I come confessing openly, and I trust not in any way to pander to myself, my own weakness. I feel that weakness in recent months has been more than ever, in my own experience, the platform upon which God is beginning to build a ministry. I say that not to be self-aggrandizing because, as I’ve studied the life of this man, I’ve come to the conclusion that Andrew Fuller, who was a pastor, was a man who understood the pastor’s heart. He understood something of his own heart. He understood the depth of human depravity, but he understood the depth of his own depravity. And he understood the leanings and the tossing to and fro of the pastor’s spirit in the midst of pastoral struggle.

But he also understood something else that I commend to you this morning as you listen to his story and as you leave this conference in the next day or so. He understood what is so missing in our day when theology has become a matter of concern for pastors afresh and it ought to be a matter of deep concern and I trust that, in the last 24 to 36 hours, your own temperature for theology has risen much higher.

But do not leave only with a theological bent or a theological concern as an end in itself because true theology is not only the study of God, but the worship or the doxology aspect of worshiping God. But leave also with Fuller’s perspective that true theology always leads to passionate response — a passionate response for his people as a pastor for the truth of God written and spoken and preached and for missions to the end of the earth.

I take as my concern biblically this morning by way of introduction the words that are spoken several times in the Old Testament, but I read from Isaiah 11 in which the prophet says:

For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord
     as the waters cover the sea.

It was Andrew Fuller’s passion that that promise of God be fulfilled and that his life be a part personally of the fulfillment of that promise.

The Modern Missions Movement

The Modern Missions Movement has its roots deeply and firmly planted in both the spirit of revival that we heard of yesterday in Northampton, as well as a serious theological reflection. As the evangelical non-conformist movement of the 18th century seemed at its lowest ebb in England, God was quietly and effectually putting his men in the right places at the right time to ride, as it were, the crest of a new wave for missions and world evangelization. It is with this vital part of the story that this study of Andrew Fuller will be concerned.

Probably the best-known figure in the rise of this modern effort to preach Christ to unreached people groups of the world is William Carey, who has been called, probably accurately, the father of the modern missionary era. As William Carey increasingly dreamed of world populations without the knowledge of Christ, the passion of his own soul became the glory of God in the conversion of the masses. In 1787, while attending the Minister’s Fraternal of the Northampton Association, a rather remarkable event took place. Dr. John Ryland, Sr., who was apparently leading the meeting that day, suggested that some of the younger men propose a topic for consideration by the ministers there. William Carey, a young man in his 20s, suggested they carefully consider the following subject. Question: Whether the commandment given the apostles to teach all the nations was not binding on all succeeding ministers to the end of the world, seeing that the accompanying promise with it was of equal extent.

It has been reported and perhaps you, like me, have even told the story and illustrated things from your pulpit. It has been reported that Dr. John Ryland, Sr. responded to Carey’s question something like this: “Young man, sit down. You are an enthusiast. When God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without consulting you.” Now, however you have quoted that, I want to suggest to you from a historical perspective that we’re not even sure he really said that. I have sought the input of historians. I’ve checked the bibliographies as extensively as I can and I’m not convinced he said it. I’m not convinced he didn’t say it, but I’m not convinced he said it there exactly like it has been reported.

I will submit to you this much, at least from my own consideration of that episode and Dr. Ryland’s response. I believe he could have said several things, one of which is this. In the fellowship that existed in the late 18th century among British nonconformists — this was a Baptist meeting — as well as in most of the Anglican circles of that time who were still evangelical, these men clung to the idea that a great millennial revival of some type would usher in fresh power. In fact, some even suggested it would bring back the gifts as they were at Pentecost and would lead ultimately to the fulfillment of the Great Commission on the day in which that power was freshly given. That was a popular idea at the time.

They also, I would submit secondly, were still wrestling with the effects, if not the actual theological conclusions, of a type of high Calvinism that stresses the logic of sovereign grace without the full biblical balance that men like John Calvin actually brought to the subject.

High Calvinism

I want to pause here for a moment to describe my terminology so that I’m not being misunderstood. I’ve used the term high Calvinism. You have heard the term perhaps “hyper-Calvinism.” Now it is true that high Calvinism, as I’m using it, was historically in that context also called hyper Calvinism. But I’m choosing not to use the term “hyper.” Fuller did not use the term, either. High Calvinist is his term, as others in those days. I’m choosing not to use it for this reason. When you use the term hyper Calvinism, in the typical American discussion that I’ve had with people in my generation, the response is something like this, “Well, he holds to the doctrines of sovereign grace or he’s Reformed. He’s a hyper Calvinist.”

Now, as soon as you begin to embrace some of the theological truths that you heard Dr. Packer speak in his three addresses at this conference, there will be those who will scream “hyper Calvinist” at you and I choose not to use the term because that is not an accurate use of the term at all historically. The term “hyper Calvinism” had in view, particularly at the time of Andrew Fuller, a view of sovereign grace that essentially in the spirit of the matter caused those men to be passive, as it were, towards human means and efforts to convert the heathen. It furthermore caused them to treat the heathen as if, unless there was evidence that they were potentially elect by some kind of stirring within the heart, that the offer of the Gospel as they denominated the issue at hand was not to be made to such people for fear they might not be among the elect.

In the meantime, I explained these terms that Fuller used simply this way. Fuller spoke of strict Calvinism, moderate Calvinism, and high Calvinism. Fuller said very plainly, “I am a strict Calvinist.” For Andrew Fuller, that meant I hold to all of the so-called five points of Calvinism. I don’t personally like to even speak of the five points per se, trying to be biblical and ground my theology in the Scripture. I’m aware that those five points came out of the Synod of Dort in its response to the Remonstrance in the time of the controversy in Holland earlier and that those five points were five responses to attacks upon what was then received as historic orthodoxy. I would prefer to speak of the theology of Paul and of the theology of the Bible, obviously, as a biblical Christian believing, of course, that these five points so-called can be grounded in Scripture, indeed flow out of Scripture. Fuller would’ve concurred with that and thus denominate himself a strict Calvinist for the sake of discussion.

There were those he called moderate Calvinists. Baxterian Calvinist is another expression historically for it because of Richard Baxter and the influence of a Calvinism that is not as strictly following the tenets of Calvin and others who had preceded these men. Then there is the high Calvinism, which I’ve already described as what was truly “hyper Calvinism” in that time.

A Persistent Burden

Now William Carey most likely was deterred for a moment on that day in 1787, but he would not quit. He was a man who plodded and labored and consistently followed the course of his own heart and vision. He was a man of piety and persistence. He decided to put his burden into print. He wrote and he published an inquiry into the obligation of Christians to use means for the conversion of the heathen. 1792, this book was published. This became, as it were, the charter for the mission’s movement of the nonconformists of England that touched several continents, especially North America and the United Kingdom.

Then in May of 1792, William Carey preached that now familiar and famous sermon from Isaiah 54:2. I was thinking about this as I pondered in these last days about Carey and Fuller and the rise of the Modern Mission Movement. There probably isn’t a sermon I have ever preached, probably won’t be a sermon I’ll ever preach that anybody will ever remember beyond a few hours, much less a few days or months. That’s rather discouraging, isn’t it, if you think about it.

But William Carey preached a sermon of which the two points have not only been remembered, but they’re spoken of again and again in mission conferences around the world to this day. He preached that sermon to a small gathering of Baptist ministers in May of 1792, the Nottingham Baptist Associational Meeting. His two points have never been forgotten. He preached from these words, Isaiah 54:2, which says, “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide. Do not hold back. Lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.” William Carey’s two points were, “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.”

There was nothing in Carey’s mind, nor as we shall see in Fuller’s heart and mind, that was inconsistent in any way with those two points and his theological convictions. In fact, not only was nothing inconsistent, it was thoroughly consistent with his theological convictions to expect great things of God. Because the sovereign God who had given the revelation of himself and the knowledge of Himself in Scripture had encouraged us and loaded his revelation with promises and cordials that would lead us to expect hopefully great things from his heart and head. In fact, we should because he holds us responsible, empowers us and gives us the task under his anointing and his power to do the work, we should, therefore, attempt great things for God. Certainly, the spirit of high Calvinism was under frontal attack in Carey’s sermon.

The Starting of a Movement

It was just here at this moment that our subject, Andrew Fuller, became so very prominent to the cause of missions. For when Carey spoke that day, Andrew Fuller, the Baptist pastor in the village of Kettering, was moderating the Baptist Association at Nottingham. Carey’s inspiring sermon evidently moved the group of pastors significantly. But seeing Brother Fuller arise to close the meeting — and there’s some doubt as to exactly when this took place — Carey apparently tugged on his coat and he said, “Oh, Brother Fuller, is nothing to be done again? Is nothing again to be done by us?”

This response of William Carey so touched the heart of Pastor Andrew Fuller and that of the other ministers who saw it that day that they did act. They resolved in session as a group of Baptist pastors from small and struggling, mostly rural churches, to meet in October of the year 1792, at which time the Baptist Missionary Society would be formed and the Modern Mission Era as we know it, at least, launched.

The birthplace of the mission society was the home of the widow of Beeby Wallis, one of Andrew Fuller’s former deacons and a dear friend in the town of Kettering, near manse in the church of our subject. The first appointee to the mission field was the visionary William Carey. It’s dangerous to get excited, you see, about the cause of missions. You may be an appointee yourself. William Carey, who longed to go, was the first sent. As you know, William Carey in himself is a marvelous study, which we cannot do this morning for time’s sake, but he’s a man I would submit to you ought to be thoroughly considered by you in your own meditation and reading.

Others were to follow Carey, including a doctor by the name of John Thomas, who went with Carey as the first cohort in the mission and others who would follow later. The gospel became once again for these men, the glory of God for the masses of evangelized people.

But what of this man, Andrew Fuller, the pastor of the Baptist Church in Kettering? There can be no doubt that the idea to go to the ends of the earth with such passion came from the heart of William Carey, but what of the efforts in ministry that made Carey’s venture a success under the hand of God? The significant role in developing the missionary theology of the new wave and the direction, which kept it on course until it had firmly taken root, was the work and the vision of Andrew Fuller. Andrew Fuller is truly one of the gospel worthies of our rich English heritage. Like so many other wonderfully significant models of passion and sound pastoral ministry, his name has been virtually forgotten to the current generation of Christian leaders.

In the minutes allowed to me this morning, I would like to seek to increase your knowledge of this powerful man’s life and ministry. I would like to try to apply some of the insights that we can gain from his life to our current day and work in order to stretch your heart, not just fill your mind with knowledge of Andrew Fuller, but to stretch your heart for true pastoral ministry, the kind of ministry that I believe he models to us, as one called of God to extend his glorious kingdom to the ends of the earth. Let’s consider his life more fully.

Andrew Fuller’s Personal Life

First, I look at Andrew Fuller’s life in particular. Andrew Fuller, Baptist theologian, pastor, missionary statesman was born at Wicken, Cambridgeshire, 12 miles northeast of Cambridge, England, February 5, 1754. His background was of a humble rural parentage. His family came from a long line of puritans of most solid reputation. His mother was a woman of excellent character. In fact, she lived to 93 years of age, surviving Andrew by one year.

Andrew in his youth was a wrestler and was apparently a fairly large and sturdy man of over six feet in height by his adulthood. It has been written that his appearance was as powerful as his body, his portrait being “that of a man with a fine head of hair parted in the middle, a strong face, eyes deep-set under heavy, dark brows. In appearance, he was somewhat stern and forbidding.”

Dr. Ryland, that is, John Ryland, Jr., the son of the man I referred to before in the famous incident with William Carey, tells of one incident which reveals something of the character of Andrew Fuller. Said Ryland to him on one occasion, “Brother Fuller, you can never admonish a mistaken brother but you must take a sledgehammer and knock his brains out.” This observation undoubtedly shows one side of the character of Andrew Fuller.

But another good friend shows us another aspect of Fuller’s life and character when he says this of him as well: “Not that he lacked tenderness, no. His granite was not without its moss. It will be remembered how Brother Fuller spent two years in anguish of soul determining if it was his duty to leave his little flock at Soham.” “It seems as if the church and I should break each other’s hearts,” wrote Fuller. “I think after all, if I go from them, it must be in my coffin.” There were deep wells of tenderness in the sturdy soul of this man.

His formal education was extremely limited, but his intellectual powers were very evident in his earliest days. We are told by his son, Andrew Gunton Fuller, in the biography of Andrew Fuller that he wrote after his death that as a lad, young Fuller read avidly Guthrie’s Grammar of Geography. This book gave minute and comprehensive details of the social character of every known country on the globe.

I say this to tell you something about Fuller because, as with Carey, God seems to have been preparing sovereignly this young man for his life’s work even before he was converted, reading Grammars of Geography giving him minute details of the character and the people groups of every country on the globe, as it was known at that time. I pause to remind you that is, as we’ve been told already this morning from the book Operation World, a glorious habit to develop. Look at the globe, look at the makeup of people groups. Are you aware of people groups that you need to pray for and need to seek to reach with the gospel? Fuller certainly had that background, as did Carey, and that passion.

A Lover of God

This man, Andrew Fuller came to be a man who possessed unique abilities of insight, clear writing and communication skills and a mind which could formulate logically compelling truth in very simple ways. His written works consist of three large volumes. I happen to have an old 19th century copy that I found a few years ago that is a large volume of small print. It is huge. It’s enough to at least prop me up in my seat if I don’t read it. That book, which really was three volumes in the American edition, is to be republished shortly. In fact, I understand it hopefully will be out in the next several months and our brother Fred Huebner, if you’re interested in the works of Fuller, can tell you how you can secure a set in the next few months when they come out. I would commend them to you as very plain presentations of significant theological issues. If you have trouble reading Edwards, maybe the way to start is to read Fuller and then read Edwards. You’ll find out where Fuller got his theology, but you will possibly understand some of Edwards’s turns of thought in mind through Fuller even more readily.

Fuller’s works demonstrate this observation that they are plain and yet thorough. As will be seen throughout his whole life, Andrew Fuller was a hard worker. His work did not come in great flourishes, but rather seems to have come through reading, careful planning, and simple hard work for long hours. The following anecdote gives you something of this aspect in Andrew Fuller. It says, “While engaged in his study and writing, he was reluctant to be disturbed by casual visitors. When such appeared, Fuller would block the door with his massive frame, deal with them as quickly as he possibly could, sometimes by pointing to a plaque up on his wall in his study which read, ‘He who steals my purse steals my money. But he who steals my time steals my life.’”

One of his biographers tells us something of how deeply Fuller loved God. This man was a lover of God. This is especially evident when it came to his own death. It was written of him: “Andrew Fuller died May 7th, 1815, having survived his friend and fellow worker John Sutcliff only one year.” His motto for his life had been the notable verse of Proverbs 3:6, which says, “In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths.” With the reliance he had on the wisdom and guidance of God, allied to his own indomitable energy, no wonder he accomplished so much for the great cause that was so near to his heart. Almost his last words were these. As on that morning of the Lord’s day, he heard as he was in a bed dying next to his own church in Kettering, the voices of his people lifted in praise and worship and his words were these, “I wish I had strength enough.” His daughter inquired, “To do what, Father?” He replied, brokenly, “To worship, my child.”

Powerful Conversion

He grew up in a little village of Soham. It was there that he pastored his first church as well, having basically, from all appearances, never even left that one small tiny village until he moved to Kettering. He sat under the ministry as a boy of a high Calvinist Baptist minister named Mr. Eve. In his early years he read books, as was true of children in his time, like Erskine’s Gospel Sonnets, Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and Bunyan’s Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. Books I would submit to you that again can be read to your children with great prophet. Telling us in his later life that he wept as he read these books, as a child. Salvation appeared so wonderful to the young heart of Andrew Fuller, but there was no change.

Occasionally he was overwhelmed with strong conviction of his sin, even resolved several times as a lad and as a teenager to pray and trust Christ. He tells us on several occasions as a teenage boy that he prayed and he sought to trust the Lord and he sought to commit his life to Christ with a strong conviction of sin, only to find that he fell immediately back into the old habits of sin within a matter of hours, thus feeling that he had no deep and lasting eternal love for the Savior.

He had been taught biblically in his home life that when one was truly laid hold of by the grace of God, all things become new. He therefore would not be satisfied with a decision for Christ as so many would’ve been in our generation. This man must know God. This man must experience the grace of God in his power in granting new and holy affections that were lasting and changed his character from the inward outward. Andrew Fuller tells us of his conversion experience when he says this, listen carefully to his own words. I read excerpts from his words concerning his conversion:

One morning I think in November 1769, I walked out by myself with an unusual load of guilt upon my conscience, the remembrance of my sin, not only on the past evening but for a long time back. The breach of my vows and the shocking termination of my former hopes and affections all uniting together formed a burden which I knew not how to bear. The reproaches of my guilty conscience seemed like the gnawing worm of hell. I thought, surely that must be an earnest of hell itself.

The fire and brimstone of the bottomless pit seemed to burn within my bosom. I do not write in the language of exaggeration. I know now that the sense which I then had of the evil of sin and the wrath of God was very far short of the truth, yet it seemed more than I was able to sustain. In reflecting upon my broken vows, I saw that there was no truth in me. I saw that God would be perfectly just in sending me to hell and that to hell I must go unless I were saved of mere grace and as it were in spite of myself.

My friends, those are the writings of a boy not yet 16. You say, “Well, he grew up in a rather morose generation that was consumed with examining the inner spirit of a man too much.” No, he grew up hearing the gospel 16 ounces to a pound, pure unadulterated gospel in Bunyan’s works and in Erskine’s works and the kinds of exposure he had to the gospel as others did in that day. Fuller goes on to add later in this same account, “What have I done? What must I do?” These were his inquiries 10 times over after more expressions of despair because of the magnitude of feeling his own depravity, Fuller concludes that he cannot stop seeking after Christ. For in his own words, “I could not bear the thought of plunging myself into such endless ruin.” Please note carefully in these words that Andrew Fuller saw more than his sins, in these expressions he saw more than his sins. We are often satisfied if a man can name several sins in his past and feel sorry about them. Fuller saw his sin. He saw his depravity in other words.

Pardoned and Purified

He saw his heart is utterly ruined in devoid of God and his grace and he saw it as sick and darkened an in desperate need. How different is this man’s story of conversion from the easy conversions of our own generation? He goes on to describe his mind as being so exercised that he felt like a drowning man looking every way for help or rather catching for something by which he might save his life. Then he comes to cry out of his soul like Job from Scripture. And he cried this apparently many times in his heart as he wrestled: “Though he slay me yet will I praise him.” He repeated these words over and over and over and he began to feel a sense of relief. He says, and I quote him again:

Each repetition seemed to kindle a ray of hope mixed with determination.If I might to cast my perishing soul upon the Lord Jesus Christ alone for salvation to be both pardoned and purified, for I felt that I needed the one as much as the other.

Notice he says, “I needed not only to be pardoned but I needed to be purified.” He saw his sin and he wanted not only to have eternal life and pardon, but he wanted to be cleansed of his sin because of the deep dye that had cast upon his heart.

All of Fuller’s struggles of heart and mind were felt to be both normal and desirable in the context of his day. One aspect of the struggle, however, did come to be viewed as both negative and unscriptural in its nature and this will have major implications in the latter growth of Fuller and in his theological thinking. Let me share with you what I mean at this point. Fuller adds in telling us of this conversion experience that there was something else that troubled him and this is the part that he came to feel was wrong. He said, “I was not then aware that any poor sin that any poor sinner had a warrant to believe in Christ for the salvation of his soul, but suppose that there must be some kind of qualification to entitle him to believe. Yet I was aware that I had no qualification.” And what does he mean? Simply this: the idea of qualification or warrant as Fuller was later to write so powerfully was at the heart of the “high Calvinism,” which crippled the church in his day.

This idea taught that only sensible sinners who saw reason to conclude that they might be or in fact were among the elect of God, had any warrant to lay hold of Christ and believe in faith. Feeling that he might have failed the grace of God already and that he had no known warrant or clear invitation to his soul to believe in Christ himself personally, he didn’t think he could really come to Christ with any assurance that Christ would in fact receive him as a sinner.

A preacher who was a true high Calvinist could offer displays of God’s grace and mercy to his congregation, but he could not personally offer mercy and grace to whoever desired to take it and sincerely believe and be saved. This theological distinction had been developed over many years and had resulted in much death to the ministry of English churches at that time both Anglican and Nonconformist. Andrew Fuller’s son wrote many letters after his father’s death and he said this, in looking at these early impressions of Fuller, one of the most distinctive traits of his character is clearly indicated he would not, he could not be satisfied with a partial conversion to God. I think personally it’s very important for our purposes here this morning to observe very carefully that Andrew Fuller underwent a radical conversion experience and thus he knew the magnitude of grace in the very beginning of his Christian walk.

I have found as I have studied history and biography in particular, that great Christ who are great in God’s sense of the word are usually the people who feel most deeply the power of great grace and since that they are the chief of sinners.

Unbiblical Logic

The next year in April of 1770, now 16 years of age, young Fuller was baptized by his pastor, Mr. Eve, and joined the little church. Great temptations followed his baptism and his friends taunted him for having been dipped. Not long afterwards, Fuller made the friendship of a much older man, a Mr. Joseph diver, a man of 40 years of age who was a dear companion in his growth and grace for some years to come. A controversy arose at that time when Fuller was still but a lad in the Soham church regarding a member who had been caught in a serious sin.

Now, let me tell you briefly about this story. A man apparently was caught in drunkenness and Andrew Fuller as a 16 or 17 year old lad was the man who saw him. He was a member of the church in good standing, a baptized member under the discipline of the church like all were at that time under the covenant that they had entered into to walk in fellowship and harmony together in the law and grace of God. And Andrew Fuller saw this man in his stupor and he rebuked him. He went to him later and when he was sober he rebuked him for this failure as a church member to walk in the grace of God and to walk uprightly. The man as you would expect told Fuller, “who do you think you are? What are you rebuking me for? You have no authority,” like so many people in our day. It was comforting to find that people were as depraved in those days.

He said to the young Fuller, “Find your own business. You’re not your brother’s keeper. You have no authority to correct me. Let he is without sin cast the first stone.” But Fuller was not satisfied that he had fulfilled his duty. Knowing the scripture he went to his pastor, Mr. Eve and Andrew Fuller went to the church and sought to discipline this man, but many members of this congregation, because of their theological views of high Calvinism, which led to a kind of incipient and sometimes outward Antinomianism, felt that the man could not nor should be urged to openly repent since he could do nothing to change his nature unless God first sovereignly awakened him. In other words, we can’t rebuke him for falling into his error because he can’t do anything about it unless God does something first.

That’s the logic of a certain aspect of the theology without the biblical truth that balances it properly. At first, Fuller tended to agree with this point, but with the aid of his older friend Diver, he came to see the matter differently. The cracks and the theological walls of hyper Calvinism were beginning to show themselves to this young man’s mind very early. This controversy finally resulted in the pastor having to leave the church in 1771. By the way, Fuller was noble in his efforts to be faithful this pastor and yet disagree with his hyper Calvinism as his thoughts were developing.

Fuller’s Calling

Through a series of interesting providence, Andrew Fuller, by the time he was 19, began to preach in that little village church and by the time he was 21 over a period of trials of some two years, he was called as the pastor and then ordained May 3rd, 1775 at 21 years of age. He had no formal theological training. He had never been a member of any other church. He had not traveled apparently much outside the little town of a few hundred people in Soham. His stipend was so small that he could barely make ends meet financially. The church was still affected by strife, deeply felt, and he was frequently held in suspicion by the members of the small church. The membership continued to dwindle. The issue of urging centers to repent and believe the gospel plagued not only the church but Andrew Fuller in those early days as did most Baptists in England.

One interesting story is that of Robert Hall, a very important Baptist pastor who rode 70 miles by horseback to help the young pastor in his pursuit of more light on the subject. He recommended that Fuller read Jonathan Edwards on the will so that he might better understand the power of man as regards doing the will of God. Fuller thought he meant Dr. John Edwards, an Episcopate and Hyper Calvinist, and so he read the book of John Edwards, Veritas Redux. Said Fuller, “I read the book and thought it quite good, but it did not seem exactly to answer Mr. Hall’s recommendation to me, nor was it to the year 1777 that I discovered my mistake. Meantime, however, I was greatly exercised upon this subject and upon the work of the Christian ministry.”

During the same period of time, the evangelical revival which had deeply influenced both England and America had touched the ministries of men like Andrew Fuller, the works of Bunyan and John Owen and the like were being read carefully by this young Baptist pastor. His strict Calvinism was being solidified theologically, but he struggled with what he saw in John Bunyan when he encountered the firmest conviction that electing grace was taught in the word of God right alongside of clear open invitations for all to come to Christ and drink of the water of life freely and that all who would come should and that all who would come would be free received.

His fellowship with other Baptist ministers like John Sutcliffe and John Ryland began to be used of God to shape his young heart over the matter of the free offer of the gospel. It was The Life of David Brainard, however by Jonathan Edwards that had come into his hands, which made a profound impact upon his views of evangelism and missions. As we heard yesterday that diary has made a profound impact on many men for missions. In July of 1780, he sustained a severe loss to the death of his confidant and friend, Joseph Diver. They’d stood together through many difficulties. Toward the end of 1779, he received a contact from a Baptist church in Kettering inquiring as to his availability for becoming their pastor. For well over two years, Fuller would wrestle with the matter of leading Soham to become the pastor of Kettering, which he finally did in October of 1782.

The Pastorate in Kettering

It needs to be noted in passing that the church at Soham had only approximately 40 members at the time, this contact came from Kettering, some of whom had repeatedly expressed open antipathy for their young pastor. His salary was so small that he could hardly exist. He had tried to begin a school there that had failed and been closed. His abilities and gifts were far too great for the situation in which he found himself. His friends told him so, yet he remained faithful. The Kettering Church was one of the significant nonconformist churches of his day and he would preach there ultimately in a building that is said to have seated 900 people and was generally full, so it was a large church. A larger and adequate salary was offered to young Fuller. The people sought his help. They pleaded for him tearfully to come to their church on several occasions over a two and a half year period. I asked the question, why did he not jump at this obvious opportunity for advancement in ministry? I can see my diary saying, “Felt the call, read the letter, ready to go.”

But his determination to know the mind of God and to do nothing without a sense of God’s guidance cause him to wait and wait until he felt certain that he should move to the new work. Once again, I think we get a glimpse of the kind of heart this man had before God. His diary during this time reveals something of the mind of young Andrew. Here are a few extracts written during that agonizing two plus years:

My heart often aches and thinking of my situation: “Lord, what is my duty? Oh, that my ways were directed to keep my statutes.”

Here’s another entry:

For some days past, I’ve been tenderly concerned about my situation. Oh, that the Lord would bestow upon me, his counsels and his care. I’m afraid of pride in my motives either way. Oh, that God would hear me and that God would help me. The parable of the talents has been something to me. I’m frequently told that my talents are buried here in this little church, but I do not know. Oh, that I may not have to go up on this principle. Oh, that some plainer path might appear to me so I might go, if I must go.

Here’s another entry:

Tonight, it seems as if it would break my heart to remove from here. The seal and fruits of my ministry are so dear to me, yet how it can be otherwise I cannot see.

On another occasion, he writes:

I went to the meeting with little premeditation thinking an upright heart would be prepared. I signed two reasons for my removal from the church: First the complaint some have made of non-edification.

I found that extremely encouraging that he was a great preacher and he had people in his church mumbling about his, not edifying them from the pulpit. I’m sure you’ve heard that one. He continues:

The second reason I should re-thought of removing myself from this ministry is my wasting of my property, every year.

He was starving to death almost literally. In other words, he was in financial straits. He said those were the two compelling reasons I set before my mind for why I should make this move to the larger church. Neither of these objections being answered, the church despairs, all is still confusion. He said:

Oh what can I do? What can they do? My heart says, stay, my judgment only forbids me. No, no, I surely cannot go. My heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. I’ve been pouring my heart to the Lord since I came from the meeting. Think I could rather choose death than departure from this church. My heart is as if it would dissolve. It is like wax. It is melted in the midst of my bowels.

One of the most amazing things to me in all of his stories is that the church at Kettering kept waiting, believing that Andrew Fuller was their man. They prayed and they fasted as a church. If they could have gotten a definite no, they’d tell us in their records they would’ve given up seeing him agonize for God’s direction any further and just moved for another man, but because he couldn’t give them a no for sure, they kept waiting. At the association meeting in May of 1781, he presented the matter to nine brothers. Their advice was divided and it was advised and agreed that the council of a minister in Cambridge would be sought. He urged Fuller to wait another full year before he left, which he did. Finally, in 1782, he left Soham and moved to the church in Kettering. Here he served powerfully, effectively, and wonderfully for 33 years until he died.

Immersed in His Work

Let me reflect on that with you for a moment, by way of application his friend Dr. Ryland remarked concerning this whole ordeal of moving to the new pastorate. He said:

Men who fear not God would risk the welfare of a nation with fewer searchings of heart than it cost this man to determine whether he should leave a little dissenting church scarcely containing 40 members besides himself and his wife.

I asked the question, was Andrew Fuller simply an indecisive, confused, or introspective young man? Was he fearful of larger responsibility and ministry opportunities? I submit to you not at all. His character evidences the ability to make clear and firm decisions throughout the entirety of his life. What we see here rather is a man wholly committed to pleasing his heavenly Father and totally abandoned to his will in the pastorate of the church over which God had made him a shepherd.

The size of the church, the salary, and the chance for public recognition among his peers seem to make no difference at all to the heart of this young man except to concern him that he might be proud. How different is this man’s approach? We must humbly and sorrowfully confess from most of us. And how different was the council that he got from his ears from the council that most of us would get from our peers. Consider the church’s response to his waiting as well. What present day Baptist pastoral committee would wait and fast and call the church to such until they waited over two years to find the man they were inclined to pursue for their pastoral situation.

I will also point out to you that though men did move from a location to location or to another church, generally speaking, they did not do so every 4.2 years as is true in most evangelical groups like those that some of us come from. I will grant the culture had something to do with this, but I wonder how much of it is the result of failure on the part of the minister or the church or both that drives a man to quit on his goals, or if his goals are not right to quit even on the Lord’s calling. The first thing most of us or our churches do when we hit a snag or a difficulty is think somehow God is speaking so loudly to all of us saying, “Pastor, move.” Fuller was much more tenacious than this.

Perseverance for the Sake of Usefulness

He was committed to personal perseverance. That is the point I wish to make to you personally. This man was too busy doing his work to worry and wonder about a new opportunity that was down the road. He was too busy engaging himself, praying for his people, too busy engaging his heart and mind and learning of the things of God to worry about some new opportunity that might be out there when he hit midlife. He was too engaged with the glory of God for such. His seven years at Soham did provide remarkable preparation for the remaining 13 years of service. He would render the kingdom of God, since this church was so small, he could spend much time in study being conscious of the value of a classical education, he used this time to study and to read prolifically. He studied Greek extensively and his friend Ryland taught him Hebrew adequately enough apparently that he could make considerable use of the Old Testament text.

He read and digested a whole library of serious theologians including Edwards, Bellamy, Owen, and a whole host of other Puritan Divines, as was custom in those days, he ministered at Kettering for 12 months before being called permanently as the pastor. He was on trial, in other words. It was here in 1782 at the age of 28 that he became the friend of William Carey and it was here that he completed his best known work — interestingly, his first work, a book entitled The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation or The Duty of Sinners to Believe in Jesus Christ. He had written this work while it saw him in his twenties as the pastor of a little village Church of 40 people, and he tells us in the introduction that he actually finished it there.

Eventually, it brought replies and rebukes and books and tracks and ministers meetings and accusations against the character of this young impudent man. The doctrine contained in it was finally branded as Fullerism. They would say, “Do you believe in Fullerism? That awful noxious teaching.” The fires which had helped the light burned until the missionary torch was raised aloft in the birth of the Baptist Missionary Society.

By 1794, he had written many other theological and pastoral works publishing sermons as well, including a weighty book entitled The Calvinistic and Socinian Systems Examined and Compared Us to Their Moral Tendencies. It’s interesting why he used the word “Socinian.” He used it because he was opposing Unitarians, but he says they’re not truly Unitarians because orthodoxy is Unitarian, we believe in one God will not grant them that. And he tied it to their heretical forefather Sozzini. He became an adept polemicist and he wrote against other errors of his time as well.

One such example should have more interest to us in our current day than others and this was referred to by our friend, Dr. Packer yesterday, and I must bring it in because he is obliging me to do so. I intended to anyway. His writings on Sandemanianism, which were written after several visits to Scotland on behalf of the mission cause to raise funds, were useful in keeping this notion of Robert Sandeman and Glas in Scotland.

Against Sandemanianism

He appealed through these writings on Sandemanianism to the Baptists of England and Scotland. Sandemanianism treated faith as notional or purely intellectual. In a printed sermon of Fuller’s on “Receiving Christ,” I believe he speaks powerfully to errors which have surfaced and become popular in our own day. Fuller asks, “What is it to receive Christ?” He tries to show us what is included in this kind of faith. He says receiving Christ is number one, that which implies a clear sense of sin. Number two, a true conviction of sin, which means a spiritual conviction resulting in my hating sin because it is seen as intrinsically evil in itself. Such a sense of sin kills remaining self-righteousness. Number three, to receive Christ means to renounce everything which stands in opposition to Christ. Viewing Christ as a guest, he stands at the door and he knocks.

Why is it that is kept barred against him? Because the sinner has a variety of other guests already in his house and is aware that if Christ enters in, they must be dismissed. These guests are not only darling sins but corrupt principles, flesh-pleasing schemes in a spirit of self-righteous pride. With these Christ cannot enter and associate.

Fourth, to receive Christ involves the exercise of the whole soul, not merely the exercise of my understanding as distinguished from my will and my affections. Faith includes more than an accurate notion of things. It is the cordial acceptance of him and his way of salvation. Fifth, if we receive Christ, said Fuller, it must be for all the purposes for which Christ was given. Fuller meant by this what Dr. Packer reminded us of yesterday, that to receive Christ, to receive him for who he is and who is he? He is prophet, he is priest, he is king. The modern Sandeminian error basically chooses to say you receive Christ as your priest and that’s all they focus on theologically, whether they realize it or not. They’re saying receive Christ who did this atoning work for every man and since he did it for every man, he did it for you and if you will receive it, he’ll give it to you — without saying that receiving Christ is to receive the person of Jesus who in his person is a prophet who will teach you all that you need to know about life and holiness and the way to heaven, who is a priest who indeed shed his blood for the atoning of your sins, and who is a king who comes into your life to invade you with his kingly authority to rule and reign over you. That’s what it meant to receive Christ.

If Fuller were actually writing the current evangelicals who are badly confused on this subject, he would say:

Were it possible to receive him as an atoning sacrifice without yielding ourselves up to his authority or to yield ourselves up to his authority without relying on his sacrifice, each would be in vain. And could both of them be united without sitting at his feet as little children to be instructed in his will, it would still be in vain.

He goes on to say that we come to Christ in the spirit of Matthew 11:28–30, not only as a Savior but also to receive his yolk as our Lord and lawgiver. May God give us power to so preach the gospel of grace in our day and to resist notions and doctrines which pervade the scene with the idea that Christ’s saving work and person can be divided from his lordly person and his kingship and his law.

Serving with a Broken Heart

While serving at Kettering, to return and conclude the personal story, his wife Sarah Gardner died in August of 1792. I don’t have time to tell you simply to comment that his first wife went through an agony and agonized Fuller deeply because she lost her mind. She became so deranged that when Fuller would go in and try to speak with her, she would say, “I do not know you, who are you?” And he would remind her who he was and she would rail at him and he would have to hold her and have to take the keys so she couldn’t get out the door and run away and do something foolish. It’s heartbreaking to read the accounts of his diaries in those days. He had 11 children from his first marriage. Many of them died in infancy, one at the age of six and a half which broke his heart. He saw both adult children who did live proceed to him in death.

His oldest son, Robert, broke his heart dying at sea after pursuing the follies of an unconverted life. There’s some evidence that he might have been converted at the end, but all of these things broke his heart. These days from 1782 to 1792 were filled with pain and questions for Andrew Fuller. He suffered much physical illness and weakness. In a letter he wrote to John Sutcliffe in 1793, he said to his friend:

I first felt a numbness in my lips on Saturday night. I preached however on the Lord’s day with very little inconvenience except in the evening when I found difficulty in pronouncing those words which have the letter P. On Monday it increased and by Tuesday the whole side of my face was emotionless and it still continues.

And he goes on to describe how his lips and face swelled and how he lived with this for a long period of time. Then in the same letter to Sutcliffe, he says:

I’ve written on the mission business to Benson, Sharp, Crabtree, Faucet, Hop, Jones, Crabs, Hall, King, Horn, Stevens, Gill, Hinton, Rippin, Thomas, Store, etc.

He was still working. He said, “I should be glad to hear from you, my family is but sickly.” You can readily see, this man was a prodigious worker like every imminently useful minister of the gospel, he underwent many trials and sufferings, both physical and mental. But 10 to 12 hours a day when he was in Kettering, he was at his desk studying and praying and writing voluminous letters for the mission and to his church, even in the midst of pain he could find doing his work as diligently as under the Lord of host, a great joy. I want to read you a quote from Fuller that I think is one of the most stirring pieces that I’ve read from his works. This comes after the years of this suffering and hardship and he wrote one of his friends this in a letter. Listen to how this man recaptured the joy of his God, after such a period of agony:

From the year 1782 to 1792, I experienced a great degree of spiritual darkness and dejection. I had sunk into carnality and folly in many instances and brought such a degree of guilt, shame, remorse, and distance from God upon me that deprived me for several years of all pleasure in my work and almost everything else. But little before the death of Mrs. Fuller, I began to recover the lost joys of God’s salvation. The trials within my family had a good effect and my engagement in the mission undertaking had a wonderful influence in reviving true religion in my soul. And from that time, notwithstanding all of my family afflictions, I have been one of the happiest of men. “Then shall I run,” said the psalmist, “in the way of my commandments when thou shalt enlarge my heart.”

And truly I know of nothing which so enlarged my heart as engaging in a work, the object of which was the salvation of the world. I have often observed that many good people miss their objects and live in doubt about their own Christianity all their days on the earth because they make this the directing principle object of their pursuits. They read, they hear and meditate everything in order to find out whether they are true Christians. Let them but seek the glory of Christ kingdom, the spread of his cause to the earth, and a knowledge of their own interest in it would be among the things which would be added unto them. If we are but so selfish as to care about nothing but our own individual safety, God will righteously order that we shall not obtain that desire but we shall live in suspense on that matter. While if we have served him and saw his glory and the good of other souls as well as our own, our own safety would’ve appeared manifest.

It is thus that God interweaves the good of his creatures, ordering it so that the happiness of one part shall arise from their pursuing that of another rather than in the direct pursuit of their own. It is thus in domestic felicity and thus in religion. Blessed be God for thus encouraging a principle which if it did not but universally prevail would be productive of universal peace and happiness.

He is saying simply this: “When I was at my lowest moment and sought to know, ‘Am I or am I not a child of God?’ I found the answer when I engaged in the work of worldwide mission with all of my heart. When I engaged in pursuing the good of Christ kingdom and the good of others and got my eyes off of me and asking whether I was or was not a Christian, that’s when I got the most assurance.” I suppose that means so much to me because I have found and can testify to the fact that that is true in my own experience.

Implications of Fuller’s Life

I must quickly hasten to my conclusion for my time is just about gone and I want to say some things by way of application in terms of Fuller’s missionary thrust. But I sense in all of this the key to Fuller’s personal life and piety is very evident and I must ask, not to be cute or to aggrandize my friend, was Fuller a Christian Hedonist? Most certainly he was. If there was ever a Christian Hedonist, I believe it was Andrew Fuller. He lived for the glory of God. He found pleasure in this life and surely in the life to come. He enjoyed his God, he worshiped him, and he found the deepest enjoyment of God came as he literally gave his body, soul, and mind for the cause of missions. His pastoral ministry prospered. His family saw seasons of blessing. In years to come he remarried a woman named Anne Coles and had a very happy marriage. But I want to tell you a bit more about Fuller, the missionary statesmen in closing in the last five to 10 minutes that I want to take.

Andrew Fuller served effectively as a pastor preacher for a lifetime. His most historically noteworthy contributions came in the whole area of world missions. His pastoral laborers blessed hundreds as he faithfully and consistently called upon his flock. He warned them concerning sin and he labored over their final, ultimate salvation. Fuller believed in the perseverance of the saints. He did not believe in the doctrine as it is used in our day of eternal security that says no matter what you do, you’ll still go to heaven. Fuller believed in the historic doctrine, that it mattered how a man lived, that if he did not live holily unto the Lord, if he did not live a righteous life, if his life was not characterized by righteousness, though marred by sin, he was not a true child of God.

This is reflected in his continual pastoral efforts to preach and serve as a shepherd who must give an account for his flock and be innocent of the blood of all men because he declared the whole counsel of God to them. Men I would submit to you, that if you have right views of the necessity of holiness, it will alter not only your pastoring but your preaching significantly. You will no longer look over that flock on Sunday and presume everyone that’s made a decision is safe and secure and headed for heaven. You will look over that flock when people are wavering and falling into sin and you will weep.

And when men come into your study and women come and seek your counsel — and you must be careful how you handle those situations — and you see the grip of sin is on their heart and their life and in fact in some cases, as I’ve seen with a broken heart in the past several years, men who are dear friends in the ministry and men who are close compatriots in the fellowship of the gospel whom I would’ve had every reason to think that they would’ve run faithfully to the end, have almost abandoned at times their faith and pursued their lust and their sin. It is something that ought not to just cause us to shake our heads and say, “We’ve got a problem in the church.” It ought to drive us to preach the gospel that demands that they walk and holiness without which no men shall see the Lord. And we must, as Paul says, take heed to ourselves and to our doctrine if we would be faithful shepherds as Fuller was. Let modern pastors take note of this and see if they shepherd their flocks in this manner.

A Missionary Theologian and Mobilizer

But finally, with his involvement in the rise of the missions movement, we must see Fuller first as a theologian for the movement for his book really was the match that lit the fire as I said earlier. And second, we must see him as a prime mover in sending the workers in supporting the cause. He became the chief administrator and secretary of the newly formed mission society from the very beginning. This work included administration and management of home office affairs, the raising of funds for which he traveled thousands of miles by horseback across the United Kingdom — five times into Scotland, into Wales, and across to Ireland. He continually traveled into working, working, working, working to raise pounds for missions.

He became, further, the general defender and propagator of the whole enterprise of missions even approaching dignitaries in parliament working with the famous Wilberforce and others to preserve the mission because the government was riding hard on the mission at times because the East India company was concerned that if people be Christianized in India, it would turn against the work of the East India company and its financial successes and its enslavement of peoples. So they put pressure politically to remove the missionaries and Fuller fought valiantly, effectively, level-headedly, and passionately to preserve the open door in India to the missionaries.

John Ryland, his principle biographer, says:

Mr. Fuller’s active concern for the welfare of the Baptist mission, from his appointment as secretary at its for first formation till his death, it is impossible to do full justice to his end of indefatigable zeal, his assiduous attention to whatever could promote its welfare, and the uncommon prudence with which he conducted all measures that related to it at home and gave counsels to those that needed it abroad.

I wish I could tell you the story but I will not on how the mission began. Time requires that I simply summarize with a statement of Fuller’s about the mission that I want you to hear his words again. A short time after the private meeting in Ryland’s study that led to the formation of the mission, sermons were preached — one by John Sutcliffe entitled “Jealousy for the God of Hosts” and one by Andrew Fuller on “The pernicious influence of our delays.”

Our Pernicious Delays

He said this about our delays. Listen to Fuller preach to your heart and to mine:

Had Luther and his companions acted upon this principle, they had never gone about the glorious work of the Reformation. When he saw the abominations of popery, he might have said, “These things ought not to be, but what can I do about it? If the chief priest and rulers in different nations would unite, something might be affected. But what can I do as one individual and a poor man at that. I may render myself an object of persecution, or which is worse of universal contempt. And what good end will be entered by it after all.” Had Luther argued thus, had he fancy that because preachers and prelates were not the first to engage in the good work, therefore the time had not yet come to build a house of the Lord. Anything he had done might have laid wasted to this day.

But instead of waiting for the removal of difficulties, we ought like Luther in many cases to consider them as purposely laid in our way in order to try the sincerity of our religion. He who had all power in heaven and earth could not only have sent forth his apostles into the world but so ordered that all the world should treat them with kindness and aid them in their mission. No, he has not sent them forth that way, but instead he told them to lay their accounts with persecution and the loss of all things in going. This was no doubt to try their sincerity and the difficulties laid in our way are equally designed to try ours in our day.

Let it be considered whether it is not owing to this principle that so few and so feeble efforts have been made for the propagation of the gospel to the whole world. When the Lord Jesus commissioned his apostles, he commanded them to go and teach all the nations to preach the gospel to every creature and that notwithstanding the difficulties and oppositions that would lie in the way the apostles executed their commission with assiduity and fidelity. But since their days we seem to sit down half contented that the greater part of the world still should remain in ignorance and idolatry. Some noble efforts have been made, I will grant, but they are small in number when compared with the magnitude of the object. And why is it still so?

Are the souls of men of less value than heretofore? No, is Christianity less true or less important than in former ages? No, this will not be pretended by us. Are there no opportunities for societies or individuals in Christian nations to convey the gospel of the heathens? This cannot be pleaded so long as opportunities are found to trade with them. Yay, and what a disgrace to the name of Christianity to buy them and sell them and treat them with worse than savage barbarity. We have opportunities in abundance. The improvement of navigation and the maritime and commercial turn of this country furnish us with these opportunities. And it deserves to be considered, whether this is not a circumstance that renders it a duty particularly binding on us (I wonder what he’d say today). The truth is, if I’m not mistaken, we wait for we know not what. We seem to think the time has not yet come, the time for the Spirit to be poured down from on high.

We pray for the conversion and the salvation of the world and yet neglect the ordinary means by which those ends have been used to be accomplished. It please God heretofore by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe and there’s reason to think it will still please God to work by that distinguished means. Ought we not then at least try by some means to convey more of the good news of salvation to the world around us than has heather to have been conveyed? The encouragement of the heathen is still in force. Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But how shall they call on him and whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they be sent?

Dear brothers, we cannot help but be struck by the sagacity of Fuller’s reasonings and the pleadings of his enthused heart. We have the promises of God, we have the power of God if we will but obey God. We have the evidence. Do we not in our hour that God has opened the widest door in his providence of opportunity? Let us go through it. One can almost hear the shades of Carrie’s sermon when he reads Fuller’s words: “Expect great things from God, attempt great things for God.”

God’s Sovereignty and the Use of Means

Fuller, as I’ve said earlier, finally died in 1815. I wish again that I had the time to tell you more about his work as secretary, but to sum up his contribution and conclusion in all this area, we must take note of the fact that many have considered Andrew Fuller to be the truly great Baptist theologian, if not at his era, even for several eras. A modern missiologist Fuller was not, but a pastor theologian he was who laid the acts to the tree and attempted great things for God and expected great things from God. It should be abundantly plain by now Andrew Fuller was a very important figure in our history and the rise of the modern mission impulse. His 40 years of pastoral labors are marked by frequent evidences of God’s blessing upon his preaching and his shepherding, his writings are still imminently useful today in his to be reprinted works. His important role in the fledgling Baptist mission society is by now clearly established. What can we conclude laid behind the strength of this one man? Surely his sterling character and his solid commitment to hard work made a significant difference. His life was filled with a true and evident personal piety as can be seen in his diaries and letters. He gave himself to careful study. He gave himself to the kind of study we heard about yesterday of the word of God.

He gave himself to prayer in private and to fasting and to prayer in public as well. As to his preaching, he was scriptural, plain, and expositional. He did not use a manuscript and tended to abominate long quotations, other than those of Scripture itself. All of these are seen in a host of other faithful men of various traditions throughout the ages. But what stands out in Andrew Fuller, especially in the light of our own times, is his firm grasp of the issues of ministry and of the relationship of theology to those issues, especially the so-called distinctives of his Calvinistic theology on matters pertaining to God’s character, God’s holiness, God’s sovereignty, and God’s salvation — in human responsibility, and in the great need of a church to preach the gospel to every creature and to seek by all means, to persuade all men to believe the gospel and to personally receive Christ as Lord and Savior.

For Andrew Fuller, there was no contradiction between believing that God had sovereignly and graciously elected and chosen a people, certain sinners for individual life or for eternal life in such a manner that God would get all the glory and grace would be pure, unadulterated grace. And there was no contradiction between that belief, which he saw clearly written Scripture and in his belief that man was a sinner by birth and by choice, and that he was morally responsible for every choice he made, and that if he would come to Christ he would be saved. The modern notion of free-willism was not in Fuller’s vocabulary. For God must get all the glory for every good and perfect gift, but man must be held responsible as the moral agent who acts in accordance with his own human will and nature consistently. The gospel must be preached to all nations. Every tribe, nation, and tongue will yield up a storehouse of true converts for the glory of God, Fuller believed.

As an evangelical Calvinist, Fuller could see this happening because of God, the God who had commissioned his church to go into all the world and make disciples, who was the God who would get the glory for himself through human instrumentality and obedience to his commission. Fuller believed no man living on God’s earth was beyond the hope of the gospel as long as he breathed. Fuller could work laboriously and faithfully because he knew God as his God. He knew God as God. He saw himself as one who represented God. He saw God as the holy one. He could support the much maligned missions cause in its infant days because he was convinced that God would ultimately give a harvest in due season if men fainted not.

You see, Fuller knew something that most of us don’t seem to understand, that he was in it for the long haul. He saw the cause in India going far beyond his lifetime. He didn’t work as if he was putting a seed down and sitting there waiting or tapping on the pulpit, waiting for the seed to harvest in one meeting. He knew that it may take a whole lifetime and a lifetime beyond his and a lifetime beyond that. And he had a perspective that was multi-generational, that what he was doing, God would in due time, bless.

My friend, if you believe whether it was in your lifetime or not, it made no difference, but that God get the glory and you believe that God wanted you to exercise all the means under the power of the Spirit to do all you can to the conversion of the world in your lifetime, what a difference it would make. That harvest may not come in his lifetime. He knew that, for he at times felt the greater harvest would come even later on and he persisted.

A Model of Faithfulness, Theology, and Missionary Labor

Let me close with these observations simply, what a wonderful model is Fuller to me, to you, a model of several things. He is a model of a faithful, hardworking, earnest, true pastor. He models as my friend Tom Nettles says this fact, that depravity never diminishes the need to continually repent. He models furthermore, said Nettles, “a man has no more true religion than he has in the time of his most severe trial.” My brothers, if you intend to persist in the ministry, you will undergo severe trials if you are faithful. And that is the moment in which your faith will be tested.

Out of that trial you will come and bless God who takes you through it because God is confirming that what he has poured into you is pure gold and it’s of his grace. He’ll bless your trials. Don’t fear your trials. Work on. Stay and serve. What a model he is to me of a faithful, earnest pastor.

Secondly, he’s a model of a serious theological thinker. Many of you men have come here these days thinking, “I don’t have a serious theological thought to contribute at all.” That’s not true. You have the abundance of the works and the books and the Scripture and the appeals that you received yesterday. You’ll never be a Jonathan Edwards as we were reminded yesterday, and I’m glad I was reminded of that. But you can be who you are to the glory of God and you can attain a firm, solid theological grasp of truth and grow in that knowledge. Dr. Nettles said of this aspect of Fuller’s life, “Though the doctrines of grace are true, we have not fully engaged them properly and to the changing of our hearts until we have become gracious men because of the doctrines of grace working through us.”

Friends, I stand today to tell you that when I first was enlightened by the Spirit of God in the sense to understand the glory of God’s sovereignty in my salvation, I wept like a baby. I worshiped as I had never worshiped before. But then I left the worship and prayer closet to become for a while, a rather hard-bitten son of a gun who was convinced he was right and everybody else was wrong, and that’s awful. That’s awful. Unless we have the grace of God that makes us gracious men, our ministry is worse than fruitless. God help us.

And finally, Fuller is a model of a missionary statesman who loved the cause of church planning and the extension of the gospel to unreached people groups with all of his heart. I believe that what we do here is significant. If for nothing else, we have focused not only on the glory of God and the salvation of sinners through pure unadulterated grace, but on this day, this Saturday, April 16th, 1988, we’re focusing on the result of understanding that theology with our hearts engaged in it — the cause of missions to the unreached peoples of the world. God help us to hang onto that perspective. Even the most inestimable wonderful character that Andrew Fuller was, even more precious is Andrew Fuller’s God. Glory to the Lamb who sits on the throne who will have for himself a people from every tribe and nation and tongue on this planet.

Question and Answer

Well, I’ve gone into my question and answer time, but I think we have about 10 minutes. Okay? Yes.

You mentioned Fuller’s works were going to be republished soon. Are all his writings going to be included in there, including his diary?

Those works are not all of his writings, but they’re the principal part of his writings. If I’m not mistaken, there is a memoir and last remains of Reverend Andrew Fuller that is not incorporated into that, but that’s the principal part. All the works I referred to and the quotes I gave you were all in those works to my knowledge.

Which biography or biographies do you recommend?

That’s a good question. The works will have a biography in them by Andrew G. Fuller, his son. There’s a biography that’s less important by his grandson, Thomas E. Fuller. The most important biography is by John Ryland Jr, which is out of print, scarce, and hard to find. I have a friend who has it. I found out he had it three days before I came here, so it didn’t help me. I tried to get it. I think Bethel has it in the rare book collection so you can see it. Southwestern Baptist Seminary had it and wouldn’t loan it to me. I got a lot of excerpts from it but couldn’t get the actual book.

To be quite honest. It would be very helpful if somebody would write a little book on the life of Andrew Fuller and introduce him again to us today, not something technical or highly annotated. There are a lot of journal articles on Fuller. If you comb through the Baptist Historical Society and various sources, you’ll find all kinds of scholarly articles interacting with his importance and his contribution and focusing on his missionary commitments and what it meant. There’s a lot of that kind of stuff. He’s been studied by serious historians, but the average person doesn’t know anything about the story of the man and that’s most unfortunate. Very unfortunate.

Regarding Fuller’s view on conversion, how do you think he would have understood Romans 7 and Paul’s continual struggle with remaining sin?

I think Fuller would’ve understood that the way others of his same ilk and kind would’ve understood it theologically. And that is that Paul was speaking in Romans 7 of that which was true of a believer who from his heart loved the law of God. And as a result of that intensified growing love for the law of God, it created this conflict within his mind that he wanted to be all that God his law said he should be, but he found that within him there was not the power to be all that he desired to be.

I don’t see Roman 7 in the way Dr. Packer referred to it yesterday too, in the more Keswick or deeper life since the way it’s been taught as get out of seven and get into eight. Romans seven has been understood I think in various ways of course, but as the strugglings and longings of a passionate man who’s striving for holiness. Not a weakened, defeated, carnal Christian as the modern church has so frequently understood Romans y. So fuller would’ve understood it that way.

He was not saying that he had to be swept clean in the sense of entire perfection. He would’ve abominated such an idea. He knew that the Christian life was characterized by a righteous holy principle to please God, but it was always going to be marred by the imperfections of his remaining corruption. And he lived with that tension. If you ever get your congregation and yourself out of that tension, you’ve got yourself into an extreme on either side in my own pastoral and biblical judgment. That is a healthy tension in the sense of the biblical tensions.

I think it’s psychologically healthy by the way too. I think you can go too far either way psychologically, but I think it’s psychologically healthy. I spent several years personally trying to find a deeper life experience that would set me free. That was anything but psychologically healthy. I was distressed when I came to understand progressive sanctification and understand that what I was struggling with was in fact a mark of my life and a mark of God at work within me. It gave me encouragement. It didn’t discourage me. By the same token as the hymn writer says, “The thing that becomes the passion of my heart is to be freed of the sinning heart.” I’d say to my congregation many times, “I think the greatest joy I’ll have when I die is to get rid of this sinning heart.” I think I want to get rid of that and sometimes with such a passion that I just can’t stand it anymore. Lord, liberate me from this sinful state in which I still remain and yet desire more.

Did the Moravians have any influence on Fuller?

The most direct influence was that of Edwards’s writings on the will and Brainerd’s diary and so forth that I referred to. But there’s no question that these men were very aware of the Moravians. Not only aware, but they saw what they were doing as a model that it could be done by them and should be done. And we must not overlook their very positive effect on them. Thank you for reminding us of that.

Can you give you any numbers of people that went out from the Kettering church for missions?

I don’t know for sure even in Fuller’s lifetime if they actually sent people. I don’t think that’s a deficiency on their part as much as it is a statement about where they were at that time and the missions effort. The men that went generally were pastors who left their pulpits under the urging of their brothers in the association. Can you imagine going to a Baptist Association meeting like that? I’m in the Midwest Baptist Conference and we’re having a Midwest district meeting and three pastors say, “Brothers, we feel compelled to go. Would you support us?”

That kind of thing coming out of our denominational meetings was happening. That was more what was happening then as opposed to what we are more familiar with today. Carey made a statement before he left for India. He said, “I’m going down into the mine to look for gold among the heathen nations. Would you, brother Fuller, stand at the pit of the mine and hold the rope?” And that stayed with Fuller. He believed until his last day that he was the rope holder. And he referred to his work as that of holding the rope. And right to his death, as other brothers were dying off of other men who were rope holders, he began to feel like, “I’m one of the last rope holders.” But he held tenaciously to his death.

And most of his biographers and students of Fuller say that there’s no question that best we can tell physically that he died because of his efforts for missions. That was what brought on his death at 61. One account I read said, “He was constantly taking emetics.” I thought I knew what the word meant and I looked it up. It meant that he had a bad stomach and he was always having to take stuff so he could throw up just so he could function. He was constantly that way. Can you imagine traveling on a horse with that kind of a sick stomach and that kind of a physical constitution? It was for one reason: to raise funds to enlighten the church about the cause of missions.

Here’s a little interesting story, Fuller went into the manse of an Anglican brother to appeal for funds because other churches and groups started supporting the Baptist cause. And since they didn’t have one, and of course, one of the effects was other groups then started their missions as they saw this one grow. But this man was grumbling and complaining about these Baptists and non-conformist and their zeal for missions and their foolishness and so forth and so on. He didn’t really know why Fuller was there. But he said, “I want to tell you one thing, young man. There’s a book that’s a marvelous book. It’s called The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation. The author of that book is a profound man and I’m indebted to him.” And he said, “Well, sir, I take the credit for all the flaws of that book since I wrote it.”

And then the man was all blushed and offered to make a contribution right out of his drawer to the mission and Fuller flatly refused. He said, “Sir, if you didn’t like the mission before, I don’t want your money now.” So he could be pretty stubborn too. Most leaders can be pretty tough. They have to be.

Can you speak of the influence of Lady Huntington in Fuller’s life and for the cause of missions?

Interesting question. Lady Huntington is a very, very fascinating person, isn’t she? She was a very important lady who was a widow, who had a lot of money and used it for missions and for Whitfield and Wesley and the whole movement of revival. She was known by Fuller. I don’t have any reason to think that they actually had met or had any direct contact. She would’ve been a little bit earlier than Fuller though the lives overlapped somewhat. But she was a very significant lady.

Would it have been possible given the class distinctions of those days for him to have gotten along with Lady Huntington?

I don’t know if I can answer that. I guess I would take a guess like you that it would’ve been difficult, wouldn’t it? Seemingly. She was aristocracy and Fuller was plain rural common stock. Isaac Watts and those men were dissenters and were pretty plain folk too. So she seemed to be the kind of work person who moved across the social strata, but I’m sure that there were social factors.

Let me say one word in closing about a book. I asked earlier if I could bring extra copies of this book called Christian, Take Heart. This is a great book and the author has written another book that Fred is out of that you ought to read called A Vision For Missions.

He’s a friend of mine. He’s a pastor in Cincinnati, Ohio — a man who has a gift of being able to write very plainly. You may struggle with some things you’ve heard me say today about carnality and walking in the way of holiness and assurance of salvation. Those are things that you’re just maybe starting to wrestle with. This would be a good place to start. You want to go a lot deeper than this in terms of your reading, but this would be a wonderful place to start. It’s a wonderful book to give to people.

Tom says of this book, “This is my pastoral confession of my failures in the ministry and my attempt to correct them.” The failures he refers to is his failure to understand the nature of holiness and the fact that true holiness had to attend to true salvation if it was true, or the person should question. But the value of this book, as opposed to some books that have tried to tackle this subject from our theological concerns, is that his desire is to give the true Christian encouragement and to say, “Christian, take heart.”

Some of you have come from backgrounds and have experienced some of what I’ve experienced where when you go one way, you almost go too far the other way. And what happens is for a period of time in my own life, like some others, the lack of assurance was pretty crippling. I wondered if I was a converted man. There’s a certain amount of that which can be extremely helpful, but you need to know where to go to find help to answer that question. Scripture does speak of assurance and it does point you in a direction where you can have a full assurance of faith.

I still remember my mother telling me, “There’s not much better truth in what you get than that chorus: ‘Trust and obey for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.” But Tom has really handled this very well and I would commend this book to you. If you take home a book to start somewhere with the practical implications of some of the things that I talked about today. Read Christian, Take Heart and get his book, A Vision For Missions and you’ll get that the fire that drove Fuller and Carey was the glory of God. It’s not how many people can we get to respond to the gospel.

It wasn’t that they weren’t interested in as many people responding as possible, but that that wasn’t their goal. Their goal was the glory of God in the evangelization of unreached peoples and they believed that God would save people and save many people and they prayed for that and they worked for that. But that wasn’t their focus. If your focus becomes to get as many people to respond as possible, you’ll really get off center and that’s one of my concerns about our current scene as it was expressed yesterday.