While in the south of France, Fletcher wrote to Miss Bosanquet the following letter, which is now for the first time published:—
“Marseilles, March 7, 1778.
“Dear Madam,—Your letter did not reach me till after it had lain here, at the post office, several days.
“I cannot be answerable for what the person you mention thinks of Mr. Wesley or me, or our sentiments. Nothing is more common than to see people drawing rash inferences from premises which are partly false and partly true. I can only answer for myself, and for what I deem to be the truth.
“If you ask me what I think to be the truth with respect to Christian perfection, I reply, my sentiments are exposed to the world in my essay on ‘Christian Perfection,’ and in my essay on ‘Truth,’ where I lay the stress of the doctrine on the great promise of the Father, and on the Christian fulness of the Spirit. This I have done more particularly in a treatise on the ‘Birth of the Spirit;’ which treatise is not yet published. I do not rest the doctrine of Christian perfection on the absence of sin,—that is the perfection of a dove or a lamb; nor on the loving God with all one’s power, for I believe all perfect Gentiles and Jews have done so; but on the fulness of that superior, nobler, warmer, and more powerful love, which the Apostle calls the love of the Spirit, or the love of God shed abroad by the Holy Ghost, given to the Christian believers, who, since the Day of Pentecost, go on to the perfection of the Christian dispensation.
“You will find my views of this matter in Mr. Wesley’s sermons on Christian Perfection and on Spiritual Christianity; with this difference, that I would distinguish more exactly between the believers baptized with the Pentecostal power of the Holy Ghost, and the believer who, like the Apostles after our Lord’s ascension, is not yet filled with that power.
“I own to you, Madam, that I have been much surprised to see the gross inattention to, and unbelief of, the promise of the Father among believers of various classes. It is the sun among the stars, and yet some can hardly distinguish it. When I preached it to the Calvinists in Wales, they called it Mr. Wesley’s whim. When I have spoken of it to our brethren, some have called it Lady Huntingdon’s whim; and others have looked upon it as a new thing; which to me is the strongest proof that this capital Gospel doctrine is as much under a cloud now as the doctrine of justification by faith was at the time of the Reformation.
“Should you go back by way of London, my essay on the Birth by which we enter into the Kingdom in the Holy Ghost is in the hands of Miss Thornton, Mrs. Greenwood’s sister, who will give it you if you think worth while to look into it. I build my faith not on my experience, though this increases it, but upon the revealed truth of God. Go, Madam, and do the same, and pray for your affectionate brother and servant,
“J. Fletcher.
“Miss Bosanquet,