Fletcher of Madeley

by Frederic W. Macdonald

But this first, or Oxford, Methodism was now a thing of the past. The Methodism that Fletcher found in England was really another and very different thing, though called by the same name. It was separated from the former, not only by a score or so of years, but by spiritual changes and developments of the most important character. The first Methodists were, above all things, students and Churchmen. They revived the observance of long neglected canons and rubrics; they moulded their lives on ascetic models, fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, and eating no flesh during Lent except on Saturdays and Sundays. They thought and spoke much of Christian antiquity, and, like the Oxford leaders of a century later, sought in that venerable past a rule and an authority co-ordinate with Scripture. They read Thomas à Kempis and Bishop Taylor and the great High Church mystic of their own day, William Law. This Oxford Methodism, with its almost monastic rigours, its living by rule, its canonical hours of prayer, is a fair and noble phase of the many-sided life of the Church of England, and, with all its defects and limitations, claims our deep respect. But it was not the instrument by which the Church and nation were to be revived; it had no message for the world, no secret of power with which to move and quicken the masses. To do this it must become other than it was. It must die, in order to bring forth much fruit. And this death and rising again were accomplished in the spiritual change wrought in John Wesley, the leader of the earlier and of the later Methodism. What was that change?

In the year 1738, on his return from Georgia, Wesley writes: "It is now two years and almost four months since I left my native country, in order to teach the Georgian Indians the nature of Christianity. But what have I learned myself meantime? Why, what I the least of all suspected: that I, who went to America to convert others, was never myself converted to God."

Now it may be urged, with some show of reason, as indeed his own language in later life implies, that Wesley was not, in the full sense of the term, an unconverted man during the whole of his Oxford life and of his residence in Georgia. But nothing is more certain than the reality and importance of the change through which he now passed. His apprehension of salvation by faith in Christ had been hitherto obscure and imperfect. He found no rest for his soul. He longed to be at peace with God. "The faith which I want is a sure trust and confidence in God that, through the merits of Christ, my sins are forgiven, and I reconciled to the favour of God, ... that faith which enables every one that hath it to cry out, 'I live not, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me.'" It is not necessary to repeat here the oft-told story of Wesley's acquaintance with the Moravians, and more particularly with Peter Böhler, by whose teaching and testimony he was convinced that the one thing wanting to him was a living faith in Christ, together with that assurance of forgiveness and power over sin that are its fruits. How much had to be surrendered before a man of Wesley's training and attainments could submit himself to the conception of saving faith that was now presented to him, may be learnt from his own statements. It is enough to say that he found that way of faith in Christ which is the open secret of the gospel, at once "hidden from the wise and prudent, and revealed unto babes." He received the reconciliation and rejoiced in God. "I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." This was Wesley's "conversion." Whether rightly so called or not, there is no doubt as to the change itself, and its results. Henceforth he was a new man, ready for a new work. Instead of directing the religious life of a handful of devout university men, he traversed the land in every direction, preaching to the multitudes and organizing societies for Christian fellowship. Religion was no longer a painful quest, a high endeavour, a discipline, but a life bright with the Divine favour and filled with unspeakable blessings, offered to all men through faith in Christ. Peace with God, the witness and fruit of the Spirit, the blessings of sonship and sanctification,—these were not the rewards of fidelity and endurance, the privilege of the few; they were included in the common salvation. Every sinner might seek them, every believer would find them. There is no mistaking the difference between this gospel, soon to be preached in every town and village of England, and the teaching that nourished the austere piety of the Oxford Methodists. As an able writer has put it, "The birthday of a Christian was shifted from his baptism to his conversion, and in that change the partition line of two great systems is crossed." Some will reckon this change a grave error, and all that came of it to be but a falling away from a high beginning. They will find in the ascetic, churchly pietists of the earlier time their true Wesley and their ideal Methodism; but time and history have borne a testimony from which there is, practically, no appeal. The Methodism that revived the Church and awakened the nation was not that of the "Holy Club" at Oxford. It differed from it as Wesley after "conversion" differed from his former self. Its spirit, its methods, its watchwords were altered. Something may have been lost when Methodism moved from its academic birthplace into the work-day world, but more was gained. It had found what it had long sought. It knew now what salvation meant. "I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He ... set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord."

By the time that Fletcher became acquainted with Methodism it had passed through some important stages of its history. It had reached its highest point in the favour of a small section of the aristocracy, and had encountered its strongest opposition among the people. Never in subsequent years were so many persons of rank associated with Methodism as in its first two or three decades; and never in later times have its followers endured afflictions like those which the first Methodists suffered in Staffordshire, in Yorkshire, and in Cornwall. It had now secured something like peace for its persecuted people; its travelling preachers crossed and recrossed the entire country; its societies contained many thousands of members, won for the most part from ignorance and irreligion; and with restless yet disciplined activity it was appreciably influencing the national life. Religion, which had seemed to "stand on tiptoe in our land," turned again to its ancient seats, and to the home it had well-nigh forsaken. There was hope for Christianity among us yet.

It was during one of Fletcher's journeys to London with Mr. Hill's family that he first met with the people called Methodists. The story is told by Wesley: "While they stopped at St. Albans, he walked out into the town, and did not return till they were set out for London. A horse being left for him, he rode after, and overtook them in the evening. Mr. Hill asked him why he stayed behind. He said, 'As I was walking I met with a poor old woman, who talked so sweetly of Jesus Christ, that I knew not how the time passed away.' 'I shall wonder,' said Mrs. Hill, 'if our tutor does not turn Methodist by-and-by.' 'Methodist, madam,' said he; 'pray, what is that?' She replied, 'Why, the Methodists are a people that do nothing but pray; they are praying all day and all night.' 'Are they?' said he; 'then, by the help of God, I will find them out, if they be above ground.' He did find them out not long after, and was admitted into the society."

Amongst the Methodists Fletcher learnt what Wesley had learnt from the Moravians, that there was something in religion to which he was yet a stranger. Like so many others of fine moral nature and virtuous habits, he was much perplexed as to the nature of saving faith. "Is it possible," he writes, "that I, who have always been accounted so religious, who have made divinity my study, and received the Premiums of Piety (so called) from the university for my writings on Divine subjects,—is it possible that I should yet be so ignorant as not to know what faith is?" He came to the conclusion that this was so. His past life, so free from outward sin, appeared to him to be sinful beyond expression. It had no foundation in Christ. He had lived to himself. His righteousness was self-righteousness, it was as filthy rags. He now heard sermons, but was only the more convinced that he was an unbeliever; he wrote out a confession of his sins, misery, and helplessness, but had no heart to finish it. He feared he did not even yet mourn enough for his sins; "but I found relief in Mr. Wesley's 'Journal,' where I learned that we should not build on what we feel, but that we should go to Christ with all our sins and hardness of heart." Deliverance however was at hand. The salvation that he longed for drew near. He trusted in Christ, and found rest to his soul. His bonds were broken. He was filled with joy and peace through believing. Henceforth, "the life that he lived in the flesh, he lived by the faith of the Son of God."

It is surely worthy of remark that the chief leaders of the Evangelical Revival were converted in mature life, not after a wild and reckless, but after a more than commonly religious youth. Among the associates soon to be gathered around them a very different type of spiritual history may be discerned. Many of these had been notoriously sinful, and their conversion had all the dramatic completeness which belongs to a sudden transformation of conduct and character. But of the Wesleys and Whitefield at Oxford, and subsequently of Fletcher, it might be said that they were "touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless." They fasted and prayed, and frequented the sacrament; they read religious books; they visited the sick and taught the ignorant; they eschewed all self-indulgence, were scrupulous in respect of duty, and consistently devout in spirit and manner. And yet the change wrought in them when they obtained a saving faith in Christ could not have been really greater if there had been a previous life of sin and folly to escape from. When a man passes from a righteousness of his own "which is of the law," to "that which is through faith in Christ," it is as truly a birth from above as when he is turned from sin to righteousness. The inner power and significance of conversion are the same in both cases. But this is widely misunderstood. That the wicked should be, if possible, converted, is generally held to be desirable. Society, even when most cynical and worldly, does, in a manner, hold that it behoves evil doers, especially among the lower orders, to repent of their sins and mend their ways; but that good people should call themselves sinners, that scholars and gentlemen of excellent character—whose only fault indeed was that of being righteous overmuch—should be anxious about their souls, and make other respectable people as uneasy as themselves, caused much irritation and perplexity.

It was, however, not the least of God's mercies to the Church and nation that the Revival began as it did with the conversion of good men, that its first witnesses and workers were not reclaimed profligates, but representatives of all that was best in the existing social order. If the gospel was to awaken the conviction of sin in such men as these, if it was to disclose to them deep spiritual needs, and set them asking what they must do to be saved, then society had misunderstood the whole matter,—which indeed was pretty nearly the case. Society's discernment of evil when it takes the form of crime is sufficiently acute; concerning vice also it has convictions more or less emphatic: but of sin, as sin, its notions are feeble and confused. And that confusion and inadequacy of view are shared by the Church when men's need of Christ and His salvation is measured by the more or less of their outward good behaviour; as though conversion were necessary for wicked and worthless members of the community, while those of a better sort can see the kingdom of God without being born from above. The history and experience of its leaders, humanly speaking, preserved the Revival from this error, and from the first guarded the doctrine of the new birth from one of its most common and practical perversions. The notion that while there are some people too bad to be converted there are others too good to require it, was doubly disproved. The early Methodist preachers moved joyously and confidently through the land, proclaiming a salvation which the worst might obtain, and which the best must not refuse or neglect.