“You will then love His work. It will be your meat and drink to do it; and, that you may be vigorous in doing it, as I shall take a little of your wine for my stomach’s sake, take you a good deal of the wine of the kingdom for your soul’s sake. Every promise of the Gospel is a bottle, a cask that has a spring within, and can never be exhausted. Draw the cork of unbelief, and drink abundantly. Be not afraid of intoxication; and if an inflammation follows, it will only be that of Divine love. Be more free with the heavenly wine, than I have been with the earthly, which you sent me. I have not tasted it yet, but whose fault is it? Not yours certainly, but mine. If you do not drink daily out of the cup of salvation, whose fault is it? Not Jesus’s, but yours. Jesus gives you His righteousness to cover your nakedness, and the consolations of His Spirit to cheer and invigorate your soul. Accept and use. Wear, drink, and live to God.”[[128]]
Fletcher was religious in everything, and all his faculties were sanctified. He could not even acknowledge the kindness of his friend without introducing religion; but, to do this gracefully, he exercises, not his manly understanding, but his sportive fancy. “Fancy,” said fanciful Thomas Fuller, “can adorn whatever it touches, can invest naked fact and dry reasoning with unlooked-for beauty, make flowerets bloom even on the brow of a precipice, and, when nothing better can be had, can turn the very substance of the rock itself into moss and lichens.” Few men have possessed a finer fancy than Fletcher did; but his was rarely used except for religious purposes. He might have been an accomplished allegorist; but he preferred to be a scriptural reasoner. His creed was founded, not upon fancies, but upon facts. Hence, in the same month that he wrote the foregoing letter to Mr. Ireland, he wrote as follows to Miss Hatton:—
“Madeley, July 17, 1766.
“Let your faith be rational as well as affectionate. God is good. He does not want us to take His word without proof. What expectations of the Messiah from the beginning of the world! What amazing miracles and wonders were wrought in favour of that people and family, from which He was to come! What prophecies fulfilled, that we might rationally believe! What displays of the Godhead in that heavenly man, Christ Jesus! In Him dwelt, of a truth, the fulness of the Godhead bodily. You see the power of God in His miracles; the goodness of God in His character; the justice and mercy of God in His death; the truth, and faithfulness, and glory of God in His resurrection, in the coming of His Spirit, and in the preaching of His everlasting Gospel. O, my friend, we may believe rationally. We may, with calm attention, view the emptiness of all other religions, and the fulness of assurance that ours affords.”[[129]]
Soon after the date of this letter, Fletcher proceeded to London, to Brighton, and to Oathall, where he had sweet intercourse with the Countess of Huntingdon, Romaine, Venn, Sir Charles Hotham, and with a gentleman and lady from his own country, who were visiting the Countess, and Mr. and Mrs. Powys of Berwick, in Shropshire, Mr. Powys being a gentleman of high connections and of large fortune, and who had, about this period, become conspicuous, in conjunction with Sir Richard Hill and Mr. Lee, of Cotery, for zeal in the cause of God and truth.[[130]]
While staying with Lady Huntingdon at Oathall, Fletcher wrote another pastoral letter, which could not have been more faithful, but might, perhaps with advantage, have been more gentle.
“Oathall, Sussex, September 23, 1766.
“To those who love or fear the Lord Jesus at Madeley, grace, peace, and love be multiplied unto you, from our God and Saviour Jesus Christ!
“Providence, my dear brethren, called me so suddenly from among you, that I had no time to take my leave of you, and recommend myself to your prayers. But I hope the good Spirit of our God, who is the Spirit of love and supplication, has brought me to your remembrance, as the poorest and weakest of Christ’s ministers, whose hands stand most in need of being strengthened and lifted up by your prayers. Pray on then, for yourselves, for one another, and for him whose glory it is to minister to you in spiritual things, and whose sorrow it is not to do it in a manner more suitable to the majesty of the Gospel, and more profitable to your souls. My heart is with you, nevertheless I bear patiently this bodily separation for three reasons.
“1. The variety of more faithful and able ministers, which you have during my absence, is more likely to be serviceable to you than my presence among you, and I would always prefer your profit to my own satisfaction.