‘A Band of Men Whose Hearts God Had Touched’

The charge of schism has been one in the history of Western Christianity that carries with it deep emotive tones of horror. Through the examination of a tract making this charge about eighteenth-century English Dissent by the evangelical Anglican clergyman Thomas Robinson and of its rebuttal by the Particular Baptist theologian Andrew Fuller, this essay explores such perennial questions as: what is the nature of a true church and what is its relationship to the state? There is a poignancy to this particular debate between Robinson and Fuller as both men were evangelicals and each had a profound respect for the other.