Wesley's Designated Successor: The Life, Letters, and Literary Labours of the Rev. John William Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley, ShropshireTyerman, L. (Luke)
Religion
Wesley's Designated Successor: The Life, Letters, and Literary Labours of the Rev. John William Fletcher, Vicar of Madeley, Shropshire
Tyerman, L. (Luke)
Fletcher, John, 1729-1785
Fletcher seldom wrote his sermons, and more rarely read them. More
than one hundred and forty sermons of Wesley’s have been published,
and at least sixty of Whitefield’s; but of Fletcher’s, who had much
more leisure than either Wesley or Whitefield, only about a dozen. All
the rest are mere outlines. The following are copied from Fletcher’s
MSS., and have not before been published. They may be taken as fair
specimens of Fletcher’s pulpit preparations and pulpit helps. They are
skeletons of two sermons, preached from Matt. xxii. 36–39:— W “I. Why
we must love God.
“II. How we must love Him.
“III. What we must do in order to love Him.
“He is our Creator, Preserver, Redeemer, Sanctifier. He commands us to
love Him. Out of His love there is no happiness. Love of God contains
all. He loved us first.
“With all our soul, heart, and strength. Above all things. More than
our life, wives, children, estate, honour, ourselves.
“Be convinced we do not love Him. Abhor ourselves for our rebellion.
Confess, repent, and believe. Keep a sense of our forgiveness. Pray to
Him. Praise Him. Walk with Him. Seek but Him. Refuse all comfort
unless we feel His love. Keep a constant communion with Him by seeing
His glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
“How have we fulfilled this great duty? Try yourselves. Pray an hour
by yourselves. If you do not love, you hate. What fury to hate all
that is good, great, and lovely! What madness to set our love on
creatures! It must fall with them. Love God in Christ. Look to Christ.
Believe in Christ, to love God. If you do not love Him, you are in
your lives in the devil’s state. You can no more go to heaven than the
devil. Choose which you will love. The world calls. Let us give all
for all.“
“Love thy _neighbour_. All men; though never so distant in place,
different in opinions, interests. Because made by the same hand;
partakers of the same nature; bought with the same blood; capable of
the same happiness.
“As _ourselves_. Not judging; not thinking evil; not speaking evil;
not defrauding; not coveting; doing them good; praying for them;
honouring them
“Because all made in image of God. None but in something better than
ourselves; none but is a child of God, or may become so.
“Put the best construction on words or actions, much more upon
thoughts. Relieve necessities. This is imitating God. What we give is
lent to God.
“Love universally, constantly, impartially, sincerely; from a sense of
Christ’s love.”
This was plain speaking, but very characteristic of the preaching of the
Church of England Methodists. Space will permit only one other extract
from this sermon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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