Chapter VIII · COMMENCEMENT OF THE CALVINIAN CONTROVERSY. 1770 AND 1771. (continued 2)
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Fletcher then proceeds to give a deplorable picture of many of the professing Christians of the age, which, it is to be hoped, was too darkly drawn, though it is difficult to prove it was. The following extract shows that many of the Methodists were not better than their neighbours, and that it was of paramount importance that Wesley’s preachers should take heed to their doctrine:—
“Mr. Wesley has many persons in his Societies, (and would to God there were none in ours!) who profess they were justified or sanctified in a moment; but, instead of trusting in the living God, so trust in what was done in that moment, as to give over taking up their cross daily, and watching unto prayer with all perseverance. The consequences are deplorable: they slide back into the spirit of the world; and their tempers are no more regulated by the meek, gentle, humble love of Jesus. Some inquire with the heathens, What shall we eat, and what shall we drink to please ourselves? Others evidently love the world; lay up treasures on earth; or ask, Wherewith shall we be fashionably clothed? Therefore, the love of the Father is not in them. And not a few are led captive by the devil at his will: influenced by his unhappy suggestions, they harbour bitterness, malice, and revenge: none is in the right but themselves, and ‘wisdom shall die with them.’
“Now, Sir, Mr. Wesley cannot but fear it is not well with persons who are in any of these cases: though everybody should join to extol them as ‘dear children of God,’ he is persuaded that Satan has beguiled them, as he did Eve; and he addresses them, as our Lord did the angel of the church of Sardis,—‘I know thy works, that thou hast a name, that thou livest; and art dead,’ or dying: ‘Repent, therefore, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die; for I have not found thy works perfect before God.’”
When it is remembered that Fletcher’s manuscript was read and revised by Wesley, before it was printed, the foregoing description of “many persons” in Wesley’s Societies is possessed of more than ordinary interest. Only ten years 201had elapsed since the great revival of Christian perfection in those Societies, and yet such was the judgment pronounced by Fletcher, and which Wesley sanctioned!
After explaining and defending all the doctrines contained in Wesley’s “Minutes,” Fletcher concludes his fourth letter as follows:—
“Thus, Sir, have I looked out for the heresy, the dreadful heresy of Mr. Wesley’s ‘Minutes,’ by bringing all the propositions they contain to the touchstone of Scripture and common sense; but, instead of finding it, I have found the very marrow of the Gospel of Christ. I have showed that the ‘Minutes’ contain nothing but what is truly scriptural; and nothing but what the best Calvinist divines have themselves, directly or indirectly, asserted; except, perhaps, the sixth proposition concerning the merit of works; and, with respect to this, I hope I have demonstrated, upon rational and evangelical principles, that Mr. Wesley, far from bringing in a damnable heresy, has done the Gospel justice, and Protestantism service, by candidly giving up an old prejudice, equally contrary to Scripture and good sense,—a piece of bigotry which has long hardened the papists against the doctrine of salvation by the merit of Christ, and has added inconceivable strength to the Antinomian delusion among us.
“One“One difficulty remains, and that is, to account for your attacking Mr. Wesley, though you could not wound him without stabbing yourself. Reserving my reflections upon this amazing step for another letter,
“I remain your astonished servant in the bonds of a peaceful Gospel,
“J. Fletcher.”
As here indicated, the fifth and last letter contained that which most offended Shirley. In his “Narrative,” Shirley remarks:—
“Mr. Wesley assured us he had corrected all the tart expressions in them” (that is, in Fletcher’s Letters). “Alas! Qualia verba, quæ facta! Whether there are no tart expressions in the Letters, let every one that hath seen them judge. But, perhaps, this learned gentleman distinguishes between the tart and the bitter. If all the tart expressions are corrected, I am sure there are enough of the bitter left.
“As to the Letters themselves, I shall have ‘the author’s’ pardon for noticing two particular charges against me.
“1. I am supposed to want candour; as if I had put a forced construction on the ‘Minutes,’ in order to bring Mr. Wesley in guilty. Mr. Fletcher has attempted a ‘vindication’ of them; and, by breaking them into sentences and half-sentences, and refining upon each of these detached particles, he has done more than I could have expected, even from his great abilities, in giving a new turn to the whole. But, after reading his learned and elaborate ‘Vindication,’ when I cast my eye 202over the ‘Minutes,’ and consider the whole as it stands in context, I must own, I am just where I was: nothing but the ‘Declaration’ could ever convince me that justification by works was not maintained and supported by the ‘Minutes.’
“2. The charge of inconsistency is supported by quotations from my sermons. To this, I beg leave to observe, that the passages quoted are not altogether in point; neither do they maintain justification by works in such direct and express terms as the ‘Minutes’ appear to do. I must, however, own that they savour too strongly of mysticism and free-will; and all I can say, on my behalf in this respect, is, that they were written many years ago, at a time when I had more zeal than light; that my present ministry, as well as my present way of thinking, is very different; and that I have frequently expressed my disapprobation of those sermons, nay wished they had been burnt.”
Shirley was nettled; and, after the imperious arrogance displayed in his “Circular Letter,” he deserved to be. Fletcher’s fifth and last letter is caustical; but not more so than the occasion justified. The following is extracted from it:—
“Hon. and Rev. Sir,—Having vindicated both some important doctrines of the Gospel, and an eminent servant of Christ from the charge of dreadful heresy, I will now take the liberty of a friend to expostulate a little with you.
“When Brutus, among other senators, rushed upon Cæsar, the venerable general said, ‘Art thou also among them? Even thou, my son?’ May not Mr. Wesley address you, Sir, in the same words, and add, ‘If a body of men must be raised to attack me, let some zealous follower of Dr. Crisp, some hot-headed vindicator of reprobation and eternal justification blow the trumpet, and put himself at their head; but let it not be you, who believe with me that we are moral agents; that God is love; that Jesus tasted death for every man; and that the Holy Spirit shall not always strive with sinners. If you do not regard my reputation, consider at least your own, and expose me not as a heretic for advancing propositions, the substance of which you have avowed before the sun.’
“But had those propositions, at length, appeared to you unsound, yea, and had you never maintained them yourself, should you not, as a Christian and a brother, have wrote to Mr. Wesley, acquainted him with your objections, and desired him to solve them and explain himself, or you should be obliged publicly to expose him?
“Was this condescension more than was due from you, Sir, and our other friends, to a grey-headed minister of Christ, an old general in the armies of Emmanuel, a father who has children capable of instructing even masters in Israel, and one whom God made the first and principal instrument of the late revival of internal religion in our Church?
“Instead of this friendly method, as if you were a Barak, commanded by the Lord God of Israel, you call together the children of Naphthali 203and Zebulun: you convene, from England and Wales, clergy and laity, Churchmen and Dissenters, to meet you at Bristol, where they are, it seems, to be entertained in good and free quarters. And for what grand expedition? Why, on a day appointed, you are to march up in a body, not to attack Sisera and his iron chariots, but an old Caleb, who, without meddling with you, quietly goes on to the conquest of Canaan; not to desire, in a friendly manner, after a fair debate of every proposition that appears dangerous, and, upon previous conviction, that what is exceptionable may be given up; but to do what I think was never done by nominal, much less by real Protestants. O let it not be told in Rome, lest the sons of the Inquisition rejoice! This mixed, this formidable body is to insist upon Mr. Wesley and the preachers in his connexion, formally recanting their ‘Minutes,’ as appearing injurious to the very fundamental principles of Christianity, and being dreadfully heretical. And this, astonishing! without the least inquiry made into their meaning and design, without a shadow of authority from our superiors in Church or State, without an appeal to the law and to the testimony, without form of process, without judge or jury, without so much as allowing the poor heretics (who are condemned six weeks before they can possibly be heard) to answer for themselves!
“How could you suppose, Sir, that Mr. Wesley and the preachers who assemble with him are such weak men, as tamely to acknowledge themselves heretics upon your ipse dixit? Suppose Mr. Wesley took it in his head to convene all the divines that disapprove the extract of Zanchius,[241] to go with him in a body to Mr. Toplady’s chapel, and demand a formal recantation of that performance as heretical; yea, to insist upon it, before they had ‘measured swords or broken a pike together,’ would not the translator of Zanchius laugh at him, and ask whether he thought to frighten him by his protests, or bully him into orthodoxy?
“O, Sir, have we not fightings enough without, to employ all our time and strength? Must we also declare war and promote fightings within? Must we catch at every opportunity to stab one another, because the livery of truth which we wear is not turned up in the same manner? What can be more cruel than this? What can be more cutting to an old minister of Christ, than to be traduced as a dreadful heretic, in printed letters sent to the best men in the land, yea, through all England and Scotland, and signed by a person of your rank and piety? To have things that he knows not, that he never meant, laid to his charge, and dispersed far and near? While he is gone to a neighbouring kingdom,[242] to preach Jesus Christ, to have his friends 204prejudiced, his foes elevated, and the fruit of his extensive ministry at the point of being blasted? Put yourself in his place, Sir, and you will see that the wound is deep and reaches the very heart.
“Our Elijah[243] has lately been translated to heaven. Grey-headed Elisha is yet awhile continued upon earth. And shall we make a hurry and noise, to bring in railing accusations against him with more success? Shall the sons of prophets, shall even children in grace and knowledge, openly traduce the venerable seer and his abundant labours? When they see him run upon his Lord’s errands, shall they cry, not, ‘Go up, thou bald head,’ but, ‘Go up, thou heretic’? O Jesus of Nazareth, Thou rejected of men, Thou Who wast once called a deceiver of the people, suffer it not; lest the raging bear of persecution come suddenly out of the wood upon those sons of discord, and tear them in pieces.”
Remembering the confidential and warm friendship that had existed between Fletcher and the Countess of Huntingdon and her nephew, Walter Shirley, it must be admitted that these “expostulations” were pungent; but they were provoked by the arrogance of the offenders. It is true, as already stated, that, on the evening before Wesley’s Conference assembled, her ladyship and Shirley wrote letters to Wesley containing half-hearted apologies for their “arbitrary way of proceeding” in the “Circular Letter.” “It must be acknowledged,” said Shirley, “that, upon the whole, the Circular Letter was too hastily drawn up and improperly expressed; and, therefore, for the offensive expressions in it, we desire we may be hereby understood to make every suitable submission to you, Sir, and to the gentlemen of the Conference.”[244] The apology was proper; but it was not sufficient. The “Circular Letter,” branding Wesley as a dreadful heretic, had been sent to a large number of “principal persons, both clergy and laity,” throughout the three kingdoms; whereas the letters of the Countess and her nephew were private ones, addressed only to Wesley and his preachers. Moreover, the apology was accompanied with a threat.
“I cannot but wish,” wrote Shirley, “that the recantation of the Circular Letter may prevail as an example for the recantation of the ‘Minutes.’ If I should be unhappily disappointed in this respect, I 205shall feel myself bound in conscience to yield my public testimony against such doctrines as these, which appear to me subversive of the fundamentals of Christianity.”[245]
And, once more, the apology, such as it was, was sent too late, for Fletcher had already written his “Vindication” of Wesley’s “Minutes;” the manuscript had been sent to Wesley, and Wesley had revised it, and committed it to the press.
The war was begun, and we must follow it to its termination, so far as Fletcher is concerned; for it is impossible, in a work like this, to notice all the pamphlets that were published. Those who wish for further information may turn to the “Life and Times of Wesley.”
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