Fletcher’s bold speculation, respecting the possibility of conversing with angels and the spirits of departed saints, may be passed in silence. The reader’s attention must now be asked to the famous Dr. Priestley.
This remarkable man was born at Fieldhead, near Leeds, in 1733. While a student at the Dissenting Academy, kept by Dr. Ashworth, at Daventry, he became an Arian. His subsequent career need not here be traced. It is enough to say, that, about the year 1767, while he was the minister of a large congregation of Dissenters at Leeds, he embraced Socinianism; and that, about 1781, he wrote and published his “History of the Corruptions of Christianity,”—some of the teachings of which work Fletcher felt it his duty to refute. Dr. Priestley died at Philadelphia, in the United States of America, in 1804.
It has been already stated, that, early in the year 1785, Fletcher published a second and enlarged edition of his poem, entitled, “La Grace et la Nature.” At the end of that work, the following advertisement was inserted: “Prêt à être publié en Anglois: A Rational Vindication of the Catholic Faith, respecting the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost: being the First Part of a Scriptural Vindication of Christ’s Divinity. Inscribed to the Rev. Dr. Priestley.”
The Rev. Joseph Benson, the quondam tutor of Lady Huntingdon’s Trevecca College, when Fletcher was its president, says this “Rational Vindication” was left by Fletcher “not quite finished;” which assertion seems to clash with Fletcher’s own advertisement just given. There can be no doubt it was as finished as Fletcher meant it to be; though not as complete as Mr. Benson thought it ought to be, and as he himself tried to make it. In addition to this, however, Fletcher began a second essay, entitled, “Socinianism Unscriptural; or, the Prophets and Apostles vindicated from the Charge of holding the Doctrine of Christ’s mere Humanity: being the Second Part of a Vindication of His Divinity. Inscribed to the Rev. Dr. Priestley.” The first of these was intended to be an answer to Priestley’s assertion that “the doctrine of the Trinity is irrational;” and the second to refute his equally unfounded dogma, that, the doctrine of Christ’s “divinity has no proper foundation in the Old Testament,—the prophets speaking of the Messiah only as a man like themselves;” nor in the “New Testament,—the Apostles never giving our Lord any higher title than that of a man approved of God.” In Mr. Benson’s opinion, both of the essays were left unfinished; and it is certain that neither of them was published in Fletcher’s lifetime. Rightly or wrongly, Mr. Benson—a very able theologian—undertook, after Fletcher’s death, to write supplements to both, and then published them; and these irrefutable productions of Mr. Benson’s pen have, ever since 1818, when he was the Methodist Connexional Editor, been improperly incorporated in Fletcher’s “Collected Works.” Mr. Benson’s additions to Fletcher’s essays are invaluable; but they ought, in fairness to both authors, to be published separately. On this subject, however, nothing more need be added. Fletcher’s replies to Priestley, which were printed a few years subsequent to his death,[[601]] were revised by Wesley, who writes, in his Journal:—
“1784, Saturday, March 27. I went to Madeley; and, at Mr. Fletcher’s desire, revised his letters to Dr. Priestley. I think there is hardly another man in England so fit to encounter him.—Sunday, 28. Notwithstanding the severe weather, the church was more than filled. I preached on part of the Epistle (Heb. ix. 13, etc.); in the afternoon, ons’ and I believe God applied it to many hearts.”
Never has there been a time when there was more need of essays like those of Fletcher than that which is now passing. Socinianism, in various shapes, even among many who think themselves orthodox, is rampant; and the Methodist Book Committee would render incalculable service to the cause of Christian truth, by publishing in a separate form, and at as cheap a price as possible, Fletcher’s two unanswerable replies to the redoubtable Dr. Priestley.
In his “Expostulatory Letter,” Fletcher writes:—
“While you invite archdeacons and bishops to defend their church and the divinity of their Saviour, may the voice of a poor country vicar be heard amidst the groans of the press which repeats your challenges? Will not your sense of honour feel too great a disappointment in seeing so mean a person step forth to present you with an expostulatory letter, and to break a spear with you, on the very ground where you think yourself invincible,—philosophy, reason, and common sense?
“Conscious of the variety of your learning, and the greatness of your reputation, I apologize for my boldness, by observing, that the Church is my mother; that the feeblest child has a right to cry out when his mother is stabbed to the heart; and that, when the Divine crown of our Lord is publicly struck at, the least of believers may show his astonishment at the antichristian deed.
“When the Socinians of the last century said that it was impossible to believe God and man were united in the person of our Lord, the Catholics replied, it was as easy to believe that God and man make one Christ, as to believe that the immortal soul and the mortal body are one man. And Dr. Sherlock added, that the best way for the Socinians to set aside this argument against the mystery of our Lord’s incarnation, was to deny the union of soul and body, because they could not understand it; and openly to maintain, that man is a body without a soul, a compound of mere matter.