Note 7 — Chapter VII · CONTROVERSY AND CORRESPONDENCE.
Reading edition
The characteristic of Fletcher's letters which we consider their greatest blemish is the frequent spiritualizing of common facts and incidents. We will illustrate our meaning. His friend Mr. Ireland had sent him a hamper of wine, and some cloth to be made into a suit of clothes. In acknowledging the present, he says: "Your broadcloth can lap me round two or three times; but the mantle of Divine love, the precious fine robe of Jesus's righteousness, can cover your soul a thousand times. The cloth, fine and good as it is, will not keep out a hard shower; but that garment of salvation will keep out even a shower of brimstone and fire. Your cloth will wear out; but that fine linen, the righteousness of saints, will appear with a finer lustre the more it is worn. The moth may fret your present, or the tailor may spoil it in cutting it; but the present which Jesus has made you is out of reach of the spoiler, and ready for present wear." These comparisons are pursued considerably further, and then the other part of Mr. Ireland's present has its turn. "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."
On another, but similar, occasion he writes to his good friend, "I want the living water rather than cider, and righteousness more than clothes."
These are not the extremest instances that Fletcher's letters afford of his habit of "spiritualising." It is plain that no suspicion of anything incongruous in his comparisons ever crossed his mind. Happy the man of whom it can be said that the only quality in which he is deficient is a sense of humour!
Wesley's remark upon this characteristic of Fletcher's style is: "This facility of raising useful observations from the most trifling incidents was one of those peculiarities in him which cannot be proposed to our imitation.... What was becoming and graceful in Mr. Fletcher would be disgustful almost in any other."