Apologetics
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 60, No. 2 – Spring 2018
Managing Editor: W. Madison Grace II
Edited by Nathan A. Finn. General Editor, Michael A.G. Haykin. Boston: De Gruyter, 2016. 160 pages. Hardcover, $140.00.
Strictures on Sandemanianism represents the first volume in an updated collection of the complete works of eighteenth-century British Particular Baptist Andrew Fuller (1754–1815). Prior to the undertaking of this task, those who would read Fuller were reliant upon the Sprinkle Publications reprint edition (1998) of the compilation of his works published initially in 1845. Since that time, various letters and tracts penned by the theologian of the eighteenth-century Baptist missions movement have been discovered. In light of those discoveries and a recent renaissance of interest in the theology and writings of Andrew Fuller, this new publication of his works edited by Michael A.G. Haykin provides contemporary historians with a critical edition complete with helpful introductions, theological and historical footnotes, as well as various other insights to assist in their studies.
This volume, edited by Nathan A. Finn of Union University, contains Fuller’s Strictures on Sandemanianism, in Twelve Letters to a Friend, originally published in 1810. In these letters, Fuller wrote to an unnamed friend concerning a previous literary dispute between himself and Scotch Baptist Archibald McLean (1733–1812). During this time, two distinct groups of Baptists existed: the Scottish Baptists had been developed from and influenced by their English counterparts, whereas the Scotch Baptists had developed out of the Sandemanian movement, as some had come to credo-baptist convictions. Archibald McLean was the leading proponent of the Scotch Baptists. While McLean sought to differentiate the Scotch Baptists from the Sandemanians, this distinction was predicated upon the worldliness he perceived in the Sandemanians in contrast to the piety of the Scotch Baptists. However, he continued to honor the teachings of the Sandemanians and advocate for their interpretation of Scripture and understanding of salvation.
McLean had been “an ally in the cause of the [Baptist Missionary Society],” but Fuller perceived a drift in McLean’s theology that would lead to hyper-Calvinism if remaining unaddressed (22–23). Most concerning to Fuller (as evidenced in his writings) was the Sandemanian conception of saving faith. Whereas “McLean argued for justification by intellectual assent to the facts of the gospel,” according to Finn, “Fuller argued for justification by ‘believing with the heart,’ which includes both assent and acceptance and results in a transformation of the whole person” (30). Fuller had ceased this earlier disputation before McLean had finished his response leading some to believe that it served “as a proof that [he] felt it unanswerable” (37). As Fuller demonstrated in this work, he did not lack words for a response.
While many contemporary readers may not have heard the descriptor “Sandemanianism,” most would be familiar with the Stone-Campbell movement that developed from its teachings. Sandemanianism itself “reached the height of its influence during the latter half of the long eighteenth century” (xv). As such, Finn’s introduction to Fuller’s Strictures, an overview of Sandemanian teachings, as well as the British Particular Baptists’s interactions with those espousing such thought, provide helpful context in understanding the manner in which Fuller’s writings against the Sandemanians should be read—they are polemical writings situated in a specific context. Moreover, Fuller’s words in this context provide a helpful lens by which contemporary readers can understand and refute teachings similar to those of Sandemanianism. Though Fuller’s critique of Sandemanianism is far from the only refutation, it is considered to be “the key polemic” against its teaching written by a British Calvinist (xvi). Indeed, Martyn Lloyd-Jones once observed that Fuller’s critique “demolished Sandemanianism” (D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Puritans: Their Origins and Successors [Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1987], 173).
