Fletcher admits that he had used irony in his Checks, not, however, because he liked it, but because he found it needful. He writes:—
“If I make use of irony in my Checks, it is not from ‘spleen,’ but reason. It appears to me that the subject requires it, and that ridiculous error is to be turned out of the temple of truth, not only with scriptural argument, which is the sword of the Spirit, but also with mild irony, which is a proper scourge for a glaring and obstinate mistake.”
Holding such a view, he introduces, in one of the two letters addressed to Richard and Rowland Hill unitedly, an illustration of the absurdities involved in Calvinism, which, perhaps, is as severe as anything that his Checks contain. The extract is long, but must be given unabridged.
“You decry ‘illustrations,’ and I do not wonder at it; for they carry light into Babel, where it is not desired. The father of error begets darkness and confusion. From darkness and confusion springs Calvinism, who, wrapping himself up in some garments he has stolen from the truth, deceives the nations, and gets himself reverenced in a dark temple, as if he were the pure and free Gospel.
“To bring him to a shameful end, we need not stab him with the dagger of ‘calumny,’ or put him upon the rack of persecution. Let him only be dragged out of his obscurity, and brought unmasked to open light. The silent beams of truth will pierce him through! Light alone will torture him to death, as the meridian sun does a bird of night that cannot fly from the gentle operation of its beams.
“May the following illustration dart at least one luminous beam into the profound darkness in which your venerable Diana delights to dwell! And may it show the Christian world that we do not ‘slander you,’ when we assert, you inadvertently destroy God’s law, and cast the Redeemer’s crown to the ground: and that when you say, ‘In point of justification’ (and consequently of condemnation) ‘we have nothing to do with the law: we are under the law as a rule of life,’ but not as a rule of judgment, you might as well say, ‘We are under no law, and consequently no longer accountable for our actions.’
“The King, whom I suppose in love with your doctrines of free grace and free wrath, by the advice of a predestinarian council and parliament, issues out a Gospel proclamation, directed, ‘To all his dear subjects, and elect people, the English.’ By this evangelical manifesto they are informed, ‘That in consideration of the Prince of Wales’s meritorious intercession, and perfect obedience to the laws of England, all the penalties annexed to the breaking of those laws are now abolished with respect to Englishmen: That His Majesty freely pardons all his subjects, who have been, are, or shall be guilty of adultery, murder, or treason: That all their crimes, “past, present, and to come, are for ever and for ever cancelled:”’ That, nevertheless, his loving subjects, who remain strangers to their privileges, shall still be served with sham warrants according to law, and frightened out of their wits, till they have learned to plead they are Englishmen (i.e. elect): And then they shall set at defiance all legalists, that is, all those who shall dare to deal with them according to law: And that, excepting the case of the above-mentioned false prosecution of his chosen people, none of them shall ever be molested for the breach of any law.’
“By the same supreme authority, it is likewise enacted, that all the laws shall continue in force against foreigners, (i.e. reprobates) whom the King and the Prince hate with everlasting hatred, and to whom they have agreed never to show mercy: That, accordingly, they shall be prosecuted to the utmost rigour of every statute, till they are all hanged or burned out of the way: And that, supposing no personal offence can be proved against them, it shall be lawful to hang them in chains for the crime of one of their forefathers, to set forth the King’s wonderful justice, display his glorious sovereignty, and make his chosen people relish the better their sweet, distinguishing privileges as Englishmen.
“Moreover, His Majesty, who loves order and harmony, charges his loving subjects to consider still the statutes of England, which are in force against foreigners, as very good rules of life for the English, which they will do well to follow, but BETTER to break; because every breach of those rules will work for their good, and make them sing louder the faithfulness of the King, the goodness of the Prince, and the sweetness of this Gospel proclamation.
“Again, as nothing is so displeasing to the King as legality, which he hates even more than extortion and whoredom; lest any of his dear people, who have acted the part of a strumpet, robber, murderer, or traitor, should, through the remains of their inbred corruption, and ridiculous legality, mourn too deeply for breaking some of their rules of life, our gracious Monarch solemnly assures them, that, though he highly disapproves of adultery and murder, yet these breaches of rules are not worse, in his sight, than a wandering thought in speaking to him, or a moment’s dulness in his service: That robbers, therefore, and traitors, adulterers and murderers, who are free-born Englishmen, need not be at all uneasy about losing his royal favour; this being utterly impossible, because they always stand complete in the honesty, loyalty, chastity, and charity of the Prince.