All this augured ill for the harmony of the impending Conference; but it passed off far better than could possibly have been expected.  Very few of the Calvinists who were invited to attend responded to the appeal.  Christian feeling got the better of controversial bitterness on both sides.  John Wesley, with a noble candour, drew up a declaration, which was signed by himself and fifty-three of his preachers, stating that, ’as the Minutes have been understood to favour justification by works, we, the Rev. John Wesley and others, declare we had no such meaning, and that we abhor the doctrine of justification by works as a most perilous and abominable doctrine.  As the Minutes are not sufficiently guarded in the way they are expressed, we declare we have no trust but in the merits of Christ for justification or salvation.  And though no one is a real Christian believer (and therefore cannot be saved) who doth not good works when there is time and opportunity, yet our works have no part in meriting or purchasing our justification from first to last, in whole or in part.’[783] Lady Huntingdon and her relative Mr. Shirley were not wanting, on their part, in Christian courtesy.  ‘As Christians,’ wrote Lady Huntingdon, ’we wish to retract what a more deliberate consideration might have prevented, as we would as little wish to defend even truth itself presumptuously as we would submit servilely to deny it.’  Mr. Shirley wrote to the same effect.

But, alas! the troubles were by no means at an end.  Fletcher had written a vindication of the Minutes, which Wesley published.  Wesley has been severely blamed for his inconsistency in acting thus, ’after having publicly drawn up and signed a recantation [explanation?] of the obnoxious principles contained in the Minutes.’[784] This censure might seem to be justified by a letter which Fletcher wrote to Lady Huntingdon.  ‘When,’ he says, ’I took up my pen in vindication of Mr. Wesley’s sentiments, it never entered my heart that my doing so would have separated me from those I love and esteem.  Would to God I had never done it!  To your ladyship it has caused incalculable pain and unhappiness, and my conscience hath often stung me with bitter and heartcutting reproaches.’[785] But, on the other hand, Fletcher himself, in a preface to his ‘Second Check to Antinomianism,’ entirely exonerated Wesley from all blame in the matter, and practically proved his approbation of his friend’s conduct by continuing the controversy in his behalf.

The dogs of war were now let slip.  In 1772 Sir Richard Hill and his brother Rowland measured swords with Fletcher, and drew forth from him his Third and Fourth Checks.  In 1773 Sir R. Hill gave what he termed his ‘Finishing Stroke;’ Berridge, the eccentric Vicar of Everton, rushed into the fray with his ‘Christian World Unmasked;’ and Toplady, the ablest of all who wrote on the Calvinist side, published a pamphlet under the suggestive title of ‘More Work for John Wesley.’  The