Chapter XXI A Long Retirement. 778–1781.
WHEN the travellers arrived at Dover, Fletcher wrote as follows to his hospitable friends at Stoke Newington:—
“Ten thousand blessings light upon the heads and hearts of my dear benefactors, Charles and Mary Greenwood! May their quiet retreat at Newington become a Bethel to them! Their poor pensioner travels on, though slowly, towards the grave. His journey to the sea seems to him to have hastened, rather than retarded, his progress to his old mother—Earth. May every Providential blast blow him nearer to the heavenly haven of his Saviour’s breast; where he hopes to meet all his benefactors! O, my dear friends, what shall I render? What to Jesus? what to you? May He, who invites the heavy-laden, take upon Him all the burdens of kindness you have heaped on your Lazarus! And may angels, when you die, find me in Abraham’s bosom, and bring you into mine, that by all the kindness which may be shown in heaven, I may try to requite that you have shown to your obliged brother,
“J. Fletcher.”[431]
Leaving Calais on December 12, 1777, the travellers pursued their way to the South of France. Mr. Ireland thus described the journey:—
“When we departed from Calais, the north wind was very high, and penetrated us even in the chaise. We put up at Bretuil, and the next day got to Abbeville, whence we were forced, by the miserable accommodation we met with, to set out, though it was Sunday. Hitherto Mr. Fletcher and I had led the way, but now the other chaises got before us. Nine miles from Abbeville our axletree gave way through the hard frost, and we were left to the piercing cold on the side of a hill, without shelter. After waiting an hour and a half, we sent the axletree and wheels back to be repaired; and, leaving the body of the chaise under a guard, procured another to carry us to the next town. On the 15th, our chaise arrived in good repair. The country was covered with snow, but travelling steadily forward, we reached Dijon on the 27th. During the whole journey, Mr. Fletcher showed marks of recovery. He bore both the fatigue and cold as well as the best of us. On the 31st, we put up at Lyons, and solemnly closed the year, bowing our knees before the throne, which indeed we did all together every day. January 4, 1778, we left Lyons, and came on the 9th to Aix. Here we rest, the weather being exceedingly fine and warm. Mr. Fletcher walks out daily. He is now able to read and pray with us every morning and evening. He has no remains of his cough nor of the weakness in his breast. His natural colour is restored, and the sallowness quite gone. His appetite is good, and he takes a little wine.”
In another letter Mr. Ireland wrote:—
“Soon after our arrival here, I rode out most days with my dear and valued friend. Now and then he complained of the uneasiness of the horse, and there were some remains of soreness in his breast; but this soon went off. The beginning of February was warm, and the warmth, when he walked in the fields, relaxed him; but when the wind got north or east, he was braced again. His appetite is good; his complexion as healthy as it was eleven years ago. As his strength increases, he increases the length of his rides. Last Tuesday, he set out on a journey of a hundred and twelve miles. The first day he travelled forty miles without feeling any fatigue; and the third day fifty-five. He bore the journey as well as I did; and was as well and as active at the end of it as at the beginning. During the day, he cried out, ‘Help me to praise the Lord for His goodness; I never expected to see this day.’ He accepted a pressing invitation to preach to the Protestants here; and he fulfilled his engagement on Sunday morning, taking as his text, ‘Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith.’ Both the French and English were greatly affected; the word went to the hearts of both saints and sinners. His voice is now as good as ever it was; and he has an earnest invitation to preach near Montpelier, where we are going. You would be astonished at the entreaties of pastors as well as people. He has received a letter from a minister in the Levine Mountains, who intends to come to Montpelier, sixty miles, to press him to go and preach to his flock. He purposes to spend the next summer in his own country, and the following winter in these parts.”[432]
It was probably at this time that Fletcher and Mr. Ireland made a tour through Italy, and visited Rome, concerning which visit Wesley writes:—
“While he was at Rome, as Mr. Ireland and he were one day going through the streets in a coach, they were informed the Pope was coming, and it would be required of them to kneel while he went by, as all the people did; if they did not, in all probability the mob would knock them on the head. But this they flatly refused to do; judging the paying such honour to a man was idolatry. The coachman was terrified, but turned aside into a narrow way. The Pope was in an open landau, waved his hands, and frequently repeated, ‘God bless you all!’ Mr. Fletcher’s spirit was greatly stirred, and he longed to bear a public testimony against anti-Christ; and he would have done it had he been able to speak Italian. He could hardly refrain from doing it in Latin, till he considered that only the priests could understand him.”[433]
While in the south of France, Fletcher wrote to Miss Bosanquet the following letter, which is now for the first time published:—
“Marseilles, March 7, 1778.
“Dear Madam,—Your letter did not reach me till after it had lain here, at the post office, several days.
“I cannot be answerable for what the person you mention thinks of Mr. Wesley or me, or our sentiments. Nothing is more common than to see people drawing rash inferences from premises which are partly false and partly true. I can only answer for myself, and for what I deem to be the truth.
“If you ask me what I think to be the truth with respect to Christian perfection, I reply, my sentiments are exposed to the world in my essay on ‘Christian Perfection,’ and in my essay on ‘Truth,’ where I lay the stress of the doctrine on the great promise of the Father, and on the Christian fulness of the Spirit. This I have done more particularly in a treatise on the ‘Birth of the Spirit;’ which treatise is not yet published. I do not rest the doctrine of Christian perfection on the absence of sin,—that is the perfection of a dove or a lamb; nor on the loving God with all one’s power, for I believe all perfect Gentiles and Jews have done so; but on the fulness of that superior, nobler, warmer, and more powerful love, which the Apostle calls the love of the Spirit, or the love of God shed abroad by the Holy Ghost, given to the Christian believers, who, since the Day of Pentecost, go on to the perfection of the Christian dispensation.
“You will find my views of this matter in Mr. Wesley’s sermons on Christian Perfection and on Spiritual Christianity; with this difference, that I would distinguish more exactly between the believers baptized with the Pentecostal power of the Holy Ghost, and the believer who, like the Apostles after our Lord’s ascension, is not yet filled with that power.
“I own to you, Madam, that I have been much surprised to see the gross inattention to, and unbelief of, the promise of the Father among believers of various classes. It is the sun among the stars, and yet some can hardly distinguish it. When I preached it to the Calvinists in Wales, they called it Mr. Wesley’s whim. When I have spoken of it to our brethren, some have called it Lady Huntingdon’s whim; and others have looked upon it as a new thing; which to me is the strongest proof that this capital Gospel doctrine is as much under a cloud now as the doctrine of justification by faith was at the time of the Reformation.
“Should you go back by way of London, my essay on the Birth by which we enter into the Kingdom in the Holy Ghost is in the hands of Miss Thornton, Mrs. Greenwood’s sister, who will give it you if you think worth while to look into it. I build my faith not on my experience, though this increases it, but upon the revealed truth of God. Go, Madam, and do the same, and pray for your affectionate brother and servant,
“J. Fletcher.
“Miss Bosanquet,
“at Mrs. Southcot’s,
“Broad Mead,
“Bristol.”
The “treatise,” or rather sermon, referred to in this letter, was written in French, and was not published during the lifetime of Fletcher; but in 1794, Henry Moore, one of Wesley’s first biographers, translated and printed it, with the title, “The New Birth. A Discourse written in French, by the Rev. John Fletcher, late Vicar of Madeley, Salop.” 8vo, 39 pp. This was one of the most remarkable productions of Fletcher’s pen; and great would be the service rendered to the cause of Christ if, in this day of loose thinking and carnal living, it were reprinted in a separate form, and read by the myriads who call themselves Methodists. Though mere quotations from it cannot do justice to it, yet two or three may be acceptable.
Regeneration.—“What is the state of a soul that is born again; and in what does regeneration consist? In general, we may say, it is that great change by which man passes from a state of nature to a state of grace. He was an animal man; in being born again he becomes a spiritual man. His natural birth had made him like to fallen Adam—to the old man, against whom God had pronounced the sentence of death, seeing it is the wages of sin; but his spiritual birth makes him like to Jesus Christ—to the new man—which is created according to God in righteousness and true holiness. He was before born a child of wrath—proud, sensual, and unbelieving, full of the love of the world and of self-love, a lover of money and of earthly glory and pleasure, rather than a lover of God; but, by regeneration, he is become a child and an heir of God, and a joint heir with Christ. The humility, the purity, the love of Jesus, is shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Spirit which is given to him, making him bear the image of the Second Adam. He is in Christ a new creature; old things are passed away, all things are become new. All the powers and faculties of his soul are renovated. His understanding, heretofore covered with darkness, is illuminated by the experimental knowledge which he has of God and of His Son Jesus Christ. His conscience, asleep and insensible, awakes and speaks with a fidelity irreproachable. His hard heart is softened and broken. His will, stubborn and perverse, yields, and becomes conformable to the will of God. His passions, unruly, and earthly, and sensual, submit to the conduct of grace, and turn of themselves to objects invisible and heavenly. And the members of his body, servants more or less to iniquity, are now employed in the service of righteousness unto holiness.”
Why regeneration is necessary.—“To rejoice in the pleasures that are at God’s right hand, it is needful to have senses and a taste that correspond thereto. The swine trample pearls under their feet. The elevated discourse of a philosopher is insupportable to a stupid mechanic; and an ignorant peasant, introduced into a circle of men of learning and taste, is disgusted, sighs after his village, and declares no hour ever appeared to him so long. It would be the same to a man who is not regenerated, if we could suppose that God would so far forget His truth as to open to him the gate of heaven. He would be incapable of those transports of love which make the happiness of the glorified saints. It would be insupportable for him now to meditate one hour on the perfections of God; what then shall He do among the cherubim and seraphim, and the spirits of just men made perfect, who draw from thence their ravishing delights? He loves the pleasures and comforts of an animal life; but are these the same with the exercises of the spiritual life? His conversations, his readings, his amusements, as void of edification as of usefulness, rarely fatigue him; but an hour of meditation or prayer is insufferable. If he be not born again, not only he cannot be in a state to rejoice in the pleasures of Paradise, any more than a deaf man to receive with transport the most exquisite music; but the ravishing delights of angels would cause in him an insupportable distaste. Yes, he would banish himself from the presence of God, rather than pass an eternity in prostrating himself before the throne, and crying day and night, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts, who is, and who was, and who is to come! We conclude that the gate of heaven must be opened upon earth by regeneration, and by the love of God, or that it will remain shut for ever; and that a local paradise would be only a sorrowful prison, to a man not regenerated, because, carrying nothing thither but depraved and earthly appetites and passions, and finding nothing there but spiritual and celestial objects, disgust and dissatisfaction would be the consequence; and, like Satan, his own mind would be his hell.”
Perorations are too often rhetorical flourishes, and nothing more; but, in the case of Fletcher, they were the outpourings of a heart overcharged with feeling. The following is the last paragraph in the remarkable “Treatise” from which the foregoing extracts are taken:—
“I conjure you by the majesty of that God before whom angels rejoice with trembling;—by the terror of the Lord, who may speak to you in thunder, and this instant require your soul of you;—by the tender mercies, the bowels of compassion of your heavenly Father, which are moved in your favour, all ungrateful as you are!—I conjure you by the incarnation of the Eternal Word, by whom you were created;—by the humiliation, the pains, the temptations, the tears, the bloody sweat, the agony, the cries of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ!—I conjure you by the bonds, the insults, the scourgings, the robes of derision, the crown of thorns, the ponderous cross, the nails, the instruments of death which pierced His torn body; by the arrows of the Almighty, the poison of which drank up His spirit; by that mysterious stroke of Divine wrath, and by those unknown terrors which forced Him to exclaim, ‘My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me!’—I conjure you by the interests of your immortal soul, and by the unseen accidents which may precipitate you into eternity;—by the bed of death, upon which you will soon be stretched, and by the useless sighs which you will then pour out, if your peace be not made with God!—I conjure you by the sword of Divine justice, and by the sceptre of grace;—by the sound of the last trumpet, and by the sudden appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ, with ten thousand of His holy angels;—by that august tribunal, at which you will appear with me, and which shall decide our lot for ever;—by the vain despair of hardened sinners, and by the unknown transports of regenerate souls!—I conjure you from this instant work out your salvation with fear and trembling! Enter by the door into the sheepfold. Sell all to purchase the pearl of great price. Count all things dung and dross in comparison of the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Let Him not go till He blesses you with that faith which justifies, and that sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord. And, soon transported from this vale of tears into the mansions of the just made perfect, you shall cast your crown of immortal glory at the feet of Him that sitteth upon the throne, and before the Lamb who has redeemed us by His blood: to whom be the blessing, and the honour, and the glory, and the power for ever and ever! Amen.”
It is time to return to Fletcher in the south of France. At the close of his sojourn here, he wrote as follows to his curate, Mr. Greaves:—
“My Very Dear Brother,—I received a letter yesterday from my second brother, who acquaints me, that he was to set out the 23rd of last month, to come hither” (Montpelier), “and take me to my native country, where my sick sister wants greatly to see me; so that, if it please God, I shall, next week, leave this place. The winter has been uncommonly rainy and windy; and even last week we had half an inch of snow. The climate has, nevertheless, agreed with me better than England, and, as a proof of it, I need only tell you, that I rode last Friday, from Hieres, the orange gardens of France, hither, which is nearly fifty miles, and was well enough to preach last Sunday in French at the Protestant Church. Two English clergymen came to hear me, and one of them takes these lines to England, where I hope they will find you in health of body and soul, growing in strength of faith, in firmness of hope, and in fervency of love to God and man, and especially to those whom you are tempted to think hardly of, if any such there be. O my dear brother, no religion will do us or our people any good, but that which ‘works by love,’—humble, childlike, obedient love. May that religion fill our souls, and influence all our tempers, words, and actions, and may the leaven leaven the whole lump! May St. James’s peaceable religion spread through all our parish!
“I hope you are settled to your satisfaction; and I shall be glad to do what is in my power to make your stay at Madeley agreeable. I wish you may have as much success as we desire; but, whatever success we have, we must cast our bread upon the waters, though we should see as little fruit as he that said of old, ‘I have laboured in vain:’ for our reward will be with the Lord, if not with men.”[434]
In company with his brother, Fletcher left Montpelier, and arrived at Nyon, the place of his nativity, where, in the house once occupied by his father, he received the utmost attention from his affectionate relatives, and had medical advice equal to any to be obtained in Europe. One of his first acts was to write “to the Societies in and about Madeley.” He addressed them as “My dear, very dear brethren;” charged them all to meet him in heaven, “with all the mind that was in Christ;” and sent his “love and thanks to Mr. Murlin and Mr. Roberts,” the two Methodist preachers stationed at Chester, showing that Madeley, at this period, was a part of the Chester circuit.[435]
Soon afterwards, he wrote to his beloved medical adviser, in England, Mr. William Perronet, as follows:—
“Nyon, May 15, 1778.
“The climate, and prospect, and fine roads, and pure air I enjoy here, had contributed to strengthen me a little; when, about a month ago, something I was chewing got into my windpipe, and caused a fit of coughing which lasted half-an-hour. I then began to spit blood again, and ever since I have had a bad cough, which has sometimes exercised me violently for an hour after my first sleep. My cough, however, has been better the last two days, and I hope it will go off. I have bought a quiet horse, whose easy pace I can bear; and I ride much. I have not ventured upon preaching since I came hither: it would be impossible for me now to go through it. If the weather should grow hot, I may, at any time, go to the hills, the foot of which is five or six miles distant. I drink goats’ milk, and have left off meat since the cough came on, but design eating a little again at dinner.”[436]
Two days after the date of this letter, Fletcher was at Macon, whither he had gone to meet his friend Mr. Ireland, on his return from Montpelier to England. Whilst he was here, he wrote two letters, which must be quoted. The first, addressed to “The Rev. Messrs. John and Charles Wesley,” was as follows:—
“Macon, in Burgundy, May 17, 1778.
“Rev. and Dear Sirs,—I hope while I lie by, the Lord continues to renew your vigour, and sends you to water His vineyard, and to stand in the gap against error and vice.
“I preached twice at Marseilles, but was not permitted to follow the blow. There are few noble, inquisitive Bereans in these parts. The ministers in the town of my nativity have been very civil. They have offered me the pulpit; but, I fear, if I could accept the offer, it would soon be recalled. I am loath to quit this part of the field without casting a stone at that giant, sin, who stalks about with uncommon boldness. I shall, therefore, stay some months longer, to see if the Lord will give me strength to venture an attack.
“Gambling and dress, sinful pleasure and love of money, unbelief and false philosophy, lightness of spirit, fear of man, and love of the world, are the principal sins by which Satan binds his captives in these parts. Materialism is not rare; Deism and Socinianism are very common; and a set of Free-thinkers, great admirers of Voltaire[437] and Rosseau, Bayle and Mirabeau, seem bent upon destroying Christianity and government. If we believe them, the world is the dupe of kings and priests. Religion is fanaticism and superstition. Subordination is slavery. Christian morality is absurd, unnatural, and impracticable; and Christianity the most bloody religion that ever was. And here it is certain, that, by the example of Christians so called, and by our continual disputes, they have a great advantage, and do the truth immense mischief. Popery will certainly fall in France, in this or the next century; and I have no doubt God will use those vain men to bring about a reformation here, as he used Henry the Eighth to do that work in England; so the madness of His enemies shall, at last, turn to His praise, and to the futherance of His kingdom.
“In the meantime, it becomes all lovers of the truth to make their heavenly tempers, and humble, peaceful love to shine before all men, that those mighty adversaries, seeing the good works of professors, may glorify their Father who is in heaven, and no more blaspheme that worthy name, by which we are all called Christians.
“If you ask, what system these men adopt? I answer, some build on Deism a morality founded on self-preservation, self-interest, and self-honour. Others laugh at all morality, except that which being neglected violently disturbs society. And external order is the decentdecent covering of Fatalism, while Materialism is their system.
“Oh, dear Sirs, let me entreat you, in these dangerous days, to use your wide influence, with unabated zeal, against the scheme of these modern Celsuses, Porphyries, and Julians, by calling all professors to think and speak the same things, to love and embrace one another, and to firmly resist those daring men; many of whom are already in England, headed by the admirers of Mr. Hume and Mr. Hobbes. But it is needless to say this to those who have made, and continue to make, such a stand for vital Christianity; so that I have nothing to do but pray that the Lord may abundantly support and strengthen you, and make you a continued comfort to His enlightened people, loving reprovers of those who mix light with darkness, and a terror to the perverse.
“I need not tell you, Sirs, that the hour in which Providence shall make my way plain to return to England, to unite with those who feel or seek the power of Christian godliness, will be welcome to me. O favoured Britons! Happy would it be for them, if they knew their Gospel privileges!
“My relations in Adam are all very kind to me; but the spiritual relations, whom God has raised me in England, exceed them yet. Thanks be to Christ, and to His blasphemed religion!
“I am, Rev. Sirs, your affectionate son, and obliged servant in the Gospel,
“J. Fletcher.”[438]
On the day after the date of this letter, Fletcher wrote the following to the Rev. Dr. Conyers, another Methodist Clergyman, to whom he had sent his “Reconciliation; or, an easy Method to unite the people of God,” published in 1777:—
“Macon, in Burgundy, May 18, 1778.
“Hon. and Dear Sir,—I left orders, with a friend, to send you a little book called ‘The Reconciliation,’ in which I endeavour to bring nearer the children of God, who are divided about their partial views of divine truths. I know not whether that tract has, in any degree, answered its design; but I believe truth can be reconciled with itself, and the candid children of God one with another. O that some abler hand, and more loving heart, would undertake to mend my plan, or draw one more agreeable to the Word of God! My eyes are upon you, dear Sir, and those who are like-minded with you, for this work. Disappoint not my hope. Stand forth, and make way for reconciling love, by removing, so far as lies in you, what is in the way of brotherly union.
“O Sir! the work is worthy of you. If you saw with what boldness the false philosophers of the continent, who are the apostles of the age, attack Christianity, and represent it as one of the worst religions in the world, and fit only to make the professors of it murder one another, or at least to contend among themselves, and how they urge our disputes to make the Gospel of Christ the jest of nations, and the abhorrence of all flesh, you would break through your natural timidity, and invite all our brethren in the ministry to unite and form a close battalion, and face the common enemy.
“O dear Sir! take courage. Be bold for reconciling truth. Be bold for peace. You can do all things through Christ strengthening you; and, as Doctor Conyers, you can do many things, a great many more than you think. What if you go, Sir, in Christ’s name, to all the Gospel ministers of your acquaintance, exhort them as a father, entreat them as a brother, and bring them, or as many of them as you can, together? Think you that your labour would be in vain in the Lord? Impossible, Sir! O despair not. If you want a coach, or a friend to accompany you, when you go upon this errand of love, remember there is a Thornton in London, and an Ireland in Bristol, who will wish you God speed; and God will raise many more to concur in the peaceful work.
“Let me humbly entreat you to go to work, and to persevere in it. I wish I had strength to be, at least, your postilion when you go. I would drive, if not like Jehu, at least with some degree of cheerful swiftness, while Christ smiled on the Christian attempt. But I am confident you can do all in the absence of him, who is, with brotherly love, and dutiful respect, Hon. and dear Sir, your obedient servant in the Gospel,
“J. Fletcher.”[439]
Dr. Conyers, to whom this letter was addressed, was a notable man. Born at Helmsley, Yorkshire, in 1725, he, in due time, became the Vicar of that extensive parish. His conversion there, and his labours, were remarkable. In 1765, he married Mrs. Knipe, a rich and pious widow, the sister of the well-known John Thornton, Esq., of Clapham. Three years before the foregoing letter was written, Mr. Thornton presented him to the living of St. Paul’s, Deptford; and here he died in 1786, eight months after the death of Fletcher.[440] At the beginning of his evangelical career, he was warmly attached to Wesley, and a firm believer in the doctrines of the Arminians. Afterwards, he was, to some extent, influenced by certain of the Calvinian Ministers, with whom he held converse; but, like his brother-in-law, John Thornton, he was a lover of all good men; and, occupying a kind of neutral position between the contending parties, Fletcher deemed him well qualified to bring about the reconciliation of the two.
At this period, the venerable Vicar of Shoreham had been recently informed that he was entitled to a valuable estate in Switzerland, and William Perronet, Fletcher’s medical adviser in England, had undertaken to visit Switzerland to enforce his father’s rights. Before doing so, however, he wrote to Fletcher, requesting his advice; and Fletcher’s reply was as follows:—
“Nyon, June 2, 1778.
“My Dear Friend,—When I wrote to you last, I mentioned two ladies of your family who have married two brothers, Messrs. Monod. Since then, they have requested me to send your father the enclosed memorial, which I hope will prove of use to your family. As the bad writing and the language may make the understanding of it difficult, I forward you the substance of it, and of the letter of the ladies’ lawyer.
“While I invite you to make your title clear to a precarious estate on earth, permit me, my dear Sir, to remind you of the heavenly inheritance entailed on believers. The will, the New Testament by which we can recover it, is proved. The Court is just and equitable; the Judge is gracious and loving. To enter into possession of a part of the estate here, and of the whole hereafter, we need only believe and prove evangelically that we are believers. Let us then set about it now, with earnestness, with perseverance, and with a full assurance that, through grace, we shall carry our cause. Alas! what are estates and crowns to grace and glory?
“I have had a pull back since I wrote last. After I left Mr. Ireland at Macon, to shorten my journey and enjoy new prospects, I ventured to cross the mountains which separate France from this country. On the third day of the journey, I found a large hill, whose winding roads were so steep that, though we fed the horses with bread and wine, they could scarcely draw the chaise, and I was obliged to walk in all the steepest places. The climbing lasted several hours; the sun was hot; I perspired violently; and the next day I spit blood again. I have chiefly kept to goat’s milk ever since; I find myself better; and my cough is neither frequent nor violent.
“This is a delightful country. If you come to see it, and to claim the estate, bring all the papers and memorials you can collect; and share a pleasant apartment, and one of the finest prospects in the world, in the house where I was born. I design to try this fine air some months longer. We have a fine shady wood near the lake, where I can ride in the cool all the day, and enjoy the singing of a multitude of birds. But this, though sweet, does not come up to the singing of my dear friends in England. There I meet them in spirit several hours in the day.”[441]
The ensuing letter, kindly lent by the Rev. Dr. Knowles, of Tunbridge Wells, has not before been published. It was addressed to “Mr. Power, Druggist, in Broadmead, Bristol, Angleterre.”
“Nyon, June 20, 1778.
“Dear Sir,—A journey and my constant rides have hindered me acknowledging sooner the favour of your observations and criticisms, which I received some time ago. If I had my little publications here, to turn to the pages you quote, I would immediately make notes, and alter or rectify what you object to, as a preparation for a more correct edition, should the work be ever reprinted. I wish all my friends had taken as much pains about my works as you have, Sir; they would by this time be more correct. Accept my sincere thanks for the favour; and, if I live to see England again, we shall (please God) talk the matter over fully.
“I am obliged to you for your caution about preaching. I have followed it, and have not yet preached in this country, though I believe I shall soon venture again upon it, but with care and in a sparing manner. I hope at least the Lord will give me grace so to do.
“I heartily rejoice that Mrs. Power has been carried safely, a second time, through the danger of child-bearing. May she and the two fruits of her body live to the glory of God, and to your comfort! Remember me kindly to her; and give my blessing to my god-son, whose will, I hope, you continue to break with the wisdom, patience, and steadiness which become a parent.
“I sent your mother a few lines by Mr. Ireland. I hope she received them; but I shall never get an answer, if what he writes me is true. Is she dead indeed? Sometimes I hope it is a rumour without foundation; and yet his account that she died at Bath, where your letter mentions she was gone, makes me fear he was well-informed. If she is no more, you have lost a tender mother, and I a kind friend; but the Lord will make up all our losses, and has already made them up by giving us His Son. May we receive Him, and with Him all that is excellent among the living and the dead! As she has been for many years a woman of sorrow,—a true Hannah—wading almost constantly through a sea of temptations, they may have followed her to the last, and she may have escaped out of many tribulations, as the saints mentioned in the Revelation. A line about it, and about your welfare, and that of my god-son, will greatly oblige, dear Sir, your obedient and already obliged servant,
J. Fletcher.
“My love to your brother, when you see him.”
The next letter, written to Mr. Ireland, contains a sylvan scene worthy of being painted:—
“Nyon, July 15, 1778.
“My Dear Friend,—I have ventured to preach once, and to expound once in the church. Our ministers are very kind, and preach to the purpose. A young one of this town gave us lately a very excellent gospel sermon.
“Grown-up people stand fast in their stupidity, or in their self-righteousness. The day I preached, I met some children in my wood gathering strawberries. I spoke to them about our common Father. We felt a touch of brotherly affection. They said they would sing to their Father, as well as the birds; and followed me, attempting to make such melody as you know is commonly made in these parts. I outrode them, but some of them had the patience to follow me home; and said they would speak with me. The people of the house stopped them, saying, I would not be troubled with children. They cried, and said, they were sure I would not say so, for I was their good brother. The next day, when I heard this, I enquired after them, and invited them to come and see me; which they have done every day since. I make them little hymns, which they sing. Some of them are unde, sweet drawings. Yesterday, I wept for joy on hearing one of them speak, as an experienced believer in Bristol would have done, of conviction of sin, and of the joy unspeakable in Christ that followed. Last Sunday, I met them in the wood; there were a hundred of them, and as many adults. Our first pastor has since desired me to desist from preaching in the wood (for I had exhorted), for fear of giving umbrage; and I have complied, from a concurrence of circumstances which are not worth mentioning; I therefore now meet them in my father’s yard.”[442]
What a contrast to this scene of gentleness among children is the following!
Fletcher had a nephew, who had been in the Sardinian army, where his ungentlemanly and profligate conduct had given such general offence to his brother officers that they determined to compel him to leave their corps, or to fight them all in succession. After engaging in two or three duels, with various success, the young bravo left the service, and now, during Fletcher’s present visit, he returned to Switzerland. His resources were soon spent in profligacy; and, gaining access to his uncle, General De Gons, he presented a loaded pistol, and said, “Uncle De Gons, if you do not give me a draft on your banker for five hundred crowns, I will shoot you.” The General was a brave man, but, seeing himself in the power of a desperado capable of any mischief, he wrote the draft. “Uncle,” said the young fellow, “you must do another thing; you must promise me, on your honour, to use no means to recover the draft, or to bring me to justice.” The General promised, and the bandit rode away triumphantly. Passing the door of his uncle Fletcher, he called upon him, and told him General De Gons had generously given him five hundred crowns. Fletcher doubted the truthfulness of this statement. The draft was produced. “Let me see it,” said Fletcher. It was handed to him. Fletcher examined it, and remarked, “It is indeed my brother’s writing, and it astonishes me; because my brother is not wealthy, and I know that he justly disapproves your conduct, and that you are the last in the family to whom he would make such a present.” Then, folding the draft and putting it into his pocket, Fletcher added, “It strikes me, young man, that you have obtained this draft improperly; and, in honesty, I cannot return it without my brother’s approbation.” Out came the pistol, and was levelled at Fletcher’s breast. “Return it,” cried the young scoundrel, “or I will take your life.” “My life,” calmly replied Fletcher, “is secure in the protection of the Almighty Power who guards it; nor will He suffer it to be the forfeit of your rashness, or my integrity. Do you think that I, who have been a minister of God for five-and-twenty years, am afraid of death? It is for you to fear death, who have every reason to fear it. You are a gamester and a cheat, yet call yourself a gentleman! You are the seducer of female innocence, and still you say that you are a gentleman! You are a duellist and your hand is red with blood, and for this you call yourself a man of honour! Look there, Sir! look there! See, the broad eye of heaven is upon us. Tremble in the presence of your Maker, who can in a moment kill your body, and for ever damn your soul!” The culprit turned pale; then he argued, threatened, and entreated. Sometimes, taking out his pistol, he fixed himself against the door to prevent egress; and, at other times, closed on frail Fletcher, menacing him with instantaneous death. All was of no avail. The poor country parson was as valorous as the most heroic soldier. He gave no alarm to the family; he sought no weapon; he attempted no escape; he simply conversed with the calmness of a hero and a saint. At length, the young fellow began to be affected; and now, having gained the victory, Fletcher addressed him in another strain: “I cannot return my brother’s draft,” said he; “yet I feel for your distress, and will endeavour to relieve it. My brother Gons, at my request, I am sure will give you a hundred crowns; I will do the same; perhaps my brother Henry will do as much; and I hope your own family will make up the five hundred crowns among them.” Fletcher then fell upon his knees, and began to pray; uncle and nephew parted, and the family, by Fletcher’s mediation, furnished the young scapegrace with the five hundred crowns he had feloniously attempted to extort.[443]
Amidst such scenes, Fletcher did not forget his friends at Madeley. On July 18, he wrote three messages:—
To his curate, the Rev. Mr. Greaves.—“I trust you lay yourself out for the good of the flock committed to your care. I shall be glad to hear that they grow in grace, and humble love.”
To the congregation in Madeley church.—“John Fletcher begs a farther interest in the prayers of the congregation of Madeley; and desires those, who assemble to serve God in the church, to help him to return public thanks to Almighty God for many mercies received; especially, for being able to do a little ministerial duty. He humbly beseeches them to serve God as Christians, and to love one another as brethren; neglecting no means of grace, and rejoicing in all the hopes of glory.”
To the Methodist Societies “in Madeley, Dawley, and the Banks.”—“We“We are all called to grow in grace, and, consequently, in love, which is the greatest of all Christian graces. Your prayers for my soul and my body have not been without answer. Blessed be God! Glory be to His rich mercy in Christ, I live yet the life of faith; as to my body, I recover some strength. God bless you all, with all the blessings brought to the Church by Christ Jesus, and by the other Comforter! My love to the preachers” (John Murlin and Robert Roberts), “whom I beg you will thank in my name.”[444]
Two months later (September 15), he wrote to his friend Thomas York:—
“Blessed be the God of all consolation, though I have still very trying and feverish nights, I am kept in peace of mind; resigned to His will, who afflicts me for my good, and justly sets me aside for my unprofitableness. His grace within, and His people without, turn my trying circumstances into matter of praise. Give my love to all your dear family; to the two or three who may yet remember me at Shiffnal; and, also, to Daniel, and desire him, when he gathers the Easter dues, to give my love and thanks to all my parishioners.“[445]
No doubt Fletcher’s statement to Mr. York, respecting himself, was strictly true; but, still, there must have been a considerable improvement in his health since he left England. Hence the following interesting letter, written to Mr. Ireland only ten days later:—
“Nyon, September 25, 1778.
“My Dear Friend,—I am just returned from an excursion I have made with my brother, through the fine vale in the midst of the high hills which divide France from this country. In that vale we found three lakes, one on French ground, and two on Swiss: the largest is six miles long and two wide. It is the part of the country where industry is most apparent, and where population thrives best. The inhabitants are chiefly woodmen, coopers, watchmakers, and jewellers. They told me, they had the best singing, and the best preacher, in the country. I asked, if any sinners were converted under his ministry? They stared, and asked, what I meant by conversion? When I had explained myself, they said, ‘We do not live in the time of miracles.’
“I was better satisfied in passing through a part of the vale which belongs to the King of France. I saw a prodigious concourse of people, and supposed they kept a fair, but was agreeably surprised to find three missionaries in the midst of them, who went about as itinerant preachers to help the regular clergy. They had been there some days, and were three brothers, and preached morning and evening. The evening service opened with what they called a conference. One of the missionaries took the pulpit, and the parish priest proposed questions to him, which he answered at full length and in a very edifying manner. The subject was the unlawfulness and the mischief of those methods by which persons of different sexes lay snares for each other, and corrupt each other’s morals. The subject was treated with delicacy, propriety, and truth. The method was admirably well calculated to draw and fix the attention of a mixed multitude. This conference being ended, another missionary took the pulpit. His text was our Lord’s description of the day of judgment. Before the sermon, all those who, for the press, could kneel, did, and sang a French hymn to beg a blessing on the word; and indeed it was blessed. An awful attention was visible upon most, and, during a good part of the discourse, the voice of the preacher was almost lost in the cries and bitter wailings of the audience. When the outcry began, the preacher was describing the departure of the wicked into eternal fire. They urged that God was merciful, and that Jesus Christ had shed His blood for them. ‘But that mercy you have slighted, and now is the time of justice. That blood you have trodden under foot, and now it cries for vengeance. Know your day. Slight the Father’s mercy and the Son’s blood no longer.’ I have seen but once or twice congregations as much affected in England.
“One of our ministers being ill, I ventured, a second time, into the pulpit last Sunday; and, the Sunday before, I preached, six miles off, to two thousand people in the yard of a jail, where they were come to see a murderer before his execution. I was a little abused by the bailiff on the occasion, and was refused the liberty of attending the poor man to the scaffold, where he was to be broken on the wheel. I hope he died penitent. The day before he suffered, he said he had broken his irons, and that, as he deserved to die, he desired new ones to be put on, lest he should be tempted to make his escape.
“You ask, what I design to do? I propose, if it be the Lord’s will, to spend the winter here. In the spring, I shall, if nothing prevents, return to England with you, or with Mr. Perronet, if his affairs are settled, or alone, if other ways fail. In the meanwhile, I rejoice with you in Jesus, and in the glorious hope of that complete salvation His faithfulness has promised, and His power can never be at a loss to bestow. We must be saved by faith and hope till we are saved by perfect love, and made partakers of heavenly glory. I am truly a stranger here. As strangers let us go where we shall meet the assembly of the righteous gathered in Jesus.“[446]
Mr. William Perronet arrived at Nyon in the month of December, and, in letters to his father, related:—
“However engaged Mr. Fletcher is the greater part of the day, he is generally so kind as to spend a little time with me in the evening in prayer and conversation. His chief delight seems to be in meeting his little society of children. He is exceedingly fond of them, and they appear to be as fond of him. He seldom walks abroad or rides out, but some of them follow him, singing the hymns they have learned, and conversing with him by the way. But you must not suppose that he is permitted to enjoy this happiness unmolested. Not only do the drunkards make songs on him and his little companions, but many of the clergy loudly complain of such irregular proceedings. However, he is upon good terms with three ministers of the place; all of whom are serious men, and desirous of promoting true religion.
“He is better, I think, than when he left England; but he frequently puts his strength to too severe a trial, by meeting his Society of children, and some grown persons; and other exercises of a like nature. When he ventures to preach, his spitting of blood returns; and whenever this happens, his strength and spirits decay surprisingly.”[447]
Fletcher and his brother translated all the papers of William Perronet into French, and, in other ways, assisted him, in reference to the estate which he had gone to Switzerland to obtain. Notwithstanding the delicate state of Fletcher’s health, the three set out, in the wintry weather of that December month, to visit Chateau d’Oex, where the property was situated. The distance from Nyon was fifty-seven miles. When they had made about a quarter of the journey, “the horses were tired out, the coachman refused to proceed further,” and they were obliged to return home again.[448] A few days later, they made another attempt, and arrived at their destination on January 10, 1779. Five days afterwards, they were again at Nyon.
In Fletcher’s state of health, such a journey was perilous; but his love to the Perronet family was such that, to him, no labour and risk, on their behalf, were too great. In letters to his venerable father, at Shoreham, William Perronet states, that none of them having been to Chateau d’Oex before, they were obliged to employ a guide, and that “on account of the badness of the ways,” they had “to go some leagues about,” which made their journey about eighty miles. Their coach had to pass “over mountains of snow and rocks of ice.” When nine miles from Chateau d’Oex, they were obliged to exchange their coach for “an open sledge;” and now they “travelled through narrow passes, cut through the snow, which, on both sides, was many feet above their heads; on the sides of mountains, whose summits the eye could scarcely reach; and frequently on the brink of precipices, at the bottoms of which they could hear the waters roar like thunder.” In one place, Fletcher and William Perronet, being obliged to walk, their feet slipped: Fletcher “received a violent blow on the back part of the head;” and William Perronet “sprained” his “wrist.” In crossing the Alps, they had to lie “two nights in beds that were not only damp, but musty and without curtains;” and, “being in a Popish canton, and Friday and Saturday being meagre days,” they “were almost starved with hunger as well as cold.” “The weather was extremely severe, and it was scarce in the power of clothes, or even of fire, to keep” them “warm.” William Perronet concludes his narrative of their adventures as follows:—
“Whether I succeed in my temporal business or not, I shall ever remember, with pleasure and thankfulness, the opportunities I have been blessed with in spending so much time in company with our inestimable friend; who, wherever he goes, preaches the Gospel, both by his words and example; nay, by his very looks, not only to his friends, but to all whom he meets: so that, on the top of the frozen Alps, and in the dreary vale of Chateau d’Oex, good seed has been sown. At Chateau d’Oex, he was visited by some of the principal inhabitants, who stood around him, in deep attention, for almost an hour, while he exhorted and prayed.”[449]
In a postscript to this letter, Fletcher wrote:—
“I have had the pleasure of accompanying your son to your father’s birthplace. It is a charming country for those who have a taste for highland prospects; but what is it to our heavenly Father’s Hill of Sion? Thither may we all travel, summer and winter, and there may we all have a happy meeting, and find an eternal inheritance!”
Three weeks later, Fletcher wrote the following to Mr. Ireland:—
“Nyon, February 2, 1779.
“My Dear Friend,—I am sorry to hear that you are still tried by illness; but our good, heavenly Father is wise; His will be done; His name be praised!
“I am better, thank God! and ride out every day, when the slippery roads will permit me to venture without the risk of breaking my horse’s legs and my own neck. You will ask me how I spend my time? I pray, have patience, rejoice, and write, when I can; I saw wood in the house when I cannot go out; and eat grapes, of which I have always a basket by me.
“Our little Lord-Lieutenant has forbidden the ministers to let me exhort in the parsonage, because it is the sovereign’s house. My second brother has addressed a memorial to him, in which he informs him that he will give up neither his religious nor civil liberty, and will open his house for the Word of God. According, we have since met at his house.
“On Sunday, we met at the young clergyman’s who writes against the conduct of the clergy; but I fear we fence against a wall of brass. However, I am quite persuaded that Providence calls me to leave a testimony to my French brethren, and it may be of some use when I shall be no more. I have been comforted by the apology of a minister at Yverdon, who was persecuted at the beginning of this century under the name of Pietist; and I have become acquainted with a faithful minister of Geneva, but he dares no more offer me his pulpit than my brother-in-law at Lausanne.
“Several young women seem to have received the Word in the love of it, and four or five grown-up ones; but not one man, except the young hopeful clergyman I mention, who helps me at my little meetings, and begins to preach extempore. The truths I chiefly insist upon, when I talk to the people who will hear me, are those which I feed upon myself as my daily bread. ‘God, our Maker and Preserver, though invisible, is here and everywhere. He is our chief good, because all beauty and all goodness centre in and flow from Him. He is especially love; and love in us, being His image, is the sum and substance of all moral and spiritual excellence—of all true and lasting bliss. In Adam we are all estranged from love and from God; but the Second Adam—Jesus, Emanuel, God with us,—is come to make us know and enjoy again our God as the God of love and the chief good. All who receive Jesus receive power to become the sons of God,’ etc., etc.
“I hope I shall be able to set out for England with Mr. Perronet, in April or May. O that I may find that dear island in peace within and without![450] Well, I hope you make peace in the Church if you cannot make peace with the patriots.
“The coats and shoes you gave me have lasted all this while, and are yet good; so that I need not draw upon your banker. Thank God, and you, for a thousand favours! God bless and comfort you, my dear friend! We are poor creatures, but we have a good God to cast all our burdens upon, and who often burdens us that we may have constant and free recourse to His bounty, power, and faithfulness. Stand fast in the faith. Believe lovingly, and all will be well.”[451]
To his friend and Methodist helper among the Madeley Societies, William Wase, Fletcher wrote as follows:—
“Nyon, February 11, 1779.
“My Dear Friend,—I have just received yours of January 24, and rejoice to hear of the welfare of your friends, whom I long much to see; but there is no blessing here without some alloy of grief, and such was to me the account of the poor state of health of dear Mrs. Wase. Tell her I should be glad to hold up her hands in her fight of affliction; but, if the poor, unprofitable, weak servant is afar off, the Master, who is rich in mercy, who fills the whole world with His goodness and patience, is near to her and to all His afflicted ones. I recommend to her two remedies. One is a cheerful resignation to the will of God, whereby her animal spirits will be greatly raised or sweetly refreshed. The other is, four lumps of heavenly sugar, to be taken every half hour, day and night, when she does not sleep. I make a constant use of them, to my great comfort. They have quickened my soul when I was dying, and I doubt not they will have the same effect upon hers. They are: ‘God so loved the world,’ etc. ‘If any man sin,’ etc. ‘It is a faithful saying,’ etc. ‘Come unto Me, all ye that are weary,’ etc.
“Tell my little god-daughter, Patty Cartwright, she is big enough and bad enough to take these heavenly pills. Tell her mother to take them regularly with her. What a shame it is to have such a remedy and not to make more use of it!
“Remember me in much love to dear Mr. Hatton. Thank brother Costerdine and his fellow-labourer[452] for their occasional help. May the Lord vouchsafe to consecrate our little Zoar[453] by calling one sinner and establishing another saint! How abundantly shall we be repaid for our little expense and trouble! Thank the brethren you have mentioned; salute them kindly from me, not forgetting John Tranter and our friends at the Fore Bank—Thomas Pool and Thomas Banks, and our friends at Dawley Green. You may see in the enclosed that I am not without hopes of telling you in May how much I am yours,
“J. Fletcher.”[454]
“The enclosed” communication bore the same date as this letter to William Wase, of Broseley, and was addressed “To the Brethren in and about Madeley;” i.e., the Methodists:—
“My Dear Companions in Tribulation,—Peace and mercy, faith, hope, and love be multiplied to you all from the Father of mercies through the Lord Jesus Christ, by the Spirit of grace! I thank you for your kind remembrance of me in your prayers. I am yet spared to pray for you. O that I had more power with God! I would bring down heaven into all your hearts. Strive together in love for the living faith, the glorious hope, the sanctifying love once delivered to the saints. Look to Jesus. Move on; run yourselves in the heavenly race, and let each sweetly draw his brother along, till the whole company appears before the redeeming God in Sion.
“I hope God will, in His mercy, spare me to see you in the flesh; and if I cannot labour for you, I shall gladly suffer with you. If you will put health into my flesh, joy into my heart, and life into my whole frame, be of one heart and of one soul. Count nothing your own but your sin and shame; and bury that dreadful property in the grave of our Saviour. Let all you are and have be His who bought you. Dig hard in the Gospel mines for hidden treasure. Blow hard the furnace of prayer with the bellows of faith until you are melted into love, and the dross of sin is purged out of every heart. Get together into Jesus, the heavenly ark, and sweetly sail into the ocean of eternity; so shall you be true miners, furnacemen, and bargemen. Farewell, in Jesus! Tell Mrs. Cound I shall greatly rejoice if she remembers Lot’s wife.”[455]
Six weeks after the date of this letter to the Madeley Methodists, Wesley visited them, and wrote:—
“1779. March 25, Thursday. I preached in the new house which Mr. Fletcher has built in Madeley Wood. The people here exactly resemble those at Kingswood, only they are more simple and teachable. But, for want of discipline, the immense pains which he has taken with them has not done them the good which might have been expected. I preached at Shrewsbury in the evening, and next day, about noon, in the assembly-room at Broseley. It was well we were in the shade, for the sun shone as hot as it usually does at midsummer. We walked from thence to Coalbrook Dale, and took a view of the bridge which is shortly to be thrown over the Severn. It is one arch, a hundred feet long, fifty-two high, and eighteen wide; all of cast-iron, weighing many hundred tons. I doubt whether the Colossus at Rhodes weighed much more.”[456]
Fletcher’s health was still feeble, but he longed to be back to his parishioners and to the Methodists surrounding Madeley. Hence the following to the Vicar of Shoreham:—
“1779, March 29. I am still weak in body, but able to ride out and exhort some children. Well, the time shall come when, in a better state, we shall be able to glorify our heavenly Father. In the meantime, let us do it either in the stocks of weakness or in the fires of tribulation; and on our death-bed may we sing, with hearts overflowing with humble love, ‘The Resurrection and the Life, the Friend and Saviour of sinners, loved me and gave Himself for me; and I am going to see Him and to thank Him, face to face, for His matchless love!’
“I hope the prospect respecting the inheritance of your fathers in this country clears up a little, and I trust the matter will be decided without a lawsuit. As soon as the affair is brought to some conclusion, we design to set out for England. The will of the Lord be done in all things!”[457]
This was written in the week before Easter. The Puritanical Calvinists of Switzerland of course denounced the observance of holy days, and hence, at Nyon, there was no service on Good Friday, April 2; but Fletcher and William Perronet, who all their life had been accustomed to commemorate the death of the incarnate Son of God, crossed the lake into Savoy, to hear a celebrated Capuchin.
“He made,” says Mr. Perronet, “a very good discourse, and he and his brethren invited us to dine with them. This we declined; but, after dinner, we paid our respects to them, when Mr. Fletcher spent two or three hours with them in serious and friendly conversation.”[458]
Fletcher had expressed a hope that he would be able to return to his flock at Madeley in April or May, but his hope was not realized. The reasons for this will be found in the following extracts from his letters. To his curate, the Rev. Mr. Greaves, he said:—
“Nyon, May 18, 1779. My dear fellow-labourer,—My departure being delayed some weeks gives me much concern, although, from the confidence I have in your pastoral diligence, I am easy about the flock you feed. Last week, a Visitation was held here, and the clergy of the town took my part against the Visitor and others, who said I was of a sect everywhere spoken against. The conversation about it held so long, and was so trying to my grain of humility, that I went out. The matter, however, ended peaceably by a vote that they should invite me to dinner. God ever save us from jealous and persecuting zeal.
“I hope, my dear friend, you go on comfortably, doing more and more the work of an evangelist. Remember my love to as many of my parishioners as you meet with, and especially to all our good neighbours and to the Society.”[459]
On the same day, he wrote to Michael Onions as follows:—
“I have complied with the request of my friends to stay a little longer among them, as it was backed by a small Society of pious people gathered here. Three weeks ago, they got about me, and on their knees, with many tears, besought me to stay till they were a little stronger and able to stand alone; nor would they rise till they had got me to comply. However, yesterday, I spoke with a carrier, from Geneva, to take me to London, who said he would take us at a fortnight’s notice.
“My love to your fellow-leaders, and, by them, to the companies you meet in prayer; also to the preachers who help in the Round[460].”[461]
On May 22, William Perronet, in a letter to his father, observed:—
“On the 9th of this month, Mr. Fletcher preached in the church, on 2 Cor. v. 20—‘We are ambassadors for Christ,’ etc. He spoke with a strong and clear voice for more than three-quarters of an hour, and did not find himself hurt by it. He has preached four times in the church since I have been here, and might have preached much oftener if his health would have allowed him; for, by his friendly and prudent conduct towards the three ministers of the place, he is upon good terms with them now, although, at his first coming hither, they were afraid to own him, on account of his irregular conduct; for such they deemed his exhorting the children, and holding meetings in private houses.”[462]
On the same day, Fletcher remarked to the same venerable minister:—
“My Very Dear Brother, and Honoured Father,—I rejoice that you are yet preserved to be a witness of the grace and saving health of Jesus. Let us rejoice that when our strength shall decay, His will remain entire for ever, and, in His strength, we, who take Him for our life, shall be strong. Our Redeemer liveth; and, when sickness and death shall have brought down our flesh to the earth, we shall, by His resurrection’s power, rise and live for ever with Him in heavenly places; for the new earth will be a heaven, or a glorious province in the kingdom of heaven. The meek shall inherit it; and that inheritance will be fairer than yours at Chateau d’Oex, and surer too.
“I hope to accompany your son soon to England.”[463]
The following, also, was written at the same time, and was addressed to his honoured host and friend, Mr. Charles Greenwood, of Stoke Newington:—
“Nyon, May 22, 1779.
“My Dear Friend,—“I am yet alive, able to ride out, and now and then to instruct a few children. I hope Mr. Perronet will soon have settled his affairs, and then, please God, I shall inform you, by word of mouth, how much I am indebted to you, Mrs. Greenwood and Mrs. Thornton. Thank and salute, on my behalf, Mr. John and Mr. Charles Wesley, Dr. Coke, and Mr. Atlay.[464] Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gifts,—His Son, His Spirit, and His Word! And thanks be to His people, for their kindness towards the poor, the sick, the stranger, and especially towards me! But, at this time, a sleepless night and a constant toothache unfit me for almost everything but lying down under the cross, kissing the rod, and rejoicing in hope of a better state, in this world or in the next. Perhaps weakness and pain are the best for me in this world. Well, the Lord will choose for me, and I fully set my heart and seal to His choice. Let us not faint in the day of adversity. The Lord tries us, that our faith may be purged of all the dross of self-will, and may work by that love, which beareth all things, and thinketh evil of nothing. Our calling is to follow the crucified, and we must be crucified with Him, until body and soul know the power of His resurrection, and pain and death are done away.
“I hope my dear friend will make, with me, a constant choice of the following mottoes of St. Paul,—Christ is gain in life and death—Our life is hid with Christ in God—If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him—We glory in tribulation—God will give us rest with Christ in that day—We are saved by hope. To the Lord our God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, let us give glory in the fires. Amen.”[465]
Besides his own physical weakness and suffering, Fletcher had other trials in Switzerland. In a letter, written about the same time as the foregoing, he remarked:—
“Let us bear with patience the decays of nature; let us see, without fear, the approach of death. We must put off this sickly, corruptible body, in order to put on the immortal and glorious one. I have some hopes that my poor sister will yet be my sister in Christ. Her self-righteousness, I hope, breaks as fast as her body. I am come hither to see death make havoc among my friends. I wear mourning for my father’s brother, and for my brother’s son. The same mourning will serve for my dying sister, if I do not go before her. She lies on the same bed where my father and mother died, and where she and I were born. How near is life to death! But, blessed be God, Christ, the Resurrection, is nearer to the weak, dying believer!”[466]
Fletcher, notwithstanding his longing to get back to his flock at Madeley, was still detained in Switzerland. Hence the following, addressed to Mr. Thomas York:—
“Nyon, Ibid..
“My Dear Sir,—Providence is still gracious to me, and raises me friends on all sides. May God reward them all, and may you have a double reward for all your kindness! I hope I am getting a little strength. The Lord has blessed to me a species of black cherry, which I have eaten in large quantities. I have had a return of my spitting blood; but, for a fortnight past, I have catechized the children of the town every day; and I do not find much inconvenience from that exercise. Some of them seem to be under sweet drawings of the Father, and a few of their mothers begin to come, and desire me with tears in their eyes to stay in this country. They urge much my being born here, and I reply, that I was born again in England; that is, of course, the country which, to me, is the dearer of the two.
“My friends have prevailed on me to publish ‘A Poem on the Praises of God,’ which I wrote many years ago. The revising it for the press is at once a business and a pleasure, which I go through on horseback. Help me, by your prayers, to ask a blessing on this little attempt.
“I wish I could procure you an estate in this fine country, as I hope to do Mr. Perronet, one of the physicians who showed me so much love when I lay sick at Newington. His grandfather was a Swiss, who was naturalized in the reign of Queen Anne. By calling upon some of his relations, I have found that he is entitled to an estate of some £1000, of which he is come to take possession. So Providence prepares for me a friend, a kind physician, and a fellow-traveller, to accompany me back to England; where one of my chief pleasures will be to embrace you, and to assure you, how much I am, my dear friend, your obliged servant,
“J. Fletcher.”[467]
Alas! little did Fletcher think that William Perronet would not return to England.
“Providence,” said Fletcher, in the letter just quoted, “raises me friends on all sides.” He soon had need of them. In the month of September, William Perronet wrote:—
“Mr. Fletcher has been wont to preach, now and then, in the church here (Nyon), at the request of one or other of the ministers; but, some time ago, he was summoned before the Seigneur Bailiff, who sharply reprehended him for preaching against Sabbath-breaking and stage plays. The former, he said, implied a censure on the magistrates in general, as if they neglected their duty. And the latter he considered as a personal reflection on himself, he having just then sent for a company of French Comedians to come to Nyon. Accordingly, he forbade Mr. Fletcher to exercise, any more, any of the functions of a minister in this country. However, one of the Ministers here has given him a room in his own house to preach in; and here Mr. Fletcher meets a few serious persons, particularly a number of children, two or three times a week. Hitherto, his lordship has not interfered with respect to this mode of exhortation; and both the number and the seriousness of the congregation increase daily.”[468]
Referring to the same incident, Fletcher wrote:—
“Our Lord Lieutenant, being stirred up by some of the clergy, and believing firmly that I am banished from England, took the alarm, and forbade the ministers to let me exhort in their houses; threatening them with the power of the Senate if they did. They all yielded, but are now ashamed of it. A young clergyman, a true Timothy, has opened me his house, where I exhort twice a week; and the other clergymen, encouraged by his boldness, come to our meetings.”
William Perronet completes this story by relating that the minister, who began this discreditable opposition, died suddenly, as he was dressing to go to church; and that his successor continued the same intolerant behaviour towards poor, well-meaning Fletcher. Mr. Perronet adds:—
“Mr. Fletcher now thinks himself obliged, before he leaves his native country, to bear a public testimony to the truth. When his writing will be finished, I cannot say, for it multiplies under his fertile pen; so that, I fear, we shall be obliged to spend another winter in this severe climate.”[469]
There can be little doubt that the “public testimony,” which Fletcher was now composing was his “Portrait of St. Paul,” to be noticed anon.
Soon after this, Fletcher had an attack of rheumatism, and wrote as follows to William Perronet, who had gone to Lausanne. After relating that the pain in his left shoulder had deprived him of sleep, and almost crippled him, he added:—
“I have partly recovered the use of my shoulder; but it is still very weak. I drink a decoction of pine-apple, which is as warm as guaiacum. My writing does not go on; but the will of the Lord is done, and that is enough. I would press you to come back soon, if I were not persuaded you are better where you are. I have been afraid that our bad meat here would make you lose your flesh; and, for the honour of Switzerland, I should be glad you had some to carry back to England, if we live to go and see our friends there. I had last Sunday (December 19), a great trial in my family. I see the Lord will not use me in this country for good, and, when we shall have finished our little matters, I shall be glad to go to my spiritual friends, and to my flock; so much the more, as Mr. Ireland mentions my curate’s danger of being in a consumption. My compliments and thanks wait on Miss Perronet. She was very obliging to share her drops with me. May we all share the springs of grace and glory together! If you will come a few leagues southward, and try the weather here, your room waits for you, and I shall be glad to see you. In the meantime, keep yourself warm by the Word of God within, and a good fire without. The Lord direct us in all things! Oh for quietness and English friends!”[470]
Two days after writing this, Fletcher addressed his curate, Mr. Greaves, as follows:—
“Nyon, December 25, 1779.
“My Dear Brother,—Glory be to God for His unspeakable gift! May that Jesus, that eternal, all-creating, all-supporting, all-atoning, all-comforting Word, which was with God, and is God, and came, in the likeness of sinful flesh, to dwell among men, and to be our Emmanuel, God with us,—may He, by a lively faith, be formed in our hearts; and, by a warm love, lie and grow in the manger of our emptiness, filling it always with the bread that comes down from heaven!
“Though absent in body, I am with you and the flock in spirit. You are now at the Lord’s table. O may all the dear people, you have just now preached to, receive Jesus in the pledge of His dying love, and go home with this lively conviction, ‘God has given me eternal life, and this life is in His Son!’
“Glory be to God in heaven! Peace on earth! Love and good-will everywhere! Especially in the place where Providence has called us to cry, ‘Behold! what manner of love the Father has testified to us, in Jesus, that we, children of wrath, should be made children of God, by that only-begotten Son of the Most High, who was born for our regeneration, crucified for our atonement, raised for our justification, and who now triumphs in heaven for our sanctification, for our full redemption, and for our eternal glorification. To Him be glory for ever and ever;’ and may all, who fear and love Him about you, say, for ever, Amen! Hallelujah!
“Out of the fulness of my heart, I invite them to do so; but how shallow is my fulness to His! What a drop, compared to an ocean without bottom or shore! Let us, then, receive continually from Him, who is the overflowing and ever-present source of pardoning, sanctifying, and exhilarating grace; and, from the foot of the Wrekin, where you are, to the foot of the Alps, where I am, let us echo back to each other the joyful, thankful cry of the primitive Christians, which was the text here this morning, ‘Out of His fulness, we have all received grace for grace.’
“I long to hear from you and the flock. How do you go on? Let me know that you cast joyfully all your burdens on the Lord. Mr. Ireland sends me word, that Mr. Romaine told him you are not very well. Take care of yourself. Lay nothing to heart. Should your breast be weak, preach but once on Sundays; for you know the evening sermon is not a part of our stated duty. I say this, that you may not over-do, and lie by, as I do. God direct, sustain, and comfort you in all things!
“Give my pastoral love to all my flock. May all see, and see more abundantly, the salvation of God! May national distress be sanctified unto them; and may they all be loyal subjects of the King of kings, and of His Anointed, our King! May the approaching new year be to them a year of peace and Gospel grace! I hope Molly takes good care of you. God bless her!”[471]
Fletcher refers to the “national distress.” This was great. Parliament was excited. Ireland was in a state of veiled rebellion. England rang with reports of threatened invasion. The war with the American colonists had already added sixty-three millions to the national debt. Trade was paralysed, and taxes were intolerable. Popery had been established in Canada, and had received encouragement in England. The Protestant Association had sprung into existence, and the Gordon riots were at hand. In the midst of this state of things, Fletcher wrote to a nobleman, whose name is not given, but who, probably, was Lord North, as follows:—
“Nyon, December 15, 1779.
“My Lord,—If the American Colonies and the West India Islands are rent from the Crown, there will not grow one ear of corn the less in Great Britain. We shall still have the necessaries of life, and, what is more, the Gospel, and liberty to hear it. If the great springs of trade and wealth are cut off, good men will bear that loss without much sorrow; for springs of wealth are always springs of luxury, which, sooner or later, destroy the empires corrupted by wealth. Moral good may come out of our losses. I wish you may see it in England. People on the Continent imagine they see it already in the English on their travels, who are said to behave with more wisdom and less haughtiness than they used to do.”[472]
Lord North, King George the Third’s Prime Minister, was, at this time, harassed by the American rebellion, incessantly assailed by the Opposition, and frequently threatened with impeachment. Probably, Fletcher’s letter, of which the above is only a part, was intended to help him in his troubles. Though a foreigner by birth, John de la Flechere was a most loyal and devoted subject of King George. Hence, also, the following, taken from a letter to his curate, Mr. Greaves:—
“March 7, 1780. I long to hear from you. I hope you are well, and grow in the love of Christ, and of the souls bought with His blood, and committed to your care. I recommend to you the most helpless of the flock,—I mean the children and the sick. They most want your help, and they are the most likely to benefit by it; for affliction softens the heart, and children are not yet quite hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
“I beg you will not fail, when you have opportunity, to recommend to our flock, to honour the King, to study to be quiet, and to hold up the hands of the Government by which we are protected.”[473]
On the same day, Fletcher wrote to his friend and helper, Mr. William Wase, on another matter which was causing him considerable anxiety. His Methodist meeting-house in Madeley Wood had cost much more than he expected. The letter to Mr. Wase needs no further explanation, except that the work, ready to be printed, was, probably, his poem, in French, entitled, “La Louange.”
“Nyon, March 7, 1780.
“My Dear Brother,—I am sorry the building has cost so much more than I intended; but, as the mischief is done, it is a matter to exercise patience, resignation, and self-denial; and it will be a caution in the future. I am going to sell part of my little estate here to discharge the debt. I had laid by £50, to print a small work, which I wanted to distribute here; but, as I must be just, before I presume to offer that mite to the God of truth, I abandon the design, and send that sum to Mr. York.
“Money is so scarce here, at this time, that I shall sell at a very great loss; but necessity and justice are two great laws, which must be obeyed. As I design, on my return to England, to pinch until I have got rid of this debt, I may go and live in one of the cottages belonging to the vicar, if we could let the vicarage for a few pounds; and, in that case, I dare say Mr. Greaves would be so good as to take the other little house.
“My dear friend, let us die to sin. Hold fast Jesus, the way, the truth, and the life. Walk by faith in Him; and not by the sight and passions of the old Adam. I hope the sun of affliction, which burns poor England and us, will ripen us all for glory. Give my best love to all our friends in Christ, and tell them that the hope of seeing them does me good.”[474]
Fletcher was hard at work; the weather was cold; and, for the present, exercise out of doors was impracticable. The following, taken from an unpublished letter written by William Perronet, contains an amusing scene:—
“Nyon, March 1, 1780. As this is Mr. Fletcher’s native village, no wonder that it agrees with him; otherwise, it must be very trying to so tender a constitution as his; for the weather here is much hotter in summer, and much colder in winter, than in England; and the transitions from intense heat to extreme cold are often very sudden.
“Mr. Fletcher was once told by two physicians (somewhere), that the benefit of exercise, for consumptive persons, must be estimated by the violence of it; consequently, that riding on horseback was better than going in a carriage, that walking was better than riding, running than walking, and jumping better than all of them put together. Our worthy friend has scrupulously followed this maxim; so that, whenever he does not take his little hasty rides (which by-the-bye frequently occurs), he allows himself, for exercise, not more than three minutes, from his studies, just as dinner is being served, and then, like harlequin, he takes about half a score such violent leaps and plunges across the room, that I am sometimes in pain for the floor, and always for his bones.”
During the year 1779, Fletcher and William Perronet had lodged in the same house in Nyon; now, as might be expected from the foregoing extract, William Perronet’s state of health obliged him to seek a more salubrious situation. He went to Lausanne; Fletcher remained at Nyon; and was thus pictured by his friend in the month of July next ensuing:—
“About half a year ago, we broke up housekeeping at Nyon. Poor dear Mr. Fletcher, with difficulty, procured a miserable lodging in the neighbourhood; and I was obliged to go to Lausanne, which is seven leagues from Nyon. I submitted the more willingly to this, because he talked of spending some time at Lausanne. I have been disappointed in this respect; but, once or twice, I have had the pleasure of seeing him at Nyon. I found him to-day sitting in his small apartment, surrounded with books and papers, writing, or, as he expressed it, ‘finishing the first part’ of one of his pieces. When the whole is likely to be finished, one cannot pretend to say.”[475]
Fletcher intended to return to England in the month of September, but two occurrences prevented him. First of all, he mislaid a portion of the manuscript which he wished to publish before he left Switzerland, and had to re-write what was missing.
“The misfortune I hinted at,” said he to William Perronet, “was the mislaying of a considerable part of my manuscript. After giving it up as lost, I fell to work again; went through the double toil; and, when I had done, last night, I accidentally found what I had mislaid. This has thrown me back a great deal. The Lord’s will be done in all things! I thank God, I have been kept from fretting on the occasion; though I would not for a great deal have such another trial.”[476]
Added to this, and, perhaps, partly in consequence of it, his health relapsed. These, and other matters, are referred to in the following letter, addressed to his curate, Mr. Greaves:—
“Nyon, September 15, 1780.
“My Dear Fellow-labourer,—I had fixed the time of my departure for this month; but now two hindrances stand in my way. When I came to collect the parts of my manuscript, I found the most considerable part wanting; and, after a thousand searches, I was obliged to write it over again. This accident compelled me to put off my journey; and now the change of weather has brought back some symptoms of my disorder. I speak, or rather whisper, with difficulty; but I hope the quantity of grapes I begin to eat will have as good an effect upon me as in the last two autumns.
“Have patience then a little while. If things are not as you could wish, you can do but as I have done for many years,—learn patience by the things which you suffer. Crossing our will, getting the better of our inclinations, and growing in experience, are no mean advantages, and they may all be yours.
“Mr. Ireland writes me word that if I return to England now, the winter will undo all I have been doing for my health for many years. However, I have not quite laid aside the design of spending the winter with you; but don’t expect me till you see me. I am, nevertheless, firmly purposed that, if I do not set out this autumn, I shall do so next spring, as early as I can.
“Till I had this relapse, I was able to exhort, in a private room, three times a week; but the Lord Lieutenant will not allow me to get into a pulpit, though they permit the schoolmasters, who are laymen, to put on a band and read the Church prayers; so high runs the prejudice. The clergy, however, tell me that if I will renounce my ordination, and get Presbyterian Orders among them, they will allow me to preach, and on these terms one of the ministers of this town offers me his curacy. A young clergyman of Geneva, tutor to my nephew, appears to me a truly converted man; and he is so pleased when I tell him there are converted souls in England, that he will go with me to learn English, and converse with the British Christians. He wrote last summer, with such force, to some of the clergy, who are stirring up the fire of persecution, that he made them ashamed, and we have since had peace from that quarter.
“There is little genuine piety in these parts; nevertheless, there is yet some of the form of it; so far as to go to the Lord’s table regularly four times a year. There meet the adulterers, the drunkards, the swearers, the infidels, and even the materialists. They have no idea of the double damnation that awaits hypocrites. They look upon the partaking of that sacrament as a ceremony enjoined by the magistrate. At Zurich, the first town of this country, they have lately beheaded a clergyman who wanted to betray his country to the Emperor, to whom it chiefly belonged. It is the town of the great reformer, Zuinglius; yet there they poisoned the sacramental wine a few years ago. I mention this to show you there is great need to bear a testimony against the faults of the clergy here; and, if I cannot do it from the pulpit, I must try to do it from the press. Their canons, which were composed by two hundred and thirty pastors, at the time of the Reformation, are so spiritual and apostolic that I design to translate them into English, if I am spared.
“Farewell, my dear brother. Take care, good, constant, care of the flock committed to your charge; especially the sick and the young. Salute all our dear parishioners. Let me still have a part in your prayers, public and private; and rejoice in the Lord, as, through grace, I am enabled to do in all my little tribulations.”[477]
On the same day, Fletcher wrote to Mr. Thomas York:—
“I have been so well, that my friends here thought of giving me a wife; but what should I do with a Swiss wife at Madeley? I want rather an English nurse; but more still a mighty Saviour, and, thanks be to God! that I have. Help me to rejoice in that never-dying, never-moving Friend.
“Having heard that my dear friend Ireland has discharged the greatest part of my debt, I have not sent the money; but I hope to bring with me £100, to reimburse my friends in part, till I can do it altogether. But I shall never be able to pay you the debt of kindness I have contracted with you. I look to Jesus, my Surety, for that. May He repay you a thousand-fold!”[478]
To William Wase, the good old Methodist, Fletcher wrote, at the same time:—
“Give my love and thanks to the preachers” (William Boothby and Jonathan Hern) “who come to help us. Enforce my exhortation to the Societies in much love. Go and comfort, from me, Mrs. Palmer and Mrs. Cartwright; and, since God has placed you all in a widowed state, agree to take Jesus for a never-dying Friend and Bridegroom. Your Maker is your husband. He is all in all. What, then, have you lost? Christ is yours and all things with Him. The resurrection day will soon come. Prepare yourselves for the marriage feast of the Lamb; and till then, rejoice in the expectation of that day. I sympathize with our sickly friends, widow Matthews, M. Blummer, E. Whittaker, I. York, and S. Aston. Salute them kindly from me. Help them to trim their lamps, and to wait for the Bridegroom. Thank Thomas and Nelly Fennel for their love to the” (Methodist) “preachers, and give them mine, and also give it to the little companies they meet with, to call for strength, comfort, and help, in time of need. Fare ye all well in Jesus! I say, again, farewell!”[479]
Fletcher’s “Exhortation” to the Methodist Societies was as follows:—
“To the Societies in and about Madeley.
“Grace and peace, truth and love, be multiplied to you all. Stand fast in the Lord, my dear brethren. Stand fast in Jesus; stand fast to one another; stand fast to the vow we have so often renewed together, upon our knees, and at the Lord’s table. Don’t be so unloving, so cowardly, as to let one of your little company fall into the hands of the world and the devil; and agree to crucify the body of sin altogether.
“I am still in a strait between the work which Providence cuts out for me here, and the love which draws me to you. When I shall have the pleasure of seeing you, let it not be embittered by the sorrow of finding any of you half-hearted and lukewarm. Let me find you all strong in the Lord, and increased in humble love. Salute from me all who followed with us fifteen years ago. Care still for your old brethren. Let there be no Cain among you, no Esau, no Lot’s wife. Let the love of David and Jonathan, heightened by that of Martha, Mary, Lazarus, and our Lord, shine in all your thoughts, your tempers, your words, your looks, and your actions. If you love one another, your little meetings will be a renewed feast; and the God of love, who is peculiarly present where two or three are gathered together in the name of Jesus, will abundantly bless you. Bear me still upon your breasts in prayer, as I do you upon mine; and rejoice with me that the Lord, who made, redeemed, and comforts us, bears us all upon His. I am yours in Him,
“J. Fletcher.”[480]
For some time after his arrival in Switzerland, Fletcher lived in the house where he was born, a respectable old building, erected on an elevated site at the extremity of the town. Close at hand was the shady wood, where he used to read, meditate, and pray, and meet his flock of little children. Near the house was a terrace, from which the whole of the glorious lake of Geneva was visible; and, in the distance, might be seen the city itself. Towering above all, there was the unutterably grand Mont Blanc. No wonder Fletcher spoke of the “pleasant apartment” where he was born, as having “one of the finest prospects in the world.” For some reason, however, he now exchanged the house of his nativity for another not so enchanting. Hence the following letter to William Perronet, who was residing at Lausanne:—
“Nyon, October 3, 1780.
“My Very Dear Friend,—I thank you for your letters. They have given me much pleasure, as I see that you will at last end your business, and get ready to set out in the spring with Mr. Ireland, who comes with his family, I know not where; but I think he will spend the winter at or about Avignon. If you will go and join him, I shall be glad to go also, for the stream under this house does not make it very wholesome.
“My brother thinks, as well as myself, that you may conclude upon the terms you mention. ‘Better a dinner of herbs with peace, than a stalled ox and noise therewith.’
“I hope to go to Lausanne, directly after vintage, to offer a manuscript to the censors, to see if they will allow its being published; so I do not invite you to share my damp bed. My sister was so kind as to look for another house, but we find none to let under a year. We are here travellers, so we must expect some difficulties and a good many inconveniences.
“If Mr. Ireland goes to Marseilles, you might go and see your cousin there. Lift up your heart, and see by faith our Lord and Saviour, our heavenly Kinsman and Brother; and when you rise there, take by the hand of prayer your affectionate friend,
“John Fletcher.”[481]
Soon after this, William Perronet was seized with mortal illness. In a letter to the Vicar of Shoreham, Fletcher wrote:—
“December 5, 1780. Our wise and good God sees fit to try my dear friend, your son, with a want of appetite and uneasiness in his bowels. He also often returns the little food he takes. Some time ago, he came to Nyon, from Lausanne, and we went together to Geneva, where we settled your affair with three of the Geneva co-heirs, upon the same footing as he had settled with those of Chateau d’Oex. He bears his weakness with much patience and resignation.”[482]
Fletcher was now employed in finishing the poem, which he wished to publish before he left Switzerland; but he delighted in spending as much time with his dying friend as possible.
“Every night,” says William Perronet, in a letter dated January 22, 1781, “after praying with me, he sings this verse at parting:—
“‘Then let our humble faith address
His mercy and His power;
We shall obtain delivering grace
In the distressing hour.’”[483]
Within three weeks after this, Fletcher’s book was finished, and the business of William Perronet was ended. Fletcher wished to set out for England, but was still detained in Switzerland. Hence the following, addressed to Mr. Wase:—
“Nyon, February 14, 1781.
“My Dear Friend,—I thank you for your kind remembrance of me. I need not be urged to return; brotherly love draws me to Madeley, and circumstances drive me hence.
“I am exceeding glad that there is a revival on your side the water” [the river Severn], “and that you are obliged to enlarge your Room.[484] I wish I could contribute to shake the dry bones in my parish, but I have no confidence in the flesh. What I could not do when I was in my strength, I have little prospect of doing now that my strength is broken. However, I don’t despair, for the work is not mine but the Lord’s. If the few who love the Gospel would be simple and zealous, God would again hear their prayers for those who are content to go on in the broad way. I thank you for your view of the iron bridge.[485]
“My friend Ireland invites me to join him in the South of France; and I long to see whether I could not have more liberty to preach the Word among Papists than among Protestants. But it is so little that I can do, that I doubt much whether it is worth while going so far upon so little a chance. If I were stronger, and had more time, the fear of being hanged should not detain me. I trust to set out next month, and to be in England in May; it won’t be my fault if it is not in April.
“I am here in the midst of rumours of war. The burghers of Geneva have disarmed the garrison, and taken possession of one of the gates. I had, however, the luck to get in, and to bring away my nephew, who is a student there. Troops are preparing to block them up. The Lord may, at this time, punish the repeated backslidings of those Laodicean Christians, most of whom have become infidels. This event may a little retard my journey, as I must pass through Geneva. It also puts off the printing of my manuscript, for there is nothing going on in that unhappy town but disputes, and fights, and mounting of guards.
“Remember me in much love to Mr. Greaves, Mr. Gilpin, and the” [Methodist] “preachers who labour with us.”[486]
At the same date, Fletcher wrote to Mr. John Owen, his schoolmaster at Madeley, as follows:—
“Nyon, February 14, 1781. I thank you, my dear brother, for your kind lines. I hope you help both Mr. Greaves and the” [Methodist] “preachers to stir up the people in my parish. Be much in prayer. Take counsel with Michael Onions, Mrs. Palmer, and Molly Cartwright about the most effectual means to recover the backsliders, and to keep together to Christ and to each other those who still hold their shield. Salute them kindly from me, and tell them that I hope they will give me a good account of their little companies” [Methodist classes] “and of themselves.
“If I were not a minister, I would be a schoolmaster, to have the pleasure of bringing up children in the fear of the Lord. That pleasure is yours; relish it, and it will comfort and strengthen you in your work. The joy of the Lord and of charity is our strength. Salute the children from me, and tell them I long to show them the way to happiness and heaven. Have you mastered the stiffness and shyness of your temper? Charity gives a meekness, an affability, a child-like simplicity and openness, which nature has denied you. Let me find you shining by these virtues, and you will revive me much. God bless your labour about the sheep and the lambs!
“Read the following note to all who fear God and love Jesus and each other, assembling in Madeley church:—
“My Dear Brethren,—My heart leaps with joy at the thought of coming to see you and bless the Lord with you. Let us not stay to praise Him till we see each other. Let us see Him in His Son, in His works, and in all the members of Christ. How slow will post-horses go in comparison of love! Meet me, as I do you, in spirit; and we shall not stay till April or May to bless God together. Now will be the time of union and love.”[487]
For another month Fletcher was detained at Nyon, when he wrote to Michael Onions the following:—
“Nyon, March 1781.
“I thank you, my dear brother, for your kind remembrance of me, and for your letters. I hope to bring my fuller thanks to you in person.
“Hold up your hands. Confirm the feeble knees. Set up an Ebenezer every hour of the day. In everything give thanks; and, in order to this, pray without ceasing, and rejoice evermore. My heart sympathizes with poor Molly Cartwright. Tell her, from me, that her husband lives in Him who is the Resurrection. In Christ there is no death, but the victory over death. O! let us live in Him, to Him, for Him, who more than repairs all our losses. My love to your wife. Tell her she promised me to be Jesus’s, as well as yours. My love to John Owen and all our other” [Methodist] “leaders, and by them to the few who do not tire by the way. With regard to the others, despair of none. Charity hopeth all things, and brings many things to pass. All things are possible to him that believeth; all things are easy to him that loveth. God be with you, and make you faithful unto death! This is my prayer for you, and all the Society, and all my dear parishioners, to whom I beg to be remembered. I have no place to write their names, but I pray they may all be written in the book of life. God is merciful, gracious, and faithful. I set my seal to His lovingkindness. Witness my heart and hand,
“J. FLETCHER.”[488]
Fletcher had promised to join Mr. Ireland at Montpelier; but, meanwhile, William Perronet, who had returned to Lausanne, was so much worse in health, that it was impossible for him to accompany his friend. Two days before leaving Switzerland, Fletcher visited him, and, in a letter to the aged Vicar of Shoreham, wrote:—
“Miss Perronet and her mother[489] are as kind to him as my dear friends at Stoke Newington were to me when I lay sick there. His mind is quite easy; he is sweetly resigned to the will of God.”[490]
At Montpelier, Fletcher overtaxed his strength; and at Lyons, on his way to England, wrote as follows to his sick and dying friend, whom he had been obliged to leave behind him:—
“Lyons, April 6, 1781.
“My Dear Friend,—We are both weak, both afflicted; but Jesus careth for us. He is everywhere, and here He has all power to deliver us; and He may do it by ways we little think of: ‘As Thou wilt, when Thou wilt, and where Thou wilt,’ said Baxter: let us say the same. It was of the Lord you did not come with me: you would have been sick as I am. I am overdone with riding and preaching. I preached twice in the fields. I carry home with me much weakness and a pain in the back, which I fear will end in the gravel. The Lord’s will be done! I know I am called to suffer and die. The journey tires me; but, through mercy, I bear it. Let us believe and rejoice in the Lord Jesus.”[491]
Three weeks after this, Fletcher preached in City Road Chapel, London, and, the next day (April 28), set out to the hospitable home of his friend, Mr. Ireland, at Brislington. At this time, one of the Methodist preachers, stationed in the Bristol circuit, was Thomas Rankin, who had spent nearly five years in America, and who, in 1778, had been driven home by the American rebellion. Hearing of Fletcher’s arrival at Brislington, Rankin went to visit him, and wrote:—
“I had such an interview with him as I shall never forget. I had not seen him for upwards of ten years. His looks, his salutation, and his address, struck me with wonder, solemnity, and joy. We retired into Mr. Ireland’s garden; and he began to inquire concerning the work of God in America. I gave him a full account of everything that he wished to know. During this relation, he stopped me six times, and, in the shadow of the trees, poured out his soul to God, for the prosperity of the work, and for our brethren there. He several times called upon me, also, to commend them to God in prayer. This was an hour never to be forgotten. Before we parted, I engaged him to come to Bristol, on the Monday following, to meet the select band in the forenoon, and to preach in the evening. During the hour he spent with the select band, the room appeared as ‘the house of God, and the gate of heaven.’ At night, he preached from, ‘We are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.’ The whole congregation was in tears. He spoke like one who had but just left the converse of God and angels. The different conversations I had with him, and his prayers and preaching, during the few days he stayed at Bristol and Brislington, were attended with such effects upon me, that, for some months afterwards, not a cloud intervened between God and my soul, no, not for one hour. Of all the men I ever knew, I never saw such love to God and man, such deadness to the world, such entire consecratedness to Jesus, as in him. It often appeared to me that his every breath was prayer and praise. He lived more like a disembodied spirit than a human being.”[492]
When at Marseilles, on his way to Switzerland, in March, 1778, Fletcher wrote a long letter,[493] to Miss Bosanquet, on Christian Perfection, and respecting his unpublished Essay on the New Birth. Miss Bosanquet replied to that, in a letter dated August 30, 1778. Strange to say, this letter was not put into Fletcher’s hands until nearly three years afterwards. During this interval, there seems to have been no correspondence between him and the lady who was speedily to become his wife. On his return from Switzerland, he wrote her the following, which is now for the first time published:—
“Brislington, near Bristol, May 1, 1781.
“Dear Madam,—Your kind favour dated August 30, 1778, having been mislaid in a drawer and forgotten, did not come into my hands till this morning. I hope my speedy taking of the pen, to acknowledge so unexpected a favour, will atone for the forgetfulness of my friend.
“You speak, Madam, of a letter from Bath; I do not recollect, at present, your having favoured me with one from that place. Is it my lot to be tried, or disappointed in this respect? Well, the hairs of our heads, and the letters of our friends, are all numbered: not one of the former falls, not one of the latter miscarries, without the will of Him, to whose orders we have long since fully and cheerfully subscribed.
“I have sincerely aimed at truth in writing the Essay you have been so kind as to peruse.[494] If I am not mistaken, Dr. Coke told me, when I passed through London, that he had it; but I went out of town in such a hurry that I had not time to take it with me. I feel the propriety of your remarks, and shall make the alterations you mention, as soon as I shall have the manuscript.
“I had thought of what you name, respecting a less plan of the doctrine of the New Birth,—a plan calculated to make way for the larger essay, and to guide into the truth those who have never taken one step without the leading strings of prejudice, and who cannot judge of a doctrine if it be not brought within the narrow compass and focus of their understanding. I shall be glad of an opportunity of consulting you about that sketch, if I live to make it. I love truth, because I love Jesus; but I am, every way, too feeble an instrument to defend and hold it forth with success. Your thought about it makes me pray with earnestness that I may, in some degree, answer your too favourable opinion of the importance of my little attempts to vindicate, or clear up, some part of the Gospel truths.
“Alas! what am I? A cracked voice crying in the wilderness;—a blunted pen scribbling in a village. Thanks be to grace, however, I sincerely desire to be a living shadow of the Divine Man, who is truth and love incarnate. I sincerely desire to embrace those great and precious promises given unto us, whereby we may become partakers of the Divine nature. I will not rest in the first Comforter, so as to slight that other Comforter, who is to abide with us for ever. I want not only to see Jesus altogether lovely, but to feel Him altogether powerful and wise, both in myself and in all my fellow-Christians. Restless, resigned for this, I wait for this. My vehement soul is on the stretch. Some tell me I carry my views too high; but how can that be, if God can do in us exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or think? Is not the soul joined completely to the Lord, one spirit with Him? Are we not called to come to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ? Is a dwarf’s state of grace the full prize of our high calling? If this hope preys upon my feeble frame, I dare not cast it off: let me rather die a martyr to it than lose it. Why should there not be true martyrs for the hope, as well as for the faith of the Gospel? At all events, let us wait for the great salvation of God the Spirit. Against hope, let us believe in hope that we shall see the royal priesthood clothed with Divine righteousness, and all God’s saints rejoice and sing.
“The openness with which you mention what some might call your enthusiasm, makes me reveal to you, Madam, what some call mine. I own I do not believe that Scripture repealed, ‘Your young men shall see visions; your old men shall dream dreams.’ ‘These signs shall follow them that believe,’ etc. (See Mark xvi. 17, 18). ‘My sons and my daughters shall prophesy.’ ‘Desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy’ (1 Cor. xiv. 2). Shall I offend you, if I ask you in simplicity the following questions? Do you know any soul filled with all the fulness of God? Anyone walking as Christ also walked, and able to say, in truth, ‘As He was, so are we in this world?’ Do you know any knit together in love, sharing all the riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of Christ in us the hope of glory (Col. i. 27; ii. 2)? Or, are the professors about you (far from having the full assurance of understanding with respect to this mystery) ready to say, when one speaks of this mystery, ‘Thou bringest strange things to our ears’?
“If you condescend to favour me with an answer, please to direct it to me at Madeley, Salop. There I hope to be next week. In the meantime, I pray the Lord to give us an understanding, that we may know more of Him, and be completely in His Son Jesus Christ, that is, in the true, Divine, and eternal life. May the living unction be and abide with you! I ask it ardently for you; condescend to ask it also for, dear Madam, your obliged friend and servant in the Gospel,
“J. Fletcher.
“P.S.—The third part, which I designed to add[495] to the ‘Essay on the New Birth,’ was an application to the disciples of Moses, of John, and of Jesus glorified; to those who have the fear of God, the faith of the Son, and the love of the Spirit. My health is mended, thanks be to God! but my lungs remain weak. Please to remember me in Christian love to Sister Crosby.
“Miss Bosanquet,
“At Cross Hall,
“Near Leads (sic),
“Yorkshire.”
A few days after the date of this letter, Fletcher, accompanied by Mr. Ireland, returned to Madeley, having been absent from his flock since November 1776,—four years and a-half.
431. Letters, 1791, p. 249.
432. Wesley’s “Life of Fletcher.”
433. Wesley’s “Life of Fletcher.”
434. Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”
435. Letters, 1791, p. 43.
436. Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”
437. Thirteen days after the date of this letter, Voltaire, in Paris, took a large dose of opium, without the advice of his physicians, and died.
438. Arminian Magazine, 1788, p. 384.
439. Arminian Magazine, 1788, p. 386.
440. Evangelical Magazine, 1794.
441. Letters, 1791, p. 263, and Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”
442. Letters, 1791, p. 264.
443. Cox’s “Life of Fletcher,” p. 129.
444. Letters, 1791, p. 45.
445. Ibid, p. 45.
446. Letters, 1791, p. 268.
447. Benson’s “Life of Fletcher”.
448. Ibid.
449. Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”
450. The war with the American Colonists was now raging, and England was greatly excited.
451. Letters, 1791, p. 271.
452. James Barry and Robert Costerdine, the two Methodist itinerant preachers stationed in the Chester circuit, of which Madeley and its neighbourhood were a part.
453. The meeting-house Fletcher had recently erected in Madeley Wood, and which is now a part of the Wesleyan Chapel there.
454. Letters, 1791, p. 47, and the Christian Miscellany, 1877, p. 333.
455. Letters, p. 48, and ibid, p. 334.
456. Wesley’s Journal.
457. Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”
458. Ibid.
459. Letters, 1791, p. 49.
460. The name often given by the old Methodists to a Methodist Circuit.
461. Letters, 1791, p. 51.
462. Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”
463. Ibid.
464. Wesley’s Book Steward, who, nine years afterwards, seceded from the Methodists, and took possession of a chapel which they had built at Dewsbury.
465. Letters, 1791, p. 272.
466. Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”
467. Letters, 1791, p. 53.
468. Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”
469. Ibid.
470. Benson’s “Life of Fletcher;” and Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 1825, p. 744.
471. Letters, 1791, p. 56.
472. Letters, 1791, p. 273.
473. Ibid., p. 57.
474. Letters, 1791, p. 58.
475. Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”
476. Ibid.
477. Letters, 1791, p. 60.
478. Letters, 1791, p. 62.
479. Ibid., p. 61.
480. Letters, 1791, p. 63.
481. Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 1830, p. 831.
482. Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”
483. Ibid.
484. The Methodist meeting-house.
485. The bridge across the Severn at Coalbrookdale, the first iron bridge erected in England; cast in 1779, under the direction of Mr. Abraham Darby.
486. Letters, 1791, p. 67.
487. Letters, 1791, p. 65.
488. Ibid, p. 68.
489. Probably William Perronet’s aunt and cousin; certainly not his mother and sister.
490. Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”
491. Ibid.
492. Thomas Rankin’s MS. Journal.
493. See the letter dated “March 7, 1778.”
494. His “Essay on the New Birth.”
495. This was not added.