'Our life is a dream;
Our time as a stream
Glides swiftly away,
And the fugitive moment refuses to stay.'"
After this he gave them a lecture on the value of time, and the worth of the soul. They then all knelt down in prayer, after which he dismissed them with impressions on the mind the narrator never ceased to remember.[6]
In following Fletcher through the earlier years of his ministry at Madeley the thought will present itself to most persons that a good wife would have been an incalculable blessing to him. In a letter to Mr. Perronet, written in November, 1765, he says, "I live alone in my house, having neither wife, child, nor servant." Surely this is a somewhat forlorn view of the Vicar of Madeley, which not all his gentle cheerfulness can effectually brighten. A wife's ministering would have been as good for his health and comfort as her sympathy and counsel would have been helpful in the peculiar difficulties of his pastorate. George Herbert, in his "Country Parson," though he shows a sufficient leaning towards the celibacy of the clergy, yet qualifies his verdict: "The country parson, considering that virginity is a higher state than matrimony, and that the ministry requires the best and highest thing, is rather unmarried than married. But yet, ... as the temper of his parish may be, where he may have occasion to converse with women, and that amongst suspicious men, and other like circumstances considered, he is rather married than unmarried." Fletcher was never suspected of levity or indiscretion. It was hardly within the power, either of the foolish or the malicious, to fasten scandal upon one so transparently pure in spirit and demeanour. But, as it has been seen, the religious fears and fancies, and morbid or fanatical conditions of certain women caused him much trouble, and almost made him despair of his work. In these matters the aid of such a wife as Fletcher would have married—as many years afterwards he did marry—would have been invaluable. It is the more to be regretted that he did not marry, as it appears that his heart was already drawn towards Miss Bosanquet, his future wife. But her fortune he regarded as an almost insuperable obstacle. Juvenal's sarcasm, Veniunt a dote sagittæ, recurred to him, and he shrank from the notion of becoming the suitor of a wealthy woman. Charles Wesley thought it would be better for him to marry; but he repelled the suggestion, and wrote him several "reasons against matrimony," which, to say the truth, are a very laboured piece of writing, and are never likely to convince any human being whose mind is not already made up.
CHAPTER VII.
CONTROVERSY AND CORRESPONDENCE.
Almost from the beginning of his ministry Fletcher's pen was active in the service of religion. From various causes much, if not the greater part, of his writings was controversial, and to this fact may be assigned, in part at least, their immediate popularity and subsequent neglect. But the spirit of controversy never got the better of the spirit of devotion. Whatever view may be taken of the Calvinist controversy, in which he took a leading part, few will dissent from Southey's judgment: "If ever true Christian charity was manifested in polemical writing, it was by Fletcher of Madeley. Even theological controversy never in the slightest degree irritated his heavenly temper." Some extracts from his earlier writings will show the spirit in which he entered upon this part of his labours.
In reply to the visitation sermon attacking the "doctrines of Methodism," he wrote, in July, 1761, a short "Defence of Experimental Religion," which may be classed amongst the best apologies of the period. He had now acquired an easy, pleasant English style, tending somewhat to the florid and diffuse, but generally stopping short of excess, and often forcible and persuasive in a high degree. He had no difficulty in showing that to represent virtue and morality as the way to salvation is neither agreeable to the Scripture nor to the doctrine of the Church of England. The true nature of justification, and of the faith that justifies, he illustrates from the Articles and Homilies. The necessity of God's grace to turn the will, as against the superficial notion that a man is as free to do good as to do evil, is shown from Article X., from the baptismal office, and the collect for Ash Wednesday.
It was inevitable in the state of religion in England, and considering the chief intellectual influences then in the ascendant, that to preach salvation as a present blessing to be possessed and enjoyed, was to incur the charge of enthusiasm. The high and moderate clergy never felt surer of themselves than when exposing the folly and presumption of "feelings" and "experiences" in religion. Fletcher distinguishes between what is true and what is false on this subject:
"To set up impulses as the standard of our faith or rule of our conduct; to take the thrilling of weak nerves, sinking of the animal spirits, or flights of a heated imagination, for the workings of God's Spirit; to pretend to miraculous gifts, and those fruits of the Spirit which are not offered and promised to believers in all ages, or to boast of the graces which that Spirit produces in the heart of every child of God, when the fruits of the flesh appear in our life—this is downright enthusiasm: I detest it as well as you, sir, and I heartily wish you good luck whenever you shall attack such monstrous delusions.