FULLER

FULLER, REV. ANDREW, a distinguished preacher and theological writer of the Baptist denomination, born Feb. 6, 1754, at Wicken, a village in Cambridgeshire, about seven miles from Newmarket. He received the rudiments of his education at the free school of Soham. His father was a small farmer, whom he assisted as soon as he was able, till he was twenty years old. In childhood and youth he indulged in profane language and in lying, but was remarkably free from the vices of licentiousness. He had, however, strong "compunctious visitings" which never left him (some brief intervals excepted), till he was completely brought under the influence of Christian principle. He has left on record an interesting account of the commencement and progress of his spiritual life, which was greatly impeded by the contracted views of the religious people among whom he was brought up. His moral and intellectual nature was, however, composed of strong elements, and worked its way through formidable obstacles; no doubt, much of the strength and vigour it afterwards displayed was owing to the struggles and conflicts of his early manhood, or as he called them, "the gall and wormwood of his youth." In his seventeenth year he became a member of the Baptist church at Soham, and in the course of four years, after giving proofs of his abilities for public speaking, he was chosen to the pastoral office, which he filled for more than seven years, receiving from three different sources a stipend of only £21 per annum, which he endeavoured to eke out, first by a small shop and afterwards by a school, in order to maintain himself with a wife and four children. In 1782 he removed to Kettering, in Northamptonshire, after a protracted deliberation of not only months but years, from a scrupulous dread of forsaking the path of duty, though with the prospect of absolute poverty if he remained. His conduct on this occasion (it has been justly said), "exhibits the rare spectacle of a man capable of making any sacrifice of selfish interest to his sense of duty to God and to his fellow-mortals." In his new position he was brought into frequent intercourse with several eminent ministers of his own denomination (among whom were Robert Hall and his venerable father), some of whom had enjoyed greater advantages of education than himself—who, though of characters in many points strikingly diverse, were men of deep piety, and addicted to theological inquiries. At that time the Calvinism prevalent in the Baptist denomination was mingled and overlaid with many crudities which the Genevan reformer would have disowned as foreign to his system. The writings of the great transatlantic divine Jonathan Edwards had just been introduced into Britain principally through the medium of Dr. Erskine of Edinburgh; these were studied with avidity by Mr. Fuller and his associates, and contributed largely to the correction and enlargement of their

Fuller. religious views. Before leaving Soham, Mr Fuller, then in his twenty-sixth year, had written a treatise entitled, The Gospel worthy of all Acceptation, which was designed to counteract those Hyper-Calvinistic notions which had perplexed his own mind. This he sent to the press soon after his settlement at Kettering, and was involved by it in a controversy with writers who differed as much from one another as from himself. But the works on which his reputation as a theologian mainly rest are two; the first published in 1793, The Calvinistic and Socinian Systems Examined and Compared as to their Moral Tendency, which was attacked by Dr Toulmin and Mr Kentish, to whom Fuller replied in a pamphlet entitled, Socinianism Indefensible on the Ground of its Moral Tendency. His second important work appeared in 1800, The Gospel its own Witness; or the Holy and Divine Harmony of the Christian Religion contrasted with the Immorality and Absurdity of Deism. These two treatises have lately been reprinted, with a memoir by the author's son, and form a volume of Bohn's Standard Library. Fuller also published Expository Lectures on Genesis, and prepared a similar volume (though not of equal interest), on the Revelation, which was published after his death. His Memoir of the Rev. Samuel Pearce of Birmingham will always hold a high rank among religious biographies. The greater number of his works are small in bulk, being chiefly single sermons or pamphlets, but in their last collected form fill 1000 pages royal 8vo. They all bear the stamp of a masculine, acute, and logical intellect; they are the productions of a man who thought for himself; who was deeply impressed with the majesty and worth of religious truth, and who when, after earnest search, he believed himself to possess it, held the conclusions he had reached with an unflinching tenacity. But the productions of his pen constitute only a portion of the labours of his life: he was not less a man of action than of meditation. In the year 1792 the Baptist Missionary Society was formed at Kettering by thirteen individuals, of whom Fuller was one. He was appointed secretary, and some of the brightest and palmiest days of the Society were under his administration, adding one more to the innumerable instances of the advantages (with some drawbacks) resulting from a scheme of operations being placed under the direction of one master-mind. "Friends talk to me" (he once remarked to a confidential friend), "about coadjutors and assistants, but I know not how it is, I find a difficulty. Our undertaking to India really appeared to me on its commencement to be somewhat like a few men who were deliberating about the importance of penetrating into a deep mine which had never before been explored. We had no one to guide us, and while we were thus deliberating, Carey, as it were, said, 'Well, I will go down, if you will hold the rope.' But, before he went down, he, as it seemed to me, took an oath from each of us that while we lived we should never let go the rope. You understand me, there was great responsibility attached to us who began the business, and so I find a difficulty." The correspondence he maintained; the journeys he undertook (among which were five to Scotland, and one to Ireland); the pamphlets he wrote in its defence, and the discourses he preached on its behalf, a frame less robust, physically and mentally, than his could not have sustained, and his frame at last sank under these complicated and unremitting toils. He died May 7, 1815, in his sixty-second year.

In private life, Fuller's character was marked by unbending integrity; and notwithstanding a certain uncouthness and sternness of manner, he had a heart capable of ardent and self-denying friendship, and of the tenderest affection in the domestic circle. His judgments of other men might often lean to the side of severity, but it must be recollected that he never spared himself. By one who knew him well and revered his character (the late Robert Hall), he was

thought to attach too much importance to a speculative accuracy of sentiment, and to be too prone to infer the character of men from their creed; yet, in extenuation, it may be alleged that his creed was no mere formula of articles of faith, it was the perennial feeder of his moral and religious life; what wonder then that he attached a similar importance to the avowed belief of others?

It is a proof of the estimation in which Fuller's writings are held, that there have been three collected editions of them, besides American reprints. The first in ten 8vo vols.; the second in five; and the last in one royal 8vo. A memoir, principally compiled from his own papers, was published about a year after his decease by his most intimate friend and coadjutor in the affairs of the Baptist mission, the late Dr Ryland of Bristol; a second edition, with corrections and additions, appeared in 1818. A second biography, with a critical notice of his writings, was written by the Rev. J. W. Morris; and a third was prefixed by his son, the Rev. A. G. Fuller, to the second and third editions of his works. With some additional matter, it appears to be based on Dr Ryland's memoir. In the second volume of Coleridge's Notes on English Divines (London 1853), are a few marginalia on the "Calvinistic and Socinian Systems compared," pp. 238-243. (J. E. R.)