“As to the state of my parish, the prospect is yet discouraging. New scandals succeed those that wear away; but ‘_offences must come_.’ Happy shall I be if the offence cometh not by me. My churchwardens speak of hindering strangers from coming to the church, and of repelling them from the Lord’s table; but on these points I am determined to make head against them. A club of eighty working men, in a neighbouring parish, being offended at their minister, determined to come in procession to my church, and requested me to preach a sermon for them; but I thought proper to decline doing so, and have thereby a little regained the good graces of the minister, at least for a time.”[74] Footnote 74: Letters, 1791, p. 111. The preacher, at the Archdeacon’s visitation, was the Rev. Mr. Prothero;[75] and the “long letter” to him may be found in Fletcher’s collected works (vol. viii.), where it fills twenty-eight octavo pages, and is entitled a “Defence of Experimental Religion.” It is dated “Madeley, July 25, 1761.” Footnote 75: _Methodist Magazine_, 1821, p. 17. Mr. Prothero’s “elegant sermon,” as Fletcher terms it, seems to have consisted of two parts: a defence of revealed religion against Deists and Infidels; and a warning against religious superstition and enthusiasm. The first part gave Fletcher “exceeding great satisfaction,” and the _design_ of the second part was good, for, as Fletcher remarks, “It is the duty of a preacher to keep the sacred truths committed to him, as well from being perverted by enthusiasts, as from being crushed by infidels. Boasting of communion with God, and peculiar favours from heaven, is hurtful to the cause of Christ, when people’s lives show them to be actuated by a spirit of delusion; and setting up impulses in the room of repentance, faith, hope, charity, obedience, has done no small mischief in the Church of God.” But, while Fletcher praises Mr. Prothero for “the goodness of his design,” he passes strictures upon the execution of it. He condemns Mr. Prothero for “representing, in general, that virtue, benevolence, good-nature, and morality, are the _way_ to salvation;” and shows, that according “to the Word of God and the teaching of our Church,” sinners are saved by the exercise of faith in Christ. He objected to Mr. Prothero’s doctrine, that, by nature, and without the assistance of Divine grace, man “has the same power to enter the paths of virtue as to walk across a room.” He censured the way in which the preacher discountenanced the doctrine of the necessity of the new birth; and he maintained, at great length, that to “set aside all feelings in religion, and to rank them with unaccountable impulses,” is not consistent with the teachings of the Bible, and with the Liturgy, Articles, and Homilies of the English Church. Soon after this, Fletcher was in another trouble. Hence the following letter written to Charles Wesley:—