CHAPTER XII.
“APPEAL[“APPEAL] TO MATTER OF FACT AND COMMON
SENSE.”
1772.

THE present chapter is a somewhat inconvenient break in the history of the Calvinian controversy; but in maintaining chronological order, the inconvenience cannot be avoided.

Fletcher’s “Fourth Check to Antinomianism” was finished on November 15, 1772, and was published before the year was terminated. On a fly-leaf at the end of the first edition the following advertisement was printed:—

“In a few days will be published, price two shillings, by the same author, ‘An Appeal to Matter of Fact and Common Sense; Or, A Rational Demonstration of Man’s corrupt and lost Estate.’”

In some respects, this is Fletcher’s ablest publication, and certainly it has been his most popular. A “second edition, revised and enlarged,” was printed a few months after the first, and, since then, it has been scores of times re-issued. As early as the year 1804, Joseph Benson, Fletcher’s biographer, remarked concerning it, “I hardly know a treatise that has been so universally read, or made so eminently useful.” Even the Monthly Review had nought to say against it. In the number for March, 1773, the editor’s notice of it was the following:—

“Although we cannot subscribe to all Mr. Fletcher’s religious opinions, we think there are abundance of good things in his writings; and we have no doubt that he is warmly animated by a sincere and pious regard for the salvation of the souls that are committed to his charge, as well as for the spiritual welfare of mankind in general.”

It is worthy of remark that besides being vended at Wesley’s Foundery in London, the first edition was also “sold at the workhouse in Madeley Wood, Shropshire, for the benefit of the poor.” When the second edition was published, the workhouse, for some unknown reason, was not advertised. Probably parochial officials had interdicted the sale.

Fletcher seems to have spent more time upon his “Appeal to Matter of Fact and Common Sense” than he did upon any of his “Checks to Antinomianism.” Joseph Benson saw it in manuscript, and read most of it, a year before its publication. Fletcher took it to Bristol and left it there; but, before it was committed to the press, he requested that it might be returned to him at Madeley, to be further revised and improved. For many weeks, the manuscript was unheard of, “but,” says Benson, “he was quite easy under the apprehended loss, which certainly would not have been a small one, as any person will judge who considers how much thought and time such a work must have cost him. It was found, however, by-and-by, had the finishing hand put to it, and was published to the conviction and edification of thousands.”[[279]]

Fletcher’s dedication of his book, highly characteristic, and embodying biographical facts, deserves attention.

“To the principal inhabitants of the parish of Madeley, in the county of Salop.