and compiled on these subjects, the discourses he delivered,-and the journeys he accomplished, to extend the knowledge and to promote the welfare of the mission, required energy almost unequalled.' In short, the history of Mr. Fuller's life for the last three and twenty years, was so completely identified with that of the mission, that all its principal transactions must be referred to his agency. He was of himself a host, and no one man can supply his place. The mission to India was in a great measure his own production; he formed and moulded it with exquisite skill, watched over and directed all its movements, and seemed to be present in every place where its effects were visible. It grew up with him, and was inwrought into the very elements and constitution of his mind; he seemed to have no thoughts, no cares, but what related to its interests. In serving the mission, he had no idea of sparing himself; but while his health was constantly impaired by the greatness of his exertions, he persevered in them with unabating ardour to the very last. He appears indeed to have expected that these labours would have cost him his life, but it affected him not; and had it not been for the unusual strength and vigour of his constitution, he would have fallen a sacrifice much sooner than he did."-Memoir, pp. 107, 156, 157.

After some months of previous indisposition, the arduous and truly honourable career of this excellent man, terminated on the morning of the Lord's day, May the 7th, 1815.

Although many of our readers must have read the statements of his last moments, which have been very extensively circulated, we cannot deny ourselves the melancholy pleasure of putting them upon record in our Journal.

As his end drew near, he complained of great depression and sinking, saying he must die. A friend replied, I know of no person, Sir, who is in a more happy situation than yourself; a good man, on the verge of a blessed immortality.' Mr. Fuller humbly acquiesced, and hoped it was so. He afterwards lifted up his hands, and exclaimed, “I am a great sinner, and if I am saved, it must be by great and sovereign grace-by great and sovereign grace!"

His mind continued full of hope; and though he felt nothing approaching to rapture, yet the closing scene was such as strikingly displayed the triumph of his faith. Dropping now and then a few words, he was heard to say that he had nothing to do but to dieand again repeated, "I know whom I have believed." At another time he expressed himself in his own energetic manner, saying, "My hope is such, that I am not afraid to plunge into eternity."

The general vigour of his constitution providing a resistance to the violence of the disease, rendered his sufferings peculiarly severe; and towards the last, the conflict assumed a most formidable aspect. Placing his hand on the diseased part, the sufferer exclaimed, "Oh, this deadly wound!" At another time," All misery centres here!" Being asked whether he meant bodily misery; he replied, "Oh yes I can think of nothing else!" His bilious sickness becoming almost incessant, allowed but few opportunities of conversing with

his friends; and of course, little could be known of his dying experience. The following detached sentences, which dropped at different intervals, indicate the general state of his mind "during the last days of his illness:

"I feel satisfaction that my times are in the Lord's hands. I have been importuning the Lord, that whether I live it may be to him, or whether I die it may be to him. Flesh and heart fail; but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever."

"Into thy hands I commit my spirit, my family, and my charge. I have done a little for God; but all that I have done needs forgiveness. I trust in sovereign grace and mercy alone. God is my supporter and my hope. I would say, not my will, but thine be done. God is my soul's eternal rock, the strength of every saint. I am a poor sinner, and my only hope is in the Saviour of

sinners.?'

He repeated more than once, "My breath is corrupt my days are extinct." Frequently during his affliction, he said, "My mind is calm no raptures-no despondency. At other times he said, "I am not dismayed. My God, my Saviour, my Refuge, to thee I commit my spirit. Take me to thyself-Bless those I leave 'behind."

• At length, on the morning of the Lord's day, May 7, 1815, the summons came to call him to his rest, in the sixty-second year of his age. Aware that it was the sabbath, he said to an attendant, just loud enough to be heard, "I wish I had strength to worship with you." He added, "My eyes are dim" and he appeared to be nearly blind. From eleven till about half past eleven o'clock, during the morning service, sitting up in bed, he was observed to be engaged in prayer; but only two words were distinctly audible" Help me!" At the close of the prayer, he struggled-fell back-sighed three times and in five minutes expired. His hands were clasped in death, as in the attitude of prayer.'-pp. 460, 462.

Reserving to the close of this article our general estimate of Mr. Fuller's character, and also of the obligations due from the public to Mr. M., as his biographer, we shall proceed to make some observations on two of the controversies in which Mr. F. was engaged. And of these, we select the first on account of the variety of discussion to which it gave rise, and the several points of light in which it was placed: the latter, as it stands foremost in importance among his controversial labours. Our notices much of necessity be brief, and can display only the prominent points in litigation,

In point of time, the controversy on Faith was the first in which Mr. F. engaged. The light which he diffused over this subject, and the effects which have arisen out of the controversy, are manifest and striking. For though, in the first instance, it was contemplated as an isolated topic of debate, in the progress of the discussion it was found to sustain an intimate and vital connexion with the duties of the Christian ministry, and with VOL. V. N. S. 2 P

the interests of practical religion. The cold and heartless exhibition of Divine truth, which even to the commencement of the present controversy, had generally prevailed, especially in the Baptish churches, had shed comparative sterility and death over them.

When,' says Mr. Fuller, I first published my treatise on the nature of faith, and the duty of all men who hear the 'gospel to believe it, the Christian profession had sunk into contempt amongst us; insomuch, that had matters gone on 'but a few years longer, the baptists would have become a perfect dung-hill in society.' It was among the best effects of this controversy, that men were directed more to the study of the holy Scriptures, and, for models of preaching, to the practice of Christ and of his Apostles. A style of address full of affection and energy, abounding in pungent and practical appeals to their hearers, was henceforth adopted by many preachers, who had been the victims of the previous frigid system of instruction.

The main positions of "The Gospel worthy of all Accepta❝tion" have always appeared to us to be susceptible of the highest argumentative support of which the nature of the case admits, For, if men do not lie under indispensable obligations to believe whatever God says, and to do whatever he commands, no guilt can attach to unbelief, although it makes him "a liar;" nor can rebellion be pronounced a crime, although it aims at the dissolution of the moral harmony of the universe.

The arguments of this performance were however destined to undergo a most rigorous investigation; and they were opposed with great earnestness, and with some plausibility, by persons holding very opposite theological opinions. The ground of their attack and of their failure, may be concisely exhibited.

Mr. Button and Mr. Martin concurred in denying that it is the duty of sinners to believe in Jesus Christ; for we can scarcely admit that Mr. Martin's 'whimsical notion of endeavour,' destroys the virtual identity which subsists between his objection and that of Mr. Button. At a period so distant from that in which the controversy originated, we shall not trouble our readers with the inconclusive reasonings to which these gentlemen resorted. We shall content ourselves with an exhibition of what they appear to have thought the invulnerable point of their position; and shall give it, in the axiomatical form in which it seems Mr. Martin was wont to display it, Will any man tell me, that it is my duty to do that without Divine assistance, which I can only do with?' The sentiment expressed in this query, is common to Mr. Button and to Mr. Martin, and forms the essence of their opposition to Mr. F.'s treatise.

The crude objection, that men are not obliged to do that which they are unable to perform, overlooks totally the distinction, as obvious in common life as in theology, between that inability which results from the want of faculties, and that which results from a disinclination to employ them for any given end. Whatever a man could not do, if he would, he is under a natural inability of doing; but when all the reason why a man cannot do a thing, is because he does not chuse 'to do it, the inability is only of a moral kind. It lies in his 'will as distinguished from the physical faculties of his nature.' Sinners are unable to believe in Jesus Christ only so far as they are unwilling. They renounce his dominion, because they "will not" have him to reign over them: and they reject eternal life, because they "will not" come unto him that they may obtain it. Mr. Martin's moral axiom contains a position, which, when the terms are accurately defined and cleared of their ambiguity, conducts us to this very extraordinary conclusion, that men are obliged to just as much ' of duty as they are inclined to.'

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The distinction to which we have adverted, in its legitimate influence upon the present controversy, was unknown or disregarded by both Mr. Fuller's opponents. Hence the confusion that pervades their statements of the obligations and privileges of sinners. The distinct relations of a moral governor and a gracious sovereign, which God bears to his creatures, they seem to have been incapable of discriminating. Nor do they appear to have at all understood how that, which, in a system of legislation, is demanded as a duty, may, in a dispensation of grace, be communicated as a privilege.

It is God's work,' as Mr. Morris has expressed it, 'to bestow faith and repentance; but it is man's duty, in obedience to his will, to repent and believe the Gospel. God, in bestowing these, makes men only to see things as they ought, and to be affected and disposed by them as they ought. He may do this or not, according to his sovereign good pleasure; but men's obligations remain still the same, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear; and the gospel revelation leaves them without excuse.' P. 301.

Could these objectors have demonstrated the incorrectness of this distinction, or the impropriety of its application to the subject of debate, they might have realized their object; but this was impossible, and their failure was therefore inevitable.

Mr. Dan Taylor, another of Mr. Fuller's opponents, entered the arena with very different sentiments, and the most sanguine anticipations. Unacquainted with the strength of Mr. Fuller's position, he even indulged the hope of bringing him over to

the Arminian system. The elements of Mr. Fuller's creed were found, however, in the end, to be as hostile to Mr. Taylor's views, as to those of Mr. Button and Mr. Martin. Mr. Taylor conceded to Mr. Fuller the leading principle of his argument, and maintained with him, that the obligation to believe is co-extensive with the publication of the Gospel. But, on the ground of this obligation there was this vital difference: Mr. Taylor, in accordance with the other articles of his theological creed, maintained, that men lie under an obligation to believe the Gospel, because a portion of grace has been procured, and is offered to all through the death of Christ. This grace is, in his system, essential to moral agency, and to the accountableness and blameworthiness of men. Mr. Fuller rejected, of course, the notion of universal grace as the ground of accountableness; and contended, that whatever is essential to moral agency, falls under the denomination of justice, and not of grace. At the same time, he asserted that natural power is power, and that it is fully sufficient to render men accountable beings.

Mr. Taylor's views of moral agency, and of the requisites to constitute men accountable, appear to be exceedingly crude, and tend to annihilate every just distinction between the government and the grace of God. In the outset of the controversy, Mr. Fuller's statement of the distinction between natural and moral inability, was to the mind of Mr. Taylor full of promise; but, alas! no sooner did he discover that this distinction portended death to his hopes of conquest, than he murmured, and even shewed some sympathy for the routed hosts of Mr. Fuller's hyper-Calvinistic opponents.

There was, however, a second point of collision between these disputants, not at all inferior in interest to that which we have just noticed. Mr. Fuller had argued the propriety of addressing calls and invitations to repent and to believe, to sinners in general. To this Mr. Taylor accorded, and deduced from it what to him appeared to be an irresistible inference, namely, that universal invitations imply universal provision. Had Mr.. Taylor included in his notion of universal provision, no more than an objective fulness in the atonement, or its adaptation' to 6 save a world, if a world should believe in it,' there had been little ground of difference between him and his opponent. But while in Mr. Fuller's view the infinite sufficiency of the death of Christ permitted and justified the use of general calls and invitations to believe in him, it did not operate to impair or to subvert the doctrine of personal election, of which he was a firm and constant believer. It was the association of the infinite sufficiency of the death of Christ with a limited design, that, in this instance, gave to his system of religious warfare the power of annoying the motley hosts of his enemies. This