“Your doctrine drags after it all the absurdities of eternal, absolute justification. It sets aside the use of repentance and faith, in order to pardon and acceptance. It represents the sins of the elect as forgiven not only before they are confessed, but even before they are committed. It supposes that all the penitents who have believed that they were once _children of wrath_, and that God was displeased at them when they lived in sin, have believed a lie. It makes the preaching of the Gospel one of the most absurd, wicked, and barbarous things in the world. For what can be more absurd than to say, ‘Repent ye, and believe the Gospel;’ ‘He that believeth not shall be damned;’ if a certain number can _never repent or believe_, and a certain number can _never_ be damned?” In concluding his Treatise, Fletcher remarks:— “If I have addressed my _Three Checks_ to the Rev. Mr. Shirley and yourself” (Mr. Richard Hill), “God is my witness it was not to reflect upon two of the most eminent characters in the circle of my religious acquaintance. Forcible circumstances have over-ruled my inclinations. _Decipimur specie recti._ Thinking to attack error, you have attacked the very truth which Providence calls me to defend: and the attack appears to me so much the more dangerous as your laborious zeal and eminent piety are more worthy of public regard, than the boisterous rant and loose insinuations of twenty _practical_ Antinomians. The tempter is not so great a novice in anti-Christian politics as to engage only _such_ to plead for _doctrinal_ Antinomianism. This would soon spoil the trade. It is his masterpiece of wisdom to get _good men_ to do him that eminent service. He knows that their _good_ lives will make way for their _bad_ principles. Nor does he ever deceive with more decency and success than under the respectable cloak of their genuine piety. “If a wicked man pleads for sin, _foenun habet in cornu_, he carries the mark on his forehead; we stand upon our guard. But when a good man gives us to understand that _there are no lengths God’s people may not run, nor any depths they may not fall into_, without losing _the character of men after God’s own heart_, that _many will praise God for_ our _denial of Christ_, that _sin and corruption work for good_, that _a fall into adultery will drive us nearer to Christ_, and _make us sing louder to the praise of free grace_; when he quotes Scripture too, in order to support these assertions, calling them the pure Gospel, and representing the opposite doctrine as the Pelagian heresy, worse than popery itself,—he _casts the_ Antinomian _net on the right side of the ship_, and is likely to enclose a great multitude of unwary men; especially if some of the _best_ hands in the kingdom drive the frighted shoal into the net, and help to drag it to shore.