Dear Brethren, I have recently found the following letter on a web-site named The Lifted Veil. I replied immediately but, as so often on these sites, I was not accepted as a subscriber and my letter and personal data just disappeared after clicking on the comments button. I am thus presenting the original ‘open letter’ which I never received myself with my reply, trusting that someone will link me up with the writer so that a most necessary dialogue might take place. Dear brothers in Christ, I have a few queries about George Ella’s remark regarding New Covenant Theology. 1. Has he actually read Wells and Zaspel’s book or is he basing his criticisms on material written by others? If he has not read the… Full Article
Posts Tagged Andrew Fuller
Dear Brother Shane
Mar 19
Sir: It is understandable that one who identified himself so closely with the English Reformers, Whitfield and the Marrow Men should be criticised by Arminians. For Huntington, Arminians were Antinomians who rejected the condemning and convicting use of the law in evangelism, inviting sinners to approach God “as if they had never apostatized”. They believed that man was not totally fallen but was naturally able to make saving decisions. Huntington preached a full gospel whereas his Fullerite and Wesleyan critics taught respectively that the doctrines of grace were for believers only or to be rejected as ‘the religion of the Turks’. Contrary to adverse criticism that Huntington stood alone, he was supported by a… Full Article
My reason for publishing this account of William Carey and his Indian mission on my website. On 18-21 February, 2010 a conference will be held at Muscle Shoals, Alabama under the theme ‘The Quagmire of Hyper-Calvinism’. The key speaker will be Dr. Michael Haykin who will lecture on Andrew Fuller as a missionary pioneer. The myth that Andrew Fuller pioneered a missionary movement is superstitiously believed by Dr. Haykin and his circle but the Baptist Missionary Society Fuller helped to found came at the rear end of a long line of Christian missionary organisations whether church based or, like the BMS, a para-church movement. Andrew Fuller was not the instigator of this missionary society but William Carey who urged the Baptists to… Full Article
Part II: The Mission Prospers The mission at Serampore prospered and spread. Carey was given the most prominent building in the city for the church in which he preached for the next thirty-four years. The town of Serampore, too, prospered as it proved an asylum of peace for fugitives from the Americo-Franco-British wars and it persuaded many wealthy investors to settle there. More missionaries were urgently needed as Brunsdon soon died of a liver complaint. Fountain, who was doing pioneer work at Dinapoor, also died after a short illness. Thomas rejoined the mission but became insane and soon died. The missionaries were able to purchase a very large house in the middle of the town with two acres of garden from the Governor’s… Full Article
Imputation of Sin
Nov 14
A Letter to a Christian Newspaper: Sir: Regarding imputed sin. I believe the idea is thoroughly Scriptural, though acknowledging that there is much controversy concerning what is meant by the term. I understand it to mean that all those who die do so because of sin, even He who did not sin as the first Adam, i.e. the Second Adam. I base this on Romans 5.12 ff.. All men are thus imputed with sin, and all men thus die, though one man knew no sin personally. In taking upon Himself the form of a man, Christ voluntarily imputed Himself with sin for our sakes. Though He kept Himself free from actually sinning, He was born to die just like other men, and die He did. He also showed human frailty and the curse of growing older…. Full Article
Come and Welcome Letter
Nov 11
The Banner of Truth Trust perverts Bunyan’s gospel A letter to the English Churchman Sir: Bunyan’s Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ based on John 6:37 is beset with the finest jewels of Christian preaching, infusing hope and joy into the hearts of sorrowing sinners. The BOT’s 1991 reprint of Bunyan’s original version was a most welcome evangelistic venture as Bunyan’s elegant, pithy language speaks as clearly today as it did in the 17th century. So why has the BOT now published a new, badly edited and altered version with an introduction and blurb containing irrelevant and misleading New Divinity propaganda? Paul Austen (Nr. 7652) rightly challenges the suitability of a publisher’s preface which presents… Full Article
Dear Sir, 1795-1835 was a time of widespread revival with Anglican Robert Hawker preaching to thousands, Independent William Huntington equalled his efforts and Baptist William Gadsby founding 45-50 churches filled with new converts. The PBs were not inactive in this time but Mr Cook confuses Gill’s orthodoxy with Fuller’s. Gill had one of the largest Particular Baptist congregations in Britain, outnumbering Fullers by far. Contemporary evangelical magazines objecting to Fullerism’s ‘gangerous’ effect on church growth were legion. However, in 1814, Fuller claimed that his churches had shrunk greatly to an average of fifty members and had been steadily on the decline for 25 years. Church increase was due to… Full Article
Harmon on Fuller
Nov 7
I have forgotten for which publication I wrote this letter. Sir: Prof. Harmon’s recent critique of my Law and Gospel in the Theology of Andrew Fuller (Fall, 2001.) is inaccurate, lacking the objectivity of a scholar. I do not argue that Fuller sought to modify extreme Calvinism but point out that Fuller was often more High Calvinist than a number of his friends and foes, including Gill and Huntington. Prof. Harmon ranks the latter two with High Calvinists although they were both Sublapsarians. Fuller grew up in an extreme High-Calvinist, Antinomian and Johnsonian church and pastored it for some time. His Hyper-Calvinistic teaching that the full gospel was for believers only never left him and would have… Full Article
A number of modern writers who preach common-grace and duty-faith as redemptive means in evangelisation, view John Collet Ryland as a Hyper-Calvinist. Such a person, a recent BOT article tells us, does not appeal to sinners, “directly encouraging them to trust him (Christ), and appealing to them to do so now.” Obviously, given such criteria, Ryland’s critics know nothing of his extensive gospel ministry or are deliberately introducing a new conception of what ‘directly encouraging sinners’ means. Most of their ‘encouragement’ is found in their slogan ‘God’s provisions and man’s agency’ which stresses the need for man to use all his supposed natural abilities and duties to grasp out and take God’s provisions… Full Article
For Whom did Christ Die?
Oct 5
Nowadays we are assailed from all sides with the novel and un-Biblical doctrine that Christ actually died to atone for all sinners, though this atonement is only a theoretical provision to be made good by the agency of man. Such a teaching is called Theoretical Universalism and such a teaching is demonstrably false. This teaching does not distinguish between the state of man before the fall and his state after the fall, viewing all men as on probation, like Adam, until they reject or accept Christ. There are seven good reasons for rejecting this error: 1. The objects of redemption are the objects of God’s love God has a special saving love which must be distinguished from His general, providential goodness… Full Article
