DISCOURSE XXVI.

RICHARD

FULLER, D.D.

THIS distinguished pulpit orator was born, the son of Thomas Fuller, a planter, in Beaufort, South Carolina, in 1808. He was sent to Harvard College, where he applied himself diligently to his studies, and took his degree as a graduate with his class in 1824, although he had left college at the end of his junior year. On his return to his native State, he commenced the study of law, and was admitted to the bar before the required age (twenty-one). His practice is said to have increased so rapidly, that at the third term of the court, after he was admitted, he had one hundred and fifty cases to plead. During a fit of sickness his mind was turned toward religion, and, on his recovery, he became a member of the Episcopal church. He afterward adopted Baptist sentiments, changed his denominational connection, abandoned his profession, and devoted himself to a preparation for the ministry. He pursued his studies diligently for a year, when he was ordained, and took charge of the Beaufort Baptist church, S. C., in 1833. Besides his regular duties, he made excursions as an evangelist, preaching the gospel among the slaves. In 1836, his health having become impaired, he spent a year in Europe, and, on his return, resumed his labors with great success. In 1847, he took charge of the seventh Baptist church in Baltimore, where he still holds the pastoral charge of a large and influential church, now numbering over nine hundred communicants.

Dr. Fuller's manner in the pulpit is peculiar. When he first rises to address an audience, he generally surveys them leisurely, sometimes draws a deep heavy breath, or sigh, and then commences to speak in a calm, low tone, so softly that he can hardly be heard. He also reads his hymns in a similar tone, and prays— sometimes with great earnestness-in a subdued voice. His gestures are not numerous, but exceedingly graceful and natural, and at times very animated, almost violent. In his more youthful days he was far more saltatory in his gesticulation than he is now. He preaches altogether without even a sketch. He probably never wrote a sermon before its delivery. Every Sabbath evening he has the pulpit-desk removed, and comes forward upon the platform, with a small Bible or New Testament in his hand, reads his text, makes a few introductory remarks, then easily and gracefully lays the book aside, and proceeds with his discourse with nothing before him. We believe he thinks this method enables him to approach the hearts of his hearers more readily than when he is intrenched behind a wooden barricade.

As a pulpit orator, Dr. Fuller has few equals, and probably no superior, in the country. Besides rare natural endowments for such a position, his practice at the

bar no doubt contributed to this result; and then, too, he has the advantage of a delivery untrammelled by notes. On some occasions, as before stated, even the ordinary breast-work of the pulpit is removed, and he stands out wholly at ease upon the platform, pouring forth volumes of fervid and instructive oratory upon an almost entranced congregation. With a full, round, manly form, tall and dignified; a frank, open countenance, bespeaking the benignity of his heart; a flashing eye, beneath a stately forehead, overhung with thick, bushy, dark brown hair; a voice clear, deep, and musical, now gentle and tremulous, and now powerful and explosive, filling every part of the largest auditory; and with warmth and earnestness, and depth of pathos, and often, cheeks suffused with tears, he melts and carries the coldest heart, and awakens in the hardest a responsive throb.

In his official position as pastor, he is very busily engaged in visiting and praying with his people, and has great tact in introducing the subject of religion, without appearing to force it in. He is remarkably easy and pleasant in his manners, and is consequently a favorite in society. Without losing his dignity, he has decided conversational power, and sometimes sparkles with witty and epigrammatic sayings. He is said not to have much executive capacity, and with all his genial and social nature, he has comparatively little intercourse with his brother ministers.

Dr. Fuller is withal quite a student, and is seldom absent from his pulpit. The marked feature of his preaching is the highly spiritual and evangelical element. He aims incessantly at the exaltation of Christ, and the immediate conversion of men. On no theme does he so warm and glow as on that of Christ and him crucified. As an instance, mention may be made of his celebrated sermon on "The Cross," preached before the General Convention of the Baptist denomination, April 28, 1841. Such an outpouring of chaste and fervid eloquence, such gushing forth of feelings, such zealous, pointed, and affectionate appeals, drawn from the sufferings on Calvary, are not, generally seen oftener than once in a man's lifetime. The place was indeed a Bochim.

The substance of the discourse, of which Dr. Fuller has kindly furnished a copy for this work, was delivered before the Southern Baptist Convention at its first session in Richmond, Va., June 10, 1846. It does not contain passages of equal power with some which might be selected from the sermon referred to above, and which has been widely circulated in various forms; but yet, as a whole, it does equal credit to the author's reputation. The thoughts are edifying and instructive, and are expressed with the essentials of true eloquence.

THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS.

"And the desire of all nations shall come."-HAGGAI, ii. 7.

THE text foretold a strange phenomenon. It declared that the High and Lofty One who inhabited eternity, would be seen among sinful men; that he who from everlasting had dwelt in light unapproachable, would assume some form, and make his entrance upon this globe; that the invisible and ever-glorious, whom no man had seen, nor could see

the Eternal forever concealed behind stars and suns, would vail his effulgence, and push aside those stars and suns, and come into the world. Such is the prophecy; and if this wonderful event, dimly anticipated, could agitate and transport the inmost spirit of patriarch and prophet, flooding them with rapture, what should be our emotions now -now when he has come; when we have seen "the brightness of the Father's glory" 66 come forth from the Father, and come into the world" when he who, "being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God," has "made himself of no reputation, and taken upon him the form of a servant, and been made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, has humbled himself and become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross;" when we can say, "without controversy great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory;" when, with adoring confidence, each of us can exclaim, "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief."

Of this stupendous and overmastering deed of love, how can I worthily speak, who am a man of unclean lips, and live among a people of unclean lips? Well have we done, to commence from it a new era in the biography of our race. Amid the wrecks of past ages, that transaction stands alone by itself, in unique and solitary grandeur: and stand it forever shall, amid the waste of future ages, the great epoch in the cycles of eternity, the master-piece of infinite power, and wisdom, and love, to absorb our expanding souls long after this globe shall have been purged by fire, and when all its records and annals shall have been forgotten. Turning, then, from the mysterious unutterable glories of this 'new thing which God has made in the earth," let us come to what we may compass by our thoughts; let us confine ourselves to the text, and speak of the title here applied to the Redeemer, regarding the term "Desire" as referring to the expectation, and the wants, and the happiness, of the whole human family.

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I. First, then, it is a fact deserving more attention than has, I think, been bestowed upon it, that among the nations there has ever existed a wide-spread, if not universal expectation, of a glorious person, to be the renovator of mankind, and to impress a new character on the spirit, habits, and morals of the earth. A truth this, wholly inexplicable to the infidel, but quite incontestable for all that, and to every Christian admitting of an easy solution.

Why, my brethren, such a catastrophe as the fall-who will believe that it could ever be obliterated from the memory of man? And if our ruin, much more surely would the promise of our redemption be transmitted a promise which in so peculiar a manner assured the guilty

that "the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head,” and which was performed when, "the fullness of time being come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.”

It is a famous question, which I shall not disturb, whether the benefits of the atonement by Jesus extend to other beings besides man. The Bible conveys clear intimations, that among intelligences peopling other portions of God's empire, the knowledge was dispersed, both of the degeneracy of our race and of some wonderful expedient for our rescue. And if in distant provinces of creation, the advent of a Saviour into the world was matter of adoring study-away with the thought that God would leave the posterity of Adam in ignorance of a transaction so deeply affecting their destiny, and of which this earth was to be the theatre. Accordingly, we find that such a revelation was not only given, but perpetuated. And those of you who are acquainted with antiquity know, that in all ages, and among nations most distant from each other, the expectation of a deliverer has been cherished, and cherished everywhere as an express communication from heaven.

The truth is, that scarcely had the fall occurred, when God began to announce a retriever from the ruins of that fall; and in antediluvian ages we see him so busied with this great promise, that, studied by the light of faith, the history of the world even then will appear as the first act in the grand drama of redemption. It is a touching proof of God's compassion, that before the sentence was uttered against our guilty parents, the gospel was preached to them, and its golden notes mingled tenderly with those accents of wrath, which otherwise might have driven them to despair. Directly after this, sacrifices seem to have commenced-an institution by which an innocent victim was to be immolated for the sins of man; a thing so entirely above the dictates of reason, that we at once recognize in it the appointment of heaven, and a type of the Messiah. The offering of Cain was as choice as that of Abel; the latter, however, was an expiatory sacrifice, and the conduct of God to the two worshipers was a proclamation never to be forgotten, that without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins; hence, "by faith Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain." In short, brief to me instructively, most affectingly brief, as is the record of those who lived before the flood, their cares, and passions, and pleasures, and pains, all summed up in a few pages-yet the Spirit has supplied one important fact. There were preachers in those days, whose theme was the same Jesus we preach-Enoch especially foretelling his coming, and preparing the world for his reception.

From the flood to the call of Abraham, we see God still occupied in consoling the earth with the promise of its great restorer. The Scriptures, indeed, declare that the very manner of Noah's escape was emblematical of salvation by Christ. "The like figure whereunto," says

Peter,

even baptism, doth also now save us; not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ." No sooner is that patriarch landed, than this second father of mankind, by sacrifices of blood, inculcates on his family, then the whole population of the earth, the faith of the grand atonement. And upon all of Jehovah's dispensations at this period we discern the plain shining signatures of this illustrious doctrine. Audience is never given to man as an innocent being, but always as guilty, and through the medium of sacrifices.

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In process of time we find God adopting a singular measure. separates one nation from all the nations, choosing them, not because they were more in number than any people, but for this peculiar purpose, that they might be the depositories of the "faithful saying;" and might show from afar the magnificent redemption to be one day wrought out for man. If patriarchs rejoiced, it was in anticipation of that eventAbraham desiring to see Christ's day, and gladdened by the sight; and Jacob exulting over death, as he leaned upon the top of his staff, and turned his eye to the triumphant Shiloh. If prophets were inspired, it was to confirm the faithful in their aspirations for the Messiah; so much so, "that the testimony of Jesus was the spirit of prophecy"-" the Spirit of Christ which was in them, testifying beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow." Amid the pomp of royalty, if monarchs pined with a longing for the gratification of which they would have bartered their crowns, it was to see him who was all their desire and all their salvation. "Many kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them, and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them." Types, altars, oblations, and all the gorgeous machinery of the temple, were but shadows of the promised mercy. In short, wherever among the Hebrews "righteous men" were found, the consummation of all their desires would have been to witness the ingress of the Prince of Peace; and in every Hebrew woman's bosom, concealed but glowing, there was such an ambition of the honor afterward conferred upon Mary, that the prophet calls the Saviour, “the desire of women"—the fondest, highest, holiest dreams of the sex terminating in the bliss of becoming mother to that Son whom a virgin was to bear, whose name would "be called Immanuel, Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and of whose government and peace there should be no end."

Up to this point, then, in all ages preceding the birth of Christ, you see how that wonderful epiphany was the engrossing theme of piety and inspiration. And here let me repeat two important remarks which have been already made, and which we should always take with us when perusing the books of the Old Testament. The first is, that during this period the expectation of a wonderful persor age to change and mold the destiny of the world, was not confined to the Jews, but was diffused