“_Christian Perfection!_ Why should the harmless phrase offend us? _Perfection!_ Why should that lovely word frighten us? The word _predestinate_ occurs but four times in all the Scriptures; and the word _predestination_ not once; and yet Mr. Hill would justly exclaim against us, if we showed our wit, by calling out for ‘_a little Foundery_’ (or Tabernacle) ‘eye-salve’ to help us to see the word _predestination once_ in _all_ the Bible. Not so the word _perfection_. It occurs, with its derivatives, as frequently as most words in the Scripture; and not seldom in the very same sense in which we take it; nevertheless, we do not lay an undue stress upon the expression; and, if we thought that our condescension would answer any good end, we would give up that harmless and significant word.” In reply to the unfair and untrue taunt that Wesley and Fletcher taught the doctrine of _sinless_ perfection, Fletcher makes an admirable quotation from Wesley:— “To explain myself a little farther on this head: 1. Not only SIN, _properly so called_, that is, a _voluntary_ transgression of a known law, but _sin_ IMPROPERLY so called, that is, an _involuntary_ transgression of a divine law, known or unknown, needs the atoning blood. 2. I believe there is no such perfection in this life, as excludes these _involuntary_ transgressions, which I apprehend to be naturally consequent on the ignorance and mistakes inseparable from mortality. 3. Therefore, SINLESS _perfection_ is a phrase I never use, lest I should seem to contradict myself. 4. I believe a person filled with the love of God is still liable to these involuntary transgressions. 5. Such transgressions you may call _sins_ if you please; I do not, for the reasons above-mentioned.” Fletcher then proceeds to prove that “Pious Calvinists have had, _at times_, nearly the same views of Christian Perfection” that he and Wesley had. “They dissent from us,” says he, “because they confound the anti-evangelical law of innocence and the evangelical law of liberty—peccability and sin—Adamic and Christian Perfection; and because they do not consider that Christian Perfection, falling infinitely short of God’s _absolute_ perfection, admits of a daily _growth_.” The third section of Fletcher’s work is occupied with answers to popular objections; and the fourth amply proves that the doctrine for which he is contending is a doctrine taught in the formularies of the Church of England.