“In a letter, just received from Mr. Fletcher, he says, ‘What you have said about sincere obedience has touched the apple of God’s eye, and is the very core of Antinomianism.[[288]] You have done your best to disparage sincere obedience, and, in a pamphlet ready for the press, I have freely exposed what you have written.’ Then he cries out, in a declamatory style, ‘For God’s sake, let us only speak against insincere and Pharisaical obedience.’ Indeed, I thought I had been writing against insincere obedience throughout the pamphlet; and that every one, who has eyes, must see it clearly; but I suppose Mr. Fletcher’s spectacles invert objects, and make people walk with their heads downwards.”[[289]]
In another letter to the same gentleman, dated thirteen days afterwards, Berridge observed:—
”I thank you for the friendly admonition you gave me respecting Mr. Fletcher. It made me look into my heart, and I found some resentment there. What a lurking devil this pride is! How soon he takes fire, and yet hides his head so demurely in the embers, that we do not easily discover him! I think it is advisable to write to Mr. Fletcher, though despairing of success. His pamphlet will certainly be published now it is finished. Indeed, I have written to him aforetime more than once, and besought him to drop all controversy; but he seems to regard such entreaties as flowing rather from a fear of his pen than a desire of peace. His heart is somewhat exalted by his writings, and no wonder. He is also endowed with great acuteness, which, though much admired by the world, is a great obstacle to a quiet childlike spirit. And he is at present eagerly seeking after legal perfection, which naturally produceth controversial heat. As Gospel and peace, so law and controversy go hand in hand together. How can lawyers live without strife? In such a situation, I know, from my own former sad experience, he will take the Scotch thistle for his motto, Noli me tangere. But his heart seemeth very upright, and his labours are abundant; and I trust the Master will serve him, by-and-by, as he has served me,—put him into a pickling tub, and drench him there soundly. When he comes out, dripping all over, he will be glad to cry, ‘Grace, grace,’ and ‘a little child may lead him.’ We learn nothing truly of ourselves, or of grace, but in a furnace.
“Whatever Mr. Fletcher may write against my pamphlet, I am determined to make no reply. I dare not trust my own wicked heart in a controversy. If my pamphlet is faulty, let it be overthrown; if sound, it will rise above any learned rubbish that is cast upon it. Indeed, what signifies my pamphlet, or its author? While it was publishing, I was heartily weary of it; and have really been sick of it since, and concluded it had done no good because it had met with no opposition.”[[290]]
Berridge did write to Fletcher. Hence, in another letter to Mr. Thornton, he said:—
“Everton, September 25, 1773. I have written to Mr. Fletcher, and told him what was my intention in speaking against sincere obedience, and that my intention was manifest enough from the whole drift of my pamphlet. I have also acquainted him that I am an enemy to controversy, and that if his tract is published, I shall not rise up to fight with him, but will be a dead man before he kills me. I further told him I was afraid that Mr. Toplady[[291]] and himself were setting the Christian world on fire, and the carnal world in laughter, and wished they could both desist from controversy. A letter seemed needful, yet I wrote to him without any hope of success, and it appears there is not any. Mr. Jones, an expelled Oxonian, has just been with him, and called upon me last Saturday. Mr. Fletcher showed him what he had written against my pamphlet. It has been revised by Mr. Wesley, and is to be published shortly.”[[292]]
Strangely enough, while Berridge was requesting peace from Everton, Richard Hill was doing the same from Hawkstone. Berridge’s three letters to Mr. Thornton cover the space between August 13, 1773, and September 25, 1773; and Richard Hill’s three letters to Fletcher, now to be introduced, cover the space between July 31, 1773, and December 23, 1773. Fletcher answered them privately; but his answers have never been published. Mr. Hill’s letters, too important to be omitted, were as follows:—
“Hawkstone, July 31, 1773.
“Rev. and Dear Sir,—I am credibly informed that you wish to have done with controversy, and that you are resolved to publish nothing more on the subject of the late disputes. Upon the strength of this information, as well as to maintain my own desire of promoting peace, I shall write to my bookseller in London, to sell no more of any of my pamphlets which relate to the ‘Minutes;’ and for whatever may have savoured too much of my own spirit, either in my answers to you, or to Mr. Wesley, I sincerely crave the forgiveness of you both, and should be most heartily glad if no person whatever were to add another word to what has been already said on either side.
”And permit me to hint, that if some restraint could be laid upon several of Mr. Wesley’s preachers, particularly upon one Perronet (of whose superlatively abusive and insolent little piece,[[293]] I believe, Mr. Charles Wesley testified his abhorrence from the pulpit), I think, under God, it might be a salutary means of preventing the poison of vain janglings from spreading any further. But, though it is the desire of my soul to live in harmony, love, and friendship with you, dear Sir, yet, if God has ever shown me anything of my own heart, or of the truths of His Word, I must, and still do think that your principles are exceedingly erroneous; and of this, I ever cherish a secret hope that God will convince you, in the course of His dealings with your soul.