“Again, our Calvinist brethren excel in setting forth a part of Christ’s priestly office; I mean the immaculate purity of His most holy life, and the all-atoning, all-meritorious sacrifice of His bloody death. Here imitate, and, if possible, surpass them. Shout a finished atonement louder than they. If they call this complete atonement finished salvation, or the finished work of Christ, indulge them still: for peace’s sake, let those expressions pass; nevertheless, at proper times, give them to understand that it is absolutely contrary to reason, Scripture, and Christian experience to think that all Christ’s mediatorial work is finished. Insinuate you should be very miserable if He had nothing more to do for you and in you. Tell them, as they can bear it, that He works daily as a Prophet to enlighten you; as a Priest to make intercession for you; as a King to subdue your enemies; as a Redeemer to deliver you out of all your troubles; and as a Saviour to help you to work out your own salvation; and hint that, in all these respects, Christ’s work is no more finished than the working of our own salvation is completed.
“The judicious will understand you; as for bigots, they are proof against Scripture and good sense. Nevertheless, mild irony, sharply pointing a scriptural argument, may yet pass between the joints of their impenetrable armour, and make them feel either some shame, or some weariness of contention. But this is a dangerous method, which I would recommend to very few. None should dip his pen in the wine of irony, till he has dipped it in the oil of love; and even then, he should not use it without constant prayer, and as much caution as a surgeon lances an impostume. If he goes too deep, he does mischief; if not deep enough, he loses his time; the virulent humour is not discharged, but irritated by the skin-deep operation. And ‘who is sufficient for these things?’ Gracious God of wisdom and love! if Thou callest us to this difficult and thankless office, let all our sufficiency be of Thee! and should the operation succeed, Thine and Thine alone shall be all the glory.”
Such advices were Christian and opportune. No doubt, they were meant for men like Thomas Olivers and Walter Sellon. Wesley, in a tract of twelve pages, had, in 1770, attacked Toplady’s “Abridgement of Zanchius on Predestination.” Toplady, in the same year, had replied to this, in a most bitter and scurrilous “Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley.” Not having leisure for this kind of work, Wesley had requested Olivers to answer Toplady. Olivers, in 1771, had published his “Letter to the Reverend Mr. Toplady” (12mo, 60 pp.), and had treated Toplady with an amount of well-deserved tartness, which quite justified Fletcher in giving the above advice.
Then, again, Walter Sellon, in the same year, 1771, had published his “Church of England Vindicated from the Charge of Absolute Predestination, as is stated and asserted by the Translator of Jerome Zanchius, in his Letter to the Rev. Dr. Nowell. Together with Some Animadversions on his Translation of Zanchius, his Letter to the Rev. Mr. John Wesley, and his Sermon on 1 Tim. i. 10.” 12mo, 129 pp. In his small country parish, Ledsham, in Yorkshire, Sellon had dealt Toplady’s predestination theory heavy blows; and, it must be added, he had not been sparing in virulence. He began with telling the abusive vicar of Broad Hembury, “I shall deal plainly with you; more plainly, perhaps, than you might desire; yet not so plainly as you might justly expect. I would not say a word barely to enrage you; and yet, I doubt not, but I shall enrage you, because there is no coping with such writers as you, without speaking a little in your own manner; and I have always observed, those that are most prone to give offence are also most prone to take it.” Sellon fulfilled his threatening promise, and concluded: “Excuse my plainness, Sir, if I tell you farther, you seem much to stand in need of learning the lesson dictated by Solon of Athens, ‘Know thyself;’ and of praying heartily that prayer prescribed by our Church, ‘From all blindness of heart; from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness,—Good Lord, deliver us!’”
Fletcher, in this irritating controversy, never lost his temper. Some of his coadjutors and opponents did; and hence the Christian and needed cautions and advices at the end of his “Third Check to Antinomianism.”
[253]. The poor collier whom Fletcher so greatly befriended at Madeley, and who was one of the first students at Trevecca, in 1768.
[254]. The words are illegible, but, no doubt, his “Third Check to Antinomianism” is meant.
[255]. Probably meant for the celebrated Dr. Price, of whom more will have to be said anon.
[256]. Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”