The Andrew Fuller Center Review – EDIT - Word of Truth

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.
connect with the
Andrew Fuller Center
on twitter
@AFCBS
on the web
andrewfullercenter.org
the andrew fuller
center review
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