“After having first dressed up Mr. Shirley according to your own fancy, and branded him with the opprobrious _name_ of _Antinomian_, you place him at the head of a set of monsters invented by yourself; and, after having thus raised a hideous and unthought-of ghost, you remand it to the shades by your own spells and incantations of _banter_ and _contempt_.” “After having said so much as to place us in a manner even amongst _murderers_, on account of our principles of grace, it really shocks and almost disheartens me from following you any further. I will, therefore, now omit reminding you of the numberless _sneers_, _taunts_, and _sarcasms_, which so dreadfully decorate the whole of your performance; they are nothing better than the infernal _terms of darkness_; it is _hateful_ to transcribe them; _let darkness be their doom_.” “Consider in what detestable colours you have pictured us before the world. There is scarce an abomination but what we are charged with; and our enemies triumph at the supposed discovery. You are the man, they say, that has been among the _Calvinists_, has found out their hypocrisy, and are now publishing against them. Numbers of them, to my knowledge, carry about your book in ill-natured triumph, and cast in our teeth, as certain truth, the _dreadful slanders_ you have _invented_. In short, Sir, you have brought over us such a day of _blasphemy_ and _rebuke_ as we never felt before.” “Our characters now lie bleeding before you; we smart severely under the cruelty of your pen; and complain loudly against your great injustice. You have given us up to be trampled upon by the world, who, from your _pretended_ discoveries, looks upon us all as hypocrites detected under the mask of religion. If you think us in error, for Christ’s sake, _sneer_ at us no more; though it may be _sport_ to you, it is, in a manner, _death_ to us. Learn the more Christian lesson to pity us, and pray for us, and try to set us right in love.” Rowland Hill, no doubt, intended to avoid in his pamphlet “_the low art of slander_;” but he failed in carrying out his purpose. Any one who has read, with candour, Fletcher’s first and second Checks to Antinomianism, must admit that Mr. Hill’s accusations are unfounded. Where had Fletcher slandered Rowland Hill, or any of his Calvinistic friends? It is true that he had treated some of the _doctrines_ of the Calvinists with “_banter_” and with “_sarcasm_;” but his Calvinian friends, against whose tenets he had written, had, uniformly, been treated with respectful affection. Impetuous Rowland improperly applied Fletcher’s “_banter_” and “_sarcasm_,” not to _doctrines_, as Fletcher had intended, but to the _men_ who held them, himself and his godly friends included; a thing from which Fletcher’s loving soul revolted.