Christ Manifested (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781502897015)

Born in Switzerland in 1729, and educated in that country, John Fletcher showed a zeal for the things of God from his earliest years. Straight after his ordination in March 1757, this likeable young man-not yet thirty years of age-offered himself to John Wesley as an itinerant colleague for three busy years. Then, deciding that the time had come for him to minister from the base of a settled pastorate, he selected little Madeley as his future home. For twenty-five years, from 1760, Fletcher laboured here. He did not cease to preach against the very things that were daily joys for the parishioners in Madeley: drunkenness, orgies, bull-baiting, and general immorality! Within two years, Madeley had changed perceptively! Throughout the whole of the ministerial life of John Fletcher, he knew remarkable spiritual power in preaching; there is little doubt that he was anointed with divine unction and spoke in the demonstration of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes his preaching would contain prophetic utterances of apostolic quality. On one occasion he turned aside from his message to foretell-with great accuracy-the French Revolution; this long-drawn-out terror did not begin to take place until four years after his death. His death in 1785, at the age of 55, was untimely and premature; he had lived like a flame of fire but had burned out more quickly than was expected. Believers of today would suffer no loss if they had the same charity, graciousness, and clarity of thought that were the daily companions of the Reverend John Fletcher.