FIRST CHECK TO ANTINOMIANISM | LETTER 3

FIVE CHECKS TO ANTINOMIANISM

BY JOHN WILLIAM FLETCHER

John William Fletcher of Madeley

OCCASIONED BY A LATE NARRATIVE

TO THE HON. AND REV. MR. SHIRLEY

BY THE VINDICATOR OF THE REV. MR. WESLEY'S MINUTES (John Fletcher). 

Reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all long-suffering and (Scriptural) doctrine; for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. I Tim. iv, 2, 8. 

Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith. But let brotherly love continue. Tit. i, 18; Heb. xii, 1. 

LETTER III

HONOURED AND REVEREND SIR, -- We have seen how exceedingly commendable was Mr. Wesley's design in writing what you have extracted from his last Minutes; and how far from being unanswerable are the general objections which some have moved against them. Let us now proceed to a candid inquiry into the true meaning of the propositions. They are thus prefaced:-- 

"We said in 1744, We have leaned too much toward Calvinism. Wherein?" 

This single sentence is enough, I grant, to make some persons account Mr. Wesley a heretic. He is not a Calvinist! And what is still more dreadful, he has the assurance to say that he has leaned too much toward Calvinism! This will sound like a double heresy in their ears; but not in yours, sir, who seem to carry your anti-Calvinistical notions farther than Mr. Wesley himself. He never spoke more clearly to the point of free grace than you do, page 85, of your sermons: -- "God," say you, "never left himself without witness, not only from the visible things of the creation, but likewise from the inward witness, a spiritual seed of light sown in the soul of every son of man, Jew, Turk, or Pagan, as well as Christians, whose kindly suscitations whoever follows, will gladly perceive increasing gleams still leading farther on to nearer and far brighter advances, till at length a foil and perfect day bursts forth upon his ravished eyes." In this single sentence, sir, you bear the noblest testimony to all the doctrines in which Mr. Wesley dissents from the Calvinists. You begin with GENERAL REDEMPTION, and end with PERFECTION: or, to use your own expression, you follow him "from the spiritual seed of light in a Turk," quite to the "full and perfect day, bursting forth upon the ravished eyes of the Pagan who follows the kindly suscitations" of Divine grace. 

And far from making man a mere machine, you tell us, page 140, "it is true that faith is the gift of God, but the exertion of that faith, when once given, lieth in ourselves." Mr. Wesley grants it, sir; but permit me to tell you that the word ourselves being printed in italics, seems to convey rather more anti-Calvinism than he holds: for he is persuaded that we cannot exert faith without a continual influence of the same Divine power that produced it; it being evident, upon the Gospel plan, that "without Christ we can do nothing." From these and the like passages in your sermons, I conclude, sir, that your charge of dreadful heresy does not rest upon these words, "We have leaned too much toward Calvinism." Pass we then to the next, in which Mr. Wesley begins to show wherein he has consented too much to the Calvinists. 

"I. With regard to man's faithfulness Our Lord himself taught us to use the expression. And we ought never to be ashamed of it. We ought steadily to assert, on his authority, that if a man 'is not faithful in the unrighteous mammon, God will not give him the true riches.'" 

Now, where does the heresy lie here? Is it in the word man's faithfulness? Is there so much faithfulness to God and man among professors, that he must be opposed by all good men who dares to use the bare word? Do real Protestants account "man's faithfulness" a grace of supererogation, and quoting Scripture a heresy? Or do they slight what our Lord recommends in the plainest terms, and will one day reward in the most glorious manner? If not, why are they going to enter a protest against Mr. Wesley because he is "not ashamed of Christ and his words before an evil and adulterous generation," and will not "keep back" from his immense flock any part of the counsel of God," much less a part that so many professors overlook, while some are daring enough to lampoon it, and others wicked enough to trample it under foot? 

O, sir, if Mr. Wesley is to be cast out of your synagogue unless he formally recant the passage he has quoted, and which be says "we are not to be ashamed of;" what will you do to the Son of God who spoke it? What to St. Luke who wrote it? And what to good Mr. Henry who thus comments upon it? "If we do not make a right use of the gifts of God's providence, how can we expect from him those present and future comforts which are the gifts of his spiritual grace? Our Saviour here compares these; and shows that though our faithful use of the things of this world cannot be thought to merit any favour at the hand of god, yet our unfaithfulness in the use of them may be justly reckoned a forfeiture of that grace which is necessary to bring us to glory. And that is it which our Saviour shows, Luke xvi, 10-12, He that is unjust, unfaithful, in the least, is unjust, unfaithful also in much. The riches of this world are the less; grace and glory are the greater. Now, if we be unfaithful in the less, if we use the things of this world to other purposes than those to which they were given us, it may justly be feared we shall be so in the gifts of God's grace, that we will receive them also in vain, and therefore they will be denied us. He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much. He that serves God and does good with his money, will serve God and do good with the more noble and valuable talents of wisdom and grace, and spiritual gifts, and the earnests of heaven: but he that buries the one talent of this world's wealth, will never improve the five talents of spiritual riches." 

Thus speaks the honest commentator: and whoever charges him with legality or heresy therein, I must express my approbation by a shout of applause. Hail Henry! hail Wesley! Ye faithful servants of the most high God. Stand it out against an Antinomian world! Hail ye followers of the despised Galilean! You "confess him and his words before a perverse generation, he will confess you before his Father and his angels." Let not the scoffs, let not the accusations even of good people, led by the tempter appearing as an angel of light, make you give up one jot or tittle of your Lord's Gospel. Though thousands should combine to brand you as legalists, Papists, heretics, and anti-christs stand it out: Scripture, conscience, and Jesus are on your side. "Be not afraid of their terror, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts." And when you shall have occupied a little longer, and been a little more abused by your mistaken companions, your master will come and find you employed in serving his family, and not in "beating your fellow servants." And while the unprofitable, unfaithful, quarrelsome servant is cast out, he will address you with a "well done good and faithful servants! Ye have been faithful over a few things; I will make you rulers over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord." 

Excuse the length of this address: it dropped from me before I was aware, and is the fruit of the joy I feel to see "the John Goodwin of the age," and the oracle of the Calvinists so fully agree to maintain the Christian heresy against the Antinomian orthodoxy. Nay, and you yourself are of the very same way of thinking. For you tell us (page 89) "that God so far approved of the advances Cornelius had made toward him," (by praying, and giving, as you had observed before, much alms to the people,) "under the slender light offered him; of his earnest desire of a still nearer and more intimate acquaintance with him; and of the improvements he had made of the small talent he had committed to him; that he was now about to entrust him with greater and far better treasures."

In the mouth of two such witnesses as Mr. Henry and yourself, Mr. Wesley's doctrine might be established; but as I fear that some of our friends will soon look upon you both as tainted with his heresy, I shall produce some plain Scripture instances to prove, by the strongest of all arguments, matter of fact, that man's "unfaithfulness in the mammon of unrighteousness" is attended with the worst of consequences. 

You know, sir, what destruction this sin brought upon Achan, and by his means upon Israel: and you remember how Saul's avarice, and his "flying upon the spoil of the Amalekites" cost him his kingdom, together with the Divine blessing. You will, perhaps, object that "they forfeited only temporal mercies." True, if they repented; but if their sin sealed up the hardness of their heart, then they lost all. 

I can, however, mention two who indisputably forfeited both spiritual and eternal blessings: the one is the moral young man whose fatal attachment to wealth is mentioned in the Gospel. "Go," said our Lord to him, "sell all thou hast, give to the poor; come, follow me, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven." He was unfaithful in the "mammon of unrighteousness;" he would not comply with the proposal, and though "Jesus loved him," yet he stood firm to his word, he did not "give him the true riches." The unhappy wretch chose to have his good things in this world, and so lost them in the next. 

The other instance is Judas. "He left all," at first, "to follow Jesus;" but when the devil placed him upon the high mountain of temptation, and showed him the horrors of poverty and the alluring wealth of this world, covetousness, his besetting sin, prevailed again: and as he carried the bag he turned thief, and made a private purse. You know, sir, that "the love of money" proved to him "the root of all evil;" and that on account of his "unfaithfulness in the mammon of unrighteousness" our Lord not only did "not give him the true riches," but took his every talent from him, his apostleship on earth, and one of the twelve thrones which he had promised him in common with the other disciples. 

Some, I know, will excuse Judas by fathering his crime and damnation upon the decrees of God. But we who are not numbered among real Protestants think that sinners are reprobated as they are elected, that is, says St. Peter, "according to the foreknowledge of God." We are persuaded that because God's knowledge is infinite he foreknows future contingencies; and we think we should insult both his holiness and his omniscience if we did not believe that he could both foresee and foretell that Judas would be unfaithful, without necessitating him to be so, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled. We assert, then, that as Jesus loved the poor covetous young man, so he loved his poor covetous disciple. For had he hated him, he must have acted the base part of a dissembler, by showing him for years as much love as he did the other apostles; an idea too horrid for a Christian to entertain, I shall not say of "God made flesh," but even of a man that has any sincerity or truth! Judas's damnation, therefore, and the ruin of the young man, according to the second axiom in the Gospel, were merely of themselves, by their unbelief and "unfaithfulness in the mammon of unrighteousness:" for "how could they believe," seeing they reposed their "trust in uncertain riches!" 

Thus, sir, both the express declaration of our Lord, and the plain histories of the Scripture agree to confirm this fundamental principle in Christianity, that when God works upon man he expects faithfulness from man; and that when man, as a moral agent, grieves and quenches the Spirit that strives to make him faithful, temporal and eternal ruin are the inevitable consequence. 

Thus far, then, the Minutes contain a great, evangelical truth, and not a shadow of heresy. Let us see whether the dreadful snake lurks under the second proposition. 

"II. We have leaned too much toward Calvinism; (2.) With regard to working for life. This also our Lord has expressly commanded us. Labour (Ergazesqe, literally, work) for the meat that endureth to everlasting life. And in fact every believer, till he comes to glory, works for as well as from life."

Here Mr. Wesley strikes at a fatal mistake of all Antinomians, many honest Calvinists, and not a few who are Arminians in sentiment, and Calvinists in practice. All these, when they see that man is by nature dead in trespasses and sins, lie easy in the mire of iniquity, idly waiting till, by an irresistible act of omnipotence, God pulls them out without any striving on their part. Multitudes uncomfortably stick here, and will probably continue to do so till they receive and heartily embrace that part of the Gospel which is now, alas called heresy. When shall these poor prisoners in giant Despair's castle find the key of their dungeon about them, and perceive that "the word is nigh them, yea, in their mouth and in their heart; stirring up the gift of God within them, and in hope believing against hope," they will happily "lay hold on eternal life, and apprehend," by the confidence of faith, "him that has apprehended them" by convictions of sin. 

But now, instead of imitating Lazarus, who, when the Lord had called him and restored life to his putrefying body, "came forth" out of his grave, though he was "bound hand and foot;" these mistaken men indolently wait till the Lord drags them out, not considering that it is more than he has promised to do. On the contrary, he reproves by his prophet, those that "do not stir themselves up to lay hold on him;" and deciding the point himself, says, "Turn ye at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my Spirit upon you; because I called and ye refused, I stretched out my hands unto you, and no man regarded, I will mock when your fear cometh." 

Should you object, "that the case is not similar, because the Lord gave life to the dead body of Lazarus, whereas our souls are dead in sin by nature." True, sir, by nature; but does not "grace reign" to control nature? And "as by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so, by the righteousness of one, is not the free gift come upon all men to justification of life?" According to the promise made to our first parents, and of course to all men then contained in their loins, is not "the seed of the woman always nigh," both to reveal and "bruise the serpent's head?" Is not Christ "the light of men, -- the light of the world, -- come into the world? Shineth he not in the darkness of our nature, even when the darkness comprehends him not? And is not this "light the life," the spiritual "life of men?" Can this be denied, if the "light is Christ," and if "Christ is the resurrection and the life," who came that "we might have life, and that we might have it more abundantly?" 

In this Scriptural view of free grace, what room is there for the ridiculous cavil that "Mr. Wesley wants the dead to work for life?" God, of his infinite mercy in Jesus Christ, gives to poor sinners, naturally dead in sin, a talent of free, preventing, quickening grace, which "reproves them of sin;" and when it is followed, of "righteousness and judgment." This, which some Calvinists call common grace, is granted to all without any respect of persons; so that even the poor Jew, Herod, if he had not preferred the smiles of his Herodias to the convincing light of Christ which shone in his conscience, would have been saved as well as John the Baptist; and that poor heathen, Felix, if he had not hardened his heart in the day of his visitation, would have sweetly experienced that Christ had as much tasted death for him as he did for St. Paul. The living light visited them; but they, not "working while it was day," or refusing to "cut off the right hand," which the Lord called for, fell at last into that "night wherein no man can work; their candlestick was removed, their lamp went out." They quenched their "smoking flax," or, in other words, their talent unimproved was justly "taken from them." Thus, though once through grace they could work, they died while they lived; and so were, as says St. Jude, "twice dead," dead in Adam by that sentence, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die;" and dead in themselves, by personally renouncing Christ the life, or rejecting the light of his convincing Spirit. 

This being premised, I ask, Where is the heresy in this paragraph of the Minutes? Does it consist in quoting a plain passage out of one of our Lord's sermons? Or in daring to produce in the original, under the horrible form of the decagrammaton, Ergazesqe, that dreadful tetragrammaton, work? Surely, sir, you have too much piety to maintain the former, and too much good sense to assert the latter. Does it consist in saying that "believers work from life?" (for of such only Mr. Wesley here speaks.) Do not all grant that he who believeth hath life, yea, everlasting life, and therefore can work? And have I not proved from Scripture that the very heathens are not without some light and grace to work suitably to their dispensation? 

"The heresy," say you, "does not consist in asserting that the believer works from, but for life!" Does it indeed? Then the Lord Jesus is the heretic; for Mr. Wesley only repeats what he spoke about seventeen hundred years ago: "Labour," says he, Ergazesqe, "work for the meat that endureth to everlasting life." Enter therefore "your protest against" St. John's Gospel, if Christ will not "formally recant it;" and not against the Minutes of his servant who dares not "take away from his Lord's words," for fear "God should take away his part out of the book of life!" 

But if the Son of God be a heretic for putting the unbelieving Jews upon working by that dreadful word, Ergazesqe, St. Paul is undoubtedly an arch-heretic for corroborating it by a strong preposition: Katergazesqe says he to the Philippians, work out -- and what is most astonishing, "work out your own salvation." Your own Salvation! Why, Paul, this is even worse than working for life; for salvation implies a deliverance from all guilt, sin, and misery; together with obtaining the life of grace here, and the life of glory hereafter. Ah! poor legal apostle, what a pity is it thou didst not live in our evangelical age! Some, by explaining to thee the mystery of finished salvation," or by "protesting in a body against thy dreadful heresy," might have saved "the fundamental doctrines of Christianity;" and the Richard Baxter of our age would not have had thee to bear him out in his Pharisaical and Papistical delusions! 

Here you reply, that "St. Paul gives God all the glory, by maintaining that 'it is he who works in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure.'" And does not Mr. Wesley do the same? Has he not for near forty years steadily asserted that all power to think a good thought, much more to will or do a good work, is from God, by mere grace, through the merits of Jesus Christ and the agency of the Holy Spirit? If any dare to deny it, myriads of witnesses who have heard him preach, and thousands of printed sermons, hymns, and tracts dispersed through the three kingdoms will prove it. 

But let us come closer to the point. Is not Christ "the bread that came down from heaven to give life to the world?" Is he not "the meat that endureth to everlasting life?" "the meat which" he directs even the poor Capernaites "to work for?" Must we not come to him for that meat? Is not "coming" to Christ a "work" of the heart? Yea, "the work of God?" The work that God peculiarly calls for? John vi, 28, 29. Does not our Lord complain of those who will not work for life, that is, "come unto him that they might have life, or that they might have it more abundantly?" And must not every believer "do this work" -- come to Christ for life, yea, and live upon him every day and every hour? 

Again, sir, consider these scriptures, "he that believeth hath everlasting life: he that hath the Son hath life." Compare them with the following complaint: "None stirreth up himself to lay hold on God and with the charge of St. Paul to Timothy, "Lay hold on eternal life." And let us know whether "stirring up one's self to lay hold on God of our life," and actually "laying hold on eternal life," are not "works," and works for, as well as from life! And whether believers are dispensed from these works till they come to glory! 

Once more: please to tell us if praying, using ordinances, "running a race, taking up the cross, keeping under the body, wrestling, fighting a good fight," are not works; and if all believers are not to do them till death brings them a discharge? If you say that "they do them from life and not for life," you still point blank oppose our Lord's express declaration. 

A similar instance will make you sensible of it. Lot flies out Sodom. How many works does he do at once! He hearkens God's messengers, obeys their voice, sacrifices his property, forsakes all, prays, runs, and "escapes for his life." "No," says one, "wiser than seven men who can render a reason," "you should not say that he escapes for life, but from life. Do not hint that he runs to preserve his life; you should say that he does it because he is alive." What an admirable distinction is this! 

Again: my friend is consumptive. I send for a physician who prescribes, "he must ride out every day for his life." Some other physicians see the prescription, and, by printed letters, raise all the gentlemen of the faculty to insist in a body on a formal recantation of this dreadful prescription; declaring the health of thousands is at stake, if we say that consumptive people are to ride for life as well as from life. Risum teneatis, amici? 

But they who protest against Mr. Wesley for maintaining that we ought to work for, as well as from life, must protest also against a body of Puritan divines, who, in the last century, being shocked at Dr. Crisp's doctrine, thus bore their testimony against it: "To say, Salvation is not the end of any good work we do, or we are to act FROM life, and not FOR life, were to abandon the human nature; it were to teach us to violate the great precepts of the Gospel; it supposes one bound to do more for the salvation of others than our own; it were to make all the threatenings of eternal death, and promises of eternal life in the Gospel, useless, as motives to shun the one, or obtain the other: and it makes the Scripture characters and commendation of the most eminent saints, a fault:" for they all escaped out of Sodom or Babylon for their lives; they all wrestled for, and "laid hold on eternal life." (Preface to Mr. Flavel's Book against Antinomianism.) 

Thus, sir, the very Calvinists were ashamed a hundred years ago of the grand Crispian tenet, "that we ought not to work for life." 

And I am glad to find you are as far from this error as they were; for you tell us in your sermons, page 69, that "the gracious end of Christ's coming into the world was to give eternal life to those who were dead in sins; and that eternal life does consist in knowing the true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent." You assure us next, that this life begins by "an exploring desire;" and that God, by giving it, "only means to be earnestly sought, that he may be more successfully and more happily found." 

Perhaps some suppose the expression of working for life implies the working in order to merit or purchase life. But, as our Lord's words convey no such idea, so Mr. Wesley takes care positively to exclude it, by those words, "not by the merit of works:" for he knows that "eternal life is the gift of God;" and yet with St. Paul he says, "Labour to enter into rest, lest ye fall after the example of Israel's unbelief:" and with the great anti-Crispian divine, Jesus Christ, he cries aloud, "Strive to walk in the narrow way; agonize to enter in at the strait gate that leads to life." 

I pass to the third instance which he produces of his having leaned too much toward Calvinism: --

"III. We have received it as a maxim, that a man is to do nothing in order to justification. Nothing can be more false. Whoever desires to find favour with God, should 'cease from evil, and learn to do well.' Whoever repents, should 'do works meet for repentance.' And if this be not in order to find favour, what does he do them for?"

To do Mr. Wesley justice, it is necessary to consider what he means by "justification." And, First, He does not mean that general benevolence of our merciful God toward sinful mankind, whereby, through the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, he casts a propitious look upon them, and freely makes them partakers of "the light that enlightens every man that cometh into the world." This general loving kindness is certainly previous to any thing we can do to find it; for it always prevents us, saying to us in our very infancy, Live; and when we turn from the paths of life, still crying, "Why will ye die?" In consequence of this general mercy, our Lord says, "Let little children come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Much less does Mr. Wesley understand what Dr. Crisp calls "eternal justification," which, because I do not see it in the Scripture, I shall say nothing of.

But the "justification" he speaks of, as something that we must "find," and "in order to which something must be done," is either that public and final JUSTIFICATION which the Lord mentions in the Gospel, "By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." And in this sense no man in his wits will find fault with Mr. Wesley's assertion; as it is evident that we must absolutely "do something," that is, speak good words, in order to be "justified by our words." Or he means FORGIVENESS, and the WITNESS of it; that wonderful transaction of the Spirit of God, in a returning prodigal's conscience, by which the forgiveness of his sin is proclaimed to him through the blood of sprinkling. This is what Mr. Wesley and St. Paul generally mean. It is thus that "being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." 

And now, do not Scripture, common sense, and experience, show that "something must be done in order to attain or find," though not to merit and purchase this justification?

Please to answer the following questions founded upon the express declarations of God's word: -- "To him that ordereth his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God." Is "ordering our conversation aright," doing nothing? "Repent ye, and be converted, that your sins may he blotted out." Are "repentance and conversion" nothing? "Come unto me, all ye that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest," I will justify you. Is "coming" doing nothing? "Cease to do evil, learn to do well. Come now, let us reason together, and though your sins be red as crimson they shall be white as snow," you shall he justified. Is "ceasing to do evil and learning to do well," doing nothing? "Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." Is "seeking, calling, forsaking one's way, and returning to the Lord," a mere nothing? "Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." Be "violent, take even the kingdom of heaven by force." Is "seeking, asking, knocking, and taking by force," doing absolutely nothing? Please do answer these questions; and when you have done, I will throw one or two hundred more of the like kind in your way.

Let us now see whether reason is not for Mr. Wesley as well as Scripture. Do you not maintain that believing is necessary in order to our justification? If you do, you subscribe Mr. Wesley's heresy; for "believing" is not only "doing something," but necessarily supposes "a variety of things." "Faith cometh by hearing," and sometimes by reading, which implies "attending the ministry of the word, and searching the Scriptures," as the Bereans did. It likewise presupposes at least "the attention of the mind, and consent of the heart to a revealed truth;" or "the consideration, approbation, and receiving of an object proposed to us." Nay, it implies "renouncing worldly, and seeking Divine honour." For, says our Lord, "How can you believe who receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh of God only?" And if none can believe in Christ unto salvation but those who give up seeking worldly honours, by a pant of reason they must give up following fleshly lusts, and putting their trust in uncertain riches. In a word, they must own themselves sick, and renounce their physicians of no value, before they can make one true application to the invaluable Physician. What a variety of things is, therefore, implied in "believing," which we cannot but acknowledge to be previous to justification! Who can then, consistently with reason, blame Mr. Wesley for saying "something must be done in order to justification?"

Again, if nothing be required of us in order to justification, who can find fault with those that die in a state of condemnation? They were "born in sin, and children of wrath," and nothing was required of them in order to find favour. It remains, therefore, that they are -- damned, through an absolute decree, made thousands of years before they had any existence! If some can swallow this camel with the greatest ease, I doubt, sir, it will not go down with you, without bearing very hard upon the knowledge you have of the God of love, and the Gospel of Jesus.

Once more: Mr. Wesley concludes his proposition with a very pertinent question: "When a man that is not justified, 'does works meet for repentance,' what does he do them for?" Permit me to answer it according to Scripture and common sense. If he do them in order to purchase the Divine favour, he is under a self-righteous delusion; but if he do them as Mr. Wesley says, "in order to find" what Christ has purchased for him, he acts the part of a wise Protestant. 

Should you say that "such a penitent does works meet for repentance from a sense of gratitude for redeeming love:" I answer, this is impossible; for that "love must be shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost given unto him," in consequence of his justification, before he can act from the sense of that love and the gratitude which it excites. I hope it is no heresy to maintain that the cause must go before the effect. I conclude, then, that those who have not yet found the pardoning love of God, do works meet for repentance "in order to find it." They abstain from those outward evils which once they pursued; they do the outward good which the convincing Spirit prompts them to: they use the means of grace, confess their sins, and ask pardon for them; in short, they "seek" the Lord, encouraged by that promise, "they that seek me early shall find me." And Mr. Wesley supposes they "seek in order to find." In the name of candour, where is the harm of that supposition? 

When the poor woman has lost her "piece of silver, she lights a candle," says our Lord, "she sweeps the house, and searches diligently till she find it." Mr. Wesley asks, "If she do not do all this in order to find it, what does she do it for?" At this the alarm is taken; and the post carries, through various provinces, printed letters against old Mordecai; and a synod is called together to protest against the dreadful error! 

This reminds me of a little anecdote. Some centuries ago, one Virgilius, I think, a German bishop, was bold enough to look over the walls of ignorance and superstition which then enclosed all Europe; and he saw, that if the earth was round there must be antipodes. Some minutes of his observations were sent to the pope. His holiness, who understood geography as much as divinity, took fright, fancying the unheard-of assertion was injurious to the very fundamental principles of Christianity. He directly called together the cardinals, as wise as himself; and by their advice, issued out a bull condemning the heretical doctrine, and the poor bishop was obliged to make a formal recantation of it, under pain of excommunication. Which are we to admire most? The zeal of the conclave, or that of the real Protestants? In the meantime let me observe, that as all the Roman Catholics do now acknowledge that there are antipodes, so all real Protestants will one day acknowledge that penitents seek the favour of God in order to find it; unless some rare genius should be able to demonstrate that it is in order to lose it. 

Having defended Mr. Wesley's third proposition from Scripture and common sense, permit me to do it also from experience. And here I might appeal to the most established persons in Mr. Wesley's societies: but as their testimony may have little weight with you, I waive it, and appeal to all the accounts of sound conversions that have been published since Calvin's days. Show me one, sir, wherein it appears that a mourner in Zion found the above described justification, without doing some previous "works meet for repentance." If you cannot produce one such instance, Mr. Wesley's doctrine is supported by the printed experiences of all the converted Calvinists, as well as of all the believers in his own societies. Nor am I afraid to appeal even to the experience of your own friends. If any one of these can say, with a good conscience, that he found the above described justification without first stopping in the career of outward sin, without praying, seeking, and confessing his guilt and misery, I promise to give up the Minutes. But if none can make such a declaration, you must grant, sir, that experience is on Mr. Wesley's side, as much as reason, revelation, the best Calvinists, and yourself. I say yourself: 

Give me leave to produce but one instance: page 76 of your sermons, you address those "who see themselves destitute of that knowledge of God which is eternal life," the very same thing that Mr. Wesley calls justification; and which you define, "a home-felt knowledge of God, by the experience of his love being shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given unto us: the Spirit of God bearing witness with our spirits that we are the children of God;" and you recommend to them "to seek and press after it." Now, sir, "seeking and pressing after it" is certainly "doing something in order to find it." 

I must not conclude my vindication of the third proposition without answering a specious objection. "If we must do something in order to justification, farewell free justification! It is no more of grace, but of works, and consequently of debt. The middle wall of partition between the Church of Rome and the Church of England is pulled down, and the two sticks in the hands of that heretical juggler, John Wesley, are become one." 

I reply,

(1.) That some, who think they are real pillars in the Protestant Church, may be nearer the Church of Rome than they are aware of: for Rome is far more remarkable for lording it over God's heritage, and calling the most faithful servants of God heretics, than even for her Pharisaic exalting of good works.

(2.) If the Church of Rome had not insisted upon the necessity of unrequired, unprofitable, and foolish works; and if she had not arrogantly ascribed saving merit to works, yea, to merely external performances, and by that means clouded the merits of Christ; no reasonable Protestant would have separated from her on account of her regard for works.

(3.) Nothing can be more absurd than to affirm, that when "something is required to be done in order to receive a favour, the favour loses the name of a free gift, and directly becomes a debt." Long, too long, persons who have more honesty than wisdom, have been frightened from the plain path of duty, by a phantom of their own making. O may the snare break at last! And why should it not break now? Have not sophisms been wire-drawn, till they break of themselves in the sight of every attentive spectator? 

I say to two beggars, "Hold out your hand; here is an alms for you." The one complies, and the other refuses. Who in the world will dare to say that my charity is no more a free gift, because I bestow it only upon the man that held out his hand? Will nothing make it free but my wrenching his hand open, or forcing my bounty down his throat? Again: the king says to four rebels, "Throw down your arms; surrender, and you shall have a place both in my favour and at court." One of them obeys, and becomes a great man; the others, upon refusal, are caught and hanged. What sophister will face me down that the pardon and place of the former are not freely bestowed upon him, because he did something in order to obtain them? Once more: 

The God of providence says, "If you plough, sow, harrow, fence, and weed your fields, I will give the increase, and you shall have a crop." Farmers obey: and are they to believe that because they do so many things toward their harvest, it is not the free gift of Heaven? Do not all those who fear God know that their ground, seed, cattle, strength, yea, and their very life, are the gifts of God? Does not this prevent their claiming a crop as a debt; and make them confess, that though it was suspended on their ploughing, &c, it is the unmerited bounty of Heaven? 

Apply this, sir, to the present case; and you will see that our doing something in order to justification does not in the least hinder it from being a free gift; because whatever we do in order to it, we do it "by the grace of God" preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us when we have that good will; all being of free, most absolutely free grace through the merits of Christ. And, nevertheless, so sure as a farmer, in the appointed ways of Providence, shall have no harvest if he does nothing toward it; a professor in the appointed ways of grace, (let him talk of "finished salvation" all the year round,) shall go without justification and salvation, unless he do something toward them. (My comparison is Scriptural:) "He that now goeth on his way weeping," says the psalmist, "and bears forth good seed, shall doubtless come again with joy, and bring his sheaves with him." "Be not deceived," says the apostle, "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap; and he only that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting." David, therefore, and St. Paul must be proved enemies to free grace before Mr. Wesley can be represented as such: for they both did something in order to justification; they both "sowed in tears," before they "reaped in joy;" their doctrine and experience went hand in hand together. 

Having now vindicated the three first propositions of the Minutes, levelled at three dangerous tenets of Dr. Crisp; and shown, that not only yourself, sir, but moderate Calvinists are, so far, entirely of Mr. Wesley's sentiment; I remain, honoured and reverend sir, your obedient servant in the bonds of a free and peaceful Gospel, 

J. FLETCHER. 

Written by John William Fletcher | Edited by Nigel Dinneen