THE issue of Fletcher’s “Third Check” was immediately followed by “A Review of all the Doctrines taught by the Rev. Mr. John Wesley; containing a full and particular Answer to a Book entitled, ‘A Second Check to Antinomianism. In Six Letters, to the Author of that Book. Wherein the Doctrines of a Twofold Justification, Free-Will, Man’s Merit, Sinless Perfection, Finished Salvation, and Real Antinomianism are particularly discussed; and the Puritan Divines vindicated from the Charges brought against them of holding Mr. Wesley’s Doctrines.’ To which is added ‘A Farrago.’ London, 1772.” 8vo, 151 pp. The letters are all signed “The Author of P.O.,” meaning, of course, Richard Hill.
Almost at the same time that the book, with this ponderous title, was published, Mr. Richard Hill committed to the press an 8vo tract of sixteen pages, entitled, “Some Remarks on a Pamphlet, entitled, A Third Check to Antinomianism. By the Author of ‘Pietas Oxoniensis.’”
Of the second of these publications nothing need be said. Considerable bitterness towards Wesley is displayed, and a modicum of severity towards Fletcher; but, perhaps, not more than might be naturally expected; for men dislike to be vanquished.
His first and much larger pamphlet, containing, besides the “Farrago,” “Six Letters” addressed to Fletcher, must have more attention. The “Letters” relate, not to the “Third,” but the “Second Check” of Fletcher, and were published only a few days before the appearance of the “Remarks” just noticed. Mr. Hill thus commences his first letter:—
“Reverend Sir,—After many debates with myself, and much solicitation from my friends, you now hear from me again on your Second Check to Antinomianism. I make no other apology for writing, than that I think there is an absolute necessity an answer should be given to it. But, whilst I make my animadversions on your letters, may the Divine Author of love and meekness preserve me from the unhappy spirit in which they are written! Oh, my dear Sir, I never could have supposed that sneer, banter, and sarcasm, yea notorious falsehood, calumny, and gross perversions, would have appeared before the world under the sanction of your venerable name.”
In making such accusations, Mr. Hill ought to have known he was himself guilty of “notorious falsehood and calumny;” but he was angry, and anger is always blindfolding.
Mr. Hill next proceeds to denounce Wesley’s “doctrine of a second justification by works;” and asserts that “it has no existence in the Word of God, nor in any Protestant Church under heaven;” but that, in this matter, “Mr. Wesley and Mr. Fletcher have the whole Council of Trent on their side.”
With considerable ability, but with great bitterness and even reviling, especially so far as Wesley is concerned, Mr. Hill endeavours to refute Fletcher’s arguments in support of the doctrine just named, and then remarks:—
“I intended to have made several other extracts from your first letter; but as I really cannot find many lines together free from gross misrepresentations and perversions, and hardly one single paragraph exempt from cutting sneers and low sarcasms, I confess I have not patience to transcribe them; especially when I consider that they are addressed to one” (Walter Shirley) “who, notwithstanding your former unkind behaviour, hath treated you with all the politeness of a gentleman, and the humility of a Christian.”
This was an ebullition of bad temper. The charges are untrue, and the spirit is unchristian. Fletcher employed irony, but, as all candid readers of his Checks must acknowledge, it was always polite and decorous. None but irritated men, like Mr. Hill, can find “low sarcasms;” and as for “gross misrepresentations and perversions,” they have no existence.
In his Second Letter, Mr. Hill takes up the doctrine of free-will, and pronounces Fletcher’s statements, in support of the free agency of man, to be “as totally void of solid scriptural argument, as they are replete with calumny, gross perversions, and equivocations.”
In his Third Letter, Mr. Hill discusses what he is pleased to call Sinless Perfection,—a doctrine which neither Wesley nor Fletcher ever taught. Christian Perfection[265] they enforced and defended; but Sinless Perfection, using the word in its strict and literal sense, was not a dogma of theirs, but a verbal invention, adopted from Whitefield and others, by Mr. Hill and his angry friends, who desired to make their opponents the target of ridicule and scorn.
Mr. Hill begins with several revolting anecdotes respecting people who professed themselves to be perfect Christians,—stories which probably were true; but stories concerning perfect fanatics whom Wesley and Fletcher would have condemned as strongly as Mr. Hill. His Letter terminates with a series of the same sort of nauseous anecdotes. In a certain sense, it is smart, and Mr. Hill thought it so; for, in concluding it, he remarks:—
“Now, my dear Sir, I have given you a little in your own way; but, notwithstanding you have set me the example in this manner of writing, I shall be glad to set you the example of mutual forgiveness. By cutting and slashing, we shall never convince each other of our errors; and the end of our controversy will be, that the world will laugh at you for taking the sword of banter, the shield of perversion, the helmet of prejudice, and the breastplate of acrimony, in order to fight for the doctrine of sinless perfection; and I myself shall be laughed at, in my turn, for losing so much precious time in answering you.”
Mr. Hill’s fourth letter is a brief one, and is devoted to what he calls Fletcher’s “heavy bombs of bitter sneer and cutting sarcasm,” hurled at the doctrine of “the finished salvation of Christ.”
The fifth and sixth letters, and also the postscript, are not theological, but simply abusive. Fletcher is said to “have traduced all the most celebrated ministers of the Gospel” of that day; and to have “thrown stumbling-blocks into the way of thousands.” A “wretched spirit of low sarcasm and slanderous banter runs throughout” his whole writings. Wesley and Fletcher had “adopted a scheme of religion gathered out of Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism, Arminianism, Popery, Mysticism, and Quakerism.”
The “Farrago of Hot and Cold Medicines, by the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, extracted from his own Publications,” is, of course, principally levelled against Wesley. The spirit of it may be gathered from an extract from Bishop Hall, on the title-page of Mr. Hill’s ill-natured pamphlet:—
“I would I knew where to find you; then I could take a direct aim. Whereas now I must rove and conjecture. To-day you are in the tents of the Romanists; to-morrow, in ours; next day, between both, against both. Our adversaries think you ours, we theirs; your conscience finds you with both and neither. I flatter you not; this of yours is the worst of all tempers. Will you be a church alone? Alas! how full are you of contradictions to yourself! How full of contrary purposes! How oft do you chide with yourself? How oft do you fight with yourself?”
Of course, all this was provoking. Had Fletcher been of a much less combative disposition than he really was, it would have been impossible for him, as a man of honesty and honour, to lay aside his pen. Mr. Hill’s accusations were serious ones, involving Fletcher’s moral character; and a reply to them was imperative. But, before Fletcher’s “Fourth Check to Antinomianism” is introduced to the reader’s notice, another publication, which preceded it, must be mentioned. This was entitled “Friendly Remarks occasioned by the Spirit and Doctrines contained in the Rev. Mr. Fletcher’s Vindication, and more particularly in his Second Check to Antinomianism, to which is added a postscript, occasioned by his Third Check. In a letter to the Author, by ***********. A.M. London: 1772.” 8vo. 71 pp. The letter is dated, “London, July 4, 1772,” and the asterisks stand for the name of Rowland Hill, Mr. Richard Hill’s impulsive and eccentric brother, who had taken his degree at Cambridge, had been refused orders by half-a-dozen bishops, and was now nearly twenty-seven years of age. Berridge and Whitefield had been his friends, and even Wesley had approved of his preaching among his Societies.[266] At present, he was in London, discoursing to immense congregations in Whitefield’s two Metropolitan Chapels, and was resident in the Tabernacle House, in Moorfields.[267] There, no doubt, the pamphlet was written, which must now be noticed.
He begins with a reference to his extensive preaching tours; and states that he was frequently invited to preach in the meeting-houses of Wesley’s Societies, and that this occasioned him considerable perplexity, for to preach against Wesley’s “sentiments in his own congregations would be unfair.” He continues:—
“And yet, when I consider how many excellent Christians are contained in Mr. Wesley’s Societies, whom I love as my own soul, and to whom I have frequently given promises of my assistance and labours, how will it grieve me to be constrained to withdraw from them, whom I so much honour and respect.”
Rowland Hill proceeds to say, that “hitherto he had declined having the least share in the late contentions.” He was at Bristol in 1771, when Mr. Shirley and his friends invaded Wesley’s Conference, but he refused to join them, and left the city, for, he remarks, “Peace I love, but controversy I hate.” He continues:—
“Upon my return to Bristol, I saw your first publication.[268] As I dearly loved your character, I read it with great prejudice in your favour; but still, the tartness of the style, as well as the bad doctrine it contained, concerned me; but, as I plainly perceived your intention was to make the ‘Minutes’ speak as much Gospel as possible, though I was sorry for the performance, I felt a loving pity for the author. About the same time, I called upon Mr. Wesley, then in Bristol, and, in strong terms, expressed to him my concern about his ‘Minutes.’ He told me that he looked upon the whole of them as truth, and that he should vindicate them as such.
“Still my determination was to appear in no open separation from Mr. Wesley; hoping that time would soften the edge of the dispute, and restore calmness and composure among contending parties; but your second publication[269] compels me to believe that to be neutral any longer will be criminal. You have now done sufficient to darken every gleam of hope of future tranquillity, by publishing such doctrine, and in such a spirit, as has kindled no small flame in the religious world.”
No doubt Rowland Hill was perfectly sincere when he said he hated controversy, and loved peace; and yet, such is the tendency of polemical writing, Rowland Hill and his brother Richard became the principal fomentors of this controversial warfare.
Having given what he calls “a simple narration of facts,” Mr. Rowland Hill proceeds to say:—
“I will now make some strictures principally upon your last performance. This I pray God I may be enabled to do with meekness and judgment. I know there is no argument in banter, nor conclusion in sarcasm, nor divinity in a sneer: such weapons I wish totally to discard; they are pitiful even for the world, but they are scandalous when used by a Christian. I hate such feeble aids, and will scorn to use them; they would defile my soul, and stab the cause I mean to maintain. The meek and dove-like disposition of Christ, I humbly hope will teach me, while I write, to pity, not to abuse, the mistaken; and meekly to deliver my sentiments, without having recourse to the low arts of slander and reflection.”
Rowland Hill had good intentions; but whether he fulfilled them will be seen in the succeeding extracts.
“After having first dressed up Mr. Shirley according to your own fancy, and branded him with the opprobrious name of Antinomian, you place him at the head of a set of monsters invented by yourself; and, after having thus raised a hideous and unthought-of ghost, you remand it to the shades by your own spells and incantations of banter and contempt.”
“After having said so much as to place us in a manner even amongst murderers, on account of our principles of grace, it really shocks and almost disheartens me from following you any further. I will, therefore, now omit reminding you of the numberless sneers, taunts, and sarcasms, which so dreadfully decorate the whole of your performance; they are nothing better than the infernal terms of darkness; it is hateful to transcribe them; let darkness be their doom.”
“Consider in what detestable colours you have pictured us before the world. There is scarce an abomination but what we are charged with; and our enemies triumph at the supposed discovery. You are the man, they say, that has been among the Calvinists, has found out their hypocrisy, and are now publishing against them. Numbers of them, to my knowledge, carry about your book in ill-natured triumph, and cast in our teeth, as certain truth, the dreadful slanders you have invented. In short, Sir, you have brought over us such a day of blasphemy and rebuke as we never felt before.”
“Our characters now lie bleeding before you; we smart severely under the cruelty of your pen; and complain loudly against your great injustice. You have given us up to be trampled upon by the world, who, from your pretended discoveries, looks upon us all as hypocrites detected under the mask of religion. If you think us in error, for Christ’s sake, sneer at us no more; though it may be sport to you, it is, in a manner, death to us. Learn the more Christian lesson to pity us, and pray for us, and try to set us right in love.”
Rowland Hill, no doubt, intended to avoid in his pamphlet “the low art of slander;” but he failed in carrying out his purpose. Any one who has read, with candour, Fletcher’s first and second Checks to Antinomianism, must admit that Mr. Hill’s accusations are unfounded. Where had Fletcher slandered Rowland Hill, or any of his Calvinistic friends? It is true that he had treated some of the doctrines of the Calvinists with “banter” and with “sarcasm;” but his Calvinian friends, against whose tenets he had written, had, uniformly, been treated with respectful affection. Impetuous Rowland improperly applied Fletcher’s “banter” and “sarcasm,” not to doctrines, as Fletcher had intended, but to the men who held them, himself and his godly friends included; a thing from which Fletcher’s loving soul revolted.
The remainder of Rowland Hill’s “Friendly Remarks” chiefly consists of animadversions, intended to show “the glaring inconsistencies and palpable mistakes” of Fletcher, in the doctrines he had defended and enforced. It would be an almost endless task to dwell upon the theological criticisms of Fletcher and his opponents. As might be expected, Rowland Hill, in attacking Fletcher’s tenets, is often smart; and, it must be added, often bitter.
A reply to the pamphlets of Richard Hill and his brother Rowland became a necessity. Fletcher could not remain silent under such unfounded and undeserved imputations. Hence, though weary of the warfare, he at once resumed his pen, and began to prepare his “Fourth Check to Antinomianism.” The postscript of Rowland Hill’s “Friendly Remarks,” dated “July 4, 1772,” states that the “Third Check” had just “made its appearance.” The fourth was published before the year was ended, and bore the title of “Logica Genevensis; or, a Fourth Check to Antinomianism, in which St. James’s Pure Religion is defended against the Charges, and established upon the Concessions of Mr. Richard and Mr. Rowland Hill. In a Series of Letters to those Gentlemen, by the Vindicator of the Minutes. Bristol: Printed by William Pine, 1772.” 12mo. 245 pp. The letters are thirteen in number, and all of them are addressed to Mr. Richard Hill, except the ninth, which is addressed “to Mr. Rowland Hill,” and the tenth and eleventh written to the two brothers conjointly. The thirteenth, and last, is dated, “Madeley, Nov. 15, 1772.”[270]
Meanwhile, Wesley published “Some Remarks on Mr. Hill’s Review of all the Doctrines taught by Mr. John Wesley.” This is not the place to analyse Wesley’s 12mo. pamphlet of 54 pages, but the following extract from it may be acceptable:—
“With regard to Mr. Hill’s objections to Mr. Fletcher, I refer all candid men to his own writings—his letters, entitled a ‘First, Second, and Third Check to Antinomianism;’ the rather, because there are very few of his arguments which Mr. Hill even attempts to answer. ’Tis true he promises ‘a full and particular answer to Mr. Fletcher’s “Second Check to Antinomianism”;’ but it will puzzle any one to find where that answer is except in the title-page. And if anything more is needful to be done, Mr. Fletcher is still able to answer for himself. But if he does, I would recommend to his consideration the advice formerly given by a wise man to his friend, ‘See that you humble not yourself to that man; it would hurt both him and the cause of God.’ ’Tis pity but he had considered it sooner, and he might have escaped some keen reflections. But he did not. He imagined when he spoke or wrote in the simplicity of his heart, that his opponents would have received his words in the same spirit wherein they were spoken; but they turn them all into poison. He not only loses his sweet words, but they are turned into bitterness—are interpreted as mere sneer and sarcasm! A good lesson for me. I had designed to have transcribed Mr. Fletcher’s character of Mr. Hill, and to have added a little thereto, in hope of softening his spirit. But I see it is in vain; as well might one hope to soften
Since he is capable of putting such a construction even upon Mr. Fletcher’s gentleness and mildness; since he ascribes even to him ‘a pen dipped in gall,’ what will he not ascribe to me? I have done therefore with humbling myself to these men—to Mr. Hill and his associates. I have humbled myself to them for these thirty years, but will do it no more. I have done with attempting to soften their spirits; it is all lost labour” (pp. 3, 4).
Having come to such a determination, it need not be added that Wesley’s pamphlet was one of the most trenchant he ever published.
Wesley was in Shropshire in the month of August, and probably had an interview with Fletcher. It is not unlikely that Fletcher accompanied Wesley in his journey to Bristol; but if this were not the case, it is certain that he soon after followed him. Hence the following hitherto unpublished letter, written by John Pawson, an itinerant preacher of ten years’ standing:—
“My Very Dear Friend,—Mr. Wesley came here on Saturday, August 29, and has been with us ever since, but intends to leave Bristol next Monday” [October 5]. “He seems to be as zealous and active in his Master’s service as ever, and quite in good health. We have also had the great Mr. Fletcher here, but he is now returned to Madeley. He seems to be an eminent saint indeed. I had the satisfaction to hear him twice. He is a lively, zealous preacher; the power of God seems to attend his word; yet I admire him much more as a writer than as a preacher. Being a foreigner, there is a kind of roughness attends his language that is not grateful to an English hearer; and the English not being his mother-tongue, he sometimes seems to be at a loss for words. Yet he certainly is a great and blessed man.
“We have had very large congregations to hear both Mr. Wesley and Mr. Fletcher, especially the latter; and I hope we shall see the fruit of their preaching in a little time. I trust that our gracious Lord will be with us, and that we shall have a prosperous year; though I apprehend it will be attended with greater difficulties than ever to keep the people together in Bristol. We have the Tabernacle[273] on one hand, and Mr. Janes,[274] who has a meeting in Tucker Street, on the other. Mr. Roquet[271] also is disaffected towards us. He has been in London for some time with his dear friend Mr. Hill. One night he preached in the Foundery, where he gave universal offence by using many Calvinistical phrases, and by telling the whole congregation that he knew there were whores and bawds even in the Bands[272] in Bristol. He said, ‘These eyes have seen it, and this heart has groaned on account of it.’ How he will be when he returns I know not; but these are the accounts we hear from London. Were it not that so many of our people are so exceedingly unstable, we need not fear any of these things; but you well know that many of them have got itching ears, and will run about, say or do what we will.
“Mr. Wesley has just published his answer to Mr. Hill. I suppose it will make the Calvinists exceeding angry; but I think Mr. Fletcher’s ‘Fourth Check,’ which is now in the press, will make them much more so, as he does not spare them at all, but endeavours to show, in the clearest manner, the horrible consequences of their beloved opinions. He is writing something upon Perfection, the former part of which I have seen; and I think he will set that doctrine in so Scriptural a light, as to stop the mouths of gainsayers.”
Fletcher dedicated his “Fourth Check to Antinomianism” “to all candid Calvinists in the Church of England.” An extract from this dedication may be useful, as giving, in a brief form, some of the doctrines which Fletcher had defended and enforced, and which had so hugely offended his Calvinistic friends.
“They” [his opponents] “will try to frighten you from reading this book, by protesting that I throw down the foundation of Christianity and help Mr. Wesley to place works and merit on the Redeemer’s throne. To this dreadful charge I answer:—1. That I had rather my right hand should lose its cunning to all eternity, than use it a moment to detract from the Saviour’s real glory. 2. That the strongest pleas I produce for holiness and good works are quotations from the Homilies of our own Church as well as from the Puritan divines, whom I cite preferably to others, because they held what you are taught to call the doctrines of grace. 3. That what I have said of those doctrines recommends itself to every unprejudiced person’s reason and conscience. 4. That my capital arguments in favour of practical Christianity are founded upon our second justification by the evidence of good works in the great day; a doctrine which my opponent himself cannot help assenting to. 5. That from first to last, when the meritorious cause of our justification is considered, we set works aside; praying God not to enter into judgment with us, or weigh our merits, but to pardon our offences for Christ’s sake; and gladly ascribing the whole of our salvation to His alone merits, as much as Calvin or Dr. Crisp does. 6. That when the word meriting, deserving, or worthy, which our Lord uses again and again, is applied to good works or good men, we mean absolutely nothing but rewardable, or qualified for the reception of a gracious reward. And 7. That even this improper merit or rewardableness of good works is entirely derived from Christ’s proper merit, who works what is good in us; and from the gracious promise of God, who has freely engaged Himself to recompense the fruits of righteousness, which His own free grace enables us to produce.”
In the first eight of his letters, Fletcher quotes copiously from the Liturgy, Articles, and Homilies of the Church of England, and from the writings of Puritan divines. He also minutely examines Mr. Richard Hill’s objections to his doctrines and to his Scriptural expositions. Up to this point there is a comparative absence of his cutting irony; but there is a great amount of powerful and triumphant writing.
In his ninth letter, addressed to Rowland Hill, he naturally enough lays aside the restraint he had put upon himself. Richard Hill was now a man of matured life, forty years of age; his brother Rowland was a young man of only twenty-seven. The former had not been sparing in the use of acrimonious epithets; the latter had been lavish. No wonder that Fletcher spared not his youthful opponent. He wrote:—
“What reason have you to assert, as you do, that I ‘have grossly misrepresented the Scriptures,’ and ‘made universal havoc of every truth of the Gospel’? The first of these charges is heavy, the second dreadful. Let us see by what arguments they are supported. After throwing away a good part of your book in passing a long, Calvinian, juvenile sentence upon my spirit as a writer, you come at last to the point, and attempt to explain some of the Scriptures which you suppose I have ‘misrepresented.’”
Fletcher proceeds to examine what he calls “the arguments” of Rowland Hill; and then concludes, as follows:—
“Having answered your objections to what you justly call ‘the principal cause of the controversy among us,’ I may make one or two observations upon the friendliness of your ‘Friendly Remarks.’
“Candid reader, if thou hast read my Checks without prejudice, and attentively compared them with the Word of God, wouldest thou ever think that the following lines contain an extract from the friendly sentence, which my young opponent passes upon them?—‘Hard names, banter, sarcasm, sneer, abuse, bravado, low arts of slander, slanderous accusation, opprobrious name, ill-natured satire, odious, deformed, detestable colours, unfair and ungenerous treatment, terms void of truth, unmerciful condemnations, false humility, irritating spirit, provoking, uncharitable style, continual sneers, most odious appellations, abusive words, notorious scandalizing, lines too dreadful to be transcribed, unworthy of an answer, beneath contempt, most indecent ridicule, a wretched conclusion, as bitter as gall, and slanders which ought even to make a Turk blush.’
“If thou canst not yet see, gentle reader, into the nature of Mr. Rowland Hill’s ‘Remarks,’ peruse the following friendly sentences. ‘In regard to the fopperies of religion, you certainly differ from the Popish priest of Madeley. You have made universal havoc of every truth of the Gospel. You have invented dreadful slanders. You plentifully stigmatize many with the most unkindly language. You have blackened our principles, and scandalized our practice. You place us in a manner among murderers. It shocks me to follow you. Our characters lie bleeding under the cruelty of your pen, and complain loudly against your great injustice. Blush for the characters you have injured by the rashness and bitterness of your pen. You have invented a set of monsters, and raised a hideous ghost, by your own spells and incantations of banter and contempt. Numberless sneers, taunts, and sarcasms dreadfully decorate the whole of your performance: they are nothing better than infernal terms of darkness, which it is hateful to transcribe.’
“When I cast my eyes upon this extract, I cannot help crying out, ‘If this is my antagonist’s friendliness, alas! what will be his displeasure? And what have I done to deserve these tokens of Calvinian benevolence? Why are these flowers of Geneva rhetoric so plentifully heaped upon my head?’head?’
“Sir, I do not intimate that I have done nothing displeasing to you. Far from insinuating it, I shall present my readers with a list of the manifold, but well-meant provocations, which have procured me your public correspondence. I say, well-meant provocations; for all I want to provoke any one to is love and good works.
“1. I have written my Checks with the confidence with which the clear dictates of reason, and the full testimonies of Scripture, usually inspire those who love what they esteem truth more than they do their dearest friends.
“2. After speaking most honourably of many Calvinists, even of all that are pious, I have taken the liberty to insinuate, that the schemes of finished salvation, and imputed righteousness, will no more save a Calvinist guilty of practical Antinomianism, than the doctrine of general redemption will save an ungodly remonstrant. Thus I have made no difference between the backsliding elect of the Lock,[275] and the apostates of the Foundery, when death overtakes them in their sins, and in their blood.
“3. I have maintained that our Lord did not speak an untruth when He said, In the day of judgment, by thy words shalt thou be justified; and that St. Paul did not propagate heresy when he wrote, Work out your own salvation.
“4. I have sprinkled with the salt of irony your favourite doctrine (‘Friendly Remarks,’ p. 39), ‘Salvation wholly depends upon the purpose of God according to election, without any respect to what may be in them,’ i.e. the elect. Now, Sir, as by the doctrine of undeniable consequences, he who receives a guinea with the king’s head on the one side cannot but receive the lions on the other side; so he that admits the preceding proposition, cannot but admit the inseparable counterpart, namely, the following proposition, which every attentive and unprejudiced person sees written in blood upon that side of Calvin’s standard which is generally kept out of sight, ‘Damnation wholly depends upon the purpose of God according to reprobation, without respect to what may be in the reprobates.’ Here is no ‘inventing a monstrous creed,’ but merely turning the leaf of your own, and reading what is written there, namely, damnation finished, evidently answering to finished salvation.”
Fletcher admits that he had used irony in his Checks, not, however, because he liked it, but because he found it needful. He writes:—
“If I make use of irony in my Checks, it is not from ‘spleen,’ but reason. It appears to me that the subject requires it, and that ridiculous error is to be turned out of the temple of truth, not only with scriptural argument, which is the sword of the Spirit, but also with mild irony, which is a proper scourge for a glaring and obstinate mistake.”
Holding such a view, he introduces, in one of the two letters addressed to Richard and Rowland Hill unitedly, an illustration of the absurdities involved in Calvinism, which, perhaps, is as severe as anything that his Checks contain. The extract is long, but must be given unabridged.
“You decry ‘illustrations,’ and I do not wonder at it; for they carry light into Babel, where it is not desired. The father of error begets darkness and confusion. From darkness and confusion springs Calvinism, who, wrapping himself up in some garments he has stolen from the truth, deceives the nations, and gets himself reverenced in a dark temple, as if he were the pure and free Gospel.
“To bring him to a shameful end, we need not stab him with the dagger of ‘calumny,’ or put him upon the rack of persecution. Let him only be dragged out of his obscurity, and brought unmasked to open light. The silent beams of truth will pierce him through! Light alone will torture him to death, as the meridian sun does a bird of night that cannot fly from the gentle operation of its beams.
“May the following illustration dart at least one luminous beam into the profound darkness in which your venerable Diana delights to dwell! And may it show the Christian world that we do not ‘slander you,’ when we assert, you inadvertently destroy God’s law, and cast the Redeemer’s crown to the ground: and that when you say, ‘In point of justification’ (and consequently of condemnation) ‘we have nothing to do with the law: we are under the law as a rule of life,’ but not as a rule of judgment, you might as well say, ‘We are under no law, and consequently no longer accountable for our actions.’
“The King, whom I suppose in love with your doctrines of free grace and free wrath, by the advice of a predestinarian council and parliament, issues out a Gospel proclamation, directed, ‘To all his dear subjects, and elect people, the English.’ By this evangelical manifesto they are informed, ‘That in consideration of the Prince of Wales’s meritorious intercession, and perfect obedience to the laws of England, all the penalties annexed to the breaking of those laws are now abolished with respect to Englishmen: That His Majesty freely pardons all his subjects, who have been, are, or shall be guilty of adultery, murder, or treason: That all their crimes, “past, present, and to come, are for ever and for ever cancelled:”’ That, nevertheless, his loving subjects, who remain strangers to their privileges, shall still be served with sham warrants according to law, and frightened out of their wits, till they have learned to plead they are Englishmen (i.e. elect): And then they shall set at defiance all legalists, that is, all those who shall dare to deal with them according to law: And that, excepting the case of the above-mentioned false prosecution of his chosen people, none of them shall ever be molested for the breach of any law.’
“By the same supreme authority, it is likewise enacted, that all the laws shall continue in force against foreigners, (i.e. reprobates) whom the King and the Prince hate with everlasting hatred, and to whom they have agreed never to show mercy: That, accordingly, they shall be prosecuted to the utmost rigour of every statute, till they are all hanged or burned out of the way: And that, supposing no personal offence can be proved against them, it shall be lawful to hang them in chains for the crime of one of their forefathers, to set forth the King’s wonderful justice, display his glorious sovereignty, and make his chosen people relish the better their sweet, distinguishing privileges as Englishmen.
“Moreover, His Majesty, who loves order and harmony, charges his loving subjects to consider still the statutes of England, which are in force against foreigners, as very good rules of life for the English, which they will do well to follow, but BETTER to break; because every breach of those rules will work for their good, and make them sing louder the faithfulness of the King, the goodness of the Prince, and the sweetness of this Gospel proclamation.
“Again, as nothing is so displeasing to the King as legality, which he hates even more than extortion and whoredom; lest any of his dear people, who have acted the part of a strumpet, robber, murderer, or traitor, should, through the remains of their inbred corruption, and ridiculous legality, mourn too deeply for breaking some of their rules of life, our gracious Monarch solemnly assures them, that, though he highly disapproves of adultery and murder, yet these breaches of rules are not worse, in his sight, than a wandering thought in speaking to him, or a moment’s dulness in his service: That robbers, therefore, and traitors, adulterers and murderers, who are free-born Englishmen, need not be at all uneasy about losing his royal favour; this being utterly impossible, because they always stand complete in the honesty, loyalty, chastity, and charity of the Prince.
“Moreover, because the King changes not, whatever lengths the English go in immorality, he will always look upon them as his pleasant children, his dear people, and men after his own heart; and that, on the other hand, whatsoever lengths foreigners go in pious morality, his gracious Majesty is determined still to consider them as hypocrites, vessels of wrath, and cursed children, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever; because he always views them completely guilty, and absolutely condemned in a certain robe of unrighteousness, woven thousands of years ago by one of their ancestors. This dreadfuldreadful sanbenito[276] His Majesty has thought fit to put upon them by imputation; and in it, it is his good pleasure that they should hang in adamantine chains, or burn in fire unquenchable.
“Finally, as foreigners are dangerous people, and may stir up His Majesty’s subjects to rebellion, the English are informed that if any one of them, were he to come over from Geneva itself, shall dare to insinuate that this most gracious gospel proclamation is not according to equity, morality, and godliness, the first Englishman that meets him shall have full leave to brand him as a papist, without judge or jury, in the forehead or on the back, as he thinks best; and that, till he is farther proceeded with according to the utmost severity of the law, the chosen nation shall be informed, in the Gospel Magazine, to beware of him as a man who ‘scatters firebrands, arrows, and deaths,’ and makes universal havoc of every article of this sweet gospel proclamation.
“Given at Geneva, and signed by four of His Majesty’s principal secretaries of state for the predestination department.
| “John Calvin. | The Author of ‘P. O.’[277] | |
| Dr. Crisp. | Rowland Hill.” |
To those not acquainted with the Calvinian controversy, this “illustration” may appear ungenerous and unfair; but in reality, the doctrines it burlesques had all been asserted by Calvinists, and the theological points involved in them had all been exposed and controverted by Fletcher, in his “Checks to Antinomianism.” No doubt the exposure was unpleasant, but the author of the Checks was not to be blamed for this. His work was done with an aching heart in the defence of truth and righteousness.
Fletcher’s twelfth Letter, addressed to Richard Hill alone, dwells altogether on the doctrine of Imputed Righteousness, which Fletcher describes as follows:—
“Consistent Calvinists believe that if a man is elected, God absolutely imputes to him Christ’s personal righteousness, i.e., the perfect obedience unto death which Christ performed upon earth. This is reckoned to him for obedience and righteousness, even while he is actually disobedient, and before he has a grain of inherent righteousness. They consider this imputation, as an unconditional and eternal act of grace, by which, not only a sinner’s past sins, but his crimes present and to come, be they more or be they less, be they small or be they great, are for ever and for ever covered. He is eternally justified from all things. And, therefore, under this imputation, he is perfectly righteous before God, even while he commits adultery or murder. Or, to use your own expression, whatever lengths he runs, whatever depths he falls into, ‘he always stands absolved, always complete in the everlasting righteousness of the Redeemer.’”
This, to many Calvinists of the present day, will seem to be an extravagant caricature of one of their favourite dogmas, but it must not be overlooked that a great part of Fletcher’s descriptive definition is actually taken from the published writings of Richard Hill. No wonder, therefore, that Fletcher, with stinging irony, proceeds to say:—
“In point of justification, it matters not how unrighteous a believer actually is in himself; because the robe of Christ’s personal righteousness, which, at his peril, he must not attempt to patch up with any personal righteousness of his own, is more than sufficient to adorn him from head to foot; and he must be sure to appear before God in no other. In this rich garment of finished salvation, the greatest apostates shine brighter than angels, though they are ‘in themselves black’ as the old murderer, and filthy as the brute that wallows in the mire. This ‘best robe,’ as it is called, is full-trimmed with such phylacteries as these,—‘Once in grace, always in grace;’ ‘Once justified, eternally justified;’ ‘Once washed, always fair, undefiled, and without spot.’ And so great are the privileges of those who have it on, that they can range through all the bogs of sin, wade through all the puddles of iniquity, and roll themselves in the thickest mire of wickedness, without contracting the least spot of guilt, or speck of defilement.”
Of course, Fletcher found no difficulty in demolishing such luscious and pernicious nonsense as this.
“If this doctrine is true,” says he, “the Divine perfections suffer a general eclipse; one half of the Bible is erased; St. James’s Epistle is made void; defiled religion justly passes for ‘pure gospel;’ the Calvinian doctrine of perseverance is true; and barefaced Antinomianism is properly recommended as ‘the doctrines of grace.’”
Fletcher’s last letter, also addressed to “Richard Hill, Esq.” alone, deals with the doctrine of Free-will. His definition of the Methodist doctrine deserves quotation.
“We never supposed that the natural will of fallen man is free to good, before it is more or less touched and rectified by grace. All we assert is, that, whether a man chooses good or evil, his will is free, or it does not deserve the name of will. It is as far from us to think that man, unassisted by Divine grace, is sufficient to will spiritual good; as to suppose that when he wills it by grace he does not will it freely. And, therefore, agreeably to our Tenth Article, which you quote against us without the least reason, we steadily assert that we have no power to do good works, without the grace of God preventing us, not that we may have a free will, for this we always had in the above-mentioned sense, but that we may have a good will; believing that, as confirmed saints and angels have a free will, though they have no evil will, so abandoned reprobates and devils have a free will, though they have no good will.”
These may appear to the cursory reader metaphysical niceties of no practical importance; but, a hundred years ago, they were considered doctrines of vital interest. The difference between Fletcher and his Calvinian friends is well stated by himself:—