_PUBLICATIONS IN THE YEAR_
1776.
EXCEPT his posthumous works, the remainder of Fletcher’s writings were
issued during the next two years, 1776 and 1777. These will be briefly
noticed in the present chapter. During the last four years, his
antagonists had been Walter Shirley, Richard Hill, Rowland Hill, and
John Berridge. Now he encountered three others—Augustus Montague
Toplady, the well-known Vicar of Broad Hembury, in Devonshire; Caleb
Evans, an eminent Baptist minister at Bristol; and, in connection with
Mr. Evans, the celebrated Rev. Richard Price, D.D., an Arian minister,
at Hackney, London.
Methodist readers are so familiar with the life and character of
Toplady, as to render it unnecessary to refer to them in the present
pages. Suffice it to say, that this remarkable and strangely constituted
man seems to have been almost as much prejudiced against Fletcher as he
was against Wesley. “I was lately asked,” said he, “what my opinion is
of Mr. John Fletcher’s writings. My answer was, that, in the very few
pages I had perused, the _serious_ passages were dulness double
condensed; and the _lighter_ passages, impudence double distilled.”[331]
Footnote 331:
Toplady’s “Posthumous Works,” 1780, p. 234.
In 1770, Wesley published his tract, entitled, “The Doctrine of Absolute
Predestination Stated and Asserted.” This was a faithful abridgment of
Toplady’s translation of Zanchius’s once famous book,[332] and concluded
with the well-known paragraph:—
“The sum of all is this: one in twenty (suppose) of mankind are
elected; nineteen in twenty are reprobated. The elect shall be saved,
do what they will; the reprobate shall be damned, do what they can.
Reader, believe this, or be damned. Witness my hand,
“A—— T——.”
Footnote 332:
Toplady’s Translation was published at the end of the year 1769.
Toplady was terribly enraged, and immediately published “A Letter to the
Rev. Mr. John Wesley: relative to his pretended Abridgment of Zanchius
on Predestination.” In 1771, Wesley replied to this, in his tract
entitled, “The Consequence Proved,”—the object of which was to establish
the paragraph which had occasioned Toplady such huge offence. A year
later, Toplady published his “More Work for Mr. John Wesley; or, A
Vindication of the Decrees and Providence of God from the Defamation of
a late printed paper, entitled, ‘The Consequence Proved.’” Wesley had no
time and no inclination to continue the controversy; but handed over the
angry Vicar of Broad Hembury to the tender mercies of Thomas Olivers and
Fletcher. Olivers’ tart pamphlet need not be further mentioned; but, in
reference to Fletcher, it may be added, that, in a letter to Mr. Richard
Hill, dated “March 12, 1773,” Toplady wrote:—
“I am told that Mr. Fletcher has it in contemplation to make an attack
on _me_ too. He is welcome. I am ready for him. Nor shall I, in that
case, altogether imitate the examples of yourself and your brother;
unless Mr. Fletcher should treat me with more decency than he has,
hitherto, observed towards others. Tenderness, ’tis very evident, has
no effect on Mr. Wesley and his pretended _family of love_. Witness
the rancour with which Mr. Hervey’s[333] memory and works are treated
by that lovely family. For my own part, I shall never attempt to hew
such millstones with a feather. They must be served as nettles; press
them close, and they cannot sting. Yet have they my prayers and my
best wishes for their present and future salvation. But not one hair’s
breadth of the Gospel will I ever offer at their shrine, or sacrifice
to their idol.”[334]
Footnote 333:
The well-known Rev. James Hervey.
Footnote 334:
Toplady’s “Posthumous Works,” 1780, p. 343.
Toplady’s information that Fletcher intended to “attack” him was quite
correct; but, for the present, Fletcher was so occupied with his “Checks
to Antinomianism,” that two years elapsed before he could devote
attention to his new antagonist.
Toplady had no need to tell Mr. Richard Hill, in 1773, that, in any
future replies he might make to the attacks of Wesley, Fletcher, or
their friends, he would not be sparing in the language that he used;
for, in his “Letter” to Wesley in 1770, and his “More Work for Wesley”
in 1772, he had employed abuse which is, perhaps, unparalleled in
religious literature, and for which it is difficult to account. Wesley
was charged, by this young man of thirty years, with using “all the
sophistry of a Jesuit, and the dictatorial authority of a pope.” He had
descended to his “customary resource of false quotations, despicable
invective, and unsupported dogmatisms.” His “phraseology” was “as
pregnant with craft as his conduct” was “destitute of honour.” “By his
deep-laid, but soon detected, cunning,—by his avowed vacuity of candour,
truth, and shame, he has, in the general estimation of all unprejudiced
people, gotten a wound and dishonour and reproach which all his whining
and winding sophistry will never be able to wipe away.” “Perversion and
falsification are essential figures in this man’s rhetoric.” “Unless God
give Mr. Wesley repentance to the acknowledging of the truth, the
unparalleled perverseness with which he labours to blacken some
doctrines of Christianity will be the burden of his soul in the hour of
death and in the day of judgment.”
These are really mild—_very mild_—specimens of Toplady’s unaccountable
abuse of Wesley. How the same man could write, “Rock of ages, cleft for
me,” and other hymns quite as exquisite, it is difficult to conceive.
Fletcher’s long-expected reply was published in 1776, with the following
title-page, “An Answer to the Rev. Mr. Toplady’s ‘Vindication of the
Decrees,’ etc. By the Author of the Checks. London: Printed in the year
1776.” 12mo, 133 pp.
Fletcher disposes of Toplady’s abusive language in his “Introduction.”
He writes:—
“If Mr. Toplady, in his controversial heat, has forgotten what he owed
to Mr. Wesley and to himself, this is no reason why I should forget
the title of my book, which calls me to point out the bad arguments of
our opponents, and not their ill humour. If I absurdly spent my time
in passing a censure upon Mr. Toplady’s spirit, he would, with reason,
say, as he does in the introduction to his ‘Historical Proof,’[335]
page 35, ‘What has my pride or my humility to do with the argument in
hand? Whether I am haughty or meek, is of no more consequence either
to that, or to the public, than whether I am tall or short.’ Besides,
having, again and again, myself requested our opponents not to
wiredraw the controversy by personal reflections, but to weigh with
candour the arguments which are offered, I should be inexcusable if I
did not set them the example. Should it be said that Mr. Wesley’s
character, which Mr. Toplady has so severely attacked, is at stake,
and that I ought purposely to stand up in his defence; I reply, that
the personal charges which Mr. Toplady interweaves with his arguments
have been already fully answered by Mr. Olivers;[336] and that these
charges 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.”
Footnote 335:
Toplady’s “Historic Proof of the Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of
England;” published, in two volumes, in 1774.
Footnote 336:
In “A Letter to the Rev. Mr. Toplady, occasioned by his late Letter to
Mr. Wesley. By Thomas Olivers, 1771.” 12mo, 60 pp.
What a contrast between Fletcher and Toplady! Both were men of genius;
both were scholars; both were clergymen of the Church of England; both
were polemics; but one was meek in heart—the other just the opposite;
one was a gentleman—the other, notwithstanding his ability and
eloquence, was a traducer.
As already stated, the short paragraph which Wesley appended to his
abridgment of Toplady’s translation of Zanchius’s “Doctrine of Absolute
Predestination Stated and Asserted” infuriated the Vicar of Broad
Hembury to an almost incredible degree. Toplady employed, what Fletcher
calls, seventy-three “_arguments_,” but which might more correctly be
called _dogmatisms_, in replying to Wesley’s exposure of Calvinian
predestination. Fletcher, in his “_Answer_,” deals with these, one by
one, seriatim. Toplady was overmatched, and his “arguments” were shown
to be fallacies. Throughout his able book, Fletcher never loses his
temper, and never indulges in vituperation. The strongest language he
uses is found in his concluding paragraphs, as follows:—
“I humbly hope that I have, in the preceding pages, contended for the
truth of the Gospel, and the honour of God’s perfections. My
conscience bears me witness, that I have endeavoured to do it with the
sincerity of a candid inquirer after truth; and that I have not,
knowingly, leaped over one material difficulty which Mr. Toplady has
thrown in the way of the laborious divine whose evangelical principles
I vindicate. And now, judicious reader, if I have done my part as a
detecter of the fallacies by which the modern doctrines of grace are
‘kept upon their legs,’ let me prevail upon thee to do thy part as a
judge, and to say if the right leg of Calvinism, that is, the lawless
election of an unscriptural grace, so draws thy admiration as to make
thee overlook the deformity of the left leg, that is, the absurd,
unholy, sin-ensuring, hell-procuring, merciless, and unjust
reprobation which Mr. Toplady has attempted to vindicate. Shall thy
reason, thy conscience, thy feelings, thy Bible, and, what is more
than this, shall all the perfections of thy God, and the veracity of
thy Saviour, be sacrificed on the altar of a reprobation which none of
the prophets, apostles, and early fathers ever heard of?—a barbarous
reprobation which heated Augustine drew from the horrible error of
Manichean necessity, and clothed with some Scripture expressions
detached from the context, and wrested from their original meaning?—a
Pharisaic reprobation, which the Church of Rome took from him, and
which some of our reformers unhappily brought from that corrupted
Society into the Protestant Churches?—in a word, a reprobation which
disgraces Christianity, when that holy religion is considered as a
system of evangelical doctrine, as much as our most enormous crimes
disgrace it, when it is considered as a system of pure morality? Shall
such a reprobation, I say, find a place in thy creed? yea, among thy
doctrines of grace? God forbid!
“I hope better things of thy candour, good sense, and piety. If
prejudice, human authority, and voluntary humility, seduce many good
men into a profound reverence for that stupendous dogma, be not
carried away by their number, or biassed by their shouts. Be not
afraid to ‘be pilloried in a preface, flogged at a pamphlet’s tail,’
and treated as a knave, a felon, or a blasphemer through the whole of
the next vindication of the deified[337] decrees, which are commonly
called ‘Calvinism.’ This may be thy lot, if thou darest to bear thy
plain testimony against the Antinomian idol of the day.”
Footnote 337:
“Mr. Toplady calls them ‘the decrees of God;’ and it is an axiom among
Calvinists, that ‘God’s decrees are God Himself.’”
Fletcher’s conflict with Toplady was continued. Hence the following
“Advertisement,” affixed to the _first edition_ of the book just
dismissed:—
“Since these sheets have been prepared for the press, I have seen a
new performance of Mr. Toplady, in defence of the doctrine which is
exposed in the preceding pages. As there are, in that piece, some
_new_ arguments, the plausibility of which may puzzle many readers;
and as I think it my duty _fully_ to vindicate the truth, and
_completely_ to detect error; I design to answer that book also, in a
little tract, which will be a supplement to this, and which will
probably see the light under the following title, ‘A Reply to the
Principal Arguments by which the Calvinists and the Fatalists Support
the Spreading Doctrine of _Absolute Necessity_. In some Remarks on the
Rev. Mr. Toplady’s ‘Scheme of Philosophical Necessity.’”
To understand this, it must be stated, that, in 1774, Wesley published a
12mo pamphlet of 33 pages, entitled, “Thoughts upon Necessity.” This was
one of Wesley’s ablest publications, and, to use Wesley’s own words, in
his address “to the Reader,” it was meant to rebut the teaching of an
“Essay on Liberty and Necessity,”[338] which he had lately read. “I
would fain,” says he, “place mankind in a fairer point of view than that
writer” (the author) “has done: as I cannot believe the noblest creature
in the visible world to be only a fine piece of clock-work.” Toplady was
not once mentioned in Wesley’s tract; but he immediately set to work to
answer it, and, in the following year, his strange production was issued
with the following title: “The Scheme of Christian and Philosophical
Necessity Asserted. In Opposition to Mr. John Wesley’s Tract on that
Subject. With a Dissertation concerning the Sensible Qualitys of Matter:
and the Doctrine of Color in particular. By Augustus Toplady, Vicar of
Broad Hembury. London, 1775.” 8vo, 216 pp.
Footnote 338:
This Essay had been published, in Edinburgh, some years before.
Wesley, as already stated, had not even named Toplady in his
publication, much less abused him; but the opportunity of again reviling
Wesley was too tempting to be neglected. In his preface, he gives an
extract from a letter, written by a London clergyman, who had sent him
Wesley’s tract:—
“I went last night to the Foundery, expecting to hear Pope _John_; but
was disappointed. After hearing a Welshman,[339] for an hour and
twenty minutes, on Psalm lxxxiv. 11, preach up all the heresies
(_sic_) of the place, a man, who sat in the pulpit, told him to ‘_Give
over_:’ for he seemed to bid fair for another half hour, at least. But
he came to a conclusion, as desired. Then this man, who seemed to be a
local preacher,[340] stood up with a pamphlet in his hand, and
addressed the auditory in the following manner:—
“‘I am desired to publish a pamphlet upon _Necessity_ and
_Free-Will_,—the best I know of in the English tongue,—by _Mr. John
Wesley_, price _threepence_. I had purposed to say a _good deal_ upon
it; but the _time_ is elapsed. But, in this threepenny pamphlet, you
have _all_ the disputes that have been bandy’d about so lately; and
you will get your minds more established by _this threepenny_
pamphlet, than by reading _all_ the books that have been written for
and against. It is to be had at both doors, as you go out.’”
Footnote 339:
Query? Thomas Olivers, corrector of the press for Wesley.
Footnote 340:
Query? John Atlay, the book-steward.
It is not unlikely that this narration is true; for, in those days,
Methodist preachers preached long sermons, and, from the pulpit,
recommended the people to purchase Methodist publications. Toplady takes
occasion to call the occurrence “a droll sort of mountebank scene,” and
pretends to bewail “the unreasonable and unseasonable prolixity of the
long-winded holder-forth, which cruelly, injudiciously, and despitefully
prevented poor _Zany_ from puffing off, with the amplitude he intended,
the multiplex virtues of the doctor’s threepenny free-will powder.” He
continues:—
“‘_Never do that by delegation_,’ says an old proverb, ‘_which you can
as well do in propria persona_. Had Doctor John himself got upon the
stage, and sung—
‘Come, buy my fine powders; come buy dem of me;
Hare be de best powders dat ever you see:’
who knows, but the threepenny doses might have gone off _at both
doors_,’ as rapidly as peas from a pop-gun?”
Toplady, in a bantering tone, proceeds to give the “_chief ingredients
of the famous Moorfields powder_,” namely:—
“An equal portion of gross _Heathenism_, _Mahometism_, _Popery_,
_Manichaeism_, _Ranterism_, and _Antinomianism_; cull’d, dry’d, and
pulveriz’d, _secundem artem_: and, above all, mingled with as much
palpable _Atheism_ as you can possibly scrape together from every
quarter.” (Preface.)
In Chapter I., Toplady continues this unworthy, dishonourable abuse. He
writes:—
“_Aliquis in omnibus, nullus in singulis._ The man, who concerns
himself in everything, bids fair not to make a figure in anything. Mr.
John Wesley is, precisely, this _aliquis in omnibus_; for, is there a
single subject in which he has not endeavoured to shine? He is also,
as precisely, a _nullus in singulis_; for, has he shone in any one
subject which he ever attempted to handle? Upon what principle can
these two circumstances be accounted for? Only upon that very
principle, at which he so dolefully shakes his head, viz., the
principle of _necessity_. The poor gentleman is, _necessarily_, an
universal meddler; and, as _necessarily_, an universal miscarryer. Can
he _avoid_ being either the one or the other? No.” (p. 10.)
In a subsequent page, Toplady asserts:—
“Mr. Wesley, in one respect, is _as much_, and, in another respect,
_abundantly more_ a _Manichae_, than either Scythian, Budda, or Manes.
By a very singular mixture of _Manichaeism_, _Pelagianism_, _Popery_,
_Socinianism_, _Ranterism_, and _Atheism_, he has, I believe, now got
to his ultimatum. Probably, he would go still further, if he could.
But, I really think, he has no farther to go. Happy settlement, after
forty years’ infinity of shiftings and flittings hither and thither!
“‘Thus weathercocks, which, for awhile,
Have turn’d about with every blast,—
Grown old, and destitute of oil,
Rust to a point, and fix at last!’” (p. 131.)
Again, on page 168, Toplady’s reader is told that—
“Mr. Wesley is the lamest, the blindest, and the most
self-contradictory waster of ink and paper, that ever pretended to the
name of reasoner. ’Tis almost a disgrace to refute him.”
Again, on p. 172, Toplady writes:—
“Mr. Wesley’s heat and prophaneness are such, that he dares to scold
his Maker with as little ceremony, and with as much scurrility, as an
enraged fish-woman would be-din the ears of a ’prentice wench.”
Was Toplady a _Christian_? It is difficult to answer that question. A
more monstrous combination of opposing qualities has seldom figured on
the stage of human life. He was now thirty-four years of age.[341] Three
years and a-half later he was dead.
Footnote 341:
Wesley was more than seventy!
It is needless to furnish an outline of Toplady’s bold book. What he
attempted to expound and prove will be found in the following extracts:—
“I own myself very fond of _definitions_. I therefore præmise[342]
_what_ the _necessity_ is, whose cause I have undertaken to plead. I
would define necessity to be _that, by which, whatever comes to pass
cannot but_ come _to pass_ (all circumstances taken into the account);
_and can come to pass_ in _no other way or manner_ than it does” (p.
12).
Footnote 342:
In this, and in all the foregoing extracts, the spelling of words is
_literally_ given.—L. T.
Again, on page 157, he writes:—
“For my own part, I solemnly profess, before God, angels, and men,
that I am _not conscious_ of my being endued with that
self-determining power, which Arminianism ascribes to me as an
individual of the human species. Nay, I am _clearly certain_ that I
have it not. I am also equally certain that I _do not wish_ to have
it; and that, were it possible for my Creator to make me an offer of
transferring the determination of any one event, from His own will to
mine, it would be both my duty and my wisdom to entreat that the
sceptre might still remain with Himself, and that I might have nothing
to do in the direction of a single incident, or of so much as a single
circumstance.”
The principles wrapped up in the definition and the confession of
Toplady are what he tries to vindicate; and to refute them was the task
Fletcher undertook. Fletcher’s pamphlet was published in 1777, with the
following title: “A Reply to the Principal Arguments by which the
Calvinists and Fatalists support the Doctrine of Absolute Necessity:
being Remarks on the Rev. Mr. Toplady’s ‘Scheme of Christian and
Philosophical Necessity.’ By John Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley, Salop.
London, 1777.” 12mo, 80 pp.
Fletcher, with his talent of quiet cutting irony, might have rebuked the
slang of Toplady; but, like a Christian and a gentleman, he, with
indignant silence, allows it to pass unnoticed. The task of vanquishing
Toplady was not difficult, for seldom has a more absurd theological work
than “The Scheme of Christian and Philosophical Necessity” been
committed to the press. Fletcher’s “reply” was perfectly unanswerable:
poor Toplady was silenced.
It would tire the reader to analyse Fletcher’s work; and two extracts
from it must suffice, the first showing with what ease Fletcher dealt
with the absurdities of Toplady’s philosophy; and the second exhibiting
his desire to live in peace and love with even the rabid Calvinists.
In Chapter III. of his book, Toplady wrote as follows:—
“It seems most agreeable to the radical simplicity, which God has
observed in all His works, to suppose, that, _in themselves_, all
human souls are _equal_. I can easily believe, that the soul of an
oyster-woman has, naturally, the unexpanded powers of Grotius, or of
Sir Isaac Newton; and that what conduces to raise the philosopher, the
poet, the politician, or the linguist, so much above the ignorant and
stupid of mankind, is, not only the circumstance of intellectual
cultivation, but, still more than that, his having the happiness to
occupy a better house, _i.e._ a _body_ more commodiously _organized_
than they. The soul of a _Monthly Reviewer_, if imprisoned within the
same mud walls which are tenanted by the soul of _Mr. John Wesley_,
would, similarly circumstanced, reason and act, I verily think,
exactly like the Bishop of Moorfields. And I know some very sensible
people, who even go so far as to suppose, that, were a human soul shut
up in the skull of a _cat_, puss would, notwithstanding, move prone on
all fours, purr when stroked, spit when pinched, and birds and mice
would be her darling objects of pursuit. Though I cannot carry matters
to so extreme a length as this, yet, I repeat my opinion, very much
depends on corporeal organization.
“I just now hinted the conjecture of some that a human spirit,
incarcerated in the brain of a cat, would, probably, both think and
behave as that animal now does. But how would the soul of a cat acquit
itself, if enclosed in the brain of a man? We cannot resolve this
question with _certainty_, any more than the other. We may, however,
even on _this_ occasion, address every one of our human brethren in
the words of that great philosophic necessitarian, St. Paul, and ask,
_Who maketh thee to differ_ from the lowest of the brute creation? Thy
_Maker’s_ free will, not thine. _And what_ pre-eminence _hast thou,
which thou didst_ not _receive_ from Him? Not the least, nor the
shadow of any.”
“Admirable divinity!” wrote Fletcher. “So Mr. Toplady leaves the
orthodox in doubt,—1. Whether, when their souls and the souls of cats
shall be let out of their respective brains or prisons, the souls of
cats will not be equal to the souls of men. 2. Whether, supposing the
soul of a cat had been put in the brain of St. Paul, or of a Monthly
Reviewer, the soul of puss would not have made as great an Apostle as
the soul of Saul of Tarsus; as good a critic as the soul of the most
sensible Reviewer. And, 3. Whether, in case the ‘human spirit’ of
Isaiah ‘was shut up in the skull of a cat, puss would not,
notwithstanding, move prone on all fours, purr when stroked, spit when
pinched, and birds and mice be her darling objects of pursuit.’ Is not
this a pretty large stride, for the first, towards the doctrine of the
sameness of the souls of men with the souls of cats and frogs?
Wretched Calvinism, new-fangled doctrines of grace, where are you
leading your deluded admirers, your principal vindicators? Is it not
enough, that you have spoiled the fountain of living waters, by
turning into it the muddy streams of _Zeno’s_ errors? Are ye also
going to poison it by the absurdities of _Pythagoras’s_ philosophy?
What a side-stroke is here inadvertently given to these capital
doctrines, ‘God breathed into’ Adam ‘the breath of life, and he became
a living soul;’ a soul made ‘in the image of God,’ and not in the
image of a cat! ‘The spirit of the beast goeth downward to the earth;
but the spirit of man goeth upward; it returns to God who gave it,’
with an intention to judge and reward it according to its moral works.
“But I must do Mr. Toplady justice; he does not yet recommend this
doctrine as absolutely certain. However, from his capital doctrine,
that human souls have no free-will, no inward principle of
self-determination; and from his avowed opinion, that the soul of one
man, placed in the body of another man, ‘would, similarly
circumstanced, reason and act exactly like’ the man in whose _mud
walls_ it is lodged; it evidently follows, 1. That, had the human soul
of Christ been placed in the body and circumstances of _Nero_, it
would have been exactly as wicked and atrocious as the soul of that
bloody monster was. And 2. That if Nero’s soul had been placed in
Christ’s body, and in His trying circumstances, it would have been
exactly as virtuous and immaculate as that of the Redeemer; the
consequence is undeniable. Thus, the merit of the man Christ did not,
in the least, spring from His righteous soul, but from His ‘_mud
walls_’ and from the happiness which His soul had of being lodged in a
‘_brain peculiarly modified_.’ Nor did the demerit of Nero flow from
his free agency and self-perversion, but only from his ‘_mud walls_,’
and from the infelicity which his necessitated soul had of being
lodged in ‘_an ill-constructed vehicle_,’ and placed on that throne on
which Titus soon after deserved to be called ‘the darling of mankind.’
See, O ye engrossers of orthodoxy, to what absurd lengths your
aversion to the liberty of the will, and to evangelical worthiness,
leads your unwary souls! And yet, if we believe Mr. Toplady, your
scheme, which is big with these inevitable consequences, is ‘Christian
philosophy,’ and our doctrine of free will is ‘philosophy run mad,’ p.
30.”
Did cat ever play with mouse more perfectly and amusingly than did the
Vicar of Madeley with the Vicar of Broad Hembury?
The next extract, which is the conclusion of Fletcher’s triumphant
“Reply” to Toplady, shows his intense desire to live in love and peace
with his opponents:—
“Mr. Wesley and I are ready to testify upon oath, that we humbly
submit to God’s sovereignty, and joyfully glory in the freeness of
Gospel grace, which has mercifully distinguished us from countless
myriads of our fellow-creatures, by gratuitously bestowing upon us
numberless favours, of a spiritual and temporal nature, which he has
thought proper absolutely to withhold from our fellow-creatures. To
meet the Calvinists on their own ground, we go so far as to allow
there is a partial, gratuitous election and reprobation. By this
election, Christians are admitted to the enjoyment of privileges far
superior to those of the Jews; and, according to this reprobation,
myriads of heathen are absolutely cut off from all the prerogatives
which accompany God’s covenants of peculiar grace. In a word, we grant
to the Calvinists everything they contend for, except the doctrine of
_absolute necessity_; nay, we even grant the necessary, unavoidable
salvation of all that die in their infancy. And our love of peace
would make us go farther to meet Mr. Toplady, if we could do it
without giving up the justice, mercy, truth, and wisdom of God,
together with the truth of the Scriptures, the equity of God’s
paradisaical and mediatorial laws, the propriety of the day of
judgment, and the reasonableness of the sentences of absolution and
condemnation, which the Righteous Judge will then pronounce. We hope,
therefore, that the prejudices of our Calvinian brethren will subside;
and that, instead of accounting us inveterate enemies to truth, they
will do us the justice to say, that we have done our best to hinder
them from inadvertently betraying some of the greatest truths of
Christianity into the hands of the Manichees, Materialists, Infidels,
and Antinomians of the age. May the Lord hasten the happy day in which
we shall no more waste our precious time in attacking or defending the
truths of our holy religion; but bestow every moment in the sweet
exercises of Divine and brotherly love!”
During the last six years, Fletcher had most laboriously devoted the
whole of the time he could conscientiously spare from the faithful
discharge of his parochial duties, to an earnest and elaborate
explanation and defence of the Anti-Calvinian doctrines, formally
announced by his friend Wesley, at the Conference of 1770. Wesley was
without leisure for this. If he had attempted it, he would have been
obliged to content himself with the publication of brief, sententious
tracts; and this would have been insufficient. Most of the Methodist
clergymen of the day, including Whitefield, Hervey, Romaine, Berridge,
Shirley, Toplady, and many others, had become sincere and laborious
Calvinists. Their publications were widely spread, and their views
extensively embraced. Wesley saw and felt that an antidote was needed;
and especially as the Countess of Huntingdon had recently opened her
college at Trevecca to multiply the number of such ministers. Hence,
the declaration of his “Minutes,” and hence, the fierce controversial
war that immediately followed. Fletcher had been educated at Geneva,
where Calvin had propounded his creed, and his form of Church
government. Fletcher was not, professedly, a theological student at
Geneva; but he was a regular attendant at Divine services, as well as
a diligent reader of the Holy Scriptures, and there can be no doubt
that he was, to a considerable extent, even in his youth, acquainted
with the Calvinian theology. At all events, when the controversy
commenced, in 1770, there was no one, among Wesley’s helpers, so
competent to enter the arena, on his behalf, as his friend Fletcher.
Hitherto, Fletcher had been accustomed to make little evangelistic
tours, to London, to Wales, and to other places; but now, for six
years, he confined himself within his own parish, that he might have
time to defend Wesley. Up to the present, his letters to his friends
had been somewhat numerous; now, to write a letter was one of his rare
exercises. He was committed to a great work; and everything, excepting
the pastoral duties of his parish, must give way to it. Of the style
of his writings, the reader has had numerous specimens. It is always
perspicuous, lively, chaste, though occasionally prolix. Many of his
figures are apt, striking, convincing; but others would have been more
impressive had they been less elaborate. His arguments are fair,
legitimate, and generally unanswerable. His spirit, without exception,
is saintly. He never becomes personal; never deals in invective; never
assails character; never impugns motives. Among the Wesleyan
Methodists, he settled for ever all the questions of the Calvinian
controversy. For many a long year, Methodist preachers—itinerant and
local—drew their arguments and illustrations from his invaluable
“Checks;” and, perhaps, it is not too much to say, that not a few of
the Calvinists themselves were led by his immortal productions to
explain, and modify, and, to some extent, to change their
unwarrantable doctrines. To his memory, the Methodist Churches owe
undying veneration; for he did for Wesley’s theology what no other man
than himself, at that period, could have done. John Wesley travelled,
formed Societies, and governed them. Charles Wesley composed
unequalled hymns for the Methodists to sing; and John Fletcher, a
native of Calvinian Switzerland, explained, elaborated, and defended
the doctrines they heartily believed.
Hitherto, his opponents had been Walter Shirley, Richard Hill and his
brother Rowland, honest Berridge, and clever but censorious Toplady. The
last, for invective, was the worst. Twenty years before, he had heard
James Morris, one of Wesley’s itinerants, preach in a barn at Codymain,
and soon afterwards was converted. Two years later, while a student in
Trinity College, Dublin, he wrote an admirable letter to Wesley,
thanking him for his “kind” cautions and advices. When and why he became
the bitter foe of Wesley it is difficult to determine. He died on August
11, 1778, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, and was buried in a
grave, thirteen feet deep, under the gallery of Whitefield’s chapel, in
Tottenham Court Road.
Fletcher’s next antagonist was the Rev. Caleb Evans, a Baptist minister
at Bristol; a man of good sense, a diligent student, a faithful pastor,
and now thirty-seven years of age. At this period, the English colonists
in America were in rebellion. On May 10, 1775, a Congress of the
thirteen States met at Philadelphia, and appointed George Washington as
their Commander-in-Chief. He took command of the army before Boston,
where the English had ten thousand men. A few days after his arrival,
the terrible battle at Bunker’s Hill was fought; and a bloody war soon
spread over the whole seaboard, and even into Canada, where the American
colonists besieged Quebec. In the year 1775, Wesley abridged Dr.
Johnson’s famous pamphlet, entitled, “Taxation no Tyranny,” and
published it as his own, without the least reference as to its origin.
Mr. Evans warmly sympathized with the colonists, and published “A Letter
to the Rev. John Wesley, occasioned by his ‘Calm Address.’” Wesley’s
reply to this was the republication of his pirated pamphlet, with a
preface prefixed, in which he said, “All the arguments” [of Evans]
“might be contained in a nutshell.” Political as well as theological
controversy is always irritating. Angry tracts and pamphlets, almost
without number, were committed to the press; but all of them, except
those in which Fletcher was concerned, must here be passed in silence.
Fletcher now, strangely enough, turned politician. Early in the year
1776, he published the following: “A Vindication of the Rev. Mr.
Wesley’s ‘Calm Address to our American Colonists:’ In some Letters to
Mr. Caleb Evans: By John Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley, Salop. London:
Printed and sold at the Foundery.” 12mo, 70 pp.[343]
Footnote 343:
In the same year, another edition was published in “Dublin: Printed
for W. Whitestone, No. 33, Skinner Row.”
In a letter to Joseph Benson, he said:—
“I have unaccountably launched into Christian politics; a branch of
divinity too much neglected by some and too much attended to by
others. If you have seen my ‘Vindication of Mr. Wesley’s Calm
Address,’ and can make sense of that badly printed piece, I shall be
thankful for your very dispraise.”
To James Ireland, Esq., he wrote on February 3, 1776:—
“My little political piece is published in London. You thank me for it
beforehand; I believe they are the only thanks I shall have. It is
well you sent them before you read the book; and yet, whatever
contempt it brings upon me, I still think I have written the truth. If
I have been wrong in writing, I hope I shall not be so excessively
wrong as not to be thankful for any reproof candidly levelled at what
I have written. I prepare myself to be like my Lord in my little
measure; I mean, to be ‘_Despised and rejected of men; a man of
sorrows, and acquainted with griefs_,’—most reviled for what I mean
best.”
Evidence will soon be adduced that Fletcher’s apprehensions of coming
reproach were realized.
It may fairly be doubted whether Wesley and Fletcher acted wisely in
rushing into the fierce political strife that then existed. Their
motives were pure; and, perhaps, Mr. Benson, living at the time, and a
competent observer of men and things, was correct when he said,—
“Mr. Fletcher’s publications upon the question which divided Great
Britain and her Colonies, as well as Mr. Wesley’s ‘Calm Address,’
certainly were of great use; not indeed to prevent the continuation
and further progress of the war, and stop the effusion of blood
abroad, but to allay the spirits of disloyalty and insurrection which
were beginning to show themselves at home.”
Still, it must be admitted, that the high and holy vocation of Wesley
and Fletcher was not to rebuke and correct political errors, but to
revive, spread, and defend the great Gospel truths which had been so
long neglected and forgotten.
No useful end would be answered by giving an outline of Fletcher’s
arguments in his “Vindication of Wesley’s ‘Calm Address.’” Many of them
may be more easily sneered at than answered. They show the versatility
of Fletcher’s genius; and, remembering the fewness of the newspapers
then published, they create surprise at the extent of Fletcher’s
political information. He often uses strong language, but he is never
ungentlemanly or abusive. He was loyal to the throne and government of
England, but he was not a blind opponent of civil liberty, or that
exemption from the arbitrary will of others which is secured by
equitable and established laws. In concluding his first letter to Mr.
Evans he wrote:—
“I declare that I am as much in love with _liberty_ as with _loyalty_;
and that I write a heartfelt truth when I subscribe myself, Rev. Sir,
your affectionate fellow-labourer in the Gospel, a republican by birth
and education, and a subject of Great Britain by love of liberty and
free choice.”
As soon as Fletcher’s pamphlet appeared, Mr. Evans hastened to answer
it, and employed Wesley’s old friend, William Pine, of Bristol, as his
printer and publisher. The title of his new production was “A Reply to
the Rev. Mr. Fletcher’s ‘Vindication’ of Mr. Wesley’s ‘Calm Address to
our American Colonists.’ By Caleb Evans, M.A.” 12mo, 103 pp.
Mr. Evans’s reply was full of bad temper. The first twenty-three pages
were devoted to abusive remarks on the change which had taken place in
Wesley’s political opinions, and to a mistake which Wesley honestly
confessed he had made in denying that he had seen a book on “the
exclusive right of the Colonies to tax themselves.” He acknowledges that
he had seen the book, but adds: “I had so entirely forgotten it, that
even when I saw it again I recollected nothing of it till I had read
several pages.” Mr. Evans, in an angry spirit, uses this lapse of memory
to the utmost in an endeavour to brand Wesley as a liar, and concludes
his first letter to Fletcher thus:—
“Having thus given you, Sir, a faithful narrative of the rise,
progress, and conclusion of the dispute betwixt me and Mr. Wesley, you
are welcome to re-enter on the vindication of _your friend_, as you
style him, as soon as you please. And should you find yourself unequal
to the _Herculean_ task, you may call in the assistance of the amazing
Mr. _Thomas Olivers_, that mirror of Christian meekness and modesty,
and with his logic and your oratory, aided by scraps of mutilated
letters, you will perform wonders.”
Mr. Evans begins his second letter by politely telling Fletcher that in
reading his “Vindication of Wesley’s ‘Calm Address’” he had been greatly
disappointed.
“For,” says he, “instead of argument, I met with nothing but
declamation; instead of precision, artful colouring; instead of proof,
presumption; instead of consistency, contradiction; instead of
reasoning, a string of sophistries. Your letters abound, Sir, as every
intelligent reader will easily discover, with the _petitio principii_,
the _fallacia accidentis_, the _non causa pro causa_, and those many
other pretty inventions by which, as the Schoolmen very well know, a
question may be embarrassed when it cannot be answered.”
In succeeding pages, Mr. Evans charges Fletcher with using “loose,
inconsistent, vague declamation;” and adds:—
“This may confound the ignorant and superficial; but you cannot
yourself suppose it ever can convince the intelligent and impartial.
Your chief aim seems to be _spargere voces in vulgam ambiguas_, and
thereby artfully to persuade them that all those who are enemies to
the measures of the ministry respecting America are Republicans,
king-haters, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Antinomians, and everything that
is bad.”
Poor Fletcher! He was indeed realizing the reproach he had apprehended;
and yet he was not satisfied. Hence his publication of the following:
“American Patriotism: Farther confronted with Reason, Scripture, and the
Constitution: Being Observations on the Dangerous Politicks taught by
the Rev. Mr. Evans, M.A., and the Rev. Dr. Price.[344] With a Scriptural
Plea for the Revolted Colonies. By J. Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley.” 1776.
12mo, 138 pp.
Footnote 344:
Mr. Evans, in his “Reply,” had made several quotations from what he
calls “Dr. Price’s most excellent pamphlet, just published,” and
entitled, “Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty.”
“The author,” writes Fletcher in his preface, “dares not flatter
himself to have the knowledge of logic and divinity, which are
requisite to do his subject the justice it deserves; but, having for
some years opposed _false orthodoxy_, he may have acquired a little
skill to oppose _false patriotism_; and, having defended _evangelical
obedience to God_ against the indirect attacks of some ministers of
the Church of England, he humbly hopes that he may step forth a second
time and defend _constiutional obedience to the king_ against some
ministers who dissent from the Established Church. Those whom he
encounters in these sheets are the leading ecclesiastical patriots of
the two greatest cities in the kingdom; Mr. Evans being the champion
of the minority in Bristol, as Dr. Price is in London.”
Of course, Fletcher’s book is able; but, excepting so far as it teaches
that loyalty is a Christian duty, it is, to a great extent, out of date.
On October 30, 1776, a royal proclamation was issued, ordering “a public
fast and humiliation to be observed throughout England and the kingdom
of Ireland, upon Friday the 13th of December next, for the purpose of
imploring the Almighty speedily to deliver the King’s loyal subjects
within his colonies and provinces in North America, from the violence,
injustice, and tyranny of those daring rebels who had assumed to
themselves the exercise of arbitrary power; to open the eyes of those
who had been deluded, by specious falsehoods, into acts of treason and
rebellion; to turn the hearts of the authors of these calamities; and to
restore his people in those distracted provinces and colonies to the
happy condition of being free subjects in a free state, under which
heretofore they had flourished so long, and prospered so much.”[345]
Footnote 345:
Annual Register, 1776.
This had Fletcher’s hearty approbation, and he at once wrote and
published a 12mo pamphlet of 22 pages, dated “London, December 6, 1776,”
with the title, “The Bible and the Sword; or, The Appointment of the
General Fast Vindicated: In an Address to the Common People, concerning
the Propriety of Repressing obstinate Licentiousness with the Sword, and
of Fasting when the Sword is drawn for that Purpose. London: Printed by
R. Hawes, and sold at the Foundery, in Moorfields, and at the Rev. Mr.
Wesley’s Preaching Houses in Town and Country. 1776.”[346] One half of
this pamphlet, however, was simply a reprint of extracts from his
“American Patriotism;” the other half is devoted to the task of proving,
from Scripture, that, under certain circumstances, war is lawful.
Footnote 346:
Almost without exception, all Fletcher’s publications had on their
title-pages the advertisement, “Sold at the Foundery, in Moorfields,
and at the Rev. Mr. Wesley’s preaching-houses in town and country.”
As he expected, Fletcher, by his political publications, brought upon
himself political wrath and censure, of which the following extracts,
taken from the _Monthly Review_, are specimens:—
“Mr. Fletcher has been distinguished in the late theological
controversies between Mr. Wesley and his followers, on the one part,
and the Antinomians, or Calvinists, on the other. In these disputes,
the Shropshire vicar made no inconsiderable figure; and we have freely
and impartially done justice to his abilities. In _politics_, however,
we have nothing to say in his favour. We are, indeed, sorry to observe
that he is a mere Sacheverell; a preacher of those slavish and justly
exploded Jacobitical doctrines, for which the memory of Sacheverell
and his abettors will ever be held in equal contempt and abhorrence by
every true friend to the liberties of mankind.”[347]
“Mr. Fletcher’s present performance” (_American Patriotism_) “is, like
his former piece on this subject, wordy, specious, and artful. He
alternately attacks the champions on the other side of the question,
Dr. Price and Mr. Evans; and he evidently thinks himself a match for
them both. We are almost tired of the fruitless contest; but one word
with Mr. Fletcher before we part. He is a little chagrined at our
styling him a _mere Sacheverell_; and he takes pains, in this
publication, to show his equal abhorrence of _regal_ or of _mobbish_
tyranny. We are glad to find this rev. gentleman thus disclaiming
those principles, to which many of his positions and arguments
obviously lead; and we charitably hope that he was not aware of the
full extent and tendency of their operation. Mr. Fletcher is, by all
report, a good man; but he will never, we suspect, obtain a _good
report_ merely for his _politics_, except with those who have already
embraced the same system; for mankind are too much guided by Swift’s
rule of pronouncing those _right_ who think as we do, and every one
_wrong_ who differs from us. Poor encouragement, by the way, for our
author to expend his ink, and wear out his pens, in order to convert
those political heretics, the advocates for America.”[348]
Footnote 347:
_Monthly Review_, 1776, vol. liv., p. 325.
Footnote 348:
_Ibid_, 1776, vol. lv, p. 155.
The sneers of the Monthly Reviewers were unjust. Fletcher, in reply to
their unmerited taunt, remarked:—
“I am no more ‘_a mere Sacheverell_’ than I am a _mere Price_. Dr.
Sacheverell ran as fiercely into the _high monarchical_ extreme as Dr.
Price does into the _high republican_ extreme. I have endeavoured to
keep at an equal distance from their opposite mistakes, by contending
only for the just medium, which the Holy Scriptures and our excellent
constitution point out. If Dr. Sacheverell were alive, and his
erroneous, enthusiastical, mobbing politics endangered the public
tranquillity, as the patriotism of Mr. Evans and Dr. Price does at
present, I would oppose the _high churchman_ as much as I now do the
two _high dissenters_.”[349]
Footnote 349:
“American Patriotism,” p. 130.
Notwithstanding the depreciatory opinions of Mr. Evans, Dr. Price, and
the Monthly Reviewers, the government of King George III. desired to
reward Fletcher for the service he had rendered them. His old friend,
Mr. Vaughan, informed Wesley that he took one of Fletcher’s political
pamphlets to the Earl of Dartmouth, at that time Secretary of State for
the Colonies. Lord Dartmouth carried it to the Lord Chancellor, who
handed it to King George. The result was an official was immediately
commissioned to ask Fletcher whether any preferment in the Church would
be acceptable to him? or whether the Lord Chancellor could do him any
service? Fletcher replied, no doubt to the amazement of all concerned,
“I want nothing, but more grace.”[350]
Footnote 350:
Wesley’s “Life of Fletcher.”
This was characteristic of the man. “The love of money, the root of all
evil,” was a sin from which Fletcher was entirely exempt.
“On the 10th of May, 1774,” says Mr. Vaughan, “Mr. Fletcher wrote me
thus: ‘My brother has sent me the rent of the little place I have
abroad, £80, which I was to receive from Mr. Chauvet and Co., in
London. But, instead of sending the draught for the money, I have sent
it back to Switzerland, with orders to distribute it among the poor.
As money is rather higher there than here, that mite will go farther
abroad than it would in my parish.’”[351]
Footnote 351:
_Ibid._
Mr. Vaughan continues:—
“In 1776, he deposited with me a bill of £105, being, as I understood,
the yearly produce of his estate in Switzerland. This was his fund for
charitable uses; but it lasted only a few months, when he drew upon me
for the balance, which was £24, to complete the preaching-house in
Madeley Wood.”[352]
Men, said Cicero, resemble the gods in nothing so much as in doing good
to their fellow-creatures.
Footnote 352:
_Ibid._