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Lawrence Greatrake (1793-c.1840) Dialogue First... (Pittsburgh?, 1827) |
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"Undercover Campbellite, 1822-25" | Greatrake's 1824 pamphlets | Campbell's first reply (1824)
Greatrake sources 1 | Greatrake sources 2 | Scott's 1824 pamphlet | Campbell's 1825 pamphlet
Greatrake's 1826 pamphlet | Greatrake's 1827 book | Greatrake's 1830 pamphlet
Greatrake's 1836 pamphlet | Greatrake's 1838 pamphlet | Campbell's recollections of 1823
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DIALOGUE FIRST, BETWEEN THE REV. DOCTOR ANDREW FULLER, AND A REGULAR BAPTIST. R. B. -- (entering the Doctor's house.) I have the honour, I presume, of seeing the Rev. Doctor Andrew Fuller, in your person, Sir? Doctor. -- That is my name, Sir; what, pray, may your commands be with me? R. B. -- I am, with your permission, Doctor, an evangelist in the Regular Baptist church, recently from the United States of America, and am going to and fro in the earth to seek whom Satan may not devour. I have but an humble name and sphere in life, but passable credentials: will you, Doctor, condescend to look at them? -- (Doctor reads the credentials.) Doctor. -- These are certainly passable testimonials, and such as give you some claim upon my attentions: Sir, walk up into my study, you may there interest yourself with some of the most popular theological polemics of the present age. R. B. -- Indeed, Doctor, what can they be, except your writings are included. Doctor. -- You have heard then, have you, of my writings in America. R. B. -- Heard! why from Nantucket Shoals to the Floridas, and from Cape Hatteras to Baton Rouge, your writings, especially your "Gospel Worthy of all Acceptation," are circulated, read, and devoured with the appetite of death and hades. Indeed, even the Creeks, Wyandotts, Miamies, Pottawatamies; together with numerous other tribes of the read sons of Columbia's forests, are familiar with your writings, and their infants are taught to 2 lisp and bless the name of Doctor Fuller: so far, and so wide, are your writings read and the sentiments thereof made known, and hail'd, "Worthy of all Acceptation!" (aside -- albeit I do not say by whom!) Doctor. -- Well, Brother, bless the Lord * that thus irrefragible evidence is given that MY Gospel is worthy of all acceptation: this general sentiment, in favor of my gospel, among professors, is conclusive evidence both of its truth and intelligence. R. B. -- (aside) -- yes, if it did not happen to be written by the Holy Ghost -- that "many are called but few chosen; (a) and that in the last days perilous times shall come (to the truth! and all who cleave to ot) for professors shall have a form of godliness and deny the power thereof;" so that when the Son of man shall come, it will be a matter of question to created intelligence, [(b)] whether or not the faith of God's elect exists. (c) Or if it was not also written that Baal had four hundred and fifty prophets when the Lord had but one, (d) and that when near two millions of PROFESSORS where in Israel, there were only seven thousand worshippers of God; or that when a countless multitude of professors attended at the feast of tabernacles in the day of Christ's personal ministry, not one thirsted as a true worshipper; (e) or, that when a world of professors run after and worshipped the BEAST, a mere remnant continued to serve God: (f) or if, to cap the climax of the absurdly false position, this did not exalt Fuller above Christ himself, (the multitude of whose personal followers abandoned him when he preached his gospel) and represent Fuller as more wise and skilful than Jesus Christ, or the Holy Ghost, the former of whom could not preach, or the latter write a Gospel, only one that the multitude of professors of religion detested and denounced! Or if, argumentum ad hominem, Paganism, Mahometanism, and Gospel Atheism, (i. e. Arminianism) might not with equal evidence, be proved Doctor. -- Brother Rastrum, you appear to be the subject of some abstract musings -- what are your cogitations? R. B. -- I beg pardon, Doctor, for appearances, but assure you, that the weight and wisdom of your previous remark was the subject __________ * This "bless the Lord," is cousin german to that of three of the crown heads of the Holy Alliance, after the battle of Liepsick -- they bless'd the Lord that they had butchered 100,000 men: or like that of the Arminians, when they can make the Scripture appear to contradict itself; or like Luther Rice's, when he used to get a note discounted or shaved, or a sum of money by mortgage, raised and blessed the events as signal interpositions of the Lord's hand, in behalf of the Columbian College! (a) Matthew 20 -16, (b) 2 Tim. 3 - 15, (c) Luke 18 - 8, (d) Rom. 11 - 4, (e) John 7 - 37, (f) Rev. 13 - 8 , (g) John 6 - 60-66. 3 of my musing, while memory was busy in gathering together the varied and numerous illustrations I have seen of the truth of that saying of yours. Doctor. -- Have you been long in the ministry, Brother Rastrum? R. B. -- About five years, sir. Doctor. -- How long a Baptist by profession? R. B. -- Thirteen years, sir. Doctor. -- Allow me to solicit, as I hope you will grant, a brief outline of your life; and, believe me, I do not make this request from any impertinent curiosity; on the contrary, from the fullest conviction that, as Dr. Johnson, (a giant of the pen too,) says, "no man's history however humble, if made public, would prove destitute of advantage even to the most learned and wise!" R. B. -- I feel satisfied, Doctor, that a mind after the order and cast of yours, is equal to the task of making every thing advantageous to itself that comes within the orbit of its comprehensive glance. This conviction may afford me encouragement to comply with your request: at the same time I acknowledge with satisfaction, your kindness in asking of me but a brief outline of my life, for I wish to shun, as I do from my soul abhor, the recollection of MYSELF. I was then, Doctor, as all mortals are, conceived in sin, and brought forth in iniquity; a blind, blind, transgressor from the womb of nature, until the twentieth year of my life, when it pleased God, the Holy Ghost, to bring me through the pangs and throes of a new and spiritual birth, and to lead me, in connexion with the precious Gospel of Christ, into the Regular Baptist Church, as my mother in Israel. For ten years subsequent, I projected largely of earthly enterprise, and with head, and heart, and hands, and all my powers, essayed on a wide and varied arena of human action, to exemplify practically to the world the mental integrity, exemplary uprightness, and general, as well evangelical, benevolence of the Heaven born soul. At the expiration of ten years, I found that I might as well have attempted to make the deaf sensible of the harmony of sounds, or the blind of colours, or the dead conscious of life, as to attempt to make the world acknowledge anything superior to its own nature; that the world and mere professors, will pull down the disciple as they did the master, for daring to appear any thing better than itself. In short, I came to understand, that the mere attempt to get my christianity acknowledged and respected, was not only a vain imagination, but the expectation thereof implied a cruel reflection upon the life of Christ; and was a presumptuous arrogation to myself of more than apostolic wisdom, piety and grace. At the expiration of this time, the Lord brought me from a whirlpool of secular business into the ministry of his Gospel: I have since endeavoured to labour in word and doctrine as God in his providence has given opportunity, and the Holy Ghost hath endued with grace; so that having obtained help of God, I continue unto this day. 4 Doctor. -- You have indeed, brother, compress'd your history into a small space: Were your family Baptists? R. B. -- No, they were Episcopalians -- children of the old "mother church," as she is called. And while from my soul I detest the mere ethic, or gross Arminian ministry of that church at the present day, I yield to no man in reverence and fond affection for the memory of her Charnock's, Flavel's, Romaines, Hervies, Toplady's, Newton's and Hawker's. I shall always feel happy to refer to such men, as an honour and a blessing to the church militant, and essentially of the same order and spirit as the Knoxes, Erskins, the Temples, Davises and Witherspoons, of the Presbyterians, and the Gills, Booths, Stephens, Thomas's and Fristoes of the Baptist church. Doctor. -- I suppose you found it nothing to your temporal advantage to join the Baptist church? R. B. -- I simply found that it was attended with the loss of every earthly relative, and every earthly prospect. Doctor. -- You have, however, the satisfaction of knowing that your profession as a Baptist must be considered sincere, and the answer of a good conscience. R. B. -- That has been my secret satisfaction, though I have lived to hear tinker's and taylor's boys, who had not been baptised twenty-four hours maintain that I was no Baptist. * Doctor. -- Strange! to what did you ascribe such extravagant suspicion or wanton reflection? R. B. -- I have, Doctor, told the Baptists the truth; therefore they became my enemies, especially a numerous tribe of Arian and disguised Arminian Baptists, whom I have denounced as so much hideous and corrupting excrescence upon the body: Knavish flatterers have inflated the society with the pride of Lucifer, as erst these creatures have made individuals and communities their prey, so have they fawned in spaniel like sycophancy at the feet of the Baptist society, and lauded her to the skies, as spotless and perfect, rich, full and having need of nothing, while THEIR very presence even at her feet, (to say nothing about their present, sweeping control of her councils, and magisterial attitudes in her doings,) bespoke her the subject of delusion and moral stench. Had this not been her state she never would have suffered open Arians, disguised Arminians, and selfish historians, confounding truth and error and inculcating universal charity † __________ * In the western country, under the church order of the Arian Campbell and his followers, boys are Baptised one day, and Baptise other boys and girls themselves the next day. Girls join their churches to day, and to morrow act the part of deacons at what they call the Lord's supper -- that is, distribute the bread to, and serve their communicants with wine; these, and such like heresies as these in faith and order the writer has denounced, and, as a consequence has been proclaimed by those creatures, and the Fullerites to be no Baptist. † Robinson, Fuller, Hall and Campbell's writings, together with the "Luminary," "Star" and Benedict's history of the Baptists are what the foregoing remarks. 5 among Sabellian, Arian, Socinian, Free Will, Sandamanian, Baxterian, Seven-day "Christian," Bible and Calvinistic Baptists. These things I have denounced and urged a return to the "good old way," which is the "front and face of my offending," and for which my sincerity as a Baptist has been called in question. Doctor. -- Have you been located, since you have been in the ministry, or have you itinerated? R. B. -- I have itinerated nearly all the time: during seven months however I had the charge of a people calling themselves a Baptist church, who were graciously pleased to allure me to their service at the expence of hundreds of dollars and which they promised to refund me, but which they cheated me out of, allowed their members openly to ridicule the doctrine of the Baptist confession of faith, magnanimously to slander me, charitably to tolerate caluminators, liars and drunkards among themselves, and to plead, in their extenuation, that they "were too small and weak to put away any of their members." * During this period I got quote satisfied with the honour and EMOLUMENTS connected with the pastoral charge of a mere Baptist church. Doctor. -- Have you travelled much among the churches in America? R. B. -- I have travelled, sir, about 20,000 miles in the ministry and as many more out of it, in all of which I have had an eye intensely fixed upon religious society, especially the Baptist church, and to the service of which I believe God hath set apart the little remnant of my days on earth. Doctor. -- You have taken a large "compass" in the ministry, Brother Rastrum; you travelled, I presume, as a missionary under the patronage of the American Baptist board of Missions, and through the means their ever zealous efforts secure for the prosperity of the churches and salvation of souls! R. B. -- Indeed, Doctor, I did not consult with flesh and blood in entering upon the ministry, neither have I prosecuted it under the patronage of saint or sinner; the livery of my horse for six months would equal all the contributions that ever have been made towards meeting my support or travelling expenses. Doctor. -- You have certainly given reasonable evidence of the uprightness of your motives, and sincerity of your labours in the ministry. R. B. -- Yet I have lived, Doctor, to witness both labours and motives impugned: to be denounced as an enemy to missions and all religious enterprise † and that by those who, though professedly __________ apply to. And when we come to take a view of the Practical Insults of Fullerism, the respective part of doing of each of the foregoing writers, together with the character and influence of the Luminary and Star will be duly noticed. * This church was a Fullerite one! acting upon the zig zag theology of Andrew's Gospel. † Numerous, yes, all, of the old fashioned theological ministers in the Baptist 6 ministers themselves, never did aught of service but what they made sure to be paid for; or any thing for missions but beg other people's money. I have been published as an hireling for holding a church responsible for the refunding of me simply the expenses of travelling to serve them, and when I was put off with five cents in the dollar, of those travelling expenses, the same was published as being the intrinsic value of ministerial labours, and representation of my ministerial gifts and qualifications. * In short, Doctor, I have lived to learn that it is enough for the servant to be as his master, and that it is madness to expect to fill faithfully the ministry and escape the obloquy and slander mankind heaped upon him. The world is the same, the gospel is the same; and whosoever preaches this with the smiles and approbation of that are more than Gods' who preach in the truth of that gospel and have the smiles of the world and mere professors, they are false teachers as sure as Satan is the father of lies. But I must now pray to be relieved from this egotism and to that end would request you, Doctor, to divert our colloquy into some other channel. Doctor. -- Well, Brother, to gratify your wishes I will suggest the probability of your having met with some objectors to my gospel even in America. You have travelled largely -- you have made a profession none will dare impugn who have aught to risk of character themselves, you have laboured in the ministry for years for what would scarce keep a church mouse, and you have credentials of no common character. Which all together, I conceive, afford me reasonable ground to believe that your intelligence is equal to the task, and that your veracity may be relied on in giving me information of the most material objections you have heard advanced against my gospel. R. B. -- Indeed, Doctor, you would put me upon the performance of an unenviable task, you must excuse my non-compliance with your request, unless compliance should be found my duty, and which, with due deference to your better judgment, I leave you to determine. Doctor. -- Why you know, Brother, the precept is, "speak the truth in love:" and besides you must be informed, that we authors are vastly benefitted, in a variety of ways, by the severest criticisms __________ church are denounced, covertly or openly, by the Fullerite fraternity, as enemies to missionary enterprize though they spend one third, two thirds, or the whole of their time in itinerating to labour in word and doctrine! But then it is done at their own expense, in their own country and to feed the Church of Christ, all of which is considered by the Fullerites, as so much superfluous doing, while their college scullions have their names blazoned abroad in their publications as every Jehues in zeal, because they have given their penny towards a tract Society. * This nameless piece of calumny Alexander Campbell is the author and publisher of in his "Christian Baptist," -- verily his Christian Baptist is the image of his (Arian) christianity, and the above incident a vivid feature of both. 7 of our opponents: that is, if we be truly wise and, philosophical: they shew us many little errors in language of collocation of words, against the repetition of which we are thus prepared to guard: this is the least of our advantage as they often furnish us with powerful argument against themselves, by writing or speaking with roughness and warmth, which, contrasted with our polish of style and sage-like placidity, is a mighty evidence that they are wrong, and we are right. R. B. -- Doctor, if I inform you of what I have heard against your gospel, I must narrate the while in a grear degree after the language of objectors, or, otherwise, disturb or break the chain of recollections in an attempt to clothe their criticisms in another dress: and to give you their ideas in their uncouth language would be a continued offence to your ear, and, in many instances, wounding to your feelings. Doctor. -- I assure you, I wish you to speak with the utmost freedom, and, if necessary, give me the very spirit as well as language with which those Baptists speak of my gospel. You have already told me, that my writings are circulated from one extremity of the United States to the other, and that they are read and devoured with avidity! Now inform me of all the objections you have heard against them -- especially to my gospel -- that is my master-stroke; for the rest I feel measurably indifferent as to what opinions are entertained or expressed of them. R. B. -- But, Doctor, to be candid, and to furnish out another excuse for my declining the task, I must apprise you of my having heard so many objections to your gospel that I cannot pretend to recollect the half of them -- I am no Cato, Cesar or Scipio in the faculty of recollection. Doctor. -- May we not materially obviate that difficulty by having you read my gospel page by page, and noticing their criticisms on that much at a time? your memory will be thus refreshed with the most, of not all, that you have heard against it. R. B. -- Well, Doctor, I perceive that you will be gratified in this thing, and the course that you propose is the most likely to give you the desired result: I have heard many say that you are a man of Moses' meekness, Job's patience, Paul's fortitude, John's love and Chesterfield's own swaviter in mode. I shall therefore feel encouraged to say "right on" what I may be able to recollect of having heard of objection against your worthy gospel. Doctor. -- Brother proceed to read the first page of my gospel's preface to the conclusion of the 2d paragraph terminating on the 7th page of the book. (R. B. reads.) Doctor. -- Well, brother, in common justice to you, I must acknowledge that you read with singular directness and perspicuity; now then give me the criticism you have heard on that portion of my preface.8 R. B. -- Well, Doctor, I have heard the old fashioned theological Baptists in America say, and in true yankee style, that it was, "nation queer," not to say silly, for a learned D. D. to sit down to write, and there sit till he had written a "Gospel worthy of all Acceptation," without any intention of making its all-worthy tenets public; or, which is to say the same thing, of publishing them. If this, say they, be truth was it redeeming time, or acting for the glory of God, or doing common service to all men, or special service to the household of faith! But they add, we cannot help believing that the Doctor stumbles from the truth here, for in this same portion of his preface he tells us, that he was "led to the throne of grace for resolution to avow the mind (the tenets of his own gospel) of Christ;" that to avow, those Baptists say, is "to declare openly," and to publish is "to make openly known;" these words being synonymy, they conclude that you palpably contradict yourself on the first page of your worthy gospel. I have heard, however, Doctor, some of your friends suggest, that there may have been much time elapsing between your writing your gospel and being the subject of those doubts and supplications, in which case you are relieved from the charge of self-contradiction: To this those Baptists have observed, that such intimations are as reasonable as to say, that effect precedes the cause; for the Doctor tells us plainly that the same doubts, anxieties, scripture-reading, and missionary doings, that led him to a throne of grace, also prompted him to write his Gospel: so that it must be admitted, that Andrew began to write and pray upon the subject at one and the same time, and that when he began to write his gospel, he began to "pray to the Lord for resolution to avow," or to make it public: this is not only the Doctor's own statement of the case, but the most natural and reasonable course to suppose him to have adopted; and was this not the case, then he must have written his gospel before he had any doubts, or fears, or anxieties, about his being the subject of error, and engaged for his mere amusement, in writing a book to disprove the correctness of his own system of theology. Those Baptists further say, Doctor, that if you waited on the Lord for grace and gift, to find out the errors in the old fashioned theology of the Baptist church, tens of thousands were engaged before you were born in strong cries and groans to God, for a faith free from every heresy and that it was hardly modest even in Doctor Fuller, to expect that more confidence would be placed in the efficacy and results of his prayers, than in those of tens of thousands of the best of men, and most pious of believers. I have also heard them say, that your reference to Elliott's and Brainerd's ministry was not in point, no more than reference to John Wesley's would have been, who decided that Calvinism is not true, and that Arminianism is true, by the toss up of a shilling! and who professed to have made multitudes savingly believers in Christ, by his preaching when he taught, that the doctrine of "imputed righteousness," 9 is imputed nonsense;" or when, ministerially, he forged and published what he called a dying recantation of Augustus Toplady's (the latter lived for years afterwards!) and circulated the forgery among his churches for the benefit of his pious brethren. Besides, they say, the Doctor ought to have proved that Elliott or Brainard ever did make (instrumentally we mean) an evangelical believer of any of the American Indians. That they reformed Indians, and garnished them with some degree of civilization none will gainsay; but that they made any Indian savingly a believer is with them a matter of question, and as you have not given any evidence thereof they presume to set this reference down as pure nihility. * Doctor. -- We shall not pause to remark upon the absurd scepticism here expressed by those American Baptists, sic sentis, sic sentiam is the prison house of their souls, and however fatal may be the consequences of this unbelief, they appear to be past recovery. What say they about the scripture which I quote in this part of my preface? R. B. -- They say, Doctor, that you did not know the import of those passages of scripture, or you were jesuitical when you referred unto them as authority for the "doctrines" of your gospel. But as those passages are, in another part of your gospel, noticed more at large, and the use you design to make of them more apparent and definite, I shall waive noticing their remarks, touching those passages, until we come to your repetition thereof; excepting, that they say, admit the Doctor's interpretation of the passages and say unto all, God commands you to "Kiss the Son -- to repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand -- Repent and be converted that your sins may be blotted out;" and admit that this, when done, amounts to a saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and after all, it does not imply that it is a man's duty to do this, or that his sin and condemnation arises out of his not doing this: neither does it prove that he has any natural ability to do ot: on the contrary, it supposes him in a state of enmity which the carnal heart is proclaimed to be to God throughout the scriptures; in connection with which, we are to remember that it is the prerogative of Jehovah to give repentance through Christ, the exalted Saviour, and that his repentance through Christ the Mediator has been almost universally communicated to the souls of sinners, through the use, or preaching, of such exhortation, and the promulgation of such commandments as are embraced in the passages of scripture referred to. They have been the instrument by, and through which the Holy Ghost has generally wrought salvation in the souls of those "ordained to eternal life:" -- So that what we __________ * If Elliott and Brainerd were so successful in making Indian believers, 'tis strange that a gospel ministry did not arise in the person of some one or more of the native converts, or that none of the saving knowledge which the Indians then received, descended to the children through parental instrumentality! 10 recognize as the sovereignty "ordained instrumentalities of Jehovah an calling in his elect, the learned Doctor writes of as the moral duty of sinners. Further, in putting forth such exhortations and commands as these, God proves that men universally have no will to comply with them, and to his people they sooner or later prove they have no power, though all besides his people will maintain, that men have power at least, if not the will! Doctor. -- Well, Brother, those old-school Baptists in America are certainly bold fellows in assertion, how prudent I do not say, they are certainly not Fall staffs in discretion -- theirs is not the wisdom of the prudent. But read and give their comments on the second page of MY gospel's preface. (R. B. reads) R. B. -- On this portion of your preface, Doctor, I have heard those Baptists remark to the following effect, to wit: The Doctor's "four years doubting, as to whether the sentiment contained in his gospel is true or false can be mentioned, we presume, only as an OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE that his gospel is truth, and demonstratively "Worthy of all Acception!" But this is not doing justice to the argument of the Doctor, for it is not "four years doubting," but four years of INCREASING DOUBTING!" Here, they say, the Doctor becomes an object of our sympathy -- for with us to doubt, even for a day, as to what is truth, is most grievous torment; then what must the poor Doctor have suffered when his doubts, so agonizing even at first, as to drive him to, what he calls, a throne of grace, were four years increasing like Alp heaved on Alp. Here they observe, that peradventure the Doctor unwittingly adverts to this incident in his life to excite his readers sympathies, though by some accident, it appears on the face of his writings as an ARGUMENT for the truth of his gospel! But more seriously, they ask, how was this four years increasing darkness rolled off the Doctor's mind? Was it by the word of God, or the Spirit of God. or at a throne of grace? No. -- How was it then? It was effected by just a baker's dozen of words, uttered by a minister whom the Doctor greatly respected! Here then we learn from the Doctor's own account that as long as he kept to a throne of grace, and the word of God, HIS as to the "doctrines" of his gospel were INCREASING! But that this greatly respected minister's saying became at last the foundation, the SOUL, and substance of the Doctor's gospel. * We may say, "behold what a great matter a little fire kindleth." This is as broad a foundation for faith to rest upon as Wesley's shilling!__________ * When the Doctor got hold of this marvellous saying, his mind became so possessed with the idea of its being infallible, that he felt no hesitancy in judging of, and selecting from, the scriptures, according to the import of that aphorism! Like the yellow jaundice it discoloured, and like the Persian flame it consumed every thing in the Bible but what appeared congenial to its own nature. 11 From the foregoing view of the subject, Doctor, those Baptists are compelled to infer, they say, that had you kept, or been kept, to a throne of grace, and the word of God, your doubtings, as to the truth of your gospel's principles might, yea must, have ended in a full conviction of their erroneousness, and thus have saved you the labour of writing, and the Baptist Society, the pernicious consequences of reading your gospel. But your mighty genius could not be repressed in its instinctive stirrings, after appropriate distinction among the wonders of the world, and took its destined flight of adventure into even theological chaos and old night, to achieve new discoveries, and leave your name among the idols, of what is called christendom. In view, however, of what we have just noticed about your four years doubtings and those Baptists say, that you must have calculated with a D. D.'s sagacity upon the credulity of mankind, when you published your gospel: and that they would The total grist unsifted -- husks and all." Had this not been the case you could hardly have supposed that your gospel would be received without suspicion and, at least, a "four years doubting," too by all professing to be Baptists; or, that they would place, unhesitatingly, confidence in your gospel which, when brought to the word of God and a throne of grace, acquired shade upon shade and cloud upon cloud of darkness. And shrunk from the light, as Satan from the wand of Uriel. * -- And then too, when a mercy seat, and God's own word, had frowned upon it, you brave this and rest the whole upon the saying of a minister whom you respected! † You go on, Doctor, to observe, that this respected minister's remark as to what unbelief is "carried its own evidence in it," and that the opposite of unbelief is "a persuasion of the truth of what God hath said." Those Baptists, Doctor, agree with you in saying, that this remark carries its own evidence in it -- evidence of its being what? UNIVERSALISM! Doctor. -- Universalism! monstrous idea! -- gross absurdity, to suggest such a thing. By what process of reasoning or form of argument do they pretend to make this charge good. R. B. -- By a very simple process if their data be good. Doctor. -- Explain it, Brother, if you can. __________ * Could any one having the fear of God before his eyes, or the bowels of charity for the church, or love for souls, have published and thrust into the world, a volume made up in Egyptian darkness, and which the author himself was increasingly doubting the truth of! † It appears marvellous that what was a subject of so much serious and increasing doubting to the learned Doctor, as to whether it is truth or not, that that book should be hailed with a burst of applause, and that thousands who can scarce put two ideas together, should pretend to understand it at a glance! genius of Arminianism! you can account for all this. 12 R. B. -- The faith that you hold forth, contend for, and so luminously explain in your gospel, is the "one faith," the faith of God's elect, saving faith; in contradistinction to all other faith, is it not? Doctor. -- Certainly -- I must be understood as exclusively treating of, and illustrating that faith. * R. B. -- So those Baptists understand you, Doctor, and then observe, that the faith of God's elect, or saving faith, according to your, and your respected minister's definition thereof, is nothing more or less than believing the word of God to be true: if this be so, say they, then Devils and men, one and all, must and shall at last believe all which God has said is true, for "to Christ every knee shall bow and every tongue confess," and the whole world believe that God sent him according to all the revelation of the Old and New Testaments -- see John 17, 20, 21, where Jesus prays that even the world at last may believe that God sent him! Thus do those Baptists prove, that if your gospel and Christ's both are true, then universal salvation is made out: and the Arminian tribe, should approve and patronize your gospel. Here, they say, your gospel might be thrown aside with sovereign contempt, as positively making some other faith than that of God's elect, saving faith; or that if you mean the faith of God's elect, your definition thereof proves to demonstration your personal destitutions and entire ignorance of that faith. You further remark in this portion of your preface, Doctor, that you had heard and thought that Mr. Sandeman's "notion of faith was a general assent to the doctrines of revelation, unaccompanied with love to them, or a dependence on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation." From this they conclude you mean to be understood as saying, that your notion of faith is a general assent to the doctrines † of revelation accompanied with love to them, and dependence on Christ for salvation. This being understood, and they observe, that, in your note, on the 9th page of your gospel, you inform us, that you "find upon subsequent readings of Mr. Sandeman's writings that he does not plead for a kind of faith which is not followed with love, or by a dependence alone on Christ for salvation." Now let us hear again Doctor Fuller's account of faith, to wit: "it is a persuasion of the truth of what God hath said." -- This is Doctor Fuller's definition of faith; and this faith will no more compare with Sandeman's (bad as it is) than Pharaoh's lean kind, will compare with the fat and well __________ * It is all-important that the reader should bear this fact in mind, to wit: that Fuller's gospel professedly treats of that faith which is the gift of Sovereign grace to the Elect. † There is no such thing as doctrines in the Gospel of Christ -- it is doctrine! -- doctrines is applied to the suggestions of Devils! 13 favoured. But we will suppose the Doctor's faith to have the concomitants of Sandeman's and then they must be the same! But Fuller says they are not the same! for the faith of Mr. Sandeman (and M'Lean) has nothing CORDIAL about it -- i. e. nothing "heartfelt or sincere," and yet, and yet, according to the learned Doctor Fuller's own statement, it is "attended with love and dependent upon Christ;" then how can it be rationally or in truth said to have nothing cordial about it! We are equally posed, say those Baptists, in our attempts to discriminate, or learn the difference between Mr. Sandeman's and Doctor Duller's faith, unless the Doctor's excludes LOVE and dependence upon Christ for salvation! Thus, Doctor, you see those Baptists are ever learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth and harmony of your gospel; and they presume to think and say, that your faith is, at best, not better than Mr. Sandeman's, and it is to be feared much worse, or you would have here given the difference and not have made an appendix, the casket to contain the precious jewels; which appendix they, in order notice, and their remarks thereon, will in due course, become a part of our colloquy. Doctor. -- I shall not interrupt you, Brother, with any reply to such quaint and uncouth criticism -- go on with the next page. (R. B. reads.) R. B. -- To this page, Doctor, they reply, by saying that they do most cordially agree in acknowledging that you speak a volume of truth in saying, or intimating, that the Baptist church in England (and if you please all the rest) "took unconverted sinners too much upon their word, when they told them that they believed the gospel." This declaration of the Doctor's is undoubtedly true, say they, though we doubt whether the Doctor had traced this circumstance to its proper source; or if he had, for some reason known best to himself, though not hard to guess, he left that cause unnoticed.Doctor. -- Do those Baptists in their wisdom pretend to account for the circumstances I mention, and if so, how? R. B. -- Yes, Doctor, they believe and say, that not only have your English Baptists believed the word of unconverted sinners, too much in the case that you advert to, but that your churches had taken shoals of unconverted sinners into their communion upon their mere declaration that they "believed that Jesus is the Christ." That this church-making and professor-making standard of judgment, as to who are believers, originated in the Baptist church from the writings of the Arian Robinson, who was your appropriate pioneer in religious enterprize. This Robinson, they find, taught that whosoever believes that Jesus is the Christ (in any sense) and is Baptised by immersion, is a christian. Upon this doctrine professed Baptists, and Baptist churches, multiplied in England like fish on the banks of New-foundland, 14 so that throughout the society there, an idea generally prevailed, that the whole world was not only about to become christians, but, and what was better, Baptists too! and this idea was encouraged by many good meaning zealous and influential ministers, and also by far more numerous knaves. The case, say those Baptists, has already had a striking parallel in the Western section of the United States of America, where on Campbell and others, are acting out the Arian Robinson's theory and multiplying Baptists faster than the Hebrew woman ever bore children. So that the said Campbell and others are your appropriate pioneers in America, as Robinson was in Great Britain. Already the said Campbell and others have prepared a huge mass of ductile material, and already are your fellow labourers moving forward to the western section of the country to convert that material into churches after your gospel's faith and order. -- A transformation most natural and easy! as easy as to pass from the Quaker to the Pythagorian theology, or vice versa. Indeed, Doctor, those Baptists presume to say, that your gospel and Robinson's writings most harmoniously unite to make converts to the Baptist church with a rapidity that has no precedent in any religious society since the Reformation; and to crown the whole, and that nothing may be lacking, they meet, mingle and unite, to produce a variety in theology equal to the colours of the kaliediscope, and suited to every taste from the swinish Antinomian up to the sublimated, eagle soaring, intellect of the Socinian. Doctor. -- What point, or particular features of resemblance and connexion do they pretend to discover between Robinson's writings and mine? R. B. -- They say, that Robinson represents the simple belief that Jesus is the Christ, and being immersed to constitute a christian; and then Dr. Fuller comes forward and proves it to be the moral duty of all men who hear or can hear the gospel to exercise that faith, (or the Doctor's words, "believe what God says to be true") and be baptized, and the whole backed with this terrible fulmina of the Doctor's, to wit: "God has threatened and inflicted the most awful punishments on sinners for their not believing in the Lord Jesus Christ." * __________ * It is not easy for imagination to conceive of an association of ideas more completely calculated to entice and terrify men and women into the church, than these general notions of Robinson and Fuller's theology afford. The very pride of the human heart (to say nothing of its fears) will prompt men, women, and children to make a profession of faith: for it is not in the nature of man to submit to be looked upon and pointed at as unbelievers and destined to share in a double damnation. It is not, we say, in men to bear this, and a profession is made to SAVE APPEARANCES! -- just as the malefactor going to the gallows, consults appearances to the last, and to that end endeavours to, and is gratified if he can, hide the halter around his neck from the public gaze and appear one of the spectators! Might it not be a great improvement in Fuller's gospel, to introduce the doctrine of triple, quadruple, and higher degrees of damnation -- it would sort so well with the pride of human nature, and the 15 Doctor. -- I wrote against Robinson's Arianism, therefore they have no rational ground for believing me in agreement with the writer. R. B. -- These Baptists admit, Doctor, that you were not wittingly colleagued with Robinson, but they pretend to look further than to you or him in the case, and to regard both of you as mere instruments in the hands of a subtle agent. Doctor. -- Is it possible! and has it come to this, that I am charged with, or even suspected of doing the works of the Devil! I should suppose that there are few who entertain such an idea, and far fewer still, that DARE avow it. R. B. -- Why, Doctor, these Baptists think that your gospel is a false view and interpretation of the faith of God's elect; and if false, they think it must have originated with the father of lies, as they do maintain, that "no lie is of the truth." Thus far they think you did the work of Satan; though at the same time they do not say that you did not mean as well as did Saul of Tarsus, when making havoc of the churches, or as Uzza, when he touched the ark to help the Lord preserve it! They think your gospel was an attempt, on Satan's part, to rob Jehovah of his sovereign grace through your Uzzaizing hands. They know full well, Doctor, that it is made a crime, a kin to blasphemy, to mention even your name irreverently, much less to denounce the theology of your gospel. * And they know, right well too, that to sanctify the memory of the errorist, has ever been one of the Devil's most successful means to circulate and give PERPETUITY to error! The case will be most amply illustrated when we come to notice the comments of those Baptists make on THE PRACTICAL RESULTS OF your gospel; for the present, we proceed with their criticism on the __________ artificial distinctions of this world! Add to which, the charity of the age would soon be gratified in seeing all barriers to open fellowship with the Roman Catholic Church broken down -- we too should soon have our purgatory punishments in all possible variety and countless degrees, as well as a huge store-house full of the works of supererogation. Indeed the theology of the age, among those called Protestants, is little different from that of the Catholics -- as an instance, we have one Joshua Bradley, a flaming Fullerite minister, (and who has made more Fullerite churches than any man in America,) we have him, we say, preaching, that "every man will be judged and rewarded according to his works, and therefore, John Wesley, will have a higher seat in glory than the Apostle Paul, for he did more works than either Paul or any of the Apostles." This same Bradley says, that "Christ was in a state of probation on earth!" These are the scraps of the said Fullerite heresies and lies -- while he himself is a fair specimen of their ministers: What then must be the state of the Baptist church that tolerates thousands of them! * These scenic fulmina -- this mere play-house, thunderings and lightnings begin to lose their effect. Hence the "Columbian Star," instead of having as formerly, a command to aid them in their hair-brained enterprises, and carnal devices, or "suffer the most awful of God's punishments," we now are addressed with, "we most respectfully solicit aid," and we hope the opponents to the cause, will forbear to suggest any thing to our disadvantage and even aid us." Is it the work of God, and yet coming to naught! no -- it is the work of the flesh and *** from first to last, and we say, "down with it." 16 remainder of this portion of your preface. They profess to congratulate you on the satisfaction which you derived from reading "Edwards's Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will." They can readily believe that that volume was to you what the waters of Bethlehem, were to a king of Israel. But as they have never been the subjects of such mountain-like cares and solicitudes to make a line of difference between natural and moral ability in the sinner, and as they have never been overwhelmed with wretchedness and dismay upon the subject, there have been but few among them disposed to wade through the metaphysical labyrinths of "Edwards on the Will." On the contrary, they have thought that the discoveries of the longitude has about as much to do with salvation, as the knowledge of the distinction which the Doctor has, with such immense labour, circumnavigated the mighty deeps of theological polemics to find out. They understand that they are, as men, made up of soul and body; that the soul is not the body, nor the body the soul; that while the body is alive (in a state of nature) after its physical organization, that both soul and body are dead after this moral organization. The soul "chosen in Christ," is quickened while in the body into, not only a moral life, but a spiritual and more exalted life than it had in the first Adam: a life as much superior to its original life, or life in Adam, as the glorified body of Jesus Christ is superior to the body of our first parents in their primeval innocence! * That all this takes place by the eternal Spirit's power, and that we might as well attempt to make it appear, that it was the duty of Adam to make his body like unto Christ's glorified body, as that it was his duty to exercise that faith of God's elect whereby, instrumentally, the soul is changed into the image of Christ's spiritual glory; (See 2 Cor. 3 - 18.) That we are just as much authorized to say from, and can as well prove by the scriptures, that it is all men's duty who hear the gospel or who can hear it, to raise, ultimately, their own bodies from the grave, fashioned like unto Christ's most glorious body, and to give it immortality and eternal life; as we are to say from, or as we can prove by the scriptures that it is the duty of all men, who hear, or may hear, the gospel to transform, or create their souls anew, in that moral and spiritual image of Christ which takes place when the repentance and faith of God's elect are communicated to the heirs of the kingdom! The voice of the arch-angel and the trump of God only can change the body into the glory and immortality of Christ's body, (a) the voice of __________ * Will the admirers of, and advocates for the doctrine of different degrees of glory (the nut shell and the ocean full!) among the saints in heaven prove to us that the bodies of some of the saints will be raised more glorious than others! When that is done they have some evidence that the souls of some believers will have greater glory than others: -- And that some saints will have a body fashioned more glorious, and a soul inheriting more glory than Christ's themselves. intellect of the Socinian (a) John 5 - 25. 17 the Angel of the everlasting covenant, (b) and the trumpet of God in the gospel (c) only, can change the soul into the image of Christ's holy soul! If the foregoing position be legitimately based on Fuller's gospel, then it was the duty of Adam, and it is the duty of all men, to give their souls the glory, immortality, and ETERNAL life of Immanuel's holy soul! -- and their bodies the glory and eternal life of Christ's most glorious body. Not only so, but, according to Fuller's gospel, man has the natural ability, to do the one and the other of those deeds: all that is wanted is the will: Hence, all that is necessary for God to do is, to give us the will, to do our DUTY, and then the salvation is in our own hands both as respects soul and body! Well, suppose God gives the will, then we do our duty, and are saved! If this is not salvation by the deeds of the law, nothing can be. It is not what Christ has done for us, and what God the Holy Ghost does in us, that saves, or makes us meet for heaven, but what God enables us to do; * so that after all we are saved by our works! If such, say those Baptists be not the essential import of Fuller's gospel it has no more meaning -- "than a madman's dreams." And if it be the essential meaning of his gospel no wonder the Arminian ranks shouted at its appearance as the Persians were wont to shout at the rising of the sun. They (the Arminians) could very well allow Fuller to profess himself a Calvinist while he wrote as an Arminian. They would allow him to say, he believed in Election, effectual calling, final perseverance, &c. for they believe in the same doctrine, in their own sense, as Arius believed that Jesus Christ was the son of God, in his own sense! They would allow him to say he believed so, while he was writing to prove, that if sinners did but do their duty, sinners would and must be saved! † But in another part of your gospel, Doctor, those Baptists bestow more particular remark upon the feature of your theology which we have now under notice. I shall therefore simply add, that they say, the Doctor's pretended distinction between natural and moral ability in reference to the soul, amounts in import, to the difference between vital and organic ability in a physical sense. As an instance of illustration, we say -- Doctor Fuller's body is dead! What do we mean by that? -- do we mean to say, that Doctor Fuller's body no longer consists of head, trunk and members, __________ (b) 1 Thess. 4 - 6. (c) 1 Cor. 1 - 24. * It makes no difference, because he (Fuller) admits, that God has to give us the will to believe: the doctrine is the same, i. e. if we believe we do our duty, and if we do that we shall be saved -- If we do what? If we do our duty! If this is not the marrow of Arminianism, what is? † Here, it is presumed, lies the poth of difference between Fullerism and Arminianism, to wit: -- Fullerism says, if sinners did their duty, sinners would be saved, though Christ died not for them! Arminianism says, Christ died for all men that all might be saved if they will but do their duty! Which is preferable? the difference is, as a drivelling fool and rational being! 18 heart, liver, lungs, &c. No! -- we don't mean to say any such thing; for though the Doctor were dead, still, head, trunk, and members, heart, liver, and lungs may exist as individually and tangibly as they did before he died! But we mean by saying that Doctor Fuller is dead, that the vital principle, that put into action and controuled the whole animal economy, is departed from the body: On other words, that the physical, mysterious, and invisible POWER that moved and managed all the springs of the machine is gone! So, when we speak of the soul being dead, we do not mean to say, that the understanding, will, and effections, or the moral faculties thereof, are not in existence, but we mean to say, that the vital principle, the holiness of man's spirit, the POWER that once moved and managed those faculties is extinct: that that (the glory of the moral being as the principle of vitality is of the corporeal being) has departed from the soul and consequently leaves the soul as destitute of POWER and WILL to act morally (in contradistinction to immorality) as the body is destitute of power to act the first moment that the principle of vitality has left it. If it be said the case is not analogous because the soul has power to be immoral and corrupt in its fallen state; we reply, that it may just as well be said of the body, that it has power, when dead, because it decomposes and goes into corruption! by even human means the body may be kept for a season, from that loathsome corruption to which it determines after death; and by God's means are the souls of men kept, for a season, from the hideous moral corruption to which their moral death has given them an unalterable determination; only, as grace, sovereign grace, reigns through righteousness unto eternal life in the elect. Such is the general idea that those Baptists entertain upon the subject: and they amuse themselves at times, Doctor, in proposing to send to you, or the renowned faculty of the Columbian College, the following questions, to wit: -- because a corpse has head, heart, trunk and other members, &c. and appears to be what it ever was in its person, is it therefore evidence that the said corpse has the same power it ever had? again -- What is the difference between the physical power of an Egyptian mummy, preserved in head, trunk and members entire, even to its most natural complexion, and that of the ashes of a Hindoo's body when consumed on the funeral pile? When these questions, say they, are answered and a rational distinction is made out as to the physical power or natural ability in this case, then will we be able to understand, with the learned Doctor, between the natural and moral ability of the soul. They also add -- that which governs and controls a man, physically or morally, (apart from supernatural agency) is HIS POWER! his self-determining ability or power! Doctor Fuller says, it is his WILL that thus governs and controls him * -- his will __________ * It is his WILL that makes him think, speak and act -- must then that not be his natural ability or power, as a moral being? 19 is a natural thing! so that after all, man's natural ability or self-determining power governs him! To which the Doctor adds, that if man's natural ability or power did but influence and controul him then he would do his duty, and doing his duty he would be saved; for he would, by and under the influence of natural ability, believe savingly in Christ! This being the case, and as all men by nature are under the controul of their natural power, then all men will be saved, excepting the elect who renounce and abandon their own power, having no confidence in an arm (power) of flesh. * Doctor. -- Why, Brother, if you report correctly of those Baptists they exhibit, at times, some faint glimmerings of intelligence, reason and argument: What further do they say to this portion of my preface? R. B. -- They further remark, Doctor, that you say, your satisfaction in Edwards's distinction not only arose from its apparent harmony with the scriptures, † but also from its being "calculated to disburden the Calvinistic system of a number of calumnies with which its ENEMIES have loaded it; as well as to afford clear and honourable conceptions of the divine government." That subject which engrossed so much of the solicitudes, and shared so largely of the Doctor's labours, must surely have been a dear and important subject to him -- namely Calvinism! Being thus dear and important to him, he must have (as he elsewhere acknowledges) considered it as embracing the essential truth of the bible. So that Andrew undertakes to disburden the essential truth of the bible of a number of calumnies -- of its enemies too! Well, this eas certainly "attempting great things and expecting great things," more indeed than Jesus Christ or his apostles ever expected or attempted to do, as reference to John 6, 6, 65 -- Rom. 3, 8 -- 1 Cor. 1, 23, will give evidence of: no wonder the Doctor is called the learned, the great, the excellent Doctor Fuller; when he undertakes to convince the "natural man that the things of the spirit are not FOOLISHNESS." But further, the Doctor tells us, that he designs also to "afford clear and honourable conceptions of the divine government;" that is, after it is disburdened of those calumnies! And yet Fuller professes to be a Calvinist, and a defender of Calvinism from the press and the pulpit! He professes, and writes, and preaches according to his declaration in defence of a system of theology, a general interpretation of the bible __________ * Strangely absurd as this reasoning may be, yet Doctor Fuller's gospel embraces it, and much more of the same kind! † What a pity it is that Fuller never thought of giving us even one passage of scripture that says man has the natural ability to believe savingly! 20 which he conceives dies not "afford clear and honourable conceptions of divine government, neither does the ESSENTIAL TRUTH of the gospel afford those conceptions: So that we are irresistibly led to infer, that it is the ESSENTIAL TRUTH of the gospel that the Doctor is dissatisfied with. -- In truth and in fact this appears to us to have been the case, and that Andrew's gospel was written in covert opposition to that essential of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. How "Worthy," then, it must be "of all Acceptation!" So talk these old school Baptists in America, Doctor, and add, that you were truly quixotic to attempt to make the ENEMIES of the essential truth of Christ's gospel drop their calumnies by your gospel; as well might you attempt to charm the serpent to drop its fangs, or the wolf his lamb devouring jaws: and that after the analysis that we have given of this portion of the Doctor's preface, it would be, we conceive, reducing ourselves to infantile credulity, or the drivelling imbecility of idiots, to attach any confidence in his professions of being a Calvinist. On the contrary truth compels us to say, that the same Sejannus face, and jesuitical cunning appears upon the pages of Andrew's gospel, that has ever been the Roman Catholic, and Arminian churches glory to act under, upon the doctrine, that the end SANCTIFIES the means! So audacious, Doctor, are those Baptists in their reflections on your gospel. Doctor. -- Brother Rastrum, you utter forth the rude, crude, language of those Baptists with such a tone of voice and flashing of the eye, that I am afraid you are the subject of feelings which it would be impolitic, if not ruinous to our cause, under its present circumstances, to express. We must bear all this, till we can bear THEM down and tread them under foot with our prosylites; nor will it be long ere we triumph thus gloriously. A thousand engines, and ten thousand instruments are now preparing, or actually engaged, in America, to accomplish our designs. Colleges will arise, theological seminaries multiply, missions be established, associations formed, children be dedicated to the Lord as members of our churches, state conventions created, and a general conversion take place, in all of which we shall find ample instrumentalities to "attempt great things," and to accomplish great things! while numerous religious news-papers, magazines, tracts and circulars will be held up as a rod in terrorem over the heads of those refractory and jacobin Baptists; while faith and order, as well as ministerial character, and personal piety, shall, through these media, be judged of, approved, and condemned, according to the standard which my worthy gospel presents! We must be satisfied, Brother, for the present in having it in our power to laud and extol in due measures, and without controversy, MY gospel, and every one and every thing that looks like it, and that leads to its ascendency! These measures, will attract attention, 21 these things will persuade men, in countless numbers, to rally under our banners. Let these considerations encourage you, Brother, to bear with meekness and in the patience of THE SAINTS, these rude reflections on my gospel. Remember my destiny -- Surgo ut prossim. R. B. -- (aside) Yes -- you will know in the end, Doctor, that I bear not the name of a Regular Baptist, as thousands do, to crawl through and fawn at the feet of Associations and churches, to make Fullerites. Fullerite meekness and patience! Yes, I have seen it most amply exemplified in the persons and societies of your choicest progeny in America; and who are patient as Job when begging money, and meek as Moses, and fawning as spaniels toward every one that they may hope to make subservient to their interest, or the gratification of their vanity; but become very wolves in ferocity, and Persians in assault, when the truth of the gospel of Christ is fearlessly thundered in their ears: Then they can gore and mangle reputation as a feast of fat things: While toward any evangelical Baptist minister, they carry themselves in all supercilious airs and hauteur of a Woolsey. Fullerite meekness and patience! Inquisitorial gentleness, and auto de fe zeal are its counterparts! I know it well; for ten years I have marked it in all its Proteus shapes, and reptile sinuosities at HEAD QUARTERS in America. Doctor. -- Brother, what reverie are you again lost in. R. B. -- I have, Doctor, indulged myself in another momentary musing at the expense of that external deference due to your presence and conversation. My apology is found in the forcible impression made upon my mind from what you last said. The policy and prudence, if those remarks "carried their own evidence with them." If I am not mistaken, Doctor, the Columbian College, theological school, Star, &c. at the city of Washington, in America, are the first ripe fruits of your policy in that hemisphere? I think they have given a lively practical illustration of it so far as I have knowledge of them -- "they are certainly worthy!" Doctor. -- You know my friends, do you, at W.? R. B. -- Right well, Doctor, though they move in such an exalted sphere, and have their eye on such vast objects, that I have necessarily passed by them almost unnoticed and unknown: This I feel to have been so much to my advantage, as it gave me the better opportunity to hear, to see, to marvel, and note down, the very form and body of their mighty mind and great attempts! Doctor. -- You must give me, Brother, a sketch at least of the character and incident connected with that establishment. R. B. -- I will, Doctor, give you in its proper place, not only the sketch that you request, but a full length portrait of all these wonder-working men; for the present I can only assure you, that they have acted out well your policy and prudence; and was it not that they are overwhelmed in debt -- squabbling about the property -- 22 criminating one another -- and suffering young, beardless boys and literary tyros to lead the van in their enterprise, they would, no doubt, achieve great things! Doctor. -- Their pecuniary embarrassments I hope, will soon be removed; as I learn that the New England brethren have promised the College fifty thousand dollars -- this will set them afloat. R. B. -- If the New England brethren's promises are like their theology in value, they are worth just as much as continental money. (aside.) But, Doctor, I must proceed with those old fashioned Baptist's comments on your preface. You next refer to sundry passages of scripture, to shew, in a general way, that it is the duty of unconverted sinners to believe savingly in Christ. Those passages are as follows -- to wit: John 5, 40. "They will not come unto me that they may have life." Pslm. 58, 5. "They will not hearken to the voice of the charmer, charm he ever so wisely." They desire not a knowledge of his ways." Jer. 10, 22. "It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps," Job 14, 4. "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? None! No, not one." John 6, 44. "No man can come unto me except the Father draw him." Ephes. 2, 1. "And you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses." Phil. 2, 12. "For it is God that works in you, both to will and to do." Rom. 7, 18. "To will is present with me, but how to PERFORM that which is good, I know not." Ephes. 1, 18, 20. "Who believe according to the working of HIS MIGHTY POWER," &c. If the passages the learned Doctor quotes, prove man destitute of will, these latter passages prove him equally destitute of power. And who can tell why Fuller did not refer to the scriptures declaring men to be destitute of power, as he did to those referring to the will? Was it ignorance? None will presume to say so! then let those give a name to such dealing with the word of God, and immortal souls, whose vocabulary furnishes a suitable appellative; for our parts, we call such conduct nameless. We can only 23 say, that it is exactly in harmony with the spirit of Arminianism, which is ever trying to make some part of the scripture support its system, though it contradict the tenor of the word of God. Not only is the Arminian spirit found in it, but this gross argumentative absurdity, to wit: that because the scriptures prove man has no will, that therefore it is proved he has power to believe. Upon this principle, we might prove, that because man has no will to believe, he has power to make an angel or a world. * Doctor. -- Well, brother Rastrum, it is generally believed throughout our country, that the Americans are half savages; and really, to judge them by the rude language of those Baptists, one might conclude that Christianity itself makes little or no alteration in their nature; do they practice or know any thing about tatooing? R. B. -- They profess, Doctor, to know the difference between evangelical theology and theological tatooing! though they do not pretend to the practice of the latter. At the same time, they meet with numerous quacks in the art, who want to practice upon them, but they appear to have a sovereign abhorrence for every thing of that sort, willing that these tatooing M. S. A. &c. should make their experiments on themselves or elsewhere if they can; but they protest against their being tatooed, whether they will or not. Doctor. -- Go on, brother, to read the next page of my preface and give their comments. (R. B. Reads.) R. B. -- On this portion of your preface, Doctor, they remark thus, to wit: The Doctor professes to be desirous of "avoiding the magnifying of the subject matter of his gospel into any undue importance;" if so, say they, it is marvellously strange that the learned Doctor should spend so much of his life, and write about five hundred pages, † to prove that to be the sinner's duty, which, he himself acknowledges, God only can ever perform in and for man. In other words: The Doctor says, I want to prove it to be the duty of the sinner to exercise saving faith, though I know he cannot do it. I want to convince all men that it is their duty to exercise saving faith, though none will ever be benefitted by it but the elect, the rest will only be tormented before their time. I want to prove it to be the duty of all men to exercise saving faith, (or be saved) though they are not interested in the blood and righteousness of Christ. I want to prove that all who hear or can hear the gospel, and are not of the elect, will be doubly damned! For what? For hearing, or having had it in their power to hear, the gospel! and because they are not "ordained into eternal life, and because it is not given to them to believe!" I want to prove that it__________ * This notion affords a key of explanation to the celebrated motto, "attempt great things, expect great things." † These five hundred pages embrace his gospel, and the defence of that gospel. 24 is all men's duty to "eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, though I know his flesh is met and his blood drink only to the elect:" a passover, designed, prepared for, and given to Israel only! Or, I want to prove, that there is a saving faith that does NOT feed upon the flesh and drink the blood of Christ! though Christ declares to the contrary! In short, the Doctor wants (as the Ketocton association's circular of 1826 nobly says) to make a decent apology for God in the condemnation of an apostate world, and the exercise of sovereign grace toward his elect; and he stumbles at this stumbling stone, as all Arminians do -- he beats the air -- he sows to the wind! To say, therefore, that none can believe or will be saved but the elect of God, that all the world besides are left in their sins, but that their not believing unto salvation doubly damns them, is, indeed, to blend the incoherent dreams of a madman with the delusion and lies of Arminianism. The attempt proclaims a speculating head united with an unregenerate and gross Arminian heart! This is making the gospel the greatest of curses to mankind. If these things were so, Europe and America, Asia and Africa might well curse they day they heard, saw or touched the gospel. And yet those notions of Fuller's are hailed with almost universal and obstreperous acclamations -- Wherefore? Because those notions imply that the gospel is a remedial law; that it offers terms and conditions to the sinner for his salvation! That is the secret of Fuller's popularity, as sure as Fuller had a soul! What a comment on the strength of nature's Arminianism! Mankind can as instinctively find that out as the blind puppy can find its mother's paps; they can scent that out though wrapped up in all the sophistry of Fuller's gospel, and having THEIR IDOL there (in that gospel) they worship and adore, shout over, praise and bless it, though it doubly or trebly damn them! Such is the potency of nature's Arminianism -- alias the "natural ability" of man! If the foregoing is not magnifying a subject beyond its proper bounds, nothing can be. In contradistinction to this, the old fashioned Baptist ministers spend their time in preaching, that faith is the "gift of God" (a) produced by the "operation of God," (b) Who of us acts the wisest part, we leave others to judge. But here we might ask, did ever Fuller's gospel benefit one sinner? Did it ever feed or nourish one saint? Never! It may have amused the speculative brains of a few, and excited the natural fleshy fears and sympathies of many; but no child of grace ever found it to his new man any thing more than a cordial than the breast of an Egyptian mummy could afford nutriment to a suckling child: as in the latter case, however, the child would exhaust and irritate itself in attempting to get some nutriment from the withered paps, so saints have found themselves exhausted and provoked in trying to draw consolation from Fuller's gospel. Fuller would put all the __________ (a) Ephes. 2, 18. (b) Col. 2, 12. 25 Baptist ministers upon preaching his gospel all their lives, though according to his own acknowledgment, it would do no other good than to prove it to be the sinner's duty to exercise saving faith, which faith, after all, God must give him, or he will not be the subject of it. If this is not one means of Satan's to suppress, and, if possible, extinguish an evangelical ministry, there never was one. Too fearfully has that gospel of Fuller's succeeded in this respect; at least it has thrust into the Baptist church in America two preachers after its own genius, where there is one sound orthodox minister. Nor is it to be forgotten, that to the devil it is a matter of no concern what __________ * Perhaps the writer is justified in saying that from twenty to thirty young men have been sent out of the Fullerite college at Washington, as ministers and not one evangelical preacher among them that the writer has ever heard of. Many of them he knew personally, and they were more fit for a Methodist camp meeting, than to be pastors of Baptist churches. † The apostate world will ultimately stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and, according to Fuller's gospel, we may suppose the following dialogue to take place: Christ -- Depart from me ye workers of iniquity into everlasting fire. Apostate World -- For what? Christ -- For not exercising saving faith in me, and thus doing your duty. Apostate World -- Believe in you as what? Christ -- As and atonement and righteousness! 26 ever maintained these two principles: all this is evil is of the creature, and to him belongs the blame of it; and all that is good is of himself, and to him belongs the praise of it. To acquiesce in both these positions, says the Doctor, is too much for the carnal heart. To yield both these points to God, is to fall under the grand controversy with him, and to acquiesce in his revealed will, which acquiescence includes repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ." Here again, if the Doctor speaks true, we have Universal Salvation made out; for devils and men, one and all, must at last yield both these points, acquiesce in both these positions, and become subjects of the Doctor's own repentance and of the Doctor's own faith: and if that repentance and faith: and if that repentance and faith saved the Doctor, it will also save them, unless the same cause produces not the same effect, or salvation should be found an arbitrary act of God! In speaking of the Arminian, the Doctor says, "he (the Arminian) does not conceive his fault to lie in being in a state of alienation and aversion to God; but in not making the best use of the grace of God to get out of it." Such, then, Fuller declares to be the CHARACTERISTIC FEATURE OF ARMINIANISM, and which we will compare with his own darling proposition, to wit: "It is the DUTYMOST AWFUL punishment, because they did not fulfil this duty!" Here then we find the Arminian refers the sinner to the improvement of the grace or power which God hath given him to do his duty, or savingly to believe. Doctor Fuller refers the sinner to his natural ability or power, as being equal to the performance of his duty, or savingly to believe. The former refers to God for power and will to perform the duty, the latter refers to God simply for the will! Which of the two notions is the best theology, let them decide whom it concerns; for our part, we __________ Apostate World -- Was you our atonement and righteousness? Christ -- No! I neither died nor prayed for you: I never knew you! Apostate World -- Was there salvation out of an interest in your blood and righteousness? Christ -- None! For without the shedding of my blood, there was no remission of sins. Apostate World -- What would be the consequence if sinners should be saved without respect to and an interest in your blood? Christ -- Righteousness and truth, the pillars of Jehovah's throne, must fall. Apostate World -- So then, it was our duty to believe such a lie as involves the prostration of Jehovah's throne, and believe this too that we might be saved. Fuller -- Apostate World! Did I not add, that faith was not only a persuasion of the truth of all that God had said, but that it embraced a cordial and loving belief of that truth Apostate World -- We did, and we do, embrace your gospel as the truth, and cordially too; we have your faith; we believe all that God has said to be true, excepting that he would damn us, and that we need not believe because he can save without respect to the blood and righteousness of Christ, or to his own righteousness and truth. Doctor, stand by us, for we shall want all your wisdom to contest our cause here! 27 would prefer to spend our lives in urging the sinner to hope for salvation, by the improvement of the grace or power that he supposes God gives him, than to spend them in teaching the sinner that all he wants of God, is a will, that he has a natural ability or power sufficient. The Doctor couples the Antinomian and Arminian together as being equally destitute of grace! To this sentiment we have no particular objection, though the Doctor, in preparing the second edition of his gospel, (which is the one we criticise upon) ought to have recollected that he was indebted to all the Semi-Arminians and Arminians in Christendom, for the eclat attending his gospel, and have made, if possible, some shade of difference in favour of his friends; but, like the chief butler in the case of Joseph, he forgot the debt of gratitude in his exaltation. The Doctor adds, "the Arminian and the Antinomian are united in supposing that no DUTY can be REQUIRED where no grace is given!" Well, this notion is certainly worthy of, and in entire harmony with, the Doctor's gospel; but the converse of the position is the truth and the fact. The Arminian says, "where no grace is given, no duty can be required." While the Antinomian says, "because grace is given, no duty is required!" The former says, "improve the grace given -- do and live." The latter says, "that grace is given, we therefore have nothing to do! But why did the Doctor allow himself to pen down such a palpable blunder? rather, what could have induced him to venture such a false statement? It was, we presume, that it might be understood, that all who differ from him in the Baptist Church, under the profession of the Calvinistic faith, are Antinomians, because they won't admit that it is the impenitent sinner's duty to exercise a saving faith. He would have his readers believe that because we deny it to be the sinner's duty to save himself, that the sinner owes no duty to God! And to this effect vociferate or insinuate the numerous, noisy, bustling tribe of his prosylites against every old fashioned evangelical minister who may chance to pass through or found their noisy Babel, and to the end that they may, if possible, extinguish such a ministry. Thus blunt and impertinent, Doctor, do those Baptists speak of your worthy gospel's preface, and of that gospel's numerous friends. Doctor. -- Brother Rastrum, you appear to have a tenacity of memory over and above what you conceived yourself to be the possessor of. There only remains now unnoticed of my preface, those "particulars" wherein I profess to agree with the leading sentiments of those Baptists themselves. I suppose they take no exception to those particulars. R. B. -- Yes, Doctor, they even cavil at those particulars: they say the Doctor's profession of agreement is one thing, and the reality or fact is entirely another; but I will read the 'particulars,' and give you their remarks 28 (R. B. reads.) To the foregoing, those Baptists say: -- the Doctor tells us in the first "particular" that there is no dispute about the doctrine of election, &c. From this, we learn that Fuller professes to believe in election as the Baptist church believes, and the Calvinistic faith holds forth. And what does election, or being chosen in Christ Jesus from all eternity mean in its evangelical sense, and according to the Calvinistic and the regular Baptist faith? It means a being chosen to salvation from the condemnation of the law, and a deserved hell, through the blood and righteousness of Christ; and from sin, through the sanctification of the Spirit, and the belief of the truth in the faith of God's operation. This election presupposes what the scriptures abundantly reveal, namely, that all "the world are guilty before God -- the whole human race under the condemnation of the law, and that sentence of death has passed upon all men, for that all are guilty, and have come short of the glory of God: doomed, by law and justice, (for original transgression, and as the subjects therefrom, of a very devil's nature -- being ENMITY itself in their hearts against God!) to death, spiritual and eternal: and that their doom is as irreversibly fixed as that of the fallen angels, excepting the "election of grace," or as many as the Lord our God shall call from darkness to light, and from the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of his dear Son! This salvation, then, embraces the "redeemed from among men, those chosen out of the world;" and saves them from the condemnation of the law, the pains of hell, and the power and pollution of sin. To this end, and that this great salvation may be accomplished, "the world and all which it inherits" does exist; as, says an apostle, "all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or the world, or life, or death, all things are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." If these things be so, say those Baptists, then, according to Doctor Fuller's gospel, because Jehovah continues the world in its day and generations (thirty-three years) on the earth, to the end that he may ultimately gather together his elect from the four winds of heaven, through the blood and righteousness of Christ, and by giving to their souls in rich, sovereign grace, that evangelical repentance and faith which makes them vitally members of Christ's mystical body -- new creatures -- children and heirs of God; "therefore," says Fuller's gospel, "it is the duty of all men who hear, or can hear, the gospel, to rescue themselves from their condemnation, and from the pains of hell, and to exercise the same saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, as do his elect, though they are not interested at all in the blood and righteousness of Christ!" * Not only is it their duty to do this, but the same world is declared by Fuller to be possessed of the natural ability__________ * 1 Cor. 3, 21, 23. 29 or power to perform it; * and to perform it too out of an interest in the blood and righteousness of Christ! Had the Psalmist lived till this time, he would have had no longer occasion to ask "what is man?" He would have learned from Fuller's gospel that man has natural ability to exercise saving faith in Christ, though Christ never died or prayed for him! and that it is man's duty to exercise that faith. In other words, that man has power to create himself anew, make himself a king and priest unto God -- a holier, higher, nobler being than the loftiest angel that worships before the throne of God and of the Lamb -- or nothing less than a child of God -- bone of Christ's bone, flesh of his flesh, heir of God, and joint heir with Jesus Christ. That all this it is the sinner's duty to perform, and that all that is wanting, is but an item of will thus to put forth his power! Verily, the populace at Herod's judgment seat, when they cried out, saying, that he spake with the voice of a God; or Canute's courtiers, when they told him that he was the God of the stormy seas, to control them at his nod, these, we say, were but school boys in the science if flattery, compared with the learned Doctor Fuller, who makes it appear, that men have not only power or natural ability to get to heaven if they will, but they have power to get there if they will, independent of an interest in the blood and righteousness of Christ -- to get there in despite of the eternal decree of election and trampling on the "righteousness and truth" of Jehovah! And to cap the climax of this wonderful proposition, it is made the DUTY of all men, who hear, or may hear the gospel, to be saved, and get to heaven by trampling on the "righteousness and truth" of Jehovah; or independent of an interest in the blood and righteousness of Christ! What a "worthy gospel" that must be that holds forth such doctrine! What a pity it is that men have not a will to put forth their natural ability! At least, so may the Fullerites say, and give themselves up to lamentation greater than that in Ramah, because sinners will not thus be saved. † But, for our part, we say, if such be the state of the case, thank God that men are destitute of all will to put forth and act out this tremendous natural ability or power. Doctor. -- (aside). These creatures have gathered together some terrible reflections upon the veracity and sincerity of my profession __________ * It is very well that men have no will to put forth this power, or they might make "new creatures" of an order ad infinitum, until heaven itself might tremble. † The editor of the "Columbian Star," (B. Stow,) a Fullerite, is wont to say in his sermonizing, that "the Lord Jesus Christ is weeping in heaven over sinners, because they won't repent and be saved." And one Joshua Bradley, another Fullerite, preaches, that "the very bosom of God is stabbed by sinners, in their rejection of the gospel." The stabbing, we suppose, is to account for the weeping. What a ghastly looking object their God must be by this time. Juggernaut must be a very Apollo himself, compared with their God. This is a sample of the Fullerite ministry. 30 of the Calvinistic faith; nor are they less appalling in the suggestions they have just made against my theology. I shall have to defend, my "defence," at least enlarge upon it, and "argue still." R. B. -- Doctor, are you weary of hearing the critical jargon of those Baptists? You appear to be flagging in your patience. But in a few more minutes we can go through with the preface -- shall I go on? Doctor. -- Go on, Brother, go on, I am abundantly entertained, and, as you may suppose, vastly edified -- go on. R. B. -- You say, Doctor, "It is granted that none ever did or will believe in Christ, but those who are chosen of God from eternity." Here those Baptists ask -- does the Doctor mean those who are chosen to believe? we presume so! but the important question is, what is it they are chosen to believe? According to Fuller's gospel they are chosen to believe that all that God has spoken is the truth -- that those who do or shall believe to this effect are the elect -- ergo, men and devils are the elect! for they, one and all, shall believe that "God is true." let those who will be a liar. Universalism again! If the Doctor attached a pure Calvinistic meaning to the language now under consideration, then we say, it was poor and puerile employment to be all his life time trying to convince men (argumentum ad hominem) that it was their duty to perform that which he knew they never could perform. Why not proclaim the awful truth in their ears, and preach Jesus Christ as he only, who could work in them both to will and to do! as it is, it looks like the Catholic mode of getting ro Christ, o. e. through the intercessions of their numerous saints. Besides, it was but spending his life in preaching the law of works. If it was not practical Arminianism there never was any such thing. The Doctor next tells us, "the question (of difference) does not turn upon what are the causes of salvation, but rather what are the causes of damnation." But stop. Doctor, they say, not quite so fast in round assertions; for we have proved to demonstration that you make the believing of what God has revealed IS truth, to be a saving faith! that you make out the salvation of devils and men upon that doctrine -- that you make out salvation without any interest in the blood and righteousness of Christ -- that you make out salvation by the natural power and supernatural will. These things constitute your causes of salvation! Now there is just as wide a difference between these causes of salvation and ours as the gulph that separates Dives and Lazarus is wide; though we know it answered the Doctor's purpose to make that declaration, that is was designed as a bandage for our eyes, that the Doctor might more successfully play the game of blind man's buff with us. We know not which to marvel at the most, the Doctor's temerity in making, or the credulity and folly of the Baptists in believing, the assertions. The Doctor might just as well have told us what 31 Elias Hicks (the Quaker) and John Wesley, tell their societies respectively (with an occasional interchange of their commodities!) when the former says, that "the blood of a dog is of as much value in the salvation of the soul, as the blood of Christ," and the latter, when he teaches (through his writings and his followers,) that the "imputed righteousness of Christ is imputed nonsense." He might just as well have told us, that the blood and righteousness of Christ are superfluous things, for the Doctor demonstrates that the belief, that what God reveals is truth, would be saving faith, to the final impenitent -- that is, did the final impenitent but believe truly that Christ died not, neither intercedes for him, then the final impenitent would be saved! which, in fact, is saying, that if the final impenitent had only believed that with God, there is yea and nay, and that his word contradicts itself and tells lies, he, the finally impenitent sinner, would have had a saving faith * From the foregoing remarks, Doctor, you will perceive how wide the difference is between your ideas of the causes of salvation, and the idea of those regular Baptists. They add, -- the man who could write and publish such a declaration must have been a theological or polemic desperado, determined to ascend the throne of theological dominion, though he plunged his poniard in the vitals of his unsuspecting and confiding brethren, and made their bodies stepping stones in his ascent. They also say, Doctor, that there is one cause of salvation and one cause of damnation, (and no more) noticed or spoken of in the bible -- the causes of damnation and the causes of salvation are phraseology exclusively belonging to the Arminian school. "Sin is the cause of damnation, and sin is the transgression of the law;" -- "and salvation is of the Lord," he is the cause, the Alpha and Omega in and of it! a pretty bible we should have if it if we were allowed to convert singular nouns, pronouns and verbs into plural ones, and vice versa! But more of this, Doctor, anon, I shall simply add, that they say, if this changing of the cause [to] causes, doctrine to doctrines, &c. is not adding to the scriptures nothing can be. What you quote from Charnock, Doctor, those Baptists say, does but very remotely concern them, neither the multifarious and conflicting notions of different writers which you bring into view, in your gospel in the form of extracts from their writings. They are not ignorant, they say, of the importance of having numerous witnesses brought forward for the support of a bad cause, or a false gospel: neither, say they, are we ignorant of the policy connected with an author's gathering around him a phalanx of the church's worthies, as one with him in sentiment, by embodying extracts from their writings in his own works, and saying highly complimentary things of the sentiment those extracts may contain. In such a case if the author be attacked, defeated and __________ * The writer hopes that the repetition of these wretchedly absurd notions positively implied in Fuller's gospel will not be considered irrelevant -- they cannot be too well remembered against the Heretic's gospel. 32 overthrown, then he falls in noble company; and for defending, ostensibly, the sentiments of those worthies. If he maintains his ground and triumphs over his opponents, then the laurels are all his own. But these Baptists profess also, that they are not ignorant of the fact, that the ever varying energies of the human mind, and more particularly the imperfection of human language, make it extremely absurd and unjust to judge of a writer's sentiments from trifling extracts taken from his writings; that we might as well judge of the character of the sun from the spots discernable on his disk, or of a man's character from some few agreeable or disagreeable expressions dropped in the course of an argument. * These remarks, Doctor, may serve to show you in what estimation those Baptists hold your numerous quotations from the writers noticed in your Gospel. They know it is calculated upon, that whosoever denounces your Gospel will be cried down as the presumptuous opponent and wicked reviler of the learned and eloquent Charnock, the acute, logical, and orthodox Witherspoon, &c. &c.; and that Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists, and other professing societies, will be roused to an inquisitorial dealing with such a denouncer, and his writings be set down as the ravings of a maniac. They pretend to see through this mantle of finesse and authorship trick, and they profess to despise the mental dishonesty that can act such a part, and that they feel sovereign contempt for the mental imbecility of those who have little or nothing more of argument to oppose to the truth than such scraps of quotation. † These considerations, they conceive, warrant them to decline noticing the extracts you make from other authors' writings, and to confine their criticisms to what properly belongs TO YOU and the Scriptures that you quote: at the same time they assert, that Charnock does not say, in the passage which you quote, that man has the natural ability to exercise saving faith, or that it is man's moral duty to exercise saving faith -- he merely says, man will not; and so say the scriptures; and the scriptures equally assert that man's power is perfect weakness, (as we have shown) whether Charnock or you admit it or not. To your "second particular," they objected as follows, to wit -- 1st. If by "sinners," here the Doctor means the world in contradistinction __________ * The foregoing remarks are designed only to apply to the writings of those who are notoriously sound in fundamentals; where writers are notoriously unsound in fundamentals, (as we conceive Fuller to be,) then the converse of that rule is to be acted upon; we are to suspect even what is good in itself, and that upon the same principle that we judge a man to be a rogue, when found in the company of rogues! † To the writer Fuller in his Gospel, propped up and bolstered therein, as he is, with the fair name of numerous worthies in the church of Christ, appears like Henry the 8th, or Louis the 18th, distended with voluptuousness, bloated with lechery, and putrescent with disease, supported and moved about in a go-cart by the hands of virgin innocence and beauty. What Henry and Louis were corporeally, Fuller, in his Gospel, is theologically! They, loathsome as they were, reign'd as Kings -- Fuller also would reign as a King. 33 to the church of God, then what he says is true; for that world has not, nor ever will have any "interest" in the spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. But if the Doctor includes the elect, as he no doubt does, then he is as radically heterodox and opposite to Calvinism as ever mortal could be -- let the following passages from scripture testify against him, to wit. Tit. 1. 2. "In hope of eternal life which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began." 2 Tim. 1. 9. "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which (the grace) was given us in Christ Jesus, before the world began." Ephes. 1. 3. 4. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings, &c. -- according as he hath chosen us in him from the foundation of the world, &c." Thus it is most manifest, that because the elect had life, spiritual and eternal life, and grace, and all spiritual blessings given them in Christ from before the foundation of the world, and this life, and this grace, and these spiritual blessings, were secured to them in Christ, by and through their being interested in that one offering of himself, whereby the captain of salvation forever perfected the redemption of them whom the Father had sanctioned or set apart as his elect: and because of their interest in these things they became partakers of an holy calling -- the divine nature, and heirs of the Kingdom. Repentance, and faith, and hope, and every grace, the elect are made recipients of, because they have had an interest in them through Christ Jesus from before the foundation of the world! It having pleased the Father, that in him for them all fulness of grace and truth should dwell; though only when these blessings are communicated to the souls of the elect do they have the consciousness and enjoyment thereof. It would be really ridiculous to say, that an infant, because it is unconscious of an interest in a patrimony that, therefore, it has no interest in it, or none until it becomes conscious of it. Does the sanctification, or setting apart of the chosen ones, by God the Father, give them no interest in Christ, or in the riches of grace in him? Does this preservation by providence in Christ Jesus to the end and until they are called into spiritual life, light, and salvation from sin give them no interest in the unsearchable riches of grace in Christ Jesus? (See Jude 1.) Yes, these things are grand constituents of that grace however much the "vessels of mercy" may be unconscious of them until Jesus be revealed the hope of glory in their souls. What the Holy Ghost reveals Jesus to be to the souls of God's elect, that, in every jot and tittle, Jesus was to them before he was thus revealed -- that is, Jesus Christ, "wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption," to his people, "yesterday, to-day, and forever!" If such be the true state of the case then we, say those Baptists, can only pity Doctor Fuller's ignorance when he says, or insinuates, 34 that the elect have no interest in the grace which the gospel reveals in Christ Jesus until they believe! whereas their very interest in that grace secures to their souls the gift of faith, and all the consequent joy and peace in believing. You observe, Doctor, that you are "fully convinced that the elect with all men are under the curse whatever may be the secret purpose of God concerning them." But, Doctor, say those Baptists, what if by the secret purpose of God they are positively redeemed from the curse of the law -- can they nevertheless be under the curse though positively redeemed from it? But again, if the elect be under the curse of the law Christ has not redeemed them, he has not been made a curse for them. If such be the case and the elect continue under the curse of the law, to-day they will continue under it to-morrow and forever, unless something is done to redeem them from it more than ever has been done! Christ's dying did not redeem any sinner from under the curse of the law, according to Fuller's gospel, then what under the heavens is to do it? Some secret purpose of God, the Doctor suggests, will accomplish it. * If the Doctor means any thing it must be, that the elect must believe in Christ 'ere they can be redeemed from the curse -- that that believing is the term and condition upon which they are redeemed from the curse. The fact however is, that because Christ has redeemed them from the curse of the law they are "made partakers of the like precious faith" with apostles -- and the gift of that faith to their souls is the evidence that they are redeemed from the curse of the law; hence, says Jehovah, "deliver them from going down to the pit for I have found a ransom." And says Jesus. John 10. 15 -- "I lay down my life for the sheep," that is, to deliver them from the curse. Isaiah 53. 11 -- "By his knowledge (in obedience and suffering,) shall my righteous servant justify (i. e. deliver from the curse) many." Rom. 8. 52, 54 -- "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? it is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? it is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again," &c. That is, Christ died to redeem his people from the curse, yea rather, is risen again to demonstrate that they are DELIVERED from the curse! And, says the same apostle, "when we were yet sinners Christ died for the ungodly;" that is, for those who live without God and hope in the world until transformed by the renewing of their minds. But believers are not ungodly -- they are partakers of the divine nature -- they are born and begotten of God in the image of his Son; then, if Fuller's and Christ's gospel both be true, Christ did not die for believers for they are godly: neither did he die for the ungodly; __________ * Can any human being tell what the Doctor means by this language, unless by the secret purpose of God he means some arbitrary doing of Jehovah -- a doing irrespective of law and justice? And by which the sinner shall be delivered from the curse! 35 he did not redeem them from the curse of the law, for they are unbelievers, and, according to Fuller's notion, they remain under the curse of God's law! And then Christ died for no one and for nothing. * How immensely different is all this jargon from the word of God already cited; add to which, the same word declares, that "there is no condemnation to them in Christ Jesus." And who are in Christ Jesus?" ALL that the Father hath given" him! When may they be said to have been made interested in him? "Chosen in Christ from the foundation of the world; that they should be holy and without blame before him in love," by walking after the Spirit! the law (or ordained office work) of which Spirit is, to make those in Christ free from the law of sin and death. The elect, then, are not only interested in the redemption that is in Christ, and delivered from the curse of the law, before they are conscious of it, or made believers in Christ, but they are equally interested in "the law," or ordained office work of the Spirit before they are conscious of it -- while their consciousness of both these things is only evidence to them of their previous interest therein; and the fruits of righteousness, which follow, are evidence to others of the said interest. To your third and fourth "particulars," Doctor, they reply thus, to wit -- To the Doctor's question here we answer no! It cannot be the duty of an upright, innocent being to exercise the faith of God's elect, or saving faith, in Christ Jesus. In proof of this they observe -- If an intelligent creature be not a sinner he cannot feel the want of, or desire an interest in, a Saviour. If he be not guilty he cannot desire or feel the want if an atonement -- if not not unrighteous he cannot feel or desire an imputed righteousness" -- if not unholy and unclean he cannot feel the want of sanctification -- if not in spiritual darkness he cannot feel the want of light and wisdom -- of not in bondage he cannot feel the want of redemption. He cannot believe that Jesus Christ is or can be any one of these things to him! To say that it is the duty of an upright, holy being to believe that he wants these things, and that another being is these things to him, would be to represent his duty to consist in believing lies! Now, saving faith must consist in believing Christ to be this to our souls, or in believing him to be this to the souls of others! Of it be in believing the former then the world (in contradistinction to the elect) and devils can never believe: If it consists in believing the latter then the world and devils will, one and all, have saving faith, for they will, one and all, ultimately, see and believe to this effect. In other words, it cannot be the duty of an holy, upright being to believe that another being is its atonement, righteousness, &c. because it would be believing __________ * We would that some of the erudite Fullerites would inform us, how or when God's elect are to be redeemed from the curse of the law, if they are at "present under that curse." For, according to Fuller's gospel, they are not redeemed from the curse before they believe; and after they believe they are not ungodly, and want no redemption! 36 lies -- and yet Fuller's gospel says, that such a being's duly is to give a cordial reception to whatever plan God shall, at any period of time disclose, and that the cordial reception of God's plan and hearty belief of it, as truth, constitutes saving faith. If this be so then the credence of an holy, upright being in what God reveals is saving faith, though that being can never feel a want of, or a desire after, Christ as an atonement, righteousness, &c. If such be the case, then the faith of the holy, upright being must consist in believing Jesus Christ to be an atonement, righteousness, &c. to others -- and this is saving faith -- then devils and men will and must at last be possessors of saving faith. * But, again, in these questions the learned Doctor gives us to understand that the fulfilment of the law is cordially to embrace (as truth) whatever God reveals, and this persuasion of the truth of what God hath said IS FAITH! Well, suppose we fulfill the law, what then? why we exercise saving faith -- ergo, we are saved by fulfilling the law! Again, all who are or shall hereafter be persuaded of the truth of what God hath said, † they will exercise faith, they will have fulfilled the law; all intelligent beings shall ultimately do this -- ergo, all will be saved! If there is not Arminianism and Universalism in these two "particulars," there never was such doctrines taught. Whosoever exercises faith, he says, fulfills the law, and by this faith or fulfilling the law, he shall be saved: as to whether he, the sinner, does it by his own or by God's power, that does not alter the case, as we have elsewhere said, it is still salvation by the deeds of the law -- and what is better, all in the end will fulfill the law by believing that God is no liar, but that all he hath said is true. What a wonder of wonders it would have been if Fuller's gospel had not met with a favorable reception, or a general burst if applause from the world and covert pharisees -- 'tis so natural -- so amply furnished with the savoury venison of Arminianism and Universalism! To your fifth "particular," Doctor, those Baptists observe: We have said as much to the doctrine of "natural ability, and moral indisposition, as we shall say, until we come to notice it in that proposition in which the Doctor presents it in full." The Doctor here represents the sin of man to consist entirely in not believing the gospel, and that their obligation to believe must be "insisted on, that they may be convinced of their sin, and so induced to embrace the gospel remedy." Their moral obligation is to believe! __________ * In these, third and fourth, particulars we see how profoundly dark Fuller's mind was, when he wrote his gospel, as respects the conviction of sin and righteousness, of or that SELF KNOWLEDGE upon which only the faith of God's elect can be grafted, and in the absence of which the most learned are ever learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus Christ! † It is to be borne in mind that Fuller defines faith to be "a persuasion of the truth of what God hath said," (see page 8 of his gospel,) nor can we admit that his subsequent, "cordial, sincere, hearty," and other adjective expletives make his definition any more evangelical. 37 If they believe then they fulfil their moral obligation! Yes, says Fuller, but God only can enable them to fulfil their moral obligation! admitted! But then it is still salvation by the discharge of their moral obligation! Not only so, but God enables them to save themselves by the fulfilment of their moral obligation; by the deeds of the law, though God himself has declared, that "by the deeds of the law, no flesh living shall be justified;" and that, "not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ before the world began," he doth save us and call us, (2 Tim. 1, 9.) The gospel convinces of sin! The Holy Ghost says -- "sin is the transgression of the law by the law is the knowledge of sin;" and an apostle says of himself -- "I had not known sin, except the law had said, thou shalt not covet;" and again -- "the commandment (of the law!) came, sin revived, and I died," that is, the apostle died to all Doctor Fuller's notions about being saved by the fulfilment of moral obligation! Alas! It is to be feared, that when the Doctor wrote his gospel he had not tasted of that death which the apostle died when the commandment came. "Gospel remedy!" say those Baptists -- why the gospel is the remedy, and the remedy is the gospel! We know nothing about the gospel remedy; we know of God's remedy, and that remedy is the gospel revealed to the elect by the Holy Ghost, "from faith to faith." The Doctor tells us, that they that are in the flesh cannot please God; and it is true, for the scriptures declare it so. The question is, what does the Holy Ghost mean in this passage of scripture referred to by the Doctor? That the meaning which the Doctor gives it is not what the Holy Ghost designs we can abundantly prove. The Doctor thinks it means, that God is no more pleased with the elect while in a state of nature, than with the apostate world. On the contrary, it is written, Jer. 31, 3 -- "I have loved thee with an everlasting love." 1 John 3, 1 -- "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us." Prov. 8, 31 -- "My delight (i. e. my elect) was with the sons of men." "Thou hast loved them," (the elect) says the captain of our salvation to the Father, "as thou hast loved me: neither pray I for these sheep (saith the great high priest) alone, but for all whom thou hast given me, that they may be one with us and behold my glory," (John 17, 20, 23.) Now, God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, must have been pleased with them even while in a state of nature, or such language could never have been used in reference to them; nor may we omit to notice, that if Jehovah had not been pleased with the elect in Christ, they never could have been made the heirs of the kingdom, or sons of glory. The elect were in Christ before the foundation of the world, and therefore in the world HE must be revealed IN them the "hope of glory;" they are bone of his bone, fles |