CHAPTER VIII.
COMMENCEMENT OF THE CALVINIAN
CONTROVERSY.
1770 AND 1771.
DURING his absence from England, Fletcher wrote several letters to the masters and students of the Countess of Huntingdon’s College at Trevecca;[[205]] but none of these have been published, and, probably, none of them now exist. Immediately after his return, and before he had an opportunity of visiting the College, he indited the following remarkable epistle:—
“Madeley, July 23, 1770.
“To the masters and students of Lady Huntingdon’s College.
“Grace, mercy, and peace attend you, my dear brethren, from God our Father, and from our Lord and Brother Jesus Christ!
“Brother, do I say? Should I not rather have written All? Is not He all and in all? All to believers, for He is their God, as the λογος (the Word), and their Friend, Brother, Father, Spouse, etc., etc., etc., as He is λογος γενομενος σαρξ (the Word made flesh). From Him, through Him, and in Him, I salute you in the Spirit. I believe He is here with me, and in me. I believe He is yonder with you, and in you; for ‘in Him we live, move, and have,’ not only our animal, but rational and spiritual, ‘being.’ May the powerful grain of faith remove the mountain of remaining unbelief, that you and I may see things as God sees them! When this is the case, we shall discover that the Creator is All indeed, and that creatures, which we are wont to put in His place, are mere nothings, passing clouds that our Sun of Righteousness has thought fit to clothe Himself with, and paint some of His glories upon. In an instant, He could scatter them into their original nothing, or resorb them for ever, and stand without competitor, יחוה, the Being.
“But suppose that all creatures should stand for ever, little signatures of God, what are they even in their most glorious estate, but as tapers kindled by His light, as well as formed by His power? Now conceive a Sun, a spiritual Sun, whose centre is everywhere, whose circumference can be found nowhere; a Sun whose lustre as much surpasses the brightness of the luminary that rules the day, as the Creator surpasses the creature; and say, What are the twinkling tapers of good men on earth,—what is the smoking flax of wicked creatures,—what the glittering stars of saints in heaven? Why, they are all lost in His transcendent glory, and if any one of these would set himself up as an object of esteem, regard, or admiration, he must indeed be mad with self and pride. He must be, as dear Mr. Howell Harris has often told us, a foolish apostate, a devil.
“Understand this, believe this, and you will sink to unknown depths of self-horror, for having aspired at being somebody, self-humiliation at seeing yourself nobody, or what is worse an evil-body.
“But I would not have you dwell even upon this evil, so as to lose sight of your Sun, unless it be to see Him covered, on this account, with our flesh and blood, and wrapt in the cloud of our nature. Then you will cry out with St. Paul, ‘O the depth!’ Then, finding the manhood is again resorbed into the Godhead, you will gladly renounce all selfish, separate existence in Adam and from Adam. You will take Christ to be your life; you will become His members by eating His flesh and drinking His blood; you will consider His flesh as your flesh, His bone as your bone, His Spirit as your spirit, His righteousness as your righteousness, His cross as your cross, and His crown (whether of thorns or glory) as your crown. You will reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God, through this dear Redeemer. You will renounce propriety; you will heartily and gladly say, ‘Not I, not I, but Christ liveth; and only because He lives, I do, and shall live also.’
“When it is so with us, then we are creatures in our Creator, and redeemed creatures in our Redeemer. Then we understand and feel what He says, ‘Without Me the Creator, ye are nothing; without Me the Saviour, ye can do nothing.’ ‘The moment I consider Christ and myself as two, I am gone,’ says Luther; and I say so too. I am gone into self, and into Antichrist; for that which will be something, will not let Christ be all; and that which will not let Christ be all, must certainly be Antichrist. What a poor, jejune, dry thing is doctrinal Christianity, compared with the clear and heartfelt assent that the believer gives to these fundamental truths! What life, what strength, what comfort flow out from them! O my friends, let us believe, and we shall see, taste, and handle the Word of Life. When I stand in unbelief, I am like a drop of muddy water drying up in the sun of temptation. I can neither comfort, nor help, nor preserve myself. When I do believe and close in with Christ, I am like that same drop losing itself in a boundless, bottomless sea of purity, light, life, power, and love. There my good and my evil are equally nothing; equally swallowed up; and grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life.