John William Fletcher

Jean Guilliaume de la Flechere (1729-1785) was raised in Nyon, Switzerland, on the picturesque shores of Lake Leman. As a young man he visited Geneva, the Jura and Alps Mountains, the famous Castle of Chillon, and Lausanne.

Fletcher took the highest honors at the University of Geneva and then went to Lentzburg to study German, Hebrew, and higher mathematics. When he was in his teens, his parents informed him that they desired him to become a reformed clergyman, and at first he agreed to their wishes. “I went through my studies with a design of entering into orders; but, afterwards upon serious reflections, feeling I was unequal to so great a burden, and disgusted with the necessity I should be under to subscribe to the doctrine of predestination, I yielded to the desire of my friends, who would have me go into the army.”

Born inside a bastion of Calvinism, Fletcher abhorred the principal doctrine of that system of theology, and would become the greatest writer against Calvinism. Although a delicate, sensitive young man, he chose to become a soldier rather than to preach the doctrines his heart and mind could not endorse. He accepted a captain’s commission to fight for Portugal against Brazil, but an accident prevented him from engaging in actual warfare. Just before his ship sailed, a serving maid let the teakettle fall on his leg, and scalded him so badly that he could not go. Soon after this, his uncle secured a colonel’s commission for him in the Dutch army. But his uncle died, and a peace treaty was signed, and so the Lord again redirected Fletcher.

In 1752, Fletcher went to England to learn English. While being a tutor for the two sons of Thomas Hill of Shropshire, he was definitely converted to God. After having a vivid dream about eternal judgment, he said, “For some days I was so dejected and harrassed in mind as to be unable to apply myself to anything.” Then he heard about the Methodists. He was told that they did “nothing but pray.” After hearing them for himself, he became convinced that some inward change was necessary to make him happy.

After his conversion, his wife Mary recorded: “His bands were broken. His freed soul began to breathe a purer air. Sin was beneath his feet. He could triumph in the Lord. From this time he walked in the ways of God, and, thinking he had not leisure enough in the day, he made it a constant rule to sit up two whole nights in the week for reading, prayer, and meditation.”

Fletcher wrote little concerning himself. He spared his words and he was sparing in his food intake, eating little besides vegetables, butter, and milk. Thursdays were set aside as his fast day. As a frugal time manager also, every moment was usefully employed.

About the year 1756, Fletcher joined the Methodists, and by 1757 he had become John Wesley’s most valued co-laborer. For a brief time he traveled with Wesley, and then to Wesley’s consternation, in 1760, he became vicar of the Anglican Church at Madeley, where he continued until his death.

John Wesley opposed his settling at Madeley, but later acquiesced. It appears Fletcher went to Madeley as a refuge from Wesley’s exertions. Wesley was known to have worn out more than one of his fellow preachers.

After 1765, Methodist Societies were formed in the neighborhood of Madeley, and Fletcher frequently preached to them, drawing enormous crowds so that the buildings could not contain the people. In 1765, he visited Bath and Bristol, preaching in the large meeting-houses belonging to the Countess of Huntington. She wrote, “Deep and awful are the impressions made on every hand. Dear Mr. Fletcher’s preaching is truly apostolic.”

When about forty years of age, he visited his home in Switzerland and preached to the descendants of the Albigenses, and to other congregations. Everywhere he was regarded as super-human. An old Swiss wept as Fletcher left. “Oh, sir, how unfortunate for my country! During my lifetime it has produced but one angel of a man, and now it is our lot to lose him!”

In 1768, Lady Huntington invited Fletcher to be superintendent of her new seminary at Trevecca, Wales. He took the job, but three years later he quietly resigned because of doctrinal differences. Joseph Benson, the headmaster, says, “He was received as an angel of God. It is impossible for me to describe the veneration in which we all held him.”

In 1770, Fletcher visited Italy but on his return he discovered a major rift that threatened the success of the great awakening in England. In 1771, the Calvinist controversy broke out within Methodism, and separated the Calvinist Methodists led by George Whitefield and the Countess of Huntington and the Arminian Methodists led by John and Charles Wesley. To Wesley’s and Whitefield’s credit, they did not allow the strife of tongues to drown out their gospel work. All during the controversy they continued on in itinerant work. Even when Augustus Toplady published a critique against Wesley entitled “The Old Fox Tarred and Feathered,” Wesley quietly left it to Fletcher to defend his views.

Fletcher’s great work was entitled Checks to Antinomianism. He tried to harmonize the Scriptures on predestination and those on man’s free will and moral responsibility. This work of four volumes (about 1560 pages) remains a bulwark among Arminian Methodists. I disagree with many of the conclusions that Fletcher made, but will admit that his kindly spirit permeates the work. It is strange writing. Fletcher could not have been more denunciatory than he was, but he did it so graciously that his opponents were mellowed, if not disarmed.

John Wesley pronounced Fletcher the most unblameable man, in every respect, that, within fourscore years, he had found in Europe or America. He chose Fletcher as his successor to direct the Methodist Societies (but Fletcher, though younger, preceded Wesley in death).

Fletcher, however, had his share of temptations. He confided with Wesley that there were gloomy episodes when he wanted to end his own life. He was so passionate by nature that he often prayed the whole night to get victory over his temper. His wife would wake up to find him lying prone on the floor in agony, pleading with God for the victory. Yet in his Life of Fletcher, Wesley says: “For twenty years and upwards before his death, no one ever saw him out of temper, or heard him utter a rash expression, on any provocation whatever.” Wesley did not say if this included his wife.

Despite his gentleness, he had his enemies.  His preaching was so bold that many would remain aghast and astonished at him.

An idea of the force of his messages is given by Hester Ann Rogers, who described a meeting held in 1781. “He also dwelt largely on these words, ‘Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.’ He asked, ‘How did sin abound? Had it not overpowered your whole soul? Were not all your passions, tempers, propensities, inordinate and evil? Did not pride, anger, self-will, and unbelief, all reign over you? And, when the Spirit of God strove with you, did you not repel all His convictions, and put Him far from you? Well, my brethren, ye were then the servants of sin, and were free from righteousness; but, now, being made free from sin, ye became servants to God; and holiness shall overspread your whole soul, so that all your tempers and passions shall be henceforth regulated and governed by Him who now sitteth upon the throne of your heart, making all things new. As you once resisted the Holy Spirit, so now ye shall have power to resist all the subtle frauds or fierce attacks of Satan.’

“Mr. Fletcher then, with lifted hands, cried, ‘Who will believe the report? You are only in an improper sense called believers who reject this. Who is a believer? One who believes a few things which God has spoken? Nay, but one who believes all that ever proceeded out of His mouth. Here then is the word of the Lord: As sin abounded, grace shall much more abound!…O, ye half-believers, will you still plead for the murderers of your Lord? Which of these will you hide as a serpent in your bosom? Shall it be anger, pride, self-will, or accursed unbelief? O, be no longer befooled! Bring these enemies to thy Lord, and let Him slay them.'”

Fletcher’s biographer, Joseph Benson, described the effect of his preaching. “He was peculiarly assisted while he was applying those encouraging words, Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out. The people were exceedingly affected; indeed quite melted down. The tears streamed so fast from the eyes of the poor colliers, that their black faces were washed by them, and almost universally streaked with white.” Again, “He preached in the evening from 2 Thessalonians 2:13. The whole congregation was dissolved in tears. He spoke like one who had but just left the converse of God and angels.”

Again Benson says, “Prayer, praise, love, and zeal, all ardent, elevated above what one would think attainable in this state of frailty, were the element in which he continually lived. And as to others, his one employment was to call, entreat, and urge them to ascend with him to the glorious Source of being and blessedness. He had leisure comparatively for nothing else.

Languages, arts, sciences, grammar, rhetoric, logic, even divinity itself, as it is called, were all laid aside when he appeared in the school- room among the students. His full heart would not suffer him to be silent. He must speak, and they were readier to hearken to this servant and minister of Jesus Christ than to attend to Sallust, Virgil, Cicero, or any Latin or Greek historian, poet, or philosopher they had been engaged in reading. And they seldom hearkened long, before they were all in tears, and every heart caught fire from the flame that burned in his soul.”

Material for this article was gleaned from these books
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John Wesley, A Short Account of the Life and Death of John Fletcher, Wesley’s Works, Vol. 11, Baker  Abel Stevens, The History of Methodism (3 vol.)
Joseph Benson, The Life of John W. de la Flechere,
J. K. Foster, The Life and Times of Selina, Countess of Huntington (2 vol.)
J. C. Ryle, Christian Leaders of the 18th Century, The Banner of Truth Trust