TO preserve chronological order, another chapter must be interjected before the history of the Calvinian controversy is resumed.
In the month of January, 1773, Wesley sent to Fletcher the remarkable letter with which the present work commences. He wished Fletcher to relinquish his vicarage, and to put himself into training to become, after Wesley’s death, the “ωροεστως” of the Methodists. Wesley’s health, apparently, was failing. He was full of anxiety. “The body of the preachers,” he wrote, “are not united: nor will any part of them submit to the rest; so that either there must be one to preside over all, or the work will indeed come to an end.” Subsequent events proved Wesley’s fears to be unfounded; but, for the time being, they were real, and disquieted him. He wished to train his successor, and to introduce him to the people. He specified what he considered to be the necessary qualifications of such a man, and regarded Fletcher as the only one of his wide acquaintance as possessing them. “Without conferring, therefore, with flesh and blood,” said he, “come and strengthen the hands, comfort the heart, and share the labour of your affectionate friend and brother, John Wesley.”
Fletcher’s reply to Wesley’s most important proposal was as follows:—
“Rev. and Dear Sir,—I hope the Lord, who has so wonderfully stood by you hitherto, will preserve you to see many of your sheep, and me among them, enter into rest. Should Providence call you first, I shall do my best, by the Lord’s assistance, to help your brother to gather the wreck, and keep together those who are not absolutely bent to throw away the Methodist doctrines and discipline, as soon as he that now letteth is removed out of the way. Every help will then be necessary, and I shall not be backward to throw in my mite.
“In the meantime, you sometimes need an assistant to serve tables, and occasionally to fill up a gap. Providence visibly appointed me to that office many years ago. And though it no less evidently called me hither, yet I have not been without doubt, especially for some years past, whether it would not be expedient that I should resume my office as your deacon; not with any view of presiding over the Methodists after you; but to ease you in your old age, and to be in the way of recovering, and, perhaps, doing more good. I have sometimes thought how shameful it was that no clergyman should join you, to keep in the Church the work God has enabled you to carry on therein. And, as the little estate I have in my own country is sufficient for my maintenance, I have thought I would, one day or other, offer you and the Methodists my free service. While my love of retirement made me linger, I was providentially led to do something in Lady Huntingdon’s plan; but, being shut out there, it appears to me I am again called to my first work.
“Nevertheless, I would not leave this place, without a fuller persuasion that the time is quite come. Not that God uses me much here, but I have not yet sufficiently cleared my conscience from the blood of all men. Meantime, I beg the Lord to guide me by His counsel, and make me willing to go anywhere, or nowhere, to be anything, or nothing.
“Help by your prayers, till you can bless by word of mouth, Rev. and dear Sir, your willing, though unprofitable servant in the Gospel,
Fletcher did not decline Wesley’s proposal; but he deferred coming to a decision until “the time was quite come.” Whether the proposal was afterwards formally renewed, it is difficult to determine; but Dr. Whitehead, who, from 1764 to 1769, had been one of the itinerant preachers, and who was well acquainted with both Wesley and his friend Fletcher, remarks concerning Wesley’s request:—
“This warm and sincere invitation to a situation not only respected but even reverenced by so large a body of people, must have been highly flattering to Mr. Fletcher; especially as it came from a person he most sincerely loved; whose superior abilities, learning, and labours he admired; and to whose success in the ministry he wished to give every assistance in his power. But he well knew the embarrassments Mr. Wesley met with in the government of the preachers, though he alone, under the providence of God, had given existence to their present character, influence, and usefulness. He was also well acquainted with the mutual jealousies the preachers had of each other, and with their jarring interests: and, above all, with the general determination which prevailed among them not to be under the control of any one man after the death of Mr. Wesley. Under these circumstances, he saw nothing before him but darkness, storms, and tempests, with the most threatening dangers, especially if he should live to be alone in the office. He therefore determined not to launch his little bark on so tempestuous an ocean.
“I cannot, however, but lament that he did not accept Mr. Wesley’s invitation, as he would have done much good while he lived, and have prevented many of the evils which have since taken place.”[281]
The evils which Dr. Whitehead deprecated were the resolutions enacted by the Methodist Conferences, held after Wesley’s decease, respecting the preachers being allowed to administer the sacraments to their Societies, to hold services in Methodist chapels “in church hours,” and other kindred matters. Of all this, Dr. Whitehead, an able and honest man, strongly disapproved, and hence his regret that Fletcher, by declining Wesley’s invitation, had not helped to, at least, postpone such serious changes.
Wesley foresaw the probability, and indeed the certainty, of such changes being made, and he also lamented Fletcher’s decision. Thirteen years afterwards, in commenting upon Fletcher’s letter to himself, he wrote:—
“‘Providence,’ says he, ‘visibly appointed me to that office’ [Wesley’s assistant] ‘many years ago.’ Is it any wonder then that he should now be in doubt whether he did right in confining himself to one spot? The more I reflect upon it, the more I am convinced he had great reason to doubt this. I can never believe it was the will of God that such a burning and shining light should be hid under a bushel. No; instead of being confined to a country village, it ought to have shone in every corner of our land. He was full as much called to sound an alarm through all the nation as Mr. Whitefield himself. Nay, abundantly more so; seeing he was far better qualified for that important work. He had a more striking person, equally good breeding, an equally winning address, together with a richer flow of fancy, a stronger understanding; a far greater treasure of learning, both in languages, philosophy, philology, and divinity; and, above all (which I can speak with fuller assurance, because I had a thorough knowledge both of one and the other), a more deep and constant communion with the Father, and with the Son, Jesus Christ.
“And yet let not any one imagine that I depreciate Mr. Whitefield, or undervalue the grace of God and the extraordinary gifts which his great Master vouchsafed unto him. I believe he was highly favoured of God; yea, that he was one of the most eminent ministers that has appeared in England, or perhaps in the world, during the present century. Yet I must own I have known many fully equal to Mr. Whitefield, both in holy tempers and holiness of conversation; but one equal herein to Mr. Fletcher I have not known; no, not in a life of fourscore years.”[282]
No wonder that Wesley lamented the course taken by his wished-for successor; but it is rather difficult to say why Wesley should cast upon him loving blame for confining his light “to a country village.” Fletcher’s hands were full of literary works, by means of which he had defended, and continued to defend, the doctrines which it was the object of Wesley’s life to propagate. Besides, in about a year after Wesley made his proposal, Fletcher’s health began to fail, and never after that was his physical vigour such as to enable him to undertake the laborious itinerancy which Wesley contemplated and desired. Upon the whole, it is an open question whether Fletcher did not render greater service to Wesley and the Methodists by continuing his literary defence of their great and glorious doctrines than he would have done if he had accepted Wesley’s invitation to go into training to become his successor.
In other ways, however, besides his writings, he rendered great assistance to his friend. It was just after the time when Wesley wrote his important letter that an incident occurred which is worth relating.
Samuel Bradburn, a soldier’s son, was born at Gibraltar in 1751. At twelve years of age he was brought to England; at nineteen became a Methodist; and at twenty-one began to preach. During his residence at Gibraltar, he was sent to school at a penny a week; but, on the terms being raised to three-halfpence, his mother took him away, finding it inconvenient to be at such an expense for her son’s education. This was all the schooling that he had; but he was taught to read at home, and before he was eight years old had committed the histories of Joseph and Samson to memory. On coming to England, his parents settled at Chester, and he himself was apprenticed to a shoemaker. In the week preceding Easter, in 1773, he set off to Madeley to have an interview with Fletcher, whose “Checks” he had been reading. On approaching the vicarage, he saw a man working in the garden, who, addressing the young shoemaker, said, “You see, my brother, a fulfilment of the curse, ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.’” Bradburn, stating who he was, said he had not been at Madeley before, and wished to be introduced to Mr. Fletcher. “I am John Fletcher,” replied the amateur gardener. Bradburn, for the moment, was embarrassed; but on saying that he had come to consult the vicar of Madeley respecting his being called to engage in the Christian ministry, Fletcher, with his characteristic generosity, led him into his house, and requested him to become his guest. The invitation was gratefully accepted, and during his stay the young shoemaker was treated with paternal kindness. Bradburn, like his host, was an early riser, and every morning was employed in finding the texts of Scripture which Fletcher wished to use in the “Check” he was then writing, and in listening to Fletcher’s exposition of them. When two or three hours had thus been spent, the students went into the garden of the vicarage and had a spell at any kind of work that needed attention. After this followed the plain gruel breakfast and domestic devotion. Then several more hours were employed in the vicar’s study; after which the master and the pupil set out to visit the parishioners. Every night in the week young Bradburn preached in colliers’ cottages, or in the Methodist meeting-house, Fletcher standing by his side, and generally supplementing the sermon with additional remarks, delivered with delicate tenderness, and always concluded by a prayer. To the end of life, Bradburn thankfully acknowledged that he greatly owed his subsequent eminence to this Madeley visit. When he was leaving, the kind-hearted vicar said, “My little David, go! and if you preach forty years, and save only a single soul, don’t think your time and labour have been lost.” Bradburn always spoke of his early friend as “Saint Fletcher;” and often said, that when he looked at the vicar of Madeley he was almost ready to think the Lord Jesus Christ stood before him in the person of His servant; and in hours of depression, when he found it difficult to pray, he was wont to sigh and cry, “God of Mr. Fletcher, bless me!”[283]
The Methodist reader need not be told that Fletcher’s humble pupil rose to great eminence. Unquestionably he was the greatest pulpit orator that Wesley ever had. Dr. Adam Clarke, who knew him well, once said to a young preacher, who wished his opinion concerning Bradburn, “I have never heard his equal; I can furnish you with no adequate idea of his powers as an orator; we have not a man among us that will support anything like a comparison with him. Another Bradburn must be created, and you must hear him for yourself, before you can receive a satisfactory answer to your inquiry.”
In 1817, all the sermons that Bradburn had published, whether separately or in the Methodist Magazine, were collected, and published in a 12 mo. volume of 332 pages; but, as Dr. Abel Stevens well observes, “The eloquence of Bradburn, like that of Whitefield, could not be printed.”
John Fletcher rendered no small service to John Wesley and the Methodists by his brief training of the young shoemaker in 1773.
While writing his “Checks,” Fletcher seems to have been obliged to curtail his correspondence with his friends. At all events, his published letters belonging to this period are few in number. The following were written in 1773. The first was addressed to his friend Mr. Vaughan, the officer of Excise at Atcham, with whom he became acquainted while he had the charge of the sons of Mr. Hill:—
“My Very Dear Friend,—At the beginning of the week I received your kind letter, and your kind present at the end of it. For both I heartily thank you. Nevertheless, I could wish it were your last present, for I find it more blessed to give than to receive; and in point of the good things of this life my body does not want much, and I can do with what is more common, and cheaper, than the rarities you ply me with.
“Your bounty upon bounty reminds me of the repeated mercies of our God. They follow one another as wave does wave at sea; and all to waft us to the pleasing shore of confidence and gratitude, where we can not only cast anchor near, but calmly stand on the Rock of Ages, and defy the rage of tempests. But you complain, you are not there; billows of temptation drive you from the haven where you would be, and you cry out still, ‘Oh wretched man! who shall deliver me?’
“Here I would ask, Are you willing, really willing, to be delivered? Is your sin, is the prevalence of temptation, a burden too heavy for you to bear? If it is, if your complaint is not a kind of religious compliment, be of good cheer—only believe. Look up! for your redemption draweth near. He is near that delivers, that justifies, that sanctifies you. Cast your soul upon Him. An act of faith will help you to a lift; but one act of faith will not do. Faith must be our life; I mean in conjunction with its grand object. You cannot live by one breath; you must breathe on, and draw the electric, vital fire into your lungs together with the air. So you must believe, and draw the Divine power, the fire of Jesu’s love, together with the truth of the Gospel, which is the blessed element in which believers live.
“My kind Christian love to Mrs. Vaughan. Tell her I am filled with joy in thinking that, though we no more serve the same earthly master,[284] yet we still serve the same heavenly one; who will, ere long, admit us to sit with Abraham himself, if we hold fast our confidence to the end.
“Beware of the world. If you have losses, be not cast down, nor root in the earth with more might and main to repair them. If prosperity smiles upon you, you are in double danger. Think, my friend, that earthly prosperity is like a coloured cloud, which passes away and is soon lost in the shades of night and death. Beware of hurry. Martha, Martha, one thing is needful! Choose it, stand to your choice, and the good part shall not be taken from you by sickness or death. God bless you and yours with all that makes for His glory and your peace.
The following extracts are taken from a letter addressed to James Ireland, Esq., of Brislington, who had suggested to Fletcher the expediency of publishing in the French language his “Appeal to Matter of Fact and Common Sense.”
“My Very Dear Friend,—I have considered what you say about the translation of my ‘Appeal;’ and I think I might do it some day; nay, I tried to turn a paragraph or two the day after I received your letter, but found it would be a difficult, if not an impossible work for me. I am sure I could not do it abroad. On a journey, I am just like a cask of wine—I am good for nothing till I have some time to settle.
“What you say about Mr. Wesley adds weight to your kind arguments. My spiritual circumstances are what I must look at. I tremble lest outward things should hurt me. The multiplicity of objects and avocations, which attend travelling, is not suited to my case. I think, all things considered, I should sin against my conscience in going, unless I had a call from necessity, or from clearer providences.
“My last ‘Check’ will be as much in behalf of free grace as of holiness; so I hope, upon that plan, all the candid and moderate will be able to shake hands. It will be of a reconciling nature; and I call it an ‘Equal Check to Pharisaism and Antinomianism.’
“I see life so short, and time passes away with such rapidity, that I should be very glad to spend it in solemn prayer; but it is necessary that a man should have some exterior occupation. The chief thing is to employ ourselves profitably. My throat is not formed for the labours of preaching. When I have preached three or four times together, it inflames and fills up; and the efforts, which I am then obliged to make, heat my blood. Thus, I am, by nature, as well as by the circumstances I am in, obliged to employ my time in writing a little. O that I may be enabled to do it to the glory of God!
“Let us love this good God, who hath ‘so loved the world, that He gave His Only-begotten Son that we might not perish, but have everlasting life.’ How sweet is it, on our knees, to receive this Jesus, this heavenly gift, and to offer our praises and thanks to our heavenly Father! The Lord teaches me four lessons; the first is to be thankful that I am not in hell; the second, to become nothing before Him; the third, to receive the gift of God; and the fourth is to feel my want of the Spirit of Jesus, and to wait for it. These four lessons are very deep. O when shall I have learned them! Let us go together to the school of Jesus, and learn to be meek and lowly in heart. Adieu!
The above is the first time that Fletcher complains of his throat. This affection, in itself, apart from the other reason he mentions, was quite sufficient to justify his hesitancy in complying with Wesley’s request to devote himself to the itinerancy, and to train himself to become Wesley’s successor.
Before returning to the Calvinian controversy, two other incidents, belonging to the year 1773, must be mentioned.
“John Wilkes,” says Fletcher, “was born at Darlaston. His father dying when he was a child, his mother bound him an apprentice to a collier, who delighted in cock-fighting, and who was killed by a quantity of coals falling upon him in the pit. The collier’s widow, being unable to manage Wilkes, released him from his apprenticeship for a trifling sum of money. He began to steal fowls, that he might have the pleasure of fighting those that would fight, and eating those that would not. Two or three years ago he was committed to Stafford jail, and soon after publicly whipped for that offence. From breaking into hen-roosts, he proceeded to break into and to rob the dwelling-house of a widow at Darlaston; and, going upon the highway, he robbed a man of his watch and some money. He was taken, and recommitted to Stafford jail. He took his trial at the last assizes; and, being found guilty of the above-mentioned robberies, received sentence of death, with another young man, who had set fire to some barns, and a stack of hay.”
John Wilkes’ eldest sister was Fletcher’s servant, and to her the convict wrote the following:—
“This informs you of my being a convict under sentence of death. I beg you will endeavour to prevail on Mr. Fletcher to grant me his interest for a reprieve, by getting me recommended to his majesty’s mercy. And I tenderly beg you will come over and see me here in a few days, who am your poor unfortunate brother,
Fletcher declined to interfere, but wrote a long letter to the convict, dated “Madeley, March 23, 1773.” He says:—
“John Wilkes,—Your sister desiring me to make application to some person in power, to get you reprieved for transportation, I take this first opportunity of informing you that I was once concerned in saving a young man from the gallows, because he was condemned for his first offence, which was robbing his master of money, and that I had no thanks, but many upbraidings for my pains; the poor creature having turned out very bad, done much mischief before he left England, and being spared, I fear, only to hurt his fellow-creatures, and fill up the measure of his iniquities.
“Besides, you know, John, that your crimes are of the most capital nature. You are not only a housebreaker, but a highwayman, and a very notorious offender. You know you have committed crimes enough to hang two or three men, perhaps half-a-dozen. And so far as I can gather from a variety of circumstances, you are the very person that broke open my house over the way, and robbed the poor widow who lives in it. If you committed that robbery, I desire you to confess it before you leave this world; for ‘he that confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall obtain mercy;’ while he that tells lies to conceal them, pulls down double vengeance upon his guilty head.
“But whether you committed that robbery or not, I earnestly desire that you will submit to your sentence. I neither can nor will meddle in that affair; nor have I any probability of success if I did. Apply then yourself, night and day, to the King of heaven for grace and mercy. If you cry to Him from the bottom of your heart, as a condemned dying man, who deserves hell as well as the gallows; if you sincerely confess your crimes, and beg the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, to intercede for you, it is not too late to get your soul reprieved. He will speak for you to God Almighty; He will pardon all your sins; He will wash you in His most precious blood; He will stand by you in your extremity; He will deliver you out of the hands of the hellish executioner; and, though you have lived the life of the wicked, He will help you to die the death of the penitent. He can feel for poor condemned thieves; for He himself was condemned to be hanged on a tree; not indeed for His own sins, for He never transgressed, but for your crimes and mine.”
“On Saturday, March 27,” continues Fletcher in his narrative, “I gave a few lines for the keeper of Stafford jail, to Sarah Wilkes, the malefactor’s sister, and to Elizabeth Childs, a serious woman, whom she had got to bear her company; and, when I had recommended in prayer the condemned criminals to the Redeemer’s compassion, and their feeble visitors to the protection of Him Who can give wisdom to the simple, they set out to see John Wilkes, and administer some spiritual comfort to him before he launched into eternity.”
The poor women met with a rough reception at Stafford prison. The jailer, a fair specimen of officials in other prisons, at that period, said, “What do you want with John Wilkes? to preach him a sermon, and sing psalms? I know very well what you are, a parcel of canting hypocrites.”
Sarah Wilkes and Elizabeth Childs showed themselves to be apt pupils of the Vicar of Madeley. In the Journal of their nine days’ visit they wrote:—
“We were much discouraged at the jailer’s behaviour. So we agreed to lay the matter before God in prayer, and beg of Him that He would touch the jailer’s heart, and cause him to let us in. The next morning, which was Sunday, after begging hard for grace, wisdom, and courage, we went to the prison; and, to our great surprise, the turnkey opened the door, and, without speaking a word, took us straight to the condemned men, and let us be with them as long as we thought proper; a liberty which we were allowed twice a day till they suffered.”
John Wilkes confessed to the two women that he had robbed the house at Madeley, in which the poor widow lived. He became a penitent. The nine days’ Journal of his sister and Elizabeth Childs concludes thus:—
“Saturday, April 3, the day of his execution, John Wilkes was exceeding happy, and employed in breathing out prayers and praises to God. In the morning, we spent about two hours with him and his fellow-prisoner, praying and praising together in their dungeon, with much brokenness of heart, and many tears of joy and sorrow; for we were both persuaded that John Wilkes had saving faith, and an unshaken well-grounded confidence that God would take him to glory.
“About two hours before the execution, which was between four and five in the afternoon, his sister asked, ‘Dost thou find thyself happy in the Lord?’ To which he answered, ‘Yes, I do, I do, more and more.’
“When they were come to the place of execution, John Wilkes’s companion desired the spectators, especially young people, to take warning by them; which was the more affecting, as he was supposed to be only about twenty years old, and John Wilkes was not above nineteen. They sang and prayed some time under the gallows; and the last words John Wilkes was heard to speak were, ‘Lord, from this place receive me into Thy heavenly kingdom!’”
Some will condemn Fletcher’s action, or rather inaction, in the case of John Wilkes; but, a hundred years ago, public opinion respecting crimes, criminals, and criminal punishment was widely different from the public opinion of the present day. It certainly seems to be a savage thing to hang a youth of nineteen years of age for thieving; but the law of the land authorized this; and Fletcher evidently had but little hope of any good arising from reprievement in a case like that of Wilkes. Perhaps he was right, or perhaps he was wrong. At all events, Wilkes became a penitent thief, and, as such, his sister and his sister’s master had reason to rejoice and to give thanks. Fletcher immediately published a pamphlet on the occasion with the title, “The Penitent Thief; or, a Narrative of Two Women, fearing God, who Visited in Prison a Highwayman, executed at Stafford, April 3, 1773. With a Letter to a Condemned Malefactor. And a Penitential Office, for either a true Churchman, or a dying Criminal, extracted from the Scriptures and the Established Liturgy.”
Nothing more need be said, except that the “Penitential Office” was compiled “entirely from the Scriptures and the Liturgy of the Church of England;” that it was suitable for either a living sinner or a dying thief; and that, to excite, exercise, and increase his own repentance, Fletcher himself was accustomed to use it in his private devotions.
A few weeks after the execution of John Wilkes another event occurred, which must be noticed. The following is taken from Lloyd’s Evening Post, of June 11, 1773:—
“In the dead of the night, between Tuesday the 25th and Wednesday the 26th ult., Samuel Wilcocks’s wife, who lived in a small house at the Birches, was sitting up in bed, to take care of one of her children, who was ill, when she perceived the bed shake under her, and observed some balm tea in a cup to be so agitated that it was spilled.
“On Thursday morning, the 27th, Samuel Wilcocks and John Roberts (who likewise lived in the house at the Birches) got up about four o’clock, and, opening their window to see what the weather was, observed a crack in the ground four or five inches wide, and a field sown with oats heaving and rolling like waves of water. The trees moved as if blown with wind, though the air was calm and serene. The Severn (in which at that time was a considerable flood) was much agitated, and seemed to run upwards. The house shook; and, in a great fright, Wilcocks and Roberts roused the rest of the family, and ran out of doors. Immediately, about thirty acres of land, with the hedges and trees standing, moved with great force and swiftness towards the Severn. Near the river was a small wood, in which grew twenty large oaks. The wood was pushed with such velocity into the channel of the Severn, that it drove the bed of the river on the opposite shore many feet above the surface of the water, where it lodged, as did one side of the wood. The current of the river was instantly stopped. This occasioned a great inundation above, and so sudden a fall below, that many fish were left on dry land. The river took its course over a large meadow, and in three days wore a navigable channel. A turnpike road was moved more than thirty yards. A barn was carried about the same distance, and was left as a heap of rubbish in a large chasm. The house” (in which Wilcocks lived) “received but little damage; but the garden hedge was removed about fifty yards. Several long and deep chasms are formed in the upper part of the land from fourteen to upwards of thirty yards wide, in which are many pyramids of earth standing, with the green turf remaining on the tops of some of them. The land on both sides the river is the property of Walter Acton Moseley, Esq., who, we hear, has sustained a damage of six or seven hundred pounds.
“On Friday, the 28th, the Rev. Mr. Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley, preached a sermon upon the ground, to an audience of more than one thousand people. In a most pathetic discourse, he expatiated on the works of Divine Providence; recommended his hearers to prepare for the last great and awful day; and expressed the hope that the present dreadful scene would prove a sufficient warning to them.
So long an extract from a newspaper would hardly have been proper in a “Life of Fletcher,” but for the fact that Fletcher himself immediately published a bulky pamphlet of 104 pages, on the same event. Its long title was the following: “A Dreadful Phenomenon described and improved. Being a Particular Account of the Sudden Stoppage of the River Severn, and of the Terrible Desolation that happened at the Birches, between Coalbrook Dale and Buildwas Bridge, in Shropshire, on Thursday morning, May 27, 1773. And the Substance of a Sermon, preached the next day, on the ruins, to a vast concourse of spectators. By John Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley, in Shropshire, and Chaplain to the Right Hon. the Earl of Buchan. Shrewsbury, 1773. Price, One Shilling.”
Thirty-three pages of Fletcher’s publication are filled with a description of the “Dreadful Phenomenon.” This is dated “Madeley, July 6, 1773.” No useful purpose would be served by quoting Fletcher’s account of what he heard and saw; but the following extract will show how he was led to preach his sermon:—
“Should the reader desire to know why I preached upon the ruins, I will ingenuously tell him. The day the earth opened at the Birches, as I considered one of the chasms, several of my parishioners gathered around me. I observed to them, that, the sight before us was a remarkable confirmation of the first argument of a book called, ‘An Appeal to Matter of Fact, or a Rational Demonstration of Man’s Fallen and Lost Estate,’ which I had just published, as a last effort to awaken to a sense of the fear of God the careless gentlemen of my parish, to whom it is dedicated. Having a few copies about me, which I was going to present to some of them, I begged leave to read that argument.
“I concluded my reading and remarks by thanksgiving and prayer; and, perceiving that seriousness sat upon all faces, I told the people, that, if they would come again the next evening to the same place, I would endeavour to improve the loud call to repentance, which God had given us that day.
“They readily consented; and when I came, at the time appointed, to my great surprise, I found a vast concourse of people, and among them several of my parishioners, who had never been at church in all their life. After a prayer and thanksgiving suitable to the uncommon circumstances, I preached a sermon, of which, so far as I can recollect, the reader may find the substance, with some additions, in the following pages. May it have a better effect upon him than it had upon some of the gentlemen who heard it! Instead of a prayer-book, they pulled out their favourite companion, a bottle; and imparted the strong contents to each other, as heartily as I did the awful contents of my text to the decent part of the congregation. Gentle reader, receive them as cordially as they did their stupifying antidote, and I ask no more.”
This, certainly, was a disgraceful scene, but not so disgraceful as that which occurred a few days afterwards, and which Fletcher, in a foot-note, relates. Among the many thousands, who came to view the results of the earthquake, were a company from Bridgnorth, headed by a young clergyman, who “brought music along with them, and set a-dancing upon the very place where the awful earthquake had happened.”
The text of Fletcher’s almost impromptu sermon was Numb. xvi. 30—34. The sermon itself occupies seventy pages. Addressing the irreverent “gentlemen” before him, the bold preacher cried:—
“O ye Christian Dathans, ye lofty Abirams, ye, who, like those proud Israelites, are in your respective parishes ‘princes of the assembly, famous in the congregation, men of renown,’ the eyes of this populous neighbourhood are upon you, especially the eyes of poor illiterate colliers, waggoners, and watermen. Do you not consider that they mind your examples, rather than God’s precepts? Are you not aware that they follow you as a bleating flock follows the first wandering sheep? Because they cannot read the sacred pages, or even tell the first letters of the alphabet, think you they cannot read secret contempt of Almighty God on the sleeves, in which they sometimes see you laugh at godliness? And suppose ye, they cannot make out open pollution of His Sabbaths when they see the remarkable seats, which you so frequently leave empty at church? Do you not know that the lessons of practical atheism, which you thus give them in the free school of bad example, they learn without delay, practise without remorse, and teach others with unwearied diligence? Alas! the pattern of indevotion, which you set in the house of God, carries, before you are aware, its baneful influence through a hundred private houses. Oh! how many are now numbered among the dead, who have taken to the ways of destruction by following you! How many are yet unborn, upon whom a curse will be entailed, in consequence of the spreading plague of irreligion, which their parents have caught from you! And shall not their blood be, more or less, required at your hands? ‘Shall not I visit for these things, saith the Lord? Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?’”
This was fearless speaking, and not likely to increase Fletcher’s popularity among his rich, dissolute parishioners. The following extract is struck upon another key:—
“Although we cannot all ‘sing the song of the Lamb,’ yet, glory be to God! we all consider the patience of our offended Creator, who, upon these ruins, invites us to repent and live. The earth, in the days of Moses, opened her mouth, and dreadfully swallowed up two families. The earth yesterday opened her mouth, probably far wider, and yet the only two families that lived here were suffered to make their escape. Allelujah! Praise the Lord! Multitudes of fishes have perished on dry ground, and myriads of land insects in the waters; and yet we, sinful insects before God, have neither been drowned in yesterday’s flood, nor buried in these chasms: Allelujah! God’s tremendous axe has been lifted up; some of yonder green trees have been struck; and we, who are dry trees, we, cumberers of the ground, are graciously spared; Allelujah! The house of Dathan and Abiram, with all that appertained unto them, descended into the pit of destruction; and we, who are loaded with mountains of sins, stand yet upon firm ground, with all our friends. Allelujah! God, who might have commanded the earth to swallow up a thronged play-house, the royal exchange, a crowded cathedral, the parliament house, or the king’s palace, has graciously commanded an empty barn to sink, and give us the alarm. Allelujah! He might have ordered such a tract of land as this, to heave, move, and open in the centre of our populous cities; but mercy has inclined Him to fix upon this solitary place. Allelujah! He might have suffered the road and the river to be overthrown, when cursing drivers passed with their horses, and blaspheming watermen with their barges; but His compassion made Him strike the warning blow with all possible tenderness. ‘O that men would therefore praise the Lord for His goodness, and declare the wonders that He does for the children of men!’”
These two extracts from the sermon preached on this remarkable occasion must suffice; but one of Fletcher’s foot-notes may be added:—
“A woman, thirty-five years of age, passing before a looking-glass the day after she heard this sermon, was surprised to see an unusual paleness upon her face. She called her husband, told him she was a dying woman, and actually died in a quarter of an hour. She heard me on the Friday, and I buried her the Monday following. Another middle-aged person, who was also among my hearers, was buried the next day in the next parish. How soon may we be called to give an account of what we speak or hear, write or read!”
The anti-evangelical Monthly Review of November, 1773, in noticing Fletcher’s publication, remarked:—
“Mr. Fletcher, who is a man of learning and considerable abilities, has given us a curious account of this phenomenon, which has been so frequently mentioned in our newspapers. He has minutely, but in very flowery language, described the awful appearances left by this extraordinary convulsion of the earth; and he fairly states the different opinions which were formed in regard to the cause of so wonderful an event. Mr. Fletcher tells us that he piously chose to take advantage of the seriousness stamped, by this alarming occurrence, on the minds of the country people, in order to press upon them a proper sense of the first or moral cause of so tremendous a dispensation; and this he has done in a manner as rational as could be well expected from the peculiarity of the occasion and the known enthusiastic spirit of the preacher.”
280. Wesley’s “Life of Fletcher,” p. 66.
281. Whitehead’s “Life of Wesley,” vol. ii., p. 356.
282. Wesley’s “Life of Fletcher,” p. 68.
283. Miss Bradburn’s MSS., and MS. by Mr. Harrison, of Chester.
284. From this, it would appear that Mrs. Vaughan, previous to her marriage, had been in the employ of Mr. Hill, of Tern Hall.
285. Letters, 1791, p. 216.
286. Letters, 1791, p. 218.