Fletcher of MadeleyMacdonald, Frederic W. (Frederic William)
Religion
Fletcher of Madeley
Macdonald, Frederic W. (Frederic William)
Fletcher, John, 1729-1785
In marrying Miss Bosanquet, and bringing her to Madeley, Fletcher
conferred upon his parish a benefit second only to that of his own
life-devotion to its welfare. During the remainder of his ministry he
was sustained and supplemented in his labours by one whose
qualifications were, in their sphere, little inferior to his own. She
had been accustomed for many years to the direction of a large
household, to the training of children and young people, to ministering
to the sick and suffering. She understood the wants and ways of the
poor. In these and similar respects she was exceptionally fitted to be
the wife of a clergyman. The vicarage was no longer a hermitage; it was
a home, a centre to which many came for help and guidance, spiritual
and temporal, and from which innumerable ministries of kindness flowed
out on every side. But it was in the very highest aspects of her
husband's work that Mrs. Fletcher's co-operation was at once the most
complete and the most valuable. Her ministry could not confine itself
to the bodily and temporal welfare of the people. She too had a deep
and passionate longing for the salvation of souls. To lead her poor and
suffering to Christ was the one philanthropy, to which all other
charities were as nothing. Toward all kinds of need her heart was full
of pity, and her hand quick in bounty; but it was for the soul in each,
the soul redeemed by the infinite love of God, and called to the
possession of an unspeakably glorious salvation in Christ, that she was
most profoundly moved. Sin was the one evil; salvation the one
blessing; Christ the one Saviour. This conviction, burning with a pure,
steady light and heat, ruled her work from first to last. Fletcher
found in her, not only a loving wife, but a kindred spirit. They viewed
personal religion under the same aspects; they were likeminded in their
belief concerning the "salvation to the uttermost" that is procured by
Christ, and administered by the Holy Spirit. The instinct that speaks
of "the saintly Fletcher" gives the same designation to his wife. With
her, as with him, Christian perfection--a term which many theological
systems will not admit, and the majority of Christians persistently
shun--was a chosen watchword. Their letters, journals, and devotional
writings, and the lives they were enabled to live, show that for them
"death unto sin and life unto God in Jesus Christ" was, not merely
"forensic," an "imputation," with nothing corresponding to it in the
sphere of experience, but included entire consecration to God, and the
unhindered indwelling of the Holy Spirit. In aspiration, profession,
life, the same high utterance was repeated in different but harmonious
notes--"perfect in Christ"; always laying more stress upon "in Christ"
than upon "perfect," yet not shrinking from that term, as having New
Testament authority and significance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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