“In hungering and thirsting after righteousness, he was peculiarly worthy of our imitation. He never rested in anything he had either experienced or done in spiritual matters. He was a true Christian racer, always on the stretch for higher and better things. Though his attainments, both in experience and usefulness, were far above the common standard, yet the language of his conversation and behaviour always was, ‘Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfected; but I follow after, if by any means I may apprehend that for which I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.’ He had his eye upon a full conformity to the Son of God; or what the Apostle terms, ‘the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.’ Nor could he be satisfied with anything less.
“He was meek, like his Master, as well as lowly in heart. Not that he was so by nature, but of a fiery, passionate spirit; insomuch that he has frequently thrown himself on the floor, and lain there most of the night bathed in tears, imploring victory over his own temper. And he did obtain the victory, in a very eminent degree. For twenty years and upwards before his death, no one ever saw him out of temper, or heard him utter a rash expression, on any provocation whatever.[[645]] And he did not want provocation, and that sometimes in a high degree; especially from those whose religious sentiments he thought it his duty to oppose. But none of these things moved him: no, not in the least degree. The keenest word he used was, ‘What a world, what a religious world we live in!’ I have often thought the testimony, that Bishop Burnet bears of Archbishop Leighton, might be borne of him with equal propriety: ‘After an intimate acquaintance of many years, and after being with him by night and by day, at home and abroad, in public and in private, on sundry occasions and in various affairs,—I must say, I never heard an idle word drop from his lips, nor any conversation which was not to the use of edifying. I never saw him in any temper, in which I myself would not have wished to be found at death.’ Any one, who has been intimately acquainted with Mr. Fletcher, will say the same of him: and they who knew him best will say it with the most assurance.
“Hence arose his readiness to bear with the weaknesses, and forgive the faults of others: which was the more remarkable, considering his flaming zeal against sin, and his concern for the glory of God. Such hatred to sin, and such love to the sinner, I never saw joined together before.
“He never mentioned the faults of an absent person, unless absolute duty required it. And then he spoke with the utmost tenderness, extenuating, rather than aggravating. None could draw his picture more exactly than St. Paul has done, in the thirteenth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians. ‘He suffered long and was kind; he envied not; acted not rashly; was not puffed up; did not behave himself unseemly; sought not his own; was not easily provoked; he thought no evil; rejoiced not in iniquity, but rejoiced in the truth; he covered all things; believed all things; hoped all things; and endured all things.’ It would be easy to enlarge on all these particulars, and show how they were exemplified in him; but, waiving this, I would only observe, that, with regard to two of them, kindness to others, and not seeking his own, he had few equals.
“His kindness to others was such, that he bestowed his all upon them: his time, his talents, his substance. His knowledge, his eloquence, his health, his money, were employed, day by day, for the good of mankind. He prayed, he wrote, he preached, he visited the sick and well, he conversed, he gave, he laboured, he suffered, winter and summer, night and day: he endangered, nay, destroyed his health, and in the end gave his life also for the profit of his neighbours, that they might be saved from everlasting death. He denied himself even of such food as was necessary for him, that he might have to give to them that had none. And when he was constrained to change his manner of living, still his diet was plain and simple. And so were his clothing and furniture, that he might save all that was possible for his poor neighbours.
“He sought not his own in any sense: not his own honour, but the honour of God, in all he said or did. He sought not his own interest, but the interest of his Lord, spreading knowledge, holiness, and happiness, as far as he possibly could. He sought not his own pleasure, but studied to ‘please all men, for their good to edification;’ and to please Him that had called him to His kingdom and glory.
“But I do not attempt his full character. I will only add, ‘He was blameless and harmless, a son of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation: shining among them as a light in the world.’”
Both Wesley and Benson insert this eulogium in their lives of Fletcher; but Wesley adds:—
“I think one talent wherewith God had endued Mr. Fletcher has not been sufficiently noted yet. I mean his courtesy; in which there was not the least touch either of art or affectation. It was pure and genuine, and sweetly constrained him to behave to everyone (although particularly to inferiors), in a manner not to be described: with so inexpressible a mixture of humility, love, and respect. This directed his words, the tone of his voice, his looks, his whole attitude, his every motion.
“‘Grace was in all his steps, heaven in his eye,