“The third argument is taken from the exactness of human laws and the practice of earthly judges. They all condemn a man for one single offence. If one can be proved it is enough. Let a murderer kill one man, he is to be hanged as well as if he had killed a hundred. Let a highwayman take one pound from one single person, the law condemns him for a felon, and sends him to the gallows, as well as if he had taken a thousand pounds from a thousand different travellers. The law of the land, to the breach of which the penalty is annexed, is as effectually broken by one act of felony as by a hundred; and the law of God is as much, though not so heinously, broken, by one sin as by a hundred: consequently the law of God curses and damns for one sin as well as for a hundred. “The fourth argument is taken from Deuteronomy xxvii. 26, ‘Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them.’ Also, Galatians iii. 10, ‘Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.’ And James ii. 10, ‘Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.’ He violates the law, despises the law, incurs the punishment threatened.” Passing by Fletcher’s arguments and logic, this fugitive manuscript is of some importance, as intimating not only that objections were made to Fletcher’s doctrines, but also that he was accustomed publicly to notice and answer them in his parish church. Fletcher had other troubles besides those arising from objections to his teaching. In his Fast-day sermon, preached on March 12, 1762, he had cried:— “‘Because of swearing the land mourneth.’ If the prophet of old had lived in our degenerate days, he would have added, ‘Because of perjury the land groaneth.’ To go no farther than the place we inhabit, how many of us, who have been entrusted with public offices, have wilfully broken the oaths administered unto us? How many open and notorious drunkards, fighters, sabbath-breakers, blasphemers of God’s Word, and cursers of men, have escaped deserved censure, I shall not say by the accidental neglect, but by the downright perjury of officers?” This bold accusation stimulated one of Fletcher’s young parishioners to put the law in force against one of the culpable parish officers; by which act the young man brought himself into trouble, and also Fletcher, who protected him. Further, in the small house of Mary Matthews, built upon the rock in Madeley Wood, Fletcher had begun to hold preaching services; the congregation assembling there had been called “the Rock Church;” and Mary Matthews had been fined £20 for permitting such assemblies in her humble dwelling. Fletcher refers to these incidents in the following letter to Charles Wesley:— “MADELEY, _May 16, 1762_.