Part 32 (1/2)
His own saying so is not proof; for we know how all that are convinced of sin undervalue themselves in every respect.
'8. Does not talking of a justified or a sanctified state tend to mislead men, almost naturally leading them to trust in what was done in one moment? Whereas we are every hour and every moment pleasing or displeasing to G.o.d, according to our works, according to the whole of our inward tempers and our outward behaviour.'[780]
So great was the alarm and indignation caused by these Minutes that a 'circular printed letter' was, at the instigation of Lady Huntingdon, sent round among the friends of the Evangelical movement, the purport of which was as follows:--'Sir, whereas Mr. Wesley's Conference is to be held at Bristol on Tuesday, August 6, next, it is proposed by Lady Huntingdon and many other Christian friends (real Protestants) to have a meeting at Bristol at the same time, of such princ.i.p.al persons, both clergy and laity, who disapprove of the under-written Minutes; and, as the same are thought injurious to the very fundamental principles of Christianity, it is further proposed that they go in a body to the said Conference, and insist upon a formal recantation of the said Minutes, and, in case of a refusal, that they sign and publish their protest against them. Your presence, sir, on this occasion 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 persons 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. I am, &c., Walter s.h.i.+rley.'
The first thing that naturally strikes one is, What business had Lady Huntingdon and her friends to interfere with Mr. Wesley and his Conference at all? But this obvious objection does not appear to have been raised. It would seem that there was a sort of vague understanding that the friends of the Evangelical movement, whether Calvinist or Arminian, were in some sense answerable to one another for their proceedings. The Calvinists evidently thought it not only permissible but their bounden duty not merely to disavow but to condemn, and, if possible, bring about the suppression of the obnoxious Minutes. Mr.
s.h.i.+rley said publicly 'he termed peace in such a case a shameful indolence, and silence no less than treachery.'[781] John Wesley did not refuse to justify to the Calvinists what he had a.s.serted. He wrote to Lady Huntingdon in June 1771 (the Conference did not meet till August), referring her to his 'Sermons on Salvation by Faith,' published in 1738, and requesting that the 'Minutes of Conference might be interpreted by the sermons referred to.' Lady Huntingdon felt her duty to be clear. She wrote to Charles Wesley, declaring that the proper explanation of the Minutes was 'Popery unmasked.' 'Thinking,' she added, 'that those ought to be deemed Papists who did not disavow them, I readily complied with a proposal of an open disavowal of them.'[782]
All this augured ill for the harmony of the impending Conference; but it pa.s.sed off far better than could possibly have been expected. Very few of the Calvinists who were invited to attend responded to the appeal.
Christian feeling got the better of controversial bitterness on both sides. John Wesley, with a n.o.ble candour, drew up a declaration, which was signed by himself and fifty-three of his preachers, stating that, 'as the Minutes have been understood to favour justification by works, we, the Rev. John Wesley and others, declare we had no such meaning, and that we abhor the doctrine of justification by works as a most perilous and abominable doctrine. As the Minutes are not sufficiently guarded in the way they are expressed, we declare we have no trust but in the merits of Christ for justification or salvation. And though no one is a real Christian believer (and therefore cannot be saved) who doth not good works when there is time and opportunity, yet our works have no part in meriting or purchasing our justification from first to last, in whole or in part.'[783] Lady Huntingdon and her relative Mr. s.h.i.+rley were not wanting, on their part, in Christian courtesy. 'As Christians,'
wrote Lady Huntingdon, 'we wish to retract what a more deliberate consideration might have prevented, as we would as little wish to defend even truth itself presumptuously as we would submit servilely to deny it.' Mr. s.h.i.+rley wrote to the same effect.
But, alas! the troubles were by no means at an end. Fletcher had written a vindication of the Minutes, which Wesley published. Wesley has been severely blamed for his inconsistency in acting thus, 'after having publicly drawn up and signed a recantation [explanation?] of the obnoxious principles contained in the Minutes.'[784] This censure might seem to be justified by a letter which Fletcher wrote to Lady Huntingdon. 'When,' he says, 'I took up my pen in vindication of Mr.
Wesley's sentiments, it never entered my heart that my doing so would have separated me from those I love and esteem. Would to G.o.d I had never done it! To your ladys.h.i.+p it has caused incalculable pain and unhappiness, and my conscience hath often stung me with bitter and heartcutting reproaches.'[785] But, on the other hand, Fletcher himself, in a preface to his 'Second Check to Antinomianism,' entirely exonerated Wesley from all blame in the matter, and practically proved his approbation of his friend's conduct by continuing the controversy in his behalf.
The dogs of war were now let slip. In 1772 Sir Richard Hill and his brother Rowland measured swords with Fletcher, and drew forth from him his Third and Fourth Checks. In 1773 Sir R. Hill gave what he termed his 'Finis.h.i.+ng Stroke;' Berridge, the eccentric Vicar of Everton, rushed into the fray with his 'Christian World Unmasked;' and Toplady, the ablest of all who wrote on the Calvinist side, published a pamphlet under the suggestive t.i.tle of 'More Work for John Wesley.' The next year (1774) there was a sort of armistice between the combatants, their attention being diverted from theological to political subjects, owing to the troubles in America. But in 1775 Toplady again took the field, publis.h.i.+ng his 'Historic Proof of the Calvinism of the Church of England.' Mr. Sellon, a clergyman, and Mr. Olivers, the manager of Wesley's printing, appeared on the Arminian side. The very t.i.tles of some of the works published sufficiently indicate their character.
'Farrago Double Distilled,' 'An Old Fox Tarred and Feathered,' 'Pope John,' tell their own tale.
In fact, the kindest thing that could be done to the authors of this bitter writing (who were really good men) would be to let it all be buried in oblivion. Some of them lived to be ashamed of what they had written. Rowland Hill, though he still retained his views as to the doctrines he opposed, lamented in his maturer age that the controversy had not been carried on in a different spirit.[786] Toplady, after he had seen Olivers, wrote: '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 had imagined.'[787] Fletcher (who had really the least cause of any to regret what he had written), before leaving England for a visit to his native country, invited all with whom he had been engaged in controversy to see him, that, 'all doctrinal differences apart, he might testify his sincere regret for having given them the least displeasure,'
&c.[788]
It will be remembered that the Deistical controversy was conducted with considerable acrimony on both sides; but the Deistical and anti-Deistical literature is amenity itself when compared with the bitterness and scurrility with which the Calvinistic controversy was carried on. At the same time it would be a grievous error to conclude that because the good men who took part in it forgot the rules of Christian charity they were not under the power of Christian influences.
The very reverse was the case. It was the very earnestness of their Christian convictions, and the intensity of their belief in the directing agency of the Holy Spirit over Christian minds, which made them write with a warmth which human infirmity turned into acrimony.
They all felt _de vita et sanguine agitur_; they all believed that they were directed by the Spirit of G.o.d: consequently their opponents were opponents not of them, the human instruments, but of that G.o.d who was working by their means; in plain words, they were doing the work of the Devil. Add to this a somewhat strait and one-sided course of reading, and a very imperfect appreciation of the real difficulties of the subject they were handling (for all, without exception, write with the utmost confidence, as if they understood the whole matter thoroughly, and nothing could possibly be written to any purpose on the other side), and the paradox of truly Christian men using such truly unchristian weapons will cease to puzzle us.
Two only of the writers in this badly managed controversy deserve any special notice--viz., Fletcher on the Arminian and Toplady on the Calvinist side.
Fletcher's 'Checks to Antinomianism' are still remembered by name (which is more than can be said of most of the literature connected with this controversy), and may, perhaps, still be read, and even regarded as an authority by a few; but they are little known to the general reader, and occupy no place whatever in theological literature. Perhaps they hardly deserve to do so. Nevertheless, anything which such a man as Fletcher wrote is worthy at least of respectful consideration, if for nothing else, at any rate for the saintly character of the writer. He wrote like a scholar and a gentleman, and, what is better than either, like a Christian. Those who accuse him of having written bitterly against the Calvinists cannot, one would imagine, have read his writings, but must have taken at second hand the cruelly unjust representation of them given by his opponents.[789] 'If ever,' wrote Southey, with perfect truth, 'true Christian charity was manifested in polemical writing, it was by Fletcher of Madeley.' There is but one pa.s.sage[790] in which Fletcher condescends to anything like personal scurrility, in spite of the many grossly personal insults which were heaped upon him and his friends.
This self-restraint is all the more laudable because Fletcher possessed a rich vein of satirical humour, which he might have employed with telling effect against his opponents.
He also showed an excellent knowledge of Scripture and great ingenuity in explaining it on his own side. He was an adroit and skilful disputant, and, considering that he was a foreigner, had a great mastery over the English language.
What, in spite of these merits, makes the 'Checks' an unsatisfactory book, is the want of a comprehensive grasp of general principles. In common with all the writers on both sides of the question. Fletcher shows a strange lack of philosophical modesty--a lack which is all the stranger in him because personally he was conspicuous for extreme modesty and thoroughly genuine humility. But there is no appearance, either in Fletcher's writings or in those of any others who engaged in the controversy, that they adequately realised the extreme difficulty of the subject. Everything is stated with the utmost confidence, as if the whole difficulty--which an archangel might have felt--was entirely cleared away. If one compares Fletcher's writings on Calvinism with the scattered notices of the subject in Waterland's works, the difference between the two writers is apparent at once; there is a ma.s.siveness and a breadth of culture about the older writer which contrasts painfully with the thinness and narrowness of the younger. Or, if it be unfair to compare Fletcher with an intellectual giant like Waterland, we may compare his 'Checks' with Bishop Tomline's 'Refutation of Calvinism.'
Bishop Tomline is even more unfair to the Calvinists than Fletcher, but he shows far greater maturity both of style and thought. All the three writers took the same general view of the subject, though from widely different standpoints. But Tomline is as much superior to Fletcher as he is inferior to Waterland.
If Fletcher was pre-eminently the best writer in this controversy on the Arminian side, it is no less obvious that the palm must be awarded to Toplady on the Calvinist side. Before we say anything about Toplady's writings, let it be remembered that his pen does not do justice to his character. Toplady was personally a pious, worthy man, a diligent pastor, beloved by and successful among his paris.h.i.+oners, and by no means quarrelsome--except upon paper. He lived a blameless life, princ.i.p.ally in a small country village, and died at the early age of thirty-eight. It is only fair to notice these facts, because his controversial writings might convey a very different impression of the character of the man.
Toplady is described by his biographer as 'the legitimate successor of Hervey.'[791] There are certain points of resemblance between the two men. Both were worthy parish priests, and the spheres of duty of both lay in remote country villages; both died at a comparatively early age; both were Calvinists; and both in the course of controversy came into collision with John Wesley. But here the resemblance ends. To describe Toplady as the legitimate successor of Hervey is to do injustice to both. For, on the one hand, Toplady (though his writings were never so popular) was a far abler and far more deeply read man than Hervey. There was also a vein of true poetry in him, which his predecessor did not possess. Hervey could never have written 'Rock of Ages.' On the other hand, the gentle Hervey was quite incapable of writing the violent abuse, the bitter personal scurrilities, which disgraced Toplady's pen.
A sad lack of Christian charity is conspicuous in all writers (except Fletcher) in this ill-conducted controversy, but Toplady outherods Herod.
One word must be added. Although, considered as permanent contributions to theological literature, the writings on either side are worthless, yet the dispute was not without value in its immediate effects. It taught the later Evangelical school to guard more carefully their Calvinistic views against the perversions of Antinomianism. This we shall see when we pa.s.s on, as we may now do, to review that system which may be termed 'Evangelicalism' in distinction to the earlier Methodism.
(3) THE EVANGELICALS.
Largior hic campos aether et lumine vest.i.t Purpureo....
It is with a real sense of relief that we pa.s.s out of the close air and distracting hubbub of an unprofitable controversy into a fresher and calmer atmosphere.
The Evangelical section of the English Church cannot, without considerable qualification, be regarded as the outcome of the earlier movement we have been hitherto considering. It is true that what we must perforce call by the awkward names of 'Evangelicalism' and 'Methodism'