of the reality of the despised influences of the Holy Ghost.’ It is a singular honour to belong to so excellent a nobleman. Oh! how far below his grace is his nobility! I feel a strong desire to pray that he may be kept from the fickleness of youth[146] and the baits of ambition. I share in the happiness of Lady Buchan and Lady Anne Erskine upon the occasion. May God make them, together with your ladyship, a fourfold cord to draw sinners unto Jesus.”[147]
Footnote 146:
The new earl was only twenty-four years of age.
Footnote 147:
“Life and Times of the Countess of Huntingdon,” vol. ii., p. 19.
Fletcher evidently was pleased with his appointment. The emoluments of his new office probably were small, perhaps nil; but, by means of it, he became associated with one of the most pious and exemplary noblemen of the day.
To recur to Fletcher’s former letter to the Countess of Huntingdon.
He nominated James Glazebrook as a fitting candidate to be examined for admission into Lady Huntingdon’s intended college. As already stated, Glazebrook was a poor, hardworking collier. He was without money and without learning; but he had two of the three things by which Wesley tested the Divine call of his itinerants to preach; namely, “grace” and “gifts;” and Fletcher had no doubt that when the opportunity arrived, he would have the third—“fruit.” Wesley’s own definitions of these three words were:—
“Grace: a knowledge of God as a pardoning God; the love of God abiding in them; desiring and seeking nothing but God; and the being holy in all manner of conversation. Gifts: in some tolerable degree a clear, sound understanding; a right judgment in the things of God; a just conception of salvation by faith; and a degree of utterance so as to be able to speak justly, readily, clearly. Fruit: are any truly convinced of sin and converted to God by their preaching? As long as these three marks concur in any, we believe he is called of God to preach.”
Whether Fletcher adopted Wesley’s threefold test, and applied it to James Glazebrook, it is impossible to ascertain; but that his opinion of the young man was correct, subsequent events fully proved. Glazebrook was one of Fletcher’s converts. He was one of the first students at Trevecca college, if not the very first. There he distinguished himself equally by his superior abilities and his uncommon diligence. He allowed himself but little time for refreshment, rest, or recreation. His piety was as remarkable as his gifts and diligence. He was soon sent forth to preach, and his labours were attended with considerable success. For three years, he was thus employed in various parts of England. He then tired of the itinerant life, and desired the Countess of Huntingdon to procure him orders in the Established Church. With the assistance of Fletcher a title was obtained, and Glazebrook was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Lichfield, in December 1771. Soon after his ordination, he entered on the curacy of Smisby, in Derbyshire; after which he served the curacies of Rowley Regis, near Birmingham; Shawbury, Shropshire; Ravenstone, in Derbyshire; and Hugglescote, in Leicestershire. In 1777, he was ordained priest by Dr. Hurd, Bishop of Worcester. Two years later, he married the eldest daughter of Thomas Kirkland, Esq., M.D., of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, an intimate friend of the Countess of Huntingdon; and, soon after his marriage, became minister of St. James’s, Warrington. Ultimately, Lord Moira presented him to the vicarage of Belton, a village in Leicestershire, whose living even now is not worth more than about £180 a year. Here he continued till the time of his decease; and here, as well as at Warrington and other places, he was made the honoured instrument of “turning many to righteousness.” Besides his ministerial labours, he wrote and published a “Treatise on Extemporary Preaching,” “Letters on Infant Baptism,” an “Answer to Gilbert Wakefield’s Treatise on Baptism,” and, after his death, his family published a volume of his sermons, which was well received by the public. Such, in brief, was the history of Fletcher’s convert and protegé. Further particulars concerning him may be found in the Evangelical Register for 1836.
The other matter, requiring attention, in Fletcher’s letter to Lady Huntingdon, under the date of November 24, 1767, is his reference to the conversations he had had with her ladyship upon the “Manifestations of the Son of Man to the heart,” and the fact that he had devoutly studied this mysterious subject for “many hours,” and had put his thoughts “upon paper.” This important manuscript was not published until after Fletcher’s death. The editor of his collected works, in a brief preface, says:—
“For the Letters on the Manifestation of Christ, the reader is obliged to Mrs. Fletcher. When they were written, or to whom they are addressed, is uncertain; but, from the beginning of the first letter, the decayed state of the manuscript, and the extreme smallness of the character, which could scarcely have been legible to the author in his latter years, they are supposed to have been the first essay of a genius afterwards so much admired. The reader is requested to remember that the pious author wrote only for himself and his friends; that these sheets want his perfecting hand; and that the editor thought himself entitled to take no liberties.”
From this preface, it is evident that the editor was not acquainted with the foregoing letter to the Countess of Huntingdon; and it may be added, that there is no need for the apology, that the “sheets want” Fletcher’s “perfecting hand.”
The Letters are six in number, and fill fifty-three octavo pages in Fletcher’s collected works.[148] It is extremely difficult to give, in a brief form, the substance of these important papers; and yet the task must be attempted, because the subject is one of great interest and because the Letters seem to have been among the earliest of his compositions, that were afterwards published.
Footnote 148:
They were first published by the Rev. Melville Horne, in 1791, with the title, “Six Letters on the Spiritual Manifestation of the Son of God.”
His object is clearly stated in his opening paragraph:—
“When I had the pleasure of seeing you last, you seemed surprised to hear me say, that the Son of God, for purposes worthy of His wisdom, manifests Himself, sooner or later, to all His sincere followers, in a spiritual manner, which the world knows not of. The assertion appeared to you unscriptural, enthusiastical, and dangerous. What I then advanced to prove that it was scriptural, rational, and of the greatest importance, made you desire I would write you on the mysterious subject. I declined it, as being unequal to the task; but, having since considered that a mistake here may endanger your soul or mine, I sit down to comply with your request; and the end I propose by it is, either to give you a fair opportunity of pointing out my error, if I am wrong, or to engage you, if I am right, to seek what I esteem the most invaluable of all blessings,—revelations of Christ to your own soul, productive of the experimental knowledge of Him, and the present enjoyment of His salvation.”
“I shall not be able to establish the doctrine I maintain unless you allow me the existence of the proper senses, to which our Lord manifests Himself. The manifestation I contend for being of a spiritual nature, must be made to spiritual senses; and that such senses exist, and are opened in, and exercised by, regenerate souls, is what I design to prove in this letter” (the first), “by the joint testimony of Scripture, our Church, and reason.”
In his second letter, Fletcher defines what he means, and does not mean, by the manifestations of the Son of God to the soul of man. In the third and fourth, he dwells on the uses of such manifestations. The fifth contains a summary of the numerous appearances of the Son of God during the Old Testament dispensation, and concludes with answers to the objection that these appearances proved “only, that God favoured the patriarchs and Jews with immediate revelations of Himself, because they had neither the Gospel nor the Scriptures.” Fletcher’s fourth answer to this objection is so characteristic that it must be quoted:—
“If, because we have the letter of Scripture, we must be deprived of all immediate manifestations of Christ and His spirit, we are great losers by that blessed book, and we might reasonably say, ‘Lord, bring us back to the dispensation of Moses! Thy Jewish servants could formerly converse with Thee face to face; but now we can know nothing of Thee, but by their writings. They viewed Thy glory in various wonderful appearances; but we are indulged only with black lines telling us of Thy glory. They had the bright Shekinah, and we have only obscure descriptions of it. They were blessed with lively oracles; and we only with a dead letter. The ark of Thy covenant went before them, and struck terror into all their adversaries; but a book, of which our enemies make daily sport, is the only revelation of Thy power among us. They made their boast of Urim and Thummim, and received particular, immediate answers from between the cherubim; but we have only general ones, by means of Hebrew and Greek writings, which many do not understand. They conversed familiarly with Moses their mediator, with Aaron their high priest, and with Samuel their prophet; these holy men gave them unerring directions in doubtful cases; but, alas! the apostles and inspired men are all dead; and Thou, Jesus, our Mediator, Priest, and Prophet, canst not be consulted to any purpose, for Thou manifestest Thyself no more. As for Thy sacred book, Thou knowest that sometimes the want of money to purchase it, the want of learning to consult the original, the want of wisdom to understand the translation, the want of skill or sight to read it, prevent our improving it to the best advantage, and keep some from reaping any benefit from it at all. O Lord! if, because we have this blessed picture of Thee, we must have no discovery of the glorious original, have compassion on us, take back Thy precious book, and impart Thy more precious Self to us, as Thou didst to Thy ancient people!”
In his sixth and last Letter, Fletcher proves “that the New Testament, as well as the Old, abounds with accounts of particular revelations of the Son of God;” and he concludes thus:—
“Having thus led you from Genesis to Revelation, I conclude by two inferences, which appear to me undeniable. The first, that it is evident our Lord, before His incarnation, during His stay on earth, and after His ascension into heaven, hath been pleased, in a variety of manners, to manifest Himself to the children of men, both for the benefit of the Church in general, and for the conversion of sinners and the establishment of saints in particular. Secondly, that the doctrine, which I maintain, is as old as Adam, as modern as St. John, the last of the inspired writers, and as scriptural as the Old and New Testaments, which is what I wanted to demonstrate.”
This is an imperfect outline of Fletcher’s production, but want of space prevents enlargement. Some, with a scornful jeer, will brand Fletcher as a mystic; and others, sincerely in search of truth, but who have not experienced that of which he speaks, will ask his meaning. Leaving the former to their own infidel or pharisaic wisdom, it may be said in reply to the latter, Fletcher meant nothing more than what Christ Himself meant in His sixth beatitude, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God;” and again, in one of His latest utterances, “He that hath My commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me; and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.” Or, again, Fletcher meant what St. Paul meant in texts like the following:—“The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
If it be asked, again, what is the meaning of these and such like texts? it may be answered, substantially,—the meaning is the same as what is meant by stanzas like the following, written by John or Charles Wesley, and selected from their Hymn Book, almost at random:—
“Spirit of faith, come down, Reveal the things of God; And make to us the Godhead known, And witness with the blood. O that the world might know The all-atoning Lamb! Spirit of faith! descend and show The virtue of His name.”
“Come, Holy Ghost, (for moved by Thee The prophets wrote and spoke), Unlock the truth, Thyself the key, Unseal the sacred Book. Expand Thy wings, celestial Dove, Brood o’er our nature’s night; Oh, our disordered spirits move, And let there now be light. God, through Himself, we then shall know, If Thou within us shine; And sound, with all Thy saints below, The depths of love divine.”
“Author of faith, eternal word, Whose spirit breathes the active flame; Faith, like its finisher and Lord, To-day, as yesterday, the same: To Thee our humble hearts aspire, And ask the gift unspeakable: Increase in us the kindled fire, In us the work of faith fulfil. The things unknown to feeble sense, Unseen by reason’s glimmering ray, With strong, commanding evidence, Their heavenly origin display. Faith lends its realizing light, The clouds disperse, the shadows fly; The Invisible appears in sight, And God is seen by mortal eye.”
“O disclose Thy lovely face, Quicken all my drooping powers; Gasps my fainting soul for grace, As a thirsty land for showers; Haste, my Lord, no more delay! Come, my Saviour, come away! Dark and cheerless is the morn, Unaccompanied by Thee; Joyless is the day’s return, Till Thy mercy’s beams I see; Till Thou inward light impart, Glad my eyes and warm my heart. Visit, then, this soul of mine, Pierce the gloom of sin and grief; Fill me, Radiancy Divine, Scatter all my unbelief; More and more Thyself display, Shining to the perfect day.”
If it be asked, again, what means all this? let the enquirer carefully and devoutly read Fletcher’s Six Letters. He will be wiser and better for his exercise; and will ascertain that Fletcher and Wesley were not, in the vulgar sense of the expression, bewildered and bewildering mystics, but spiritually enlightened, sober, scriptural divines, who, with reverential and joyous hearts, could sing:—
“What we have felt and seen, With confidence we tell; And publish to the sons of men The signs infallible. We by His Spirit prove And know the things of God, The things, which freely of His love He hath on us bestow’d. His glory our design, We live our God to please; And rise, with filial fear divine To perfect holiness.”