It would be easy to pick out of Mr. Hill’s “Finishing Stroke” not a few most shameful opprobriums. Fletcher is accused of “descending to the poor illiberal arts of forgery and defamation, in order to blacken his opponents, and to establish his own pernicious principles.” “He had used high-flown sarcastic declamation, base forgeries, and gross misrepresentations.”
Such were some of the acerbities of Richard Hill. He was the slanderer; not Fletcher. The latter was too much a gentleman, to say nothing of his being a Christian, to indulge in such scurrilous vituperation. The two men had been engaged in a theological combat; Hill had been utterly vanquished; and, instead of meekly acknowledging his defeat, he dishonourably abused his victorious opponent. With respect to his conversion, he was more indebted to Fletcher than to any other man; but this was now forgotten. The Vicar of Madeley, whom he had so greatly loved, had become the object of his scorn.
Immediately after the publication of his “Finishing Stroke,” Mr. Richard Hill committed to the press another 8vo pamphlet, of 63 pages, entitled, “Logica Wesleiensis; or, The Farrago Double Distilled. With an Heroic Poem in Praise of Mr. John Wesley.” Mr. Hill, in addressing Wesley, says:—
“I have never seen you above four or five times in my whole life; once in the pulpit at West Street Chapel; once at a friend’s house; and once or twice, at my request, you were so kind as to drink a forbidden dish of tea with me, when I lodged in Vine Street, St. James’s, as I wanted to speak to you concerning a poor man in your connections.“
By his own confession, it is evident that Mr. Hill’s personal knowledge of Wesley was very slight, and yet, in his “Logica Wesleiensis,” he abuses him more ferociously than he had abused Fletcher in his “Finishing Stroke.” Of the contumely hurled at Wesley, nothing will be said here, but two or three extracts concerning Fletcher must be introduced:—
“Mr. Fletcher affirms that all the Protestant Churches, the old Calvinist ministers, and Puritan divines, are on the side of the ‘Minutes.’ Mr. Hill makes it appear, as clear as the sun, that this is a point-blank falsehood as ever was written” (p. 7).
“Mr. Wesley revised, corrected, and gave his own imprimatur to all Mr. Fletcher’s Checks, throughout which, Mr. John is the Alpha and the Omega” (p. 53).[[287]]
“Since the foregoing pages were finished in manuscript, I have seen Mr. Fletcher’s ‘Logica Genevensis, or Fourth Check to Antinomianism.’ Though I fully intended to have been silent, the many perversions and misrepresentations which I have detected under the cover of much professed candour, will oblige me once more to enter the lists with my able antagonist; but, despairing of my own skill, I must beg leave to call in the Vicar of Madeley, to be my second; and happily for this purpose I have preserved a sermon of his, which was preached by him only a few years ago, in his own parish church, from Rom. xi. 5, 6. I think it is by far the best refutation of the unscriptural doctrine contained in the ‘Minutes,’ and in all the ‘Checks,’ which I have yet seen. As this sermon was publicly delivered before a very numerous congregation, and copies of it handed about, by the preacher’s own permission; and as he tells us that he is determined, God being his helper, to preach the doctrine therein contained, till his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth,—no reasonable person can think that there is the least unfairness in my availing myself of so powerful an ally; and I solemnly declare, upon the word of a Christian, that, in the few extracts I may make from it, I will not alter the least jot or tittle from the manuscript, and only make some marginal notes and observations upon it” (p. 59).
Mr. Richard Hill might think there was nothing unfair in publishing another man’s manuscript without his permission; but men of honour will disagree with him. Even if the manuscript had contained doctrines at variance with some propounded in Fletcher’s “Checks,” what then? Eleven years had elapsed since the sermon was composed and preached; and surely Fletcher was not to be blamed and lashed if, during such a lengthened period, he had modified some of his theological opinions. Fletcher had no choice left to him but to re-examine his old sermon, and ascertain if it contained anything contrary to the doctrines advocated in his “Checks.”
Meanwhile, another opponent had entered the battle-field. Just at this juncture, honest, and good, though eccentric, John Berridge, Vicar of Everton, published his well-known book, entitled, “The Christian World Unmasked. Pray Come and Peep.” 12mo, 229 pp. The doctrines so quaintly taught by Berridge were the doctrines of Richard Hill and his Calvinistic friends; but Berridge was too loving a Christian to display Richard Hill’s acrimonious spirit. The names of Wesley and Fletcher were not once mentioned in the whole of his performance; though, of course, their tenets were attacked. No one could find fault with this; but Fletcher felt it his duty to answer his dear old friend at Everton. Writing to John Thornton, Esq., on August 18, 1773, Berridge remarked:—