Chapter XXI: A Long Retirement (3)

“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]

Footnote 488:

_Ibid_, p. 68.

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]

Footnote 489:

Probably William Perronet’s aunt and cousin; certainly not his mother
and sister.

Footnote 490:

Benson’s “Life of Fletcher.”

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]

Footnote 491:

_Ibid._

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]

Footnote 492:

Thomas Rankin’s MS. Journal.

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.”

Footnote 493:

See the letter dated “March 7, 1778.”

Footnote 494:

His “Essay on the New Birth.”

Footnote 495:

This was not added.

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.