“I am, Rev. Sir, with great respect, your much obliged and very humble servant,
“Thomas Coke.”
Little, at this time, did the obscure Dr. Coke imagine that, eight years afterwards, Fletcher would be one of the first twenty-six subscribers to the Methodist “Society for the Establishment of Missions among the Heathen,” which Coke and a few of his friends then instituted.
One more fact respecting the “Checks to Antinomianism” must be added. The Rev. Thomas Jackson, a good authority, remarks:—
“Mr. Charles Wesley took a lively interest in the rise and progress of this” [the Calvinian] “controversy, though his name has rarely been connected with it. He corresponded with his friend, the Vicar of Madeley, and encouraged him in his arduous undertaking. Mr. Fletcher transmitted his manuscripts to him for revision, begging of him to expunge every expression that was calculated to give unnecessary pain, and to pay especial attention to the grammar and theology of the whole. He also confided to Mr. Charles Wesley the task of conducting them through the press, the correction of which was inconvenient to himself, because of his distance from London. The fact is, that nearly everything that Mr. Fletcher published, not even excepting his political tracts and his treatise on original sin, passed under the eye and hand of Mr. Charles Wesley before it was given to the world. Not that the compositions of his friend needed much emendation, but his criticisms gave Mr. Fletcher confidence, and were highly valued. In 1775, Mr. Fletcher said to him, ‘Nobody helps me but you; and you know how little you do it. Deprive me not of that little. Your every hint is a blessing to me.’”[[329]]
A letter to Charles Wesley will fitly close the present chapter.
“Madeley, December 4, 1775.
“My Very Dear Brother,—I see the end of my controversial race, and I have such courage to finish it, that I think it my bounden duty to run and strike my blow, and fire my gun, before the water of discouragement has quite wetted the powder of my activity. This makes me seem to neglect my dearest correspondents.
“Old age comes faster upon me than upon you. I am already so grey-headed, that I wrote to my brother to know if I am not fifty-six instead of forty-six. The wheel of time moves so rapidly, that I seem to be in a new element; and yet, praised be God! my strength is preserved far better than I could expect. I came home last night at eleven o’clock tolerably well, after reading prayers and preaching twice and giving the sacrament in my own church, and preaching again and meeting a few people in Society at the next market-town.
“The Lord is wonderfully gracious to me, and, what is more to me than many favours, He helps me to see His mercies in a clearer light. In years past, I did not dare to be thankful for mercies, which now make me shout for joy. I had been taught to call them common mercies, and I made as little of them as apostates do of the blood of Christ, when they call it a common thing. But now the veil begins to rend, and I invite you and all the world to praise God for His patience, truth, and lovingkindness, which have followed me all my days. O how I hate the delusion, which has robbed me of so many comforts!