_“THE FINISHING STROKE,” “THE CHRISTIAN
WORLD UNMASKED,” “MR. RICHARD HILL’S
THREE LETTERS.”_
1773.
AFTER this long and awkward interruption, there must now be a return to
the wearisome Calvinian controversy.
Early in the year 1773, Mr. Richard Hill published an 8vo. pamphlet of
57 pages, with the title, “The Finishing Stroke: containing some
Strictures on the Rev. Mr. Fletcher’s Pamphlet, entitled Logica
Genevensis, or a Fourth Check to Antinomianism.”
“The Finishing Stroke!” remarked the _Monthly Review_ for March, 1773.
“No—we are afraid not! We shall certainly have _more last words_ from
Shropshire. Here is a fresh attack on the Vicar of Madeley. Mr. Hill
does not seem at all inclined to let Mr. Fletcher remain master of the
field, for want of an opponent, ‘notwithstanding the resolution he had
formed of being silent.’—_Vide advert._ prefixed to the ‘Finishing
Stroke.’”
Mr. Hill’s pamphlet is dated January 2, 1773, and addressed to Fletcher.
He begins by saying:—
“Last Saturday, and not before, I received your _Logica Genevensis_,
or _Fourth Check to Antinomianism_; and am truly sorry to find that
neither the spirit of the piece, nor the doctrine it contains, is a
jot better than what appeared in the former Checks.”
Mr. Richard Hill was angrier than ever. Want of space renders it
impossible to examine his theology; and to quote his calumnious
accusations is unsavoury work; and yet the latter must be done, for the
employment of these slanders was, at least, one of the reasons why the
controversy was continued. Perhaps, Fletcher was not averse to fighting.
He liked an honourable contest, especially if it was likely to repress
evil, or to promote good. To do this had been his chief, almost his only
object during the last two years; but now his own reputation was at
stake, and he was bound to defend himself, as well as to defend the
doctrines he had expounded and enforced.
“The purest treasure mortal times afford,
Is spotless reputation; that away,
Men are but gilded loam, or painted clay.”
On the ninth page of his pamphlet, Richard Hill politely asks poor
Fletcher, “Can you wonder, Sir, that we look upon you as a spiritual
calumniator, and that we accuse you of vile falsehood and gross
perversion?”
On the next page, Mr. Hill remarks:—
“I know, Sir, that it was a warm attachment to your friend, which
occasioned you to run the lengths you have done. But dear as that
friend is to you, truth ought to be dearer still; yet the maxim, which
you seem all along to pursue, is, that Mr. Wesley _must be
vindicated_; yea, though all the ministers in the kingdom, yourself
not excepted, should fall to the ground. But what makes us still more
sensibly feel the power of your pen is that our tenets are most
shamefully (would I could say unintentionally) misrepresented, in
order to prejudice the world against us, and to make them believe we
hold sentiments which from our inmost souls we most cordially detest;
particularly with regard to the doctrines of election and
perseverance, which you have made to stand upon a pillory as high as
Haman’s gallows, dressed up in a frightful garb of your own invention,
and then pelted them till all your mud and dirt was exhausted.
“Mr. Wesley has nothing to do but hold up his finger in order to
prevent thousands of his followers from ever looking into anything
that is written against his own faction, and to make them believe that
the _Four Checks_ (as they are called) contain the _medulla_ of the
Christian religion. Be this as it will, the unfair quotations you have
made, and the shocking misrepresentations and calumnies you have been
guilty of, will, for the future, prevent me from looking into any of
your books, if you should write a thousand volumes. So here the
controversy must end; at least it shall end for me.”
“I cannot, however, conclude without again acknowledging that, in the
sight of men, your life is exemplary, and your walk outwardly
blameless” (p. 41).
Mr. Richard Hill added a “Postscript” of ten pages to his long letter,
the postscript chiefly consisting of extracts from one of Fletcher’s
sermons, preached in Madeley Church, eleven years before, and of which
Mr. Hill happened to possess a manuscript copy. The text was Rom. xi. 5,
6. Mr. Hill says he regards this sermon as “the best confutation” of
Wesley’s “Minutes,” and of Fletcher’s “Checks;” and that, because he so
regarded it, he had actually sent it to press; but, doubting the
fairness and uprightness of such a proceeding without obtaining the
preacher’s permission, he had “stopped the publication.” Mr. Hill,
however, now published _extracts_ from the sermon, without Fletcher’s
permission; and this induced Fletcher to _re-preach_ his sermon with
additions and explanations. This was done in Madeley Church, on May 23,
1773, and the sermon, thus revised, was published in the First Part of
Fletcher’s “Equal Check to Pharisaism and Antinomianism,” in 1774.
It would be easy to pick out of Mr. Hill’s “Finishing Stroke” not a few
most shameful opprobriums. Fletcher is accused of “descending to the
poor illiberal arts of forgery and defamation, in order to _blacken_ his
opponents, and to establish his own pernicious principles.” “He had used
high-flown sarcastic declamation, base forgeries, and gross
misrepresentations.”
Such were some of the acerbities of Richard Hill. He was the slanderer;
not Fletcher. The latter was too much a gentleman, to say nothing of his
being a Christian, to indulge in such scurrilous vituperation. The two
men had been engaged in a theological combat; Hill had been utterly
vanquished; and, instead of meekly acknowledging his defeat, he
dishonourably abused his victorious opponent. With respect to his
conversion, he was more indebted to Fletcher than to any other man; but
this was now forgotten. The Vicar of Madeley, whom he had so greatly
loved, had become the object of his scorn.
Immediately after the publication of his “Finishing Stroke,” Mr. Richard
Hill committed to the press another 8vo pamphlet, of 63 pages, entitled,
“Logica Wesleiensis; or, The Farrago Double Distilled. With an Heroic
Poem in Praise of Mr. John Wesley.” Mr. Hill, in addressing Wesley,
says:—
“I have never seen you above four or five times in my whole life; once
in the pulpit at West Street Chapel; once at a friend’s house; and
once or twice, at my request, you were so kind as to drink a
_forbidden dish of tea_ with me, when I lodged in Vine Street, St.
James’s, as I wanted to speak to you concerning a poor man in your
connections.“
By his own confession, it is evident that Mr. Hill’s personal knowledge
of Wesley was very slight, and yet, in his “Logica Wesleiensis,” he
abuses him more ferociously than he had abused Fletcher in his
“Finishing Stroke.” Of the contumely hurled at Wesley, nothing will be
said here, but two or three extracts concerning Fletcher must be
introduced:—
“Mr. Fletcher affirms that all the Protestant Churches, the old
Calvinist ministers, and Puritan divines, are on the side of the
‘Minutes.’ Mr. Hill makes it appear, as clear as the sun, that this is
a point-blank falsehood as ever was written” (p. 7).
“Mr. Wesley revised, corrected, and gave his own _imprimatur_ to all
Mr. Fletcher’s _Checks_, throughout which, Mr. John is the Alpha and
the Omega” (p. 53).[287]
“Since the foregoing pages were finished in manuscript, I have seen
Mr. Fletcher’s ‘_Logica Genevensis_, or _Fourth Check to
Antinomianism_.’ Though I fully intended to have been silent, the many
perversions and misrepresentations which I have detected under the
cover of much professed candour, will oblige me once more to enter the
lists with my able antagonist; but, despairing of my own skill, I must
beg leave to call in the Vicar of Madeley, to be my second; and
happily for this purpose I have preserved a sermon of his, which was
preached by him only a few years ago, in his own parish church, from
Rom. xi. 5, 6. I think it is by far the best refutation of the
unscriptural doctrine contained in the ‘Minutes,’ and in all the
‘Checks,’ which I have yet seen. As this sermon was publicly delivered
before a very numerous congregation, and copies of it handed about, by
the preacher’s own permission; and as he tells us that he is
determined, _God being his helper, to preach the doctrine therein
contained, till his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth_,—no
reasonable person can think that there is the least unfairness in my
availing myself of so powerful an ally; and I solemnly declare, upon
the word of a Christian, that, in the few extracts I may make from it,
I will not alter the least jot or tittle from the manuscript, and only
make some marginal notes and observations upon it” (p. 59).
Footnote 287:
This was not true, at all events, so far as the “Fourth Check” was
concerned. See Wesley’s Works, vol. x., p. 400.
Mr. Richard Hill might think there was nothing unfair in publishing
another man’s manuscript without his permission; but men of honour will
disagree with him. Even if the manuscript had contained doctrines at
variance with some propounded in Fletcher’s “Checks,” what then? Eleven
years had elapsed since the sermon was composed and preached; and surely
Fletcher was not to be blamed and lashed if, during such a lengthened
period, he had modified some of his theological opinions. Fletcher had
no choice left to him but to re-examine his old sermon, and ascertain if
it contained anything contrary to the doctrines advocated in his
“Checks.”
Meanwhile, another opponent had entered the battle-field. Just at this
juncture, honest, and good, though eccentric, John Berridge, Vicar of
Everton, published his well-known book, entitled, “The Christian World
Unmasked. Pray Come and Peep.” 12mo, 229 pp. The doctrines so quaintly
taught by Berridge were the doctrines of Richard Hill and his
Calvinistic friends; but Berridge was too loving a Christian to display
Richard Hill’s acrimonious spirit. The names of Wesley and Fletcher were
not once mentioned in the whole of his performance; though, of course,
their tenets were attacked. No one could find fault with this; but
Fletcher felt it his duty to answer his dear old friend at Everton.
Writing to John Thornton, Esq., on August 18, 1773, Berridge remarked:—
“In a letter, just received from Mr. Fletcher, he says, ‘What you have
said about sincere obedience has touched the apple of God’s eye, and
is the very core of Antinomianism.[288] You have done your best to
disparage sincere obedience, and, in a pamphlet ready for the press, I
have freely exposed what you have written.’ Then he cries out, in a
declamatory style, ‘For God’s sake, let us only speak against
insincere and Pharisaical obedience.’ Indeed, I thought I had been
writing against insincere obedience throughout the pamphlet; and that
every one, who has eyes, must see it clearly; but I suppose Mr.
Fletcher’s spectacles invert objects, and make people walk with their
heads downwards.”[289]
Footnote 288:
In a letter to the Rev. John Newton, of Olney, dated September 20,
1773, Berridge said, in his own quaint style, “The Vicar of Madeley
has sent me word that my prattle, in my pamphlet of ‘Sincere
Obedience,’ ‘is the core of Antinomianism, has exposed St. James, and
touched the apple of God’s eye,’ and that he intends to put my head in
the pillory, and my nose in the barnacles for so doing.” (“Works of
Berridge; and Life by Whittingham,” p. 386.)
Footnote 289:
“Works of Berridge; and Life by Whittingham,” p. 382.
In another letter to the same gentleman, dated thirteen days afterwards,
Berridge observed:—
”I thank you for the friendly admonition you gave me respecting Mr.
Fletcher. It made me look into my heart, and I found some resentment
there. What a lurking devil this pride is! How soon he takes fire, and
yet hides his head so demurely in the embers, that we do not easily
discover him! I think it is advisable to write to Mr. Fletcher, though
despairing of success. His pamphlet will certainly be published now it
is finished. Indeed, I have written to him aforetime more than once,
and besought him to drop all controversy; but he seems to regard such
entreaties as flowing rather from a fear of his pen than a desire of
peace. His heart is somewhat exalted by his writings, and no wonder.
He is also endowed with great acuteness, which, though much admired by
the world, is a great obstacle to a quiet childlike spirit. And he is
at present eagerly seeking after legal perfection, which naturally
produceth controversial heat. As Gospel and peace, so law and
controversy go hand in hand together. How can lawyers live without
strife? In such a situation, I know, from my own former sad
experience, he will take the Scotch thistle for his motto, _Noli me
tangere_. But his heart seemeth very upright, and his labours are
abundant; and I trust the Master will serve him, by-and-by, as he has
served me,—put him into a pickling tub, and drench him there soundly.
When he comes out, dripping all over, he will be glad to cry, ‘Grace,
grace,’ and ‘a little child may lead him.’ We learn nothing truly of
ourselves, or of grace, but in a furnace.
“Whatever Mr. Fletcher may write against my pamphlet, I am determined
to make no reply. I dare not trust my own wicked heart in a
controversy. If my pamphlet is faulty, let it be overthrown; if sound,
it will rise above any learned rubbish that is cast upon it. Indeed,
what signifies my pamphlet, or its author? While it was publishing, I
was heartily weary of it; and have really been sick of it since, and
concluded it had done no good because it had met with no
opposition.”[290]
Footnote 290:
“Works of Berridge; and Life by Whittingham,” p. 384.
Berridge did write to Fletcher. Hence, in another letter to Mr.
Thornton, he said:—
“Everton, September 25, 1773. I have written to Mr. Fletcher, and told
him what was my intention in speaking against sincere obedience, and
that my intention was manifest enough from the whole drift of my
pamphlet. I have also acquainted him that I am an enemy to
controversy, and that if his tract is published, I shall not rise up
to fight with him, but will be a dead man before he kills me. I
further told him I was afraid that Mr. Toplady[291] and himself were
setting the Christian world on fire, and the carnal world in laughter,
and wished they could both desist from controversy. A letter seemed
needful, yet I wrote to him without any hope of success, and it
appears there is not any. Mr. Jones, an expelled Oxonian, has just
been with him, and called upon me last Saturday. Mr. Fletcher showed
him what he had written against my pamphlet. It has been revised by
Mr. Wesley, and is to be published shortly.”[292]
Footnote 291:
In the preceding year, Toplady had published his scurrilous pamphlet,
with the title, “More Work for Mr. John Wesley; or, A Vindication of
the Decrees and Providence of God from the Defamations of a late
printed paper, entitled, ‘The Consequence Proved.’”
Footnote 292:
“Works of Berridge; and Life by Whittingham,” p. 387.
Strangely enough, while Berridge was requesting peace from Everton,
Richard Hill was doing the same from Hawkstone. Berridge’s three letters
to Mr. Thornton cover the space between August 13, 1773, and September
25, 1773; and Richard Hill’s three letters to Fletcher, now to be
introduced, cover the space between July 31, 1773, and December 23,
1773. Fletcher answered them privately; but his answers have never been
published. Mr. Hill’s letters, too important to be omitted, were as
follows:—
“HAWKSTONE, _July 31, 1773_.
“REV. AND DEAR SIR,—I am credibly informed that you wish to have done
with controversy, and that you are resolved to publish nothing more on
the subject of the late disputes. Upon the strength of this
information, as well as to maintain my own desire of promoting peace,
I shall write to my bookseller in London, to sell no more of any of my
pamphlets which relate to the ‘Minutes;’ and for whatever may have
savoured too much of my own spirit, either in my answers to you, or to
Mr. Wesley, I sincerely crave the forgiveness of you both, and should
be most heartily glad if no person whatever were to add another word
to what has been already said on either side.
”And permit me to hint, that if some restraint could be laid upon
several of Mr. Wesley’s preachers, particularly upon one Perronet (of
whose superlatively abusive and insolent little piece,[293] I believe,
Mr. Charles Wesley testified his abhorrence from the pulpit), I think,
under God, it might be a salutary means of preventing the poison of
vain janglings from spreading any further. But, though it is the
desire of my soul to live in harmony, love, and friendship with you,
dear Sir, yet, if God has ever shown me anything of my own heart, or
of the truths of His Word, I must, and still do think that your
principles are exceedingly erroneous; and of this, I ever cherish a
secret hope that God will convince you, in the course of His dealings
with your soul.
“Wishing you abundance of grace, mercy, and peace, I beg leave to
subscribe myself, Rev. and dear Sir, your sincere friend in the Gospel
of Immanuel,
“R. HILL.
“P.S.—I wish, dear Sir, you would make Mr. Wesley acquainted with the
contents of this letter; and, if I stop the sale of my books, I hope
that of the four ‘Checks’ will be stopped also.”
Footnote 293:
Probably Edward Perronet’s “Small Collection in Verse: containing a
Hymn to the Holy Ghost; an Epigram from the Italian,” etc. Printed in
1772. 12mo, 16 pp.
This letter of Mr. Richard Hill, at the first reading, seems to be
peaceable and friendly; but there is reason to fear that the principle
that prompted it was cowardice rather than courtesy. Mr. Hill had been
vanquished more than once; and, naturally enough, he now wished to
retire from the arena. This, however, his opponents could not permit,
without sending a shaft after him. In his publications just issued, the
“Finishing Stroke,” and the “Farrago Double-Distilled,” to say nothing
of his previous ones, he had most uncharitably accused Fletcher and
Wesley not only of ignorances and mistakes, but of sins. He had called
Fletcher a “calumniator;” he had charged him with practising “forgery
and defamation,” and “gross misrepresentations,” and “slander.” In the
“Farrago Double Distilled,” he had accused Wesley of using “quirks,
quibbles, evasions, and false quotations;” and had designated him “a
chameleon.” His “Heroic Poem in Praise of Mr. John Wesley” was a
disgraceful production, too coarse and vulgar to be quoted. Was it
reasonable to wish or expect that no answer should be made to such
imputations? Reputation was as dear in the case of John Fletcher and
John Wesley as in that of Richard Hill; and, so far as the work of God
and the interests of the Church of Christ were concerned, vastly more
important. Besides, when Mr. Hill says he was “credibly informed” that
Fletcher was “resolved to publish nothing more on the subject of the
late disputes,” he was the victim of a delusion, for Fletcher was
already preparing his “Fifth Check to Antinomianism.”
Fletcher’s reply to Mr. Hill’s first letter has never been published,
but its import may be gathered from Mr. Hill’s second letter to
Fletcher, which was as follows:—
“_August, 1773._
“REV. AND DEAR SIR,—Attendance at the assizes, and multiplicity of
business in my office as a Justice of the Peace, have prevented my
returning a more speedy answer to your letter, in which I find you
complain of my having treated you with severity.
”This obliges me to request you to call to mind the four ‘Checks,’ and
then to say what right the author of them has to complain of severity.
Read the sneering mock proclamation given by the four secretaries of
state of the predestinarian department; read the charges brought
against our celebrated pulpits; and, if you can still justify what you
have advanced, you may then with better reason accuse me of severity.
It pains me to bring these things to your remembrance, as I was
determined, when I wrote last, to avoid every shadow of any accusation
against you for what had passed; and I think you must acknowledge that
my letter was friendly; but your introduction of the subject obliges
me to say what I have. I wish I had any grounds to recall what I have
said concerning your having laid very great misrepresentations before
the public, in your quotations from Mr. Wesley’s ‘Minutes,’ and in the
harmony you would make your readers believe there is between the
Reformers and Puritans, and Mr. Wesley and yourself; for it is most
sure that your principles and theirs are as wide as east from west.
”How far it may be fair to alter the title of your sermon[294] from
what it stands in the manuscript, must be left to yourself; I have no
objection to it as you propose to print it. As to your explanatory
notes and additions in brackets, you know, Sir, that by these you may
easily make the sermon itself speak what language you see proper.
Clarke and Priestly, by explanatory notes and additions in brackets,
can explain away the divinity of Christ; Socinus, His atonement; and
Taylor, the corruption of human nature.
”As you intend to introduce my worthless name into your next
publication, I must beg to decline the obliging offer you make of my
perusing your MSS. I am, Rev. and dear Sir,
“Your sincere friend for Christ’s sake,
“RICHARD HILL.”
Footnote 294:
The sermon preached in Madeley Church, on May 23, 1773, and afterwards
published in the “Fifth Check to Antinomianism.”
Mr. Hill’s last letter is the best of the three. It was written soon
after his mother’s death, and a short time before Fletcher’s “First Part
of the Fifth Check to Antinomianism” was published. Fletcher offered to
allow Mr. Hill to read the work in manuscript, but, as Mr. Hill himself
states, the offer was declined.
“HAWKSTONE, _December 23, 1773_.
“REV. AND DEAR SIR,—I take the liberty of requesting you to distribute
among the poor of Madeley the enclosed two guineas, in such way and
manner as you shall judge fit and proper.
“I sent your last letter to my brother Rowland, who is now at
Tottenham Court chapel, and suppose he received it. However, I waive
saying anything of the subject of it, as it is my design to have
totally done with the controversy, which I am firmly persuaded has not
done me any good. Excuse me if I say, I wish you to examine closely
whether it has done you any. For my own part, I desire to be humbled
before God, as well as to ask your forgiveness and Mr. Wesley’s (to
whom I purpose making a visit of peace and love when I go to London),
for everything that has savoured of wrong or of my own spirit, in what
I have written relative to his ‘Minutes;’ and, though I believe your
sentiments to be erroneous, yet I esteem and honour you for all you
have said against sin; and for the stand you have made for practical
religion in this Laodicean, Antinomian age; and truly concerned should
I be, if any expressions have dropped from my pen, which might make
the readers think lightly of sin, under the notion of honouring the
Saviour from sin. But as God can bear me witness that I had no
intentions of this sort, so I am certain that whosoever makes Christ
all his salvation, can never at the same time make Him a minister of
sin; and I trust the hour will come when, under a deep sense of your
own sinfulness and nothingness, you will be glad to lay hold of some
of those comfortable Gospel truths, which now you look upon as
dangerous poison.
“In consequence of my former letter to you, I wrote to my bookseller
in London, and told Mr. Eddowes in Shrewsbury, to stop the sale of all
my publications concerning the controversy between us; and, unless God
shows me that it is a matter of duty so to do, I shall not revoke this
order; it being my earnest desire for the time to come, if it be
possible, to live peaceably with all men; and, though I cannot approve
some of Mr. Wesley’s doctrines, because I believe them to be contrary
to Scripture, and am sure they are contrary to my own experience, yet,
as I am persuaded that many who are the excellent of the earth are in
his connexion, I wish to confirm my love towards them on account of
the grace that is in them; and, whilst I reject their errors, still to
esteem their persons; and never to say or do anything that may hurt
that common cause for which we all ought to be contending, or which
may grieve the weakest or meanest of Christ’s people.
“These, dear Sir, are my present sentiments and intentions, and you
have my free permission to declare them upon the house-top.
“An afflictive breach, which God has lately been pleased to make in
our family, by depriving me of a most tender and affectionate mother,
calls upon me to beg your prayers, that the sudden stroke may be
sanctified to me and to us all. It loudly bids me remember that I am
but a stranger and pilgrim here below. May the Lord give me a
pilgrim’s spirit! and may He give us both a right judgment in all
things!
“Permit me to subscribe myself, Rev. and dear Sir, your sincere friend
and servant in Christ,
“RICHARD HILL.”
The Christian spirit of this letter cannot be excelled. What a contrast
to that of the “Finishing Stroke,” published at the beginning of the
year! Mr. Hill gave Fletcher full permission to make known the facts
that the controversy had done him no good; that he desired to be humbled
before God, and to ask forgiveness of Fletcher and Wesley for everything
that had “savoured of wrong,” or of his “own spirit,” in his writings;
that he had stopped the sale of his publications; and that he regarded
many of Wesley’s people as “the excellent of the earth.”
There can be no doubt that Fletcher availed himself of Mr. Hill’s
permission. The facts did honour to Mr. Hill; but, as is often the case,
in the course of circulation, the facts were perverted. By no fault of
Fletcher, it was reported that Mr. Hill had recanted the _doctrines_ he
had so stoutly maintained. This was utterly untrue; and led Mr. Hill to
send his three letters to the press.[295] No one could have found fault
with this; but, unfortunately, Mr. Hill prefixed a preface to his
letters, and appended an appendix.
Footnote 295:
The title was, “Three Letters, written by Richard Hill, Esq., to the
Rev. J. Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley, in the year 1773; setting forth
Mr. Hill’s Reasons for declining any further controversy relative to
Mr. Wesley’s Principles. Shrewsbury.” 8vo., 30 pp.
In his preface, he remarks, that when Wesley heard from Fletcher that he
(Mr. Hill) had suppressed the sale of his publications, he wrote Mr.
Hill “a short and civil letter,” in which he said, he himself intended
to write nothing more on the controversy between them, and expressed the
hope that all, in the future, would be love and peace. This
communication gratified Mr. Hill, and soon afterwards, when he went to
London, he had an interview with Wesley at West-street chapel, and
assured him of his intentions to retire from the warfare, and said he
wished that nothing more should be said on the subject by any one.
Wesley took him by the hand; showed a loving, pacific disposition; and,
says Mr. Hill, “we parted very good friends.”
Besides this personal narrative, however, the preface renewed the
slanderous attacks on Fletcher, accusing him of misrepresenting facts,
of using “artifices in his manner of making quotations;” and
“declamation, chicanery, evasion, false glosses, and pious frauds, to
throw dust into the eyes of his readers.” Not content with this, he made
an onslaught on Thomas Olivers, Wesley’s trenchant Itinerant, who (in
1774) had just published a 12mo book of 168 pages, entitled “A Scourge
to Calumny. In Two Parts. Inscribed to Richard Hill, Esq.” He sneeringly
calls him “one Thomas Oliver, alias Olivers, a journeyman cordwainer,
who had written a pamphlet against him (Mr. Hill), which, though in
itself _black in the grain_, was afterwards _lacquered up_, _new soled_,
and _heel-tapped_ by his master before it was exposed for sale.”
“I shall not,” continues Mr. Hill, “take the least notice of him, or
read a line of his composition,[296] any more than, if I was
travelling on the road, I would stop to lash, or even order my footman
to lash, every impertinent little quadruped in a village, that should
come out and bark at me; but would willingly let the contemptible
animal have the satisfaction of thinking he had driven me out of
sight.”
Footnote 296:
If Mr. Hill had not read Thomas Oliver’s little book, how is it that
he can so graphically describe it?
This was despicable bombast; for the Welsh shoemaker, as a controversial
writer, was quite equal to him who, in due time, became a Shropshire
baronet. Mr. Hill proceeds to say that he cannot read any more of
Fletcher’s books, and, therefore, cannot write any more answers to them;
but, because it was now currently reported that he had recanted the
doctrines which he had defended, he had revoked his orders to stop the
sale of his publications, and that his “Five Letters to Fletcher,” his
“Review of Wesley’s Doctrines,” his “Farrago Double Distilled,” his
“Paris Conversation,” and his “Finishing Stroke,” might now be bought as
heretofore.
The Appendix to Mr. Hill’s Three Letters suggests a proposed title to
Fletcher’s works, and sets forth “A Creed for Arminians and
Perfectionists,” as follows:—
“ARTICLE I.
“I believe that Jesus Christ died for the whole human race, and that
He had no more love towards those who now are, or hereafter shall be,
in glory, than for those who now are, or hereafter shall be, lifting
up their eyes in torments; and that the one are no more indebted to
His grace than the other.
“ARTICLE II.
“I believe that Divine grace is indiscriminately given to all men; and
that God, foreseeing that by far the greater part of the world would
reject this grace, doth, nevertheless, bestow it upon them in order to
heighten their torments and to increase their damnation in hell.
“ARTICLE III.
“I believe it depends wholly on the will of the creature whether he
shall or shall not receive any benefit from Divine grace.
“ARTICLE IV.
“Though the Scripture tells me that the carnal mind is enmity against
God, yet I believe there is something in the heart of every natural
man that can nourish and cherish the grace of God; and that the sole
reason why this grace is effectual in some and not in others, is
entirely owing to themselves and to their own faithfulness, and not to
the distinguishing love and favour of God.
“ARTICLE V.
“I believe that God sincerely wishes for the salvation of many who
never will be saved; consequently, that it is entirely owing to want
of ability in God that what He so earnestly willeth is not
accomplished.
“ARTICLE VI.
“I believe that the Redeemer not only shed His precious blood, but
prayed for the salvation of many souls who are now in hell;
consequently, that His blood was shed in vain, and His prayer rejected
of His Father; and that, therefore, He told a great untruth when He
said, ‘I know that Thou hearest me always.’
“ARTICLE VII.
“I believe that God, foreseeing some men’s nature will improve the
grace which is given them, and that they will repent, believe, and be
very good, elects them unto salvation.
“ARTICLE VIII.
“I believe that the love and favour of Him with whom is no
variableness and shadow of turning, and whose gifts and callings are
without repentance, may vary, change, and turn every hour and every
moment, according to the behaviour of the creature.
“ARTICLE IX.
“I believe that the seed of the Word, by which God’s children are born
again, is a corruptible seed; and that, so far from enduring for ever
(as that mistaken apostle Peter rashly affirms), it is frequently
rooted out of the hearts of those in whom it was sown.
“ARTICLE X.
“I believe that Christ does not always give unto His sheep eternal
life; but that they often perish, and are, by the power of Satan,
frequently plucked out of His hand.
“ARTICLE XI.
“Though I have solemnly subscribed to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the
Church of England, and have affirmed that I believe them from my
heart, yet I think our Reformers were profoundly ignorant of true
Christianity, when they declared, in the Ninth Article, that ‘the
infection of nature doth remain in them which are regenerate;’ and, in
the Fifteenth, that ‘all we, the rest (Christ only excepted), although
baptized and born again in Christ, yet offend in many things; and _if
we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in
us_.’ This I totally deny, because it cuts up, root and branch, my
favourite doctrine of _Perfection_; and, therefore, let Peter, Paul,
James, or John, say what they will; and let reformers and martyrs join
their syren song, their eyes were at best but half opened, for want of
a little _Foundery_ eye-salve; therefore, I cannot look upon them as
adult believers, and fathers in Christ.”
The Eleven Articles were subscribed, “J. F.,” “J. W.,” and “W. S.;”
which may be taken as the initial letters of the names of John Fletcher,
John Wesley, and Walter Sellon.
“What! more _finishing strokes_!” remarked the _Monthly Review_ of
January, 1775, in its notice of Mr. Hill’s new pamphlet. “This
retiring champion, however, like the Parthians of old, is not less
formidable in his retreat than in a direct attack. He here lets fly at
the _Arminians_ and _Perfectionists_ one of his sharpest pointed
arrows. He styles it ‘_their creed_.’ He says he has ‘composed it from
their sentiments;’ and he adds that he ‘can scarcely read it without
horror.’ Yet he thinks himself justified in publishing it, as Mr.
Fletcher still continued the controversy with so much warmth.”
All this is deeply to be regretted. Mr. Hill had declared his
determination to abandon this painful warfare, and yet here he provokes
a continuance of it. It is true that, meanwhile, Fletcher had published
his “Answer to the Finishing Stroke” of Mr. Hill; but Fletcher had done
this, not because he desired the controversy to be prolonged, but
because “The Finishing Stroke” contained so many grave attacks on
Fletcher’s moral character, that Fletcher’s honour could not be
maintained without an “Answer” being written. At this point the war
might have ended; but, by appending the “Creed for Arminians and
Perfectionists” to his Three Letters, Mr. Hill re-opened the sluice, and
“the waters of strife” flowed as fiercely as ever.
From a Calvinian point of view, the “Creed” is drawn up with great
ability; but Mr. Hill was well aware that it was a misrepresentation of
the sentiments of Fletcher and Wesley. Besides, the thing itself was in
bad taste. It must be acknowledged that Fletcher had published his
“Gospel Proclamation: Given at _Geneva_, and signed by four of his
Majesty’s principal Secretaries of State for the Predestinarian
Department!” but there was no need that Mr. Richard Hill should copy
Fletcher’s objectionable example.
It is now time, however, to turn to Fletcher’s masterly replies.