“Madam, your obliged friend and obedient servant,
“J. Fletcher.”[[509]]
There cannot be a doubt respecting Miss Loxdale’s ardent piety; but she was in danger of falling into some of the errors of the mystics. She had written to Wesley, asking his advice respecting the works of Madam Bourignon, which she had been reading. Wesley, in his reply, dated “June 10, 1781,” told her that Madam Bourignon’s “new and peculiar expressions” were “only shadows,” not “an excellence, but a capital defect.” Wesley continued,—
“As I apprehend your mind must be a little confused by reading those uncommon treatises, I wish you would give another deliberate reading to the ‘Plain Account of Christian Perfection.’ You may be assured there is no religion under heaven higher or deeper than that which is there described. I desire nothing, I will accept of nothing, but the common faith and common salvation; and I want you to be only just such a common Christian as Jenny Cooper was.”[[510]]
Meantime, Miss Loxdale and Fletcher had met and conversed with each other; for, in a long letter to her, dated twelve days after Wesley’s, he gave her what he considered suitable advice, and said, “I never doubted your sincerity, my dear friend; and can, without wavering, confess you a member of my Lord, a child of my heavenly Father, and a fellow-heir of the kingdom of heaven, purchased for penitent believers.”[[511]]
This epistolary and vivâ voce intercourse grew into a sincere friendship, but nothing more than that. Miss Loxdale became one of the most holy and devoted Methodists of the last century; and, in 1811, at the age of fifty-six, married the Rev. Dr. Coke. A year afterwards, she died at York, and was buried in Dr. Coke’s family vault at Brecon.[[512]]
Just at the time when Fletcher was writing his letters to Miss Loxdale, and giving her, most sincerely, the best advice he could, his heart was full of Miss Bosanquet, and, as will soon be seen, at the beginning of the month of June, he proposed to marry her. The reply was not unfavourable, and Fletcher at once decided to attend Wesley’s Conference at Leeds, in the neighbourhood of which Miss Bosanquet resided. The following letter, addressed to Wesley, announces this decision, and refers to the case of Miss Loxdale, and to an interesting incident in Switzerland:—
“Madeley, June[June] 24, 1781.
“Rev. and Dear Sir,—As to Miss Loxdale, I believe her to be a simple, holy follower of the Lord. Nothing throws unscriptural mysticism down like holding out the promise of the Father, and the fulness of the Spirit, to be received now, by faith in the two Promisers, the Father and the Son. Ah! what is the penal fire of the mystics, to the burning love of the Spirit, revealing the glorious power of the Father and the Son, according to John xiv. 26, and filling us with all the fulness of God? Plain Scripture is better than all mystic refinements.
“When I was at Nyon, near Geneva, three ministers received the Word, and preached the Truth. When persecution arose because of the Word, the two pastors were afraid; but the curate of the first pastor, a burgess of the town, stood by me. This Timothy opened his house, when the pastors shut both their pulpits and houses; and I heard him preach a discourse before I came away, worthy of you, Sir, upon the heights and depths of holiness. He wrote an apology for me, which I sent to the head of the persecuting Clergy, and so stopped the torrent of wrath. He made observations upon the mischief done to Christianity by bad Clergy, such as George Fox and you, Sir, would not disown. When I told him of you and the Methodists, he expressed a great desire to come to England, to hear you, to see the English brethren, and to learn the English language, that he might read your works, and, perhaps, translate some of them. He can have no living in his own country, because he will not swear to prosecute all who propagate Arminian tenets; which is more honest than many of the Clergy, many of whom are Arians, Socinians, or Deists, and do not scruple to take the Calvinian Oaths.