Wesley was in Shropshire in the month of August, and probably had an interview with Fletcher. It is not unlikely that Fletcher accompanied Wesley in his journey to Bristol; but if this were not the case, it is certain that he soon after followed him. Hence the following hitherto unpublished letter, written by John Pawson, an itinerant preacher of ten years’ standing:—
“Bristol, September 29, 1772.
“My Very Dear Friend,—Mr. Wesley came here on Saturday, August 29, and has been with us ever since, but intends to leave Bristol next Monday” [October 5]. “He seems to be as zealous and active in his Master’s service as ever, and quite in good health. We have also had the great Mr. Fletcher here, but he is now returned to Madeley. He seems to be an eminent saint indeed. I had the satisfaction to hear him twice. He is a lively, zealous preacher; the power of God seems to attend his word; yet I admire him much more as a writer than as a preacher. Being a foreigner, there is a kind of roughness attends his language that is not grateful to an English hearer; and the English not being his mother-tongue, he sometimes seems to be at a loss for words. Yet he certainly is a great and blessed man.
“We have had very large congregations to hear both Mr. Wesley and Mr. Fletcher, especially the latter; and I hope we shall see the fruit of their preaching in a little time. I trust that our gracious Lord will be with us, and that we shall have a prosperous year; though I apprehend it will be attended with greater difficulties than ever to keep the people together in Bristol. We have the Tabernacle[[273]] on one hand, and Mr. Janes,[[274]] who has a meeting in Tucker Street, on the other. Mr. Roquet[[271]] also is disaffected towards us. He has been in London for some time with his dear friend Mr. Hill. One night he preached in the Foundery, where he gave universal offence by using many Calvinistical phrases, and by telling the whole congregation that he knew there were whores and bawds even in the Bands[[272]] in Bristol. He said, ‘These eyes have seen it, and this heart has groaned on account of it.’ How he will be when he returns I know not; but these are the accounts we hear from London. Were it not that so many of our people are so exceedingly unstable, we need not fear any of these things; but you well know that many of them have got itching ears, and will run about, say or do what we will.
“Mr. Wesley has just published his answer to Mr. Hill. I suppose it will make the Calvinists exceeding angry; but I think Mr. Fletcher’s ‘Fourth Check,’ which is now in the press, will make them much more so, as he does not spare them at all, but endeavours to show, in the clearest manner, the horrible consequences of their beloved opinions. He is writing something upon Perfection, the former part of which I have seen; and I think he will set that doctrine in so Scriptural a light, as to stop the mouths of gainsayers.”
Fletcher dedicated his “Fourth Check to Antinomianism” “to all candid Calvinists in the Church of England.” An extract from this dedication may be useful, as giving, in a brief form, some of the doctrines which Fletcher had defended and enforced, and which had so hugely offended his Calvinistic friends.
“They” [his opponents] “will try to frighten you from reading this book, by protesting that I throw down the foundation of Christianity and help Mr. Wesley to place works and merit on the Redeemer’s throne. To this dreadful charge I answer:—1. That I had rather my right hand should lose its cunning to all eternity, than use it a moment to detract from the Saviour’s real glory. 2. That the strongest pleas I produce for holiness and good works are quotations from the Homilies of our own Church as well as from the Puritan divines, whom I cite preferably to others, because they held what you are taught to call the doctrines of grace. 3. That what I have said of those doctrines recommends itself to every unprejudiced person’s reason and conscience. 4. That my capital arguments in favour of practical Christianity are founded upon our second justification by the evidence of good works in the great day; a doctrine which my opponent himself cannot help assenting to. 5. That from first to last, when the meritorious cause of our justification is considered, we set works aside; praying God not to enter into judgment with us, or weigh our merits, but to pardon our offences for Christ’s sake; and gladly ascribing the whole of our salvation to His alone merits, as much as Calvin or Dr. Crisp does. 6. That when the word meriting, deserving, or worthy, which our Lord uses again and again, is applied to good works or good men, we mean absolutely nothing but rewardable, or qualified for the reception of a gracious reward. And 7. That even this improper merit or rewardableness of good works is entirely derived from Christ’s proper merit, who works what is good in us; and from the gracious promise of God, who has freely engaged Himself to recompense the fruits of righteousness, which His own free grace enables us to produce.”
In the first eight of his letters, Fletcher quotes copiously from the Liturgy, Articles, and Homilies of the Church of England, and from the writings of Puritan divines. He also minutely examines Mr. Richard Hill’s objections to his doctrines and to his Scriptural expositions. Up to this point there is a comparative absence of his cutting irony; but there is a great amount of powerful and triumphant writing.
In his ninth letter, addressed to Rowland Hill, he naturally enough lays aside the restraint he had put upon himself. Richard Hill was now a man of matured life, forty years of age; his brother Rowland was a young man of only twenty-seven. The former had not been sparing in the use of acrimonious epithets; the latter had been lavish. No wonder that Fletcher spared not his youthful opponent. He wrote:—
“What reason have you to assert, as you do, that I ‘have grossly misrepresented the Scriptures,’ and ‘made universal havoc of every truth of the Gospel’? The first of these charges is heavy, the second dreadful. Let us see by what arguments they are supported. After throwing away a good part of your book in passing a long, Calvinian, juvenile sentence upon my spirit as a writer, you come at last to the point, and attempt to explain some of the Scriptures which you suppose I have ‘misrepresented.’”