Fletcher of Madeley

by Frederic W. Macdonald

But, unhappily, no private and friendly understanding was arrived at. As the time for Wesley's next Conference drew near, a circular letter, signed "Walter Shirley," was sent round among the friends of the Evangelical movement, proposing that those who disapproved the obnoxious minutes "should go in a body to the said Conference, and insist upon a formal recantation of the said minutes, and in case of a refusal sign and publish their protest against them." This proposed demonstration however, from various causes, dwindled down to a small deputation, which presented itself, meekly enough, at the Conference at Bristol, and was received by Wesley and the preachers in a friendly manner. The spirit of conciliation was in the ascendant. Wesley and all his preachers present, except one, signed a declaration admitting that the minutes were not sufficiently guarded in the way they were expressed, and repudiating the meaning which had been put upon them, viz. that of justification by works. Mr. Shirley, in return, wrote a memorandum to the effect that "the declaration agreed to in Conference, August 8th, 1771, had convinced him that he had mistaken the meaning of the doctrinal points in the 'Minutes of the Conference, held in London, August 7th, 1770'; and he hereby wished to testify the full satisfaction he had in the said declaration, and his hearty concurrence and agreement with the same."

Why did not the matter end here? Might not such explanations and concessions have secured peace? Was a seven years war absolutely necessary? To this question we have met with no really satisfactory reply. But it must now be mentioned that, prior to the assembling of the Conference at Bristol, Fletcher had written a "Vindication" of the much discussed minutes in the form of "Five Letters" to Mr. Shirley. The manuscript of this "Vindication" was in Wesley's hands, and was, in fact, being set up in type at the very time that Shirley and his friends were having their interview with Wesley and the Conference. The question is, whether the publication should have been proceeded with in the turn that things had taken. Shirley, hearing that Fletcher's "Letters" were in the press, not unnaturally requested that the issue might be stopped. Fletcher himself wrote to his friend Mr. Ireland: "I feel for poor dear Mr. Shirley, whom I have (considering the present circumstances) treated too severely in my 'Vindication of the Minutes.' My dear sir, what must be done? I am ready to defray, by selling to my last shirt, the expense of the printing of my 'Vindication,' and suppress it. Direct me, dear sir. Consult with Mr. Shirley and Mr. Wesley about the matter. Be persuaded I am ready to do everything that will be brotherly in this unhappy affair." But in Wesley's judgment nothing that had taken place required the suppression of so admirable a "tract for the times," and accordingly it was published. Opinions will be divided as to the wisdom and propriety of the step. It may be said: "The merely personal aspect of the question was now disposed of. But the evils which had led to the recording of the 'minutes' were real evils, and were not to be got rid of by an interchange of courtesies between Wesley and the Conference on the one hand, and Lady Huntingdon and Mr. Shirley on the other. Circumstances, or rather Providence, had discovered—nay, raised up—in Fletcher the very man for the present need. What could be better, in the interest of true religion, than to send forth broadcast, not merely a 'Vindication of the Minutes,' and of Wesley's action, but a powerful defence of the gospel itself against the chief and most dangerous error of the day?" There could be no mistake as to the value of what Fletcher had written. His argument was clear in outline, and convincing in detail. The gospel way of salvation was defended on the right hand and on the left. Popular errors were exposed, paradoxes explained, and misunderstanding removed, with a knowledge of the Scriptures and a skill in reasoning that astonished every one. The meek Vicar of Madeley was a master of controversy. He had learning and logic for scholars, with imagination, wit, and pathos to charm the common people. The style was genial and easy, abounding in lively comparisons and illustrations, while a gentle vein of humour, stopping short of bitterness on the one hand, and burlesque on the other, mingled, not unbecomingly, with passages of the most exalted devotion. "Those letters," wrote Wesley, "could not be suppressed, without betraying the honour of our Lord." This decided his action.

Of course Fletcher's letters had their reply from Mr. Shirley, and that, in turn, required to be answered. Then Richard Hill entered the field, and him also Fletcher encountered, and as the controversy grew it spread out over the wide area of questions speculative and practical which the term Calvinism covers or suggests, and called fresh combatants into the field. We have no heart to pursue the details of this history. It is complicated and unremunerative in the last degree. It deepened into bitterness and scurrility, till its baser literature becomes unreadable for very shame; it separated brethren; it turned allies into adversaries; it offered to a sceptical and ungodly age the spectacle of good men "smiting one another unfriendly," and consumed time and strength that were wanted, and more than wanted, for the Christianising of the country.

Through all this strife and confusion we can at least follow Fletcher without shame, if not without regret. We have already quoted Southey's eulogy on him. It is not excessive. He kept his temper through seven years of trying controversy. He lived and wrote "as ever in his great Taskmaster's eye." Love to God is manifest in every page, and only second to it is love for those with whom he must needs contend, a veritable "longing after them in the bowels of Jesus Christ."

Fletcher's "Checks" were the best thing born of the controversy. They did not,—need it be said?—finally dispose of the problems respecting God's foreknowledge and sovereignty, and the free agency and responsibility of man. These problems are perhaps much where they were when first confronted. If they are less discussed in our own day than formerly, it is not that the difficulties they present have been solved, but that a juster estimate of the limits of our powers, together with a deeper sense of the antinomies of Divine law, has in a great measure withdrawn the Christian mind from these questions to more remunerative ones. That the doctrines commonly called Calvinistic logically lead either to presumption or despair, may perhaps fairly be urged; that they do so as matter of fact, and on any wide scale, would be difficult to prove. But whether the vulgar antinomianism of Fletcher's day had or had not its roots in Calvinistic doctrine, his handling of it as a practical matter is vigorous and effective in the highest degree. He pursues it in all its forms. He exposes and refutes those one-sided reasonings which "make for unrighteousness"; he sets forth law in gospel, and gospel in law, with admirable balance and proportion; he exhibits Christian holiness as the sum of duty and the crown of privilege, and breathes throughout a heavenly spirit, which the warmth of controversy seldom, if ever, disturbs.

May we say then, as some one has said, "it was worth while to have the Calvinistic controversy, if it were only for the sake of Fletcher's contribution to it"? Our answer is, most emphatically, No. We have too deep a sense of the evils of a long and embittered strife between good men to pass any such judgment. Nor can we suppose that such a controversy furnished the only, or even the most favourable, conditions for the exercise of Fletcher's gifts. We should have preferred for him—can we doubt that he would have preferred for himself?—the opportunity of writing books "touching the King" without the necessity for splitting hairs with Shirley, and for winnowing the coarse abuse of Toplady, and the extravagances of Rowland and Richard Hill.

But while we regard the controversy as both an error and an evil, we are far from denying that it had its compensations, for which we are indebted almost exclusively to Fletcher. His writings undoubtedly served to fasten deep discredit upon that imperfect gospel—"another gospel, which is not another,"—which permits its followers "to continue in sin that grace may abound." Without lowering or lessening the doctrine of justification by faith, Fletcher gave new emphasis and clearer setting to the doctrine of Christian holiness, and rescued Christian ethics from disparagement and neglect. Without taking away from the virtue of the atonement in its relation to the whole standing of the believer, he enforced that great practical end of redemption, "the righteousness of the law, fulfilled in men walking not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Towards the close of the year 1774 Wesley wrote, "If we could once bring all our preachers, itinerant and local, uniformly and steadily to insist on those two points, 'Christ dying for us,' and 'Christ reigning in us,' we should shake the trembling gates of hell. I think most of them are now exceeding clear herein, and the rest come nearer, especially since they have read Mr. Fletcher's 'Checks,' which have removed many difficulties out of the way."

Fletcher's "Checks to Antinomianism" at once took a foremost place in the literature of Methodism. Wesley recommended them to his followers with all the weight of his authority. The interest awakened by the controversy, the popular style in which they were written, and the elevation and fervour of piety manifest throughout, carried them into every Methodist household. They were studied by the preachers, and read for spiritual edification by all the more earnest members of the Society. They did much to nourish the spiritual life of such men and women as Bramwell, and Carvosso, and Hester Ann Rogers, names that adorn and interpret the Methodist doctrine of "Entire Sanctification." It is not too much to say that for many years they were not least among the instruments employed in connexion with the ever-extending Revival, "for the perfecting of the saints, ... for the edifying of the body of Christ."