CHAPTER IV.

_SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE._

It was in the beginning of the year 1755, when Fletcher was in the twenty-sixth year of his age, that he passed through the great change described in the last chapter. For nearly five years he continued to live in Mr. Hill's family, dividing his time, as before, between Shropshire and London. Towards the close of that period, however, new duties and engagements were opening out before him, and in 1760, when his pupils entered the University of Cambridge, Fletcher's tutorship was at an end.

His residence at Tern Hall was in many respects a happy one for Fletcher. His duties were comparatively light, and his situation was favourable to that life of meditation, prayer, study, and self-discipline to which he was so powerfully drawn. On Sundays he attended the parish church of Atcham, a village near Shrewsbury. When the service was over he usually walked home alone by the Severn side. After a while these walks were shared by a pious man named Vaughan, then in Mr. Hill's service, who, in after years, gave the following account of them to Mr. Wesley:

"It was our ordinary custom, when the church service was over, to retire into the most lonely fields or meadows, where we frequently either kneeled down or prostrated ourselves on the ground. At those happy seasons I was a witness of such pleadings and wrestlings with God, such exercises of faith and love, as I have not known in any one ever since. The consolations which we then received from God induced us to appoint two or three nights in a week, when we duly met, after his pupils were asleep. We met also constantly on Sunday between four and five in the morning. Sometimes I stepped into his study on other days. I rarely saw any book before him, besides the Bible and the 'Christian Pattern.'"

Another, who knew him at that time, says that when there was company to dinner at Mr. Hill's, Fletcher would often get himself excused from being present, and retire into the garden, to dine on a piece of bread and a little fruit. There are many testimonies to his lifelong abstemiousness, but at this period it reached a point of asceticism, concerning which Wesley has recorded his judgment: "None can doubt if these austerities were well intended; but it seems they were not well judged. It is probable they gave the first wound to an excellent constitution, and laid the foundation of many infirmities, which nothing but death could cure." Again, referring to his manner of life at Madeley, several years after, Wesley says: "He did not allow himself such food as was necessary to sustain nature. He seldom took any regular meals except he had company; otherwise, twice or thrice in four-and-twenty hours he ate some bread and cheese, or fruit. Instead of this he sometimes took a draught of milk, and then wrote on again."

That all this was unwise, and brought its own punishment, will be readily admitted; but it is well to note that Fletcher's ascetic practice was not the result of an ascetic theology. Beyond most holy men Fletcher apprehended and rejoiced in the freedom of the children of God. The last touch of the spirit of bondage disappeared at his conversion, and henceforth he was no more a servant but a son, walking in the clearest light, and possessing the strongest witness to his adoption. His rigid self-denial, his almost unearthly indifference to the common comforts and recreations of human life, his carefully ordered devotions, were not the travail of a soul going about to establish its own righteousness, nor the half-expiatory sacrifices of one who seeks to pacify his conscience or appease his restless longings. Beneath his ascetic practice was evangelical doctrine, and a living faith. He did not fast, and give whole days to study and whole nights to prayer, because he was in doubt or distress concerning his soul, but from his very joy in God, and delight in all that lifted him from things beneath to things above. His was the asceticism of love, and not of bondage or of fear.

By the help of manuscripts carefully preserved, though not hitherto made public, it is possible to draw very near to the devotional life of Fletcher at this period of his history. A document which affords pathetic insight into the depth and thoroughness of his consecration of himself to God now lies before us. It is a solemn covenant, drawn up in Latin, and covers the two sides of a parchment some nine inches by five in size. It is exquisitely written in a round, legible hand. The opening sentence, which is in Greek, reads thus: "In the name of God, the Creator of heaven and earth, Amen. O most high Jehovah, only God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I, the vilest of the vile, worst of the sons of Adam, an apostate spirit, a man utterly undone, ... resolve to consecrate myself to Thee, my Creator Redeemer, Sanctifier." In the humblest strain of penitential confession, he proceeds to offer and present himself to God through the merits of Jesus Christ. The recurring phrase of consecration is, "Do, reddo, dico, dedico" (I give, restore, devote, dedicate); and all that he has, or is, or may be, is brought within this form of dedication. The formula of supplication is, "Peto, rogo, posco, flagito" (I ask, entreat, implore, importune); and in these terms he prays for pardon, grace, guidance, and final deliverance. There is reason to think that the signature, now almost illegible, was written with his own blood. After the manner of the earlier nonconformists, among whom the practice of drawing up solemn forms of covenant with God prevailed, Fletcher kept by him through life this sign and memorial of deliberate consecration to God, and renewed from time to time both its general vow and its detailed promises. It is dated August 24th, 1754.

Some two years later he prepared for his own use a little manual of devotions, which is perhaps the most _vital_ of all the Fletcher relics still preserved, as revealing more directly than any other his interior life, and the spirit and method of his daily devotions. It is a small, square book, strongly bound in leather, containing about two hundred closely written pages.

More than half of its contents are passages from the Greek Testament, carefully arranged under various headings, _Faith_, _Promises_, _The Heavenly Life_. To these are added selections from Charles Wesley's hymns, then recently published, now, and for a long time past, known and prized by the devout of every communion.

But the most personal and characteristic portions of the book are Fletcher's own meditations, resolutions, and precepts. They are written, for the most part, in Latin and in French. Some specimens of these will be found in the appendix to this volume. Here it must suffice to translate a few of the rules by which he disciplined his daily life.

Under the date January 15th, 1757, is written, in French,--

"Pray on my knees as often as possible.

Sing frequently penitential hymns.

Eat slowly, and upon my knees, three times a day only, and never more.

Always speak gently.

Neglect no outward duty.

Beware of a fire that thou kindlest thyself.

The fire that God kindles is bright, mild, constant, and burns night and day.

Think always of death, and the Cross, the hardness of thy heart and the blood of Christ.

Beware of relaxing, and of impatience; God is faithful, but He owes thee nothing.

Speak only when necessary.

Do not surrender thyself to any joy.

Rise in the morning without yielding to sloth.

Follow always thy first motion.

Be a true son of affliction.

Write down every evening whether thou hast kept these rules."

Among the Latin meditations is one headed "Deus mihi amandus est quid": "God is to be loved because--" And then follow various grounds for gratitude and love:

"Because He created me, Of sound body and mind, In a middle station of life, and in the bosom of His Church; Preserves me alive and well; Has not given me over to the power of the devil; Gives all things necessary for life; In various ways, and wonderfully, has delivered me from death; Raised up for me good parents, teachers, friends; Gives me food, shelter, books, good health, clothing, friends, and a not dishonourable name; Has mercifully withheld hurtful things when I asked them; Before the foundations of the world determined to give His Son for me, And gave Him in time to flesh, infirmities, scorn, sorrows, poverty, and death; Imparts Him to me in the word, and in the holy supper."

Among the "rules for a holy life," written in English, the following may be quoted:

"Mortify thy five senses till crucified with Christ;

Sit at Christ's feet; cast away thy own will; consult His at every word, morsel, motion; ask His leave even in lawful actions.

Renounce thyself in all that can hinder thy union with God. Desire nought but His love.

Mortify all affection toward inward, sensible, spiritual delights in grace; they rather please and comfort than sanctify.

The life of God consists not in high knowledge, but profound meekness, holy simplicity, and ardent love to God.

Receive afflictions as the best guides to perfection.

Remember always the presence of God.

Rejoice always in the will of God.

Direct all to the glory of God."

The little book from which these extracts are taken was Fletcher's companion in his hours of private prayer and communion with God. It was written, not for others, but for himself. For a century past it has been in safe and reverent keeping, and is now as he left it. Its pages are worn by his touch. With these hymns and meditations he nourished his soul in secret. With these rules he loved to bind his free Christian spirit. Like other saintly men, he found that the impulses, even of the regenerate life, may not be left to themselves with entire confidence in their sufficient working. He sought to strengthen them by meditation, to sustain them by spiritual exercises and discipline; he furnished them with tests and standards, and made self-examination definite and precise. He sought perfection at once in supreme love to God, and in the minutest details of character and conduct. Let this be borne in mind in connexion with the fact that Fletcher was a leader of the Evangelical Revival, and a founder and father of Methodism. Evangelical religion has been charged with indifference to painstaking spiritual culture. Its doctrine of salvation by faith has been thought to carry with it self-confidence, familiar ways with God, and easy dealing with one's own soul. It is supposed to compensate for its insistence upon conversion, by sanctioning subsequent laxity in the matter of prayer and fasting. It is charged with spiritual shallowness, and asked why, with all its innumerable activities, it fails to produce the deeper and more disciplined devoutness of which Thomas à Kempis in the Roman, and Andrewes and Keble in the Anglican, communities are great examples.

A proper discussion of this question would require, amongst other things, an examination of the terms in which it is stated. They would be found to contain, with some truth, assumptions utterly false and misleading. Amongst these is the assumption that sanctity is not such, unless it have a certain form, diverging not too widely from an accepted type. The Roman controversialist objects to the Church of England that it does not exhibit notes of sanctity, "that it has no saints." As Dr. Mozley has said, "He refuses, in a certain case, to see and recognise the Christian type, because it does not come before him in the Latin shape, and with the accompaniments of intellectual grace and refinement, which it has incorporated on its European area."[2] By a very slight alteration in the wording of this sentence, it would describe with equal accuracy the attitude of those who cannot recognise sanctity which does not come before them in the Anglican shape; and by a second and a third alteration, it would describe the inability, here and there existing, to discern any sanctity but that of an accepted type or favoured school. Much of the disparagement of "Evangelical" piety is plainly of this kind; and the truth needs to be spoken with regard to all these narrow and sectarian gauges of Christian character. Amid the "diversities of ministrations and diversities of workings," there is no essential distinction as to the so called "note of sanctity"; Eastern or Western, Anglican or Puritan, holiness is always and essentially the same, rebuking every attempt to fasten it to a particular type, or ignore it apart from a particular succession.

Fletcher was an Evangelical of Evangelicals, teaching conversion, the witness of the Spirit, and the entire sanctification of believers. He profoundly influenced the theology and general religious spirit and character of Methodism. What then is the bearing of his spiritual life and the influence of his example upon these latter? It is this: that while holiness is, in its truest, deepest aspect, the gift of God,--it is God who sanctifies as surely as it is God who justifies,--yet, alike in the pursuit and possession of holiness, the Christian is called to work together with God, in watchfulness and prayer, in self-examination and self-denial, in reading and meditation, "exercising himself unto godliness" in the many ways which Scripture enjoins and which insight and experience will suggest.

If at any time the Methodists, or Evangelical Christians generally, should let slip either of these truths; if holiness be thought of, on the one hand, as a human attainment and not a Divine gift, or, on the other, as a gift of God having no relation to personal discipline and culture,--they will at least be breaking with their best traditions, and have against them both the teaching and the example of their fathers.

This little manual of devotion, written by his own hand, and worn by long and frequent use, reveals much of the way in which Fletcher's inmost life was cultivated. Knowing that life as it was manifested in his character and conduct, we regard with deep interest the means by which it was nurtured in secret. The lovely growth of goodness had at the root of it the patient discipline here portrayed. We might have guessed as much, but here we see that it was so.