WHEN Fletcher finished his “Second Check to Antinomianism,” in “Three Letters” to Walter Shirley, he began a “Vindication of the Doctrine of Christian Perfection.” This, however, for a time, was laid aside; but was afterwards completed, and embodied in his “Last Check to Antinomianism.” The reason for this postponement was a somewhat sudden determination to write upon the Unitarian Controversy, which was now as prominent as the Calvinian one. A brief biographical episode will explain the matter more fully.
Edward Elwall was born at Sedgley, in Staffordshire. He settled in business at Wolverhampton, where he acquired the reputation of great integrity in his dealings. He had not enjoyed the advantages of a learned education, but he possessed a serious and inquisitive turn of mind, and had good natural abilities. One of his first publications was intended to prove that the fourth commandment, appointing the seventh day of the week to be observed as the Sabbath, was binding on all generations. As long as he continued in business, he constantly shut up his shop on that day, and as regularly opened it on the succeeding one. For this he was called a Jew. About the year 1714, he became distinguished as an Unitarian, and published, “A true Testimony for God and His sacred Law, being a Defence of the first Commandment of God, against all Trinitarians under Heaven.” This drew on him the resentment of the neighbouring clergy, who procured an indictment against him for heresy and blasphemy, on which he was tried at Stafford Assizes. He pleaded his own cause, and was acquitted. After this, he removed to London, and became a member of the Seventh-day Baptist Church at Mill-yard, Goodman’s Fields. Towards the end of life, he attended the meetings of the Quakers, and was sometimes permitted to speak at them. He died in London, at an advanced age, about the year 1745.
Elwall’s work “against all Trinitarians under Heaven” had recently been re-published, and Fletcher was requested to answer it. Hence the following, hitherto unpublished, letter, addressed to “the Rev. Walter Sellon, at Ledsham, near Ferry-Bridge, Yorkshire.”
“My Dear Friend,—I thank you for yours. I hope Glazebrook[253] will be more moderate, on account of some rubs which his new Calvinistic zeal has procured him.
“My reason for troubling you soon with an answer is to make a request. I have laid by my Third ——[254], which is a vindication of the doctrine of Christian perfection. A pamphlet (the third edition) has lately been published at Birmingham, and meets with great success. The author is E. Elwall, a Socinian Quaker, who was tried for blasphemy at Stafford, and came off with flying colours, after fully denying the Godhead of Christ, and His atonement.
“Some serious people have desired me to answer the book. As I suppose your Dr. Preese[255]” (sic) “is one of his stamp, I want to see by your candle as well as my own. Could you send me, by the post, what you have published against him? By cutting the margin close, you might bring it to a tolerable size for a packet; and I should not grudge paying the postage. If you cannot do this, send me, at least, your best answer to the objection taken from John xvii. 3, and to the words ‘only God,’ which seem to exclude Jesus Christ.
“We must fight the Antinomians while the Calvinists put weapons into their hands against the truth. Mr. Hill has taken Mr. Wesley in hand very roughly. I have been with him. His answer to my ‘Vindication’ is expected every day, and is out, I suppose, in London. God give us wisdom! Set your razor against Mason, for what we mean as keenness (which is allowable) is directly construed as bitterness.
“When you send the packet, put upon the direction, ‘Not by London, but by + Post Bag, Manchester and Salop,’ or else they will make me pay double.
“I preach much, and see little fruit. The Holy Ghost is not given among us. These are hard times. God help us to more gospel and life, but not my lady’s gospel!
Not to mention other matters referred to in this letter, there can be no doubt that Fletcher now began to write his Anti-Socinian Treatises; but, as will be seen hereafter, he never finished them. Other things, even more pressing, claimed his attention, and he was obliged to postpone his attack on the citadel of religious infidelity.
“I long to be out of controversy,” said Fletcher to Joseph Benson, in a letter dated February 1772,[256] and yet he continued it. He could not help himself. To say nothing of the duty he owed to Christ and Gospel truth, it was impossible, at present, to retire from the field of conflict without exposing himself to the taunt of recreant timidity. Besides, though his opponents had been vanquished, they would, in that case, have appeared victorious. No doubt, also, he was encouraged to proceed by his bespattered but beloved friend Wesley. In a letter to Lady Maxwell, Wesley wrote:—
“My Dear Lady,—I commend you for meddling with points of controversy as little as possible. It is abundantly easier to lose our love in that rough field, than to find truth. This consideration has made me exceedingly thankful to God for giving me a respite from polemical labours. I am glad He has given to others both the power and the will to answer them that trouble me; so that I may not always be forced to hold my weapons in one hand, while I am building with the other. I rejoice, likewise, not only in the abilities, but in the temper, of Mr. Fletcher. He writes as he lives. I cannot say that I know such another clergyman in England or Ireland. He is all fire, but it is the fire of love. His writings, like his constant conversation, breathe nothing else, to those who read him with an impartial eye. And, although Mr. Shirley scruples not to charge him with using subtilty and metaphysical distinctions, yet he abundantly clears himself of this charge, in the ‘Second Check to Antinomianism.’ Such the last letters are styled, and with great propriety; for such they have really been. They have given a considerable check to those who were everywhere making void the law through faith; setting ‘the righteousness of Christ’ in opposition to the law of Christ, and teaching that without holiness any man may see the Lord.”[257]
All, however, were not of Wesley’s opinion. In Ireland, Walter Shirley was a great favourite among the Methodists, for there he had preached with much success. Fletcher’s first and second “Checks” were addressed to Shirley; and the Irish Methodists, who, as yet, had neither heard nor seen their author, were divided in their sentiments respecting them. The Dublin Society wrote two letters to him, in answer to which he sent them the following:—
“To the Methodist Society at Dublin.
“My Dear Brethren,—Mercy and love be multiplied unto you, from Him who was and is to come, the Almighty!
“I should have acknowledged before now the favour of the two letters with which you honoured me, if I had not conveyed my thanks to you immediately by means of brother Morgan.[258] But thanks at second-hand do not satisfy my gratitude; permit me, therefore, to present them, if not in person, at least by some grateful lines personally written.
“I am much obliged to those of you who approve my little attempt to vindicate practical religion and the character of an eminent servant of Christ, who ministered unto you in holy things, and whom some of our mistaken friends in England exposed as the author of dreadful heresy. The thanks which some of you unexpectedly bestowed upon me on that occasion, I have laid at the feet of Jesus, to whom all praise belongs, who is the author of every good gift, and from whom comes all the help done upon the earth.
“When I took up my pen, I aimed at discharging my duty towards God and His misapprehended truth; towards my honoured father in Christ, Mr. Wesley, and his misunderstood ‘Minutes’; and though all the world should have blamed me, they would never have robbed me of the satisfaction of having at least attempted to clear my conscience.
“The manner in which part of you have refused me their thanks, is too civil and brotherly not to deserve mine. I wish many of our English brethren had been as moderate as you in their disapprobation of my letters to the Rev. Mr. Shirley. You will see in a ‘Second Check to Antinomianism’ some things that may reconcile you to the first; and I have just sent to the press a ‘Third Check,’ to what appears to me the favourite delusion of the Church; which I trust will cast more light on the delicate subject about which we divide.
“If we cannot see things in the same light, I hope we never shall, I beg we never may, disagree in love.
“I am glad you agreed to disagree about the giving or refusing me your undeserved thanks. Let every little rub of opposition heighten our love; every little clashing of sentiment make the heavenly spark show itself, and kindle our souls into that charity which hopeth all things, endureth all things, thinketh no evil, and is not provoked.
“If I have been obliged to bear a little hardly upon my dear honoured brother, Mr. Shirley, I beg that nothing I have written to him on account of his precipitancy, rashness, or hurry, may prevent you from looking upon him with the love and respect due to a minister of Christ. Recommending him and myself to your prayers, and taking the liberty to recommend to you mutual forbearance, a daily increase of brotherly love, and a continual growth in the genuine liberty of the Gospel, I remain, my dear brethren, your obliged, affectionate, and obedient brother and servant,
It has been already stated that at the commencement of the year 1772, Fletcher was writing his “Vindication of the Doctrine of Christian Perfection;” and that this was laid aside for the purpose of writing against Socinianism. Very soon, however, he had to devote his attention to another subject. In the foregoing letter, dated “March, 1772,” he tells the Methodist Society at Dublin that he had sent his “Third Check to Antinomianism” to the press; and this is confirmed by the following extract from a letter by Wesley to his brother Charles:—
“I am to-day to meet Mr. Fletcher at Billbrook. Part of the ‘Third Check’ is printing; the rest I have ready. In this he draws the sword and throws away the scabbard. Yet, I doubt not, they will forgive him all, if he will but promise to write no more.”[260]
Fletcher’s parochial duties were heavy, and yet he seems to have written his “Third Check to Antinomianism” in about a month. It must have been a strain to accomplish this. The work is no flimsy production, but is full of Scriptural arguments, which could not be framed, arranged, and adequately expressed without a vast amount of labour; and the book itself was of no mean size, consisting, as it did, of one hundred and fourteen small typed and closely printed pages. The following was its title: “A Third Check to Antinomianism; in a Letter to the Author of “Pietas Oxoniensis:” By the Vindicator of the Rev. Mr. Wesley’s Minutes. ‘Reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and Scriptural doctrine; for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine,’ 2 Tim. iv. 2, 3. ‘Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith; but let brotherly love continue,’ Tit. i. 13, Heb. xiii. 1. Bristol: Printed by W. Pine in Wine Street, 1772.”
Why was it written and published? Fletcher had replied to the “Circular Letter” and the “Narrative” of Shirley, and in doing so had vindicated Wesley’s “Minutes.” Shirley was now silent, but other antagonists started up. A small 8vo. pamphlet was published, with the title “A Letter to the Rev. Mr. Fletcher, of Madeley, on the Differences subsisting between him and the Hon. and Rev. Mr. Shirley.” The author subscribed himself “An enemy to no man, but a friend to religion;” and his letter was dated “Bath, February 3, 1772.” This religious gentleman alleged that, under the existing circumstances, the publication of Fletcher’s answer to Shirley’s “Circular Letter” “was highly censurable, yea, criminal.” He accused Fletcher of “wantonly scattering firebrands, arrows, and death;” his defence of Wesley’s “Minutes” was “flimsy;” and he was actuated by “personal envy or enmity more than by a love to Christ and a godly zeal to promote truth.” Fletcher, properly enough, declined to notice the virulent and frothy pamphlet of this Bath religionist; but another publication, issued about the same time, demanded his attention. Its author was his friend and neighbour, Richard Hill, Esq., and its title as follows: “Five Letters to the Reverend Mr. F——r, relative to his Vindication of the Minutes of the Reverend Mr. John Wesley. Intended chiefly for the comfort of mourning backsliders, and such as may have been distressed and perplexed by reading Mr. Wesley’s Minutes, or the Vindication of them. By a Friend. London: 1772.” 8vo., 40 pp.[261]
Mr. Hill’s first letter is dated “December 2, 1771.”[262] His pamphlet is remarkable for two things—only two:—First, the highest Christian urbanity towards Fletcher; and secondlysecondly, the writer’s curious theology. A few extracts from Mr. Hill’s letters will suffice to show that Fletcher’s task of answering his courteous opponent was not a difficult undertaking.
“God alone knows the sorrow of heart wherewith I address you; and how much the fear of casting stumbling-blocks before some who are really sincere, and the apprehensions of giving malicious joy to others who desire no greater satisfaction than to see the children of the Prince of Peace divided among themselves, had well-nigh prevailed upon me to pour out my soul in silence instead of publicly taking up the pen against you. But when I perceived the solicitude with which Mr. Wesley’s preachers recommended your letters to Mr. Shirley in their respective congregations, and, above all, how many of God’s people had been perplexed and distressed by reading them,—I say, when I perceived this to be the case, and had prayed to the Giver of all wisdom for direction, I could not but esteem it my indispensable duty to send out a few observations on your book, especially as no other person, that I know of, had made any reply to the doctrinal parts of it from the time of its publication. With regard to the ‘Circular Letter,’ I shall studiously avoid the very mention of it; as whether the sending of it were in itself a wrong step or a right one, is of no consequence in the matter of salvation. Neither shall I follow you page by page, but taking the ’Minutes’ in the order they stand, shall dwell upon them, more or less, as appears necessary.”
The plan here propounded is carried out, but want of space renders it impossible to give an outline of Mr. Hill’s theology. The following quotations must be taken as specimens of others which might be given:—
“Your argument is this; that, ‘believing is previous to justification.’ But, dear Sir, this is begging the question; and, permit me to say, that I deny the assertion. Waving all disputes concerning eternal justification, or justification in the mind and purpose of God, I maintain, that, believing cannot possibly be previous to justification; and you must yourself maintain the same, unless you will adopt the phrase of an unjustified believer; whereas the Holy Ghost teaches that all who believe are justified. We may as well suppose that a man eats before he takes any food, and that he sees before he receives the light of the sun, as that he believes before he is justified: for believing, and feeding upon Christ, are not more inseparably connected than eating and taking bodily food, or than seeing and receiving light are inseparably connected. Yea, true faith can no more subsist without its object Christ, than there can be a marriage without a husband. From hence, I conclude, that the doctrine of believing before justification, and thereby making the grace of faith a conditional work, is not less contrary to reason than it is to Scripture itself.”
“I most sincerely abhor the Minute, ‘that we are every hour and every moment pleasing or displeasing to God, according to our works; according to the whole of our inward tempers, and our outward behaviour;’ and, yet, I equally abhor the assertion, ‘that David did not displease God more when he committed adultery with Bathsheba, and imbrued his hands in her husband’s blood, than when he danced before the ark.’ I know, from Scripture authority, that when David committed the sin you allude to, the thing which he had done displeased the Lord. But, though I believe that David’s sin displeased the Lord, must I therefore believe that David’s person came under the curse of the law? and that, because he was ungrateful, God, whose gifts and callings are without repentance, was unfaithful? Surely no. David was still a son, though a perverse one. Like backsliding Ephraim, he was still a pleasant child, though he went on frowardly.”
“Either Christ has fulfilled the whole law, and borne the curse, or He has not. If He has not, no soul can ever be saved; if He has, then all debts and claims against His people, be they more or be they less, be they small or be they great, be they before or be they after conversion, are for ever and for ever cancelled. All trespasses are forgiven them. They are justified from all things. They already have everlasting life. They are now (virtually) sat down in heavenly places with Christ their Forerunner; and as soon shall Satan pluck His crown from His head, as His purchase from His hand.”
Such were some of the absurd and pernicious doctrines propounded by Mr. Hill, and which Fletcher felt it his duty to refute. Towards Wesley, there is, in Mr. Hill’s pamphlet, an occasional stroke of bitterness, as, for instance, where he asserts that “there is a much nearer resemblance between the doctrines of Mr. John Wesley and mother Church”Church”, (Popery) “than the popish Superior chose to acknowledge;”[263] but towards Fletcher, Mr. Hill, throughout, displays the most respectful kindness, and concludes his fifth and last letter thus:—
“And now, dear Sir, I cannot conclude these letters without expressing my earnest desire that the contents of them may never cause any decrease of love and Christian fellowship between us. Pardon then, my dear Sir, I ardently beseech you, O pardon all that you have found amiss in the unworthy author of these epistles; and much, I am sure, your charity will have to overlook. If we cannot see things alike now, I hope the time is not far off when we shall be thoroughly united in sentiment, as well as in heart, and each of us, casting our crowns before the throne, shall join our voices in that one harmonious song of praise, with which the regions of bliss shall echo without intermission, and without end, ‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.’ ‘Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever.’
“In the meanwhile, let me acknowledge before the world that there is not a man living to whom I am more indebted for repeated instances of affection, and labours of love, than I am to dear Mr. Fletcher; and, therefore, notwithstanding all differences of judgment between us, I trust he will always give me leave to subscribe myself his most affectionate friend and brother, in the bonds of the Gospel of peace,
This was worthy of Mr. Hill, who, eleven years afterwards, succeeded to the title and estates of his father, and became Sir Richard Hill, Bart.
Though Mr. Hill’s first letter to Fletcher was dated as recently as December 2, 1771, the whole five were published, and Fletcher’s answer to them committed to the press as early as the month of March,[264] 1772. Fletcher begins his “Third Check to Antinomianism” as follows:—
“Honoured and Dear Sir,—Accept my sincere thanks for the Christian courtesy with which you treat me in your five letters.
“Some of our friends will undoubtedly blame us for not yet dropping the contest; but others will candidly consider that controversy, though not desirable in itself, yet properly managed, has, a hundred times, rescued truth, groaning under the lash of triumphant error. We are indebted to our Lord’s controversies with the Pharisees and Scribes for a considerable part of the four Gospels; and, to the end of the world, the Church will bless God for the spirited manner in which St. Paul, in his Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, defended the controverted point of a believer’s present justification by faith; as well as for the steadiness with which St. James, St. John, St. Peter, and St. Jude carried on their important controversy with the Nicolaitans, who abased St. Paul’s doctrine to Antinomian purposes.
“Had it not been for controversy, Romish priests would, to this day, feed us with Latin masses and a wafer-god. Some bold propositions, advanced by Luther against the doctrine of indulgences, unexpectedly brought on the Reformation. They were so irrationally attacked by the infatuated papists, and so scripturally defended by the resolute Protestants, that these kingdoms opened their eyes, and saw thousands of images and errors fall before the ark of evangelical truth.
“From what I have advanced in my Second Check, it appears, if I am not mistaken, that we stand now as much in need of a reformation from Antinomianism, as our ancestors did of a reformation from Popery; and I am not without hope that the extraordinary attack which has been made upon Mr. Wesley’s anti-Crispian propositions, and the manner in which they are defended, will open the eyes of many, and check the rapid progress of so enchanting and pernicious an evil. This hope inspires me with fresh courage; and, turning from the Hon. and Rev. Mr. Shirley, I presume to face (I trust in the spirit of love and meekness) my new respectable opponent.”
Fletcher’s first purpose, in this important controversy, was to attack Antinomianism; now he was obliged to attack Calvinism, which, though the parent of Antinomianism, did not in the present instance approve of it. It is needless to recapitulate Fletcher’s arguments in favour of the two doctrines, that all mankind are redeemed by the infinite sacrifice of the incarnate Son of God, and that, through the same sacrifice, “the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal” (1 Cor. xii. 7). A few brief extracts, however, will help to illustrate his spirit, and his style of writing.
“The grace of God is as the wind, which bloweth where it listeth; and it listeth to blow, with more or less force successively, all over the earth. You can as soon meet with a man that never felt the wind, or heard the sound thereof, as with one that never felt the Divine breathings, or heard the still small voice, which we call the grace of God. To suppose the Lord gives us a thousand tokens of His eternal power and Godhead, without giving us a capacity to consider, and grace to improve them, is not less absurd than to imagine that when He bestowed upon Adam all the trees of paradise for food, He gave him no eyes to see, no hands to gather, and no mouth to eat their delicious fruits.”
“Waiving the case of infants, idiots, and those who have sinned the sin unto death, was there ever a sinner under no obligation to repent and to believe in a merciful God? Oh, ye opposers of free grace, search the universe with Calvin’s candle, and among your reprobated millions, find out the person who never had a merciful God; and show us the unfortunate creature, whom a sovereign God bound over to absolute despair of His mercy from the womb. If there is no such person in the world; if all men are bound to repent and to believe in a merciful God, there is an end of Calvinism. An unprejudiced man can require no stronger proof that all are redeemed from the curse of the Adamic law, which admitted of no repentance; and that the covenant of grace, which admits of, and makes provision for it, freely extends to all mankind.
“Out of Christ’s fulness all have received grace, a little leaven of saving power, an inward monitor, a divine reprover, a ray of true heavenly light, which manifests first moral, and then spiritual good and evil. St. John bears witness of that light, and declares it was the spiritual life of man, the true light which enlighteneth not only every man that comes into the Church, but every man that comes into the world—without excepting those who are yet in darkness. For the light shineth in darkness, even when the darkness comprehends it not. The Baptist also bore witness of that light, that all men through it, not through him, might believe; φως, light, being the last antecedent, and agreeing perfectly with δι’ αυτου.”
The reader has already seen Mr. Hill’s strange and pernicious doctrine respecting eternal justification. Fletcher treats this Calvinistic dream with terrible though polite severity. Without attempting to condense his arguments, the following extract will serve to show his perfect victory over his respected opponent:—
“You go on, ‘If Christ fulfilled the whole law and bore the curse, then all debts and claims against His people, be they more or be they less, be they small or be they great, be they before or be they after conversion, are for ever and for ever cancelled.’
“Your doctrine drags after it all the absurdities of eternal, absolute justification. It sets aside the use of repentance and faith, in order to pardon and acceptance. It represents the sins of the elect as forgiven not only before they are confessed, but even before they are committed. It supposes that all the penitents who have believed that they were once children of wrath, and that God was displeased at them when they lived in sin, have believed a lie. It makes the preaching of the Gospel one of the most absurd, wicked, and barbarous things in the world. For what can be more absurd than to say, ‘Repent ye, and believe the Gospel;’ ‘He that believeth not shall be damned;’ if a certain number can never repent or believe, and a certain number can never be damned?”
In concluding his Treatise, Fletcher remarks:—
“If I have addressed my Three Checks to the Rev. Mr. Shirley and yourself” (Mr. Richard Hill), “God is my witness it was not to reflect upon two of the most eminent characters in the circle of my religious acquaintance. Forcible circumstances have over-ruled my inclinations. Decipimur specie recti. Thinking to attack error, you have attacked the very truth which Providence calls me to defend: and the attack appears to me so much the more dangerous as your laborious zeal and eminent piety are more worthy of public regard, than the boisterous rant and loose insinuations of twenty practical Antinomians. The tempter is not so great a novice in anti-Christian politics as to engage only such to plead for doctrinal Antinomianism. This would soon spoil the trade. It is his masterpiece of wisdom to get good men to do him that eminent service. He knows that their good lives will make way for their bad principles. Nor does he ever deceive with more decency and success than under the respectable cloak of their genuine piety.
“If a wicked man pleads for sin, foenun habet in cornu, he carries the mark on his forehead; we stand upon our guard. But when a good man gives us to understand that there are no lengths God’s people may not run, nor any depths they may not fall into, without losing the character of men after God’s own heart, that many will praise God for our denial of Christ, that sin and corruption work for good, that a fall into adultery will drive us nearer to Christ, and make us sing louder to the praise of free grace; when he quotes Scripture too, in order to support these assertions, calling them the pure Gospel, and representing the opposite doctrine as the Pelagian heresy, worse than popery itself,—he casts the Antinomian net on the right side of the ship, and is likely to enclose a great multitude of unwary men; especially if some of the best hands in the kingdom drive the frighted shoal into the net, and help to drag it to shore.
“This is, honoured Sir, what you have done, not designedly, but thinking to do God service. Hence the steadiness with which I have looked in the face a man of God, whose feet I should be glad to wash at any time, under a lively sense of my great inferiority. I beg you not to consider the unceremonious plainness of a Swiss mountaineer as the sarcastic insolence of an incorrigible Arminian.
“By a mistake, fashionable among religious people, you have unhappily paid more regard to Dr. Crisp than to St. James. And, as you have pleaded the dangerous cause of the impenitent monarch, I have addressed you with the honest boldness of the expostulating prophet. I have said to my honoured opponent, ‘Thou art the man!’
“I owe much respect to you, but more to truth, to conscience, and to God. If, in trying to discharge my duty towards them, I have inadvertently betrayed any want of respect to you, I humbly ask your pardon; and I can assure you, in the face of the whole world, that notwithstanding your strong attachment to the peculiarities of Dr. Crisp, as there is no family in the world to which I am under greater obligations than yours, so there are few gentlemen for whom I have so peculiar an esteem, as for the respectable author of Pietas Oxoniensis.”
“Before I lay down my pen,” says Fletcher, in a “Postscript,” “I beg leave to address, a moment, the true believers who espouse Calvin’s sentiments. Think not, honoured brethren, that I have no eyes to see the eminent services which many of you render to the Church of Christ; no heart to bless God for the Christian graces which shine in your exemplary conduct; no pen to testify, that, by letting your light shine before men, you adorn the Gospel of God our Saviour, as many of your predecessors have done before you. I am not only persuaded that your opinions are consistent with a genuine conversion but I take heaven to witness how much I prefer a Calvinist who loves God to a Remonstrant who does not. If I have, therefore, taken the liberty of exposing your favourite mistakes, do me the justice to believe that it was not to pour contempt upon your respectable persons; but to set your peculiarities in such a light as might either engage you to renounce them, or check the forwardness with which some have lately recommended them as the only doctrines of grace, and the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ; unkindly representing their remonstrant brethren as enemies to free grace, and abettors of a dreadful heresy.
“And you, my remonstrant brethren, permit me to offer you some seasonable advices. 1. More than ever, let us confirm our love to our Calvinist brethren. If our arguments gall them, let us not envenom the sore by maliciously triumphing over them. Nothing is more likely to provoke their displeasure, and drive them from what we believe to be the truth. 2. Do not rejoice in the mistakes of our opponents, but in the detection of error. Desire not that we, but that truth may prevail. Let us not only be willing that our brethren should win the day if they have truth on their side; but let us make it matter of solemn, earnest, and constant prayer. 3. Let us strictly observe the rules of decency and kindness, taking care not to treat any of our opponents in the same manner that they have treated Mr. Wesley. The men of the world sometimes hint that he is a papist, and a Jesuit; but good, mistaken men have gone much farther in the present controversy. They have published to the world, that they verily believe his principles are too rotten for even a papist to rest upon; that he wades through the quagmires of Pelagianism, deals in inconsistencies, manifest contradictions, and strange prevarications; that if a contrast were drawn from his various assertions upon the doctrine of sinless perfection, a little piece might extend into a folio volume; and that they are more than ever convinced of his prevaricating disposition. Not satisfied with going to a Benedictine monk, in Paris, for help against his dreadful heresy, they have wittily extracted an argument, ad hominem, from the comfortable dish of tea he drinks with Mrs. Wesley; and, to complete the demonstration of their respect for that grey-headed, laborious minister of Christ, they have brought him upon the stage of controversy in a dress of their own contriving, and made him declare to the world, that, whenever he and fifty-three of his fellow-labourers say one thing, they mean quite another. And what has he done to deserve this usage at their hands? Which of them has he treated unjustly or unkindly? Even in the course of this controversy, has he injured any man? May he not say to this hour, Tu pugnas; ego vapulo tantum? Let us avoid this warmth, my brethren; remembering that personal reflections will never pass for convincing arguments with the judicious and humane.
“I have endeavoured to follow this advice with regard to Dr. Crisp; nevertheless, lest you should rank him with practical Antinomians, I once more gladly protest my belief that he was a good man; and desire that none of you would condemn all his sermons, much less his character, on account of his unguarded antinomian propositions.
“4. If you would help us to remove the prejudices of our brethren, not only grant with a good grace, but strongly insist upon the great truths for which they make so noble a stand. Steadily assert, with them, that the scraps of morality and formality, by which Pharisees and deists pretend to merit the Divine favour, are only filthy rags in the sight of a holy God; and that no righteousness is current in heaven but the righteousness which is of God by faith. If they have set their hearts upon calling it the imputed righteousness of Christ, though the expression is not strictly scriptural, let it pass; but give them to understand, that as Divine imputation of righteousness is a most glorious reality, so human imputation is a most delusive dream; and that of this sort is undoubtedly the Calvinian imputation of righteousness to a man, who actually defiles his neighbour’s bed, and betrays innocent blood. A dangerous contrivance this! not less subversive of common heathenish morality, than of St. James’s pure and undefiled religion.
“Again, our Calvinist brethren excel in setting forth a part of Christ’s priestly office; I mean the immaculate purity of His most holy life, and the all-atoning, all-meritorious sacrifice of His bloody death. Here imitate, and, if possible, surpass them. Shout a finished atonement louder than they. If they call this complete atonement finished salvation, or the finished work of Christ, indulge them still: for peace’s sake, let those expressions pass; nevertheless, at proper times, give them to understand that it is absolutely contrary to reason, Scripture, and Christian experience to think that all Christ’s mediatorial work is finished. Insinuate you should be very miserable if He had nothing more to do for you and in you. Tell them, as they can bear it, that He works daily as a Prophet to enlighten you; as a Priest to make intercession for you; as a King to subdue your enemies; as a Redeemer to deliver you out of all your troubles; and as a Saviour to help you to work out your own salvation; and hint that, in all these respects, Christ’s work is no more finished than the working of our own salvation is completed.
“The judicious will understand you; as for bigots, they are proof against Scripture and good sense. Nevertheless, mild irony, sharply pointing a scriptural argument, may yet pass between the joints of their impenetrable armour, and make them feel either some shame, or some weariness of contention. But this is a dangerous method, which I would recommend to very few. None should dip his pen in the wine of irony, till he has dipped it in the oil of love; and even then, he should not use it without constant prayer, and as much caution as a surgeon lances an impostume. If he goes too deep, he does mischief; if not deep enough, he loses his time; the virulent humour is not discharged, but irritated by the skin-deep operation. And ‘who is sufficient for these things?’ Gracious God of wisdom and love! if Thou callest us to this difficult and thankless office, let all our sufficiency be of Thee! and should the operation succeed, Thine and Thine alone shall be all the glory.”
Such advices were Christian and opportune. No doubt, they were meant for men like Thomas Olivers and Walter Sellon. Wesley, in a tract of twelve pages, had, in 1770, attacked Toplady’s “Abridgement of Zanchius on Predestination.” Toplady, in the same year, had replied to this, in a most bitter and scurrilous “Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley.” Not having leisure for this kind of work, Wesley had requested Olivers to answer Toplady. Olivers, in 1771, had published his “Letter to the Reverend Mr. Toplady” (12mo, 60 pp.), and had treated Toplady with an amount of well-deserved tartness, which quite justified Fletcher in giving the above advice.
Then, again, Walter Sellon, in the same year, 1771, had published his “Church of England Vindicated from the Charge of Absolute Predestination, as is stated and asserted by the Translator of Jerome Zanchius, in his Letter to the Rev. Dr. Nowell. Together with Some Animadversions on his Translation of Zanchius, his Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, and his Sermon on 1 Tim. i. 10.” 12mo, 129 pp. In his small country parish, Ledsham, in Yorkshire, Sellon had dealt Toplady’s predestination theory heavy blows; and, it must be added, he had not been sparing in virulence. He began with telling the abusive vicar of Broad Hembury, “I shall deal plainly with you; more plainly, perhaps, than you might desire; yet not so plainly as you might justly expect. I would not say a word barely to enrage you; and yet, I doubt not, but I shall enrage you, because there is no coping with such writers as you, without speaking a little in your own manner; and I have always observed, those that are most prone to give offence are also most prone to take it.” Sellon fulfilled his threatening promise, and concluded: “Excuse my plainness, Sir, if I tell you farther, you seem much to stand in need of learning the lesson dictated by Solon of Athens, ‘Know thyself;’ and of praying heartily that prayer prescribed by our Church, ‘From all blindness of heart; from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness,—Good Lord, deliver us!’”
Fletcher, in this irritating controversy, never lost his temper. Some of his coadjutors and opponents did; and hence the Christian and needed cautions and advices at the end of his “Third Check to Antinomianism.”
253. The poor collier whom Fletcher so greatly befriended at Madeley, and who was one of the first students at Trevecca, in 1768.
254. The words are illegible, but, no doubt, his “Third Check to Antinomianism” is meant.
255. Probably meant for the celebrated Dr. Price, of whom more will have to be said anon.
256. Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”
257. Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 326.
258. One of Wesley’s itinerant preachers, well-read and popular, but now enervated, and settled in Dublin.
259. “Thirteen Original Letters written by the Rev. J. Fletcher.” Bath, 1791, p. 22.
260. Wesley’s Works, vol. xii., p. 128.
261. A second edition, “revised and much enlarged,” was published about the same time as Fletcher’s “Third Check.” The first edition consisted of forty pages, the second of fifty-two. There is nothing of importance, however, in the second issue which is not in the first, except a few acrid references to Wesley. The following may be taken as a specimen: “I shall make no remarks upon the poor, loose, flimsy manner in which the ‘Minutes’ are worded; but I cannot help observing that it seems almost impossible for Mr. Wesley to write a page without contradicting himself” (p. 50).
262. In the second edition it is dated “Feb., 1772.”
263. The reference here is to Father Walsh, the Benedictine monk at Paris; and, it may be added, that, in a foot-note, Mr. Hill acknowledges himself to have been the author of the “Conversation” with that gentleman, recently published.