ABSTRACT
Near the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Puritan divine, Matthew Henry (1662-1714), remarked, 'It was a pleasure to Socinus, that arch-heretick, that he had no master: we wish it had been his fate to have had no scholars'. Among their sturdiest opponents was the evangelical Calvinist Baptist, Andrew Fuller. Best known for his advocacy of mission, and for his leadership of the Baptist Missionary Society (1792), Fuller was, albeit self-taught, the leading Baptist theologian of his generation, and a formidable polemicist to boot. Priestley develops his position in the light of his study of what he understands as the progressive corruption of Christianity. Priestley is particularly concerned to deny that commitment to Unitarianism leads to a loosening grip upon morality. Fuller recognizes that much has been written on Socinianism, but a detailed comparison of the influence of Calvinism and Socinianism on the heart and life has not appeared; and this is the gap he proposes to fill.
