Fletcher proceeds to examine what he calls “the arguments” of Rowland Hill; and then concludes, as follows:—
“Having answered your objections to what you justly call ‘the principal cause of the controversy among us,’ I may make one or two observations upon the friendliness of your ‘Friendly Remarks.’
“Candid reader, if thou hast read my Checks without prejudice, and attentively compared them with the Word of God, wouldest thou ever think that the following lines contain an extract from the friendly sentence, which my young opponent passes upon them?—‘Hard names, banter, sarcasm, sneer, abuse, bravado, low arts of slander, slanderous accusation, opprobrious name, ill-natured satire, odious, deformed, detestable colours, unfair and ungenerous treatment, terms void of truth, unmerciful condemnations, false humility, irritating spirit, provoking, uncharitable style, continual sneers, most odious appellations, abusive words, notorious scandalizing, lines too dreadful to be transcribed, unworthy of an answer, beneath contempt, most indecent ridicule, a wretched conclusion, as bitter as gall, and slanders which ought even to make a Turk blush.’
“If thou canst not yet see, gentle reader, into the nature of Mr. Rowland Hill’s ‘Remarks,’ peruse the following friendly sentences. ‘In regard to the fopperies of religion, you certainly differ from the Popish priest of Madeley. You have made universal havoc of every truth of the Gospel. You have invented dreadful slanders. You plentifully stigmatize many with the most unkindly language. You have blackened our principles, and scandalized our practice. You place us in a manner among murderers. It shocks me to follow you. Our characters lie bleeding under the cruelty of your pen, and complain loudly against your great injustice. Blush for the characters you have injured by the rashness and bitterness of your pen. You have invented a set of monsters, and raised a hideous ghost, by your own spells and incantations of banter and contempt. Numberless sneers, taunts, and sarcasms dreadfully decorate the whole of your performance: they are nothing better than infernal terms of darkness, which it is hateful to transcribe.’
“When I cast my eyes upon this extract, I cannot help crying out, ‘If this is my antagonist’s friendliness, alas! what will be his displeasure? And what have I done to deserve these tokens of Calvinian benevolence? Why are these flowers of Geneva rhetoric so plentifully heaped upon my head?’[head?’]
“Sir, I do not intimate that I have done nothing displeasing to you. Far from insinuating it, I shall present my readers with a list of the manifold, but well-meant provocations, which have procured me your public correspondence. I say, well-meant provocations; for all I want to provoke any one to is love and good works.
“1. I have written my Checks with the confidence with which the clear dictates of reason, and the full testimonies of Scripture, usually inspire those who love what they esteem truth more than they do their dearest friends.
“2. After speaking most honourably of many Calvinists, even of all that are pious, I have taken the liberty to insinuate, that the schemes of finished salvation, and imputed righteousness, will no more save a Calvinist guilty of practical Antinomianism, than the doctrine of general redemption will save an ungodly remonstrant. Thus I have made no difference between the backsliding elect of the Lock,[[275]] and the apostates of the Foundery, when death overtakes them in their sins, and in their blood.
“3. I have maintained that our Lord did not speak an untruth when He said, In the day of judgment, by thy words shalt thou be justified; and that St. Paul did not propagate heresy when he wrote, Work out your own salvation.
“4. I have sprinkled with the salt of irony your favourite doctrine (‘Friendly Remarks,’ p. 39), ‘Salvation wholly depends upon the purpose of God according to election, without any respect to what may be in them,’ i.e. the elect. Now, Sir, as by the doctrine of undeniable consequences, he who receives a guinea with the king’s head on the one side cannot but receive the lions on the other side; so he that admits the preceding proposition, cannot but admit the inseparable counterpart, namely, the following proposition, which every attentive and unprejudiced person sees written in blood upon that side of Calvin’s standard which is generally kept out of sight, ‘Damnation wholly depends upon the purpose of God according to reprobation, without respect to what may be in the reprobates.’ Here is no ‘inventing a monstrous creed,’ but merely turning the leaf of your own, and reading what is written there, namely, damnation finished, evidently answering to finished salvation.”