“Gentlemen,—You are no less entitled to my private labours than the inferior class of my parishioners. As you do not choose to partake with them of my evening instructions, I take the liberty to present you with some of my morning meditations. May these well-meant endeavours of my pen be more acceptable to you than those of my tongue! And may you carefully read in your closets what you have perhaps inattentively heard in the church! I appeal to the Searcher of hearts that I had rather impart truths than receive tithes. You kindly bestow the latter upon me; grant me, I pray, the satisfaction of seeing you favourably receive the former, from, gentlemen, your affectionate minister and obedient servant,
“Madeley, 1772.
“J. Fletcher.”
Fletcher’s principal tithe payers would not attend his evening services, and yet he was more anxious to teach them “the truth as it is in Jesus,” than to receive their pelf. He loved their souls, though they were too high and mighty—that is, too worldly and ignorant—to appreciate his ministry.
Fletcher rightly regarded the doctrine which he irrefutably establishes as of the highest importance. By large numbers of men, who considered themselves good Christians, it was treated with indifference, and in many instances it was flatly denied. With the exception of his “Notes on the Old and New Testaments,” the largest as well as the ablest book Wesley ever wrote was on the same subject. His “Doctrine of Original Sin according to Scripture, Reason, and Experience,” was first published in 1757; and now, fifteen years later, his friend Fletcher, doubtless with his approval, used his great talents to the utmost in defending the same dogma. In both books, to some extent, the same line of argumentation is followed; but, of course, Fletcher’s style is very different from that of Wesley. Both of them insisted that the doctrine is essential to the Christian religion, and that if it is not true, the Christian religion is not needed. In his preface Wesley wrote:—
“If we take away this foundation, that man is by nature foolish and sinful, ‘fallen short of the glorious image of God,’ the Christian system falls at once; nor will it deserve so honourable an appellation as that of a ‘cunningly devised fable.’”
Fletcher began his book with the same assertion. His first paragraph is as follows:—
“In every religion, there is a principal truth or error, which, like the first link of a chain, necessarily draws after it all the parts with which it is essentially connected. This leading principle in Christianity, distinguished from Deism, is the doctrine of our corrupt and lost estate; for if man is not at variance with his Creator, what need of a Mediator between God and him? If he is not a depraved, undone creature, what necessity of so wonderful a Restorer and Saviour as the Son of God? If he is not enslaved to sin, why is he redeemed by Jesus Christ? If he is not polluted, why must he be washed in the blood of that immaculate Lamb? If his soul is not disordered, what occasion is there for such a divine Physician? If he is not helpless and miserable, why is he perpetually invited to secure the assistance and consolations of the Holy Spirit? And, in a word, if he is not born in sin, why is a new birth so absolutely necessary, that Christ declares, with the most solemn asseverations, without it no man can see the kingdom of God?
“This doctrine then being of such importance that genuine Christianity stands or falls with it, it may be proper to state it at large; and as this cannot be done in stronger and plainer words than those of the sacred writers and our pious Reformers, I beg leave to collect them and present the reader with a picture of our natural estate, drawn at full length by those ancient and masterly hands.”
Fletcher proceeds to do this, and with irrefutable arguments establishes his doctrine; but in this part of his work there is no need to follow him. Indeed, his summary of Scripture proofs and his quotations from the Articles, Homilies, and Liturgy of the Church of England, do not fill more than about a dozen pages. His “second part” he begins as follows:—