The Andrew Fuller Center Review – EDIT - Word of Truth

6 th Annual Conference of the
Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies
It is not every Baptist theologian who has a movement named after him, but
Andrew Fuller was so important a theologian that historians of the church actually
talk about a perspective called “Fullerism.” Fuller’s views, though, were
not the product of simply his own theological reflection, but were formulated
by him in dialogue with a close circle of friends and subsequent joint action
with these friends, especially in missionary endeavors. This year The Andrew
Fuller Center for Baptist Studies is thrilled to devote its annual conference to
thinking about Fuller’s friends: their lives and ministries and how they shaped
and were shaped by Fuller, whom later generations called “the elephant of Kettering”–
a reference to his weighty theological influence. Come and join us
this September as we spend time and energy in thinking about a past Christian
thinker and his circle of friends whose influence for good and for the Kingdom
of the Lord Jesus has been enormous.
Peter Beck, Nathan Finn, Grant Gordon, Michael A. G. Haykin, Sam Masters,
Peter J. Morden, Kirk Wellum, J. Ryan West
The Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies
Phone: (502) 897-4613 | Email: andrewfullercenter@sbts.edu
Website: andrewfullercenter.org

e Andrew Fuller Center Review
Issue 3 • Summer • 2012
On the Cover:
e oil portrait of Andrew Fuller on the front cover of the review is
by the painter Samuel Medley (1769-1857), the son of the famous
Baptist minister, also Samuel Medley (1738-1799). e original oil
painting is in the personal collection of Rev. Norman L. Hopkins of
Rochester, Kent, England. Rev. Hopkins is a long-standing, serious
antiquarian book collector of Puritan and Baptist authors, who also
purchases items of theological and historical interest. He saw noti cation
of the Fuller portrait for sale in an auction house in Northumbria
in December, 2008, and recognized that it was clearly an authentic
original portrait. He put in a bid well over the suggested price and was
successful. Regretfully, the auctioneer was unwilling or unable to give
him any details of the provenance of the painting beyond the fact that
it was by Samuel Medley. e only other known oil painting of Fuller is
in Regent’s Park College, the University of Oxford.
e Andrew Fuller Review is published 3 times per year by
e Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies.
To Subscribe
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and US$35 for addresses outside North America (make your check or
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eological Seminary’).
To subscribe, send your request to:
e Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies
2825 Lexington Road
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Website: www.andrewfullercenter.org
E-mail: andrewfullercenter@sbts.edu
Editor Michael A.G. Haykin
Managing Editor J. Ryan West
Design and Layout Dustin Benge
Fellows of e Andrew Fuller Center
Matthew Barrett
Paul Brewster
Je Robinson
Jeongmo Yoo
Junior Fellows of e Andrew Fuller Center
Dustin Benge
Joe Harrod
Cody McNutt
Steve Weaver
J. Ryan West
and Baptists claimed to be “back to the Bible” movements, the view that created the
greatest gulf between them was the Sandemanian view that salvation came through
“bare belief in the bare gospel.” “Sandeman opposed any preaching that advocated
any duty or activity that could be construed as merits of salvation on the part of
the individual” (p.72). is makes the study of Sandemanianism germane to anyone
interested in the more recent gospel wars that have raged in the latter part of the
twentieth century in American evangelicalism over the so-called “lordship salvation.”
Many today seek to separate faith and repentance, believing that repentance is
a de facto work. So a careful study of Sandemanianism and its decline may be useful
in answering more recent similar objections.
e student of Sandemanianism is further helped in Smith’s book by a comprehensive
bibliography and a detailed index. In sum, Smith is to be thanked for bringing
to life an obscure, now deceased sect, important in the study of Baptist history and
evangelical theological debate, through this ne treatment.
Je Straub, Professor of Historical
eology, Central Baptist eological Seminary, Plymouth, MN
Roger D. Duke, Phil A. Newton, and Drew Harris, eds.
and introduced, Venture All for God: Piety in the Writings
of John Bunyan (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage
Books, 2011), 194p.
e richness and fullness of the piety of John Bunyan is
o en obscured by the tremendous popularity of his greatest
allegory, e Pilgrim’s Progress, and his famous autobiography,
Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. To be sure,
these works must be included in any discussion of John Bunyan’s
piety, but the discussion must not end here. In Venture
All for God: Piety in the Writings of John Bunyan, the editors
have selected a series of short readings taken from Bunyan’s lesser-known writings
to present a more robust portrait of his piety. ese readings are arranged under
the following headings: Christ Our Advocate, Christ Jesus the Merciful Savior, Hope
for Sinners, True Humility, Christian Ethics, e Gospel Applied, and Warnings. A
short, but surprisingly full biographical sketch of Bunyan’s life, ministry, and historical
setting is also included. In addition to being a traveling pilgrim and an assured
doubter, we see here that John Bunyan loved Christ deeply, exhorted sinners sincerely,
and strove earnestly to live what he called a “gospelized” life.
Bennett Rogers, PhD student,
e Southern Baptist eological Seminary, Louisville, KY

John Howard Smith, e Perfect Rule of the Christian
Religion: A History of Sandemanianism in the Eighteenth
Century. Albany, New York: State University of New York
Press, 2008. ix+ 236 pages
Historians of the Baptist tradition encounter a number of
lesser known sects that intersect Baptist life down through
the four centuries of our existence. ese secondary groups
are important areas for expanded study as we seek to understand
the Baptist theological battles in their context. Some
of these movements were quite small and isolated, fading as
quickly as they arose, yet they le a lasting impact on Baptist
theology because of those who argued against them.
One such movement is Sandemanianism or the Glasite movement that arose in
Scotland through the in uence of John Glas (1695–1773). It was transplanted to
North America by his better known son-in-law, Robert Sandeman (1714–1771).
While its impact was on the fringes of Baptist life, its in uence was felt among some
of our most recognizable names. Christmas Evans, the tireless Welsh Baptist evangelist,
spoke of the Sandemanian in uence in Wales and its chilling e ect on his
own spiritual journey. Among the Baptist worthies that contended with the teachings
of Glas and Sandeman were the eminent British Baptist Andrew Fuller (Strictures
Against Sandemanianism) and the equally distinguished Isaac Backus (True Faith will
Produce Good Works).
Yet the student of eighteenth-century Baptist life up until now has been hard
pressed to nd su cient material to study Sandemanianism in depth. John Howard
Smith has recti ed this neglect with a carefully-researched and well-written history
of this movement, focusing for the most part on its American connections but giving
signi cant detail to satisfy the most curious among us of this now distant sect, its
origins and its impact.
e story begins with John Glas’ break with Scottish Presbyterianism in October of
1727 and takes the reader on a journey through the developing chronicle of how the
Glasites, via Robert Sandeman, came to nd a more welcoming environment for the
propagation of their particular theology in North America. Along the way, Smith introduces
the reader to the important literature of the movement and places in proper
order those theological antagonists who opposed it.
In addition to showing the history of the movement, Smith also gives the reader an
introduction to some of the salient doctrinal particularities that made it the object of
opprobrium among theologically-minded Baptists. Although both Sandemanianism
–

This past April the Andrew Fuller Center held a miniconference
to remember the pastors and preachers
expelled from the Anglican Church on August 24,
1662, a few of whom subsequently became Baptists. A er
the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the state church
was determined to enforce a uniformity of worship, and
hence secured the passage of a body of legislation known
as the Clarendon Code that made worship outside of the
Church of England illegal. Many could not go along with
this legislation and were forced into disobedience to the state out of a desire to obey
God rst and foremost.
Among those who su ered was Abraham Cheare (1626–1668), pastor of the Calvinistic
Baptist church at Plymouth. First imprisoned in 1661 for his Baptist convictions,
he was to be in prison for the greater part of the next seven years till his death
in 1668. His rst imprisonment, for three months, was in the county jail in Exeter,
which was described by one contemporary as “a living tomb, a sink of lth, profaneness
and pro igacy.” On August 24, 1662, he was forced to leave his church by reason
of the Act of Uniformity and subsequently re-arrested. He spent the next three years
in prison in Exeter. He was released in August 1665, only to be arrested a third time
when he resumed preaching in Plymouth. He was incarcerated on Drake’s Island in
Plymouth Sound where he died a er some months of illness in 1668.
A er his death some letters of his were published in a volume entitled Words in
Season (1668). In one of these letters, Cheare, who was not a boastful man, could say
of his own case, a er more than ve years of imprisonment: “I have never yet seen
the least reason and (I praise Christ my Lord) never been under an hour’s temptation,
to relinquish or repent of my testimony in word or deed to any one persecuted
truth of Christ for which I su er.” Such a man has much to teach us.
And so does Hercules Collins, about whom Steve Weaver, a Junior Fellow of the
Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies and a PhD candidate at the Southern Seminary,
writes in one of the lead articles of this issue. Steve originally gave this paper
at the April mini-conference noted above and we are thankful that we can publish it
here as a model of how to learn from our Baptist forebears about su ering and persecution.
Also featured in this issue is an article by Keith Grant, who is doing a PhD in
history at the University of New Brunswick, on Andrew Fuller as a preacher. It originally
appeared in CRUX magazine, published by Regent College in Vancouver, and
is an excellent example of the mini-renaissance that is taking place in Andrew Fuller
studies. May we see many more examples of such ne research in the days to come.
Michael A.G. Haykin
Director, e Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies
of Evangelical Anglican chaplains in India, which included
the missionary Henry Martyn.
15 Timothy Dwight (1752–1817), the grand-son of Jonathan
Edwards, was a Congregationalist minister and theologian,
and one of the major religious gures of his day. He
became president of Yale in 1795.
16 is is a reference to Jonathan Edwards, Jr., the son
of Jonathan Edwards, Sr. and uncle of Timothy Dwight. He
was o en called “Dr. Edwards” as a way of distinguishing
him from his father. Ryland refers to him thus a couple
of lines later in the letter. e younger Edwards attended
the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) and
also studied under Joseph Bellamy. Although only thirteen
when his father died, he had a similar career, involving
stormy relations with the churches he pastored, ending up
as a college president (Union College in Schenectady, New
York) and dying in his mid-50s. Edwards was a leading representative
of New Divinity theology.
17 e “dear grandfather” is Jonathan Edwards, Sr., the
leading American theologian of the eighteenth century.
18 e Evangelical Magazine was an inter-denominational
publication founded in 1793. Ryland, along with his close
friend Andrew Fuller, and other Baptists frequently published
letters and articles in this magazine till a distinct Baptist
publication, e Baptist Magazine, was founded in 1809.
19 John Webster Morris (1763–1836), owned a press at
Clipstone, England, and pastored the Baptist church there.
Morris also wrote the Memoirs of the Life and Writing of the
Rev. Andrew Fuller (London, 1816).
20 e Biblical Magazine, a short-lived but in uential
Baptist magazine, was edited by Morris and lasted from
1801–1803 when it merged with e eological Magazine.
Andover-Newton eological Seminary and Southwestern
Baptist eological Seminary have complete sets of this
publication.
21 Fuller’s work against the Deists was called e Gospel
its own Witness; or, the Holy and Divine Harmony of the
Christian Religion Contrasted with the Immorality and Absurdity
of Deism (Clipstone: J. W. Morris, 1799).
22 John Smalley was an American Congregationalist
minister who studied under Joseph Bellamy and was also
in uenced through his extensive reading of the elder Jonathan
Edwards’ works. He mentored Nathaniel Emmons (see
above, note 10) and Ebenezer Porter (1772–1834), who became
an in uential professor at and President of Andover
Seminary.
23 e sermon on Jeroboam is a reference to a fast day
sermon that Nathanael Emmons delivered in Wrentham,
Massachusetts on April 9, 1801, using 2 Kings 17:21 as his
text. Emmons did not mention President omas Je erson
by name, but it is quite clear from his sermon that he is
equating Je erson with Jeroboam. Emmons, like the rest of
the New England Congregationalists, was a Federalist and
was disappointed with the election of Je erson in 1801. Jefferson
won the election by only one vote when the election
was sent to the House of Representatives. e loser was Aaron
Burr (1756–1836), a grand-son of Jonathan Edwards, Sr.,
who then became Vice-President. While Baptists did not
approve of Je erson’s religious views, they welcomed him
because he took their side in the debate over the separation
of church and state.
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M[anuscrip]ts were likely to fall. 17 I hope
God will preserve them from being lost.
I wish I had press’d Dr. Edwards to favor
me w[i]th a few more Serm[ons]. I have
one, or rather two, w[hi]ch I transcribed
sev[era]l years ago for the Evang[elica]
l Magazine. 18 ey declined inserting
them, but Morris 19 pub[lished] them in
the Biblical Magazine. 20
Bro[ther] Fuller has lately met w[i]
th some warm and unkind opposition
on acc[oun]t of a Note in his B[oo]k
ag[ains]to the Deists, 21 approaching to
the views of Dr Edwards & Smalley respecting
the Atonem[en]t. 22
I pray God that you may enjoy much
of his presence here, as you are advancing
nearer to his blessed rest. I am now
turned of 50. May we have an happy
Meeting before the throne.
I am Dear Sir your’s a ectionately,
John Ryland
* is sermon on Jeroboam 23 seems to me an Outrage
on all decent Regard for Government. Let Jefferson
be what he may as to Religion. I suppose he
got his authority in as legal a way as Nero, or perhaps
as any Monarch now upon Earth. All Respect
for the powers that be is quite set aside if Christians
may so directly insult the chief Magistrate of
a country.
is a graduate of
the University of Albany with an M. A. in
English. He is a writer and owns the Book
Hound, an antiquarian bookstore in Amsterdam,
NY. He attends the Bible Baptist
Church in Galway, NY.
_____________________
1 is letter is in the personal possession of Mr. Craig
Fries of Amsterdam, New York, and is published with his
permission.
2 For Hopkins’ detailed response to Ryland, see his Letter
to John Ryland, September 1803 [ e Works of Samuel
Hopkins, D.D. (Boston: Doctrinal Tract Society, 1865), II,
752–758].
3 Andrew Fuller (1754–1815), an English Particular
Baptist and very close friend of Ryland, pastored the Baptist
church in Kettering from 1782 until his death. He was the
most in uential Baptist theologian of his day and played a
key role in the founding of the Baptist Missionary Society
in 1792.
4 e Death Of Legal Hope (London, 1770) was a 123page
essay written by Particular Baptist pastor, Abraham
Booth (1734–1806), published in 1770, the year a er his
ordination. It was based on the biblical text, Galatians 2:19,
and sought to combat Antinomianism.
5 Andrew Fuller’s “Bedford Sermon” was probably God’s
approbation of our labours necessary to the hope of success
(Clipstone, 1801), delivered at the annual meeting of the
Bedford Union, May 6, 1801. In 1802, two American editions
also appeared, one published in Boston by Manning
& Loring, frequent publishers of things Baptist, and one in
New York by C. Davis.
6 is is a reference to Bristol Baptist Academy. Ryland
had become president of the academy in 1794.
7 Among Hopkins’ “brethren” and the “New England
Divines” mentioned later would be Joseph Bellamy
(1719–1790), John Smalley (1734–1820), Stephen West
(1735–1819), and Jonathan Edwards, Jr. (1745–1801). For
a useful introduction to the theology of these men and
their movement, which begins with Jonathan Edwards and
ends with Edwards Amasa Parks (1808–1900), see Douglas
A. Sweeney and Allen C. Guelzo, eds., e New England
eology: From Jonathan Edwards to Edwards Amasa Park
(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2006).
8 “Our Missionaries in Bengal” would have included
William Carey (1761–1834), William Ward (1769–1823)
and Joshua Marshman (1768–1837).
9 Probably a reference to Nathan Strong (1748–1816)
who graduated at the head of his class from Yale in 1769,
tutored at Yale for a while and then pastored the First
Church in Hartford, Connecticut for 42 years, commencing
in 1774. He was the founder of e Connecticut Missionary
Society and e Connecticut Evangelical Magazine, one
of the rst monthly religious journals in the United States,
which sought to promote the bene cial e ects of the Second
Great Awakening. In 1796, he published a theological
work entitled e Doctrine of Eternal Misery consistent with
the In nite Benevolence of God. He was the son of Nathan
Strong, Sr. (1717–1795) of Coventry, Connecticut, under
whom Nathanael Emmons studied.
10 Nathanael Emmons (1745–1840), was a graduate of
Yale and a Congregational minister who studied under Nathan
Strong, Sr., of Coventry, Connecticut and John Smalley.
A gi ed preacher and proli c writer, he trained 87 men
for the ministry. While his theology is o en confused with
that of Samuel Hopkins, it di ered in several key areas.
11 Dr. Ezra Stiles (1746–1795) was an Old Light Congregationalist
minister in Newport, Rhode Island and later
president of Yale. He was tolerant and catholic by nature
and sometimes traded pulpits with Samuel Hopkins who
was a New Light Congregationalist. Stiles was a regular correspondent
of Sir William Jones (see below, note 11). He
was particularly interested in any information that Jones
might have on the whereabouts of the ten “lost tribes” of
Israel and hoped that the Jews at Cochin might have some
early Biblical manuscripts in their possession. For more information,
see George Alexander Kohut, Ezra Stiles and the
Jews: Selected Passages from His Literary Diary Concerning
Jews and Judaism (New York: Phillip Cowen, 1902.)
12 Sir William Jones (1746–1794), English philologist
and jurist, was a Supreme Court judge in Calcutta, India
for eleven years. He was the Founder of the Asiatic Society
of Bengal.
13 e Cochin Jews, also called the Malabar Jews, lived
in the South Indian Kingdom of Cochin, which included
the present-day city of Kochi. Some scholars have argued
they settled there during the time of King Solomon. ey
were persecuted by the Portuguese when the colony came
under their control. England took control in 1795. Few Jews
remain today as they either have emigrated to Israel or converted
to Christianity.
14 Possibly Rev. David Brown (1762–1812), a Cambridge
graduate who, greatly in uenced by Charles Simeon, became
an Evangelical chaplain of the East India Company
and Provost of Fort William College, established in Calcutta
in 1800. Brown was considered the leader of a group
–
here is evangelical theology,
and there is evangelical piety: Is
there also evangelical pastoral
theology? Did the rise of evangelicalism
in the eighteenth century change what it
meant to be a pastor? 1
e preaching of Andrew Fuller
(1754–1815) suggests that yes, evangelical
emphasis on the cross of Christ,
conversion, and heartfelt experience did
indeed lead to a transformed pastoral
theology. is change was not so much
in terms of new pastoral duties, as much
as a renewal of the character of the main
pastoral tasks, as it were, from within.
ere is, then, a distinctively evangelical
approach to pastoral theology.
Andrew Fuller’s adoption of a warmly
evangelical theology certainly transformed
his own pastoral ministry; from
the beginning, he knew that “this reasoning
would a ect the whole tenor of
my preaching.” 2 T
Fuller was also the leading
gure in the transformation of the
English Particular Baptist churches in
the late eighteenth century, and played a
central role in the launch of the modern
missionary movement. His evangelical
Calvinism, which drew signi cantly on
Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), became
known as “Fullerism” in his own lifetime.
e evangelical transformation of the
late eighteenth-century church is usually
described in its outward aspects: widespread
itinerancy, international missions,
and voluntary societies alongside
the congregation. 3 And, indeed, Andrew
Fuller was a leader in such expansionist
activity, himself a village preacher, an
administrator and advocate for the Baptist
Missionary Society, and a theologian
whose moderate Calvinism enabled—
even obligated—such evangelical initiatives.
But the weekly congregational
preaching of Fuller and his contemporaries
did not remain static while evangelical
concerns produced change elsewhere.
e evangelical transformation
of the church meant not only preaching
in new places, but also preaching
in a new way. e pastoral theology of
Andrew Fuller demonstrates how evangelical
theology and piety in uenced his
preaching, a renewal that was particularly
evident in his conviction that preaching
be plain in composition and delivery,
evangelical in content and concern, and
a ectionate in feeling and application.
“He who would be generally agreeable
to dissenters,” wrote Philip Doddridge
(1702–1751) in the early eighteenth
century, “must be an evangelical, an experimental,
a plain and an a ectionate
preacher.” 4 Such a preacher was Andrew
Fuller. A diarist from his Northampton-

shire congregation styled his ministry
as “very a ecting and evangelical,” and
his sermons as “truly evangelical, melting
and a ectionate discourses.” 5 e
qualities which were most characteristic
of Fuller’s preaching—a plain style of
address, evangelical doctrine, and the
personal language of the heart—were
indicative of the evangelical renewal of
English Dissenting pastoral theology at
the end of the eighteenth century.
“ e Simplicity of the Gospel”: Fuller’s
plain style of preaching
Andrew Fuller embraced a “plain style”
of address that was particularly well suited
for his evangelical aims: vernacular in
language, simple in composition, intentionally
perspicuous, and more a ecting
than a ected in its rhetoric.
is plain style was not uniquely the
product of evangelicalism, representative
as it was of a more general move
toward plain, unadorned prose in literature
and correspondence, as well as
homiletics. e style sought a common
language, accessible by a wide range of
readers, an approach shared by Isaac
Watts (1674–1748) in his hymnody:
“ e Metaphors are generally sunk to
the Level of vulgar Capacities, I have
aim’d at Ease of Numbers and Smoothness
of Sound, and endeavoured to make
the Sense plain and obvious.” 6
e trajectory of English sermon
composition was away from the “metaphysical”
style of Lancelot Andrewes
(1555–1626) and John Donne (1572–
1631), and although Puritans were
crucial in that shi , in time there was
also a departure from the proliferation
of subheadings that had characterized
some Puritan preaching. ere emerged
a fairly broad consensus as to simplicity
in Protestant preaching across the theological
spectrum, allowing, of course, for
individual personality and theological
content.
e emphasis on plainness and simplicity
in preaching was an important
element of Fuller’s instructions about
preaching, and his own sermons were
characterized by clarity, applicability,
and biblical language. One of the editors
of his collected Works, Joseph Belcher,
wrote of Fuller’s preaching, “You are
struck with the clearness of his statements;
every text is held up before your
view so as to become transparent.” 7 Joseph
Ivimey’s appraisal was that Fuller
“greatly excelled in the simplicity of his
compositions.” 8
One of the shaping in uences upon
Fuller’s appropriation of the plain style
was the widely read Essay on the Composition
of a Sermon by French Protestant
Jean Claude (1616–1687). 9 In outlining
general rules for sermons, Claude emphasized
clarity and comprehension,
warning that obscurity is “the most
disagreeable thing in the world in a
gospel-pulpit.” Rather, “a preacher must
be simple and grave. Simple, speaking
things full of good natural sense without
metaphysical speculations; for none are
more impertinent than they, who deliver
in the pulpit abstract speculations,
de nitions in form, and scholastic questions,
which they pretend to derive from
their texts.” 10 Claude’s translator, Robert
Robinson, pithily contended: “Plainness
in religion is elegance, and popular perspicuity
true magni cence.” 11
e impetus toward simplicity and
plainness in art and rhetoric, Peter Auksi
has argued, is a signi cant stream within
not wholly surmount, tho I may perhaps
be more favorably disposed toward your
view than most persons in the [Kingdom?].
I have feared also a temptation to dwell
upon a few truths, and some of them the
most di cult truths of Religion, to the
neglect of other parts of Revelation. I
hope all your friends will guard against
this evil.
Another Danger to w[hi]ch some of
the New England Divines seem exposed,
is the Neglect of Scripture Authority,
and a method of proving theological
points more by reason than by the Bible.
But nothing puzzles me so much as
the views some of you seem to entertain,
respecting the divine Agency in
respect of Sin. Must we almost lay aside
the Business of proving that God is the
Author of all the moral good in the Universe,
to spend our Lifetime in proving
that he is also in some sense the Author
of all the moral Evil in the world; and yet
that this is no Excuse for Sin? I am afraid
that if we get the former part of this
last Notion into Men’s hands, we shall
never be able to prevent their drawing a
contrary Conclusion. Some w[ould] be
ready to stone us, before we could make
them understand us on this subject, and
others w[ould] surely shi o all blame
from themselves upon the most High. I
wish much to know how your brethren
w[ould] answer the pleas of the Hindoos,
if they were in the Case of our Missionaries
in Bengal 8 and shall therefore inclose
a few Extracts from the last journal
of my friend Marshman. It w[ould] be
a high grati cation to receive your own
Remarks but if your weak state of health
sh[ould] prevent, or if you should be
gone to Heaven before this reaches you,
I sh[ould] be glad for this Letter to be
given to [Mr.?] Strong, 9 or some friend
of nearly the same stamp, and w[ould]
thank him for his Observations. I don’t
want it to go to any one who pushes the
Matter still further, e.g. Dr Emmons*
seems to be such a one. 10 I cannot relish
his representation of sev[era]l subjects,
particularly his idea of a Christian popping
into a State of perfection and out
again interchangeably, all the days of his
Life etc.
I am strongly persuaded that I need
not make an Apology to you for so freely
mentioning the points on which I feel
most di culty; I believe that I and my
most intimate friends are more disposed
to canvass the subjects on which you
have written impartially, than any others
you w[ould] nd in England. And it
must be some advantage to you, to see
wherein subjects strike those who were
unused to the discussion, and cause
them to fear for bad consequences.
Surely it w[ould] be well if all Christians
w[ould] labor earnestly a er the investigation
of truth, without being unduly
in uenced either by their attachment to
old ideas and phrases on the one hand,
or by the a ectation of novelty on the
other.
Do you know whether any thing has
been sent to America in reply to Dr Ezra
Stiles[’] 11 letter to Sir W[illia]m Jones 12
about the Jews at Cochin etc. 13 I have
begged our brethren to enquire, and nd
that [Mr.?] Brown 14 is now likely to prosecute
the business with earnestness.
I wrote long since to Dr. Dwight, 15
and sent him several pamphlets, begging
for some Acc[oun]t of his Uncle’s
Death 16 and wishing much to know
into what hands his d[ea]r grandfather’s

them without a Reply, if he sh[ould] feel
himself convinced; or else to show by a
Reply, how calmly and friendly he can
discuss the subject.
My Station in the Academy 6 leaves
me less time for correspond[ence] and
friendly Discussion than I could wish,
& indeed for Reading also. It has sometimes
seemed to me as if you, my d[ea]
r sir, and some of your brethren, 7 expected
an opportunity to be given, a er
[regeneration?], of almost always trying
how the Law w[ould] operate on the renewed
mind, before a man tho’t of the
gospel. at he might rst show the effect
of Grace on a hopeless mind, and
then on a mind w[hi]ch embraced the
hope of the gospel. But is it not a Fact,
that there are few souls regenerated,
but what have already heard the gospel
sev[era]l times, and o en many? Now
must they not disbelieve the Gospel, if
they conclude there is no possibility of
their being saved? But if they allow the
gospel to be true, must they not allow
that it is possible they may be saved;
yea they certainly shall be saved, unless
they reject the Counsel of God ag[ains]
t themselves? What call have they to be
willing to be damned, when God assures
them Christ is able & willing to
save them? and can be glorify’d more in
their Salv[ation] than in their Damnation?
It also seems strange that a Man
sh[ould] from Love to God, be willing
for ever to hate God, & blaspheme him.
at a sinner ought to own the perfect
Equity of his Condemnat[ion], and to
consider the very Sanction of the Law as
an expression of divine Equity and Love
of order, etc. I readily admit. But do we
not puzzle people needlessly, to require
them to be willing to be eternally tormented,
& even eternally wicked, when
Christ came on purpose to save them
both from torment and sin?
I am persuaded you will excuse my
freely stating di culties w[hi]ch I can-
the Christian tradition. 12 By removing
or reducing excess, arti ce, and needless
complexity, the “plain style” makes
possible at least three aims: “Plainness in
expression enables audiences to measure
without distraction the spiritual, moral
quality of the agent; to attend to the substance
as opposed to the mere covering
of expression; and to concentrate on
their relationship to the prime giver of
the gi s being enjoyed, God.” 13
If it did not originate with them, still
the plain style was widely and e ectively
employed by evangelicals, who
recognized that the increasingly voluntaristic
relationship between preachers
and hearers required an address more
understandable and personal. Andrew
Fuller’s use of the plain style re ects his
evangelical emphases on the centrality
of the cross, on personal religious experience,
and on addressing the gospel
to as many hearers as possible. Fuller
employed the language of simplicity to
encompass the whole of the preaching
experience, taking in content, composition,
delivery, and even motivations.
He emphasized that plainness of pulpit
speech best re ected the perspicuity of
the Scriptures, and was most conducive
to usefulness and personal application
for a wide range of hearers.
Preaching, insisted Fuller, should be
plain and simple so that its central content—the
gospel of Jesus Christ—could
be clearly communicated. is gospel, he
said, is a message of deep wisdom, “and
therefore we ought to possess a deep insight
into it, and to cultivate great plainness
of speech.” 14 Simplicity should also
be the standard by which its subject matter
should be selected. In an ordination
sermon titled “ e Satisfaction Derived
from Godly Simplicity” on 2 Corinthians
1:12, Fuller contrasted “ eshly wisdom”
with “the grace of God” and noted
that preaching that is characterized by
the latter will be simple and sincere. Of
the matter of preaching, godly simplicity
means that “the doctrine we preach
will not be selected to please the tastes
of our hearers, but drawn from the Holy
Scriptures.” 15
Fuller was likewise concerned that
the language, as well as the doctrines,
of sermons be drawn from the language
of Scripture. “ ere are many sermons,
that cannot fairly be charged with untruth,
which yet have a tendency to lead
o the mind from the simplicity of the
gospel.” 16 Convinced of the perspicuity
and inspiration of the Scriptures, he
emphasized the Spirit’s witness to the
simplicitas evangelica, rather than the
use of language and terminology that
instead highlighted the cleverness of the
speaker: “To be sure, there is a way of
handling Divine subjects a er this sort
that is very clever and very ingenious;
and a minister of such a stamp may
commend himself, by his ingenuity, to
many hearers: but, a er all, God’s truths
are never so acceptable and savoury to a
gracious heart as when clothed in their
own native phraseology.” 17 Plainness as
a standard for the subject matter of sermons
meant for Fuller that they focus on
the gospel of Jesus Christ, that their language
be scriptural, and that their aim
be the salvation of their hearers: “characterized
by simplicity; not thinking of
ourselves, but of Christ and the salvation
of souls.” 18
Plainness of style and composition
also meant that preaching would be
more than “merely an art,” and that it

would be focused in its construction,
and understandable and useful to the
least educated of hearers. 19 A sermon,
insisted Fuller, should not be a “mob of
ideas,” multiplying headings and themes,
but should instead have “unity of design.”
20 “A preacher, then, if he would
interest a judicious hearer, must have an
object at which he aims, and must never
lose sight of it throughout his discourse,”
something which Fuller wrote was “of
far greater importance than studying
well-turned periods, or forming pretty
expressions.” He wrote that it is this
unity and simplicity that “nails the attention
of an audience.” 21 A sermon that
is composed of a central theme is an aid
to the judicious and attentive hearer, but
Fuller was also concerned that the less
educated in the congregation could also
comprehend and apply the message:
In general, I do not think a minister
of Jesus Christ should aim at ne
composition for the pulpit. We ought
to use sound speech, and good sense;
but if we aspire a er great elegance of
expression, or become very exact in
the formation of our periods, though
we may amuse and please the ears of
a few, we shall not pro t the many,
and consequently shall not answer
the great end of our ministry. Illiterate
hearers may be very poor judges of
preaching; yet the e ect which it produces
upon them is the best criterion
of its real excellence. 22
Fuller’s desire for simplicity likewise
included studied reticence in delivery,
as well as composition. He eschewed
performance as much as scholasticism:
“Avoid all a ectation in your manner—
Do not a ect the man of learning by useless
criticisms: many do this, only to display
their knowledge. Nor yet the orator,
by high-sounding words, or airs, or gestures.
Useful learning and an impressive
delivery should by no means be slighted;
but they must not be a ected.” 23 As we
will see below, rather than a ected gestures
or emotions, Fuller urged preachers
to enter into their ministry with
true godly feelings and a ection, which
would be communicated more authentically
than those that were contrived.
Finally, preaching that is plain and
perspicuous to the hearer must be
grounded, wrote Fuller, in the straightforward,
diligent, and spiritual study of
the preacher: “To preach the gospel as
we ought to preach it requires, not the
subtlety of the metaphysician, but the
simplicity of the Christian.” 24 Preacher
and hearer alike come to the gospel in its
simplicity, so that, spiritually discerned,
it can be practically applied.
“Preaching Christ”: e Evangelical nature
of Fuller’s preaching
To say that Fuller preached the gospel,
or that he was an evangelical preacher,
is not to say enough. Fuller himself felt
the need to de ne and defend the gospel
and the evangelical nature of preaching
ministry in his own day, and delineating
Fuller’s convictions about preaching
helps us to appreciate what made him an
evangelical. Fuller was concerned with
just this further de nition of evangelical
preaching when he said, in an ordination
charge, “I have heard complaints
of some of our young ministers, that
though they are not heterodox, yet they
are not evangelical; that though they do
not propagate error, yet the grand, es-
This letter of the English Baptist
leader John Ryland, Jr.
(1753–1825) to the American
theologian and New Divinity theologian
Samuel Hopkins (1721–1803), who
had served the First Congregationalist
Church in Newport, Rhode Island, since
1769, is an extremely important text. As
it reveals, while Ryland and his friends
were sympathetic to the New Divinity,
they were also critical of certain elements
of this American theological perspective.
Ryland is especially, and rightly,
dubious about one of the hallmarks
of Hopkinsianism, as Hopkins’ system
of thought became known, namely, his
argument about the willingness of the
believer to be damned for the glory of
God. Ryland points out the theological
and spiritual incongruity of this tenet.
Other concerns of Ryland include the
tendency to speculation and failure to
ground theology rmly in the subsoil of
Scripture. e letter also reveals Ryland’s
deep admiration of the mentor who was
common to both he and Hopkins, Jonathan
Edwards (1703–1758). He would
have been delighted to know that most
of Edwards’ manuscripts were preserved
and are now available either in print or
on-line.
e accompanying photograph of a
portion of the letter shows the way that
Ryland used virtually every inch and
both sides of a foolscap sheet to write
the letter. e only modernization of the
text that has been made in the following
transcription has been the replacement
of underscore marks at the end
of sentences by full stops or the occasional
comma. e footnotes have been
added by the editors. e asterisk a er
Nathanael Emmons’ name is part of the
original letter and indicates an appended
comment of Ryland. 1 is letter has
not been published before.
Dr. Hopkins Feb. 21 1803 2
Dear Sir
Bro[ther] Fuller 3 lately sent me a Letter
from you, which had been 3 y[ea]rs in
coming, & a few days ago I rec[eived]
yours to my self. Before then I had heard
a false report that you were gone to
Heaven, or I sh[ould] have written long
ago to you. o[ugh] I believe I have
never heard from you since I sent you
Booth’s D[ea]th of legal hope etc. 4 I am
much obliged to you for your last favor;
and have copied, and sent to Bro[ther]
Fuller, your Remarks on his Bedford
Sermon. 5 I advised him either to print

home in the thought of Evans. God’s
decree of election was an eternal one
but could be reconciled with the biblical
warrant to call to repentance all the
unregenerate. In fact, the reality of a
once-and-for-all atonement provided a
real opportunity for salvation. Without
it, men were le with “unhealed wounds”
and hopeless when it came to being
saved. 5 So instead of over-analyzing the
limited nature of the atonement Evans
magni ed the full provision of Christ’s
work for needy sinners. e doctrine of
Christ cruci ed “proves itself to be indeed
the provision of in nite wisdom
and in nite power to e ect salvation of
the soul.” ose who trust in it “feel the
energy of it working e ectually in them.” 6
e atonement for Evans is not a cold and
limiting doctrine but something vibrant,
accomplishing salvation for an unknown
amount of people. Bebbington, discussing
the shi away from Hyper-Calvinism
in the English Baptists of the eighteenth
century writes, “ e old understanding
dwelt on the limitation of the bene ts
of the atonement to a few; the later position
accepted that the potential number
of converts was immense.” 7 Leaders
like Evans saw God’s love in the atonement
opening the door of salvation to
anyone who called upon Christ’s name.
In fact, Evans uses the same language as
Andrew Fuller (1754-1815), the great
leader of the Baptist mission movement,
in describing the atonement as a “heart
cheering doctrine” and “well worthy of
all acceptation.” 8 Where the Hyper-Calvinist
saw limits to the gospel, Evans saw
opportunity and frequently used means,
especially in pastoral ministry and theological
education, to spread the good
news.
received his M.Div. from
the Southern Baptist eological Seminary
where he currently serves as the Associate Director
of Admissions. He is the Highschool
Director of Sojourn Student Ministries at Sojourn
Community Church’s Mid-town campus
in Louisville, Ky.
_____________________
1 David Bebbington, “British Baptist Crucicentrism since
the Late Eighteenth Century: Part 1,” e Baptist Quarterly,
44.4 (October 2011), 224.
2 Caleb Evans, Christ Cruci ed; or the Scripture Doctrine
of the Atonement Brie y Illustrated and Defended in Four
Discourses upon that Subject (Bristol: William Pine, 1789),
215. 3 Evans, Christ Cruci ed, 198–199.
4 is description of Hyper-Calvinism is drawn from
John Piper, “Holy Faith, Worthy Gospel, World Vision: Andrew
Fuller’s Broadsides Against Sandemanianism, Hyper-
Calvinism, and Global Unbelief,” Presentation at the Desiring
God Conference for Pastors, Minneapolis, MN, February
6, 2007. (on-line). Accessed 25 October 2011. Available from
(http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/biographies/
holy-faith-worthy-gospel-world-vision).
5 Evans, Christ Cruci ed, vi.
6 Evans, Christ Cruci ed, 220.
7 Bebbington, “British Baptist Crucicentrism since the
Late Eighteenth Century,” 226.
8 is quote is taken from Evans’ confession of faith at his
ordination in Hugh Evans, A charge and Sermon, together
with an Introductory Discourse, and Confession of Faith : Delivered
at the Ordination of Caleb Evans, August 18, 1767, in
Broad-Mead, Bristol (Bristol: Published by S. Farley, 1767),
30.
sential, distinguishing truths of the gospel
do not form the prevailing theme of
their discourses.” 25 ose essential truths
that by their prevalence distinguished
evangelical from generally orthodox
preaching focused on the person and
work of Jesus Christ. As Fuller told ministerial
students, “the person and work
of Christ must be the leading theme of
our ministry.” 26 Similarly, in an ordination
charge Fuller declared “preaching
Christ” to be “the grand theme of the
Christian ministry.” He continued unequivocally,
“Preach Christ, or you had
better be any thing than a preacher. e
necessity laid on Paul was not barely to
preach, but to preach Christ.” 27
Fuller’s insistence on Christ as the criterion
for preaching was representative
of evangelical preaching, but it could,
of course, have been otherwise. While
the movement toward a plain style of
composition was more or less common
across the theological boundaries of
the eighteenth century, the perceived
purposes of preaching in the religious
lives of hearers were more varied. High
Calvinists, evangelical Calvinists, and
evangelical Arminians had distinct,
if overlapping, understandings of the
agency of God, preacher, and hearers
in the preaching event, and these were
markedly di erent again from those of
Unitarians, Deists, and Universalists.
e goal and content of preaching might
be variously perceived as a reformation
of morals, the cultivating of civil society,
the encouragement of good works, or
perhaps an exercise in classical rhetoric,
and it is partly over against these competing
visions of the preaching task that
Fuller wanted to de ne its evangelical
nature:
I have also heard many an ingenious
discourse, in which I could not but
admire the talents of the preacher;
but his only object appeared to be to
correct the grosser vices, and to form
the manners of his audience, so as to
render them useful members of civil
society. Such ministers have an errand;
but not of such importance as to
save those who receive it, which su -
ciently proves that it is not the gospel. 28
Evangelical preaching’s emphasis
upon the gospel of Jesus Christ can be
further delineated by examining, in
turn, the centrality of the cross of Christ,
and the zeal for conversion e ected by
the preaching of that doctrine.
e centrality of the cross of Christ
e central doctrine of Andrew Fuller’s
preaching was the atoning death of Jesus
on the cross, a theme described as
“crucicentrism” by David Bebbington. 29
Emphasizing the cross, Fuller wrote,
“Every sermon should contain a portion
of the doctrine of salvation by the death of
Christ. … A sermon, therefore, in which
this doctrine has not a place, and I might
add, a prominent place, cannot be a gospel
sermon.” 30 Elsewhere, Fuller insisted:
“ e death of Christ is a subject of so
much importance in Christianity as to
be essential to it. … It is not so much a
member of the body of Christian doctrine
as the life-blood that runs through
the whole of it. e doctrine of the cross
is the Christian doctrine.” 31 Understanding
the atoning death of Jesus to be the
unique source of salvation, Fuller urged
that evangelical preaching give it repeated
emphasis and great prominence.
Fuller’s evangelical crucicentrism

was also expressed by emphasizing the
cross’s connection and interrelation with
other themes in doctrine, practice, and,
therefore, preaching. Early in his Kettering
ministry, he wrote in his diary,
“‘Christ, and his cross be all my theme.’
Surely I love his name, and wish to make
it the centre in which all the lines of my
ministry might meet!” 32 Later, to his
father-in-law, Fuller wrote from Ireland,
“ e doctrine of the cross is more dear
to me than when I went. I wish I may
never preach another sermon but what
shall bear some relation to it.” 33 Fuller
believed that the whole of Scripture
bears witness to Jesus, and that, therefore,
expositions of any part of the Bible
inevitably manifest something of his
person or work: “If you preach Christ,
you need not fear for want of matter. His
person and work are rich in fullness. Every
Divine attribute is seen in him. All
the types pre gure him. e prophecies
point to him. Every truth bears relation
to him. e law itself must be so explained
and enforced as to lead to him.” 34
Re ecting on systematic theology, Fuller
asserted that “the centre of Christianity
[is] the doctrine of the cross,” and that
“the whole of the Christian system appears
to be presupposed by it, included in
it, or to arise from it.” 35 Fuller’s preaching
could be distinguished from Deistic
or moralistic—or even generally orthodox—preaching
by the centrality of the
cross of Christ, and it is that prominence
which marks it as evangelical.
Zeal for conversion
Fuller urged preachers to have a “zealous
perseverance in the use of all possible
means for the conversion of sinners.”
36 Such a zeal for conversion, or
conversionism, has been identi ed by
David Bebbington as another of the
de ning characteristics of evangelicalism.
37 e emergence of such urgency
about conversion was the most signi -
cant development in Andrew Fuller’s
pastoral theology. Fuller had grown up
in a high Calvinist church in which the
preacher had “little or nothing to say
to the unconverted,” and as a young
preacher himself he did not dare to “address
an invitation to the unconverted to
come to Jesus,” 38 a reticence grounded
in a theological system which did not
want to presume spiritual ability. From
being reticent to o er his hearers the
gospel, Fuller went on to write e Gospel
Worthy of All Acceptation (1781), in
which he made the case that all people
not only have the capacity to respond
to the gospel, but, indeed, have an obligation
to do so: “Unconverted sinners
are commanded, exhorted, and invited
to believe in Christ for salvation.” 39 As
David Bebbington has observed, Fuller’s
articulation of “duty faith,” or the obligation
of all people to respond to the
gospel, was the essential di erence between
evangelical and high Calvinists,
who otherwise shared a great fund of
orthodox and Calvinist theology, a difference
with great practical, or we might
say pastoral, implications: “If believing
was an obligation, preachers could press
it on whole congregations. If it was not,
they could merely describe it in the hope
that God would rouse certain predetermined
hearers to faith.” 40
is duty on the part of hearers corresponded
to the obligation of preachers:
“It is the duty of ministers not only
to exhort their carnal auditors to believe
in Jesus Christ for the salvation of their
n a day when Particular Baptists
were declining in the face of
Hyper-Calvinism, Caleb Evans
(1737–1791) promoted a cross-centered
piety that emphasized the accessibility
of salvation through the atoning work
of Christ. As a pastor and educator
this evangelistic perspective was passed
down to his congregation and students
at the Bristol Baptist Academy, where he
served as the principal, thus helping to
both sustain and revitalize the Particular
Baptist movement.
Historian David Bebbington captures
the importance of eighteenth-century
Particular Baptist crucicentrism when
he states that “the death of Christ was
not so much a portion of the body of
Christian doctrine as its life-blood.” 1
is sentiment is shared by Evans who
considered the “whole system of salvation”
as one “through the blood of the
lamb.” 2 I
In Evans’ thought, Christ is the
pre-existing Son of God who came to
dwell in human esh. Due to the reality
of sin it is only he, the God-man, who
can o er full satisfaction for transgressions.
At the cross, Christ is the “vicarious
substituted victim” and guilt
is transferred to him in place of sinful
man. 3
Now, Evans was deeply critical of the
Hyper-Calvinism that prevailed in far
too many Baptist circles in his day. In
Hyper-Calvinism, justi cation was seen
as an eternal act separated from active
faith in Christ, setting in place a hard
line between the elect and reprobate. In
this system, the unregenerate are under
no obligation to believe the gospel message.
us it was viewed as cruelty to call
a man to act upon that which he carried
no power to accomplish. Salvation
was relegated to a subjective knowing
that one was among the elect for whom
Christ died rather than an act of faith in
the nished work of Christ. 4
Such an understanding found no

9 Kevan, London’s Oldest Baptist Church, 43.
10 Joseph Ivimey, A History of the English Baptists (London,
1814), II, 448–449.
11 Middlesex: Rolls, Books and Certi cates, Indictments,
Recognizances, … 1667–1688, vol. 4.
12 For a description of the horrors of the Newgate Prison
during the seventeenth century, see Haykin, “Piety of Hercules
Collins (1646/7–1702),” 14. See also Kelly Grovier, e
Gaol: e Story of Newgate—London’s Most Notorious Prison
(London: John Murray, 2008).
13 Hercules Collins, Some Reasons for Separation from
the Communion of the Church of England, and the Unreasonableness
of Persecution Upon that Account. Soberly Debated
in a Dialogue between a Conformist, and a Nonconformist
(Baptist.) (London: John How, 1682), 20.
14 omas Crosby, e History of the English Baptists
(London: John Robinson, 1740), 129.
15 See especially Roger Williams, e Bloudy Tenent of
Persecution (London, 1644), 2–3 and Collins, Some Reasons
for Separation, 18–20.
16 Collins, Some Reasons for Separation, 20.
17 A Voice from the Prison. Or, Meditations on Revelations
III.XI. Tending To the Establishment of Gods Little Flock, In
an Hour of Temptation (London, 1684) and Counsel for the
Living, Occasioned from the Dead: Or, A Discourse on Job
III. 17,18. Arising from the Deaths of Mr. Fran. Bamp eld
and Mr. Zach. Ralphson (London: George Larkin, 1684). A
complete list of Collins’ works can be found in Devoted to
the Service of the Temple, eds. Haykin and Weaver, 135–137.
18 For biographical details on Bamp eld, see Richard L.
Greaves, “Making the Laws of Christ His Only Rule’: Francis
Bamp eld, Sabbatarian Reformer” in his Saints and Rebels:
Seven Nonconformists in Stuart England (Macon, GA:
Mercer University Press, 1985), 179–210.
19 Ralphson was the alias of Jeremiah Mardsen. For biographical
details on Ralphson, see R.L. Greaves, “Marsden,
(alias Ralphson), Jeremiah (1624–1684),” in Biographical
Dictionary of British Radicals, eds. Richard L. Greaves and
Robert Zaller (Brighton, England: Harvester Press, 1984),
2:214–215.
20 Keith Durso dates the death of Bamp eld as February
16, 1684. See No Armor for the Back: Baptist Prison Writings,
1600s–1700s (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press,
2007), 105. For a transcript of the proceedings of the trials
of Ralphson and Bamp eld, see Old Bailey Proceedings
Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org; accessed May 20, 2010),
January 1684, trials of Zachariah Ralphson (t16840116–18)
and Francis Bamp eld (t16840116–20).
21 Counsel for the Living, 1–2.
22 Counsel for the Living, 33–34.
23 Counsel for the Living, 6–7.
24 Counsel for the Living, 8.
25 Counsel for the Living, 9.
26 Counsel for the Living, 15.
27 Haykin, “ e Piety of Hercules Collins (1646/7–
1702),” 15.
28 Counsel for the Living, 21. Cf. also Counsel for the Living,
31.
29 Counsel for the Living, 23.
30 Counsel for the Living, 23.
31 Counsel for the Living, 26.
32 Counsel for the Living, 25.
33 Counsel for the Living, 26. Collins is citing Philippians
4:11.
34 Counsel for the Living, 25.
35 Counsel for the Living, 25.
36 Counsel for the Living, 26.
37 Counsel for the Living, 28.
38 Counsel for the Living, 26.
39 Counsel for the Living, 25.
40 Counsel for the Living, 25.
41 Counsel for the Living, 25.
42 Counsel for the Living, 25.
43 Counsel for the Living, 26–27.
44 Counsel for the Living, 27–28.
45 Counsel for the Living, 28.
46 Durso, No Armor for the Back, 169.
47 Collins, Voice from the Prison, 4.
48 Voice from the Prison, 5.
49 Voice from the Prison, 1.
50 Voice from the Prison, 1.
51 Voice from the Prison, 1.
52 Collins, Counsel for the Living, 26.
53 Collins, Voice from the Prison, 23.
54 Haykin, “ e piety of Hercules Collins (1646/7–
1702),” 22.
55 Collins, Voice from the Prison, 6.
56 Voice from the Prison, 6.
57 Voice from the Prison, 6.
58 Voice from the Prison, 8.
59 Voice from the Prison, 8.
60 Voice from the Prison, 18.
61 Voice from the Prison, 18.
62 Voice from the Prison, 18–19.
63 Voice from the Prison, 3.
64 Voice from the Prison, 3.
65 Voice from the Prison, 28.
66 Voice from the Prison, 26.
67 Voice from the Prison, 26.
68 Voice from the Prison, 30.
69 Voice from the Prison, 30.
70 Voice from the Prison, 32.
71 Voice from the Prison, 33.
72 Voice from the Prison, 33.
73 Voice from the Prison, 34.
74 Voice from the Prison, 34.
ANDREW FULLER CENTER
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souls; but it is at our peril to exhort them
to anything short of it.” 41 In his confession
of faith on settling at Kettering, he
summarized the central features of his
evangelical conversionism:
I believe, it is the duty of every minister
of Christ plainly and faithfully to
preach the gospel to all who will hear
it; and, as I believe the inability of men
to be spiritual things to be wholly of
the moral, and, therefore, of the criminal
kind, —and that it is their duty to
love the Lord Jesus Christ, and trust
in him for salvation, though they do
not; I, therefore, believe free and solemn
addresses, invitations, calls, and
warnings to them, to be not only consistent,
but directly adapted, as means,
in the hand of the Spirit of God, to
bring them to Christ. I consider it as
a part of my duty, which I could not
omit without being guilty of the blood
of souls. 42
is evangelical Calvinism, with its
more conversionist bearing, was signi
cant in the emergence of the Baptist
Missionary Society and William Carey’s
work in India, but Fuller’s theology also
had an equally important e ect upon
preachers at home, freeing them to have
a more directly conversionist stance in
o ering the gospel. 43
“A ecting the hearts of the people”: e
a ectionate nature of Fuller’s preaching
When diarist George Wallis described
Fuller’s ministry as “very a ecting and
evangelical,” 44 he employed the language
of a widespread and nuanced religious
psychology, he signaled the important
pairing of “a ectionate” and “evangeli-
cal,” and he highlighted terms that were
among the most characteristic of Andrew
Fuller’s pastoral theology.
Fuller’s discourse made use of a vocabulary
of the heart: “a ections” and
“a ectionate,” “passions,” “love,” “zeal,”
“sense,” “sentiment,” “relish,” “inclination,”
and “feeling.” e a ections were
distinguished on the one hand from
enthusiasm or mere impulsive passion,
and on the other hand from speculative
or disinterested knowledge. While to
modern readers “a ections” usually connotes
emotion and feeling over against
reason and intellect, to Fuller and his
eighteenth-century contemporaries, the
use of the language of the a ections was
more nuanced and comprehensive, and
in fact quite successfully bridged that
gap between heart and mind. 45
While a strand of Puritan writers had
employed the language of the a ections
in the interest of personal religious experience
and a “psychology of the heart,”
the a ections also gured prominently
in the work of Lord Sha esbury (1671–
1713), Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746),
and David Hume (1711–1776), among
others, as moral philosophy and theology
in the eighteenth century exhibited
a greater concern with human nature
and the inner life, including the relationship
between reason and the a ections.
But the language of the a ections was
also quite fully developed to articulate
the particular concerns of evangelicals.
Diarist George Wallis’s description
of Fuller’s pastoral ministry as “very
a ecting and evangelical” suggests the
mutual importance of the terms, for
the language of the heart was a kind of
evangelical accent to accompany evangelical
doctrinal content. A ectionate

discourse was a mark of evangelicalism
and the wider movement of the “religion
of the heart.” 46 Isabel Rivers, who has
made a penetrating study of “a ectionate
religion,” notes the complementary
concerns for orthodox doctrine, personal
experience, and a ectionate language:
e evangelical tendency emphasizes
the traditional Reformation doctrines
of grace, atonement, justi cation by
faith (o en covered by the label “orthodoxy”),
the importance of experimental
knowledge, meaning both the
believer’s own experience of religion,
and acquaintance with the variety of
the experience of others, and the central
function of the heart and a ections
in religion in relation to the will
and understanding. 47
e heart and the a ections were emphasized
in concert with orthodox doctrine,
re ecting a concern for a lively
and heartfelt response to the gospel,
for a voluntary, sincere, and personal
Christianity, as opposed to rationalism,
nominalism, or cold orthodoxy. Fuller
condensed the thought thus: “ e union
of genuine orthodoxy and a ection constitutes
true religion.” 48
Fuller’s understanding of the a ections
bears the particular in uence of
Jonathan Edwards’s A Treatise Concerning
Religious A ections (1746). 49 S
haring Edwards’s concept of a “sense
of the heart,” he wrote that spiritual
truths cannot be known by “mere intellect
any more than the sweetness of
honey … can be ascertained by the sight
of the eye.” Rather, spiritual truths can
be known only as God imparts a “holy
susceptibility and relish for the truth,”
by which one can have a “sense of their
Divine excellency.” 50
So, how did Fuller use the language
of the a ections to express his evangelicalism?
With regard to preaching,
his a ectionate vocabulary generally
incorporated three main elements: 1)
the gospel must be felt and experienced
by preachers in their own lives in order
for them to communicate it to others, 2)
preachers must have spiritual concern
for the conversion of their hearers, and
3) preachers must integrate the head and
heart, or doctrine and a ectionate experience.
A ections and Evangelical experience
Fuller employed the language of the affections
in order to denote faith that was
practical and experimental, personal
and sincere. A ectionate preaching had
the deeply felt faith of two subjects in
view—both preacher and hearer—and
the heart-to-heart manner of the sermon’s
delivery. Rivers has noted that
evangelicalism was characterized by orthodox
doctrine and personal, “experi
mental” faith, which meant, she writes,
“both the believer’s own experience of
religion, and acquaintance with the variety
of experience of others.” 51 It was an
a ectionate faith that joined doctrine
and experience, and that allowed one
person to communicate that experience
to another, particularly in preaching.
Fuller poignantly summarized: “If you
would a ect others, you must feel.” 52
Fuller emphasized, rst, the preacher’s
own spirituality or experience of godly
a ections, and then the expression of
that experience through preaching to affect
the hearers.
e personal experience of faith, and
contending with us: Let us all Banish
and Expel the Achan out of our Hearts,
out of our Churches, and shew our selves
Zealous against Sin.” 70 en, Collins
asked God that his dear Son’s kingdom
might come. “We should be willing to
be Footstools, so Christ thereby might
get upon his rone.” 71 ird, Collins
prayed for “a universal spreading of the
Gospel” in order that “a greater degree of
Knowledge and Holiness will be in the
World then ever.” 72 is is a fascinating
request, as it is o en said that the seventeenth-century
Puritans and Baptists
were not missions-minded. Clearly, Collins
was not devoid of a missionary passion.
Finally, Collins prayed for deliverance
from the persecution. “We have
no might, but our Eyes are upon thee…
Appear in thy strength, that the Kingdoms
of the World may know that thou
art God; and that there is none besides
thee.” 73 But till then, Collins concluded,
“let our Faith and Patience be lengthned
out, to the coming of the Lord; till Time
swallowed up in Eternity; Finite, in In -
nite, Hope, in Vision; and Faith in Fruition;
when God shall be the matter of
our Happiness; when Fulness shall be
the measure of our Happiness, and Eternity
the Duration.” 74
Conclusion
e prison writings of Hercules Collins
provide a window for better understanding
both seventeenth-century English
Baptist spirituality and a Baptist theology
of persecution. e furnace of a iction
revealed a deep and vibrant spirituality
which was like pure gold. ese
golden writings are characterized by a
con dence in the sovereign providence
of God, a thankfulness for both physical
and spiritual blessings, re ection upon
the su ciency of Christ, and a certain
expectation of a future deliverance and
reward. It is hoped that a similar spirituality
would become prominent among
Baptists once again in order that they
might be enabled to persevere through
the persecution that increasingly seems
certain to come.
is the pastor of Farmdale
Baptist Church in Frankfort, KY, and is currently
nishing up his Ph.D. dissertation on
“Hercules Collins: Orthodox, Puritan, Baptist”
as a student in Baptist Studies at e
Southern Baptist eological Seminary.
_____________________
1 B. R. White, e English Baptists of the Seventeenth Century
(Didcot: e Baptist Historical Society, 1996), 95–133.
2 For an excellent study of this era, see Gerald R. Cragg,
Puritanism in the Period of the Great Persecution 1660–1688
(Cambridge: University Press, 1957). See also Michael R.
Watts, e Dissenters. Volume 1: From the Reformation to
the French Revolution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978),
221–262.
3 For a fuller description of these Acts and their impact
upon Baptists, see Ernest A. Payne and Norman S. Moon,
Baptists and 1662 (London: e Carey Kingsgate Press Limited,
1962).
4 For details on the life of Hercules Collins see Michael
A.G. Haykin “ e Piety of Hercules Collins (1646/7–1702)”
in Devoted to the Service of the Temple: Piety, Persecution,
and Ministry in the Writings of Hercules Collins, eds. Michael
A.G. Haykin and Steve Weaver (Grand Rapids: Reformation
Heritage Books, 2007), 1–30. See also Haykin’s
entry “Collins, Hercules (d. 1702)” in the Oxford Dictionary
of National Biography, eds. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian
Harrison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), s.v. and
his article “Hercules Collins and the Art of Preaching” in A
Cloud of Witnesses: Calvinistic Baptists in the 18th Century
(Darlington, England: Evangelical Times, 2006), 21–26.
5 See Ernest F. Kevan, London’s Oldest Baptist Church
(London: e Kingsgate Press, 1933) for the remarkable
rst three hundred years of history of this congregation.
e church is still in existence and is now called Church
Hill Baptist Church, Walthamstow. eir website is: http://
www.chbc.org.uk/.
6 For a discussion of the evidence, please see Geo rey F.
Nuttall, “Another Baptist Ejection (1662): e Case of John
Norcott” in Pilgrim Pathways: Essays in Baptist History in
Honour of B. R. White, eds. William H. Brackney and Paul
S. Fiddes with John H. Y. Briggs (Macon, GA: Mercer University
Press, 1999), 185–188.
7 Sessions of the Peace Rolls for 27 June 1670 – MJ/
SR/1389 ( le numbers P1010140–P1010150, London Metropolitan
Archives). is document lists the names of Hercules
Collins and the thirteen others who were arrested and
sent to Newgate prison on June 29, 1670. e key text reads
“Peter Sabbs for refusing to tell their m[eeting?] they being
taken at a conventicle & other misdemeanours.” Collins and
his fellow conventiclers must not have been in prison long,
for there is no record of them in prison at the next court
record for August 29, 1670.
8 Norcott died on March 24, 1675/6 and Collins became
pastor on March 23, 1676/7.

ear the worlds frowns; if I have Spiritual
Liberty in my Soul, that I can ascend
to thee by Faith, and have Communion
with thee, thou shalt chuse
my Portion for me in this World. 62
Some, however, were apparently being
tempted to abandon the all-su cient
Christ for a respite from persecution.
Collins warned that “without enduring
to the End, all your Profession, your
many years Prayers, all your Tears will be
lost.” 63 ose who turned aside “mayst
never more be called to be a witness
for Christ.” In fact, “some have thought
God hath not Lov’d them, because he
hath not Exercised them this way.” 64
Elsewhere in this prison epistle, Collins
soberly charged those who had been enabled
by God’s grace to persevere not to
boast in their state: “To all such as have
not fallen in the Storm, who have kept
their garments from De ling, let God
have the glory; thou standest by Faith,
which God is Author of, be not Highminded
but fear; glory not secretly, Rejoice
not in thy Brothers fall.” 65 For those
who had fallen, Collins o ers a word of
hope. “ e Lord hath promised he will
not let his Anger fall upon you,…therefore,
Return, Return,…that we may look
upon thee with Joy and Delight, as the
Angels in Heaven do rejoice at the Returning
of a Soul to God.66 Collins further
exhorted his readers who had gone
back on their profession to return to the
arms of a merciful God: “Return to thy
God from whom thou hast revolted,
who stands with open Arms to receive
you; return to the Church again, whom
thou hast made sad by thy departing
from the Truth, and humble thy self to
God and them, and they will cheerfully
receive thee into their fellowship.” 67
Collins was sure that only those believers
who had been mortifying sin
daily in their lives would be enabled to
endure persecution. “Let not that Man
think to wear the Cross of Persecution,
that doth not rst wear the Cross of
Morti cation.” 68 As Collins developed
this concept:
We should inure our selves to wear
the Publick Cross, by wearing it rst
more privately in our Houses, in our
Families, in our Shops and Trades: For
let not that Person think he will ever
be able to part with his Houses, Lands,
Liberties, for the Lord Jesus Christ,
that cannot rst part with a secret lust:
But if we have Grace enough, to wear
daily the Cross of Morti cation of the
old Man; you need not fear but he that
giveth Grace to do the greater, will
give Grace to doe the lesser; for I look
upon the subduing of Corruption, a
greater thing then enduring Persecution;
though neither can be done as it
ought, without help from Heaven. 69
ose who, by the grace of God, were
regularly putting to death their sins
would experience an easier path in enduring
physical persecution. us, Collins
was encouraging personal holiness
as the best means to prepare for persecution
for the cause of Christ. Without
this spiritual practice, professing believers
would not be able to withstand the
temptation to deny Christ in the face of
persecution.
Ever the true pastor, Collins closed
what amounted to a sermon from prison
with a series of prayers to God. First,
Collins prayed that God would purge
the church of its impurities which he saw
as a cause for their persecution. “God is
not merely a disinterested knowledge, is
a distinctive marker of evangelicalism,
and Fuller considered such sincere piety
no less essential for evangelical ministers
themselves: “We had better be any thing
than preachers of the gospel, unless we
be personally in it.” 53 He recognized,
though, that a disjunction between profession
and experience was something of
a vocational hazard for preachers, and a
particularly insidious one at that. Fuller
very o en distinguished reading, studying,
or praying as a Christian from doing
so as a minister. A er some conversation
at a ministers’ meeting at Northampton
fairly early in his own pastoral ministry,
Fuller wrote in his diary that they agreed
that a lack of success in pastoral ministry
was not infrequently because of “the
want of reading and studying the Scriptures
more as Christians, for the edi cation
of our own souls. We are too apt to
study them merely to nd out something
to say to others, without living upon
the truth ourselves.” 54 is o -repeated
distinction emphasized that the calling
of pastors to live as Christians rst was
prior to, even foundational to, their pastoral
vocation.
Since what is being sought in evangelical
preaching is not only intellectual
assent, but also a personal, a ectionate
interest, Fuller considered it crucial
for the preacher to communicate both
doctrine and delight, both the cognitive
and the a ective, speaking from his own
experience. He wrote, “Indeed, without
feeling, we shall be incapable of preaching
any truth or of inculcating any duty
aright. How can we display the evil of
sin, the love of Christ, or any other important
truth, unless we feel it?” 55 Or
again, “We must preach from the heart,
or we shall seldom, if ever, produce any
good in the hearts of our hearers.” 56 Fuller
typi ed that evangelical insistence on
both orthodox doctrine and a ectionate
response, scriptural truth applied
to the personal experience of his hearers.
He said to one church, “You may as
well have no minister, as one that never
makes you feel”; the preacher could,
Fuller believed, communicate the truth,
beauty, or urgency of the Scriptures only
if such feelings were part of his own spiritual
experience. 57
To clarify that it was not merely an
emotional style of delivery that he was
advocating, Fuller contrasted true evangelical
a ections with a ectation: “Affected
zeal will not do.” 58 He warned
preachers against “an assumed earnestness,
or forced zeal, in the pulpit,” imitating
merely the outward expressions of
truer feeling. 59 Just as Fuller’s emphasis
on a simple and plain style meant adopting
an unadorned rhetoric, so the manner
of delivery was to be una ected by
contrived emotional expressions or gestures.
He continued by explaining that
true a ections—expressions of love,
sorrow, wonder, or gratitude—were the
heart’s honest response to spiritual and
rational understanding of the scriptural
message:
If, on the contrary, we feel and realize
the sentiments we deliver, emotions
and actions will be the natural expressions
of the heart; and this will give
weight to the doctrines, exhortations,
or reproofs which we inculcate; what
we say will come with a kind of Divine
authority to the consciences, if not the
hearts of the hearers. 60

Fuller recognized the important place
of feelings, the heart, and emotional responses
to the gospel, but this emphasis
upon the a ections did not displace, but
rather arose from, thoughtful preaching
and reasoned hearing.
A ections and Evangelical
conversionism
Fuller used the language of the a ections
to give warmth and feeling to his
particularly evangelical zeal for conversion,
the concern for which was discussed
above. In his ordination charge,
“ e A ectionate Concern of a Minister
for the Salvation of His Hearers,” the
use of a ectionate language to communicate
conversionist concern is particularly
clear. Fuller wrote that he considered
“the feeling of a true minister of
Christ towards the people of his charge”
and “an a ectionate concern a er their
salvation” to be the kind of important
quali cations for the ministry “without
which the greatest gi s, natural and acquired,
are nothing as to real usefulness.”
He concluded the charge by exhorting
the ordinand: “O my brother, enter into
these feelings. Realize them. Let them
inspire you with holy, a ectionate zeal.” 61
e source of such evangelical and salvation-oriented
a ections? Love. “A Christian
minister must love his people, and
in proportion as he loves them he will
feel concerned for their eternal happiness.”
62
It was this sense of the urgent necessity
of the salvation of his hearers that would
compel the preacher to give proportionally
greater weight to the doctrine of
the cross, and to preach in a way that
encourages conversion. So, Fuller observed,
“ e gospel is a message of love,
and therefore it ought to be preached
with great a ection. … Cultivate the
a ectionate. Christ wept over sinners,
and so must we. If we tri e with men,
or be careless about their salvation, or
deal forth damnation with an unfeeling
heart, we do not preach ‘as we ought.’” 63
Fuller said that it is contrary to the nature
of the gospel to preach in a way that
does not su ciently concern itself with
the conversion of sinners in pursuit of
other aims, or, conversely, to point out
the judgment of sin without identifying
with the hearers’ spiritual plight and
holding out the hope of the gospel.
A ections and Evangelical doctrine
Fuller made strong assertions about the
centrality of the a ections in evangelical
faith and ministry—“Beware that you
do not preach an unfelt gospel” 64 —but
was careful to deploy this language in
a way that integrated deep feeling with
considered doctrine. In the sermon “ e
Nature and Importance of an Intimate
Knowledge of Divine Truth,” Fuller addressed
those hearers who preferred
either doctrinal preaching (but did not
give adequate attention to the personal or
a ectionate) or experimental preaching
(but did not want to concern themselves
with the nuances of doctrine), and he
insisted that doctrine and a ections belong
together: “Knowledge and a ection
have a mutual in uence on each other.
… We cannot love an unknown gospel,
any more than an unknown God. A ection
is fed by knowledge, being thereby
furnished with grounds, or reasons, for
its operations. By the expansion of the
mind the heart is supplied with objects
which ll it with delight.” 65 A ection
is to be joined with knowledge, reason
will and hath Convinced an Adversary,
when a bare Profession will not. 51
In a similar manner, in Counsel for the
Living, Collins had maintained that God
could “make people grow so much the
more as their a ictions abound” for
“thinking people will conclude they
must be the Lords, that su er patiently
under such apparent wrong.” 52 erefore,
Collins encouraged his fellow believers
to “see how our Churches ll,
come let us go on, we have good success,
we shall bring them all home at last.” 53
is proved to be true for Collins and his
congregation: by the time of his death in
1702, as Michael A.G. Haykin has observed,
Collins “was probably preaching
to a congregation of roughly 700 people,
which would have made his congregation
one of the largest Calvinistic Baptist
works in the city.” 54
Collins also exhorted his readers to
persevere for God has promised to reward
the overcomers. He then draws
on all the promises made by Christ in
Revelation 2 and 3 to those who persevere
through persecution. e overcomers
shall “eat of the Tree in the midst of
the Paradice of God”; they shall “not
be hurt of the Second Death” and shall
“have the hidden Manna”; “the white
Stone, and a New name” will be theirs;
they shall “have power over the nations,
and rule them with a Rod of Iron”; and
they shall be “clothed in white Rayment.”
eir “name shall not be blotted out of
the Book of Life, but made a Pillar in
the Temple of God, and he shall go out
no more.” Finally, those who overcome
“shall sit with Christ on his rone, as he
overcame and sat down with the Father
on his rone.” 55 ese shall receive “a
Crown not of Gold, but Glory, not fad-
ing but eternal.” 56
Collins knew that his readers would
be able to “hold fast” if they were fully
satis ed with Christ. As he put it in
typical pithy Puritan fashion: “It is the
Christ- nding Soul which is the Life-
nding Soul.” 57 Collins explained that
when it is said in Scripture, “Christ is
all, and in all,” this means that, for the
believer, “he is all, because all good is
Comprehended in him, he is all in all;
all in the Fullness of all, for if we have
all Earthly Injoyments, and have not
him, we have nothing comparatively.” 58
However to have Christ was to “have
all Equivalently and comprehensively.” 59
erefore, Collins warned that it was
important to “hold fast this Christ.” e
world, he declared, would try to sink believer
if he or she held it too closely to his
or her heart. So then, he urged his readers:
“Cast away all, shake o all, rather
then lose a Christ.” 60 us, “will a Believing
Soul su er the Loss of all, so he may
win Christ; none but Christ, saith an
illuminated Believer.” 61 Collins seemed
to speak on behalf of the “illuminated
Believer” as he thus extolled how this
view of the su ciency of Christ enabled
the Christian to endure hardships in this
life:
ere are many good Objects in
Heaven and Earth besides thee, there
are Angels in Heaven, and Saints on
Earth: But, what are these to thee?
Heaven without thy Presence, would
be no Heaven to me; a Pallace with
thee, a Crown without thee, cannot
satis e me; but with thee I can be content,
though in a poor Cottage with
thee I am at Liberty in Bonds; Peace
and Trouble; if I have thy Smiles, I can

would hear Christ profess to the Father
on the day of judgment the words:
ese are they which have continued
with me in my Temptation; therefore
I appoint unto you a Kingdom; therefore,
because you owned me in an Evil
Day.
ese are the Men, Woman, People,
which spoke of my Testimonies
before Kings, and was not ashamed
when many Cried, Crucify him and
his Cause; these are the souls which
came forth and declared they were on
the Lords Side: ese are they, Father,
whose Love to me many Waters nor
Floods could not quench nor drown;
these are they that chose me on my
own termes, with the Cross as well as
the Crown; these have made Choice of
me with Reproaches, Imprisonments,
with Fines, Con scation of Goods,
Banishment, loss of Limbs, Life, and
all, they have born all, indured all for
my sake, in the greatest a iction, they
kept from wavering, and the more
they endured and lost for my sake, the
more they loved me. 48
Just as Collins had encouraged persecuted
believers in his Counsel for the Living
to not give in because of the future rest
which awaited them, so too in A Voice
from the Prison he exhorted them to live
in view of their future appearance before
God’s judgment seat.
Collins also drew comfort from God’s
sovereign providence during his imprisonment.
He began his written address to
his “Dearly Beloved” church by expressing
his con dence that God was providentially
at work in his su ering for the
advancement of the gospel.
Forasmuch as I am present depriv’d
by my Bonds, of the Liberty of Preaching;
I bless God I have the Advantage
of Printing, being ready to serve the
Interest of Christ in all Conditions to
my poor Ability; and doubt not, but
God and Interest are Served by my
Con nement, as by Liberty: and am
not without hopes that I shall preach
as loudly, and as e ectually by Imprisonment
for Christ, as ever I did at Liberty;
that all those who observe Gods
Providential Dealings, will be able to
say with me herea er, as Holy Paul
once said in his Bonds at Rome; What
hath befallen me, hath tended to the
furtherance of the Gospel. 49
Like the apostle Paul in Philippians 1,
Collins’ belief in the providence of God
caused him to have con dence that God
would bring good out of his imprisonment.
One of the goods that Collins believed
could come out of the su erings
of the Baptists was that some of their
adversaries might be convinced of the
truth when they saw by how the Baptists
patiently endured when persecuted.
He argued that since “Actions are more
In uential then words, and more Demonstrative
of the Truth and Reality of a
Person or Cause” and “as a man shall be
better believed for his good works, then
good words,” su ering patiently would
convince their persecutors. 50 Collins
therefore encouraged his congregation:
so if we would Manifest our Integrity
under a Profession, nothing will
do it better then your Su ering, … if
by God called unto it; for, as a Tree is
known by his fruit, so is a Christian by
a Patient Wearing Christs Cross, this
with delight, mind with heart. He concludes
that if a sermon expressed “the
pure gospel of Jesus, well understood by
the preacher, and communicated from
the fullness of his heart,” then both mind
and feelings would indeed be interested.
66 Elsewhere, he says, “ e two main
objects to be attained in the work of the
Christian ministry” are “enlightening
the minds and a ecting the hearts of the
people.” 67
Conclusion
e plain, evangelical, and a ectionate
preaching of Andrew Fuller is as important
an instance of the transformation
of the church as its activism. Fuller’s
evangelical theology and piety shaped a
particularly evangelical contribution to
pastoral theology.
A plain style of preaching suited
Fuller’s commitment to the “simplicity
of the gospel.” Such simplicity entailed
an uncluttered composition and an una
ected delivery, but also a focused set
of themes made clear to a broad range
of hearers. Fuller’s preaching is distinguished
as evangelical by the centrality
of the cross of Christ and by his urgent
concern for conversion. e language of
the a ections allowed Fuller to express
his evangelical concern for conversion
and personal experience, but in a way
that integrated, rather than set at odds,
doctrine and feeling, mind and heart.
Pastoral theology o en serves as a
bridge between doctrine and spirituality,
preachers helping parishioners to
fashion a lived religious experience. For
evangelical theology to be embodied
in an evangelical piety requires, then,
an evangelical pastoral theology. e
simple, Christ-centered, thoughtful,
and heartfelt manner that Fuller recommended
is why he remains a readable
and helpful guide for evangelical preaching.
is beginning a PhD in
history at the University of New Brunswick,
Canada. He is the author of the forthcoming
Andrew Fuller and the Evangelical Renewal of
Pastoral eology (Paternoster).
_____________________
1 is article was originally published in CRUX 48, no.1
(Spring 2012) and is reprinted with the author’s permission.
is project began as a Regent College M thesis under
the supervision of Bruce Hindmarsh, for whose guidance
and friendship I am very thankful.
2 Fuller, quoted in John Ryland Jr., e Work of Faith, the
Labour of Love, and the Patience of Hope Illustrated in the
Life and Death of the Rev. Andrew Fuller, 2nd ed (London:
Button & Son, 1818), 32.
3 W.R. Ward, “ e Baptists and the Transformation of
the Church, 1780–1830,” Baptist Quarterly 25 (October
1973): 167–84; L.G. Champion, “Evangelical Calvinism and
the Structures of Baptist Church Life,” Baptist Quarterly 28
(January 1980): 196–208; Deryck Lovegrove, Established
Church, Sectarian People: Itinerancy and the Transformation
of English Dissent, 1780–1830 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1988); John Walsh, “Religious Societies:
Methodist and Evangelical, 1738–1800,” in Voluntary Religion,
ed. W.J. Sheils and Diana Wood, Studies in Church
History (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986): 279–302.
4 Philip Doddridge, Free oughts on the Most Probable
Means of Reviving the Dissenting Interest (1730), as quoted
in Isabel Rivers, Reason, Grace, and Sentiment: A Study of
the Language of Religion and Ethics in England, 1660–1780,
vol. 1, Whichcote to Wesley (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1991), 1:164.
5 George Wallis (1775–1869), “Memoirs, etc, of State of
Mind, continued,” mss diary (15 March 1805–1 June 1817),
Fuller Baptist Church, Kettering, 14 July 1811 and 28 April
1805.
6 As quoted by Bruce Hindmarsh, John Newton and the
English Evangelical Tradition between the Conversions of
Wesley and Wilberforce (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996),
267. 7 Andrew Fuller, e Complete Works of Rev. Andrew
Fuller with a Memoir of His Life by Andrew Gunton Fuller,
ed. Joseph Belcher (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publications,
1845), 1:197, editor’s note. is edition of Fuller’s
Works has the same pagination as the widely available
Sprinkle reprint (1988).
8 As quoted in omas Nettles, By His Grace and for
His Glory: A Historical, eological, and Practical Study of
the Doctrines of Grace in Baptist Life (Grand Rapids: Baker
Book House, 1986), 109.
9 Jean Claude, Essay on the Composition of a Sermon,
3rd ed, trans. Robert Robinson (London: Scollick, Wilson
& Spence, 1788). On Claude’s in uence on Fuller, see J. W.
Morris, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Rev. Andrew
Fuller, ed. Rufus Babcock (Boston: Lincoln & Edmands,
1830), 69; Andrew Fuller, “Essay on the Composition of a
Sermon: or, Plain and Familiar oughts, Addressed to a
Young Minister from his Pastor,” in e Preacher; or Sketches
of Original Sermons, Chie y Selected from the Manuscripts
of Two Eminent Divines of the Last Century, For the Use of
Lay Preachers and Young Ministers, ed. anon. (Philadelphia:
J. Whetham & Son, 1842), 21.
10 Claude, Essay, 1:11, 21.
11 Robert Robinson, “A Brief Dissertation on the Ministration
of the Divine Word by Publick Preaching,” in

Claude, Essay, 2:iv.
12 Peter Auksi, Christian Plain Style: e Evolution of a
Spiritual Ideal (Montreal and Kingston: McGill–Queen’s
University Press, 1995).
13 Auksi, Christian Plain Style, 7–8.
14 Fuller, Works, 1:495–496.
15 Fuller, Works, 1:540.
16 Fuller, Works, 1:140.
17 Fuller, Works, 1:140. Italics here, and in all quotations,
are from the original text.
18 Fuller, Works, 1:540.
19 Fuller, Works, 1:540.
20 Fuller, Works, 1:719.
21 Fuller, Works, 1:719.
22 Fuller, Works, 1:717.
23 Fuller, Works, 1:489.
24 Fuller, Works, 1:496.
25 Fuller, Works, 1:509.
26 Fuller, Works, 1:516.
27 Fuller, Works, 1:503.
28 Fuller, Works, 1:715; cf. 1:503, 3:487.
29 David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain:
A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (Grand Rapids: Baker,
1992), 3, 14–17.
30 Fuller, Works, 1:716.
31 Fuller, Works, 1:310.
32 Fuller, Works, 1:503.
33 Fuller, Works, 1:83.
34 Fuller, Works, 1:503.
35 Fuller, Works, 1:690.
36 Andrew Fuller, e Last Remains of the Rev. Andrew
Fuller, ed. Joseph Belcher (Philadelphia: American Baptist
Publication Society, 1856), 34.
37 Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 5–10.
38 Ryland, Life of Fuller, 11, 32.
39 Fuller, Works, 2:387.
40 Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 64–65.
41 Fuller, Works, 2:386.
42 Ryland, Life of Fuller, 32, 68.
43 Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 64–65.
44 Wallis, “Memoirs,” 14 July 1811.
45 See omas Dixon, From Passions to Emotions: e
Creation of a Secular Psychological Category (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003), 64–65.
46 Rivers, Reason, Grace, and Sentiment, 1:167–168, 196–
197; Ted A. Campbell, e Religion of the Heart: A Study
of European Religious Life in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth
Centuries (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press,
1991), esp. 2–3.
47 Rivers, Reason, Grace, and Sentiment, 1:167.
48 Fuller, Works, 1:549.
49 Fuller, Works, 2:641 and Fuller, e Diary of Andrew
Fuller, ed. Michael M. McMullen, vol. 1 of e Complete
Works of Andrew Fuller, ed. Michael Haykin (Berlin/Boston:
Walter de Gruyter, forthcoming), 3 February 1781;
Jonathan Edwards, A Treatise Concerning Religious A ections
(1746), ed. John E. Smith, in e Works of Jonathan
Edwards, vol. 2, ed. Perry Miller (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1959).
50 Fuller, Works, 2:410, 413, 602.
51 Rivers, Reason, Grace, and Sentiment, 1:167.
52 Fuller, Works, 1:479.
53 Fuller, Works, 1:507; see 3:319, where Fuller admonished
the members of the Northamptonshire Baptist Association,
“Do not oat upon the surface of Christianity, but
enter into the spirit of it.”
54 Fuller, Diary, 30 September 1785.
55 Fuller, Works, 1:480.
56 Fuller, Works, 1:546.
57 Fuller, Works, 1:198.
58 Fuller, Works, 1:480.
59 Fuller, Works, 1:137; cf. 1:480.
60 Fuller, Works, 1:137.
61 Fuller, Works, 1:508, 510.
62 Fuller, Works, 1:546.
63 Fuller, Works, 1:496.
64 Fuller, Works, 1:489.
65 Fuller, Works, 1:169.
66 Fuller, Works, 1:169.
67 Fuller, Works, 1:479.
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we may expect a great degree of trouble
another; least we should be exalted
above measure, we must have a thorn
in the esh now and then. 37
Trusting God’s providence, Collins
could con dently declare, “let men and
Devils do their worst, God will in his
own time loose the Prisoners.” 38
Not only were Collins and his fellowpersecuted
brothers content with their
situation because of God’s providence,
they were also deeply thankful for
God’s physical and spiritual blessings
while jailed. Collins called these blessings
“Prison-comforts.” 39 ey blessed
God for his grace that enabled them to
have “as much peace and satisfaction” in
their one-room prison cell as when they
had complete liberty to stroll through
their houses, gardens, and the homes
of friends. 40 ey were also thankful
for God’s daily physical provision for
them. “Blessed be God we have bread
for the day; as the day so our strength
has been.” 41 ese prisoners, however,
were most grateful for their spiritual
blessings. Chief among these blessings
was the presence of Christ. Of his persecuted
brothers Collins could write:
“How much of the Presence of Christ
have they had to inable them to bear the
Cross quietly, patiently, contentedly.” 42
ese saints also rejoiced that though
they were bound by physical shackles,
they had been set free from the bondage
of sin and death. “Again, let us bless God,
though we are in the Prison of man, yet
that we are delivered from the Spiritual
prison of Sin and Satan, into the glorious
liberty of the Children of God, and out
of the Kingdom of darkness into the glorious
light of the Gospel.” 43 ey realized
that “the darkness of a Material Prison
is nothing to the darkness of a Spiritual
one.” In this spiritual freedom believers
“may have Liberty in Bonds, light in
Darkness, Peace in Trouble.” 44 It was the
spiritual blessings that enabled the suffering
servants of Christ to endure their
trials. Collins explained how he and his
fellow prisoners had personally experienced
the soul-strengthening power of
spiritual fellowship with God the Father.
“Communion with God by the Spirit is a
good Cordial to keep up the heart from
fainting in this valley of tears, until we
come to our Mount of Joy, where there is
no limits of Joy and Blessedness.” 45
A second work that Hercules Collins
published from his prison cell was A
Voice from the Prison. is work was an
extended meditation on Revelation 3:11
where Christ admonishes the church of
Philadelphia with the words, “Behold, I
come quickly: hold that fast which thou
hast, that no man take thy crown” (KJV).
Collins addressed this sermon “To the
Church of God, formerly Meeting in
Old-Gravel-Lane Wapping, and all who
were Strangers and Foreigners, but now
Fellow Citizens with the Saints, and of
the Household of God.” Collins drew
from at least 213 passages of Scripture in
his sermon, to encourage his congregation
to stand rm in the face of persecution.
46 Collins urged his besieged ock to
not abandon the cause of Christ. “Hold
fast what thou hast, when Satan would
pull thy souls good from thee; when Relations,
Husband, Wife, Children call
upon you, and perswade you because
of danger to cease from the work of the
Lord, then hold fast.” 47 Collins o ered as
a motivation for holding fast to Christ
and his work that the one who stood fast

up and Comfort one another with these
things.” 22
Before turning to o er comfort for the
persecuted, Collins rst indicted their
persecutors as godless men. Collins characterized
the persecutors of Christians
as wicked men who “are troublers of the
Church.” As such they are “Strangers to
Gospel Principles, to a Gospel Spirit, and
Gospel Teachings.” 23 Collins concluded
that “a persecuting spirit is not of a Gospel-complexion.”
24 Judgment is coming
for these evil-doers who “shall be made
to confess their wickedness in not setting
Gods People at liberty to Worship
him; they shall fall into mischief, and be
silent in darkness, and turned into Hell,
with Nations which forget God.” 25 Note
that the “liberty to Worship him” seems
to be the main issue at stake for Collins.
Further, Collins excoriated the persecutors
elsewhere for arresting elderly men,
“Men of threescore, fourscore Years of
Age, hurried to Prison for nothing else
but for worshipping their God.” 26 is
seems to have especially raised the ire of
Collins since Bamp eld, one of the men
whose death occasioned this sermon,
was almost seventy when arrested for
what would prove to be the nal time. 27
Saints, however, would be given rest.
“ e time is coming,” Collins asserted,
when “God hath promised we shall no
more hear the voice of the Oppressor.” 28
e saints “shall know no more Apprehendings…nor
hear no more of, Take
him Jaylor, keep him until he be cleared
by due course of Law; we shall have no
more Bolts nor Bars then on us, no more
looking for the Keeper then, nor speaking
to Friends through Iron-grates.” 29
e “rest” referred to in Job 3:17–18
was a “Rest in Sleep, being then out of
all sense of care, trouble, pain, and all
manner of distraction, so in like manner
shall we be in the Grave.” 30 is was
the rest that Bamp eld and Ralphson
had attained. However, this was not the
only relief from persecution that Collins
anticipated. His belief in the sovereign
providence of God caused him to declare:
“We shall none of us stay a night
beyond God’s determination.” 31 erefore,
prisoners could be content with
their circumstances “though limited to
one Room, which was our Kitchin,
our Cellar, our Lodging-Room, our
Parlour.” 32 Like the apostle Paul, these
persecuted believers had learned to be
content in “every State.” 33 ese prisoners
believed “that place is best” where
their Father had willed them to be. 34
Having their daily bread they confessed
that “God is as good in Prison as out.” 35
Collins therefore exhorted his readers
that God’s promises were not just
to be read, but their truths trusted and
experienced. “Beloved, it is one thing
to Read the Promises, another thing to
trust upon God by them, and experience
the truth of them.” 36 ese prisoners had
experienced the promised presence and
blessing of God in the prison cell and
Collins wanted to exhort other persecuted
Christians to trust in the promises
of their loving Father. Collins reminded
his readers that:
Gods Providential Dealings with his
people in this world, is like Chequerwork,
there is the dark, as well as the
light side of Providence, the most
Re n’d and best State and Condition
of the best Saints are mixed here; if we
have some peace, we have some trouble;
if we have large Comforts one day,
n his chapter on the years from
1660 to 1688 in e English Baptists
of the Seventeenth Century, B.
R. White, the doyen of seventeenth-century
English Baptist studies, labeled this
period as “ e Era of the Great Persecution.”
1 During this period all Dissenters,
including the Baptists, were persecuted. 2
I
As a result a rich body literature was
produced that re ects a vibrant spirituality
of persecution and su ering for the
sake of the gospel. is paper will examine
the prison writings of one seventeenth-century
English Particular Baptist
in order to better understand how
the persecuted minority of Baptists were
able to persevere through their su erings.
ese writings are characterized by
con dence in the sovereign providence
of God, a thankfulness for both physical
and spiritual blessings, re ection upon
the su ciency of Christ, and a certain
expectation of a future deliverance and
reward. is paper will argue that only
such a vibrant spirituality will su ce to
sustain one in times of persecution. Before
looking at these writings, however,
it is important to consider something of
the historical context in which they were
produced.
Historical setting
Although Charles II had promised reli-
gious toleration when he returned to the
throne following the Commonwealth
Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, hopes
for such were short-lived among the Dissenters.
It is unknown whether Charles
II actually had any intention of keeping
his promise of religious liberty. What
is known, however, is that Parliament
passed a series of laws between 1661 and
1665 known as the Clarendon Code that
were designed to enforce conformity to
the worship of the Church of England.
e Corporation Act of 1661, for example,
required that a person had to have
received the sacrament of the Lord’s
Supper in the Church of England within
the past year to be eligible for election to
any government o ce. Eligible persons
were also required to take the Oaths of
Allegiance and Supremacy to the king
of England. e Act of Uniformity of
1662 resulted in the ejection of approximately
two thousand Puritan ministers
from their pulpits since it would have
required complete subscription to e
Book of Common Prayer. Most Puritan
ministers resigned rather than conform
to these demands. e Conventicle Act
of 1664 forbade the assembling of ve or
more persons for religious worship other
than Anglican worship. is, in essence,
outlawed Dissenting churches. e Five-
Mile Act of 1665 forbade any Noncon-

forming preacher or teacher to come
within ve miles of a city or corporate
town where he had previously served as
a minister. Each of these Acts was aimed
at stamping out both the Dissenters and
Catholics. Baptists were hit particularly
hard by these laws since they made their
conscientious worship of God illegal. 3
One of the Baptists whose life and ministry
was a ected by these laws was Hercules
Collins (1646/7–1702). 4
Collins served from 1677 until his
death in 1702 as the third pastor of London’s
oldest Baptist church which was
then the meeting in the Wapping area
of London. 5 e second pastor of this
congregation, John Norcott, is believed
to have been one of a small number of
Baptists who were actually ejected from
their pulpits in Church of England in
1662. 6 Although only a handful of Baptists
were a ected by the actual ejection
of 1662, the other laws of the Clarendon
Code, of which the Act of Uniformity
was a part, continued to have major effects
for over a quarter of a century. Collins
himself rst appears in the public
records in June of 1670 as a twenty-four
year old who was arrested along with
thirteen others for assembling in a conventicle
in violation of the Conventicle
Act (1664/1670). 7
Collins became pastor almost one year
to the day a er Norcott died in 1676. 8
For the rst half of Collins’ ministry (until
the Act of Toleration in 1689) the congregation
had to meet in secret for fear
of persecution. Spies and informers were
employed by the government and given
large sums of money for the discovery of
Dissenting congregations. 9 e English
Baptist historian Joseph Ivimey records
that the meeting-house of Collins’ con-
gregation was attacked during this period,
with the pulpit and pews being destroyed
and windows smashed. 10 On July
9, 1683, Collins was indicted for failure
to attend his local parish church. 11 But
it was for his violation of the Five Mile
Act (1665) that Collins was actually imprisoned
in 1684 at the Newgate Prison.
12 Collins had directly addressed the
Church of England in 1682 in one of his
writings by saying, “If you do persecute
us for our Conscience, I hope God will
give us that Grace which may inable [sic]
us patiently to su er for Christ’s sake.” 13
Apparently God granted this desire, for
the English Baptist historian omas
Crosby, writing within forty years of
Collins’ death, recorded that he was “a
faithful minister of the gospel; though
he had not a learned education, yet was
a useful and laborious servant of Christ,
and one that su ered imprisonment for
his sake. He began to be religious early,
and continued faithful to the last, and
was not shocked by the fury of persecutors.”
14
Ironically, it might have been this
1682 volume, titled Some Reasons for
Separation from the Church of England,
in which he expressed his willingness to
su er patiently which may have been the
cause of Collins’ imprisonment in 1684.
In this work, which was framed in terms
of a hypothetical conversation between
a Conformist and a Non-Conformist,
Collins asserted the historic Baptist
distinctive of religious liberty. Baptists
have always been ardent defenders of
religious liberty for such an idea is in
their DNA as champions of a regenerate
church membership which necessitates
a separation of church and state. In the
early seventeenth century, men such as
John Smyth, omas Helwys, and Roger
Williams were advocates for religious
liberty. Collins, in his dialogue with a
member of the Church of England, appears
to follow Roger Williams’ 1644
work on religious liberty, e Bloudy
Tenent of Persecution, quite closely, demonstrating
a clear dependence upon
William’s classic treatment. 15 However,
Collins o ers his own concise summary
of the issue at stake by asserting in his
words, “ at none should be compelled
to worship God by a temporal Sword,
but such as come willingly, and none can
worship God to acceptance but such.” 16
For this principle, which preserves the
idea of freedom of worship, Baptists like
Hercules Collins were willing to risk
their health, safety, and freedom.
Within a year of having published
Some Reasons for Separation from the
Church of England Collins was arrested,
and by the next year Collins was imprisoned
for exercising his understanding of
religious liberty. Nevertheless, this time
bore rich fruit for it was while he was in
the infamous Newgate Prison that Collins
penned two of the most devotional
of his twelve writings. 17 ese two works
will be the focus of the remainder of this
paper.
e prison writings
ough there is no indication of which
was published rst, the rst work to be
considered in this paper is Counsel for
the Living, Occasioned from the Dead.
is work, whose primary audience was
Collins’ fellow prisoners, was a discourse
on Job 3:17–18. is discourse was written
as a response to the deaths of two
of Collins’ fellow prisoners at Newgate:
Francis Bamp eld 18 and Zachariah
Ralphson. 19 Both apparently died in
early 1684 while Collins was also imprisoned.
20 e scriptural text that formed
the basis for the address states regarding
the eternal state, “ ere the wicked cease
from troubling; and there the weary be
at rest. ere the prisoners rest together;
they hear not the voice of the oppressor”
(KJV). Collins summarized these verses
as consisting of three components: “ rst
the Subjects; which are Oppressors and
Oppressed: Secondly, e Predicate,
ey shall Rest: irdly, the Receptacle,
or place of Rest, that’s the Grave.” 21 Collins
focused on two aspects of “counsel”
from Job 3:17–18, namely the future
judgment of the persecutors and the corresponding
relief of the persecuted. Collins
believed that both of the ideas present
in these verses were pertinent for his
times. First, the persecuted needed to be
encouraged by the fact that one day the
persecutors would be stopped and they
would experience relief, if not in this life,
then in the life to come. Second, persecutors
needed to realize that they would
one day be judged for their mistreatment
of the people of God. Collins’ primary
purpose in this discourse, however, was
to provide comfort to persecuted Christians.
is is seen in that at the end of
the book he exhorts his readers to follow
the apostle Paul’s advice at the close
of his discourse on the resurrection of
saints in 1 essalonians 4 to “Comfort
one another with these words.” Collins
concluded his Counsel for the Living by
exhorting his readers with these words:
“While Sin, Satan, and an Unkind World
is Discomforting you, do you in a lively
Hope of the Resurrection of the Body,
the coming of Christ, your Meeting of
him, and continuing with him, cheer