XVI. FURTHER PUBLICATIONS IN THE YEAR
1774.
IN Lloyd’s Evening Post for March 2, 1774, there appeared the following advertisement:—
“In the Press. An Equal Check to Pharisaism and Antinomianism; and the Scripture Scales to weigh Gospel Truth; both by the Rev. Mr. John Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley, Shropshire.”
“The Scripture Scales,” however, were published separately, and not until the year was ending. First of all, Fletcher issued a 12mo. volume of 264 pages, entitled, “The First Part of an Equal Check to Pharisaism and Antinomianism, containing, I. An Historical Essay on the Danger of parting Faith and Works. II. Salvation by the Covenant of Grace, A Discourse preached in the Parish Church of Madeley, April 18, and May 9, 1773. III. A Scriptural Essay on the astonishing Rewardableness of Works, according to the Covenant of Grace. IV. An Essay on Truth, or, A rational Vindication of the Doctrine of Salvation by Faith, with a dedicatory Epistle to the Right Hon. the Countess of Huntingdon. By the Author of the Checks to Antinomianism. Shrewsbury: Printed by J. Eddowes: and sold at the Foundery; and by J. Buckland, in Paternoster Row, London; by T. Mills in Bath; and S. Aris in Birmingham. 1774.”
Fletcher’s Preface is dated, Madeley, May 21, 1774. The following extracts from it convey an idea of the scope of his book:—
“I. The first piece of this Check was designed for a preface to the Discourse that follows it; but as it swelled far beyond my intention, I present it to the reader under the name of An Historical Essay, which makes way for the tracts that follow.
“II. With respect to the Discourse, I must mention what engages me to publish it. In 1771, I saw the propositions called the ‘Minutes.’ Their author invited me to ‘review the whole affair.’ I did so; and soon found that I had ‘leaned too much toward Calvinism,’ which, after mature consideration, appeared to me exactly to coincide with speculative Antinomianism; and the same year I publicly acknowledged my error.[305]
“When I had thus openly confessed that I was involved in the guilt of many of my brethren, and that I had so leaned towards speculative as not to have made a proper stand against practical Antinomianism, who could have thought that one of my most formidable opponents[306] would have attempted to screen his mistakes behind some passages of a manuscript sermon which I preached twelve years ago, and of which, by some means or other, he has got a copy?
“I am very far from recanting that old discourse. I still think the doctrine it contains excellent, in the main, and very proper to be enforced, though in a more guarded manner, in a congregation of hearers violently prejudiced against the first gospel axiom.[307] Therefore, out of regard for the grand, leading truth of Christianity, and in compliance with Mr. Hill’s earnest entreaty (‘Finishing Stroke,’ p. 45), I send my sermon into the world upon the following reasonable conditions: 1. That I shall be allowed to publish it, as I preached it a year ago in my church, namely, with additions in brackets, to make it at once a fuller Check to Pharisaism, and a finishing Check to Antinomianism. 2. That the largest addition shall be in favour of free grace. 3. That nobody shall accuse me of forgery, for thus adding my present light to that which I had formerly; and for thus bringing out of my little treasure of experience things new and old. 4. That the press shall not groan with the charge of disingenuity, if I throw into Notes some unguarded expressions, which I formerly used without scruple, and which my more enlightened conscience does not suffer me to use at present. 5. That my opponent’s call to print my sermon will procure me the pardon of the public, for presenting them with a plain, blunt, discourse, composed for an audience chiefly made up of colliers and rustics. And, lastly, that, as I understand English a little better than I did twelve years ago, I shall be permitted to rectify a few French idioms, which I find in my old manuscript; and to connect my thoughts a little more like an Englishman, where I can do it without the least misrepresentation of the sense.
“III. With regard to the ‘Scriptural Essay’ upon the rewardableness or evangelical worthiness of works, I shall just observe that it attacks the grand mistake of Solifidians countenanced by three or four words of my old sermon. I pour a flood of Scriptures upon it; and, after receiving the fire of my objector, I return it in a variety of scriptural and rational answers, about the solidity of which the public must decide.
“IV. The ‘Essay on Truth’ will, I hope, reconcile judicious moralists to the doctrine of salvation by faith, and considerate Solifidians to the doctrine of salvation by the works of faith; reason and Scripture concurring to show the constant dependence of works upon faith; and the wonderful agreement of the doctrine of present salvation by TRUE faith, with the doctrine of eternal salvation by GOOD works.
“I hope that I do not dissent, in my observations upon faith, either from our Church, or approved Gospel ministers. In their highest definitions of that grace, they consider it only according to the fulness of the Christian dispensation; but my subject has obliged me to consider it also according to the dispensations of John the Baptist, Moses, and Noah. Believers under these inferior dispensations have not always assurance, nor is the assurance they sometimes have so bright as that of adult Christians, Matt. xi. 11. But, undoubtedly, assurance is inseparably connected with the faith of the Christian dispensation, which was not fully opened till Christ opened His glorious baptism on the Day of Pentecost, and till His spiritual kingdom was set up with power in the hearts of His people. Nobody, therefore, can truly believe, according to this dispensation, without being immediately conscious both of the forgiveness of sins, and of peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. This is a most important truth, derided indeed by fallen Churchmen, and denied by Laodicean Dissenters; but, of late years gloriously revived by Mr. Wesley and the Ministers connected with him.”
Footnote 305:
In the “Second Check to Antinomianism.”
Footnote 306:
Mr. Richard Hill.
Footnote 307:
Thus defined by Fletcher in his “Doctrines of Grace and Justice:” “Our salvation is of God; or, There is free grace in God; which, through Christ, freely places all men in a state of temporary redemption, justification, or salvation, according to the various Gospel dispensations, and crowns those who are faithful unto death with an eternal redemption, justification, or salvation.”
His definition of the second Gospel axiom is, “Our damnation is of ourselves: or, There is a free-will in man; by which he may, through the grace freely imparted to him in the day of temporary salvation, work out his own eternal salvation; or he may, through the natural power which angels had to sin in heaven, and our first parents in paradise, choose to sin away the day of temporary salvation. And by thus working out his damnation, he may provoke just wrath, which is the same as despised free grace, to punish him with eternal destruction.”
From these extracts, the reader may gather the difficult and important doctrines discussed by Fletcher in his book of pamphlets. In a work like this it is impossible to follow him in his careful statements of truth, in the arguments by which he proves them, and in his answers to objections raised against them; but a few remarks respecting some of these publications must be attempted.
In a prelude to his sermon first delivered in 1762, and now amended, Fletcher gives a doleful picture of what he himself had witnessed during the interval. He says:—
“The substance of the following Discourse was committed to paper many years ago, to convince the Pharisees and papists of my parish that there is no salvation by the faithless works of the law, but by a living faith in Jesus Christ. With shame I confess that I did not then see the need of guarding the doctrine of faith against the despisers of works. I was chiefly bent upon pulling up the tares of Pharisaism: those of Antinomianism were not yet sprung up in the field, which I began to cultivate: or my want of experience hindered me from discerning them. But since, what a crop of them have I perceived and bewailed!
“Alas! they have, in a great degree, ruined the success of my ministry. I have seen numbers of lazy seekers, enjoying the dull pleasure of sloth on the couch of wilful unbelief, under pretence that God was to do all in them without them. I have seen some lie flat in the mire of sin, absurdly boasting that they could not fall; and others make the means of grace means of idle gossiping or sly courtship. I have seen some turn their religious profession into a way of gratifying covetousness or indolence; and others, their skill in church music, their knowledge, and their zeal, into various nets to catch esteem, admiration, and praise. Some I have seen making yesterday’s faith a reason to laugh at the cross to-day; and others drawing, from their misapprehensions of the atonement, arguments to be less importunate in secret prayer, and more conformable to this evil world than once they were. Nay, I have seen some professing believers backward to do those works of mercy, which I have sometimes found persons, who made no profession of godliness, quite ready to perform. And—oh! tell it in Sion, that watchfulness may not be neglected by believers, that fearfulness may seize upon backsliders, and that trembling may break the bones of hypocrites and apostates—I have seen those who had equally shined by their gifts and graces strike the moral world with horror by the grossest Antinomianism, and disgrace the doctrine of salvation through faith by the deepest plunges into scandalous sins.”
As already stated, Fletcher’s “Essay on Truth; or, Rational Vindication of the Doctrine of Salvation by Faith,” was dedicated to his quondam friend and patroness, the Countess of Huntingdon, who again desired his friendship, his counsel, and his prayers. In his “Dedicatory Epistle” he says:—
“MY LADY,—Because I think it my duty to defend the works of faith against the triumphant errors of the Solifidians, some of your ladyship’s friends conclude that I am an enemy to the doctrine of salvation by faith, and their conclusion amounts to such exclamations as these: ‘How could a lady, so zealous for God’s glory and the Redeemer’s grace, commit the superintendency of a seminary of pious learning to a man that opposes the fundamental doctrine of Protestantism! How could she put her sheep under the care of such a wolf in sheep’s clothing!’ This conclusion, my lady, has grieved me for your sake; and, to remove the blot that it indirectly fixes upon you, as well as to balance my ‘Scriptural Essay on the Rewardableness’ of the works of faith, I publish, and humbly dedicate to your ladyship, this last piece of my ’Equal Check to Pharisaism and Antinomianism.’ May the kindness which enabled you to bear for years with the coarseness of my ministrations incline you favourably to receive this little token of my unfeigned attachment to Protestantism, and of my lasting respect for your ladyship!
“Your aversion to all that looks like controversy can never make you think that an Equal Check to the two grand delusions, which have crept into the Church, is needless in our days. I flatter myself, therefore, that though you may blame my performance, you will approve of my design. And indeed what true Christian can be absolutely neuter in this controversy? If God has a controversy with all Pharisees and Antinomians, have not all God’s children a controversy with Pharisaism and Antinomianism? Have you not, for one, my lady? Do you not check in private what I attempt to check in public? Does not the religious world know that you abhor, attack, and pursue Pharisaism in its most artful disguises? And have I not frequently heard you express, in the strongest terms, your detestation of Antinomianism, and lament the number of sleeping professors, whom that Delilah robs of their strength? Nor would you, I am persuaded, my lady, have countenanced the opposition which was made against the ‘Minutes,’ if your commendable, though (as it appears to me) at that time, too precipitate zeal against Pharisaism had not prevented your seeing that they contain the Scripture truths, which are fittest to stop the rapid progress of Antinomianism.
“However, if you still think, my lady, that I mistake with respect to the importance of those propositions, you know I am not mistaken when I declare, before the world, that a powerful, practical, actually saving faith is the only faith I ever heard your ladyship recommend, as worthy to be contended for. And so long as you plead only for such a faith, so long as you abhor the winter-faith that saves the Solifidians, in their own conceit, while they commit adultery, murder, and incest, if they choose to carry Antinomianism to such a dreadful length; so long as you are afraid to maintain, either directly or indirectly, that the evidence and comfort of justifying faith may be suspended by sin, but that the righteousness of faith, and the justification which it instrumentally procures, can never be lost, no, not by the most enormous and complicated crimes,—whatever diversity there may be between your ladyship’s sentiments and mine, it can never be fundamental. I preach salvation by a faith that actually works by obedient love, and your ladyship witnesses salvation by an actually operative faith; nor can I, to this day, see any material difference between those phrases in the present controversy. I remain, with my former respect and devotedness, my lady, your ladyship’s most obliged and obedient servant in the Gospel,
“J. FLETCHER.
“Madeley, March 12, 1774.”
Fletcher’s “Essay on Truth” is one of his ablest and most important works. It is full of his own peculiar genius, and—what cannot be said concerning all his writings—it is very readable. The following brief extracts from it may be acceptable and useful:—
Saving faith. “What is saving faith?[308] I dare not say that it is ‘believing heartily’ my sins are forgiven me for Christ’s sake; for, if I live in sin, that belief is a destructive conceit, and not saving faith. Neither dare I say, that ‘saving faith is only a sure trust and confidence that Christ loved me, and gave Himself for me;’[309] for, if I did, I should almost damn all mankind for four thousand years. Such definitions of saving faith are, I fear, too narrow to be just, and too unguarded to keep out Solifidianism.[310] To avoid such mistakes; to contradict no Scriptures; to put no black mark of damnation upon any man, that in any nation fears God and works of righteousness; to leave no room for Solifidianism, and to present the reader with a definition of faith adequate to the everlasting Gospel, I would choose to say, that justifying or saving faith is believing the saving truth with the heart unto internal, and (as we have opportunity) unto external righteousness, according to our light and dispensation. To St. Paul’s words, Rom. x. 10, I add the epithets internal and external, in order to exclude, according to 1 John iii. 7, 8, the filthy imputation, under which fallen believers may, if we credit the Antinomians, commit internal and external adultery, mental and bodily murder, without the least reasonable fear of endangering their faith, their interest in God’s favour, and their inamissable title to a throne of glory.”
Faith the gift of God, and the act of man. “How is faith the gift of God? Some persons think that faith is as much out of our power as the lightning that shoots from a distant cloud; they suppose that God drives sinners to the fountain of Christ’s blood, as irresistibly as the infernal legion drove the herd of swine into the sea of Galilee.”
Footnote 308:
As usual, these extracts are made from the original edition, and the italics are Fletcher’s own.
Footnote 309:
In a foot-note, Fletcher remarks, “When the Church of England and Mr. Wesley give us particular definitions of faith, it is plain that they consider it according to the Christian dispensation; the privileges of which must be principally insisted upon among Christians.”
Footnote 310:
Solifidianism, now a favourite word with Fletcher, is thus defined by him, in his “Fifth Check to Antinomianism:”—“Solifidianism is the doctrine of Solifidians; and the Solifidians are men who, because sinners are justified sola fide, ‘by sole faith,’ in the day of conversion, infer, as Mr. Berridge, that ‘believing is the total term of all salvation,’ and conclude, as Mr. Hill, that the doctrine of final justification by the works of faith in the great day is ‘full of rottenness and deadly poison.’ It is a softer word for Antinomianism.”
After amply refuting this “absurd” idea, Fletcher proceeds:—
“Having thus exposed the erroneous sense in which some people suppose that faith is the gift of God, I beg leave to mention in what sense it appears to me to be so. Believing is the gift of the God of Grace, as breathing, moving, and eating are the gifts of the God of Nature. He gives me lungs and air, that I may breathe; He gives me life and muscles, that I may move; He bestows upon me food and a mouth, that I may eat; but He neither breathes, moves, nor eats for me. Nay, when I think proper, I can accelerate my breathing, motion, and eating: and, if I please, I may fast, lie down, or hang myself, and, by that means, put an end to my eating, moving, and breathing. Faith is the gift of God to believers, as sight is to you. The parent of good freely gives you the light of the sun, and organs proper to receive it. Everything around you bids you use your eyes and see; nevertheless, you may not only drop your curtains, but close your eyes also. This is exactly the case with regard to faith. Free grace removes, in part, the total blindness which Adam’s fall brought upon us; free grace gently sends us some beams of truth, which is the light of the sun of righteousness; it disposes the eye of our understanding to see those beams; it excites us, in various ways, to welcome them; it blesses us with many, perhaps with all the means of faith, such as opportunities to hear, read, enquire, and power to consider, assent, consent, resolve, and re-resolve to believe the truth. But, after all, believing is as much our own act as seeing. We may in general do, suspend, or omit the act of faith. Nay, we may do by the eye of our faith, what some report Democritus did by his bodily eyes. Being tired of seeing the follies of mankind, to rid himself of that disagreeable sight, he put his eyes out. We may be so averse from the light, which enlightens every man that comes into the world; we may so dread it because our works are evil, as to exemplify, like the Pharisees, such awful declarations as these: Their eyes have they closed, lest they should see: wherefore God gave them up to a reprobate mind, and, they were blinded.”
It need not be added, that Fletcher abundantly sustains these figurative arguments by scriptural quotations.
Two extracts more. In his description of “saving faith,” Fletcher refuses to put the “black mark of damnation upon any man, that in any nation fears God and works righteousness.” In his “Appendix to Prevent Objections,” he explains his meaning, as follows:—
“I make no more difference between the faith of a righteous heathen, and the faith of a father in Christ, than I do between daybreak and meridian light:—That the light of a sincere Jew is as much one with the light of a sincere Christian, as the light of the sun in a cold, cloudy day in March is one with the light of the sun in a fine day in May:—And that the difference between the saving faith peculiar to the sincere disciples of Noah, Moses, John the Baptist, and Jesus Christ, consists in a variety of degrees, and not in a diversity of species; saving faith, under all the dispensations, agreeing in the following essentials: 1. It is begotten by the revelation of some saving truth presented by free grace, impressed by the Spirit, and received by the believer’s prevented free agency. 2. It has the same original cause in all, that is, the mercy of God in Jesus Christ. 3. It actually saves all, though in various degrees. 4. It sets all upon working righteousness; some bearing fruit thirty, some sixty, and some a hundredfold. And 5. Through Christ, it will bring all that do not make shipwreck of it to one or another of the ‘many mansions,’ which our Lord is gone to prepare in heaven for His believing, obedient people.
“And here honesty obliges me to lay before the public an objection, which I had for some time against the appendages of the Athanasian Creed. I admire the scriptural manner in which it sets forth the Divine Unity in Trinity, and the Divine Trinity in Unity; but I can no longer use its damnatory clauses. It abruptly takes us to the very top of the Christian dispensation, considered in a doctrinal light. This dispensation it calls the Catholic faith; and, without mentioning the faith of the inferior dispensations, as our other Creeds do, it makes us declare, that ‘except everyone keep that faith’ (the faith of the highest dispensation) ‘whole and undefiled, he cannot be saved; without doubt, he shall perish everlastingly.’ This dreadful denunciation is true with regard to proud, ungodly infidels, who, in the midst of all the means of Christian faith, obstinately, maliciously, and finally set their hearts against the doctrine of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; equally despising the Son’s atonement, and the Spirit’s inspiration. But I will no more invade Christ’s tribunal, and pronounce that the fearful punishment of damnation shall ‘without doubt’ be inflicted upon ‘every’ Unitarian, Arian, Jew, Turk, and heathen, that fears God and works righteousness, though he does not hold the faith of the Athanasian Creed whole. For, if you except the last Article, thousands, yea, millions, are never called to hold it at all; and therefore shall never perish for not holding it whole. At all hazards, then, I hope I shall never use again those damnatory clauses, without taking the liberty of guarding them agreeably to the doctrine of the dispensations. And if Zelotes presses me with my subscriptions, I reply beforehand, that the same Church, who required me to subscribe to St. Athanasius’s Creed, enjoins me also to believe this clause of St. Peter’s Creed, ‘In every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him.’ And, if those two creeds are irreconcilable, I think it more reasonable that Athanasius should bow to Peter, warmed by the Spirit of love, than that Peter should bow to Athanasius, heated by controversial opposition.”
Some will object to Fletcher’s teaching. Be it so: the writer’s business is neither to defend nor to condemn; but simply to show, as far as possible, what Fletcher’s opinions were. John Wesley approved them. “Mr. Fletcher,” says he, in a letter dated January 17, 1775, “has given us a wonderful view of the different dispensations. I believe that difficult subject was never placed in so clear a light before. It seems God has raised him up for this very thing—
“‘To vindicate eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to man.’”[311]
Footnote 311:
Wesley’s Works, vol. xiii., p. 52.
Fletcher himself, evidently, felt great interest in his “Essay on Truth.” In a letter, dated March 20, 1774, and addressed to the Rev. Joseph Benson, he observed:—
“I do not repent having engaged in the present controversy, for, though I think my little publications cannot reclaim those who are given up to believe the lie of the day, yet, they may here and there stop one from swallowing it at all, or from swallowing it so deeply as otherwise he might have done. In preaching, I do not meddle with the points discussed, unless my text leads me to it, and then I think them important enough not to be ashamed of them before my people.
“I am just finishing an ‘Essay on Truth,’ which I dedicate to Lady Huntingdon, wherein you will see my latest views of that important subject. My apprehensions of things have not changed since I saw you last; save that in one thing I have seen my error. An over-eager attention to the doctrine of the Spirit has made me, in some degree, overlook the medium by which the Spirit works—I mean the Word of Truth, which is the word by which the heavenly fire warms us. I rather expected lightning, than a steady fire by means of fuel. I mention my error to you lest you should be involved therein.
“My controversy weighs upon my hands; but I must go through with it; which I hope will be done in two or three pieces more: one of which, ‘Scripture Scales to Weigh the Gold of Gospel Truth,’ may be more useful than the Checks, as being more literally scriptural.
“I have exchanged a couple of friendly letters with Lady Huntingdon, who gives me leave to see her publicly; but I think it best to postpone that honour till I have cleared my mind.”[312]
Footnote 312:
Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”
Charles Wesley read and criticized the “Essay on Truth,” upon which Fletcher wrote him as follows:—
“I am glad you did not altogether disapprove my ‘Essay on Truth.’ The letter, I grant, profiteth little, until the Spirit animate it. I had, some weeks ago, one of those touches which realize, or rather spiritualize the letter; and it convinced me more than ever that what I say in that tract, of the Spirit and of faith, is truth. I am also persuaded that the faith and Spirit, which belong to perfect Christianity, are at a very low ebb, even among believers. When the Son of Man cometh to set up His kingdom, shall He find Christian faith upon the earth? Yes; but, I fear, as little as He found of Jewish faith, when He came in the flesh. I believe you cannot rest with the easy Antinomian, or the busy Pharisee. You and I have nothing to do but to die to all that is of a sinful nature, and to pray for the power of an endless life. God make us faithful to our convictions, and keep us from the snares of outward things. You are in danger from music, children, poetry; and I from speculation, controversy, sloth, etc. Let us watch against the deceitfulness of self and sin in all their appearances.
“What power of the Spirit do you find among the believers in London? What openings of the kingdom? Is the well springing up in many hearts? Are many souls dissatisfied, and looking for the kingdom of God in power? Watchman! what of the night? What of the day? What of the dawn?
“I feel the force of what you say about the danger of so encouraging the inferior dispensations, as to make people rest short of the faith which belongs to perfect Christianity. I have tried to obviate it in some parts of the ‘Equal Check,’ and hope to do it more effectually in my reply to Mr. Hill’s Creed for Perfectionists. Probably, I shall get nothing by my polemic labours, but loss of friends, and charges of ‘novel chimeras’ on both sides. I expect a letter from you on the subject. Write with openness, and do not fear to discourage me by speaking your disapprobation of what you dislike. My aim is to be found at the feet of all, bearing and forbearing until truth and love bring better days.
“I am, rev. and dear Sir, your most affectionate brother and son in the Gospel,
“J. FLETCHER.”[313]
Footnote 313:
Letters, 1791, p. 224.
XVII. PUBLICATIONS IN THE YEAR
1775.
ON November 12, 1774, Fletcher wrote:—
“The author of the ‘Checks’ has promised to his readers an answer to the Rev. Mr. Toplady’s piece, entitled, ‘More Work for Mr. Wesley.’[314] His reason for postponing the finishing of that part of his ‘Logica Genevensis’ was the importance of the ‘Equal Check,’ which closes the controversy with Mr. Hill. He saw life so uncertain, that, of two things which he was obliged to do, he thought it his duty to set about that which appeared to him the more useful. He considered also that it was proper to have quite done with Mr. Hill, before he faced so able a writer as Mr. Toplady. And he hoped, that, to lay before the judicious a complete system of truth, which, like the sun, recommends itself by its own lustre, was perhaps the best method to prove that error, which shines only as a meteor, is nothing but a mock-sun. However, he fully designs to perform his engagement in a short time, if his life is spared.”
Footnote 314:
This was published in 1772, and will be noticed shortly.
This was prefixed to the first edition of the following work, which, at that time, was in the press: “Zelotes and Honestus[315] Reconciled; or, an Equal Check to Pharisaism and Antinomianism Continued: Being the First Part of the Scripture Scales to weigh the Gold of Gospel Truth,—to balance a multitude of opposite Scriptures,—to prove the Gospel-Marriage of Free-Grace and Free-will,—and to restore primitive harmony to the Gospel of the day. With a Preface, containing some Strictures upon the Three Letters of Richard Hill, Esq.; which have been lately published.”
Footnote 315:
“Zelotes,” says Fletcher, “represents any zealous Solifidian, who looks upon the doctrine of free-will as heretical: Honestus, any zealous moralist, who looks upon the doctrine of free grace as enthusiastical.”
This was Fletcher’s largest work. It was published in two parts, but it was continuously paged, the whole making a 12 mo. vol. of 444 pages.
Mr. Hill’s “Three Letters” were published in 1773, just after the publication of his “Finishing Stroke.” The letters have been given in a previous chapter. Fletcher had answered them privately; and now, in a preface to his present work, he replied publicly. After stating that Mr. Hill’s pamphlet “had been hawked about the parish of Madeley” by the newsman, he proceeds to say:—
“Mr. Hill quits the field; but it is like a brave Parthian. He not only shoots his own arrows as he retires, but borrows those also of two persons, whom he calls ‘a very eminent minister in the Church of England’ and ‘a lay gentleman of great learning and abilities.’ As I see neither argument nor Scripture in the performances of those two new auxiliaries, I shall take no notice of their ingrafted productions.
“With respect to Mr. Hill’s arguments, they are the same which he advanced in his ‘Finishing Stroke;’ nor need we wonder at his not scrupling to produce them over again, just as if they had been overlooked by his opponent, for in the first page of his book he says, ‘I have not read a single page which treats on the subject since I wrote my FINISHING STROKE.’
“As Mr. Hill’s arguments are the same, so are also his personal charges. After passing some compliments upon me as an ‘able defender of Mr. Wesley’s principles,’ he continues to represent me as ‘prostituting noble endowments to the advancing of a party.’ He affirms, without shadow of proof, that he has ‘detected many misrepresentations of facts throughout’ my ‘publications.’ He accuses me of using ‘unbecoming artifices, much declamation, chicanery, and evasion;’ and says, ‘upon these accounts I really cannot, with any degree of satisfaction, read the works of one who, I am in continual suspicion, is endeavouring to mislead me by false glosses and pious frauds.’
“I cannot but still love and honour Mr. Hill on many, very many, accounts. Though his warm attachment to what he calls ‘the doctrines of grace,’ and what we call ‘the doctrines of limited grace and free wrath,’ robs him from time to time of part of the moderation, patience, and meekness of wisdom which adorn the complete Christian character, I cannot but consider him as a very valuable person. I do not doubt but when the paroxysm of his Calvinistic zeal shall be over, he will be as great an ornament to the Church of England in the capacity of a gentleman, as he is to civil society in the capacity of a magistrate. And justice, as well as love, obliges me to say that in the mean time he is, in several respects, a pattern for all gentlemen of fortune; few equalling him in devoting a large fortune to the relief of the poor, and their leisure hours to the support of what they esteem the truth. Happy would it be for him, and for the peace of the Church, if to all his good qualities he always added the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit; and if he so far suspected his orthodoxy as to condescend to weigh himself in the ‘Scripture Scales.’”
Fletcher’s preface to his “Scripture Scales” is “humbly addressed to the true Protestants in Great Britain and Ireland.”
“The Reformers,” says he, “protested three things in general:—1. That right reason has an important place in matters of faith. 2. That all matters of faith may and must be decided by Scripture, understood reasonably and consistently with the context. 3. That antiquity and fathers, traditions and councils, canons and the Church, lose their authority when they depart from sober reason and plain Scripture. These three general protests are the very ground of our religion when it is contradistinguished from Popery. They who stand to them deserve, in my humble opinion, the title of true Protestants.
“If the preceding account is just, true Protestants are all candid; Christian candour being nothing but a readiness to hear right reason and plain Scripture. Of all the tempers which true Protestants abhor, none seems to them more detestable than that of those gnostics, those pretenders to superior illumination, who, under the common pretence of orthodoxy or infallibility, shut their eyes against the light, think plain Scripture beneath their notice, enter their protest against reason, and steel their breasts against conviction. Alas! how many professors there are who, like St. Stephen’s opponents, judges, and executioners, are neither able to resist nor willing to admit the truth; who make their defence by stopping their ears, and crying out, ‘The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we!’ who thrust the supposed heretic out of their sanhedrim; who, from the press, the pulpit, or the doctor’s chair, send volleys of hard insinuations or soft assertions, in hope that they will pass for solid arguments; and who, when they have no more stones or snowballs to throw at the supposed Philistine, prudently avoid drawing ‘the sword of the Spirit,’ retire behind the walls of their fancied orthodoxy, raise a rampart of slanderous contempt against the truth that besieges them, and obstinately refuse either candidly to give up, or manfully contend for, the unscriptural tenets which they will impose upon others as pure Gospel.
“Whether some of my opponents, good men as they are, have not a little inclined to the error of those sons of prejudice, I leave the candid reader to decide. They have neither answered nor yielded to the arguments of my ‘Checks.’ They are shut up in their own city. Strong and high are thy walls, O mystical Jericho! Thy battlements reach into the clouds, but truth, the spiritual ark of God, is stronger, and shall prevail. The bearing of it patiently around thy ramparts, and the blowing of rams’ horns in the name of the Lord, will yet shake the very foundations of thy towers. Oh that I had the honour of successfully mixing my feeble voice with the blasts of the champions who encompass the devoted city! Oh that the irresistible shout, Reason and Scripture—Christ and the Truth—were universal! If this were the case, how soon would Jericho and Babylon—Antinomianism and Pharisaism—fall together.
“These two anti-Christian fortresses are equally attacked in the following pages.
“The controversy is one of the most important which was ever set on foot. The GRAND inquiry, ‘What shall I do to be saved?’ is entirely suspended on this GREATER question, ‘Have I anything TO DO to be eternally saved?’ A question this which admits of three answers:—1. That of the mere Solifidian, who says, If we are elect, we have nothing to do in order to eternal salvation, unless it be to believe that Christ has done all for us, and then to sing finished salvation; and if we are not elect, whether we do nothing, little, or much, eternal ruin is our inevitable portion. 2. That of the mere moralist, who is as great a stranger to the doctrine of free grace as to that of free wrath; and tells you that there is no free, initial salvation for us, and that we must work ourselves into a state of initial salvation by dint of care, diligence, and faithfulness. And 3. That of their reconciler, whom I consider as a rational Bible Christian, and who asserts (1) that Christ has done the part of a Sacrificing Priest and teaching Prophet upon earth, and does still that of an Interceding and Royal Priest in heaven, whence He sends His Holy Spirit to act as an enlightener, sanctifier, comforter, and helper in our hearts; (2) that the free gift of initial salvation, and of one or more talents of saving grace, ‘is come upon all’ through the God-man Christ, who ‘is the Saviour of all men, especially of them that believe;’ and (3) that our free will, assisted by that saving grace imparted to us in the free gift, is enabled to work with God in a subordinate manner, so that we may freely (without necessity) do the part of penitent, obedient, and persevering believers, according to the Gospel dispensation we are under.
“This is the plan of this work, in which I equally fight for faith and works, for gratuitous mercy and impartial justice; reconciling all along Christ our Saviour with Christ our Judge, heated Augustin with heated Pelagius, free grace with free will, Divine goodness with human obedience, the faithfulness of God’s promises with the veracity of His threatenings, first with second causes, the original merits of Christ with the derived worthiness of His members, and God’s foreknowledge with our free agency.
“The plan, I think, is generous; standing at the utmost distance from the extremes of bigots. It is deep and extensive; taking in the most interesting subjects, such as the origin of evil, liberty, and necessity, the law of Moses and the Gospel of Christ, general and particular redemption, the apostacy and perseverance of the saints, and the election and reprobation maintained by St. Paul. I entirely rest the cause upon Protestant ground; that is, upon Reason and Scripture. Nevertheless, to show our antagonists that we are not afraid to meet them upon any ground, I prove, by sufficient testimonies from the fathers and the Reformers, that the most eminent divines in the primitive Church and our own, have passed the straits which I point out; especially when they weighed the heavy anchor of prejudice, had a good gale of Divine wisdom, and steered by the Christian mariner’s compass, ‘the Word of God,’ more than by the false lights hung out by party men.”
It is hoped that these quotations from the preface of Fletcher’s book will induce the reader to peruse and study the book itself. To analyse it here is impracticable; and if one extract were given, hundreds ought to follow. In this frothy age, the book to many will seem dry and tedious; but to a man sincerely and earnestly in search of sacred truth it will prove a mine full of invaluable treasures.
At the end of the first edition, the following was printed:—
“Advertisement.
“The key to the controversy, which is designed to be ended by the ‘Scripture Scales,’ proving too long for this place, the publication of it is postponed. It may one day open the way for An Essay on the XVIIth Article, under the following title: ‘The Doctrines of Grace Reconciled to the Doctrines of Justice. Being an Essay on Election and Reprobation, in which the defects of Pelagianism, Calvinism, and Arminianism are impartially pointed out, and primitive, scriptural harmony is more fully restored to the Gospel of the day.’”
This was not published until the year 1777; but it is mentioned here to show that, in substance, it was already written, and, thereby, to show the activity of Fletcher’s mind, and the accumulated labours which soon broke down his health.
No sooner was the publication of his “Scripture Scales,” or “Equal Check to Pharisaism and Antinomianism,” completed, than he committed to the press the following: “The Fictitious and the Genuine Creed: Being ‘A Creed for Arminians,’ composed by Richard Hill, Esq.; to which is opposed ‘A Creed for those who believe that Christ tasted death for every man.’ By the author of the ‘Checks to Antinomianism.’ London, 1775.” 12mo, 52 pp.
The reader will remember that, in bad taste, Fletcher, in 1772, had published, in his “Fourth Check to Antinomianism,” a “sweet gospel proclamation: Given at Geneva, and signed by four of His Majesty’s principal Secretaries of State for the Predestination Department—John Calvin, Dr. Crisp, The Author of P.O.” (Richard Hill), “and Rowland Hill.” This provoked Richard Hill; and, when he published his “Three Letters written to the Rev. J. Fletcher, in the year 1773,” he, in equally bad taste, attached an “Appendix” to his Letters, entitled, “A Creed for Arminians and Perfectionists.” Now, in 1775, Fletcher felt it his duty to examine the Creed so ingeniously drawn up by Mr. Hill, and to expose its fallacies. The following is an extract from Fletcher’s preface:—
“With regard to our extensive views of Christ’s redemption by price, Mr. Hill calls us Arminians: and with respect to our believing that there is no perfect faith, no perfect repentance in the grave; that the Christian graces of repentance, faith, hope, patience, etc., must be perfected here or never; and with respect to our confidence that Christ’s blood, fully applied by His Spirit, and apprehended by faith, can cleanse our hearts from all unrighteousness before we go into the purgatory of the Calvinists, or into that of the papists, that is, before we go into the valley of the shadow of death, or into the suburbs of hell—with respect to this belief and confidence, I say, Mr. Hill calls us Perfectionists; and, appearing once more upon the stage of our controversy, he has lately presented the public with what he calls, ‘A Creed for Arminians and Perfectionists’, which he introduces in these words: ‘The following confession of faith, however shocking, not to say blasphemous, it may appear to the humble Christian, must inevitably be adopted, if not in express words, yet, in substance, by every Arminian and Perfectionist whatsoever; though the last article of it chiefly concerns such as are ordained ministers in the Church of England.’ And, as among such ministers, Mr. J. Wesley, Mr. W. Sellon, and myself peculiarly oppose Mr. Hill’s Calvinian doctrines of absolute election and reprobation, and of a death-purgatory, he has put the initial letters of our names to his Creed; hoping, no doubt, to make us peculiarly ashamed of our principles. And, indeed, so should we be, if any ‘blasphemous’ or ‘shocking’ consequence ‘inevitably’ flowed from them.”
Probably, by this time, the reader is tired of Creeds. He has had Fletcher’s Creed for an Antinomian; Mr. Richard Hill’s Creed for Arminians and Perfectionists; and now he has, in “The Fictitious and the Genuine Creed,” Fletcher’s Creed for Methodists. The last may be dry reading, but it contains truths of the utmost importance,—truths which Fletcher spent the greatest part of his literary life in endeavouring to explain and to defend; and, speaking generally, truths which Wesley himself endorsed, embraced, and taught. Fletcher concludes his pamphlet with the following scrap of autobiography:—
“I shall close this answer to the Creed, which Mr. Hill has composed for Arminians, by an observation which is not foreign to our controversy. In one of the ‘Three Letters’ which introduce the Fictitious Creed, Mr. Hill says, ‘Controversy, I am persuaded, has not done me any good;’ and he exhorts me to examine myself closely whether I cannot make the same confession. I own that it would have done me harm, if I had blindly contended for my opinions. Nay, if I had shut my eyes against the light of truth;—if I had set the plainest Scriptures aside, as if they were not worth my notice;—if I had overlooked the strongest arguments of my opponents;—if I had advanced groundless charges against them;—if I had refused to do justice to their good meaning or piety;—and, above all, if I had taken my leave of them by injuring their moral character, by publishing over and over again arguments, which they have properly answered, without taking the least notice of their answers;—if I had made a solemn promise not to read one of their books, though they should publish a thousand volumes;—if, continuing to write against them, I had fixed upon them (as ‘unavoidable’ consequences) absurd tenets, which have no more necessary connexion with their principles than the doctrine of general redemption has with Calvinian reprobation. If I had done this, I say, controversy would have wounded my conscience or my reason; and, without adding anything to my light, it would have immovably fixed me in my prejudices, and perhaps branded me before the world for an Arminian bigot. But, as matters are, I hope I may make the following acknowledgments without betraying the impertinence of proud boasting.
“Although I have often been sorry that controversy should take up so much of the time which I might, with much more satisfaction to myself, have employed in devotional exercises; and although I have lamented, and do still lament, my low attainments in the meekness of wisdom, which should constantly guide the pen of every controversial writer; yet, I rejoice that I have been enabled to persist in my resolution, either to wipe off, or to share the reproach of those who have hazarded their reputation in defence of pure and undefiled religion. And, if I am not mistaken, my repeated attempts have been attended with these happy effects:—
“In vindicating the moral doctrines of grace, I hope that, as a man, I have learned to think more closely, and to investigate truth more ardently, than I did before.
“As a divine, I see more clearly the gaps and stiles, at which mistaken good men have turned out of the narrow way of truth, to the right hand and to the left.
“As a Protestant, I hope I have much more esteem for the Scriptures in general, and in particular for those practical parts of them, which the Calvinists had insensibly taught me to overlook, or despise. And this increasing esteem is, I trust, accompanied with a deeper conviction of the truth of Christianity, and with a greater readiness to defend the Gospel against infidels, Pharisees, and Antinomians.
“As a Preacher, I hope I can now do more justice to a text by reconciling it with seemingly contrary Scriptures.
“As an Anti-Calvinist, I have learned to do the Calvinists justice, in granting that there is an election of distinguishing grace for God’s peculiar people, and a particular redemption for all believers who are faithful unto death. I can more easily excuse pious Calvinists, who, through prejudice, mistake that Scriptural election for their Antinomian election; and who consider that particular redemption as the only redemption mentioned in the Scriptures. Nay, I can, without scruple, allow Mr. Hill that his doctrines of finished salvation and irresistible grace are true with respect to all those who die in their infancy.
“As one who is called an Arminian, I have found out some flaws in Arminianism, and evidenced my impartiality in pointing them out, as well as the flaws of Calvinism.
“As a Witness for the truth of the Gospel, I hope I have learned to bear reproach from all sorts of people with more undaunted courage. And I humbly trust, that, were I called to seal with my blood the truth of the doctrines of grace and of justice, against the Pharisees and Antinomians, I could (Divine grace supporting me to the last) do it more rationally, and of consequence with greater steadiness.
“As a Follower of Christ, I hope I have learned to disregard my dearest friends for my Heavenly Prophet; or, to speak the language of our Lord, I hope I have learned to forsake father, mother, and brothers for Christ’s sake, and the Gospel’s.
“As a Disputant, I have learned that solid arguments, and plain Scriptures, make no more impression upon bigotry, than the charmer’s voice does upon the deaf adder; and, by that means, I hope, I depend less upon the powers of reason, the letter of the Scriptures, and the candour of professors, than I formerly did.
“As a Believer, I have been brought to see and feel that the power of the Spirit of truth, which teaches men to be of one heart, and of one mind, and makes them think and speak the same, is at a very low ebb in the religious world.
“As a Member of the Church of England, I have learned to be pleased with our holy Mother, for giving us floods of pure morality to wash away the few remaining Calvinian freckles that remain upon her face.
“As a Christian, I hope I have learned, in some degree, to exercise that charity, which teaches us boldly to oppose a dangerous error without ceasing to honour and love its abettors, so far as they resemble our Lord.
“And, lastly, as a Writer, I have learned to feel the truth of Solomon’s observation, ‘Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh: Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments; for this is the whole duty of man;’ and the sum of the Anti-Solifidian truth, which I endeavour to vindicate.
“I do not say that I have learned any of these lessons as I should have done; but I hope I have learned so much of them as to say that, in these respects, my controversial toil has not been altogether in vain in the Lord.”
The reader must excuse these long extracts; for there seems to be no better way of giving a correct and full idea of Fletcher’s views and character.
At the end of the first edition of his pamphlet, Fletcher inserted the following “Advertisement”:—
“Mr. Hill’s ‘Creed for Arminians’ is followed by his plea for the inbred man of sin. This indirect and witty plea he calls, ‘A Creed for Perfectionists.’ But, as that part of his performance has no immediate connection with the doctrines vindicated in the preceding pages, I design to make my remarks upon it in a separate Tract.”
This “Tract,” as Fletcher calls it, seems to have been already written, for it was forthwith published, and entitled, “The Last Check to Antinomianism. A Polemical Essay on the Twin Doctrines of Christian Imperfection and a Death Purgatory,” By the Author of the Checks. London: 1775. 12mo., 328 pp.
At this time, the Rev. Thomas Reader, a Dissenting Minister, at Taunton, held a position similar to that which had been held by Doddridge, at Northampton. He was the President of a College for training Independent Ministers, and was a zealous Calvinist. When Fletcher’s new book was published, Mr. Reader read it, and was so angry with its contents that he started off to Madeley, a long journey, to rebuke the author for his heresy. Arriving at his destination, he hastened to the vicarage, knocked loudly at the door, told the servant who he was, and requested an interview with the Vicar. Fletcher, knowing him by name, ran from his study to receive his visitor, and spreading out his hands, exclaimed, “Come in, come in, thou blessed of the Lord! Am I so honoured as to receive a visit from so esteemed a servant of my Master? Let us have a little prayer, while refreshments are getting ready.” Mr. Reader was puzzled. He remained three days, but was utterly unable to muster sufficient courage to even intimate the object of his visit. Afterwards he stated that he never enjoyed three days of such spiritual and profitable intercourse in all his life.[316]
Footnote 316:
“Methodism in North Devon,” p. 115.
Fletcher’s books, prayers, conversations, and tempers were a glorious manifestation of the truths he taught in his elaborate and able treatise on Christian Perfection,—a treatise never equalled, except by the treatise and the sermons of Wesley on the same subject. Wesley and Fletcher are easily understood; modern writers on this all-important doctrine are too often mystics, or, rather, mystifiers. The former expounded Scripture, the latter disastrously obscure Scripture by what they consider to be philosophy. The Methodists need no new exposition of this old Methodist truth. Never can it be more plainly stated and more indisputably proved, than it is in the “Plain Account” of Wesley, and the “Polemical Essay” of his friend Fletcher. Well would it be if the present race of Methodists would read these, in preference to the bewildering trash so injuriously read in the stead of them. Truth never changes! and changes of society can never justify the new settings forth of truth, nowadays so ignorantly demanded.
A brief analysis of Fletcher’s invaluable book, and a few extracts from it, must be given.
In reference to the word “Perfection,” which occasioned so much offence, Fletcher writes:—
“Christian Perfection! Why should the harmless phrase offend us? Perfection! Why should that lovely word frighten us? The word predestinate occurs but four times in all the Scriptures; and the word predestination not once; and yet Mr. Hill would justly exclaim against us, if we showed our wit, by calling out for ‘a little Foundery’ (or Tabernacle) ‘eye-salve’ to help us to see the word predestination once in all the Bible. Not so the word perfection. It occurs, with its derivatives, as frequently as most words in the Scripture; and not seldom in the very same sense in which we take it; nevertheless, we do not lay an undue stress upon the expression; and, if we thought that our condescension would answer any good end, we would give up that harmless and significant word.”
In reply to the unfair and untrue taunt that Wesley and Fletcher taught the doctrine of sinless perfection, Fletcher makes an admirable quotation from Wesley:—
“To explain myself a little farther on this head: 1. Not only SIN, properly so called, that is, a voluntary transgression of a known law, but sin IMPROPERLY so called, that is, an involuntary transgression of a divine law, known or unknown, needs the atoning blood. 2. I believe there is no such perfection in this life, as excludes these involuntary transgressions, which I apprehend to be naturally consequent on the ignorance and mistakes inseparable from mortality. 3. Therefore, SINLESS perfection is a phrase I never use, lest I should seem to contradict myself. 4. I believe a person filled with the love of God is still liable to these involuntary transgressions. 5. Such transgressions you may call sins if you please; I do not, for the reasons above-mentioned.”
Fletcher then proceeds to prove that “Pious Calvinists have had, at times, nearly the same views of Christian Perfection” that he and Wesley had.
“They dissent from us,” says he, “because they confound the anti-evangelical law of innocence and the evangelical law of liberty—peccability and sin—Adamic and Christian Perfection; and because they do not consider that Christian Perfection, falling infinitely short of God’s absolute perfection, admits of a daily growth.”
The third section of Fletcher’s work is occupied with answers to popular objections; and the fourth amply proves that the doctrine for which he is contending is a doctrine taught in the formularies of the Church of England.
Mr. Hill, in the Eleventh Article of his “Fictitious Creed,” had made Fletcher, Wesley, and Walter Sellon, not only deny “The Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England,” which they had “solemnly subscribed,” but also the truthful teaching of four Apostolical writers in the New Testament. With excessively bad taste, he had represented them as saying, “Let Peter, Paul, James, and John say what they will, and let the Reformers and Martyrs join their syren-song, their eyes were at best but half opened, for want of a little Foundery eye-salve.” Accordingly, the fifth and five following sections of Fletcher’s book are devoted to a refutation of this scandalous and almost profane slander. A large number of texts, from the Epistles of these four inspired writers, are most ably examined and explained,—texts incontestably proving that the doctrine of Christian Perfection was a doctrine taught by “Peter, Paul, James, and John.”
In the eleventh section of his book, Fletcher triumphantly answers the objections, founded upon certain texts in the writings of Solomon, Isaiah, and Job; and in the twelfth he adduces “a variety of arguments to prove the absurdity of the twin doctrines of Christian Imperfection and a Death-Purgatory.” In this, he furnishes a definition of Christian Perfection worthy of being quoted, namely:—
“Christian Perfection is nothing but the depth of evangelical repentance, the full assurance of faith, and the pure love of God and man shed abroad in a faithful believer’s heart, by the Holy Ghost given unto him, to cleanse him, and to keep him clean, from all filthiness of the flesh and Spirit; and to enable him to fulfil the law of Christ according to the talents he is entrusted with, and the circumstances in which he is placed in this world.”
In the next section (the thirteenth) Fletcher dwells upon “the mischievousness of the doctrines of Christian Imperfection, and a Death Purgatory.” He concludes his scathing arguments on this subject as follows:—
“The modish doctrine of Christian imperfection and death-purgatory is so contrived that carnal men will always prefer the purgatory of the Calvinists to that of the Papists. For the Papists prescribe I know not how many cups of divine wrath and dire vengeance, which are to be drunk by the souls of believers who die half-purged, or three parts cleansed. These half-damned, or a quarter-damned creatures must go through a severe discipline, and fiery salvation in the very suburbs of hell, before they can be perfectly purified. But our opponents have found out a way to deliver half-hearted believers out of all fear in this respect. Such believers need not utterly abolish the body of sin in this world. The inbred man of sin not only may, but he shall live as long as we do. You will possibly ask: ‘What is to become of this sinful guest? Shall he take us to hell, or shall we take him to heaven? If he cannot die in this world, will Christ destroy him in the next?’ No: here Christ is almost left out of the question. Our indwelling adversary is not to be destroyed by the brightness of the Redeemer’s spiritual appearing, but by the gloom of the appearance of death. The king of terrors comes to the assistance of Jesus’s sanctifying grace, and instantaneously delivers the carnal believer from indwelling pride, unbelief, covetousness, peevishness, uncharitableness, love of the world, and inordinate affection. The dying sinner’s breath does the capital work of the Spirit of holiness. By the most astonishing of all miracles, the faint, infectious, last gasp of a sinful believer blows away, in the twinkling of an eye, the great mountain of inward corruption, which all the means of grace, all the faith, prayers, and sacraments of twenty, perhaps of forty years, were never able to remove. If this doctrine is true, how greatly was St. Paul mistaken when he said, ‘The sting of death is sin.’ Should he not have said, Death is the cure of sin, instead of saying, ‘Sin is the sting of death’? And should not his praises flow thus,—‘Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through death; our great and only deliverer from our greatest and fiercest enemy, indwelling sin’?”
The fourteenth section of Fletcher’s book is employed in answering the false and pernicious statements contained in Toplady’s “Caveat against Unsound Doctrine,” and Martin Madan’s “Essay on Galatians v. 17.” In the two following sections, Fletcher proves that his doctrine of Christian perfection “cannot be justly reproached as Popish, and Pelagian; and shows the distinction which exists” between sins and innocent infirmities. Then he concludes his invaluable book with four Addresses: 1. “To perfect Christian Pharisees; 2. To prejudiced Imperfectionists; 3. To imperfect Perfectionists; and 4. To perfect Christians.” These addresses will always rank among the most powerful productions of Fletcher’s pen; but, for want of space, only one extract from them can be given here; and even that is, to a large extent, an extract from Wesley’s Sermon on “The Scripture Way of Salvation.” It is, however, of the highest importance, as containing an answer to the question, How are we to be “sanctified, saved from sin, and perfected in love?” Fletcher writes:—
“I have already pointed out the close connexion there is between an act of faith which fully apprehends the sanctifying promise of the Father, and the power of the Spirit of Christ which makes an end of moral corruption by forcing the lingering man of sin instantaneously to breathe out his last. Mr. Wesley, in the above quoted sermon, touches upon this delicate subject in so clear and concise a manner, that, while his discourse is before me, for the sake of those who have it not in hand, I shall transcribe the whole passage, and, by this means, put the seal of that eminent divine to what I have advanced, in the preceding pages, about sanctifying faith, and the quick destruction of sin.
“‘Does God work this great work in the soul gradually or instantaneously? Perhaps it may be gradually wrought in some, I mean in this sense: They do not advert to the particular moment, wherein sin ceases to be. But it is infinitely desirable, were it the will of God, that it should be done instantaneously; that the Lord should destroy sin by the breath of His mouth, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. And so He generally does,—a plain fact, of which there is evidence enough to satisfy any unprejudiced person. Thou therefore look for it every moment. Look for it in the way above described;[317] in all those good works, whereunto thou art created anew in Christ Jesus. There is then no danger; you can be no worse, if you are no better for that expectation. For were you to be disappointed of your hope, still you lose nothing. But you shall not be disappointed of your hope; it will come, and will not tarry. Look for it then every day, every hour, every moment. Why not this hour, this moment? Certainly you may look for it now, if you believe it is by faith. And by this token you may surely know whether you seek it by faith or works. If by works, you want something to be done first, before you are sanctified. You think, ‘I must first be or do thus or thus.’ Then you are seeking it by works unto this day. If you seek it by faith, you may expect it as you are; and, if as you are, then expect it now. It is of importance to observe that there is an inseparable connexion between these three points, expect it by faith, expect it as you are, and expect it now. To deny one of them is to deny them all; to allow one is to allow them all. Do you believe we are sanctified by faith? Be true then to your principle; and look for this blessing just as you are, neither better, nor worse; as a poor sinner, that has still nothing to pay, nothing to plead, but—Christ died. And if you look for it as you are, then expect it now. Stay for nothing, why should you? Christ is ready, and He is all you want. He is waiting for you; He is at the door! Let your inmost soul cry out,—
“‘Come in, come in, Thou heavenly guest! Nor hence again remove: But sup with me, and let the feast Be everlasting love.’” (p. 288).
Footnote 317:
After most ably arguing the matter, Wesley, in the sermon here referred to, concludes “that faith is the only condition which is immediately and proximately necessary to sanctification;” and that the “faith whereby we are sanctified—saved from sin, and perfected in love, is a divine evidence and conviction, first, that God hath promised it in the Holy Scripture; secondly, that what God hath promised, He is able to perform; thirdly, that He is able and willing to do it now; and, fourthly, a divine evidence and conviction that He doeth it. In that hour,” continues Wesley, “it is done; God says to the inmost soul, ‘According to thy faith, be it unto thee!’ Then the soul is pure from every spot of sin; it is clean ‘from all unrighteousness.’ The believer then experiences the deep meaning of those solemn words, ‘If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.’”
Well would it be, for the Church and the world, if these views of Wesley and his friend Fletcher were held by all the Methodists of the present age, or even by a thousandth part of them. How often are they preached in Methodist pulpits? Not so often as they ought to be! “Where Christian perfection is not strongly and explicitly preached,” said Wesley, “there is seldom any remarkable blessing from God; and, consequently, little addition to the Society, and little life in the members of it.”[318]
Footnote 318:
Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 252.
The year 1775 was to Fletcher one of the busiest in his life. He was steeped in controversy; but he rose in piety. In a letter to his friend Joseph Benson, he wrote:—
“I have had two printers at my heels, besides my common business, and this is enough to make me trespass upon the patience of my friends. I have published the first part of my ‘Scales,’ which has gone through a second edition in London, before I could get the second part printed in Salop, where it will be published in about six weeks. I have also published a creed for the Arminians, where you will see that, if I have not answered your critical remarks upon my Essay on Truth, I have improved by them, yea publicly recanted the two expressions you mentioned as improper.
“I am so tied up here, both by my parish duty and controversial writings, that I cannot hope to see you unless you come into these parts.[319] In the meantime, let us meet at the throne of grace. In Jesus, time and distance are lost. He is an universal, eternal life of righteousness, peace, and joy. I am glad you have some encouragement in Scotland. The Lord grant you more and more! Use yourself, however, to go against wind and tide, as I do; and take care that our wise dogmatical friends in the north do not rob you of your childlike simplicity. Remember that the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven are revealed to babes. You may be afraid of being a fool, without being afraid of being a babe. You may be childlike without being childish. Simplicity of intention and purity of affection will go through the world, through hell itself. In the meantime, let us see that we do not so look at our little publications, or to other people, as to forget that Christ is our Object, our Sun, our Shield. To His inspiration, comfort, and protection, I earnestly recommend your soul; and the labours of your heart, tongue, and pen to His blessing.”[320]
Footnote 319:
Joseph Benson was appointed to the Edinburgh Circuit at the Conference of 1774; and to the Newcastle Circuit at the Conference of 1775.
Footnote 320:
Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”
At this period, Wesley was dangerously ill in Ireland. Charles Wesley had no hope of his brother’s recovery. The Methodists throughout the kingdom were in consternation. In a letter to Joseph Bradford, Wesley’s faithful companion, Charles Wesley wrote:—
“Bristol, June 29, 1775. Your letter has cut off all hope of my brother’s recovery. The people here, and in London, and every place, are swallowed up in sorrow. But sorrow and death will soon be swallowed up in life everlasting. You will be careful of my brother’s papers, etc., till you see his executors. God shall reward your fidelity and love. I seem scarce separated from him whom I shall so very soon overtake. We were united in our lives, and in our death not divided.”[321]
Footnote 321:
Tyerman’s “Life and Times of Wesley,” vol. iii. p. 204.
In his deep distress, Charles Wesley wrote to Fletcher, who replied as follows:—
“MADELEY, July 2, 1775.
“MY VERY DEAR BROTHER,—The same post which brought me yours, brought me a letter from Ireland, informing me of the danger of your dear brother, my dear father, and of his being very happy in, and resigned to, the will of God. What can you and I do? What, but stand still, and see the salvation of God? The nations are before Him but as the dust that cleaves to a balance; and the greatest instruments have been removed. Abraham is dead; the fathers are dead; and if John come first to the sepulchre, you and I will soon descend into it. The brightest, the most burning and shining lights, like the Baptist, Mr. Whitefield, and your brother, were kindled to make the people rejoice in them, ‘for a season,’ says our Lord. ‘For a season.’ The expression is worth our notice. It is just as if our Lord had said, ‘I give you inferior lights, that ye may rejoice in them for a season. But I reserve to myself the glory of shining for ever. The most burning lights shall fail on earth; but I, your Sun, will shine to all eternity.’
“Come, my dear brother, let the danger of our lights make us look to our Sun more steadily; and should God quench the light of our Jerusalem below, let us rejoice that it is to make it burn brighter in the Jerusalem which is above; and let us triumph in the inextinguishable light of our Sun, in the impenetrable strength of our Shield, and in the immovableness of our Rock.
“Amidst my concern for the Church in general, and for Mr. Wesley’s Societies in particular, I cannot but acknowledge the goodness of God in so wonderfully keeping him for so many years, and in preserving him to undergo such labours as would have killed you and me ten times over. The Lord may yet hear prayer and add a span to his useful life. But forasmuch as the immortality of the body does not belong to this state, and he has fulfilled the ordinary term of human life, in hoping the best, we must prepare ourselves for the worst. The God of all grace and power will strengthen you on the occasion.
“Should your brother fail on earth, you are called not only to bear up under the loss of so near a relative, but, for the sake of your common children in the Lord, you should endeavour to fill up the gap according to your strength. The Methodists will not expect from you your brother’s labours; but they have, I think, a right to expect that you will preside over them while God spares you in the land of the living. A committee of the oldest and steadiest preachers may help you to bear the burden and to keep up a proper discipline both among the people and the rest of the preachers; and if at any time you should want my mite of assistance, I hope I shall throw it into the treasury with the simplicity and readiness of the poor widow, who cheerfully offered her next to nothing. Do not faint. The Lord God of Israel will give you additional strength for the day; and His angels, yea, His praying people, will bear you up in their hands, that you hurt not your foot against a stone; yea, that if need be, you may leap over a wall.
“I am by this time grey-headed as well as you, and some of my parishioners tell me that the inroads of time are uncommonly visible upon my face. Indeed, I feel as well as see it myself, and learn what only time, trials, and experience can teach. Should your brother be called to his reward, I would not be free to go to London till you and the preachers had settled all matters. My going just at such a time” [as this] “would carry the appearance of vanity, which I abhor. It would seem as if I wanted to be somebody among the Methodists.
“We here heartily join the prayers of the brethren for your brother, for you, and the Societies. Paper fails, not love. Be careful for nothing. Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He will sustain you. Farewell in Christ.”[322]
Footnote 322:
Jackson’s “Life of C. Wesley,” vol. ii., p. 302.
Two and a half years before this dangerous illness, Wesley had requested Fletcher to be his successor in presiding over the Methodists. Perhaps Charles Wesley was aware of this. At all events, he appears to have wished Fletcher to come to London in the great crisis which had now occurred. Fletcher modestly declined; and, fortunately for both, no successor of Wesley was needed until several years after both were dead.
Fletcher’s “Checks to Antinomianism” were ended. For four years, he had taxed his energies to the utmost; but the work he undertook in 1771 was now nearly concluded. The doctrines of Wesley’s “Minutes” had been carefully explained, minutely defended, and lovingly enforced.
“In his ‘Checks to Antinomianism,’” wrote Wesley, “one knows not which to admire most—the purity of the language, the strength and clearness of the argument, or the mildness and sweetness of the spirit that breathes throughout the whole. Insomuch that I nothing wonder at a serious clergyman, who being resolved to live and die in his own opinion, when he was pressed to read them replied, ‘No, I will never read Mr. Fletcher’s “Checks,” for if I did, I should be of his mind.’”[323]
Footnote 323:
Wesley’s “Life of Fletcher.”
Of course, contrary opinions have been expressed. The author of “The Life and Times of the Countess of Huntingdon” tells his readers that,—
“Fletcher dazzled with eloquence instead of reasoning, and substituted tropes for arguments. He was too loquacious for a deep reasoner, and too impassioned to investigate duly the most profound and awful themes which can occupy the human understanding.”
Isaac Taylor, also, in his “Wesley and Methodism,” takes the same position. He acknowledges that,—
“In a genuine sense, Fletcher was a saint; a saint such as the Church of every age has produced a few samples. Sanctity and purity of manners were his distinctive characteristics. He was as unearthly a being as could tread the earth at all; and his Methodism was Christianity as little lowered by admixture of human infirmity as we may hope to find it anywhere on earth.” But while “as a theologian he possessed acquaintance enough with doctrinal literature and with the Scriptures to give him always a point or two of advantage in relation to his antagonists, he was no such reasoner, he was no such master of Biblical criticism, as might have made it possible for him to overstep the limits of his appointed task, or, as a theological writer, to survive his day.”[324]
Footnote 324:
Robert Southey wrote, “Mr. Fletcher’s manner is diffuse, and the florid parts and the unction betray their French origin; but the reasoning is acute and clear, the spirit of his writings is beautiful, and he was a master of the subject in all its bearings.”
The first of these critics was too much of a Calvinist to do justice to Fletcher, an Arminian; and it is not rash to say respecting the second, that it is extremely doubtful whether he had carefully perused the writings he condemns. At all events, his assertion that “as a theological writer” Fletcher did not “survive his day,” is utterly untrue. Fletcher’s “Checks” are as much read today as they were a hundred years ago. The demand for them increases almost every year, both in England and in America; and they are found in every land where Methodism has been founded. At the time when they were first published, they occasioned exasperation among the Calvinian Methodists, but that was not the fault of their distinguished author. What was called “bitterness” in Fletcher was not bitterness of temper, but “of unwelcome doctrine, set forth with all the advantages of language, confidence, and argument.” Soon after they were completed, a Dissenting minister at Bristol called upon Fletcher, when, to all human appearance, he was dying, and rudely said, “You had better have been confined to your bed by palsy than have written so many bitter things against the dear children of God.” “My brother,” replied the invalid, “I hope I have not been bitter. Certainly I did not mean to be so; but I wanted more love then, and I feel I want more now.”[325] Fletcher’s soft answer silenced his sour assailant, and sent him away, it is to be hoped, a wiser and better man.
Footnote 325:
Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 1823, p. 107.
It is a pleasant fact to put on record that Fletcher and his opponents in the Calvinian controversy lived long enough to be affectionately reconciled to each other. Shirley, the first in the field, had, at least, one brotherly interview with Fletcher, in Ireland.[326] In the Methodist Museum at the Centenary Hall, London, there is an unpublished letter, which Mr. Richard Hill wrote to Fletcher in 1784, full of Christian affection. Rowland Hill, with admirable candour, said of his own writings, “A softer style and spirit would better have become me;” and he also suppressed the sale of one of his severest publications.[327] Then as it respects dear old Berridge at Everton, it will be seen, in a succeeding chapter, that he and Fletcher were more than reconciled to each other. Their meeting at Everton, in the month of December, 1776, is one of the most charming incidents recorded in Methodistic annals.
Footnote 326:
Stevens’s “History of Methodism.”
Footnote 327:
Sidney’s “Life of Rev. Rowland Hill.”
Another name must be introduced. Dr. Thomas Coke was now twenty-eight years of age. He had taken his degrees at Oxford, had received episcopal ordination, and was now curate at South Petherton. As yet, he had not been introduced to Wesley; but he had read his sermons and journals, and also the “Checks” of Fletcher,—all kindly lent to him by the Rev. Mr. Brown, a clergyman residing in the neighbourhood of Taunton. A year elapsed before Wesley met him, but in the meantime, the young curate wrote the following letter[328] to Fletcher:—
“SOUTH PETHERTON, NEAR CREWKERNE, SOMERSET, “August 28, 1775.
“REV. SIR,—I take the liberty, though unknown to you, but not unacquainted with your admirable publications, of writing you a letter of sincerest thanks for the spiritual instruction, as well as entertainment, they have afforded me; and for the spirit of candour and Christian charity which breathes throughout your writings. The charming character which my best of earthly friends (the Rev. Mr. Brown, of Kingston, near Taunton), has given me of you, emboldens me to hope that, though my situation in life be only that of a poor curate of a parish, you will excuse this liberty I have taken of addressing you in the fulness of my heart.
“You are indubitably, Sir, a sincere friend of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I also am an humble admirer of the blessed Jesus, and it is on that foundation only I would wish, and it is on that only I am sure I can recommend myself to you.
“Your excellent ‘Checks to Antinomianism’ have riveted me in an abhorrence and detestation of the peculiar tenets of Calvin, and the monstrous errors into which those great and good men, Bishops Hopkins and Beveridge, have run, have frequently filled me with wonder.
“Your ‘Essay on Truth’ has been more particularly blessed to me. Your ‘Scripture Scales’ I am just going to read with great attention. Many thanks to you for your treatise on the ‘Fallen State of Man.’ It has been of service to me, and of much more, I have reason to think, to many of my congregation.
“O, Sir, I have frequently prayed to my God that He will make you a great pillar of His Church. In return, I do humbly beg that you will pray for me. I am sure you will grant me the favour when I inform you that (as nearly as I can guess) a thousand or more immortal souls come to me on every Lord’s Day, in the afternoon, to receive their portion of the manna of the Word, the bread of everlasting life.
“I will so far transgress against the public and your dear flock as to request an answer. I am almost afraid to hope for more. May the God who loves you, and whom you love, make you a great instrument of His glory in this life, and grant you the height of your ambition in the next.
“I am, Rev. Sir, with great respect, your much obliged and very humble servant,
“THOMAS COKE.”
Footnote 328:
The letter is copied, verbatim, from the original, in the Wesleyan Mission House collection, Bishopsgate Street, London.
Little, at this time, did the obscure Dr. Coke imagine that, eight years afterwards, Fletcher would be one of the first twenty-six subscribers to the Methodist “Society for the Establishment of Missions among the Heathen,” which Coke and a few of his friends then instituted.
One more fact respecting the “Checks to Antinomianism” must be added. The Rev. Thomas Jackson, a good authority, remarks:—
“Mr. Charles Wesley took a lively interest in the rise and progress of this” [the Calvinian] “controversy, though his name has rarely been connected with it. He corresponded with his friend, the Vicar of Madeley, and encouraged him in his arduous undertaking. Mr. Fletcher transmitted his manuscripts to him for revision, begging of him to expunge every expression that was calculated to give unnecessary pain, and to pay especial attention to the grammar and theology of the whole. He also confided to Mr. Charles Wesley the task of conducting them through the press, the correction of which was inconvenient to himself, because of his distance from London. The fact is, that nearly everything that Mr. Fletcher published, not even excepting his political tracts and his treatise on original sin, passed under the eye and hand of Mr. Charles Wesley before it was given to the world. Not that the compositions of his friend needed much emendation, but his criticisms gave Mr. Fletcher confidence, and were highly valued. In 1775, Mr. Fletcher said to him, ‘Nobody helps me but you; and you know how little you do it. Deprive me not of that little. Your every hint is a blessing to me.’”[329]
Footnote 329:
Jackson’s “Life of C. Wesley,” vol. ii., p. 294.
A letter to Charles Wesley will fitly close the present chapter.
“MADELEY, December 4, 1775.
“MY VERY DEAR BROTHER,—I see the end of my controversial race, and I have such courage to finish it, that I think it my bounden duty to run and strike my blow, and fire my gun, before the water of discouragement has quite wetted the powder of my activity. This makes me seem to neglect my dearest correspondents.
“Old age comes faster upon me than upon you. I am already so grey-headed, that I wrote to my brother to know if I am not fifty-six instead of forty-six. The wheel of time moves so rapidly, that I seem to be in a new element; and yet, praised be God! my strength is preserved far better than I could expect. I came home last night at eleven o’clock tolerably well, after reading prayers and preaching twice and giving the sacrament in my own church, and preaching again and meeting a few people in Society at the next market-town.
“The Lord is wonderfully gracious to me, and, what is more to me than many favours, He helps me to see His mercies in a clearer light. In years past, I did not dare to be thankful for mercies, which now make me shout for joy. I had been taught to call them common mercies, and I made as little of them as apostates do of the blood of Christ, when they call it a common thing. But now the veil begins to rend, and I invite you and all the world to praise God for His patience, truth, and lovingkindness, which have followed me all my days. O how I hate the delusion, which has robbed me of so many comforts!
“Farewell! I am, etc., “J. FLETCHER.”[330]
Footnote 330:
Letters, 1791, p. 226.
XVIII. PUBLICATIONS IN THE YEAR
1776.
EXCEPT his posthumous works, the remainder of Fletcher’s writings were issued during the next two years, 1776 and 1777. These will be briefly noticed in the present chapter. During the last four years, his antagonists had been Walter Shirley, Richard Hill, Rowland Hill, and John Berridge. Now he encountered three others—Augustus Montague Toplady, the well-known Vicar of Broad Hembury, in Devonshire; Caleb Evans, an eminent Baptist minister at Bristol; and, in connection with Mr. Evans, the celebrated Rev. Richard Price, D.D., an Arian minister, at Hackney, London.
Methodist readers are so familiar with the life and character of Toplady, as to render it unnecessary to refer to them in the present pages. Suffice it to say, that this remarkable and strangely constituted man seems to have been almost as much prejudiced against Fletcher as he was against Wesley. “I was lately asked,” said he, “what my opinion is of Mr. John Fletcher’s writings. My answer was, that, in the very few pages I had perused, the serious passages were dulness double condensed; and the lighter passages, impudence double distilled.”[331]
Footnote 331:
Toplady’s “Posthumous Works,” 1780, p. 234.
In 1770, Wesley published his tract, entitled, “The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination Stated and Asserted.” This was a faithful abridgment of Toplady’s translation of Zanchius’s once famous book,[332] and concluded with the well-known paragraph:—
“The sum of all is this: one in twenty (suppose) of mankind are elected; nineteen in twenty are reprobated. The elect shall be saved, do what they will; the reprobate shall be damned, do what they can. Reader, believe this, or be damned. Witness my hand,
“A—— T——.”
Footnote 332:
Toplady’s Translation was published at the end of the year 1769.
Toplady was terribly enraged, and immediately published “A Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley: relative to his pretended Abridgment of Zanchius on Predestination.” In 1771, Wesley replied to this, in his tract entitled, “The Consequence Proved,”—the object of which was to establish the paragraph which had occasioned Toplady such huge offence. A year later, Toplady published his “More Work for Mr. John Wesley; or, A Vindication of the Decrees and Providence of God from the Defamation of a late printed paper, entitled, ‘The Consequence Proved.’” Wesley had no time and no inclination to continue the controversy; but handed over the angry Vicar of Broad Hembury to the tender mercies of Thomas Olivers and Fletcher. Olivers’ tart pamphlet need not be further mentioned; but, in reference to Fletcher, it may be added, that, in a letter to Mr. Richard Hill, dated “March 12, 1773,” Toplady wrote:—
“I am told that Mr. Fletcher has it in contemplation to make an attack on me too. He is welcome. I am ready for him. Nor shall I, in that case, altogether imitate the examples of yourself and your brother; unless Mr. Fletcher should treat me with more decency than he has, hitherto, observed towards others. Tenderness, ’tis very evident, has no effect on Mr. Wesley and his pretended family of love. Witness the rancour with which Mr. Hervey’s[333] memory and works are treated by that lovely family. For my own part, I shall never attempt to hew such millstones with a feather. They must be served as nettles; press them close, and they cannot sting. Yet have they my prayers and my best wishes for their present and future salvation. But not one hair’s breadth of the Gospel will I ever offer at their shrine, or sacrifice to their idol.”[334]
Footnote 333:
The well-known Rev. James Hervey.
Footnote 334:
Toplady’s “Posthumous Works,” 1780, p. 343.
Toplady’s information that Fletcher intended to “attack” him was quite correct; but, for the present, Fletcher was so occupied with his “Checks to Antinomianism,” that two years elapsed before he could devote attention to his new antagonist.
Toplady had no need to tell Mr. Richard Hill, in 1773, that, in any future replies he might make to the attacks of Wesley, Fletcher, or their friends, he would not be sparing in the language that he used; for, in his “Letter” to Wesley in 1770, and his “More Work for Wesley” in 1772, he had employed abuse which is, perhaps, unparalleled in religious literature, and for which it is difficult to account. Wesley was charged, by this young man of thirty years, with using “all the sophistry of a Jesuit, and the dictatorial authority of a pope.” He had descended to his “customary resource of false quotations, despicable invective, and unsupported dogmatisms.” His “phraseology” was “as pregnant with craft as his conduct” was “destitute of honour.” “By his deep-laid, but soon detected, cunning,—by his avowed vacuity of candour, truth, and shame, he has, in the general estimation of all unprejudiced people, gotten a wound and dishonour and reproach which all his whining and winding sophistry will never be able to wipe away.” “Perversion and falsification are essential figures in this man’s rhetoric.” “Unless God give Mr. Wesley repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, the unparalleled perverseness with which he labours to blacken some doctrines of Christianity will be the burden of his soul in the hour of death and in the day of judgment.”
These are really mild—very mild—specimens of Toplady’s unaccountable abuse of Wesley. How the same man could write, “Rock of ages, cleft for me,” and other hymns quite as exquisite, it is difficult to conceive.
Fletcher’s long-expected reply was published in 1776, with the following title-page, “An Answer to the Rev. Mr. Toplady’s ‘Vindication of the Decrees,’ etc. By the Author of the Checks. London: Printed in the year 1776.” 12mo, 133 pp.
Fletcher disposes of Toplady’s abusive language in his “Introduction.” He writes:—
“If Mr. Toplady, in his controversial heat, has forgotten what he owed to Mr. Wesley and to himself, this is no reason why I should forget the title of my book, which calls me to point out the bad arguments of our opponents, and not their ill humour. If I absurdly spent my time in passing a censure upon Mr. Toplady’s spirit, he would, with reason, say, as he does in the introduction to his ‘Historical Proof,’[335] page 35, ‘What has my pride or my humility to do with the argument in hand? Whether I am haughty or meek, is of no more consequence either to that, or to the public, than whether I am tall or short.’ Besides, having, again and again, myself requested our opponents not to wiredraw the controversy by personal reflections, but to weigh with candour the arguments which are offered, I should be inexcusable if I did not set them the example. Should it be said that Mr. Wesley’s character, which Mr. Toplady has so severely attacked, is at stake, and that I ought purposely to stand up in his defence; I reply, that the personal charges which Mr. Toplady interweaves with his arguments have been already fully answered by Mr. Olivers;[336] and that these charges being chiefly founded upon Mr. Toplady’s logical mistakes, they will, of their own accord, fall to the ground, as soon as the mistakes on which they rest shall be exposed. May the God of truth and love grant, that, if Mr. Toplady has the honour of producing the best arguments, I, for one, may have the advantage of yielding to them! To be conquered by truth and love, is to prove conqueror over our two greatest enemies,—error and sin.”
Footnote 335:
Toplady’s “Historic Proof of the Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England;” published, in two volumes, in 1774.
Footnote 336:
In “A Letter to the Rev. Mr. Toplady, occasioned by his late Letter to Mr. Wesley. By Thomas Olivers, 1771.” 12mo, 60 pp.
What a contrast between Fletcher and Toplady! Both were men of genius; both were scholars; both were clergymen of the Church of England; both were polemics; but one was meek in heart—the other just the opposite; one was a gentleman—the other, notwithstanding his ability and eloquence, was a traducer.
As already stated, the short paragraph which Wesley appended to his abridgment of Toplady’s translation of Zanchius’s “Doctrine of Absolute Predestination Stated and Asserted” infuriated the Vicar of Broad Hembury to an almost incredible degree. Toplady employed, what Fletcher calls, seventy-three “arguments,” but which might more correctly be called dogmatisms, in replying to Wesley’s exposure of Calvinian predestination. Fletcher, in his “Answer,” deals with these, one by one, seriatim. Toplady was overmatched, and his “arguments” were shown to be fallacies. Throughout his able book, Fletcher never loses his temper, and never indulges in vituperation. The strongest language he uses is found in his concluding paragraphs, as follows:—
“I humbly hope that I have, in the preceding pages, contended for the truth of the Gospel, and the honour of God’s perfections. My conscience bears me witness, that I have endeavoured to do it with the sincerity of a candid inquirer after truth; and that I have not, knowingly, leaped over one material difficulty which Mr. Toplady has thrown in the way of the laborious divine whose evangelical principles I vindicate. And now, judicious reader, if I have done my part as a detecter of the fallacies by which the modern doctrines of grace are ‘kept upon their legs,’ let me prevail upon thee to do thy part as a judge, and to say if the right leg of Calvinism, that is, the lawless election of an unscriptural grace, so draws thy admiration as to make thee overlook the deformity of the left leg, that is, the absurd, unholy, sin-ensuring, hell-procuring, merciless, and unjust reprobation which Mr. Toplady has attempted to vindicate. Shall thy reason, thy conscience, thy feelings, thy Bible, and, what is more than this, shall all the perfections of thy God, and the veracity of thy Saviour, be sacrificed on the altar of a reprobation which none of the prophets, apostles, and early fathers ever heard of?—a barbarous reprobation which heated Augustine drew from the horrible error of Manichean necessity, and clothed with some Scripture expressions detached from the context, and wrested from their original meaning?—a Pharisaic reprobation, which the Church of Rome took from him, and which some of our reformers unhappily brought from that corrupted Society into the Protestant Churches?—in a word, a reprobation which disgraces Christianity, when that holy religion is considered as a system of evangelical doctrine, as much as our most enormous crimes disgrace it, when it is considered as a system of pure morality? Shall such a reprobation, I say, find a place in thy creed? yea, among thy doctrines of grace? God forbid!
“I hope better things of thy candour, good sense, and piety. If prejudice, human authority, and voluntary humility, seduce many good men into a profound reverence for that stupendous dogma, be not carried away by their number, or biassed by their shouts. Be not afraid to ‘be pilloried in a preface, flogged at a pamphlet’s tail,’ and treated as a knave, a felon, or a blasphemer through the whole of the next vindication of the deified[337] decrees, which are commonly called ‘Calvinism.’ This may be thy lot, if thou darest to bear thy plain testimony against the Antinomian idol of the day.”
Footnote 337:
“Mr. Toplady calls them ‘the decrees of God;’ and it is an axiom among Calvinists, that ‘God’s decrees are God Himself.’”
Fletcher’s conflict with Toplady was continued. Hence the following “Advertisement,” affixed to the first edition of the book just dismissed:—
“Since these sheets have been prepared for the press, I have seen a new performance of Mr. Toplady, in defence of the doctrine which is exposed in the preceding pages. As there are, in that piece, some new arguments, the plausibility of which may puzzle many readers; and as I think it my duty fully to vindicate the truth, and completely to detect error; I design to answer that book also, in a little tract, which will be a supplement to this, and which will probably see the light under the following title, ‘A Reply to the Principal Arguments by which the Calvinists and the Fatalists Support the Spreading Doctrine of Absolute Necessity. In some Remarks on the Rev. Mr. Toplady’s ‘Scheme of Philosophical Necessity.’”
To understand this, it must be stated, that, in 1774, Wesley published a 12mo pamphlet of 33 pages, entitled, “Thoughts upon Necessity.” This was one of Wesley’s ablest publications, and, to use Wesley’s own words, in his address “to the Reader,” it was meant to rebut the teaching of an “Essay on Liberty and Necessity,”[338] which he had lately read. “I would fain,” says he, “place mankind in a fairer point of view than that writer” (the author) “has done: as I cannot believe the noblest creature in the visible world to be only a fine piece of clock-work.” Toplady was not once mentioned in Wesley’s tract; but he immediately set to work to answer it, and, in the following year, his strange production was issued with the following title: “The Scheme of Christian and Philosophical Necessity Asserted. In Opposition to Mr. John Wesley’s Tract on that Subject. With a Dissertation concerning the Sensible Qualitys of Matter: and the Doctrine of Color in particular. By Augustus Toplady, Vicar of Broad Hembury. London, 1775.” 8vo, 216 pp.
Footnote 338:
This Essay had been published, in Edinburgh, some years before.
Wesley, as already stated, had not even named Toplady in his publication, much less abused him; but the opportunity of again reviling Wesley was too tempting to be neglected. In his preface, he gives an extract from a letter, written by a London clergyman, who had sent him Wesley’s tract:—
“I went last night to the Foundery, expecting to hear Pope John; but was disappointed. After hearing a Welshman,[339] for an hour and twenty minutes, on Psalm lxxxiv. 11, preach up all the heresies (sic) of the place, a man, who sat in the pulpit, told him to ‘Give over:’ for he seemed to bid fair for another half hour, at least. But he came to a conclusion, as desired. Then this man, who seemed to be a local preacher,[340] stood up with a pamphlet in his hand, and addressed the auditory in the following manner:—
“‘I am desired to publish a pamphlet upon Necessity and Free-Will,—the best I know of in the English tongue,—by Mr. John Wesley, price threepence. I had purposed to say a good deal upon it; but the time is elapsed. But, in this threepenny pamphlet, you have all the disputes that have been bandy’d about so lately; and you will get your minds more established by this threepenny pamphlet, than by reading all the books that have been written for and against. It is to be had at both doors, as you go out.’”
Footnote 339:
Query? Thomas Olivers, corrector of the press for Wesley.
Footnote 340:
Query? John Atlay, the book-steward.
It is not unlikely that this narration is true; for, in those days, Methodist preachers preached long sermons, and, from the pulpit, recommended the people to purchase Methodist publications. Toplady takes occasion to call the occurrence “a droll sort of mountebank scene,” and pretends to bewail “the unreasonable and unseasonable prolixity of the long-winded holder-forth, which cruelly, injudiciously, and despitefully prevented poor Zany from puffing off, with the amplitude he intended, the multiplex virtues of the doctor’s threepenny free-will powder.” He continues:—
“‘Never do that by delegation,’ says an old proverb, ‘which you can as well do in propria persona. Had Doctor John himself got upon the stage, and sung—
‘Come, buy my fine powders; come buy dem of me; Hare be de best powders dat ever you see:’
who knows, but the threepenny doses might have gone off at both doors,’ as rapidly as peas from a pop-gun?”
Toplady, in a bantering tone, proceeds to give the “chief ingredients of the famous Moorfields powder,” namely:—
“An equal portion of gross Heathenism, Mahometism, Popery, Manichaeism, Ranterism, and Antinomianism; cull’d, dry’d, and pulveriz’d, secundem artem: and, above all, mingled with as much palpable Atheism as you can possibly scrape together from every quarter.” (Preface.)
In Chapter I., Toplady continues this unworthy, dishonourable abuse. He writes:—
“Aliquis in omnibus, nullus in singulis. The man, who concerns himself in everything, bids fair not to make a figure in anything. Mr. John Wesley is, precisely, this aliquis in omnibus; for, is there a single subject in which he has not endeavoured to shine? He is also, as precisely, a nullus in singulis; for, has he shone in any one subject which he ever attempted to handle? Upon what principle can these two circumstances be accounted for? Only upon that very principle, at which he so dolefully shakes his head, viz., the principle of necessity. The poor gentleman is, necessarily, an universal meddler; and, as necessarily, an universal miscarryer. Can he avoid being either the one or the other? No.” (p. 10.)
In a subsequent page, Toplady asserts:—
“Mr. Wesley, in one respect, is as much, and, in another respect, abundantly more a Manichae, than either Scythian, Budda, or Manes. By a very singular mixture of Manichaeism, Pelagianism, Popery, Socinianism, Ranterism, and Atheism, he has, I believe, now got to his ultimatum. Probably, he would go still further, if he could. But, I really think, he has no farther to go. Happy settlement, after forty years’ infinity of shiftings and flittings hither and thither!
“‘Thus weathercocks, which, for awhile, Have turn’d about with every blast,— Grown old, and destitute of oil, Rust to a point, and fix at last!’” (p. 131.)
Again, on page 168, Toplady’s reader is told that—
“Mr. Wesley is the lamest, the blindest, and the most self-contradictory waster of ink and paper, that ever pretended to the name of reasoner. ’Tis almost a disgrace to refute him.”
Again, on p. 172, Toplady writes:—
“Mr. Wesley’s heat and prophaneness are such, that he dares to scold his Maker with as little ceremony, and with as much scurrility, as an enraged fish-woman would be-din the ears of a ’prentice wench.”
Was Toplady a Christian? It is difficult to answer that question. A more monstrous combination of opposing qualities has seldom figured on the stage of human life. He was now thirty-four years of age.[341] Three years and a-half later he was dead.
Footnote 341:
Wesley was more than seventy!
It is needless to furnish an outline of Toplady’s bold book. What he attempted to expound and prove will be found in the following extracts:—
“I own myself very fond of definitions. I therefore præmise[342] what the necessity is, whose cause I have undertaken to plead. I would define necessity to be that, by which, whatever comes to pass cannot but come to pass (all circumstances taken into the account); and can come to pass in no other way or manner than it does” (p. 12).
Footnote 342:
In this, and in all the foregoing extracts, the spelling of words is literally given.—L. T.
Again, on page 157, he writes:—
“For my own part, I solemnly profess, before God, angels, and men, that I am not conscious of my being endued with that self-determining power, which Arminianism ascribes to me as an individual of the human species. Nay, I am clearly certain that I have it not. I am also equally certain that I do not wish to have it; and that, were it possible for my Creator to make me an offer of transferring the determination of any one event, from His own will to mine, it would be both my duty and my wisdom to entreat that the sceptre might still remain with Himself, and that I might have nothing to do in the direction of a single incident, or of so much as a single circumstance.”
The principles wrapped up in the definition and the confession of Toplady are what he tries to vindicate; and to refute them was the task Fletcher undertook. Fletcher’s pamphlet was published in 1777, with the following title: “A Reply to the Principal Arguments by which the Calvinists and Fatalists support the Doctrine of Absolute Necessity: being Remarks on the Rev. Mr. Toplady’s ‘Scheme of Christian and Philosophical Necessity.’ By John Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley, Salop. London, 1777.” 12mo, 80 pp.
Fletcher, with his talent of quiet cutting irony, might have rebuked the slang of Toplady; but, like a Christian and a gentleman, he, with indignant silence, allows it to pass unnoticed. The task of vanquishing Toplady was not difficult, for seldom has a more absurd theological work than “The Scheme of Christian and Philosophical Necessity” been committed to the press. Fletcher’s “reply” was perfectly unanswerable: poor Toplady was silenced.
It would tire the reader to analyse Fletcher’s work; and two extracts from it must suffice, the first showing with what ease Fletcher dealt with the absurdities of Toplady’s philosophy; and the second exhibiting his desire to live in peace and love with even the rabid Calvinists.
In Chapter III. of his book, Toplady wrote as follows:—
“It seems most agreeable to the radical simplicity, which God has observed in all His works, to suppose, that, in themselves, all human souls are equal. I can easily believe, that the soul of an oyster-woman has, naturally, the unexpanded powers of Grotius, or of Sir Isaac Newton; and that what conduces to raise the philosopher, the poet, the politician, or the linguist, so much above the ignorant and stupid of mankind, is, not only the circumstance of intellectual cultivation, but, still more than that, his having the happiness to occupy a better house, i.e. a body more commodiously organized than they. The soul of a Monthly Reviewer, if imprisoned within the same mud walls which are tenanted by the soul of Mr. John Wesley, would, similarly circumstanced, reason and act, I verily think, exactly like the Bishop of Moorfields. And I know some very sensible people, who even go so far as to suppose, that, were a human soul shut up in the skull of a cat, puss would, notwithstanding, move prone on all fours, purr when stroked, spit when pinched, and birds and mice would be her darling objects of pursuit. Though I cannot carry matters to so extreme a length as this, yet, I repeat my opinion, very much depends on corporeal organization.
“I just now hinted the conjecture of some that a human spirit, incarcerated in the brain of a cat, would, probably, both think and behave as that animal now does. But how would the soul of a cat acquit itself, if enclosed in the brain of a man? We cannot resolve this question with certainty, any more than the other. We may, however, even on this occasion, address every one of our human brethren in the words of that great philosophic necessitarian, St. Paul, and ask, Who maketh thee to differ from the lowest of the brute creation? Thy Maker’s free will, not thine. And what pre-eminence hast thou, which thou didst not receive from Him? Not the least, nor the shadow of any.”
“Admirable divinity!” wrote Fletcher. “So Mr. Toplady leaves the orthodox in doubt,—1. Whether, when their souls and the souls of cats shall be let out of their respective brains or prisons, the souls of cats will not be equal to the souls of men. 2. Whether, supposing the soul of a cat had been put in the brain of St. Paul, or of a Monthly Reviewer, the soul of puss would not have made as great an Apostle as the soul of Saul of Tarsus; as good a critic as the soul of the most sensible Reviewer. And, 3. Whether, in case the ‘human spirit’ of Isaiah ‘was shut up in the skull of a cat, puss would not, notwithstanding, move prone on all fours, purr when stroked, spit when pinched, and birds and mice be her darling objects of pursuit.’ Is not this a pretty large stride, for the first, towards the doctrine of the sameness of the souls of men with the souls of cats and frogs? Wretched Calvinism, new-fangled doctrines of grace, where are you leading your deluded admirers, your principal vindicators? Is it not enough, that you have spoiled the fountain of living waters, by turning into it the muddy streams of Zeno’s errors? Are ye also going to poison it by the absurdities of Pythagoras’s philosophy? What a side-stroke is here inadvertently given to these capital doctrines, ‘God breathed into’ Adam ‘the breath of life, and he became a living soul;’ a soul made ‘in the image of God,’ and not in the image of a cat! ‘The spirit of the beast goeth downward to the earth; but the spirit of man goeth upward; it returns to God who gave it,’ with an intention to judge and reward it according to its moral works.
“But I must do Mr. Toplady justice; he does not yet recommend this doctrine as absolutely certain. However, from his capital doctrine, that human souls have no free-will, no inward principle of self-determination; and from his avowed opinion, that the soul of one man, placed in the body of another man, ‘would, similarly circumstanced, reason and act exactly like’ the man in whose mud walls it is lodged; it evidently follows, 1. That, had the human soul of Christ been placed in the body and circumstances of Nero, it would have been exactly as wicked and atrocious as the soul of that bloody monster was. And 2. That if Nero’s soul had been placed in Christ’s body, and in His trying circumstances, it would have been exactly as virtuous and immaculate as that of the Redeemer; the consequence is undeniable. Thus, the merit of the man Christ did not, in the least, spring from His righteous soul, but from His ‘mud walls’ and from the happiness which His soul had of being lodged in a ‘brain peculiarly modified.’ Nor did the demerit of Nero flow from his free agency and self-perversion, but only from his ‘mud walls,’ and from the infelicity which his necessitated soul had of being lodged in ‘an ill-constructed vehicle,’ and placed on that throne on which Titus soon after deserved to be called ‘the darling of mankind.’ See, O ye engrossers of orthodoxy, to what absurd lengths your aversion to the liberty of the will, and to evangelical worthiness, leads your unwary souls! And yet, if we believe Mr. Toplady, your scheme, which is big with these inevitable consequences, is ‘Christian philosophy,’ and our doctrine of free will is ‘philosophy run mad,’ p. 30.”
Did cat ever play with mouse more perfectly and amusingly than did the Vicar of Madeley with the Vicar of Broad Hembury?
The next extract, which is the conclusion of Fletcher’s triumphant “Reply” to Toplady, shows his intense desire to live in love and peace with his opponents:—
“Mr. Wesley and I are ready to testify upon oath, that we humbly submit to God’s sovereignty, and joyfully glory in the freeness of Gospel grace, which has mercifully distinguished us from countless myriads of our fellow-creatures, by gratuitously bestowing upon us numberless favours, of a spiritual and temporal nature, which he has thought proper absolutely to withhold from our fellow-creatures. To meet the Calvinists on their own ground, we go so far as to allow there is a partial, gratuitous election and reprobation. By this election, Christians are admitted to the enjoyment of privileges far superior to those of the Jews; and, according to this reprobation, myriads of heathen are absolutely cut off from all the prerogatives which accompany God’s covenants of peculiar grace. In a word, we grant to the Calvinists everything they contend for, except the doctrine of absolute necessity; nay, we even grant the necessary, unavoidable salvation of all that die in their infancy. And our love of peace would make us go farther to meet Mr. Toplady, if we could do it without giving up the justice, mercy, truth, and wisdom of God, together with the truth of the Scriptures, the equity of God’s paradisaical and mediatorial laws, the propriety of the day of judgment, and the reasonableness of the sentences of absolution and condemnation, which the Righteous Judge will then pronounce. We hope, therefore, that the prejudices of our Calvinian brethren will subside; and that, instead of accounting us inveterate enemies to truth, they will do us the justice to say, that we have done our best to hinder them from inadvertently betraying some of the greatest truths of Christianity into the hands of the Manichees, Materialists, Infidels, and Antinomians of the age. May the Lord hasten the happy day in which we shall no more waste our precious time in attacking or defending the truths of our holy religion; but bestow every moment in the sweet exercises of Divine and brotherly love!”
During the last six years, Fletcher had most laboriously devoted the whole of the time he could conscientiously spare from the faithful discharge of his parochial duties, to an earnest and elaborate explanation and defence of the Anti-Calvinian doctrines, formally announced by his friend Wesley, at the Conference of 1770. Wesley was without leisure for this. If he had attempted it, he would have been obliged to content himself with the publication of brief, sententious tracts; and this would have been insufficient. Most of the Methodist clergymen of the day, including Whitefield, Hervey, Romaine, Berridge, Shirley, Toplady, and many others, had become sincere and laborious Calvinists. Their publications were widely spread, and their views extensively embraced. Wesley saw and felt that an antidote was needed; and especially as the Countess of Huntingdon had recently opened her college at Trevecca to multiply the number of such ministers. Hence, the declaration of his “Minutes,” and hence, the fierce controversial war that immediately followed. Fletcher had been educated at Geneva, where Calvin had propounded his creed, and his form of Church government. Fletcher was not, professedly, a theological student at Geneva; but he was a regular attendant at Divine services, as well as a diligent reader of the Holy Scriptures, and there can be no doubt that he was, to a considerable extent, even in his youth, acquainted with the Calvinian theology. At all events, when the controversy commenced, in 1770, there was no one, among Wesley’s helpers, so competent to enter the arena, on his behalf, as his friend Fletcher. Hitherto, Fletcher had been accustomed to make little evangelistic tours, to London, to Wales, and to other places; but now, for six years, he confined himself within his own parish, that he might have time to defend Wesley. Up to the present, his letters to his friends had been somewhat numerous; now, to write a letter was one of his rare exercises. He was committed to a great work; and everything, excepting the pastoral duties of his parish, must give way to it. Of the style of his writings, the reader has had numerous specimens. It is always perspicuous, lively, chaste, though occasionally prolix. Many of his figures are apt, striking, convincing; but others would have been more impressive had they been less elaborate. His arguments are fair, legitimate, and generally unanswerable. His spirit, without exception, is saintly. He never becomes personal; never deals in invective; never assails character; never impugns motives. Among the Wesleyan Methodists, he settled for ever all the questions of the Calvinian controversy. For many a long year, Methodist preachers—itinerant and local—drew their arguments and illustrations from his invaluable “Checks;” and, perhaps, it is not too much to say, that not a few of the Calvinists themselves were led by his immortal productions to explain, and modify, and, to some extent, to change their unwarrantable doctrines. To his memory, the Methodist Churches owe undying veneration; for he did for Wesley’s theology what no other man than himself, at that period, could have done. John Wesley travelled, formed Societies, and governed them. Charles Wesley composed unequalled hymns for the Methodists to sing; and John Fletcher, a native of Calvinian Switzerland, explained, elaborated, and defended the doctrines they heartily believed.
Hitherto, his opponents had been Walter Shirley, Richard Hill and his brother Rowland, honest Berridge, and clever but censorious Toplady. The last, for invective, was the worst. Twenty years before, he had heard James Morris, one of Wesley’s itinerants, preach in a barn at Codymain, and soon afterwards was converted. Two years later, while a student in Trinity College, Dublin, he wrote an admirable letter to Wesley, thanking him for his “kind” cautions and advices. When and why he became the bitter foe of Wesley it is difficult to determine. He died on August 11, 1778, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, and was buried in a grave, thirteen feet deep, under the gallery of Whitefield’s chapel, in Tottenham Court Road.
Fletcher’s next antagonist was the Rev. Caleb Evans, a Baptist minister at Bristol; a man of good sense, a diligent student, a faithful pastor, and now thirty-seven years of age. At this period, the English colonists in America were in rebellion. On May 10, 1775, a Congress of the thirteen States met at Philadelphia, and appointed George Washington as their Commander-in-Chief. He took command of the army before Boston, where the English had ten thousand men. A few days after his arrival, the terrible battle at Bunker’s Hill was fought; and a bloody war soon spread over the whole seaboard, and even into Canada, where the American colonists besieged Quebec. In the year 1775, Wesley abridged Dr. Johnson’s famous pamphlet, entitled, “Taxation no Tyranny,” and published it as his own, without the least reference as to its origin. Mr. Evans warmly sympathized with the colonists, and published “A Letter to the Rev. John Wesley, occasioned by his ‘Calm Address.’” Wesley’s reply to this was the republication of his pirated pamphlet, with a preface prefixed, in which he said, “All the arguments” [of Evans] “might be contained in a nutshell.” Political as well as theological controversy is always irritating. Angry tracts and pamphlets, almost without number, were committed to the press; but all of them, except those in which Fletcher was concerned, must here be passed in silence. Fletcher now, strangely enough, turned politician. Early in the year 1776, he published the following: “A Vindication of the Rev. Mr. Wesley’s ‘Calm Address to our American Colonists:’ In some Letters to Mr. Caleb Evans: By John Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley, Salop. London: Printed and sold at the Foundery.” 12mo, 70 pp.[343]
Footnote 343:
In the same year, another edition was published in “Dublin: Printed for W. Whitestone, No. 33, Skinner Row.”
In a letter to Joseph Benson, he said:—
“I have unaccountably launched into Christian politics; a branch of divinity too much neglected by some and too much attended to by others. If you have seen my ‘Vindication of Mr. Wesley’s Calm Address,’ and can make sense of that badly printed piece, I shall be thankful for your very dispraise.”
To James Ireland, Esq., he wrote on February 3, 1776:—
“My little political piece is published in London. You thank me for it beforehand; I believe they are the only thanks I shall have. It is well you sent them before you read the book; and yet, whatever contempt it brings upon me, I still think I have written the truth. If I have been wrong in writing, I hope I shall not be so excessively wrong as not to be thankful for any reproof candidly levelled at what I have written. I prepare myself to be like my Lord in my little measure; I mean, to be ‘Despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with griefs,’—most reviled for what I mean best.”
Evidence will soon be adduced that Fletcher’s apprehensions of coming reproach were realized.
It may fairly be doubted whether Wesley and Fletcher acted wisely in rushing into the fierce political strife that then existed. Their motives were pure; and, perhaps, Mr. Benson, living at the time, and a competent observer of men and things, was correct when he said,—
“Mr. Fletcher’s publications upon the question which divided Great Britain and her Colonies, as well as Mr. Wesley’s ‘Calm Address,’ certainly were of great use; not indeed to prevent the continuation and further progress of the war, and stop the effusion of blood abroad, but to allay the spirits of disloyalty and insurrection which were beginning to show themselves at home.”
Still, it must be admitted, that the high and holy vocation of Wesley and Fletcher was not to rebuke and correct political errors, but to revive, spread, and defend the great Gospel truths which had been so long neglected and forgotten.
No useful end would be answered by giving an outline of Fletcher’s arguments in his “Vindication of Wesley’s ‘Calm Address.’” Many of them may be more easily sneered at than answered. They show the versatility of Fletcher’s genius; and, remembering the fewness of the newspapers then published, they create surprise at the extent of Fletcher’s political information. He often uses strong language, but he is never ungentlemanly or abusive. He was loyal to the throne and government of England, but he was not a blind opponent of civil liberty, or that exemption from the arbitrary will of others which is secured by equitable and established laws. In concluding his first letter to Mr. Evans he wrote:—
“I declare that I am as much in love with liberty as with loyalty; and that I write a heartfelt truth when I subscribe myself, Rev. Sir, your affectionate fellow-labourer in the Gospel, a republican by birth and education, and a subject of Great Britain by love of liberty and free choice.”
As soon as Fletcher’s pamphlet appeared, Mr. Evans hastened to answer it, and employed Wesley’s old friend, William Pine, of Bristol, as his printer and publisher. The title of his new production was “A Reply to the Rev. Mr. Fletcher’s ‘Vindication’ of Mr. Wesley’s ‘Calm Address to our American Colonists.’ By Caleb Evans, M.A.” 12mo, 103 pp.
Mr. Evans’s reply was full of bad temper. The first twenty-three pages were devoted to abusive remarks on the change which had taken place in Wesley’s political opinions, and to a mistake which Wesley honestly confessed he had made in denying that he had seen a book on “the exclusive right of the Colonies to tax themselves.” He acknowledges that he had seen the book, but adds: “I had so entirely forgotten it, that even when I saw it again I recollected nothing of it till I had read several pages.” Mr. Evans, in an angry spirit, uses this lapse of memory to the utmost in an endeavour to brand Wesley as a liar, and concludes his first letter to Fletcher thus:—
“Having thus given you, Sir, a faithful narrative of the rise, progress, and conclusion of the dispute betwixt me and Mr. Wesley, you are welcome to re-enter on the vindication of your friend, as you style him, as soon as you please. And should you find yourself unequal to the Herculean task, you may call in the assistance of the amazing Mr. Thomas Olivers, that mirror of Christian meekness and modesty, and with his logic and your oratory, aided by scraps of mutilated letters, you will perform wonders.”
Mr. Evans begins his second letter by politely telling Fletcher that in reading his “Vindication of Wesley’s ‘Calm Address’” he had been greatly disappointed.
“For,” says he, “instead of argument, I met with nothing but declamation; instead of precision, artful colouring; instead of proof, presumption; instead of consistency, contradiction; instead of reasoning, a string of sophistries. Your letters abound, Sir, as every intelligent reader will easily discover, with the petitio principii, the fallacia accidentis, the non causa pro causa, and those many other pretty inventions by which, as the Schoolmen very well know, a question may be embarrassed when it cannot be answered.”
In succeeding pages, Mr. Evans charges Fletcher with using “loose, inconsistent, vague declamation;” and adds:—
“This may confound the ignorant and superficial; but you cannot yourself suppose it ever can convince the intelligent and impartial. Your chief aim seems to be spargere voces in vulgam ambiguas, and thereby artfully to persuade them that all those who are enemies to the measures of the ministry respecting America are Republicans, king-haters, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Antinomians, and everything that is bad.”
Poor Fletcher! He was indeed realizing the reproach he had apprehended; and yet he was not satisfied. Hence his publication of the following: “American Patriotism: Farther confronted with Reason, Scripture, and the Constitution: Being Observations on the Dangerous Politicks taught by the Rev. Mr. Evans, M.A., and the Rev. Dr. Price.[344] With a Scriptural Plea for the Revolted Colonies. By J. Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley.” 1776. 12mo, 138 pp.
Footnote 344:
Mr. Evans, in his “Reply,” had made several quotations from what he calls “Dr. Price’s most excellent pamphlet, just published,” and entitled, “Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty.”
“The author,” writes Fletcher in his preface, “dares not flatter himself to have the knowledge of logic and divinity, which are requisite to do his subject the justice it deserves; but, having for some years opposed false orthodoxy, he may have acquired a little skill to oppose false patriotism; and, having defended evangelical obedience to God against the indirect attacks of some ministers of the Church of England, he humbly hopes that he may step forth a second time and defend constiutional obedience to the king against some ministers who dissent from the Established Church. Those whom he encounters in these sheets are the leading ecclesiastical patriots of the two greatest cities in the kingdom; Mr. Evans being the champion of the minority in Bristol, as Dr. Price is in London.”
Of course, Fletcher’s book is able; but, excepting so far as it teaches that loyalty is a Christian duty, it is, to a great extent, out of date.
On October 30, 1776, a royal proclamation was issued, ordering “a public fast and humiliation to be observed throughout England and the kingdom of Ireland, upon Friday the 13th of December next, for the purpose of imploring the Almighty speedily to deliver the King’s loyal subjects within his colonies and provinces in North America, from the violence, injustice, and tyranny of those daring rebels who had assumed to themselves the exercise of arbitrary power; to open the eyes of those who had been deluded, by specious falsehoods, into acts of treason and rebellion; to turn the hearts of the authors of these calamities; and to restore his people in those distracted provinces and colonies to the happy condition of being free subjects in a free state, under which heretofore they had flourished so long, and prospered so much.”[345]
Footnote 345:
Annual Register, 1776.
This had Fletcher’s hearty approbation, and he at once wrote and published a 12mo pamphlet of 22 pages, dated “London, December 6, 1776,” with the title, “The Bible and the Sword; or, The Appointment of the General Fast Vindicated: In an Address to the Common People, concerning the Propriety of Repressing obstinate Licentiousness with the Sword, and of Fasting when the Sword is drawn for that Purpose. London: Printed by R. Hawes, and sold at the Foundery, in Moorfields, and at the Rev. Mr. Wesley’s Preaching Houses in Town and Country. 1776.”[346] One half of this pamphlet, however, was simply a reprint of extracts from his “American Patriotism;” the other half is devoted to the task of proving, from Scripture, that, under certain circumstances, war is lawful.
Footnote 346:
Almost without exception, all Fletcher’s publications had on their title-pages the advertisement, “Sold at the Foundery, in Moorfields, and at the Rev. Mr. Wesley’s preaching-houses in town and country.”
As he expected, Fletcher, by his political publications, brought upon himself political wrath and censure, of which the following extracts, taken from the Monthly Review, are specimens:—
“Mr. Fletcher has been distinguished in the late theological controversies between Mr. Wesley and his followers, on the one part, and the Antinomians, or Calvinists, on the other. In these disputes, the Shropshire vicar made no inconsiderable figure; and we have freely and impartially done justice to his abilities. In politics, however, we have nothing to say in his favour. We are, indeed, sorry to observe that he is a mere Sacheverell; a preacher of those slavish and justly exploded Jacobitical doctrines, for which the memory of Sacheverell and his abettors will ever be held in equal contempt and abhorrence by every true friend to the liberties of mankind.”[347]
“Mr. Fletcher’s present performance” (American Patriotism) “is, like his former piece on this subject, wordy, specious, and artful. He alternately attacks the champions on the other side of the question, Dr. Price and Mr. Evans; and he evidently thinks himself a match for them both. We are almost tired of the fruitless contest; but one word with Mr. Fletcher before we part. He is a little chagrined at our styling him a mere Sacheverell; and he takes pains, in this publication, to show his equal abhorrence of regal or of mobbish tyranny. We are glad to find this rev. gentleman thus disclaiming those principles, to which many of his positions and arguments obviously lead; and we charitably hope that he was not aware of the full extent and tendency of their operation. Mr. Fletcher is, by all report, a good man; but he will never, we suspect, obtain a good report merely for his politics, except with those who have already embraced the same system; for mankind are too much guided by Swift’s rule of pronouncing those right who think as we do, and every one wrong who differs from us. Poor encouragement, by the way, for our author to expend his ink, and wear out his pens, in order to convert those political heretics, the advocates for America.”[348]
Footnote 347:
Monthly Review, 1776, vol. liv., p. 325.
Footnote 348:
Ibid, 1776, vol. lv, p. 155.
The sneers of the Monthly Reviewers were unjust. Fletcher, in reply to their unmerited taunt, remarked:—
“I am no more ‘a mere Sacheverell’ than I am a mere Price. Dr. Sacheverell ran as fiercely into the high monarchical extreme as Dr. Price does into the high republican extreme. I have endeavoured to keep at an equal distance from their opposite mistakes, by contending only for the just medium, which the Holy Scriptures and our excellent constitution point out. If Dr. Sacheverell were alive, and his erroneous, enthusiastical, mobbing politics endangered the public tranquillity, as the patriotism of Mr. Evans and Dr. Price does at present, I would oppose the high churchman as much as I now do the two high dissenters.”[349]
Footnote 349:
“American Patriotism,” p. 130.
Notwithstanding the depreciatory opinions of Mr. Evans, Dr. Price, and the Monthly Reviewers, the government of King George III. desired to reward Fletcher for the service he had rendered them. His old friend, Mr. Vaughan, informed Wesley that he took one of Fletcher’s political pamphlets to the Earl of Dartmouth, at that time Secretary of State for the Colonies. Lord Dartmouth carried it to the Lord Chancellor, who handed it to King George. The result was an official was immediately commissioned to ask Fletcher whether any preferment in the Church would be acceptable to him? or whether the Lord Chancellor could do him any service? Fletcher replied, no doubt to the amazement of all concerned, “I want nothing, but more grace.”[350]
Footnote 350:
Wesley’s “Life of Fletcher.”
This was characteristic of the man. “The love of money, the root of all evil,” was a sin from which Fletcher was entirely exempt.
“On the 10th of May, 1774,” says Mr. Vaughan, “Mr. Fletcher wrote me thus: ‘My brother has sent me the rent of the little place I have abroad, £80, which I was to receive from Mr. Chauvet and Co., in London. But, instead of sending the draught for the money, I have sent it back to Switzerland, with orders to distribute it among the poor. As money is rather higher there than here, that mite will go farther abroad than it would in my parish.’”[351]
Footnote 351:
Ibid.
Mr. Vaughan continues:—
“In 1776, he deposited with me a bill of £105, being, as I understood, the yearly produce of his estate in Switzerland. This was his fund for charitable uses; but it lasted only a few months, when he drew upon me for the balance, which was £24, to complete the preaching-house in Madeley Wood.”[352]
Men, said Cicero, resemble the gods in nothing so much as in doing good to their fellow-creatures.
Footnote 352:
Ibid.
XIX. CORRESPONDENCE IN 1776.
FLETCHER’S health was failing; and no wonder. Wesley writes:—
“He was more and more abundant in his ministerial labours, both in public and private; not contenting himself with preaching, but visiting his flock in every corner of his parish. And this work he attended to early and late, whether the weather was fair or foul; regarding neither heat nor cold, rain nor snow, whether he was on horseback or on foot. But this further weakened his constitution; which was still more effectually done by his intense and uninterrupted studies, in which he frequently continued, without scarce any intermission, fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen hours a day. But still he did not allow himself such food as was necessary to sustain nature. He seldom took any regular meals except he had company; otherwise, twice or thrice in four-and-twenty hours he ate some bread and cheese, or fruit. Instead of this, he sometimes took a draught of milk, and then wrote on again. When one reproved him for not affording himself a sufficiency of necessary food, he replied, ‘Not allow myself food! Why our food seldom costs my housekeeper and me less than two shillings a week.’”[353]
Footnote 353:
Wesley’s “Life of Fletcher.”
During the Calvinian controversy, Fletcher’s letters to his friends seem to have been comparatively few. At all events, few have been preserved. Now he resumed his epistolary correspondence; and the present chapter will mainly consist of these outpourings of his heart to those whom he dearly loved.
In a letter, dated January 9, 1776, and published in the “Life and Times of Wesley,” Fletcher refers to a renewed proposal to become Wesley’s successor. To prepare him for this, Wesley requested that he would accompany him in his evangelistic tours, so that he might be commended to the Methodist Societies they visited. Fletcher replied that he was willing to accompany Wesley as a travelling assistant; but he strongly objected to being nominated Wesley’s successor. Besides other reasons, which he adduced, he remarked, that such a nomination would lead people to suspect, and say, that what he had written, “for truth and conscience’ sake,” in defence of Wesley’s doctrines, had all been done for the purpose of becoming, what Toplady had called, “the Bishop of Moorfields.” There is no need to quote this letter at full length; but it is an important one, as showing that the proposal which Wesley had made to Fletcher, three years before, was not a passing whim, but a fixed idea, on the realization of which he had set his heart.[354]
Footnote 354:
Others, besides Wesley, had fixed upon Fletcher as Wesley’s successor. Joseph Benson, in 1775, shortly after Wesley’s dangerous illness in Ireland, wrote to him, saying, “In case of Mr. Wesley’s death, your help would be wanted, in the government of the Societies, and in conducting the work of God.” To this, Fletcher replied, “God has lately shaken Mr. Wesley over the grave; but, I believe, from the strength of his constitution and the weakness of mine, he will survive me; so that I do not scheme about helping to make up the gap, when that great tree shall fall. Sufficient for the day will that trouble be; nor will the Divine power be then insufficient to help the people in time of need.” (Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”)
It may be added, that Fletcher, in the same letter, informs Wesley, that, by the last post, he had sent him a manuscript, entitled, “A Second Check to Civil Antinomianism;” being an extract from the Church of England Homily on Rebellion; and he expresses the opinion that it might be well to print and circulate it, not only for the general good, but, also, “to shame Mr. Roquet,” one of the first masters of Wesley’s school, at Kingswood, but now a clergyman of the Church of England, who, in the controversy respecting the American rebellion, had turned against his old friend Wesley, and had rendered assistance to Wesley’s dissenting opponent, Caleb Evans. Wesley seems to have had more regard for Mr. Roquet’s reputation, than even gentle-minded Fletcher had, for Fletcher’s manuscript was not published.
Fletcher refused to be commended as Wesley’s successor; but he evidently thought of travelling. Hence, in a letter to his friend James Ireland, Esq., he wrote:—
“Madeley, February 3, 1776. Upon the news of your illness, I and many more prayed that you might be supported under your pressures, and that they might yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness. We shall now turn our prayers into praises for your happy recovery, and for the support the Lord has granted you under your trial. There are lessons which we can never learn but under the cross: we must suffer with Christ if we will be glorified with Him. I hope you will take care that it may not be said of you, as it was of Hezekiah, ‘He rendered not unto the Lord, according to the benefit’ of his recovery. May we see the propriety and profit of rendering Him our bodies and our souls,—the sacrifices of humble, praising, obedient love,—and warm, active, cheerful thanksgiving!
“A young clergyman offers to assist me: if he does, I may make an excursion somewhere this spring; where it will be, I don’t know. It may be into eternity, for I dare not depend upon to-morrow; but should it be your way, I shall inform you of a variety of family trials, which the Lord has sent me—all for good, to break my will in every possible respect.”[355]
Footnote 355:
Letters, 1791, p. 227.
In reference to this excursion, Wesley writes:—
“His health being more than ever impaired by a violent cough, accompanied with spitting of blood, I told him, nothing was so likely to restore his health as a long journey. I, therefore, proposed his taking a journey of some months with me, through various parts of England and Scotland; telling him, ‘When you are tired, or like it best, you may come into my carriage; but, remember, that riding on horseback is the best of all exercises for you, so far as your strength will permit.’ He looked upon this as a call from Providence, and very willingly accepted of the proposal. We set out, as I am accustomed to do, early in the spring, and travelled by moderate journeys, suited to his strength, eleven or twelve hundred miles.[356] When we returned to London, in the latter end of the year, he was considerably better; and I verily believe, if he had travelled with me, partly in the chaise and partly on horseback, only a few months longer, he would have quite recovered his health.”[357]
Footnote 356:
I cannot trace this journey.—L.T.
Footnote 357:
Wesley’s “Life of Fletcher.”
At this period, the end of 1775, or the beginning of 1776, Joseph Benson was stationed in the circuit of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and to him Fletcher wrote as follows:—
“Though I am pretty well in body, I break fast. I have been put into such pinching, grinding circumstances for near a year, by a series of providential and domestic trials, as have given me some deadly blows. Mr. Wesley kindly invited me some weeks ago to travel with him and visit some of his Societies. The controversy is partly over, and I feel an inclination to break one of my chains,—parochial retirement,—which may be a nest for self. A young minister, in deacon’s orders, has offered to be my curate; and, if he can live in this wilderness, I shall have some liberty to leave it. I commit the matter entirely to the Lord.
“The few professors I see in these parts are so far from what I could wish them and myself to be, that I cannot but cry out, ‘Lord, how long wilt Thou give Thine heritage to desolation or barrenness? How long shall the heathen say, where is now their indwelling God?’ I hope it is better with you in the north. What are your heart, your pen, your tongue doing? Are they receiving, sealing, spreading the truth everywhere within your sphere? Are you dead to praise or dispraise? Could you quietly pass for a mere fool, and have gross nonsense fathered upon you without any uneasy reflection of self? The Lord bless you! Beware of your grand enemy, earthly wisdom, and unbelieving reasonings. You will never overcome but by childlike, loving simplicity.”[358]
Footnote 358:
Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”
Wesley set out, on his “long journey,” from London, on Sunday evening, March 3, 1776, and reached Bristol two days afterwards. On Wednesday, March 6, he went to Taunton, and “opened the new preaching-house.” On Thursday, he returned to Bristol; and, on the Monday following, started for the north, visiting his Societies at Stroud, Painswick, Tewkesbury, Worcester, and other places, until, on March 25, he arrived at Birmingham.[359] Mr. Benson says Fletcher joined Wesley “at London, or more probably at Bristol, and accompanied him on his journeys through Gloucestershire, and Worcestershire, and a part of Warwickshire, Staffordshire, and Shropshire. He did not, however, proceed further north with Mr. Wesley, at that time, but stopped at Madeley, for reasons which he mentioned to me in the following letter, written soon after:—
“‘MY DEAR BROTHER,—I would have answered your letter before now, had I not been overdone with writing. I have just concluded an answer to Mr. Evans and Dr. Price; a work which I have undertaken with a desire to serve the cause of religion, as well as that of loyalty. This work has prevented me from following Mr. Wesley. Besides, as the clergyman who is here with me (a student from Edmund Hall[360]), has just accepted a place near Manchester, I shall still be without a curate.
“‘I see so little fruit in these parts that I am almost disheartened, both with respect to the power of the Word, and the experience of the professors I converse with. I am closely followed with the thought that the kingdom in the Holy Ghost is almost lost; and that faith in the dispensation of the Spirit is at a very low ebb. But it may be, I think so on account of my little experience, and the weakness of the faith of those whom I meet. It may be better in all other places. I shall be glad to travel a little to see the goodness of the land. God deliver us from all extremes, and make and keep us humble, loving, disinterested, and zealous! I preached, before Mr. Greaves came, as much as my strength could well admit, although to little purpose; but I must not complain. If one person receive a good desire in ten years, by my instrumentality, it is a greater honour than I deserve—an honour for which I could not be too thankful. Let us bless the Lord for all things. We have reasons innumerable to do it. Bless Him on my account, as well as your own; and the God of peace be with you.’”[361]
Footnote 359:
Wesley’s Journal.
Footnote 360:
The College, at Oxford, to which the Countess of Huntingdon had been accustomed to send godly young men, to prepare them for Orders, and from which six of her students had been expelled, in 1768.
Footnote 361:
Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”
Before proceeding further, it may be added, that Joseph Benson doubted the propriety of Wesley and Fletcher turning their attention to politics. In an unpublished letter, dated “Newcastle, May 21, 1776,” he wrote:—
“These are ‘perilous times’ indeed, and threaten to be more perilous still. You see what a famous politician our friend Fletcher is become. Though I exceedingly approve both of the ‘Calm Address’ and its ‘Vindication,’ I fear these subjects only detain the authors from more valuable and important work. We expected Mr. Fletcher here along with Mr. Wesley; but I understand, by a letter from him yesterday, that he has been prevented, by his having to answer Dr. Price and Mr. Evans. And there is more work for him still. A friend of ours, in London, has sent Mr. Cownley and me a pamphlet, which, in some important points, takes Mr. Fletcher’s ‘Vindication’ thoroughly to pieces. I fear he will find it no easy thing to reply to some of its arguments. As for Price, his ideas of liberty are beyond measure extravagant; and Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Wesley will find it no very difficult matter to reply to him. But, the principal thing to be thought, talked, and wrote about, is the baptism of the Spirit, or the inward kingdom of God. Oh! my friend, this is but little known among us!”
To his old friend, Mr. Vaughan, Fletcher wrote:—
“MADELEY, March 21, 1776.
“DEAR SIR,—Your barrel of cider came safe to hand. How could you think to make me such a present? But I must rather thank you for your love and generosity, than scold you for your excessive profusion. You should have stayed till cider was ten shillings a hogshead, but in such a year as this—! However, the Lord reward you, and return it to you, in streams of living water, and plenty of the wine of His kingdom!
“I thought I should soon have done with controversy; but now I give up the hope of having done with it before I die. There are three sorts of people I must continually attack, or defend myself against—Gallios, Pharisees, and Antinomians. I hope I shall die in harness fighting against some of them. I do not, however, forget, that the Gallio, the Simon, and the Nicholas within, are far more dangerous to me than those without. In my own heart, that immense field, I must first fight the Lord’s battles and my own. Help me here; join me in this field. All Christians are here militia-men, if they are not professed soldiers. O, my friend, I need wisdom—meekness of wisdom! A heart full of it is better than all your cider vault full of the most generous liquors; and it is in Christ for us. O! go and ask for you and me; and I shall ask for me and you. May we not be ashamed, nor afraid to come, and beg every moment for wine and milk—grace and wisdom!
“Beware, my friend, of the world. Let not its cares, nor the deceitfulness of its riches, keep or draw you from Jesus. Before you handle the birdlime, be sure you dip your heart and hand in the oil of grace. Time flies. Years of plenty and of scarcity, of peace and war, disappear before the eternity to which we are all hastening.
“Remember me kindly to Mrs. Vaughan. That the Lord would abundantly bless you both, in your souls, bodies, concerns, and children, is the sincere wish of your affectionate friend,
“J. FLETCHER.”[362]
Footnote 362:
Letters, 1791, p. 229.
The following letter, to Charles Wesley, refers, among other things, to another of Fletcher’s publications, which has yet to be noticed:—
“MADELEY, May 11, 1776.
“MY DEAR BROTHER,—What are you doing in London? Are you ripening as fast for the grave as I am? How should we lay out every moment for God! For some days, I have had the symptoms of an inward consumptive decay—spitting of blood, etc. Thank God! I look at our last enemy with great calmness. I hope, however, that the Lord will spare me to publish my end of the controversy, which is A Double Dissertation upon the Doctrines of Grace and Justice. This piece will, I flatter myself, reconcile all the candid Calvinists and candid Arminians, and be a means of pointing out the way in which peace and harmony may be restored to the Church.
“I still look for an outpouring of the Spirit, inwardly and outwardly. Should I die before that great day, I shall have the consolation to see it from afar. Thank God! I enjoy uninterrupted peace in the midst of my trials, which are, sometimes, not a few. Joy also I possess; but I look for joy of a superior nature. I feel myself, in a good degree, dead to praise and dispraise: I hope, at least, that it is so; because I do not feel that the one lifts me up, or that the other dejects me. I want to see a Pentecost Christian Church; and, if it is not to be seen at this time upon earth, I am willing to go and see that glorious wonder in heaven. How is it with you? Are you ready to seize the crown in the name of the Redeemer reigning in your heart? We run a race towards the grave. John is likely to outrun you, unless you have a swift foot.
“I had lately a letter from one of the preachers, who finds great fault with me, for having published, in my book on Perfection, your hymn called The Last Wish. He calls it dangerous mysticism. My private thoughts are, that the truth lies between driving Methodism and still mysticism. What think you? Read the addresses which I have added to that piece, and tell me your thoughts.
“Let us pray that God would renew our youth, as that of the eagle, that we may bear fruit in our old age. I hope I shall see you before my death: if not, let us rejoice at the thought of meeting in heaven.”[363]
Footnote 363:
Letters, 1791, p. 231.
The censured hymn was the following—
“To do, or not to do; to have, Or not to have, I leave to Thee: To be, or not to be, I leave: Thy only will be done in me. All my requests are lost in one: Father, Thy only will be done.
“Suffice that, for the season past, Myself in things Divine I sought, For comforts cried with eager haste, And murmur’d that I found them not: I leave it now to Thee alone, Father, Thy only will be done.
“Thy gifts I clamour for no more, Or selfishly Thy grace require, An evil heart to varnish o’er; Jesus, the Giver, I desire; After the flesh no longer known: Father, Thy only will be done.
“Welcome alike the crown or cross; Trouble I cannot ask, nor peace, Nor toil, nor rest, nor gain, nor loss, Nor joy, nor grief, nor pain, nor ease, Nor life, nor death; but ever groan, Father, Thy only will be done.”
This was what Wesley’s Itinerant Preacher called “dangerous mysticism,” and Fletcher, “still mysticism.” Whether Fletcher himself experienced this “destruction of self-will,” and “absolute resignation, which characterises a perfect believer,” it is difficult to determine; but it may safely be affirmed that he was struggling to attain to such a state of holiness. “This hymn,” said he, “suits all the believers who are at the bottom of Mount Sion, and begin to join the spirits of just men made perfect.” And then, as a specimen of what he calls “driving Methodism,” he adds:—
“But when the triumphal chariot of perfect love gloriously carries you to the top of perfection’s hill;—when you are raised far above the common heights of the perfect,—when you are almost translated into glory like Elijah, then you may sing another hymn of the same Christian poet” (Charles Wesley) “with the Rev. Mr. Madan, and the numerous body of imperfectionists who use his collection of Psalms, etc.”
This, of course, was a quiet satire on Martin Madan and his Calvinistic congregation; but, passing that, the “driving hymn was as follows:—
“Who in Jesus confide, They are bold to outride The storms of affliction beneath: With the prophet they soar To that heavenly shore, And out-fly all the arrows of death.
“By faith we are come To our permanent home; By hope we the rapture improve: By love we still rise, And look down on the skies— For the heaven of heavens is love!
“Who on earth can conceive How happy we live In the city of God the great King! What a concert of praise, When our Jesus’s grace The whole heavenly company sing!
“What a rapturous song, When the glorified throng In the spirit of harmony join! Join all the glad choirs, Hearts, voices, and lyres, And the burden is mercy divine!”[364]
Footnote 364:
Fletcher’s “Last Check to Antinomianism,” p. 323.
Why these long quotations? Simply to show that real Christian Perfection is, according to the “private thoughts” of Fletcher, one of the holiest of the old Methodists, a something that “lies between” the “driving Methodism and still mysticism” embodied in the two remarkable hymns just cited.
Soon after the date of the last letter (May 11, 1776) Fletcher’s health so entirely failed, that he was compelled to leave his parish and repair to the hot wells at Bristol. His friend, Charles Wesley, on June 30, embodied the feelings of his full heart in the following touching hymn:—
“Jesus, Thy feeble servant see! Sick is the man beloved by Thee: Thy name to magnify, To spread Thy Gospel-truths again, His precious soul in life detain, Nor suffer him to die.
“The fervent prayer Thou oft hast heard, Thy glorious arm in mercy bared; Thy wonder-working power Appear’d in all Thy people’s sight, And stopp’d the Spirit in its flight, Or bade the grave restore.
“In faith we ask a fresh reprieve: Frequent in deaths he still shall live, If Thou pronounce the word; Shall spend for Thee, his strength renew’d, Witness of the all-cleansing blood, Forerunner of his Lord.
“The Spirit that raised Thee from the dead, Be in its quick’ning virtue shed, His mortal flesh to raise, To consecrate Thy human shrine, And fill with energy divine Thy minister of grace.
“Body and soul at once revive; The prayer of faith in which we strive, So shall we all proclaim, According to Thy gracious will, Omnipotent the sick to heal, From age to age the same.”[365]
Footnote 365:
Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 1835, p. 576.
Fifteen years ago (soon after he came to Madeley), at Christmas time, in a dark night, Fletcher, on the top of Lincoln-hill woods, was at a loss which way to take to reach his vicarage at Madeley. Providentially, he met a working man of Coalbrookdale, Michael Onions by name, who was on his way to Broseley to fetch a fiddler for a dancing party in Michael’s house. Fletcher told him he had lost his road to Madeley, and asked him to put him right. Good-tempered Michael went half-a-mile out of his way to render the muffled stranger the necessary guidance. Conversation ensued; Michael explained the object of his journey to Broseley; Fletcher warned him of his sin and danger; Michael became alarmed, and, instead of proceeding to Broseley to secure the services of the fiddler, returned to his dwelling at Coalbrookdale. On his entering, the assembled dancers asked, “Have you brought the fiddler?” “No,” said Michael. “Is he not at home?” “I don’t know.” “Have you not been to Broseley?” “No.” “Why? What’s the matter? You look ill, and are all of a tremble.” Michael then stated that he had met some one on the top of Lincoln-hill woods; but whether man or angel he knew not; and, after relating the conversation between them, added, “I dare not go to Broseley—I would not for the world.” Next Sunday morning, Michael and some of his dancing friends went to Madeley church; and there, in the voice of Fletcher, he recognized the mysterious traveller he had met with on Lincoln-hill. Michael was converted, and became one of the first Methodists in Coalbrookdale.[366] To this humble, but faithful Christian friend, and to his fellow Methodists, Fletcher now wrote as follows:—
“BRISTOL, July 11, 1776.
“MY DEAR BROTHER,—Having just seen, at the Wells, Mr. Darby, who is going back to the Dale, I gladly seize the opportunity of letting you know what the Lord is doing for my soul and body.
“With respect to my soul, I feel a degree of righteousness, peace, and joy, and wait for the establishment of His internal kingdom in the Holy Ghost. The hope of my being rooted and grounded in the love, that casts out slavish fear, grows more lively every day. I am not afraid of any evil tidings, and my heart stands calm, believing in the Lord, and desiring Him to do with me whatsoever He pleaseth.
“With respect to my body, I know not what to say; but the physician says he hopes I shall do well; and so I hope, and believe too, whether I recover my strength or not. Health and sickness, life and death, are best when the Lord sends them. All things work together for good to those that love God.
“I am forbid preaching; but, blessed be God! I am not forbid, by my heavenly Physician, to pray, believe, and love. This is a sweet work, which heals, delights, and strengthens.
“I hope you bear me on your hearts, as I do you on mine. My wish for you is that you may be possessors of an inward kingdom of grace; that you may so hunger and thirst after righteousness as to be filled. Oh! be hearty in the cause of religion. Be humbly zealous for your own salvation, and for God’s glory; nor forget to care for the salvation of each other. Keep yourselves in the love of God; and keep one another by example, reproof, exhortation, encouragement, social prayer, and a faithful use of all the means of grace. Use yourselves to bow at the feet of Christ. Go to Him continually for the holy anointing of His Spirit, who will be a Teacher always near, always with you and in you. If you have that inward Instructor, you will suffer no material loss when your outward teachers are removed. Make the most of dear Mr. Greaves[367] while you have him. While you have the light of God’s word, believe in the light, that you may be children of the light, fitted for the kingdom of eternal light, where I charge you to meet your affectionate brother and minister,
“J. FLETCHER.”[368]
Footnote 366:
Wesleyan Times, March 3, 1856, p. 138.
Footnote 367:
Who had again become Fletcher’s curate.
Footnote 368:
Letters, 1791, p. 14.
To Charles Perronet, son of the venerable Vicar of Shoreham, Fletcher wrote:—
“BRISTOL, July 12, 1776.
“MY VERY DEAR BROTHER,—I gladly thank you for your last favour. The Lord keeps me hanging by a thread. He weighs me in the balance for life and death; I trust Him for the choice. He knows, far better than I, what is best; and I leave all to His unerring wisdom. I am calm, and wait, with submission, for what the Lord will say concerning me. I wait to be baptized into all His fulness, and trust the word—the word of His grace.”[369]
Footnote 369:
Ibid, p. 231.
Exactly a month after the date of this letter, holy Charles Perronet himself fell asleep in Jesus. “My dear Charles,” wrote his venerable father, “after wearing out a weakly constitution in the most unwearied endeavours to bring many to Christ, breathed out his pious soul in the remarkable words of his dear Lord, ‘Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.’” “I have uninterrupted fellowship with God,” cried the dying saint; “and Christ is all in all to me.”[370] As soon as Fletcher heard of the death of this godly man, he wrote to the bereaved father as follows:—
“Methinks I see you, right honoured Sir, mounted, as another Moses, on the top of Pisgah, and through the telescope of faith descrying the promised land; or, rather, in the present instance, I observe you, like another Joshua, on the banks of Jordan, viewing all Israel, with your son among them, passing over the river to their great possessions. Permit me, therefore, in consideration of your years and office, to exclaim, in the language of young Elisha to his ancient seer, ‘My father! My father! The chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof.’
“‘There, there they are, and there is your son! Whom faith pursues, and eager hope discerns, In yon bright chariot, as a cherub borne On wings of love, to uncreated realms Of deathless joy, and everlasting peace.’”[371]
Footnote 370:
Atmore’s “Methodist Memorial.”
Footnote 371:
Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”
On the day Charles Perronet died, Wesley was in Bristol, and wrote:—
“1776. August 12.—I found Mr. Fletcher a little better, and proposed his taking a journey with me to Cornwall; nothing being so likely to restore his health as a journey of four or five hundred miles. But his physician would in no wise consent, so I gave up the point.”[372]
Footnote 372:
Wesley’s Journal.
Instead of going to Cornwall Fletcher returned to Madeley, where he wrote two letters to his friend, James Ireland, Esq., from which the following are extracts:—
“Madeley, August 18, 1776. My breast is very weak, but, if it please God, it will in time recover strength. Mr. Greaves will take all the duty upon himself, and I shall continue to take rest, exercise, and the food which was recommended to me. The Lord grant me to rest myself on Christ, to exercise myself in charity, and to feed upon the bread of life, which God has given us in Jesus Christ.
“I thank you, my dear friend, for all your favours and all your attention to me. What returns shall I make? I will drink the cup of thanksgiving, and I will bless the name of the Lord. I will thank my dear friend and wish him all the temporal blessings he conferred upon me, and all those spiritual ones which were not in his power to bestow. Live in health; live piously; live content; live in Christ; live for eternity; live to make your wife, your children, your servants, your neighbours happy. And may the God of all grace give back a hundredfold to you and your dear wife all the kindnesses with which you have loaded me.”[373]
“Madeley, August 24, 1776. My dear friend, I have received the news of your loss, and of the gain of your younger daughter. She has entered into port, and has left you on a tempestuous sea. I recommend to Mrs. Ireland the resignation of David when he lost his son; and do you give her the example. The day of death is preferable to that of our birth; with respect to infants, the maxim of Solomon is indubitable. 0 what an honour is it to be the father and mother of a little cherub who hovers round the throne of God in heavenly glory!
“Roquet[374] dead and buried! The jolly man who last summer shook his head at me as at a dying man! How frail are we! God help us to live to-day! to-morrow is the fool’s day.
“I have not, at present, the least idea that I am called to quit my post here. I see no probability of being useful in Switzerland. My call is here; I am sure of it. If I undertook the journey, it would be merely to accompany you. I dare not gratify friendship by taking such a step. I have no faith in the prescriptions of your physician; and I think if health be better for us than sickness, we may enjoy it as well here as in France or Italy. If sickness be best for us, why shun it? Everything is good when it comes from God. Nothing but a baptism of fire and the most evident openings of Providence can engage me in such a journey. If I reject your obliging offer to procure me a substitute, attribute it to my fear of taking a false step, of quitting my post without command, and of engaging in a warfare to which the Lord does not call me.”[375]
Footnote 373:
Letters, 1791, p. 232.
Footnote 374:
The Rev. James Roquet, who, in 1775, had turned against his old friend Wesley respecting the rebellion in America.
Footnote 375:
Letters, 1791, p. 234.
A fortnight later, Fletcher wrote again to Mr. Ireland:—
“Madeley, September 7, 1776. My dear friend, my health is better than when I wrote last. I have not yet preached; rather from a sense of duty to my friends, and high thoughts of the labours of Mr. Greaves (who does the work of an evangelist to better purpose than I), than to spare myself; for, if I am not mistaken, I am as able to do my work now as I was a year ago.
“A fortnight ago, I paid a visit to West Bromwich. I ran away from the kindness of my parishioners, who oppressed me with tokens of their love. To me there is nothing so extremely trying as excessive kindness. I am of the king’s mind when the people showed their love to him on his journey to Portsmouth: ‘I can bear,’ he said, ‘the hissings of a London mob, but these shouts of joy are too much for me.’ You, my dear friend, Mrs. Ireland, Mrs. Norman, and all your family, have put me to that severe trial, to which all trials caused by the hard words that have been spoken against me are nothing.
“At our age, a recovery can be but a short reprieve. Let us then give up ourselves daily to the Lord, as people who have no confidence in the flesh, and do not trust to to-morrow. I find my weakness, unprofitableness, and wretchedness daily more and more; and the more I find them, the more help I have to sink into self-abhorrence. Nor do I despair to sink so in it as to die to self and revive in my God.”[376]
Footnote 376:
Letters, 1791, p. 236.
Fletcher began to hope that he would soon be able to resume his work. To Charles Wesley he wrote as follows:—
“MADELEY, September 15, 1776.
“MY VERY DEAR BROTHER,—I lately consulted a pious gentleman, near Lichfield, famous for his skill in the disorders of the breast. He assured me I am in no immediate danger of a consumption of the lungs; and that my disorder is upon the nerves, in consequence of too close thinking. He permitted me to write and preach in moderation; and gave me medicines, which, I think, are of service in taking off my feverish heats. My spitting of blood is stopped, and I may yet be spared to travel with you as an invalid.
“If God adds one inch to my span I see my calling. I desire to know nothing but Christ, and Him crucified, revealed in the Spirit. I long to feel the utmost power of the Spirit’s dispensation, and I will endeavour to bear my testimony to the glory of that dispensation both with my pen and tongue. Some of our injudicious or inattentive friends will probably charge me with novelty for it; but, be that as it will, let us meekly stand for the truth as it is in Jesus, and trust the Lord for everything. I thank God I feel so dead to popular applause that, I trust, I should not be afraid to maintain a truth against all the world; and yet I dread to dissent from any child of God, and feel ready to condescend to every one. O what depths of humble love, and what heights of Gospel truth, do I sometimes see! I want to sink into the former and rise into the latter. Help me by your example, letters, and prayers.”[377]
Footnote 377:
Ibid, p. 237.
At the same period of time, Fletcher wrote to Joseph Benson, giving him an account of the state of his health and of his literary projects.
“MY VERY DEAR BROTHER,—Your kind letter has followed me from Bristol to Madeley, where I have been for some weeks. My health is better than it was in August, but it is far from being established. Close thinking and writing had brought upon me a slow fever, with a cough and spitting of blood, which a physician took for symptoms of a consumption of the lungs; whereas they were only symptoms of a consumption of the nerves and solids. He put me accordingly upon the lowest diet, and had me blooded four times, which made much against me. I am, however, greatly recovered since I have begun to eat meat again. My cough and spitting of blood have left me, but want of sleep and a slow fever keep me still very low. If the Lord pleases, He can in a moment restore my strength; but He needs not a worm. I thank Him for having kept me perfectly resigned to His will, and calm in the awful scene which I have passed through.
“I design to conclude my last controversial piece as I shall be able, and hope it will give my friends some satisfaction; because it will show the cause of all our doctrinal errors, and will place the doctrine of election and reprobation upon its proper basis. I finish also my essay on the ‘Dispensation of the Spirit,’[378] which is the thing I want most to see your thoughts upon. Pray for light and power, truth and love; and impart to me a share of your experiences, to quicken my dulness of apprehension and feeling. If God spare me a little, it will be to bear my testimony to the doctrine of perfect spiritual Christianity. May we be personal witnesses of this glorious dispensation, and be so inflamed with love as to kindle all around us.
“Give my kind love and thanks to all enquiring friends. If I live over the winter, I shall, should Providence open the way, visit you all” [at Newcastle-on-Tyne], “and assure you that I am in Christ your affectionate brother and servant.”[379]
Footnote 378:
This essay was not published separately, but was probably embodied in the “Portrait of St. Paul,” to be noticed anon.
Footnote 379:
Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”
Three weeks after the date of these letters, poor Fletcher’s hope of recovery was terribly shaken. On October 5, 1776, his disorder unexpectedly and violently returned, and his friends around him thought he was about to die. Some one, perhaps his curate, Mr. Greaves, immediately improvised a beautiful hymn, which was sung, by a distressed congregation, in Madeley church, on the following day, Friday, October 6. The hymn is too full of affection and piety to be omitted. It was as follows:—
“O Thou, before whose gracious throne We bow our suppliant spirits down, View the sad breast and streaming eye, And let our sorrows pierce the sky.
“Thou know’st the anxious cares we feel, And all our trembling lips would tell; Thou only canst assuage our grief, And yield our woe-fraught hearts relief.
“Though we have sinned, and justly dread The vengeance hovering o’er our head, Yet, Power benign! Thy servant spare, Nor turn aside Thy people’s prayer.
“Avert the swift-descending stroke, Nor smite the shepherd of the flock; Lest o’er the barren waste we stray, To prowling wolves an easy prey.
“Restore him, sinking to the grave; Stretch out Thy arm, make haste to save; Back to our hopes and wishes give, And bid our friend and father live.
“Bound to each soul with sacred ties, In every breast his image lies; Thy pitying aid, O God, impart, Nor rend him from each bleeding heart.
“Yet, if our supplications fail, And prayers and tears cannot prevail, Condemned, on this dark desert coast, To mourn our much-loved leader lost,—
“Be Thou his strength, be Thou his stay, Support him through the gloomy way; Comfort his soul, surround his bed, And guide him through the dreary shade.
“Around him may Thy angels wait, Deck’d with their robes of heavenly state, To teach his happy soul to rise, And waft him to his native skies.”[380]
Footnote 380:
The Local Preacher’s Magazine, 1852, p. 113.
As soon as possible, Wesley made his way to Madeley, and escorted Fletcher to London. On November 13, they set out for Norwich, and nine days afterwards Wesley wrote, “I brought Mr. Fletcher back to London considerably better than when he set out.” Among other places, they visited Lowestoft, where Wesley opened the new Preaching-house, and where Fletcher preached on Wednesday morning, November 20.[381] Whilst here, he wrote the following to Mr. Benson:—
“LOWESTOFT, November 21, 1776.
“MY DEAR FRIEND,—Mr. Wesley having invited me to travel with him, to see if change of air and motion will be a means of restoring me to a share of my former health, I have accompanied him through Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, and Norfolk; and I hope I am rather better than worse. I find it good to be with this extraordinary servant of God. I think his diligence and wisdom are matchless. It is a good school for me, only I am too old a scholar to make proficiency. However, let us live to God to-day, and trust Him for to-morrow; so that, whether we are laid up in a sick bed or a damp grave, or whether we are yet able to act, we may be able to say,
“‘God is the sea of love, Where all my pleasures roll, The circle where my passions move, And centre of my soul.’”[382]
Footnote 381:
Wesley’s Journal.
Footnote 382:
Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”
Another characteristic letter must be introduced. Certain good Methodists at Hull and York having invited him, when able, to visit the great Methodist county, Fletcher wrote to them as follows:—
“To Messrs. Hare, Terry, Fox, and Good, at Hull;—and Messrs. Preston, Simpson, and Ramsden, at York.
“LONDON, November 12, 1776.
“MY DEAR BRETHREN,—I thank you for your kind letters and invitations to visit you, and the brethren about you. I have often found an attraction in Yorkshire. My desire was indeed a little selfish; I wanted to improve by the conversation of my unknown brethren. If God bids me be strong again, I shall be glad to try if He will be pleased to comfort us by the mutual faith both of you and me. My desire is, that Christ may be glorified both in my life and death. If I have any desire to live at any time, it is principally to be a witness, in word and deed, of the dispensation of power from on high; and to point out that kingdom which does not consist in word, but in power, even in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of power. I am writing an Essay upon that important part of the Christian doctrine.
“Should I be spared to visit you, the keep of a horse, and the poor rider, will be all the burden I should lay on you; and that will be more than my Heavenly Master indulged Himself in. I am just setting out for Norwich with Mr. Wesley, whose renewed strength and immense labours astonish me. What a pattern for preachers! His redeeming the time is, if I mistake not, matchless.
“Should I never have the pleasure of thanking you in person for your brotherly regard, I beg you will endeavour to meet me in the kingdom of our Father, where distance of time and place is lost in the fulness of Him who is all in all. The way ye know,—the penitential way of a heart-felt faith working by obedient love.”[383]
Footnote 383:
Methodist Magazine, 1801, p. 43.
Early in the month of December, Fletcher visited Mr. Gorham, at St. Neots. One of his inducements to undertake this journey was to have an opportunity of conversing with Berridge, Vicar of Everton, and with Henry Venn, who, a few years before, had left Huddersfield, and settled in a small country village, as Rector of Yelling. Mr. Gorham’s son accompanied Fletcher to Everton. Sixteen years had elapsed since Fletcher’s former visit there; and, during that interval, Berridge had published his “Christian World Unmasked;” and Fletcher had severely handled its Calvinian doctrines in his “Fifth Check to Antinomianism;” but there was no room for malice in Christian hearts like theirs. The instant Fletcher entered the parsonage at Everton, Berridge rose up, ran to meet him, embraced him with folded arms, and cried, “My dear brother, how could we write against each other, when we both aim at the same thing—the glory of God, and the good of souls! My book lies quietly on the shelf,—and there let it lie.” For two hours, the loving polemics had an unbroken conversation; when Berridge said, “We must not part without praying.” Down they fell upon their knees. Full of the great truth then occupying his mind, and which probably had been the chief subject of conversation with his friend, Fletcher began to pray for an effusion of the Spirit, and for greater degrees of sanctification and usefulness. Berridge followed, with a prayer full of love and faith. The two seemed as if it were impossible to separate; and Fletcher had to be torn away, to keep an appointment, at St. Neots, with the Rector of Yelling. Venn was charmed with Fletcher, and became so absorbed in the conversation, that Fletcher had to remind him, playfully, of the meal before him. A year afterwards, they met again, at Bristol, lodged together for six weeks in the same house, and Venn, on his return to Yelling, declared, from his pulpit, that Fletcher was “like an angel on earth.”
Notwithstanding considerable opposition, Fletcher was permitted to preach once in St. Neots Church, and took, as his text, “We love Him, because He first loved us.” Many hung upon the lips of the preacher; but three or four of his hearers, in great dudgeon, left before his sermon was ended. “I will not be tedious,” cried Fletcher, as the discontented were retreating, “but oh that I might persuade you to love Him, who first loved us!” About thirty of his congregation followed him to his lodgings, where, at their request, he preached again, most of those that were present being powerfully affected.
Considering the state of his health, this preaching exercise was hardly prudent; but Fletcher had less regard for his health than for what he conceived to be his duty. The season was the depth of winter; but he maintained his accustomed early rising. One morning, before four o’clock, Mr. Gorham stole gently into his chamber, and kindled his fire. The crackling of the wood awoke him; and, instantly, showing the frame of mind in which he habitually lived, whether awake or asleep, he cried, “Is it you, my kind host, with your candle and fire? May the Lord light the candle of faith and the fire of love in our hearts!” When nearly fifty years had elapsed, Mr. Gorham said, “I have never forgotten this salutation; and often do I step into the room, and look at the spot where I received the dear saint’s thanks, and heard his prayer.”[384]
Footnote 384:
Appendix to Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”
At this time, there resided at the suburban village of Stoke Newington a gentleman who must have a brief notice. His father, James Greenwood, was one of the earliest members of the Methodist Society, at the Foundery, London; and he himself was one of the first trustees of Wesley’s chapel, in City Road. He had a lucrative business, as an upholsterer, in Rood Lane and Fenchurch Street; and died, at the age of fifty-six, in 1783, his remains being put into one of the early-dug graves in the burial ground of City Road Chapel.[385] Wesley’s mention of his death is worth quoting:—
“1783, February 21.—To-day Charles Greenwood went to rest. He had been a melancholy man all his days, full of doubts and fears, and continually writing bitter things against himself. When he was first taken ill, he said he should die, and was miserable through fear of death; but, two days before he died, the clouds dispersed, and he was unspeakably happy, telling his friends, ‘God has revealed to me things which it is impossible for man to utter.’ Just when he died, such glory filled the room, that it seemed to be a little heaven; none could grieve or shed a tear, but all present appeared to be partakers of his joy.”[386]
Footnote 385:
Stevenson’s “City Road Chapel.”
Footnote 386:
Wesley’s Journal.
In the necrology of the Methodists, there are but few brighter death-bed scenes than that of Charles Greenwood, of Stoke Newington.[387]
Footnote 387:
See an account of it in the Arminian Magazine for 1783.
On his return from St. Neots, on December 16, Fletcher took up his residence in the house of this worthy man. Wesley disapproved of this, and wrote:—
“I verily believe, if Mr. Fletcher had travelled with me, partly in the chaise, and partly on horseback, only a few months longer, he would quite have recovered his health. But this those about him would not permit: so being detained in London by his kind but injudicious friends, while I pursued my journeys, his spitting of blood, with all the other symptoms, returned, and rapidly increased, till the physicians pronounced him to be far advanced in a true, pulmonary consumption.”[388]
Footnote 388:
Wesley’s “Life of Fletcher.”
Fletcher continued to reside with Mr. Greenwood till about the beginning of the month of May, 1777; but, before proceeding to that year, extracts must be given from a remarkable letter, which he wrote “to the parishioners of Madeley.” This was one of his last efforts in the year 1776:—
“NEWINGTON, December 28, 1776.
“MY DEAR PARISHIONERS,—I hoped to have spent the Christmas holidays with you, and to have ministered to you in holy things; but the weakness of my body confining me here, I humbly submit to the Divine dispensation. I ease the trouble of my absence by reflecting on the pleasure I have felt, in years past, while singing with you, ‘Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given.’ This truth is as true now as it was then. Let us receive it with all readiness, and it will unite us.
“In order to this, may the eye of your understanding be more and more opened to see your need of a Redeemer; and to behold the suitableness, freeness, and fulness of the redemption, which was wrought out by the Son of God, and which is applied by the Spirit through faith! The wish which glows in my soul is so ardent and powerful, that it brings me down on my knees, while I write, and, in that supplicating posture, I entreat you all to consider and improve the day of your visitation, and to prepare, in good earnest, to meet, with joy, your God and your unworthy pastor in another world. I beseech you, by all the ministerial and providential calls you have had for these seventeen years, harden not your hearts. Let the longsuffering of God towards us, who survive the hundreds I have buried, lead us all to repentance. Dismiss your sins, and embrace Jesus Christ, who wept for you in the manger, bled for you in Gethsemane, hung for you on the cross, and now pleads for you on His mediatorial throne. By all that is dear to you, meet me not on the great day in your sins, enemies to Christ by unbelief, and to God by wicked works.
“The sum of all I have preached to you is contained in four propositions. First, heartily repent of your sins, original and actual. Secondly, believe the Gospel of Christ in sincerity and truth. Thirdly, in the power which true faith gives, run the way of God’s commandments before God and men. Fourthly, by continuing to take up your cross, and to receive the pure milk of God’s word, grow in grace, and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
“Should God bid me stay on earth a little longer, and should He renew my strength to do among you the work of a pastor, I hope I shall prove a more humble, zealous, and diligent minister than I have hitherto been. Some of you have supposed that I made more ado about eternity and your precious souls than they were worth; but how great was your mistake. Alas! it is my grief and shame that I have not been, both in public and private, a thousand times more earnest and importunate with you about your spiritual concerns. Pardon me, my dear friends,—pardon me my ignorances and negligences in this respect. And as I most humbly ask your forgiveness, so I most heartily forgive any of you, who may, at any time, have made no account of my little labours.
“The more nearly I consider death and the grave, judgment and eternity, the more I feel that I have preached to you the truth, and that the truth is solid as the rock of ages. Although I hope to see much more of the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living than I do see, yet, blessed be the Divine mercy! I see enough to keep my mind at all times unruffled, and to make me willing calmly to resign my soul into the hands of my faithful Creator, my loving Redeemer, and my sanctifying Comforter, this moment, or the next, if He calls for it. I desire your public thanks for all the favours He showeth me continually, with respect to both my soul and body. Help me to be thankful; for it is a pleasant thing to be thankful. Permit me also to bespeak an interest in your prayers. Ask that my faith may be willing to receive all that God’s grace is willing to bestow. Ask that I may meekly suffer, and zealously do all the will of God; and that, living or dying, I may say, with the witness of God’s Spirit, ‘For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.’
“If God calls me from earth, I beg He may appoint a more faithful shepherd over you. You need not fear that He will not: you see that, for these many months, you have not only had no famine of the word, but the richest plenty; and what God has done for months, He can do for years; yea, for all the years of your life. Only pray; ‘ask and you shall receive.’ Meet me at the throne of grace, and you shall meet at the throne of glory your affectionate, obliged, and unworthy minister,
“J. FLETCHER.”[389]
Footnote 389:
Letters, 1791, p. 21.