friends, Mr. Hill, and of Mr. Wesley, whom he consulted, he took orders in the English church. The ordination took place in the Chapel-Royal, St. James's, and, as soon as it was over, he went to the Methodist chapel in West-street, where he assisted in administering the Lord's Supper. Wesley had never received so seasonable an assistance. "How wonderful are the ways of God!" said he, in his Journal. "When my bodily strength failed, and none in England were able and willing to assist me, He sent me help from the mountains of Switzerland, and an help meet for me in every respect. Where could I have found such another!" It proved a more efficient and important help than Mr. Wesley could then have anticipated. Mr. Fletcher (for so he now called himself, being completely anglicised,) incurred some displeasure, by the decided manner in which he connected himself with the Methodists: neither his talents nor his virtues were yet understood beyond the circle of his friends. By Mr. Hill's means, however, he was presented to the vicarage of Madely, in Shropshire, about three years after his ordination. It is a populous' village, in which there were extensive collieries and iron works; and the character of the inhabitants was, in consequence, what, to the reproach and curse of England, it generally is, wherever mines or manufactures of any kind have brought together a crowded population. Mr. Fletcher had, at one time, officiated there as curate; he now entered upon his duty with zeal proportioned to the arduous nature of the service which he had pledged himself to perform. That zeal made him equally disregardful of appearances and of danger. The whole rents of his small patrimonial estate in the Pays de Vaud were set apart for charitable uses, and he drew so liberally from his other funds for the same purpose, that his furniture and wardrobe were not spared. Because some of his remoter parishioners excused themselves for not attending the morning service, by pleading that they did not wake early enough to get their families ready, for some months he set out every Sunday, at five o'clock, with a bell in his hand, and went round the most distant parts of the parish, to call up the people. And wherever hearers could be collected in the surrounding country, within ten or fifteen miles, thither he went to preach to them on week days, though he seldom got home before one or two in the morning. At first, the rabble of his parishioners resented the manner in which he ventured to re prove and exhort them in the midst of their lewd revels and riotous meetings; for he would frequently burst in upon them, without any fear of the consequence to himself. The publicans and maltmen were his especial enemies. A mob of colliers, who were one day baiting a bull, determined to pull him off his horse as he went to preach, set the dogs upon him, and, in their own phrase, bait the parson; but the bull broke loose, and dispersed them before he arrived. In spite, however, of the opposition which his eccentrieities excited, not from the ignorant only, but from some of the neighbouring clergy and magistrates, he won upon the people, rude and brutal as they were, by the invincible benevolence which was manifested in his whole manner of life; till at length his church, which at first had been so scantily attended, that he was discouraged as well as mortified by the smallness of the congregation, began to overflow. Such was the person who, without any emolument, had undertaken the charge of superintending, in occasional visits, the college at Trevecca, and who withdrew from that charge when Lady Huntingdon called upon all persons in that seminary to disavow the doctrines of Mr. Wesley's minutes, or leave the place. He had at that time no intention or apprehension of taking any further part in the dispute. Shortly afterwards the Honourable Walter Shirley, one of her Ladyship's chaplains, and of the Calvinistic clergy who had formed a party under her patronage, sent forth a circular letter, stating, that whereas Mr. Wesley's next Conference was to be held at Bristol, it was proposed by Lady Huntingdon, and many other Christian friends, to have a meeting in that city at the same time, of such principal persons, both clergy and laity, who disapproved of the obnoxious minutes; and as the doctrines therein avowed were thought injurious to the very fundamental principles of Christianity, it was further proposed, that these persons should go in a body to the Conference, and insist upon a formal recantation of the said minutes, and, in case of a refusal, sign and publish their protest against them. "Your presence, Sir," the letter proceeded, is particularly requested; but if it should not suit your convenience to be there, it is desired that you will transmit your sentiments on the subject to such person as you think proper to produce them. It is submitted to you, whether it would not be right, in the opposition to be made to such a dreadful heresy, to recommend it to as many of your Christian friends, as well of the Dissenters as of the established Church, as you can prevail on, to be there, the cause being of so public a nature." Lodgings were to be provided for the persons who attended. The proceedings were not so furious as might have been expected from a declaration of war like this. The heat of the Calvinistic party seemed to have spent itself in the first explosion. Mr. Wesley was truly a man of peace: and when the Conference and the anti-council met, the result, unlike that of most other pitched disputations upon points of theology, was something like an accommodation. The meeting was managed with perfect temper on both sides, and with a conciliatory spirit on the part of Shirley himself; a man whose intentions were better than his judgment. Mr. Wesley and the Conference declared, that, in framing the obnoxious minutes, no such meaning was intended as was imputed to them. "We abhor," they said, "the doctrine of justification by works, as a most perilous and abominable doctrine; and as the said minutes are not sufficiently guarded in the way they are expressed, we hereby solemnly declare, in the sight of God, that we have no trust or confidence but in the alone merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, for justification or salvation, either in life, death, or the day of judgment; and though no one is a real Christian believer (and consequently cannot be saved) who doth not good works, where there is time and opportunity, yet our works have no part in meriting or purchasing our justification, either in whole or in part." Mr. Shirley declared himself satisfied with this declaration, and the in terview was concluded with prayer, and professions of peace and love. These were but fallacious appearances: the old question had been mooted, and the * dispute broke out with greater violence than ever. On the part of the Arminians it was carried on by Walter Sellon, who was originally a baker, then one of Wesley's lay preachers, and had afterwards, by means of Lady Huntingdon's influence, obtained orders; by Thomas Olivers, who, like a sturdy and honest Welshman as he was, refused, at the Conference, to subscribe the declaration; and by Mr. Fletcher. On the part of the Calvinists, the most conspicuous writers were the brothers Richard (afterwards Sir Richard) and Rowland Hill, and Augustus Montague Toplady, vicar of Broad Hembury, in Devonshire. Never were any writings more thoroughly saturated with the essential acid of Calvinism, than those of the predestinarian champions. It would scarcely be credible, that three persons, of good birth and education, and of unquestionable goodness and piety, should have carried on controversy in so vile a manner, and with so detestable a spirit,-if the hatred of theologians had not, unhappily, become proverbial. Berridge, of Everton, also, who was buffoon as well as fanatic, engaged on their side: and even Harvey's nature was so far soured by his opinions, that he wrote in an acrimonious style against Mr. Wesley, whose real piety he knew, and whom he had once regarded as his spiritual father. The ever memorable Toplady, as his admirers call him, and who, they say, "stands paramount in the plenitude of dignity above most of his contemporaries," was bred at Westminster, and, according to his own account, converted at the age of sixteen, by the sermon of an ignorant lay preacher, in a barn in Ireland. He was an injudicious man, hasty in forming conclusions, and intemperate in advancing them; but his intellect was quick and lively, and his manner of writing, though coarse, was always vigorous, and sometimes fortunate. A little before that Conference which brought out the whole Calvinistic force against Wesley, Mr. Toplady published a Treatise upon absolute Predestination, chiefly translated from the Latin of Zanchius. Mr. Wesley set forth an analysis of this treatise, for the purpose of exposing its monstrous doctrine, and concluded in these words: "The sum of all this :-one in twenty (suppose) of mankind are elected; nineteen in twenty are reprobated. The elect shall be saved, do what they will; the reprobate shall be damned, do what they can. Reader, believe this, or be damned. Witness my 66 hand, AT." Toplady denied the consequences, and accused Mr. Wesley of intending to palm the paragraph on the world as his. In almost any other case," said he, a similar forgery would transmit the criminal to Virginia or Maryland, if not to Tyburn. The satanic guilt of the person who could excogitate and publish to *The sort of recantation which was made in this declaration gave occasion to the following verses by one of the hostile party : Whereas the religion, and fate of three nations, Depend on the importance of our conversations: Whereas some objections are thrown in our way, And words have been construed to mean what they say; Be it known, from henceforth, to each friend and each brother, Whene'er we say one thing, we mean quite another. VOL. II. 22 the world a position like that, baffles all power of description, and is only to be exceeded (if exceedable) by the satanic shamelessness which dares to lay the black position at the door of other men. 66 Most certainly Mr. Wesley had no intention that this passage should pass for Mr. Toplady's writing. He gave it as the sum of his doctrine; and, stripping that doctrine of all disguise, exposed it thus in its naked monstrosity. After vindicating himself by stating this, he left Olivers to carry on the contest with his incensed antagonist. This provoked Toplady the more. Let Mr. Wesley," said he, 'fight his own battles. I am as ready as ever to meet him with the sling of reason and the stone of God's word in my hand. But let him not fight by proxy; let his cobblers keep to their stalls; let his tinkers mend their brazen vessels; let his barbers confine themselves to their blocks and basins; let his blacksmiths blow more suitable coals than those of nice controversy: every man in his own order." And, because Olivers had been a shoemaker, he attacked him on that score with abusive ridicule, both in prose and in rhyme.* But when he spoke of Wesley himself, and Wesley's doctrines, it was with a bitterer temper. The very titles which he affixed to his writings were in the manner of Martin Marprelate," More Work for Mr. John Wesley ;"-" An Old Fox tarred and feathered :" it seemed as if he had imbibed the spirit of sectarian scurrility, from the truculent libellers of the puritanical age, with whom he sympathized almost as much in opinions as in temper. Blunders and blasphemies, he said, were two species of commodities in which Mr. Wesley had driven a larger traffic, than any other blunder merchant this country had produced. Considered as a reasoner, he called him one of the most contemptible writers that ever set pen to paper.—And, "abstracted from all warmth, and from all prejudices," says he, “I believe him to be the most rancorous hater of the Gospel system that ever appeared in this island." The same degree of coolness and impartiality appeared when he spoke of the doctrines which he 66 * He makes Wesley speak of him thus, in a doggrel dialogue I've Thomas Olivers, the cobbler, (No stall in England holds a nobler,) A wight of talents universal, Whereof I'll give a brief rehearsal; He wields beyond most other men, His awl, his razor, and his pen; My beard he shaves, repairs my shoe, He, with one brandish of his quill, Can knock down Toplady and Hill; With equal ease, whene'er there's need, Can darn my stockings and my creed; Can drive a nail, or ply the needle, Hem handkerchief, and scrape the fiddle, ; And then when he philosophizes, No son of Crispin half so wise is. Of all my ragged regiment This cobbler gives me most content; My barber, champion, and shoe-mender. In private, however, Toplady did justice to this antagonist. After a chance interview with him, which, for its good humour, was creditable to both parties, he says, to a correspondent, "To say the truth, I am glad I saw Mr. Olivers, for he appears to be a person of stronger sense, and better behaviour, than I imagined. Had his understanding been cultivated by a liberal education, I believe he would have made some figure in life." I have never seen Olivers' pamphlet, but he had the right side of the argument; and, if he had not maintained his cause with respectable ability, his treatise would not have been sanctioned (on such an occasion) by Wesley, and praised by Fletcher. opposed. He insisted that Socinus and Arminius were the two necessary supporters of a free-willer's coat of arms; "for," said he, in his vigorous manner, "Arminianism is the head, and Socinianism the tail of one and the self-same serpent; and, when the head works itself in, it will soon draw the tail after it." A tract of Wesley's, in which the fatal doctrine of Necessity is controverted and exposed, he calls the famous Moorfields powder, whose chief ingredients are an equal portion of gross Heathenism, Pelagianism, Mahometanism, Popery, Manichæism, Ranterism, and Antinomianism, culled, dried, and pulverized, and mingled with as much palpable Atheism as you can scrape together.' And he asserted, and attempted to prove, that Arminianism and Atheism came to the same thing. A more unfair reasoner has seldom entered the lists of theological controversy, and yet he was not so uncharitable as his writings, nor by any means so bad as his opinions might easily have made him. He much questioned whether an Arminian could go to heaven; and of course must have supposed that Wesley, as the Arch-Arminian of the age, bore about him the stamp of reprobation. Nevertheless, in one of his letters, he says, "God is witness how earnestly I wish it may consist with the Divine will, to touch the heart and open the eyes of that unhappy man! I hold it as much my duty to pray for his conversion, as to expose the futility of his railings against the truths of the Gospel." And, upon a report of Wesley's death, he would have stopped the publication of one of his bitter diatribes, for the purpose of expunging whatever reflected with asperity upon the dead. There was no affectation in this; the letters in which these redeeming feelings appear were not intended or expected to go abroad into the world. The wise and gentle Tillotson has observed, that we shall have two wonders in heaven; the one, how many come to be absent whom we expected to find there; the other, how many are there whom we had no hope of meeting. Toplady said of Mr. Fletcher's works, that, in the very few pages which he had perused, the serious passages were dulness doublecondensed, and the lighter passages impudence double-distilled : "So hardened was" his own "front," to use one of his own expressions," and so thoroughly was he drenched in the petrifying water of a party." If ever true Christian charity was manifested in polemical writing, it was by Fletcher of Madely. Even theological controversy never, in the slightest degree, irritated his heavenly temper. On sending the manuscript of his first Check to Antinomianism to a friend much younger than himself, he says, "I beg, as upon my bended knees, you would revise and correct it, and take off quod durius sonat in point of works, reproof, and style. I have followed my light, which is but that of smoking flax put yours to mine. I am charged hereabouts with scattering firebrands, arrows, and death. Quench some of my brands; blunt some of my arrows; and take off all my deaths, except that which I design for Antinomianism." "For the sake of candour," he says, in one of his prefaces, "of truth, of peace,-for the Reader's sake, and, above all, for the sake of Christ, and the honour of Christianity, whoever ye are that shall next enter the lists against us, do not wire-draw the controversy, by uncharitably attacking our persons, and absurdly : |