AFTER this long and awkward interruption, there must now be a return to the wearisome Calvinian controversy.
Early in the year 1773, Mr. Richard Hill published an 8vo. pamphlet of 57 pages, with the title, “The Finishing Stroke: containing some Strictures on the Rev. Mr. Fletcher’s Pamphlet, entitled Logica Genevensis, or a Fourth Check to Antinomianism.”
“The Finishing Stroke!” remarked the Monthly Review for March, 1773. “No—we are afraid not! We shall certainly have more last words from Shropshire. Here is a fresh attack on the Vicar of Madeley. Mr. Hill does not seem at all inclined to let Mr. Fletcher remain master of the field, for want of an opponent, ‘notwithstanding the resolution he had formed of being silent.’—Vide advert. prefixed to the ‘Finishing Stroke.’”
Mr. Hill’s pamphlet is dated January 2, 1773, and addressed to Fletcher. He begins by saying:—
“Last Saturday, and not before, I received your Logica Genevensis, or Fourth Check to Antinomianism; and am truly sorry to find that neither the spirit of the piece, nor the doctrine it contains, is a jot better than what appeared in the former Checks.”
Mr. Richard Hill was angrier than ever. Want of space renders it impossible to examine his theology; and to quote his calumnious accusations is unsavoury work; and yet the latter must be done, for the employment of these slanders was, at least, one of the reasons why the controversy was continued. Perhaps, Fletcher was not averse to fighting. He liked an honourable contest, especially if it was likely to repress evil, or to promote good. To do this had been his chief, almost his only object during the last two years; but now his own reputation was at stake, and he was bound to defend himself, as well as to defend the doctrines he had expounded and enforced.
On the ninth page of his pamphlet, Richard Hill politely asks poor Fletcher, “Can you wonder, Sir, that we look upon you as a spiritual calumniator, and that we accuse you of vile falsehood and gross perversion?”
On the next page, Mr. Hill remarks:—
“I know, Sir, that it was a warm attachment to your friend, which occasioned you to run the lengths you have done. But dear as that friend is to you, truth ought to be dearer still; yet the maxim, which you seem all along to pursue, is, that Mr. Wesley must be vindicated; yea, though all the ministers in the kingdom, yourself not excepted, should fall to the ground. But what makes us still more sensibly feel the power of your pen is that our tenets are most shamefully (would I could say unintentionally) misrepresented, in order to prejudice the world against us, and to make them believe we hold sentiments which from our inmost souls we most cordially detest; particularly with regard to the doctrines of election and perseverance, which you have made to stand upon a pillory as high as Haman’s gallows, dressed up in a frightful garb of your own invention, and then pelted them till all your mud and dirt was exhausted.
“Mr. Wesley has nothing to do but hold up his finger in order to prevent thousands of his followers from ever looking into anything that is written against his own faction, and to make them believe that the Four Checks (as they are called) contain the medulla of the Christian religion. Be this as it will, the unfair quotations you have made, and the shocking misrepresentations and calumnies you have been guilty of, will, for the future, prevent me from looking into any of your books, if you should write a thousand volumes. So here the controversy must end; at least it shall end for me.”
“I cannot, however, conclude without again acknowledging that, in the sight of men, your life is exemplary, and your walk outwardly blameless” (p. 41).
Mr. Richard Hill added a “Postscript” of ten pages to his long letter, the postscript chiefly consisting of extracts from one of Fletcher’s sermons, preached in Madeley Church, eleven years before, and of which Mr. Hill happened to possess a manuscript copy. The text was Rom. xi. 5, 6. Mr. Hill says he regards this sermon as “the best confutation” of Wesley’s “Minutes,” and of Fletcher’s “Checks;” and that, because he so regarded it, he had actually sent it to press; but, doubting the fairness and uprightness of such a proceeding without obtaining the preacher’s permission, he had “stopped the publication.” Mr. Hill, however, now published extracts from the sermon, without Fletcher’s permission; and this induced Fletcher to re-preach his sermon with additions and explanations. This was done in Madeley Church, on May 23, 1773, and the sermon, thus revised, was published in the First Part of Fletcher’s “Equal Check to Pharisaism and Antinomianism,” in 1774.
It would be easy to pick out of Mr. Hill’s “Finishing Stroke” not a few most shameful opprobriums. Fletcher is accused of “descending to the poor illiberal arts of forgery and defamation, in order to blacken his opponents, and to establish his own pernicious principles.” “He had used high-flown sarcastic declamation, base forgeries, and gross misrepresentations.”
Such were some of the acerbities of Richard Hill. He was the slanderer; not Fletcher. The latter was too much a gentleman, to say nothing of his being a Christian, to indulge in such scurrilous vituperation. The two men had been engaged in a theological combat; Hill had been utterly vanquished; and, instead of meekly acknowledging his defeat, he dishonourably abused his victorious opponent. With respect to his conversion, he was more indebted to Fletcher than to any other man; but this was now forgotten. The Vicar of Madeley, whom he had so greatly loved, had become the object of his scorn.
Immediately after the publication of his “Finishing Stroke,” Mr. Richard Hill committed to the press another 8vo pamphlet, of 63 pages, entitled, “Logica Wesleiensis; or, The Farrago Double Distilled. With an Heroic Poem in Praise of Mr. John Wesley.” Mr. Hill, in addressing Wesley, says:—
“I have never seen you above four or five times in my whole life; once in the pulpit at West Street Chapel; once at a friend’s house; and once or twice, at my request, you were so kind as to drink a forbidden dish of tea with me, when I lodged in Vine Street, St. James’s, as I wanted to speak to you concerning a poor man in your connections.“
By his own confession, it is evident that Mr. Hill’s personal knowledge of Wesley was very slight, and yet, in his “Logica Wesleiensis,” he abuses him more ferociously than he had abused Fletcher in his “Finishing Stroke.” Of the contumely hurled at Wesley, nothing will be said here, but two or three extracts concerning Fletcher must be introduced:—
“Mr. Fletcher affirms that all the Protestant Churches, the old Calvinist ministers, and Puritan divines, are on the side of the ‘Minutes.’ Mr. Hill makes it appear, as clear as the sun, that this is a point-blank falsehood as ever was written” (p. 7).
“Mr. Wesley revised, corrected, and gave his own imprimatur to all Mr. Fletcher’s Checks, throughout which, Mr. John is the Alpha and the Omega” (p. 53).[287]
“Since the foregoing pages were finished in manuscript, I have seen Mr. Fletcher’s ‘Logica Genevensis, or Fourth Check to Antinomianism.’ Though I fully intended to have been silent, the many perversions and misrepresentations which I have detected under the cover of much professed candour, will oblige me once more to enter the lists with my able antagonist; but, despairing of my own skill, I must beg leave to call in the Vicar of Madeley, to be my second; and happily for this purpose I have preserved a sermon of his, which was preached by him only a few years ago, in his own parish church, from Rom. xi. 5, 6. I think it is by far the best refutation of the unscriptural doctrine contained in the ‘Minutes,’ and in all the ‘Checks,’ which I have yet seen. As this sermon was publicly delivered before a very numerous congregation, and copies of it handed about, by the preacher’s own permission; and as he tells us that he is determined, God being his helper, to preach the doctrine therein contained, till his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth,—no reasonable person can think that there is the least unfairness in my availing myself of so powerful an ally; and I solemnly declare, upon the word of a Christian, that, in the few extracts I may make from it, I will not alter the least jot or tittle from the manuscript, and only make some marginal notes and observations upon it” (p. 59).
Mr. Richard Hill might think there was nothing unfair in publishing another man’s manuscript without his permission; but men of honour will disagree with him. Even if the manuscript had contained doctrines at variance with some propounded in Fletcher’s “Checks,” what then? Eleven years had elapsed since the sermon was composed and preached; and surely Fletcher was not to be blamed and lashed if, during such a lengthened period, he had modified some of his theological opinions. Fletcher had no choice left to him but to re-examine his old sermon, and ascertain if it contained anything contrary to the doctrines advocated in his “Checks.”
Meanwhile, another opponent had entered the battle-field. Just at this juncture, honest, and good, though eccentric, John Berridge, Vicar of Everton, published his well-known book, entitled, “The Christian World Unmasked. Pray Come and Peep.” 12mo, 229 pp. The doctrines so quaintly taught by Berridge were the doctrines of Richard Hill and his Calvinistic friends; but Berridge was too loving a Christian to display Richard Hill’s acrimonious spirit. The names of Wesley and Fletcher were not once mentioned in the whole of his performance; though, of course, their tenets were attacked. No one could find fault with this; but Fletcher felt it his duty to answer his dear old friend at Everton. Writing to John Thornton, Esq., on August 18, 1773, Berridge remarked:—
“In a letter, just received from Mr. Fletcher, he says, ‘What you have said about sincere obedience has touched the apple of God’s eye, and is the very core of Antinomianism.[288] You have done your best to disparage sincere obedience, and, in a pamphlet ready for the press, I have freely exposed what you have written.’ Then he cries out, in a declamatory style, ‘For God’s sake, let us only speak against insincere and Pharisaical obedience.’ Indeed, I thought I had been writing against insincere obedience throughout the pamphlet; and that every one, who has eyes, must see it clearly; but I suppose Mr. Fletcher’s spectacles invert objects, and make people walk with their heads downwards.”[289]
In another letter to the same gentleman, dated thirteen days afterwards, Berridge observed:—
”I thank you for the friendly admonition you gave me respecting Mr. Fletcher. It made me look into my heart, and I found some resentment there. What a lurking devil this pride is! How soon he takes fire, and yet hides his head so demurely in the embers, that we do not easily discover him! I think it is advisable to write to Mr. Fletcher, though despairing of success. His pamphlet will certainly be published now it is finished. Indeed, I have written to him aforetime more than once, and besought him to drop all controversy; but he seems to regard such entreaties as flowing rather from a fear of his pen than a desire of peace. His heart is somewhat exalted by his writings, and no wonder. He is also endowed with great acuteness, which, though much admired by the world, is a great obstacle to a quiet childlike spirit. And he is at present eagerly seeking after legal perfection, which naturally produceth controversial heat. As Gospel and peace, so law and controversy go hand in hand together. How can lawyers live without strife? In such a situation, I know, from my own former sad experience, he will take the Scotch thistle for his motto, Noli me tangere. But his heart seemeth very upright, and his labours are abundant; and I trust the Master will serve him, by-and-by, as he has served me,—put him into a pickling tub, and drench him there soundly. When he comes out, dripping all over, he will be glad to cry, ‘Grace, grace,’ and ‘a little child may lead him.’ We learn nothing truly of ourselves, or of grace, but in a furnace.
“Whatever Mr. Fletcher may write against my pamphlet, I am determined to make no reply. I dare not trust my own wicked heart in a controversy. If my pamphlet is faulty, let it be overthrown; if sound, it will rise above any learned rubbish that is cast upon it. Indeed, what signifies my pamphlet, or its author? While it was publishing, I was heartily weary of it; and have really been sick of it since, and concluded it had done no good because it had met with no opposition.”[290]
Berridge did write to Fletcher. Hence, in another letter to Mr. Thornton, he said:—
“Everton, September 25, 1773. I have written to Mr. Fletcher, and told him what was my intention in speaking against sincere obedience, and that my intention was manifest enough from the whole drift of my pamphlet. I have also acquainted him that I am an enemy to controversy, and that if his tract is published, I shall not rise up to fight with him, but will be a dead man before he kills me. I further told him I was afraid that Mr. Toplady[291] and himself were setting the Christian world on fire, and the carnal world in laughter, and wished they could both desist from controversy. A letter seemed needful, yet I wrote to him without any hope of success, and it appears there is not any. Mr. Jones, an expelled Oxonian, has just been with him, and called upon me last Saturday. Mr. Fletcher showed him what he had written against my pamphlet. It has been revised by Mr. Wesley, and is to be published shortly.”[292]
Strangely enough, while Berridge was requesting peace from Everton, Richard Hill was doing the same from Hawkstone. Berridge’s three letters to Mr. Thornton cover the space between August 13, 1773, and September 25, 1773; and Richard Hill’s three letters to Fletcher, now to be introduced, cover the space between July 31, 1773, and December 23, 1773. Fletcher answered them privately; but his answers have never been published. Mr. Hill’s letters, too important to be omitted, were as follows:—
“Rev. and Dear Sir,—I am credibly informed that you wish to have done with controversy, and that you are resolved to publish nothing more on the subject of the late disputes. Upon the strength of this information, as well as to maintain my own desire of promoting peace, I shall write to my bookseller in London, to sell no more of any of my pamphlets which relate to the ‘Minutes;’ and for whatever may have savoured too much of my own spirit, either in my answers to you, or to Mr. Wesley, I sincerely crave the forgiveness of you both, and should be most heartily glad if no person whatever were to add another word to what has been already said on either side.
”And permit me to hint, that if some restraint could be laid upon several of Mr. Wesley’s preachers, particularly upon one Perronet (of whose superlatively abusive and insolent little piece,[293] I believe, Mr. Charles Wesley testified his abhorrence from the pulpit), I think, under God, it might be a salutary means of preventing the poison of vain janglings from spreading any further. But, though it is the desire of my soul to live in harmony, love, and friendship with you, dear Sir, yet, if God has ever shown me anything of my own heart, or of the truths of His Word, I must, and still do think that your principles are exceedingly erroneous; and of this, I ever cherish a secret hope that God will convince you, in the course of His dealings with your soul.
“Wishing you abundance of grace, mercy, and peace, I beg leave to subscribe myself, Rev. and dear Sir, your sincere friend in the Gospel of Immanuel,
“P.S.—I wish, dear Sir, you would make Mr. Wesley acquainted with the contents of this letter; and, if I stop the sale of my books, I hope that of the four ‘Checks’ will be stopped also.”
This letter of Mr. Richard Hill, at the first reading, seems to be peaceable and friendly; but there is reason to fear that the principle that prompted it was cowardice rather than courtesy. Mr. Hill had been vanquished more than once; and, naturally enough, he now wished to retire from the arena. This, however, his opponents could not permit, without sending a shaft after him. In his publications just issued, the “Finishing Stroke,” and the “Farrago Double-Distilled,” to say nothing of his previous ones, he had most uncharitably accused Fletcher and Wesley not only of ignorances and mistakes, but of sins. He had called Fletcher a “calumniator;” he had charged him with practising “forgery and defamation,” and “gross misrepresentations,” and “slander.” In the “Farrago Double Distilled,” he had accused Wesley of using “quirks, quibbles, evasions, and false quotations;” and had designated him “a chameleon.” His “Heroic Poem in Praise of Mr. John Wesley” was a disgraceful production, too coarse and vulgar to be quoted. Was it reasonable to wish or expect that no answer should be made to such imputations? Reputation was as dear in the case of John Fletcher and John Wesley as in that of Richard Hill; and, so far as the work of God and the interests of the Church of Christ were concerned, vastly more important. Besides, when Mr. Hill says he was “credibly informed” that Fletcher was “resolved to publish nothing more on the subject of the late disputes,” he was the victim of a delusion, for Fletcher was already preparing his “Fifth Check to Antinomianism.”
Fletcher’s reply to Mr. Hill’s first letter has never been published, but its import may be gathered from Mr. Hill’s second letter to Fletcher, which was as follows:—
“Rev. and Dear Sir,—Attendance at the assizes, and multiplicity of business in my office as a Justice of the Peace, have prevented my returning a more speedy answer to your letter, in which I find you complain of my having treated you with severity.
”This obliges me to request you to call to mind the four ‘Checks,’ and then to say what right the author of them has to complain of severity. Read the sneering mock proclamation given by the four secretaries of state of the predestinarian department; read the charges brought against our celebrated pulpits; and, if you can still justify what you have advanced, you may then with better reason accuse me of severity. It pains me to bring these things to your remembrance, as I was determined, when I wrote last, to avoid every shadow of any accusation against you for what had passed; and I think you must acknowledge that my letter was friendly; but your introduction of the subject obliges me to say what I have. I wish I had any grounds to recall what I have said concerning your having laid very great misrepresentations before the public, in your quotations from Mr. Wesley’s ‘Minutes,’‘Minutes,’ and in the harmony you would make your readers believe there is between the Reformers and Puritans, and Mr. Wesley and yourself; for it is most sure that your principles and theirs are as wide as east from west.
”How far it may be fair to alter the title of your sermon[294] from what it stands in the manuscript, must be left to yourself; I have no objection to it as you propose to print it. As to your explanatory notes and additions in brackets, you know, Sir, that by these you may easily make the sermon itself speak what language you see proper. Clarke and Priestly, by explanatory notes and additions in brackets, can explain away the divinity of Christ; Socinus, His atonement; and Taylor, the corruption of human nature.
”As you intend to introduce my worthless name into your next publication, I must beg to decline the obliging offer you make of my perusing your MSS. I am, Rev. and dear Sir,
Mr. Hill’s last letter is the best of the three. It was written soon after his mother’s death, and a short time before Fletcher’s “First Part of the Fifth Check to Antinomianism” was published. Fletcher offered to allow Mr. Hill to read the work in manuscript, but, as Mr. Hill himself states, the offer was declined.
“Rev. and Dear Sir,—I take the liberty of requesting you to distribute among the poor of Madeley the enclosed two guineas, in such way and manner as you shall judge fit and proper.
“I sent your last letter to my brother Rowland, who is now at Tottenham Court chapel, and suppose he received it. However, I waive saying anything of the subject of it, as it is my design to have totally done with the controversy, which I am firmly persuaded has not done me any good. Excuse me if I say, I wish you to examine closely whether it has done you any. For my own part, I desire to be humbled before God, as well as to ask your forgiveness and Mr. Wesley’s (to whom I purpose making a visit of peace and love when I go to London), for everything that has savoured of wrong or of my own spirit, in what I have written relative to his ‘Minutes;’ and, though I believe your sentiments to be erroneous, yet I esteem and honour you for all you have said against sin; and for the stand you have made for practical religion in this Laodicean, Antinomian age; and truly concerned should I be, if any expressions have dropped from my pen, which might make the readers think lightly of sin, under the notion of honouring the Saviour from sin. But as God can bear me witness that I had no intentions of this sort, so I am certain that whosoever makes Christ all his salvation, can never at the same time make Him a minister of sin; and I trust the hour will come when, under a deep sense of your own sinfulness and nothingness, you will be glad to lay hold of some of those comfortable Gospel truths, which now you look upon as dangerous poison.
“In consequence of my former letter to you, I wrote to my bookseller in London, and told Mr. Eddowes in Shrewsbury, to stop the sale of all my publications concerning the controversy between us; and, unless God shows me that it is a matter of duty so to do, I shall not revoke this order; it being my earnest desire for the time to come, if it be possible, to live peaceably with all men; and, though I cannot approve some of Mr. Wesley’s doctrines, because I believe them to be contrary to Scripture, and am sure they are contrary to my own experience, yet, as I am persuaded that many who are the excellent of the earth are in his connexion, I wish to confirm my love towards them on account of the grace that is in them; and, whilst I reject their errors, still to esteem their persons; and never to say or do anything that may hurt that common cause for which we all ought to be contending, or which may grieve the weakest or meanest of Christ’s people.
“These, dear Sir, are my present sentiments and intentions, and you have my free permission to declare them upon the house-top.
“An afflictive breach, which God has lately been pleased to make in our family, by depriving me of a most tender and affectionate mother, calls upon me to beg your prayers, that the sudden stroke may be sanctified to me and to us all. It loudly bids me remember that I am but a stranger and pilgrim here below. May the Lord give me a pilgrim’s spirit! and may He give us both a right judgment in all things!
“Permit me to subscribe myself, Rev. and dear Sir, your sincere friend and servant in Christ,
The Christian spirit of this letter cannot be excelled. What a contrast to that of the “Finishing Stroke,” published at the beginning of the year! Mr. Hill gave Fletcher full permission to make known the facts that the controversy had done him no good; that he desired to be humbled before God, and to ask forgiveness of Fletcher and Wesley for everything that had “savoured of wrong,” or of his “own spirit,” in his writings; that he had stopped the sale of his publications; and that he regarded many of Wesley’s people as “the excellent of the earth.”
There can be no doubt that Fletcher availed himself of Mr. Hill’s permission. The facts did honour to Mr. Hill; but, as is often the case, in the course of circulation, the facts were perverted. By no fault of Fletcher, it was reported that Mr. Hill had recanted the doctrines he had so stoutly maintained. This was utterly untrue; and led Mr. Hill to send his three letters to the press.[295] No one could have found fault with this; but, unfortunately, Mr. Hill prefixed a preface to his letters, and appended an appendix.
In his preface, he remarks, that when Wesley heard from Fletcher that he (Mr. Hill) had suppressed the sale of his publications, he wrote Mr. Hill “a short and civil letter,” in which he said, he himself intended to write nothing more on the controversy between them, and expressed the hope that all, in the future, would be love and peace. This communication gratified Mr. Hill, and soon afterwards, when he went to London, he had an interview with Wesley at West-street chapel, and assured him of his intentions to retire from the warfare, and said he wished that nothing more should be said on the subject by any one. Wesley took him by the hand; showed a loving, pacific disposition; and, says Mr. Hill, “we parted very good friends.”
Besides this personal narrative, however, the preface renewed the slanderous attacks on Fletcher, accusing him of misrepresenting facts, of using “artifices in his manner of making quotations;” and “declamation, chicanery, evasion, false glosses, and pious frauds, to throw dust into the eyes of his readers.” Not content with this, he made an onslaught on Thomas Olivers, Wesley’s trenchant Itinerant, who (in 1774) had just published a 12mo book of 168 pages, entitled “A Scourge to Calumny. In Two Parts. Inscribed to Richard Hill, Esq.” He sneeringly calls him “one Thomas Oliver, alias Olivers, a journeyman cordwainer, who had written a pamphlet against him (Mr. Hill), which, though in itself black in the grain, was afterwards lacquered up, new soled, and heel-tapped by his master before it was exposed for sale.”
“I shall not,” continues Mr. Hill, “take the least notice of him, or read a line of his composition,[296] any more than, if I was travelling on the road, I would stop to lash, or even order my footman to lash, every impertinent little quadruped in a village, that should come out and bark at me; but would willingly let the contemptible animal have the satisfaction of thinking he had driven me out of sight.”
This was despicable bombast; for the Welsh shoemaker, as a controversial writer, was quite equal to him who, in due time, became a Shropshire baronet. Mr. Hill proceeds to say that he cannot read any more of Fletcher’s books, and, therefore, cannot write any more answers to them; but, because it was now currently reported that he had recanted the doctrines which he had defended, he had revoked his orders to stop the sale of his publications, and that his “Five Letters to Fletcher,” his “Review of Wesley’s Doctrines,” his “Farrago Double Distilled,” his “Paris Conversation,” and his “Finishing Stroke,” might now be bought as heretofore.
The Appendix to Mr. Hill’s Three Letters suggests a proposed title to Fletcher’s works, and sets forth “A Creed for Arminians and Perfectionists,” as follows:—
“I believe that Jesus Christ died for the whole human race, and that He had no more love towards those who now are, or hereafter shall be, in glory, than for those who now are, or hereafter shall be, lifting up their eyes in torments; and that the one are no more indebted to His grace than the other.
“I believe that Divine grace is indiscriminately given to all men; and that God, foreseeing that by far the greater part of the world would reject this grace, doth, nevertheless, bestow it upon them in order to heighten their torments and to increase their damnation in hell.
“I believe it depends wholly on the will of the creature whether he shall or shall not receive any benefit from Divine grace.
“Though the Scripture tells me that the carnal mind is enmity against God, yet I believe there is something in the heart of every natural man that can nourish and cherish the grace of God; and that the sole reason why this grace is effectual in some and not in others, is entirely owing to themselves and to their own faithfulness, and not to the distinguishing love and favour of God.
“I believe that God sincerely wishes for the salvation of many who never will be saved; consequently, that it is entirely owing to want of ability in God that what He so earnestly willeth is not accomplished.
“I believe that the Redeemer not only shed His precious blood, but prayed for the salvation of many souls who are now in hell; consequently, that His blood was shed in vain, and His prayer rejected of His Father; and that, therefore, He told a great untruth when He said, ‘I know that Thou hearest me always.’
“I believe that God, foreseeing some men’s nature will improve the grace which is given them, and that they will repent, believe, and be very good, elects them unto salvation.
“I believe that the love and favour of Him with whom is no variableness and shadow of turning, and whose gifts and callings are without repentance, may vary, change, and turn every hour and every moment, according to the behaviour of the creature.
“I believe that the seed of the Word, by which God’s children are born again, is a corruptible seed; and that, so far from enduring for ever (as that mistaken apostle Peter rashly affirms), it is frequently rooted out of the hearts of those in whom it was sown.
“I believe that Christ does not always give unto His sheep eternal life; but that they often perish, and are, by the power of Satan, frequently plucked out of His hand.
“Though I have solemnly subscribed to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, and have affirmed that I believe them from my heart, yet I think our Reformers were profoundly ignorant of true Christianity, when they declared, in the Ninth Article, that ‘the infection of nature doth remain in them which are regenerate;’ and, in the Fifteenth, that ‘all we, the rest (Christ only excepted), although baptized and born again in Christ, yet offend in many things; and if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.’ This I totally deny, because it cuts up, root and branch, my favourite doctrine of Perfection; and, therefore, let Peter, Paul, James, or John, say what they will; and let reformers and martyrs join their syren song, their eyes were at best but half opened, for want of a little Foundery eye-salve; therefore, I cannot look upon them as adult believers, and fathers in Christ.”
The Eleven Articles were subscribed, “J. F.,” “J. W.,” and “W. S.;” which may be taken as the initial letters of the names of John Fletcher, John Wesley, and Walter Sellon.
“What! more finishing strokes!” remarked the Monthly Review of January, 1775, in its notice of Mr. Hill’s new pamphlet. “This retiring champion, however, like the Parthians of old, is not less formidable in his retreat than in a direct attack. He here lets fly at the Arminians and Perfectionists one of his sharpest pointed arrows. He styles it ‘their creed.’ He says he has ‘composed it from their sentiments;’ and he adds that he ‘can scarcely read it without horror.’ Yet he thinks himself justified in publishing it, as Mr. Fletcher still continued the controversy with so much warmth.”
All this is deeply to be regretted. Mr. Hill had declared his determination to abandon this painful warfare, and yet here he provokes a continuance of it. It is true that, meanwhile, Fletcher had published his “Answer to the Finishing Stroke” of Mr. Hill; but Fletcher had done this, not because he desired the controversy to be prolonged, but because “The Finishing Stroke” contained so many grave attacks on Fletcher’s moral character, that Fletcher’s honour could not be maintained without an “Answer” being written. At this point the war might have ended; but, by appending the “Creed for Arminians and Perfectionists” to his Three Letters, Mr. Hill re-opened the sluice, and “the waters of strife” flowed as fiercely as ever.
From a Calvinian point of view, the “Creed” is drawn up with great ability; but Mr. Hill was well aware that it was a misrepresentation of the sentiments of Fletcher and Wesley. Besides, the thing itself was in bad taste. It must be acknowledged that Fletcher had published his “Gospel Proclamation: Given at Geneva, and signed by four of his Majesty’s principal Secretaries of State for the Predestinarian Department!” but there was no need that Mr. Richard Hill should copy Fletcher’s objectionable example.
It is now time, however, to turn to Fletcher’s masterly replies.
287. This was not true, at all events, so far as the “Fourth Check” was concerned. See Wesley’s Works, vol. x., p. 400.
288. In a letter to the Rev. John Newton, of Olney, dated September 20, 1773, Berridge said, in his own quaint style, “The Vicar of Madeley has sent me word that my prattle, in my pamphlet of ‘Sincere Obedience,’ ‘is the core of Antinomianism, has exposed St. James, and touched the apple of God’s eye,’ and that he intends to put my head in the pillory, and my nose in the barnacles for so doing.” (“Works of Berridge; and Life by Whittingham,” p. 386.)
289. “Works of Berridge; and Life by Whittingham,” p. 382.
290. “Works of Berridge; and Life by Whittingham,” p. 384.
291. In the preceding year, Toplady had published his scurrilous pamphlet, with the title, “More Work for Mr. John Wesley; or, A Vindication of the Decrees and Providence of God from the Defamations of a late printed paper, entitled, ‘The Consequence Proved.’”
292. “Works of Berridge; and Life by Whittingham,” p. 387.
293. Probably Edward Perronet’s “Small Collection in Verse: containing a Hymn to the Holy Ghost; an Epigram from the Italian,” etc. Printed in 1772. 12mo, 16 pp.
294. The sermon preached in Madeley Church, on May 23, 1773, and afterwards published in the “Fifth Check to Antinomianism.”
295. The title was, “Three Letters, written by Richard Hill, Esq., to the Rev. J. Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley, in the year 1773; setting forth Mr. Hill’s Reasons for declining any further controversy relative to Mr. Wesley’s Principles. Shrewsbury.” 8vo., 30 pp.
296. If Mr. Hill had not read Thomas Oliver’s little book, how is it that he can so graphically describe it?