“It may not be improper, also, to observe to you, Sir, that when I presented Mr. Wesley with my ‘Vindication,’ I begged he would correct it, and take away whatever might be unkind or too sharp: urging that though I meant no unkindness, I was not a proper judge of what I had written under peculiarly delicate and trying circumstances, as well as in a great hurry; and did not, therefore, dare to trust either my pen, my head, or my heart. He was no sooner gone” (from Bristol) “than I sent a letter after him to repeat and urge the same request; and he wrote me word, that he had ‘expunged every tart expression.’ If he has (for I have not yet seen what alterations his friendly pen has made) I am reconciled to the publication; and that he has, I have reason to hope from the letters of two judicious London friends, who calmed my fears, lest I should have treated you with unkindness.
“One of them says, ’I reverence Mr. Shirley for his candid acknowledgment of his hastiness in judging. I commend the Calvinists at the Conference for their justice to Mr. Wesley, and their acquiescence in the Declaration of the Preachers in connexion with him. But is that Declaration, however dispersed, a remedy adequate to the evil done, not only to Mr. Wesley, but to the cause and work of God? Several Calvinists, in eagerness of malice, had dispersed their calumnies through the three kingdoms. A truly excellent person herself,[[238]] in her mistaken zeal, had represented him as a papist unmasked, a heretic, an apostate. A clergyman of the first reputation informs me a Poem on his Apostacy is just coming out.[[239]] Letters have been sent to every serious Churchman and Dissenter through the land, together with the Gospel Magazine. Great are the shoutings, “And now that he lieth let him rise up no more.” This is all the cry. His dearest friends and children are staggered, and scarce know what to think. You, in your corner, cannot conceive the mischief that has been done, and is still doing. But your letters, in the hand of Providence, may answer the good ends you proposed by writing them. You have not been too severe to dear Mr. Shirley, moderate Calvinists themselves being judges, but very kind and friendly to set a good mistaken man right, and probably to preserve him from the like rashness as long as he lives. Be not troubled, therefore, but cast your care upon the Lord.’
“My other friend says, ‘Considering what harm the Circular Letter has done, and what a useless satisfaction Mr. Shirley has given by his vague acknowledgment, it is no more than just and equitable that your Letters should be published.’
“Now, Sir, as I never saw that acknowledgment, nor the softening corrections made by Mr. Wesley in my ‘Vindication;’ as I was not informed of some of the above-mentioned particulars when I was so eager to prevent the publication of my Letters; and as I have reason to think that, through the desire of an immediate peace, the festering wound was rather skinned over than probed to the bottom,—all I can say about this publication is, what I wrote to our common friend, namely, that ‘I must look upon it as a necessary evil.’
“I am glad, Sir, you do not direct your letter to Mr. Olivers,[[240]] who was so busy in publishing my ‘Vindication;’ for, by a letter I have just received from Bristol, I am informed he did not hear how desirous I was to call it in, till he had actually given out, before a whole congregation, it would be sold. Besides, he would have pleaded with smartness that he never approved of a patched-up peace,—that he bore his testimony against it at the time it was made,—and that he had a personal right to produce my arguments, since both parties refused to hear his at the Conference.
“If your Letter is friendly, Sir, and you print it in the same size as my ‘Vindication,’ I shall gladly buy £10 worth of the copies, and order them to be stitched with my ‘Vindication,’ and given gratis to the purchasers of it; as well to do you justice, as to convince the world that we make a loving war; and also to demonstrate how much I regard your respectable character, and honour your dear person. Mr. Wesley’s heart is, I am persuaded, too full of brotherly love to deny me the pleasure of thus showing you how sincerely I am, Rev. and dear Sir, your obedient servant,
“John Fletcher.”
The reader has now as full an account as can be given of the way in which the long and angry war between Wesleyan Methodism and Calvinian Methodism was begun. It is difficult to say, decidedly, who was to blame for it. Wesley had a perfect right—in fact, under existing circumstances, he was almost bound by duty—to publish his theological theses; but it was unfortunate that, to use the words of himself and his fifty-three preachers, “they were not sufficiently guarded in the way they were expressed.”
The Countess of Huntingdon and her nephew, the Hon. and Rev. Walter Shirley, had a perfect right to take counsel with their Calvinian friends respecting Wesley’s “Minutes;” but it was offensive arrogance to propose to “go in a body to Wesley’s Conference, and insist upon a formal recantation of the said Minutes.” Wesley was under no obligation to either Lady Huntingdon or Walter Shirley; and their issuing of the “Circular Letter” was pure impertinence, though, no doubt, they thought it a Christian duty.
Fletcher had a perfect right to explain and vindicate Wesley’s ‘Minutes,’ and to send Wesley his manuscript to be printed and published; and Wesley had a perfect right to avail himself of this permission.