“Though I have solemnly subscribed to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, and have affirmed that I believe them from my heart, yet I think our Reformers were profoundly ignorant of true Christianity, when they declared, in the Ninth Article, that ‘the infection of nature doth remain in them which are regenerate;’ and, in the Fifteenth, that ‘all we, the rest (Christ only excepted), although baptized and born again in Christ, yet offend in many things; and _if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us_.’ This I totally deny, because it cuts up, root and branch, my favourite doctrine of _Perfection_; and, therefore, let Peter, Paul, James, or John, say what they will; and let reformers and martyrs join their syren song, their eyes were at best but half opened, for want of a little _Foundery_ eye-salve; therefore, I cannot look upon them as adult believers, and fathers in Christ.” The Eleven Articles were subscribed, “J. F.,” “J. W.,” and “W. S.;” which may be taken as the initial letters of the names of John Fletcher, John Wesley, and Walter Sellon. “What! more _finishing strokes_!” remarked the _Monthly Review_ of January, 1775, in its notice of Mr. Hill’s new pamphlet. “This retiring champion, however, like the Parthians of old, is not less formidable in his retreat than in a direct attack. He here lets fly at the _Arminians_ and _Perfectionists_ one of his sharpest pointed arrows. He styles it ‘_their creed_.’ He says he has ‘composed it from their sentiments;’ and he adds that he ‘can scarcely read it without horror.’ Yet he thinks himself justified in publishing it, as Mr. Fletcher still continued the controversy with so much warmth.” All this is deeply to be regretted. Mr. Hill had declared his determination to abandon this painful warfare, and yet here he provokes a continuance of it. It is true that, meanwhile, Fletcher had published his “Answer to the Finishing Stroke” of Mr. Hill; but Fletcher had done this, not because he desired the controversy to be prolonged, but because “The Finishing Stroke” contained so many grave attacks on Fletcher’s moral character, that Fletcher’s honour could not be maintained without an “Answer” being written. At this point the war might have ended; but, by appending the “Creed for Arminians and Perfectionists” to his Three Letters, Mr. Hill re-opened the sluice, and “the waters of strife” flowed as fiercely as ever.