‘Andrew Fuller’ Category

Why do I love Andrew Fuller and his circle of friends? There are many reasons. One of them is this: their profound sense of belonging to a catholic body. Lest some of you think I think they were Roman Catholics, that is definitely not what I am saying.

What I am saying is this: through friendships with men like John Newton, John Berridge, Thomas Scott–all of them Anglicans–Thomas Chalmers and John Erskine–Scottish Presbyterians–the New divinity heirs of Edwards in New England–all of them Congregationalists–and even Hyper-Calvinists, like William Button and Arminian Baptists like Dan Taylor–these men had a balance in their Christian lives that is enviable. They knew they were Baptists and gloried in that heritage. They were Calvinistic and would not surrender these truths for the world. But their goal in life was not to make men and women Baptists or even Calvinists–it was to make them first of all Christians.

Honestly, it scares me today to see men building little fiefdoms based on secondary issues or even tertiaty issues. And whose basic raison d’etre is not the great orthodox, catholic Faith. Oh that the biblical catholocity of Fuller and his friends might be more in evidence!

Dr. Michael Haykin is currently writing a series of articles for the state paper of Oklahoma Baptists on the 18th Century Great Commission Resurgence which launched the modern Baptist missionary movement.  The Baptist Messenger is edited by the very capable Douglas E. Baker.  The first two in the series are now online and others will be posted in the weeks ahead.

The first article looks at the conditions among 18th-century Baptists which made a Great Commission Resurgence necessary.  The second article focuses on the the Prayer Call of 1784 which preceded the move of God which we know as the dawn of the modern missionary movement.  It is hoped that these articles and the ones which follow might provide a historical perspective on a contemporary phenomenon, the Great Commission Resurgence of the Southern Baptist Convention.

I recently missed out in bidding for an item on e-bay by Andrew Fuller, a first edition of his sermon Christian Patriotism: or, The Duty of Religious People Towards Their Country. A Discourse delivered at the Baptist Meeting-House in Kettering, on Lord’s-Day Evening, Aug. 14, 1803 (Printed and sold by J. W. Morris, Dunstable, 1803). Measuring 6½ inches x 4¼ inches, it is 34 pages in length. The going price for this piece was $162.00. To be utterly honest, I found the whole experience of bidding for this—watching my bids escalate in price as I tried vainly to outbid the person who bought this item—quite irksome.

Why so irksome. Well, here is how my train of thinking ran. Here am I, the director of the Andrew Fuller Center, involved in the publication of the critical edition of Fuller’s works. Why shouldn’t I be given some special access to such works like this at a reasonable price to further the cause of Fuller scholarship? I must admit that such thoughts, essentially unwholesome thoughts, ran through my mind. In fact, they did more than run through it. They lodged there for a few days, and are still there, I fear. But Romans 12:3 calls me to think much more soberly of myself and my calling. My calling may involve me in the editing of some of Fuller’s works, but the world of Fuller scholarship does not revolve around me or this project. Why should I be entitled to some sort of special privilege?

This is even truer on another, far more important level: my place in this universe and my standing with God. This universe is not centred around me. I can lay claim to no special privilege with God. I must come the way of all sinners: seeking mercy through the merits of the stainless life and sweet death of the Lord Jesus.

Again, from the pen of Andrew Fuller:

“…the way to true excellence is not to affect eccentricity, nor to aspire after the performance of a few splendid actions; but to fill up our lives with a sober, modest, sincere, affectionate, assiduous, and uniform conduct. “

My, reading Andrew Fuller is such a tonic! Here he is on spiritual enjoyments and how these were realized in his dear friend Samuel Pearce:

“A little religion, it has been justly said, will make us miserable; but a great deal will make us happy. The one will do little more than keep the conscience alive, while our numerous defects and inconsistencies are perpetually furnishing it with materials to scourge us: the other keeps the heart alive, and leads us to drink deep at the fountain of joy. Hence it is, in a great degree, that so much of the spirit of bondage, and so little of the Spirit of adoption, prevails among Christians. Religious enjoyments with us are rather occasional, than habitual; or if in some instances it be otherwise, we are ready to suspect that it is supported in part by the strange fire of enthusiasm, and not by the pure flame of Scriptural devotion. But in Mr. Pearce, we saw a devotion ardent, steady, pure, and persevering: kindled, as we may say, at the altar of God, like the fire of the temple, it went not out by night nor by day. He seemed to have learnt that heavenly art, so conspicuous among the primitive Christians, of converting everything he met with into materials for love, and joy, and praise. “

Here is Andrew Fuller comparing true Christianity with other religious systems:

“The various kinds of religion that still prevail, the pagan, Mahometan, Jewish, papal, or Protestant, may form the exteriors of man according to their respective models; but where is the man amongst them, save the true believer in Jesus, that overcometh the world? Men may cease from particular evils, and assume a very different character; may lay aside their drunkenness, blasphemies, or debaucheries, and take up with a kind of monkish austerity, and yet all may amount to nothing more than an exchange of vices. The lusts of the flesh will on many occasions give place to those of the mind; but to overcome the world is another thing. By embracing the doctrine of the cross, to feel not merely a dread of the consequences of sin, but a holy abhorrence of its nature—and, by conversing with invisible realities, to become regardless of the best, and fearless of the worst, that this world has to dispense—this is the effect of genuine Christianity, and this is a standing proof of its Divine original. …this is true religion.”

Love this paragraph by Andrew Fuller describing his close friend Samuel Pearce:

“In many persons the pleasures imparted by religion are counteracted by a gloomy constitution: but it was not so in him. In his disposition they met with a friendly soul. Cheerfulness was as natural to him as breathing; and this spirit, sanctified by the grace of God, gave a tincture to all his thoughts, conversation, and preaching. He was seldom heard without tears; but they were frequently tears of pleasure. No levity, no attempts at wit, no aiming to excite the risibility of an audience, ever disgraced his sermons. Religion in him was habitual seriousness, mingled with sacred pleasure, frequently rising into sublime delight, and occasionally overflowing with transporting joy.”

May God forgive those brethren have so lived that Christianity appeared to be a thing of gloom and doom!

The writing of advertising blurbs has a long, interesting history that goes back well into the 18^th century. This is not the place to enter into that. But I did recently come across the following fascinating blurb by Lyman Beecher (1775–1863)—all of whose seven sons entered the ministry, including the famous Henry Ward Beecher (there is a new bio of him that I need to read), and whose daughter, Harriet Beecher Stowe, wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin—the friend of Asahel Nettleton and an Edwardsean divine.

It comes on page 8 of the ads at the back of James D. Knowles, Memoir of Mrs. Ann H. Judson (10^th ed.; Boston: Gould, Kendall, & Lincoln, 1838) and is Beecher’s recommendatory blurb for Gould, Kendall & Lincoln’s two-vol. edition of the Works of Andrew Fuller. This Boston publishing house had published Fuller’s corpus in “two large octavo volumes on fair type and fine paper” at a cost below former editions, which were selling for $14 US (then!).

Beecher was thrilled to lend his name to the selling of this work. As he wrote—and note his linking of Fuller’s name with that of Jonathan Edwards:

“Gentlemen:—I cheerfully accord the testimony of my high approbation to the Works of Andrew Fuller. He is one of the few great, original, and holy men, whom God occasionally raises up to dispel the mists which gather about the truth, and bring out the unobscured illumination of the Word of God. No human mind has ever been unerring in all its expositions of revealed truth; but Edwards and Fuller have comprehended, in my opinion, both the letter and spirit of the Bible in an eminent degree. With both I have been deeply conversant, from the commencement of my ministry to the present day, and have uniformly and earnestly recommended to theological students and young ministers, to imbue their minds with their heavenly dispositions, to acquire their habits of accurate definition and discrimination, while they possess themselves of their judicious opinions and powerful arguments. A better service for the truth, to the present day, can scarcely be done, than by the extensive circulation of the Works of Andrew Fuller. May it please the Lord to give you great success in the enterprise.”

Through the editing of Samuel Pearce’s Memoirs I have discovered a work of Pearce I had completely overlooked hitherto: the circular letter of the Midland Association for 1794. Not sure why I have never known of this before. It is listed in Starr, but it seems I never really noticed it!

Maybe the reason is in the fact that Pearce wrote the Association Letter for 1795, often reprinted on the sovereignty of God. I guess I thought he would not have written the letter two years running. How dimwitted this historian sometimes is!

When Andrew Fuller heard of Samuel Pearce’s death, he was on a street in Scotland. He had to turn aside into an alleyway and weep.

Reading the story of Pearce afresh: the wound is still there.

This week I hope to finish the critical edition of Fuller’s memoir of Pearce. May the brokenness of the author at the death of his friend be again a blessing to the people of God.