It may be well to say, once for all, that all these quotations, with their _differences of type_, are taken from the _first editions_ of Fletcher’s publications. The differences are not preserved in recent editions. Fletcher’s pictures are dark: I incline to _think_ a little too dark, though I cannot _prove_ they are. At all events, were existing facts such as he states them to have been, it was high time to sound an alarm in Zion. In a postscript to his “Three Letters,” Fletcher refers to a pamphlet published by Richard Hill, Esq., respecting a conversation which he and others had held with a monk in Paris.[251] Having quoted Mr. Hill’s remark, that, according to the monk, “Popery is about the mid-way between Protestantism and Mr. J. Wesley,” Fletcher proceeds to say:— “We desire to be confronted with all the pious Protestant divines. But, who would believe it? the suffrage of a papist is brought against us! Astonishing! that our opposers should think it worth their while to raise one recruit against us in the immense city of Paris, where fifty thousand might be raised against the Bible itself! “So long as Christ, the prophets, and apostles are for us, together with the multitude of the Puritan divines of the last century, we shall smile at an army of Popish friars. The knotted whips, that hang by their side, will no more frighten us from our Bibles, than the _ipse dixit_ of a Benedictine monk will make us explode, as heretical, propositions which are demonstrated to be scriptural. “I hope the gentlemen concerned in the ‘Conversation,’ lately published, will excuse the liberty of this postscript. I reverence their piety, rejoice in their labours, and honour their warm zeal for the Protestant cause; but that very zeal, if not accompanied with a close attention to every part of the Gospel truth, may betray them into mistakes, which may spread as far as their respectable names. I think it therefore my duty to publish these strictures, lest any of my readers should pay more regard to the good-natured friar, who has been pressed into the service of Dr. Crisp, than to St. John, St. Paul, St. James, and Jesus Christ, on whose plain declarations I have shown that the ‘Minutes’” (of Mr. Wesley) “are founded.” Footnote 251: