Poor Fletcher! He was indeed realizing the reproach he had apprehended; and yet he was not satisfied. Hence his publication of the following: “American Patriotism: Farther confronted with Reason, Scripture, and the Constitution: Being Observations on the Dangerous Politicks taught by the Rev. Mr. Evans, M.A., and the Rev. Dr. Price.[[344]] With a Scriptural Plea for the Revolted Colonies. By J. Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley.” 1776. 12mo, 138 pp.
“The author,” writes Fletcher in his preface, “dares not flatter himself to have the knowledge of logic and divinity, which are requisite to do his subject the justice it deserves; but, having for some years opposed false orthodoxy, he may have acquired a little skill to oppose false patriotism; and, having defended evangelical obedience to God against the indirect attacks of some ministers of the Church of England, he humbly hopes that he may step forth a second time and defend constiutional obedience to the king against some ministers who dissent from the Established Church. Those whom he encounters in these sheets are the leading ecclesiastical patriots of the two greatest cities in the kingdom; Mr. Evans being the champion of the minority in Bristol, as Dr. Price is in London.”
Of course, Fletcher’s book is able; but, excepting so far as it teaches that loyalty is a Christian duty, it is, to a great extent, out of date.
On October 30, 1776, a royal proclamation was issued, ordering “a public fast and humiliation to be observed throughout England and the kingdom of Ireland, upon Friday the 13th of December next, for the purpose of imploring the Almighty speedily to deliver the King’s loyal subjects within his colonies and provinces in North America, from the violence, injustice, and tyranny of those daring rebels who had assumed to themselves the exercise of arbitrary power; to open the eyes of those who had been deluded, by specious falsehoods, into acts of treason and rebellion; to turn the hearts of the authors of these calamities; and to restore his people in those distracted provinces and colonies to the happy condition of being free subjects in a free state, under which heretofore they had flourished so long, and prospered so much.”[[345]]
This had Fletcher’s hearty approbation, and he at once wrote and published a 12mo pamphlet of 22 pages, dated “London, December 6, 1776,” with the title, “The Bible and the Sword; or, The Appointment of the General Fast Vindicated: In an Address to the Common People, concerning the Propriety of Repressing obstinate Licentiousness with the Sword, and of Fasting when the Sword is drawn for that Purpose. London: Printed by R. Hawes, and sold at the Foundery, in Moorfields, and at the Rev. Mr. Wesley’s Preaching Houses in Town and Country. 1776.”[[346]] One half of this pamphlet, however, was simply a reprint of extracts from his “American Patriotism;” the other half is devoted to the task of proving, from Scripture, that, under certain circumstances, war is lawful.
As he expected, Fletcher, by his political publications, brought upon himself political wrath and censure, of which the following extracts, taken from the Monthly Review, are specimens:—
“Mr. Fletcher has been distinguished in the late theological controversies between Mr. Wesley and his followers, on the one part, and the Antinomians, or Calvinists, on the other. In these disputes, the Shropshire vicar made no inconsiderable figure; and we have freely and impartially done justice to his abilities. In politics, however, we have nothing to say in his favour. We are, indeed, sorry to observe that he is a mere Sacheverell; a preacher of those slavish and justly exploded Jacobitical doctrines, for which the memory of Sacheverell and his abettors will ever be held in equal contempt and abhorrence by every true friend to the liberties of mankind.”[[347]]
“Mr. Fletcher’s present performance” (American Patriotism) “is, like his former piece on this subject, wordy, specious, and artful. He alternately attacks the champions on the other side of the question, Dr. Price and Mr. Evans; and he evidently thinks himself a match for them both. We are almost tired of the fruitless contest; but one word with Mr. Fletcher before we part. He is a little chagrined at our styling him a mere Sacheverell; and he takes pains, in this publication, to show his equal abhorrence of regal or of mobbish tyranny. We are glad to find this rev. gentleman thus disclaiming those principles, to which many of his positions and arguments obviously lead; and we charitably hope that he was not aware of the full extent and tendency of their operation. Mr. Fletcher is, by all report, a good man; but he will never, we suspect, obtain a good report merely for his politics, except with those who have already embraced the same system; for mankind are too much guided by Swift’s rule of pronouncing those right who think as we do, and every one wrong who differs from us. Poor encouragement, by the way, for our author to expend his ink, and wear out his pens, in order to convert those political heretics, the advocates for America.”[[348]]
The sneers of the Monthly Reviewers were unjust. Fletcher, in reply to their unmerited taunt, remarked:—
“I am no more ‘a mere Sacheverell’ than I am a mere Price. Dr. Sacheverell ran as fiercely into the high monarchical extreme as Dr. Price does into the high republican extreme. I have endeavoured to keep at an equal distance from their opposite mistakes, by contending only for the just medium, which the Holy Scriptures and our excellent constitution point out. If Dr. Sacheverell were alive, and his erroneous, enthusiastical, mobbing politics endangered the public tranquillity, as the patriotism of Mr. Evans and Dr. Price does at present, I would oppose the high churchman as much as I now do the two high dissenters.”[[349]]