A Socinian and Calvinist Compared: Joseph Priestley and Andrew Fuller On the Propriety of Prayer To Christ

Abstract

On April 13, 1791, Andrew Fuller (1754-1815), pastor of Particular Baptist congregation in Kettering, Northamptonshire, sat down to write a letter to his close friend and fellow minister, John Sutcliff (1752-1814), concerning religious convictions of a mutual friend, Robert Hall, Jr. (1764—1831). Hall, a preacher of great brilliance, was of some concern to his friends at this point in time, for he professed a binitarian view of Godhead and maintained that Holy Spirit was merely a power or influence. His friends feared that he might drift even further from trinitarian orthodoxy towards Socinianism, which affirmed unipersonality of God and denied deity of Christ. Fuller, however, informed Sutcliff that in a recent conversation which he had had with Hall, latter complained of the ignorance, cant, & bigotry of Socinians. As to abilities, Hall told Fuller, they have great amongst them, but rest are in general but so many mites in a great Cheshire cheese.1 That one great man was none other than Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), for whom Hall had undisguised admiration, though he vehemently disapproved of Priestley's religious sentiments.2