“What you say about Mr. Wesley adds weight to your kind arguments. My spiritual circumstances are what I must look at. I tremble lest outward things should hurt me. The multiplicity of objects and avocations, which attend travelling, is not suited to my case. I think, all things considered, I should sin against my conscience in going, unless I had a call from _necessity_, or from _clearer_ providences. “My last ‘Check’ will be as much in behalf of free grace as of holiness; so I hope, upon that plan, all the candid and moderate will be able to shake hands. It will be of a reconciling nature; and I call it an ‘Equal Check to Pharisaism and Antinomianism.’ “I see life so short, and time passes away with such rapidity, that I should be very glad to spend it in solemn prayer; but it is necessary that a man should have some exterior occupation. The chief thing is to employ ourselves profitably. My throat is not formed for the labours of preaching. When I have preached three or four times together, it inflames and fills up; and the efforts, which I am then obliged to make, heat my blood. Thus, I am, by nature, as well as by the circumstances I am in, obliged to employ my time in writing a little. O that I may be enabled to do it to the glory of God! “Let us love this good God, who hath ‘so loved the world, that He gave His Only-begotten Son that we might not perish, but have everlasting life.’ How sweet is it, on our knees, to receive this Jesus, this heavenly gift, and to offer our praises and thanks to our heavenly Father! The Lord teaches me four lessons; the first is to be thankful that I am not in hell; the second, to become _nothing_ before Him; the third, to _receive_ the gift of God; and the fourth is to feel my want of the _Spirit_ of Jesus, and to wait for it. These four lessons are very deep. O when shall I have learned them! Let us go together to the school of Jesus, and learn to be meek and lowly in heart. Adieu! “J. FLETCHER.”[286] Footnote 286: Letters, 1791, p. 218. The above is the first time that Fletcher complains of his throat. This affection, in itself, apart from the other reason he mentions, was quite sufficient to justify his hesitancy in complying with Wesley’s request to devote himself to the itinerancy, and to train himself to become Wesley’s successor. Before returning to the Calvinian controversy, two other incidents, belonging to the year 1773, must be mentioned.