In 1776 I became acquainted with Mr. Sutcliff, who had lately come to Olney, and soon after with Mr. John Ryland, jun., then of Northampton. In. them I found familiar and faithful brethren; and who partly by reflection, and partly by reading the writings of Edwards, Bellamy, Brainerd, &c., had begun to doubt of the system of false Calvinism to which they had been inclined when they first entered on the ministry, or rather to be decided against it. But as I lived sixty or seventy miles from them, I seldom saw them, and did not correspond upon the subject. I therefore pursued my inquiries by myself, and wrote out the substance of what I afterwards published under the title of The Gospel worthy of all Acceptation; or the Obligations of Men cordially to believe whatever God makes known.
My change of views on these subjects never abated my zeal for the doctrine of salvation by grace, but in some respects increased it. I never had any predilection for Arminianism, which appeared to me to ascribe the difference between one sinner and another, not to the grace of God, but to the good improvement made of grace given us in common with others. Yet I saw those whom I thought to be godly men, both among Arminians and high, or, as I now accounted them, hyper Calvinists. I perceived that mens characters were not always formed by their avowed principles; that we may hold a sound faith without its having such hold of us as to form our spirit and conduct; that we may profess an erroneous creed, and yet our spirit and conduct may be formed nearly irrespective of it; in short, that there is a difference between principles and opinions; the one are the actual moving causes which lie at the root of
action, the other often float in the mind without being reduced to practice.
On the important and responsible work of the ministry Mr. Fuller entered with that humility and devotedness which it demands, and which the peculiar exigences of the people among whom he laboured
called for in no ordinary degree.
Though his acceptance of the pastorate added somewhat to the pressure of those theological difficulties by which his early engagements were embarrassed, as giving to them more of a practical aspect, it had nevertheless a favourable influence on their solution, as prompting him to more vigorous efforts of thought, a more rigid examination of the word of God, and more strenuous applications at a throne of grace, and
also bringing him into contact with eminent individuals who, like himself, were accustomed to pursue inquiries with a view to a practical purpose, and whose means of information had been more extensive than his own. Owing however to the distance of their residence from his, as well as to the independence of his own mind, they might be said to have done little more than give an impetus to his thoughts, of which they were afterwards happy in acknowledging the benefit.
Among the investigations which occupied his attention at this period, that on the subject of justification was not the least important. The following record of the progress of his mind on this topic, written in 1796, nay not be uninteresting: When I first set out in the ministry I had no other ideas of justification than those which are stated by Dr. Gill. Justification, he says, may be distinguished into active and passive. Active justification is the act of God. It is God that justifieth, Passive justification is the act of God terminating on the conscience of a believer, commonly called a transient act passing upon an external object. The former is an act internal and eternal, taken up in the Divine mind from eternity, and is an immanent, abiding one in it. It is, as Dr. Ames expresses it, a sentence conceived in the Divine mind by the decree of justifying. In his Body of Divinity, vol. ii. p. 797, the Doctor speaks of justification as it terminates in the conscience of a believer, and which (he says) the Scriptures style justification by faith.
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so I pulled it out and did a search for John Ryland. This is the only hit.
