232 Review-Morris's Memoirs of the Rev. Andrew Fuller. "The high-toned and generous resolves, proceeding from the three denominations assembled in London, and which were re-echoed by all other denominations, were not unheard in France. The French Protestants, while they paid a just tribute to the upright intentions of their own government, in declining the proffered intervention, felt all its grandeur; it was rejected, but admired; it was discreetly repulsed, but enthusiastically applauded. This intervention was the calm commanding voice of a great people lifted up against persecutors, and claiming kindred with the persecuted. Its sound in Paris was noble, and persuasive; and it glided over the South like that sacred harmony of the heavenly host which spoke to the watch of shepherds' of peace and of good-will."' Pp. 5 .55-59. Again Miss Williams is led by inclination or prudence to the nauseating subject of the views of the French government, and in answer to the question, What did it do to crush the persecution? very coolly answers, "It did all its position admitted. It exerted the full extent of its power, but its power was then feebleness; and some, secret and evil influence rose between its purpose and its act." Could this sentence have been. penned by an English hand, and not rather by some one of the reviving fraternity of Jesuits? Its real and its seeming meaning are at war. It amounts to this, that the verbal purpose of the govern ment was contradicted by its actual measures. It could fill the gaols of France with Buonapartists, but could not apprehend a single murderer of the Protestants. It could deliberately kill the brave and generous Labédoy ère and spill the blood of the heroic Ney, but it had no power to bring a sanguinary ruffian, who headed a small band of Catholic banditti, to justice. But it could do something; it could disarm all the Protestants whose property and lives were in dan ger; it could quarter soldiers upon the plundered impoverished Protestants by way of punishing their enemies; it could dictate letters to-Protestant Consistories, full of praise of the government for its singular protection of the ·Protestants of France, and compel those Consistories to subscribe them on pain of banishment; it could drive into exile the least flexible of the Protestant pastors; it could shut up all the schools of general and cheap education which were in the hands of Protestants all this it could do, for this it has done; and reviewing its mea THE HE late Mr. Andrew Fuller was a of well-earned distinction in his denomination. "Memoirs" of him can scarcely fail to be interesting and instructive, and few persons had better opportunities of becoming thoroughly acquainted with him than his present biographer. The character of our miscellany would not justify us in making a large abstract of the memoirs, or in going into minute and circumstantial criticism on the work; but we shall put down some of the leading events of Mr. Fuller's life, and make a few remarks upon Mr. Morris's book. siderable talents and In In ANDREW FULLER was born of parents in humble life, at Wicken, a small village in Cambridgeshire, midway between Newmarket and Ely, February 6, 1754. He received only an imperfect English education at the free-school of Soham. His parents were Dissenters of the Calvinistic per suasion. They were engaged in husbandry, which occupation he followed till the twentieth year of his age. his seventeenth year, he entered by public baptisin into the church at Soham under the pastoral care of Mr. John Eve; and at the same early period of life began to preach. 1775, after a probation of more than twelve months, he became pastor of the Baptist Church at Soham, which then and for some time after assembled in a barn. His income from the church being very slender, he engaged in business and set up a school; but not succeeding in his temporal pursuits, and meeting also, amidst much usefulness, with many unpleasantnesses in his pastoral connection, owing chiefly to the extreme ignorance and the meddling disposition of the greater part of his flock, he removed, after many struggles of mind, to Kettering, in Northamptonshire, in October 1782, and undertook the charge of the Baptist congre Review. Morris's Memoirs of the Rey. Andrew Fuller. gation in that place, which he held till the time of his death. At Kettering, Mr. Fuller had, according to his own characteristic expression, "plenty of elbow room." He was brought upon a stage more suited to his talents and to his ambition; an ambition of public usefulness, for which Providence had plainly fitted him. The events of his life were not various or uncommon. His story consists, besides the usual domestic incidents, some of which, peculiarly painful, displayed the strength and good ness of his feelings, of successive publications and controversies and of extraordinary and unwearied efforts in the establishment, superintendence and promotion of the Baptist Mission to the East Indies; undoubtedly, the most important mission that has been undertaken in modern times. "Fuller," says Mr. Morris, lived and died a martyr to the mission." He departed this life, after a long and painful illness, May 7, 1815, in the sixty-second year of his age. His death-bed was Christian; but it may read a lesson to those of his own sentiments that estimate the human character by the dying frame of the mind. "The general vigour of his constitution providing a resistance to the violence of disease, rendered his sufferings peculiarly severe; and towards the last, the conflict assumed a most formidable aspect. Pla eing his hand on the diseased part, the sufferer exclaimed, 'Oh! this deadly wound! At another time. All misery centres here! Being asked whether he meant bodily misery, he replied, 'Oh yes: I can think of nothing else." P. 461. ་ Frequently during lifs affliction, he said, My mind is calm: no raptures, no despondency.' At other times he said, 'I am not dismayed, My God, my Saviour, my Refuge, to thee I commit my spirit. Take me to thyself. Bless those I leave behind.'" P. 462. This dying experience may not come up to the expectation of enthusiasts; but we apprehend that it will excite the deep sympathy of the more enlightened readers, and even increase the confidence of the public in Mr. Fuller, as a natural Christian Character. We admire the following passage on this subject from a sermon preached on the Sabbath after his decease by Mr. Toller, the truly respectable pastor of the Independent Church, at Kettering: "—in no one point, either from his writings which I have read, or the sermons 233 I have heard from him, or the interviews. and conversations I have had with him,-in nothing can I so fully join issue with him as in his manner of dying. Had he gone off full of rapture and transport, I might have said, 'Oh! let me die the triumphant death of the righteous! But it would have been far more than I could have realized, or expected in my own case! but the state of his mind towards the last appears to have been, if I may so express it, after my own heart.' He died as a penitent sinner at the foot of the cross." P. 466. back to one part of Mr. Fuller's history It may be supposed that we look with no pleasant feelings; but we can truly say that all our displeasure is buried in his grave. Such of our readers as wish to know more fully the circumstances to which we allude may consult our Fourth Volume, p. 466, &c. We obtained our end, we be lieve, in public estimation; and the present biographer, though sufficiently tinctured with party-spirit, does us ample justice. With a quotation from the Memoirs, we shall let this matter Mr. Fuller's want of forbearance, drop. Mr. Morris having described adds "It is extremely painful to advert to par ticular instances of this kind of severity, and if truth, justice, honour, and impartiality did not imperiously demand it, we would not advert to the unhappy transactions in which he was concerned at Soham, in the year 1809, in a dispute between his former friends and a party of Socinians, who claimed a right to their place of worship; and to the incorrect and unsatisfactory statement he was induced to make of those transactions nearly eighteen months afterwards in defence of his own conduct. Under no pretence whatever can we attempt to justify those transactions, nor the part which Mr. Fuller took in them, nor the means which he afterwards employed to exculpate him self from the charge of wishing indirectly at least to avail himself of those disgraceful statutes since repealed by the legislature, to secure, what he considered, the right of the injured party; much less can we agree to consider him as having been influenced by any sinister or dishonourable motive of which he was utterly incapable. The whole was a downright and palpable mistake, founded indeed, as in many other cases, on a large quantity of misinformation, and a wilful design of accomplishing the supposed ends of public justice. There is no need of any farther comment. His Facts" relative to these occurrences, which Narrative of we have consigned to oblivion, instead of classing it with his other publications, admits but of one apology. It was written long after the "facts" had taken place, and 234 Review-Morris's Memoirs of the Rev. Andrew Fuller. must be attributed, as his eloquent and ju- ་ Mr. Fuller appeared frequently before the public as an author. He was engaged in controversy with the Socinians, as he called them, the Unitarians as they call themselves, the highCalvinists, the Universalists, the Sandemanians and the opposers of the Baptist Mission. His writings display no learning or taste, nor an affectation of either: but they are marked by strong sense, by acuteness and sometimes by bitterness and wrath. He was a man of war, and it is amusing to see how his feelings betray him into military, or we had almost said pugilistic language. He flattered himself with having obtained a complete triumph over the Unitarians; and although we consider his argument fallacious and his boast ridiculous, and indeed could point out instances of his writings having made, instead of unmaking, Unitarians, yet we cannot but confess our regret that his first book had not been answered at the time more fully, more in his own way and more to the conviction of that class of readers for whom he wrote, and wrote certainly with effect. The diploma of Doctor in Divinity was conferred upon Mr. Fuiler by the College of New Jersey, but he declined accepting it, partly from a modest sense of his want of qualification for an academical honour and partly from religious scruples. As a preacher, Mr. Fuller was distinguished by a clear view of his subject, by the coherence of all the parts of his discourse, by the solidity of his remarks, and by the striking cases which he put to explain his meaning. The following reflection is quite in character. This is surely a dangerous piece of information to young preachers. They may be assured that Mr. Fuller's excellencies in the pulpit, whatever they were, were not owing to this negli gence (which perhaps is here overrated) but in spite of it. Few can presume upon the correctness of judg ment, the even flow of ideas, and the readiness of language which enabled Mr. Fuller to speak to the purpose without much premeditation. The insertion of this account without qualification or caution is only one out of many instances of Mr. Morris's want of prudence. While, for instance, he sometimes praises the subject of his book without bounds; he indulges, at other times, in insinuations and invectives which betray a soreness of feeling in the recollection of some unexplained difference between himself and Mr. Fuller. In general, too, he treats as personal enemies all the sects with whom Mr. Fuller had any controversy, and particularly the Universalists and the misuamed Socinians. But imprudent as our author is in his strictures on the systems of these two bodies of Christians, his ridiculous vaunting and his vulgar slang, suited only to the champions of the fist, quite disarm us of anger. We really forget the antagonist and sinile at the critic, when we read of the "insidious attempts" of Unitarians, when we see a Baptist Dissenter appealing or praising an appeal to the friends of orthodoxy," and especially when we are told that "Dr. Toulmin was scarcely a breakfast for his powerful antago nist," and that "Dr. Toulmin and Mr. Kentish received their quietus." Still we agree with Mr. Morris, that “ If Rev. Socinianism still lives, it owes its ex In reply to Mr. Fuller, appeared, "Bigotry and Intolerance Defeated: or, An account of the late prosecution of Mr. John Gisburae, Unitarian minister of Soham, Cambridgeshire: with an Exposure and Correction of the Defects and Mistakes of Mr.Andrew Fuller's Narrative of that affair: in Seven Letters to John Christie, Esq. Treasurer of the Unitarian Fund. By Robert Aspland, minister of the Gravei Pit Congre gation, Hackney. 1810." 8vo. -A second dition of this pamphlet was afterwards. published.-Mr. Fuller made no answer. ! Review-Geneva Catechism. istence to controversy and maintaining defenders." The same cannot certainly be said of Mr. Morris's orthodory. But of this hated "Socinianism," he says, with rhetorical contempt, "Like the apocalyptic beast, it appears with its head wounded to death and is going fast to perdition." Now, we know not that it is quite charitable to break up his prophetic visions, but we will venture to assure him, be the effect what it may, that never since the Reformation was Unitarianism so much alive as at the present moment; that never were the 'Orthodox' generally so far from Orthodoxy,' and that never were there so many, even in Baptist churches, whose faith is unsatisfactory. Mr. Fuller's book, which has betrayed his biographer into such unseemly language, was an appeal to spiritual pride, to the holy temper of those whose holiness Mr. Morris knows is not invariable, and was besides made up of the most unfair assumptions and the gross est misrepresentations. A proper answer to it would have been the memoirs of some individuals who have been most distinguished in the outery against the immoral tendency' of 'So cinianisin. Now that the political prejudices against the Unitarians have died away, there are, we believe, few Trinitarians of any intellectual consideration, that would wish to rescue Mr. Fuller's tedious indictment from the oblivion into which it is sinking. Though we are obliged to rebuke our author as a heated partizan, we are most willing to allow that in this volume he has displayed some talent, a facility in composition, a bold exposure of what he considers to be error even in his own friends, a consistent regard to Dissenting principles, and a love of religious liberty. We suppose that he is a man of warm feelings, and we regret that he sent his work to press without cool revision. A Portrait of Mr. Fuller, by Med ley, is prefixed to the volume, which is a likeness, but not a happy one. ART, IV.-The Geneva Catechism: entitled Catechism, or, Instruction on the Christian Religion: prepared by the Pastors of Geneva, for the use of the Swiss and French Protestant Churches. Translated from the French. A NewEdition. 1814.12mo. Pp 228. Sherwood and Co. 1815. NE of the articles 235 Niastical Discipli of "The Eccle formed Churches in France," established on the same model as that of Geneva, was as follows,--"The churches are to be warned to use most frequently Catechizing, and the ministers are to handle and expound the same most diligently, by compendious, succinct, simple and familiar questions and answers, framing and fitting themselves unto the plainnesse and rudenesse of their people, and not entering into long tedious discourses of common-places."* Nothing could be wiser than this direction, which the "Pastors of Geneva" seem to have had in their eye, when compiling the work before us, which may be justly entitled "compendious, succinct, siniple and familiar," plain and not tedious or common-place. Whether the Geneva Pastors have equally attended in this work to "The Lawes and Statutes of Geneva,"† as we find them set forth by authority, the reader will presently determine. In explanation of those" Lawes and Statutes," it is said, "But first it is to be noted, that there bee crimes which utterly bee intollerable in a ministerthe first be Heresie, Schisme." The Pastors are not perhaps chargeable with either of these "crimes" directly, but they manifest a deplorable want of orthodery and of conformity to Calvin's model of "Ecclesiastical Regiment." It is a striking proof of the progress of the Reformation, that in a Catechism printed on the spot where Servetus was burnt to ashes, and authorized by the legal successors of those that hurried that Unitarian martyr to the stake, there is not only no exposition or defence of the doctrine of the Trinity, but not even allusion to it." For aught that appears in this work the Trinitarian schene might never have been heard of at Geneva. The same may be said of all the Five Points in which Calvinism, properly so called, consists. Not one of them is here propounded or an 236. Review-Wilson's Dissenting Churches. contained by implication. In excuse, The Catechism is divided into Three Some of the statements of Christian doctrine may be objected to by a rigid scripturist, though we know but of few which by a liberal interpretation may not be reconciled with the sacred volume. The Genevan Pastors are on the high road of Reformation, and their next Catechism may not merely omit but openly expose pretended orthodoxy This little volume will surprise and may perhaps instruct and improve the English disciples of the Reformer of Geneva, the majority of whom are, we apprehend, as little entitled as the Genevan Pastors to the name of Calvinists. At the end are given the Formulary observed at Geneva in the admission of Catechumens to the Lord's Supper, and also some Forms of Prayer. It is but just to observe, that the ART. IV. The History and Antiqui- in year 1572, at Wandsworth, near London, by the Reformers who fled to the Continent on Mary's obtaining the Throne, and who returned on the accession of Elizabeth. During their residence abroad they were schooled in the Geneva doctrine and discipline, which on their return they attempted to set up in England. This attempt, however, did not accord with the policy of Elizabeth, who, like her father, aimed to be a Protestant Pope, and the Presbyterians were jealously watched and severely persecuted by the Court of High Commission, founded upon the very principle of the Inquisition. Some of the Reformers, as was natural, pushed the principle of the Reformation to a greater extent than the Presbyterians were willing to allow, and amongst these stands foremost Robert Brown, a clergyman, who may be considered as the father of the English Independents: from him they were for a considerable time denominated Brownists. Brown began to assert his principles openly about the year 1580, but being a violent and unsteady man and no Puritan in his manners, he faltered in his profession, conformed to the Church of England, and died, A. D, 1630, in the 81st year of his age, in jail at Northampton, to which he had been committed in consequence of a parish squabble. Brown's apostacy did not stop the spread of the principles which he had set afloat. The Reformer continued to make disciples whilst the renegade was forgotten. Sir Walter Raleigh declared in Parliament, that the Brownists, in Norfolk and Essex and the parts adjacent to London, were not fewer than 20,000. The old expedient of persecution was resorted to in order to reduce them to ecclesiastical obedience. They were thrown into the jails of London, where many of them died of want and disease. On the coffin of one who perished in this manner, his fellowprisoners wrote the following inscription: "This is the corps of ROGER RIPPON, a servant of Christ and her Majesty's faithful subject; who is the last of sixteen or seventeen, which that great enemy of God, the gift) with his high commissioners, have murArchbishop of Canterbury (Dr. John Whitfive years, |