“But what weighed most with me, next to what passed in my heart, the third Sunday in Lent, was the strong light in which I saw the great difficulty arising from the difference of sentiments between the students and myself. I had frequently observed that, if I tried to stir up those who appeared to be carnally secure, or spiritually asleep on their soft doctrinal pillows, they directly fancied I aimed at robbing them of one of their jewels, the doctrine of perseverance, though the Searcher of hearts knows I had not the least thought about it. By the same stratagem of the enemy, when I exhorted loiterers to leave the things that are behind, and press toward the mark for the prize of our high calling in Christ, they imagined I wanted to drive them to the brink of some horrible precipice, or into the jaws of some monster called Perfection, in which notion they were possibly confirmed not only by Mr. Shirley’s positive assertions, but by frequent hints thrown out by her ladyship herself upon the danger of that imaginary bugbear. Alas! how needless it is to give charges against sinless Perfection to young men who believe no such thing is to be attained, and who live mostly under the power of the carnal mind. What must be the consequence if grace does not interpose? What, but a settling upon the lees of nature and formality, and a singing of a soft requiem to the drowsy hearts of those who are not really alive to God? What makes me think so, is the frequent opportunities I have had to observe that a word which may too indirectly countenance sin, by the craft and power of Satan and the prevalence of natural corruption, goes farther than twenty directly and powerfully thundered against it.
“Again. The light of most Calvinists is such that they cannot believe a man knows anything of free grace who does not enter into all their sentiments. Of this, a moderate one gave me lately a particular instance, by telling me point blank, I was in a damnable heresy, and never knew anything of myself or of true grace, because I had said, sinners perish for resisting and quenching the Spirit of grace. Hence, I conclude, and not without a premise, that it would be as ridiculous in me to expect the majority of students to follow my directions, as it would be to hope that young men who have good eyes should follow a person whom they believe almost if not altogether blind.
“Things appeared to me in this light, when the uneasiness of my lady occasioned by Mr. Wesley’s Minutes showed itself. I admired her zeal for the grand truths of the Gospel. Appearances were for her, and I could not excuse Mr. Wesley’s unguarded expressions, any more than my lady’s great warmth against them; her ladyship having mentioned again and again that they were horrible and abominable, and that she must burn against them, and at last added, that, whosoever in the College did not fully and without any evasion disavow them should not stay in her College, etc. Accordingly, an order came for the students and masters to write their sentiments upon them. I thought I would not lay that burden upon others without touching it myself, and, following the light in which I could see and trace Mr. Wesley’s doctrines from a long acquaintance with his sentiments, I blamed the unguarded and not sufficiently explicit manner in which they were worded, but approving the doctrines themselves as agreeable to what appears to me the analogy of faith. All the College, I suppose, rose with one voice against them, which must make me appear strangely heterodox, if not altogether a heretic worse than Mr. Wesley. This consideration, together with my lady’s repeated declaration that every student who did not disavow them should quit the College, gave me at last courage to do absolutely what I had done in a partial manner near a fortnight before, namely, to resign the office of Principal of the College, which I saw I could no longer discharge with honour, with a good conscience, or any probability of success.
“If I know anything of my own heart, I can truly say, I have not taken this step from pique or chagrin, nor from any supposed unkindness in her ladyship or the students, whose undeserved regard and peculiar respect for me have made me feel the greatest reluctance to comply with what I esteem the order of the Lord and the explicit dictate of my own conscience, confirmed by the train of circumstances which I have mentioned.
“My high esteem for her ladyship is not at all abated. My love to the students, and regard for the College are the same. Nay, I can truly say, my regard for them goads me away, as I see nothing but a scene of confusion, distraction, and jealousy if I stay. The whole of this affair appears to me to be from the Lord, and it is my sentiment, that, as the College has naturally been filled with Calvinists, is providentially founded near a Calvinist academy in Wales, a Calvinist country, an itinerant ministry is to go forth from it to feed chiefly the Church of God of that sentimental denomination. In order to this, a moderate, lively Calvinist must superintend, under the noble foundress, and, as a token that her ladyship is not dissatisfied with my conduct, I humbly beg she would give me leave to recommend my successor to her.
“Mr. Whitefield is dead; some of his forlorn congregation have already been blessed under the ministry of the students; who is more proper to head them than he whom the religious world begins to call the young Whitefield, Mr. Rowland Hill? His remarkable sufferings for Christ’s sake, entitle him to the honour of presiding over this work; and I hope the Lord will make him willing to accept an office for which he seems to be so well fitted by his popularity and success.
“If it be objected that he is young, I reply, he is older than Mr. Whitefield was when he set out upon his great errand, and that the warmth of his heart, the ripeness of his zeal, and the amazing steadiness of his conduct for years, under the greatest difficulty both at home and abroad, together with the many seals God has already given to His ministry in various parts of the kingdom, ought greatly to turn the scale in his favour. And, indeed, what is an old Saul to a young David? And who deserves most the name and honour of a father? He, or myself? Without hesitating, I answer Mr. Rowland Hill, who has perhaps begotten more children to God in one discourse than I have in all my poor labour these fourteen years.”
This long document is endorsed “Letter to Lady Huntingdon.” It would be easy to make it the text for a long sermon; but want of space forbids the attempt to do this. Besides, intelligent readers are quite competent to form just opinions respecting it. Suffice it to say, that it is of high importance, as containing, by far, the fullest account ever published of the reasons why Fletcher took a step which led to great events he never contemplated. Had he continued to be the Superintendent of the Trevecca College, it is probable that the Calvinian controversy would not have grown to such wide dimensions. That, however, is not a proof of imprudence on Fletcher’s part; for, as every one who knows the history of that controversy is well aware, it was impossible for the great religious movement of the last century to proceed without the doctrines in Wesley’s Minutes being thoroughly examined, discussed, and settled.
Wesley preached his sermon on the death of Whitefield on November 18, 1770. Six weeks afterwards, it was respectfully attacked in the January number of the Calvinists’ periodical, the Gospel Magazine. Two months later, the same magazine made a furious assault on Walter Sellon’s “Defence of God’s Sovereignty,” stigmatizing it as “A mite of reprobate silver, cast into the Foundery, and coming out thence, bearing the impress of that pride, self-righteousness, and self-sufficiency, natural to men in their fallen unrenewed state.” “This performance,” continues the reviewer, “is extolled to the very skies by the Arminians. It is calculated for their meridian, and well establishes the haughty system of their own works and faithfulness, in opposition to the grace of the Gospel, and the faithfulness of a covenant God, in the finished salvation of sinners by Jesus Christ.”
In May, the same periodical printed Wesley’s “Minutes,” and branded them as “the very doctrines of Popery, yea, of Popery unmasked.” The number for the month of June contained an article of twelve pages, entitled, “A Comment or Paraphrase on the Extract from the Minutes of the Rev. Mr. Wesley, etc.” The temper and the unfairness of the article may be judged by the paraphrase on the first Minute, “Take heed to your doctrine.” That is, remarks the commentator,—