“I shall not be able to establish the doctrine I maintain unless you allow me the existence of the proper senses, to which our Lord manifests Himself. The manifestation I contend for being of a spiritual nature, must be made to spiritual senses; and that such senses exist, and are opened in, and exercised by, regenerate souls, is what I design to prove in this letter” (the first), “by the joint testimony of Scripture, our Church, and reason.”
In his second letter, Fletcher defines what he means, and does not mean, by the manifestations of the Son of God to the soul of man. In the third and fourth, he dwells on the uses of such manifestations. The fifth contains a summary of the numerous appearances of the Son of God during the Old Testament dispensation, and concludes with answers to the objection that these appearances proved “only, that God favoured the patriarchs and Jews with immediate revelations of Himself, because they had neither the Gospel nor the Scriptures.” Fletcher’s fourth answer to this objection is so characteristic that it must be quoted:—
“If, because we have the letter of Scripture, we must be deprived of all immediate manifestations of Christ and His spirit, we are great losers by that blessed book, and we might reasonably say, ‘Lord, bring us back to the dispensation of Moses! Thy Jewish servants could formerly converse with Thee face to face; but now we can know nothing of Thee, but by their writings. They viewed Thy glory in various wonderful appearances; but we are indulged only with black lines telling us of Thy glory. They had the bright Shekinah, and we have only obscure descriptions of it. They were blessed with lively oracles; and we only with a dead letter. The ark of Thy covenant went before them, and struck terror into all their adversaries; but a book, of which our enemies make daily sport, is the only revelation of Thy power among us. They made their boast of Urim and Thummim, and received particular, immediate answers from between the cherubim; but we have only general ones, by means of Hebrew and Greek writings, which many do not understand. They conversed familiarly with Moses their mediator, with Aaron their high priest, and with Samuel their prophet; these holy men gave them unerring directions in doubtful cases; but, alas! the apostles and inspired men are all dead; and Thou, Jesus, our Mediator, Priest, and Prophet, canst not be consulted to any purpose, for Thou manifestest Thyself no more. As for Thy sacred book, Thou knowest that sometimes the want of money to purchase it, the want of learning to consult the original, the want of wisdom to understand the translation, the want of skill or sight to read it, prevent our improving it to the best advantage, and keep some from reaping any benefit from it at all. O Lord! if, because we have this blessed picture of Thee, we must have no discovery of the glorious original, have compassion on us, take back Thy precious book, and impart Thy more precious Self to us, as Thou didst to Thy ancient people!”
In his sixth and last Letter, Fletcher proves “that the New Testament, as well as the Old, abounds with accounts of particular revelations of the Son of God;” and he concludes thus:—
“Having thus led you from Genesis to Revelation, I conclude by two inferences, which appear to me undeniable. The first, that it is evident our Lord, before His incarnation, during His stay on earth, and after His ascension into heaven, hath been pleased, in a variety of manners, to manifest Himself to the children of men, both for the benefit of the Church in general, and for the conversion of sinners and the establishment of saints in particular. Secondly, that the doctrine, which I maintain, is as old as Adam, as modern as St. John, the last of the inspired writers, and as scriptural as the Old and New Testaments, which is what I wanted to demonstrate.”
This is an imperfect outline of Fletcher’s production, but want of space prevents enlargement. Some, with a scornful jeer, will brand Fletcher as a mystic; and others, sincerely in search of truth, but who have not experienced that of which he speaks, will ask his meaning. Leaving the former to their own infidel or pharisaic wisdom, it may be said in reply to the latter, Fletcher meant nothing more than what Christ Himself meant in His sixth beatitude, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God;” and again, in one of His latest utterances, “He that hath My commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me; and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him.” Or, again, Fletcher meant what St. Paul meant in texts like the following:—“The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
If it be asked, again, what is the meaning of these and such like texts? it may be answered, substantially,—the meaning is the same as what is meant by stanzas like the following, written by John or Charles Wesley, and selected from their Hymn Book, almost at random:—
“Spirit of faith, come down,
Reveal the things of God;
And make to us the Godhead known,