“Madeley, August 24, 1771.
“My Dear Friend,—How much water may rush out of a little opening! What are our dear lady’s jealousies come to? Ah, poor College! They are without a master, but not without a mistress. Their conduct and charges of heresy stirred me up to write in defence of the ‘Minutes.’ The pamphlet is gone abroad unseasonably in its present dress. The toga would now suit it, but it wears the chlamys. By this means, the voice of the arguments will be lost in the cry of treachery.
“I received this morning a most kind letter from Mr. Shirley, whom I now pity much. He will pass by me; but I fear Mr. Olivers will have some cutting lashes. Mr. Shirley is gone to Wales, probably to consult what to do in the present case. What a world! Methinks I dream when I reflect that I have written on controversy; the last subject I thought I should have meddled with. I expect to be smartly taken in hand and soundly drubbed for it. Lord, prepare me for it, and for everything that may make me cease from man, and above all from your unworthy friend,
“J. Fletcher.
“P.S. My kindest love to Mr. Mather.[[248]] I hope you are happy in each other’s company. May you be both blessed, as being one heart, and one soul, and colleagues in Jesus!”
Instead of inflicting on Thomas Olivers what Fletcher calls “some cutting lashes,” Shirley treated the sturdy Welshman with forbearance; and if he used severity at all, not Wesley’s itinerant, but the Vicar of Madeley was his victim.
Fletcher immediately prepared a reply to Shirley’s “Narrative;” and, before the year was ended, published it, with the title, “A Second Check to Antinomianism; occasioned by a Late Narrative, in Three Letters to the Hon. and Rev. Author. By the Vindicator of the Reverend Mr. Wesley’s Minutes.” 12mo, 120 pp. This “Second Check,” like the former one, was revised by Wesley,[[249]] and, therefore, was issued with his approval.
Fletcher’s first letter to Shirley begins as follows:—
“In my last private communication, I observed, Rev. Sir, that, if your ‘Narrative’ was kind, I would buy a number of copies, and give them gratis to the purchasers of my book, that they might see all you can possibly produce in your own defence, and do you all the justice your proper behaviour at the Conference deserves. But, as it appears to me there are some important mistakes in that performance, I neither dare recommend it absolutely to my friends, nor wish it, in the religious world, the full success you desire.
“I do not complain of its severity; on the contrary, considering the sharpness of my fifth letter, I gratefully acknowledge it is kinder than I had reason to expect. But permit me to tell you, Sir, I look for justice to the scriptural arguments I advance in defence of truth, before I look for kindness to my insignificant person, and could be much sooner satisfied with the former, than with the latter alone. As I do not admire the fashionable method of advancing general charges without supporting them by particular proofs, I shall take the liberty of pointing out some mistakes in your ‘Narrative,’ and, by that means, endeavour to do justice to Mr. Wesley’s ‘Declaration,’ your own ‘Sermons,’ my ‘Vindication,’ and, above all, to the cause of practical religion.”