“Your recreations, of which you have given me a brief sketch, are doubtless innocent, especially if they occupy no more of your time than a due attention to health, and the wants of our nature demand. Although you have often reproached me with being too austere, I am far from thinking that religion forbids the use of innocent recreations; because, being indifferent in themselves, they become useful when they are necessary for the relaxation of the body or the mind. I am not at all shocked at the tradition which informs us that St. John sometimes amused himself with a partridge which he had tamed. Happy are they who, as far as they are able, endeavour to turn their own recreations to the advantage of others, which may certainly, if not always, yet sometimes, be done. I sometimes polish shells with Mr. Hill, out of compliance with his wishes. This used formerly to put me in a bad humour, on account of the loss of time it occasioned. But I begin to find that pious thoughts may sanctify an occupation as insignificant as even this, and that a renouncing of one’s own will from compliance with that of others is not without its utility.
“I am now going to reply to that part of your letter in which you testify your surprise at the change which has taken place in my manner of thinking, a change which appears to have struck you in the last letters which I wrote to my father. You cry out against the severity of the principles which I have laid down; and add that, without being a prophet, you boldly predict my giving way before long to enthusiasm and all manner of bodily austerities, led on by the principles I have assumed.
“I am the less astonished, my dear brother, that you should thus speak, because it is the language of ninety-nine Christians of the present day out of every hundred, and because I myself for a long time thought like you on this point. In a certain sense, indeed, I always thought highly of religion, though at the bottom no one perhaps had less of it than I. My infancy was vicious, and my youth still more so. At eighteen I fell into what may properly be termed ‘enthusiasm;’ for though I lived in many habitual sins, yet because I was regularly present at public worship, not only on the Sunday, but during the week, I imagined myself religious. I made long prayers morning and evening, as well as frequently during the day. I devoted to the study of the prophecies, and to books of a religious character, all the time I could spare from my other studies.
“My feelings were easily excited, but my heart was rarely affected, and I was destitute of a sincere love to God, and consequently to my neighbour. All my hopes of salvation rested on my prayers, devotions, and a certain habit of saying, ‘Lord, I am a great sinner; pardon me for the sake of Jesus Christ.’ In the meantime I was ignorant of the fall and ruin in which every man is involved, the necessity of a Redeemer, and the way by which we may be rescued from the fall by receiving Christ with a living faith. I should have been quite confounded if any one had asked me the following questions: ‘Do you know that you are dead in Adam? Do you live to yourself? Do you live in Christ and for Christ? Does God rule in your heart? Do you experience that peace of God which passeth all understanding? Is the love of God shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit?’ I repeat it, my dear brother, these questions would have astonished and confounded me, as they must every one who relies on the form of religion, and neglects its power and influence.
“My religion, alas! having a different foundation from that which is in Christ, was built merely on the sand; and no sooner did the winds and floods arise, than it tottered and fell to ruins. I formed an acquaintance with some Deists, at first with the design of converting them, and afterwards with the pretence of thoroughly examining their sentiments. But my heart, like that of Balaam, was not right with God. He abandoned me, and I enrolled myself in their party. A considerable change took place in my deportment. Before I had a form of religion, and now I lost it; but as to the state of my heart, it was precisely the same. I did not remain many weeks in this state; the Good Shepherd sought after me, a wandering sheep. Again I became professedly a Christian; that is, I resumed a regular attendance at church and the communion, and offered up frequent prayers in the name of Jesus Christ. There were also in my heart some sparks of true love to God, and some germs of genuine faith; but a connection with worldly characters, and an undue anxiety to promote my secular interests, prevented the growth of these Christian graces. Had I now been asked on what I founded my hopes of salvation, I should have replied, that I was not without some religion; that, so far from doing harm to any one, I wished well to all the world; that I resisted my passions; that I abstained from pleasures in which I had once indulged; and that if I was not so religious as some others, it was because such a degree of religion was unnecessary; that heaven might be obtained on easier terms; and that if I perished, the destruction of the generality of Christians was inevitable, which I could not believe was consistent with the mercy of God.
“I was in this state of mind when a dream, which I could not but consider as a warning from God, aroused me from my security.”
At great length Fletcher here relates his dream respecting the final judgment, and then continues:—
“For some days, I was so dejected and harassed in mind as to be unable to apply myself to anything. While in this state, I attempted to copy some music, when a servant entered my chamber. Having noticed my employment, he said, ‘I am surprised, Sir, that you, who know so many things, should forget what day this is, and that you should not be aware that the Lord’s day should be sanctified in a very different manner.’
“The sterling character of the man, his deep humility, his zeal for the glory of God, his love to his neighbours, and especially his patience, which enabled him to receive with joy the insults he met with from the whole family for Christ’s sake, and, above all, the secret energy which accompanied his words, deeply affected me, and convinced me more than ever of my real state. I was convinced, as it had been told me in my dream, that I was not renewed in the spirit of my mind, that I was not conformed to the image of God, and that without this the death of Christ would be of no avail for my salvation.”[[6]]
About this period of his history, Fletcher seems to have become acquainted with the Methodists. Wesley says:—