Fletcher of Madeley

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Early in the new year of 1771 the happy relations of Fletcher and
Wesley with the Countess of Huntingdon were shattered by unfortunate
differences in theology, Mr. Fletcher, held by certain utterances of
Wesley against Calvinistic doctrine, finding himself, as a result,
obliged to resign his Presidency of Trevecca College. Circumstances,
regretted most of all by himself, drew Fletcher into a long Calvinian
controversy, and to the publication of his famous "Checks to
Antinomianism," and remarkable and closely-reasoned vindication of the
doctrines by which he held, abounding in the plainest of plain speech.

The Calvinian controversy was long and bitter, being succeeded by a
Unitarian controversy, which became equally prominent. Both
disturbances were productive of much discussion, of many pamphlets, of
"Vindications," and "Answers," and "Circulars," and "Letters." Into
this word-war Fletcher was drawn much against his own preference, but
when once the fight had been entered upon, it was almost impossible
for him to extricate himself until it was fought out.

"What a world!" he wrote to Benson; "methinks I dream when I reflect
that I have written on controversy; the last subject I thought I
should have meddled with. I expect to be smartly taken in hand and
soundly drubbed for it. Lord, prepare me for it, and for everything
that may make me cease from man, and, above all, from your unworthy
servant."

Enemies there were, not a few, who rejoiced at an opportunity of
hurling abuse at a good man--some of the sharp and stinging things
they said amounted to actual slander. To know how keen was the fight,
how bitter and provoking the attacks made, one must read the
correspondence and pamphlets then issued; but in the midst of it all
Wesley was able to write of his friend:--

"I rejoice not only in the abilities, but in the temper, of Mr.
Fletcher. He writes as he lives. I cannot say that I know such another
clergyman in England or Ireland. He is all fire, but it is the fire of
love. His writings, like his constant conversation, breathe nothing
else, to those who read him with an impartial eye."

The controversy was much to be deplored on account of the personal
element brought in at all points, yet Fletcher's clear and eloquent
writings in his "Checks" was a fine service rendered to the Christian
faith. Once more to quote Wesley:--

"In his 'Checks to Antinomianism,' one knows not which to admire most
--the _purity_ of the language, the _strength_ and _clearness_
of the argument, or the _mildness_ and _sweetness_ of the
spirit that breathes through the whole. Insomuch that I nothing
wonder at a serious clergyman, who, being resolved to live and die
in his own opinion, when he was pressed to read them, replied, 'No,
I will never read Mr. Fletcher's "Checks," for if I did I should be
of his mind.'"

In January, 1773, a memorial letter was written to the Vicar of
Madeley by John Wesley, asking him to become his successor as leader
and head of the Methodist people. Indeed, the venerable Father of
Methodism would have had his instant aid, for his letter concludes:--

"Without conferring, therefore, with flesh and blood, come and
strengthen the hands, comfort the heart, and share the labour of "Your
affectionate friend and brother, "JOHN WESLEY."

Fletcher's response was tentative; not wholly a refusal, yet not an
acceptance:--

"I would not leave this place," he concluded, in reply, "without a
fuller persuasion that the time is _quite_ come. Not that God
uses me much here, but I have not yet sufficiently cleared my
conscience from the blood of all men. Meantime, I beg the Lord to
guide me by His counsel, and make me willing to go anywhere, or
nowhere, to be anything, or nothing.

"Help by your prayers till you can bless by word of mouth, Rev. and
dear Sir, your willing, though unprofitable servant in the Gospel.

"J. FLETCHER."

Wesley was greatly against his saintly friend hiding his light under
the bushel of a country vicarage. Thirteen years later he wrote his
own opinion of Fletcher's mission:--

"He was full as much called to sound an alarm through all the nation
as Mr. Whitefield himself. Nay, abundantly more so, seeing he was far
better qualified for that important work. He had a more striking
person, equally good breeding, an equally winning address, together
with a richer flow of fancy, a stronger understanding; a far greater
treasure of learning, both in languages, philosophy, philology, and
divinity; and, above all (which I can speak with fuller assurance,
because I had a thorough knowledge both of one and the other), a more
deep and constant communion with the Father, and with the Son, Jesus
Christ."

Before a year had passed Fletcher's health began to fail, and he was
glad to devote himself to the writing which proved so useful and
convincing. To Mr. Ireland he wrote:--

"My throat is not formed for the labours of preaching. When I have
preached three or four times together it inflames and fills up; and
the efforts which I am then obliged to make heat my blood. Thus I am,
by nature, as well as by the circumstances I am in, obliged to employ
my time in writing a little. O that I may be enabled to do it to the
glory of God!"

Perhaps nothing he wrote more fully conduced to that lofty purpose
than his famous "Polemical Essay on the Twin Doctrines of Christian
Imperfection and a Death Purgatory"; than which few clearer, more
convincing, or more able vindications of Scriptural holiness have ever
been written. Can aught be plainer than the definition of Christian
perfection which follows:--

"...Christian perfection is nothing but the depth of evangelical
repentance, the full assurance of faith, and the pure love of God and
man shed abroad in a faithful believer's heart, by the Holy Ghost
given unto him, to cleanse him, and to keep him clean, 'from all
filthiness of the flesh and spirit'; and to enable him to fulfil the
law of Christ' according to the talents he is entrusted with, and the
circumstances in which he is placed in this world.... This is evident
from the descriptions of Christian perfection which we find in the New
Testament."

In a practical, almost homely, manner, Fletcher deals with questions
we often hear put to-day. For instance :--

"_How many baptisms, or effusions of the sanctifying Spirit, are
necessary to cleanse a believer from all sin, and to kindle his soul
into perfect love?..._ If you asked your physician how many doses
of physic you must take before all the crudities of your stomach can
be carried off, and your appetite perfectly restored, he would
probably answer you that this depends upon the nature of those
crudities, the strength of the medicine, and the manner in which your
constitution will allow it to operate, and that, in general, you must
repeat the dose, as you can bear, till the remedy has fully answered
the desired end. I return a similar answer: If one powerful baptism of
the Spirit 'seals you unto the day of redemption,' and 'cleanses you
from all' moral 'filthiness,' so much the better. If two or more are
necessary, the Lord can repeat them.

"_Which is the way to Christian perfection? Shall we go to it by
internal stillness, agreeably to the direction of Moses and David ...
or shall we press after it by an internal wrestling according to the
commands of Christ?..._ The way to perfection is by the due
combination of prevenient, assisting free grace, and of submissive,
assisted free will.... 'God worketh in you to will and to do,' says
St. Paul. Here he describes the passive office of faith, which submits
to, and acquiesces in, every divine dispensation and operation.
'Therefore work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,' and,
of consequence, with haste, diligence, ardour, and faithfulness....
Would ye then wait aright for Christian perfection? Impartially admit
the two Gospel axioms, and faithfully reduce them to practice. In
order to this, let them meet in your hearts, as the two legs of a pair
of compasses meet in the rivet which makes them one compound
instrument.... When your heart quietly rests in God by faith, as it
steadily acts the part of a passive receiver, it resembles the leg of
the compasses which rests in the centre of a circle; and then the
poet's expressions, 'restless, resigned' ("_Restless, resigned, for
God I wait; for God my vehement soul stands still_."--Wesley),
describes its fixedness in God. But when your heart swiftly moves
towards God by faith, as it acts the part of a diligent worker; when
your ardent soul follows after God, as a thirsty deer does after the
water-brooks, it may be compared to the leg of the compasses which
traces the circumference of a circle; and then these words of the
poet, 'restless' and 'vehement,' properly belong to it.

"Is Christian perfection to be instantaneously brought down to us? or
are we gradually to grow up to it? Shall we be made perfect in love by
an habit of holiness suddenly infused into us, or by acts of feeble
faith and feeble love so frequently repeated as to become strong,
habitual, and evangelically natural to us?"

Such are the difficulties with which Fletcher deals, patiently and
fully turning them inside out, comparing and contrasting, defining and
enlarging, leading the reader step by step to the conclusion that
Christian perfection is essentially the perfection of _love_,
love, "the highest gift of God, humble, gentle, patient love," shed
abroad in the heart of the believer by the perpetual anointing of the
Holy Spirit.

As he finds his climax in Wesley's words, let us read them in the
sense of his own quotation:--

"All visions, revelations, manifestations whatever, are little things
compared to love.... The Heaven of heavens is love. There is nothing
higher in religion; there is, in effect, nothing else. If you look for
anything but more love, you are looking wide of the mark, you are
getting out of the royal way. And when you are asking others, 'Have
you received this or that blessing?' if you mean any thing but more
love, you mean wrong; you are leading them out of the way, and putting
them upon a false scent. Settle it, then, in your heart, that, from
the moment God has saved you from all sin you are to aim at nothing
but more of that love described in 1 Cor. xiii. You can go no higher
than this till you are carried into Abraham's bosom."

One of the Greenwood family, with whom Fletcher frequently stayed,
made a reference to this production of his thought, which it were well
to remember: "Whoever has had the privilege of observing Mr.
Fletcher's conduct will not scruple to say that _he was a living
comment on his own account of Christian perfection_.... As far as
man is able to judge, he did possess perfect humility, perfect
resignation, and perfect love."

CHAPTER XIX.

FAILING HEALTH

Unwilling as he might be for further controversy, Fletcher quickly
discovered that he had not yet done with it. Toplady, Vicar of a Devon
village, and so-called author of "Rock of Ages," bitterly attacked a
tract of Mr. Wesley's on Predestination, referring to some of his own
Calvinian heresies. Wesley had neither time nor inclination to wage a
paper war with an angry man. The work was undertaken by Fletcher, who
found himself plunged afresh into the troubled waters of religious
controversy. In his very Introduction Fletcher refuses to have
anything to say to the personal charges vindictively hurled by his
opponent:--

"These charges," he writes, "being chiefly founded upon Mr. Toplady's
logical mistakes, they will, of their own accord, fall to the ground
as soon as the mistakes on which they rest shall be exposed. May the
God of truth and love grant that if Mr. Toplady has the honour of
producing the best arguments, I, for one, may have the advantage of
yielding to them! To be conquered by truth and love is to prove
conqueror over our two greatest enemies--error and sin."

He then proceeds to deal with each of Toplady's _seventy-three_
arguments in favour of Predestination, abolishing them one by one, but
in a cool, calm, reasonable way which contrasts nobly and sweetly with
the angry prejudice of the other.

His preaching tours were interfered with by this work, but he deemed
himself to be doing as much, if not more, for God by pouring the
daylight of heavenly reason upon the errors which darkened the minds,
narrowed the perspective, and burdened the hearts of so many in that
day of Calvinian controversy.

Strangely enough, Fletcher's next essay was into the arena of
_political_ strife--or, as he terms it, "Christian politics"--
being led thereto by a pamphlet of Wesley's upon the American War of
Independence then raging. He thoroughly prepared himself, not
unnecessarily, for the storm which was to follow; for the minds of men
were divided, and political speech has ever tended to undue licence
and heat.

The Government of George III., however, considered that Fletcher had
uttered words as valuable as they were timely. The Secretary of State
for the Colonies introduced the tract to the Lord Chancellor, and he
to the King. It was not long before Fletcher was asked if he would
entertain the idea of any preferment in the Church; was there aught
which the Lord Chancellor might do for him in this way? His reply
chimed with every act of his life. "I want nothing," answered the
saintly man; "nothing but more grace."

It was at this time that Fletcher's health showed grievous signs of
failure. His arduous toil, long journeys, close writing, and
insufficient food, had told all too surely upon a delicately-organised
frame. A violent cough beset him, with slight but frequent hæmorrhage.

John Wesley advised an open-air cure, pressing him to spend some
months on horse-back, touring with him through parts of England and
Scotland. They set out together in the early spring, and travelled
1,100 or 1,200 miles in this way (not, however, into Scotland), taking
such journeys as were suited to the invalid's strength. So greatly did
he profit by some weeks in the saddle that Wesley declared if he would
only have continued it for a few months longer he would have become a
strong man once more.

In May, 1776, however, we find him at Bristol Hot Wells, debarred from
his parochial work. Wesley suggested more saddle-cure, proposing a
five-hundred mile tour to Cornwall, but Fletcher had by that time
resigned himself to the hands of a physician who forbade the exertion,
being out of sympathy with a remedy so far in advance of the times.

This medical adviser, however, mistook his case, reducing him to great
weakness. A specialist who then undertook him restored his strength
somewhat by more generous diet, although the relapse which followed
was so serious that his friends thought him to be dying, and his
congregation sang an intercessory hymn composed for the occasion.

From his multiplicity of remedies and advisers, however, Wesley
rescued him once more, put him in the saddle, and led him through
Oxfordshire, Northampton, and Norfolk, bringing him home greatly
benefited for the open air.

Fresh-air treatment, however, needs wisely conducting in the untoward
climate of England, and a self-prescribed ride upon a winter's day of
bitter frost threw Fletcher again into suffering and danger. Friends
nursed him in London, and a noted specialist was brought to him by Mr.
Ireland, whose kindness was ever unfailing; while two or three
physicians regularly attended and gave their best advice. Rest,
silence, and a diet of the richest milk seemed most to help him, but
it was a real sacrifice for him to hold his peace concerning the
intense love of Jesus which filled his soul. Often by signs he would
"stir up those about him to pray and praise."

"When he was able to converse, his favourite subject was _the
promise of the Father, the gift of the Holy Ghost_, including the
rich, peculiar blessing of union with the Father and the Son mentioned
in the prayer of our Lord, recorded in John xvii. 'We must not be
content,' said he, 'to be only cleansed from sin; we must be filled
with the Spirit.' One asking him, What was to be experienced in the
full accomplishment of _the promise_ of the Father? 'Oh,' said he,
'what shall I say? All the sweetness of the drawings of the Father,
all the love of the Son, all the rich effusions of peace and joy in
the Holy Ghost, more than ever can be expressed are comprehended
here! To attain it, the Spirit maketh intercession in the soul, like
a God wrestling with a God.'"

Fletcher's conversation had a savour all its own. He heard and saw
nothing which did not in some way suggest to him the ways and love of
God. He was much in the habit of spiritualising all allusions of an
earthly nature, and what in some men would have sounded like
_cant_ was refined by his inner spirituality to sanctified
quaintness. For instance, Mr. Ireland with great difficulty persuaded
Fletcher to sit for his portrait. While the artist was busy, his
subject used the time in exhorting all in the room to spare no pains
to get the outlines and colourings of the image of Jesus impressed
upon their hearts. During the barbarous blood-letting to which his
physicians subjected him, he would talk very tenderly of "the precious
blood-shedding of the Lamb of God." On being entertained in the house
of a friend he besought the cook to "stir up the Divine fire of love
within his heart, that it might burn up all the rubbish therein, and
raise a flame of holy affection"; while he addressed the housemaid as
follows: "I entreat you to sweep every corner of your heart, that it
may be fit to receive your Heavenly Guest!"

The Rev. Henry Venn met Fletcher at the house of Mr. Ireland, where
they stayed together for six weeks. Referring to this visit some years
later, Mr. Venn remarked to another clergyman:--

"Sir, Mr. Fletcher was a luminary--_a luminary_, did I say? He
was a _sun!_ I have known all the great men for these fifty
years, but I have known none like him. I was intimately acquainted
with him.... I never heard him say a single word which was not proper
to be spoken, and which had not a tendency to minister grace to the
hearers.... Never did I hear Mr. Fletcher speak ill of anyone. He
would pray for those who walked disorderly, but he would not publish
their faults."

Little wonder that both saint and sinner loved this Christly man!

CHAPTER XX.

BY THE SHORES OF LAKE LEMAN.

Unaware of the sickness of her saintly friend (whom she had not met
for fifteen years), Miss Bosanquet was one day extremely startled to
be asked, "Do you know that Mr. Fletcher is dying?" She at once began
to entreat the Lord for him, and while upon her knees received the
assurance of James v. 15: "The prayer of faith shall save the sick,
and the Lord shall raise him up."

Just at that time the Methodist Conference was held in Bristol, and
Fletcher, who had returned to the ceaseless care of Mr. Ireland near
by, was one day assisted by him into the assembly. A letter written by
one who was present gives an interesting picture of the scene:--

"The whole assembly stood up as if moved by an electric shock. Mr.
Wesley rose, _ex cathedrâ_, and advanced a few paces to receive
his highly-respected friend and reverend brother, whose visage seemed
strongly to bode that he stood on the verge of the grave, while his
eyes, sparkling with seraphic love, indicated that he dwelt in the
suburbs of Heaven.... He addressed the Conference, on their work and
his own views, in a strain of holy and pathetic eloquence, which no
language of mine can adequately express. The influence of his spirit
and pathos seemed to bear down all before it....He had scarcely
pronounced a dozen sentences before a hundred preachers, to speak in
round numbers, were immersed in tears.... Mr. Wesley, in order to
relieve his languid friend from the fatigue and injury which might
arise from a too long and arduous exertion of the lungs through much
speaking, abruptly kneeled down at his side, the whole congress of
preachers doing the same, while, in a concise and energetic manner,
he prayed for Mr. Fletcher's restoration to health, and a longer
exercise of his ministerial labours. Mr. Wesley closed his prayer with
the following prophetic promise, pronounced in his peculiar manner,
and with a confidence and emphasis which seemed to thrill through
every heart--'HE SHALL NOT DIE, BUT LIVE, AND DECLARE THE WORKS OF THE
LORD?'"

This prophecy was afterwards blessedly fulfilled.

Madeley yearned for its now beloved Vicar, and thinking that all would
be well if he were only once more in their midst, one of his
parishioners brought a horse, designing to walk by him all the way
from Bristol to Madeley. Two or three others came and entreated him to
travel home in a post-chaise, but his physicians forbade his return to
the scene of his old labours, and his parishioners, perforce, returned
disappointed.

Miss Bosanquet thought to help the cure she now expected, and sent a
favourite remedy of her own, which Fletcher acknowledged in a long
letter, but did not try.

Before the year (1777) was spent, Fletcher had so far recovered his
strength as to be able to travel, and, accompanied by Mr. Ireland, two
of his daughters, and other friends, started for Switzerland, that
once more Fletcher might breathe his native air.

A continental journey by post-chaise in December was not unlikely to
prove trying, but though the axle-tree broke, and they were left on
the side of a snow-covered hill with nine miles to walk in the
piercing cold of a north wind, Mr. Fletcher bore the fatigue and cold
as well as any of the party. By the end of February he was able to
ride fifty-five miles in a day. A couple of months later he was
welcomed to his father's house at Nyon once more, where the sweet,
pure air, much riding and plenty of goats' milk conduced to the
healing process at work within him.

"We have a fine shady wood near the lake," he wrote to a friend,
"where I can ride in the cool all the day, and enjoy the singing of a
multitude of birds." Of the way in which he spent his time he says, "I
pray, have patience, rejoice, and write when I can; I saw wood in the
house when I cannot go out; and eat grapes, of which I have always a
basket by me."

"I met some children in my wood gathering strawberries," runs a letter
to Mr. Ireland, who had not accompanied him to Nyon; "I spoke to them
about our _common_ Father. We felt a touch of brotherly
affection. They said they would sing to their Father, as well as the
birds, and followed me, attempting to make such music as you know is
commonly made in these parts. I outrode them, but some of them had the
patience to follow me home, and said they would speak with me. The
people of the house stopped them, saying I would not be troubled with
children. They cried, and said _they were sure I would not say so,
for I was their good brother_. The next day, when I heard this, I
enquired after them, and invited them to come and see me, which they
have done every day since. I make them little hymns, which they sing.
Some of them are under sweet drawings.... Last Sunday I met them in
the wood; there were a hundred of them, and as many adults. Our first
pastor has since desired me to desist from preaching in the wood...
for fear of giving umbrage; and I have complied, from a concurrence of
circumstances which are not worth mentioning; I therefore now meet
them in my father's yard."

In the following winter Fletcher made an eighty-mile journey in order
to assist his English medical adviser and friend, William Perronet, to
secure a Swiss inheritance which he had gone to the Continent to
claim. Part of the distance had to be performed on a sledge through
"narrow passes cut through the snow...frequently on the brinks of
precipices"; some of it was traversed on foot amid hardship and
danger. But neither distances nor difficulties prevented Fletcher from
speaking to all whom he could find ready to listen of Christ and His
boundless love. William Perronet declared that he had preached the
Gospel, not only by words and example, but by _looks_ also,
wherever he went.

From the early days of his frugal feasting upon bread and currants,
Fletcher strongly believed in the plentiful use of fruit as food. His
grapes were succeeded the following summer by a black-cherry diet, and
for severe rheumatism he drank a decoction of pine-apple. He had also
great faith in exercise, riding in preference to driving, walking
whenever he had strength, and when unable to go out of doors allowing
himself three minutes of jumping just before dinner. This may sound a
curious form of exertion, yet it was recommended to him by two
physicians.

Despite the blessing Fletcher was to the people around him--some of
whom pleaded with him _on their knees_, with tears, to remain
with them--there were many in authority who took the greatest
exception to his "irregular" ways of doing good. He was actually
"summoned before the Seigneur Bailiff, who sharply reprimanded him for
preaching against Sabbath-breaking and stage plays." He forbade Mr.
Fletcher preaching in any of the churches of his native country.
Curiously enough, the minister who led this opposition died suddenly,
as he was dressing for church, and a house was given over to the
Vicar's use that he might there exhort the many who came to him for
help and teaching.

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