Two extracts more. In his description of “saving faith,” Fletcher refuses to put the “black mark of damnation upon any man, that in any nation fears God and works righteousness.” In his “Appendix to Prevent Objections,” he explains his meaning, as follows:—
“I make no more difference between the faith of a righteous heathen, and the faith of a father in Christ, than I do between daybreak and meridian light:—That the light of a sincere Jew is as much one with the light of a sincere Christian, as the light of the sun in a cold, cloudy day in March is one with the light of the sun in a fine day in May:—And that the difference between the saving faith peculiar to the sincere disciples of Noah, Moses, John the Baptist, and Jesus Christ, consists in a variety of degrees, and not in a diversity of species; saving faith, under all the dispensations, agreeing in the following essentials: 1. It is begotten by the revelation of some saving truth presented by free grace, impressed by the Spirit, and received by the believer’s prevented free agency. 2. It has the same original cause in all, that is, the mercy of God in Jesus Christ. 3. It actually saves all, though in various degrees. 4. It sets all upon working righteousness; some bearing fruit thirty, some sixty, and some a hundredfold. And 5. Through Christ, it will bring all that do not make shipwreck of it to one or another of the ‘many mansions,’ which our Lord is gone to prepare in heaven for His believing, obedient people.
“And here honesty obliges me to lay before the public an objection, which I had for some time against the appendages of the Athanasian Creed. I admire the scriptural manner in which it sets forth the Divine Unity in Trinity, and the Divine Trinity in Unity; but I can no longer use its damnatory clauses. It abruptly takes us to the very top of the Christian dispensation, considered in a doctrinal light. This dispensation it calls the Catholic faith; and, without mentioning the faith of the inferior dispensations, as our other Creeds do, it makes us declare, that ‘except everyone keep that faith’ (the faith of the highest dispensation) ‘whole and undefiled, he cannot be saved; without doubt, he shall perish everlastingly.’ This dreadful denunciation is true with regard to proud, ungodly infidels, who, in the midst of all the means of Christian faith, obstinately, maliciously, and finally set their hearts against the doctrine of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; equally despising the Son’s atonement, and the Spirit’s inspiration. But I will no more invade Christ’s tribunal, and pronounce that the fearful punishment of damnation shall ‘without doubt’ be inflicted upon ‘every’ Unitarian, Arian, Jew, Turk, and heathen, that fears God and works righteousness, though he does not hold the faith of the Athanasian Creed whole. For, if you except the last Article, thousands, yea, millions, are never called to hold it at all; and therefore shall never perish for not holding it whole. At all hazards, then, I hope I shall never use again those damnatory clauses, without taking the liberty of guarding them agreeably to the doctrine of the dispensations. And if Zelotes presses me with my subscriptions, I reply beforehand, that the same Church, who required me to subscribe to St. Athanasius’s Creed, enjoins me also to believe this clause of St. Peter’s Creed, ‘In every nation, he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted of Him.’ And, if those two creeds are irreconcilable, I think it more reasonable that Athanasius should bow to Peter, warmed by the Spirit of love, than that Peter should bow to Athanasius, heated by controversial opposition.”
Some will object to Fletcher’s teaching. Be it so: the writer’s business is neither to defend nor to condemn; but simply to show, as far as possible, what Fletcher’s opinions were. John Wesley approved them. “Mr. Fletcher,” says he, in a letter dated January 17, 1775, “has given us a wonderful view of the different dispensations. I believe that difficult subject was never placed in so clear a light before. It seems God has raised him up for this very thing—
“‘To vindicate eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to man.’”[[311]]
Fletcher himself, evidently, felt great interest in his “Essay on Truth.” In a letter, dated March 20, 1774, and addressed to the Rev. Joseph Benson, he observed:—
“I do not repent having engaged in the present controversy, for, though I think my little publications cannot reclaim those who are given up to believe the lie of the day, yet, they may here and there stop one from swallowing it at all, or from swallowing it so deeply as otherwise he might have done. In preaching, I do not meddle with the points discussed, unless my text leads me to it, and then I think them important enough not to be ashamed of them before my people.
“I am just finishing an ‘Essay on Truth,’ which I dedicate to Lady Huntingdon, wherein you will see my latest views of that important subject. My apprehensions of things have not changed since I saw you last; save that in one thing I have seen my error. An over-eager attention to the doctrine of the Spirit has made me, in some degree, overlook the medium by which the Spirit works—I mean the Word of Truth, which is the word by which the heavenly fire warms us. I rather expected lightning, than a steady fire by means of fuel. I mention my error to you lest you should be involved therein.
“My controversy weighs upon my hands; but I must go through with it; which I hope will be done in two or three pieces more: one of which, ‘Scripture Scales to Weigh the Gold of Gospel Truth,’ may be more useful than the Checks, as being more literally scriptural.