Andrew Fuller’s Conflict with Hypercalvinism
3
Andrew Fuller’s Conflict with Hypercalvinism
I
From the act of uniformity in 1662 to the Glorious Revolution of 1688 the nonconforming Puritans held their ground without flinching in the face of fierce persecution, but the Toleration Act of 1689 ushered in an era of ease which for a time almost killed them. With ease came error, and Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists were all affected. Those not swept away by the flood of rationalism into Unitarianism were blown by the ill wind of over-emphasis into Hypercalvinism.
Of no one was this more true than the Particular Baptists. The recently reprinted 1689 London Confession of Faith shows that the Puritan Baptists who drew it up were orthodox Calvinists. So were their successors; but as the years passed their Calvinism lost its savour, and while they still lived lives of sincere piety, their zeal for the salvation of the unconverted waned. They seemed to think that this was God’s concern, not theirs. Their preaching altered accordingly. “Undue prominence was given in their discourses to the teaching of Scripture respecting the Divine purposes. They were satisfied with stating men’s danger, and assuring them that they were on the high road to perdition. But they did not call on them to repent and believe the gospel. They did not entreat them to be reconciled to God. They did not warn every man and teach every man in all wisdom. And the churches did not, could not, under their instruction, engage in efforts for the conversion of souls. They were so afraid of intruding on God’s work that they neglected to do what He had commanded them. They seem to have supposed that preservation was all they should aim at; they had not heart enough to seek for extension. No wonder the cause declined” (Cramp, Baptist History).
It was this kind of preaching that Andrew Fuller heard in his youth. Born in 1754 at Wicken in Cambridgeshire, he was nearly fourteen years old before he thought seriously on spiritual issues. He writes: “The preaching upon which I attended was not adapted to awaken my conscience, as the minister had seldom anything to say except to believers, and what believing was I neither knew, nor was I greatly concerned to know.” Aged fifteen, he came under great conviction of sin, but still his minister had nothing to say to him except, “Attend the means of grace, and may the Lord call you by it in due time.” As a result Fuller underwent a Bunyan-like agony of soul which only ended when he went to Christ in much the same way as Esther went to King Ahasuerus, saying, “If I perish, I perish.” Recounting this, Fuller writes, “I now found rest for my troubled soul; and I reckon that I should have found it sooner, if I had not entertained the notion of my having no warrant to come to Christ without some previous qualification.”
In 1770 he was baptized and joined the Particular Baptist Church at Soham. Eighteen months later a painful experience set him investigating the problem of human responsibility. “One of the members having been guilty of drinking to excess, I was one of the first who knew of it. I immediately went and talked to him, as well as I could, on the evil of his conduct. His answer was, he could not keep himself; and that though I bore so hard on him, I was not my own keeper. At this I felt indignant, considering it as a base excuse. I therefore told him that he could keep himself from such sins as these, and that his way of talking was merely to excuse what was inexcusable. He, however, was offended, and told me that I was young and did not know the deceitfulness of my own heart. Well, I went and told my pastor, who highly commended me, and said, we certainly could keep ourselves from open sins. We had not power, he observed, to do things spiritually good; but as to outward acts, we had power to obey the will of God and to disobey it.”
This set the whole church debating the question of ability and accountability. Since most did not agree with their pastor’s explanation, they subsequently called upon him to resign. As for Fuller, the more he thought the more puzzled he became. He writes, “I perceived that some kind of power was necessary to render us accountable beings. If we were like stocks and stones, or literally dead, like men in a burying-ground, we could with no more propriety than they be commanded to perform any duty; if we were mere machines, there could be no sin chargeable upon us. Yet, on the other hand, the Scriptures represent the godly as crying to Heaven for preservation from evil, and ascribing all that good that was in them to Him who worketh in us to will and to do of his own good pleasure. I prayed much, and laboured hard to solve this difficulty.”
Three years later he was called to the ministry, and began by preaching in the same way as other Calvinistic Baptists did. He had great respect for his elder brethren in the ministry, and for the writings of John Gill and John Brine, and was very slow to differ from them. Yet he did not forget that great men may make great blunders, as may be seen from the following covenant prayer recorded in his journal:
“O Lord God, I find myself in a world where thousands profess thy name. All profess to be searching after the truth; to have Christ and the inspired writers on their side. I am afraid lest I should be turned aside from the simplicity of the gospel. I feel my understanding full of darkness, my reason exceedingly imperfect, my will ready to start aside, and my passions strangely volatile. O illumine my understanding, teach my reason reason, my will rectitude, and let every faculty of which I am possessed be kept within the bounds of thy service.
O let not the sleight of wicked men, who lie in wait to deceive, nor ever the pious character of great men (who yet may be under great mistakes) draw me aside. Nor do thou suffer my own fancy to misguide me. Lord, thou hast given me a determination to take no principle at second-hand; but to search for everything at the pure fountain of thy word. Yet, Lord, I am afraid, seeing I am as liable to err as other men, lest I should be led aside from the truth by mine own imagination.
I pray that I may not only be kept from erroneous principles, but may so love the truth, as never to keep it back. O Lord, if thou wilt open mine eyes to behold the wonders of thy Word, and give me to feel their transforming tendency, then shall the Lord be my God; then let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I shun to declare, to the best of my knowledge, the whole counsel of God.”
Of his early reading, Fuller writes, “The principal writings with which I was first acquainted were those of Bunyan, Brine and Gill. I had read pretty much of Dr. Gill’s Body of Divinity, and from many parts of it had received considerable instruction. I perceived, however, that the system of Bunyan was not the same with his; for that, while he (i.e. Bunyan) maintained the doctrines of election and predestination, he nevertheless held with the free offer of salvation to sinners without distinction. These were things which I then could not reconcile, and therefore supposed that Bunyan, though a great and good man, was not so clear in his views of the doctrines of the gospel as the writers who succeeded him. I found, indeed, the same things in all the old writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth century that came my way. They all dealt, as Bunyan did, in free invitations to sinners to come to Christ and be saved; the consistency of which with personal election I could not understand.”
After some years of prayer and study Fuller became convinced that Bunyan was right after all, and in 1776 he began to exhort the unconverted to repent and believe in Christ. The change that came over his preaching was not appreciated by all his flock, and this was one of the reasons why he eventually left Soham for Kettering, where he worked for the remaining thrity-three years of his life.
The results of his investigation he wrote down for his own benefit, but when friends saw the manuscript they persuaded him to publish it. This he reluctantly did, in 1784, under the title, The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation. As he had feared, its publication launched him into a sea of controversy through which he had to sail for the rest of his life. His broadside against Hypercalvinism was answered by a certain Mr. Button. Fuller countered with A Reply to Mr. Button. Meanwhile, into the fight came the General Baptists, who fired on Fuller from behind, thinking he was half way to becoming an Arminian. To their surprise they found Fuller as much opposed to Arminianism as he was to Hypercalvinism. Thus, in 1803 we find Fuller writing to Dr. Ryland, “Baxter considers Calvinists and Arminians as reconcilable, making the difference between them of but small account. I have no such idea: and if, on account of what I have here and elsewhere avowed, I were disowned by my present connexion (the Particular Baptists) I should rather choose to go through the world alone than be connected with them (the Arminian Baptists). Their scheme appears to me to undermine the doctrine of salvation of grace only, and to resolve the difference between one sinner and another into the will of man, which is directly opposite to all my views and experience.”
Fuller did not spend all his life writing against Hypercalvinism. A lover of truth, he hated all kinds of error, and from his indefatigable pen came learned treatises opposing Deism, Unitarianism, Sandemanianism, and Universalism. He also published expositions of Genesis and Revelation. C. H. Spurgeon calls the former “one of the very best series of discourses extant upon Genesis.” Altogether his complete works run to over a thousand double-columned pages of microscopic print, and they earned for him the offer of two D.D.’s, both of which, however, he declined. Perhaps his greatest work was as secretary of the Particular Baptist Missionary Society from its formation in 1792 to the day of his death in 1815. This was Britain’s first proper missionary society, and the exploits of Carey abroad, supported by Fuller’s extensive deputation work at home, inspired others to do likewise; so began the great missionary movement. It is no exaggeration to say that Carey’s going to India was the logical outcome of Fuller’s emancipation from Hypercalvinism. Fuller maintained that the gospel was worthy of all acceptation, from which Carey deduced that its acceptance ought to be pressed on all mankind.
II
What was the substance of Fuller’s case against Hypercalvinism? We may most conveniently answer this question by setting out a summary of his original treatise on the subject. Its full title is The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation, or, the Duty of Sinners to Believe in Jesus Christ. (His later arguments against Arminianism may be seen in his Reply to Philanthropos and The Efficacy of Divine Grace.)
Preface (defining the matter at issue): “There is no dispute about the doctrine of election, or any of the discriminating doctrines of grace. The question does not turn upon what are the causes of salvation, but rather upon what are the causes of damnation.”
Part I: Fuller here states his own thesis. Our proposition, he writes, is that it is the duty of all who hear the gospel to believe in Christ with such a faith as issues in salvation. What is this saving faith? It is a real belief of God’s report or record concerning His Son (Mark 16:15–16; John 20:31) which includes personal trust in Christ’s promises. (In an appendix, Fuller answers the Sandemanian view that saving faith is an act of the intellect alone.)
Part II is entitled: ARGUMENTS TO PROVE THAT FAITH IN CHRIST IS THE DUTY OF ALL WHO HEAR . . . THE GOSPEL.
Fuller’s main points are as follows:
i. Unconverted sinners are commanded, exhorted, and invited to believe in Christ for salvation. John 12:36: “While ye have the light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light.” Christ exhorts unbelievers (v. 37) to believe in the light (Himself, v. 46) so as to be children of light (i.e. true believers, cf. v. 46). Fuller also quotes John 6:29; Psalm 2:11–12; Isaiah 55:1–7; Jeremiah 6:10, 16 to prove this point.
ii. The gospel requires obedience, and such an obedience as includes saving faith. The end of preaching the gospel is “for obedience to the faith among all nations” (Romans 1:5). Obedience supposes previous obligation. If repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ, were not duties required of us, it would be incongruous to speak of them as exercises of obedience. Nor would it be less so to describe the impenitence and unbelief which expose men to everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, as “not obeying the gospel” (2 Thessalonians 1:8–9).
Fuller quotes John Owen: “When the apostle beseecheth us to be reconciled to God, I would know whether it be not a part of our duty to yield obedience? If not, the exhortation is frivolous and vain.”
It should be noted, Fuller adds, that, though believing in Christ is compliance with a duty, yet it is not as a duty that we are said to be justified by it; otherwise justification by faith could not be, as it is, opposed to justification by works.
iii. Scripture ascribes the want of faith in Christ to men’s depravity. Wilful ignorance (Romans 10:3), pride (Psalm 10:4), dishonesty (Luke 8:15), aversion of heart (John 5:40), are the reasons why men do not believe. Moreover, unbelief itself is expressly declared to be a sin of which the Spirit of truth has to convince the world (John 16:8–9). But unbelief cannot be a sin if faith is not a duty.
iv. God has threatened and inflicted the most awful punishments on sinners for their not believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. Fuller quotes Mark 16:16: “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” It is saving faith to which salvation is promised, and to the want of this that damnation is threatened. Christ’s words in John 3:18 similarly show that the want of such faith is a sin (though not the only sin) on account of which the unbeliever stands condemned. Observe also 2 Thessalonians 2:10–12, Fuller adds: note there the “because” and “for this cause.” He goes on,
“In order to evade the arguments arising from the addresses of John the Baptist, of Christ and His apostles, who called upon the Jewish people to repent and believe the gospel it has been alleged that it was only an outward repentance and acknowledgment of the truth to which they were exhorted, and not that which is spiritual, or which has the promise of spiritual blessings. But an outward repentance and reformation of manners, as distinguished from that which consists in godly sorrow, NEEDS TO BE REPENTED OF. But that which requires to be repented of cannot be commanded of God, or constitute any part of a sinner’s duty. The duty of every transgressor is to be sorry at heart for having sinned.” Unfeigned repentance, like saving faith, is the sinner’s duty.
Part III consists of ANSWERS AND OBJECTIONS.
i. Concerning election. The Hypercalvinist, says Fuller, argues that God’s decree cancels man’s duty (Romans 9:19), and the Arminian vice versa. Both agree in holding divine sovereignty and human responsibility to be incompatible with each other. But not so the Scriptures. After all that Paul writes in Romans 9 about God’s electing some and rejecting others, in the very same chapter he assigns the Jews’ failure to their seeking justification, not by faith in Christ, but by the works of the law, and holds them guilty for it (vv. 31–33).
ii. Concerning particular redemption. Fuller accepts the particularity of redemption as a revealed truth. But, he argues, there is no inconsistency between particular redemption and general invitations if the particularity of Christ’s atonement lies, not in its insufficiency to save more than are saved, but in the sovereignty of its application. The application of redemption, which is directed solely by sovereign wisdom, is the result of previous design. That which is actually done was intended to be done. Hence the salvation of those that are saved is described as the end which the Saviour had in view in dying (Titus 2:14).
Now, if the gospel required each hearer to believe that Christ in dying had a particular purpose to save him, an inconsistency would arise at once. But in fact what the gospel commands men to believe is just the revealed fact that Christ offers Himself as a perfect Saviour to every last sinner who needs Him; and this will prove true, whether those who hear it believe it or not.
iii. Concerning human inability. Scripture declares that no man can come to Christ except the Father draw him, and the natural man cannot know the things of the Spirit of God. But now, Fuller asks, what kind of inability is this? Is it of such a kind as to destroy the sinner’s obligation to believe the gospel?
Certain kinds of inability render a person excusable. God will not judge an insane man as if he had been a responsible being, nor will He reprove a blind man for not having read the Scriptures, nor will he condemn a heathen who has never heard the gospel for not having believed on Christ. The want of rational faculties, bodily powers, and external privileges, are cases of a kind of inability which frees a person from blame. This inability Fuller terms natural or physical.
Now, he argues, if the inability of sinners to believe in Christ were of this kind, justice would not hold them accountable for their unbelief and it would be as absurd to exhort them to believe as to exhort the (physically) blind to look, the deaf to hear, or the dead to walk. But, as we have seen, God does hold sinners responsible for their unbelief. Moreover, the blind are admonished to look, the deaf to hear, and the dead to arise (Isaiah 42:18; Ephesians 5:14). This fact alone should assure us that the blindness, deafness, and deadness of sinners to that which is spiritually good is not of the physical kind. These exhortations prove that the inability lies in the sinner’s disinclination, and this disinclination Fuller terms moral inability.
The distinction between natural and moral inability is recognized in ordinary life. When charged with neglecting our duty to a parent or master, if we can say that we were unable to do it at the time no matter how much we wanted to, we never fail to say so. And should a master or parent reply suggesting that our want of ability really arose from want of inclination, we understand this to be the language of reproach, and are very earnest to maintain the contrary.
But if this moral inability (which presupposes natural ability) resolves itself solely into the sinner’s disinclination to do what is commanded, why use the term “cannot?” Because it is just as impossible for anyone to do that which he has no mind to do, as to perform that which surpasses his natural power. Hence we read that Joseph’s brethren could not speak peaceably unto him (Genesis 37:4). (Elsewhere Fuller shows that this moral disinclination is so strong that only the almighty operation of the Spirit can remove it.)
The Hypercalvinist, says Fuller, glories in the fact that he lays man much lower than other Calvinists do, but see how he does it. “It is not in the character of a sinner, but of a creature of God; not on account of what he has made himself, but on account of what God has made him: and if this is the way in which we are to be humbled, it might be done still more effectually if we were reduced to the condition of a stock or a stone.”
Last came, CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS.
i. The warrant of faith. If faith in Christ is the duty of the ungodly, it follows that every sinner, whatever his character, is completely warranted to trust in Christ for the salvation of his soul. It is not a question merely of “may,” but of “must.”
ii. The sinfulness of unbelief. If we disregard the offer of salvation, in the day of judgment it will be found that a price was in our hands to get wisdom, but that we had “no heart to it,” and that herein consists our sin, and hence proceeds our ruin. God called, and we would not hearken; and it is for this reason—not because we were not offered life, but because we refused it—that we are now doomed to an eternity without it.
iii. The duty of preachers. “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 do spiritually good 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 part of my duty which I could not omit without being guilty of the blood of souls.”
We end our review of Fuller’s conflict with Hypercalvinism with some application to the present. We live in days when the pendulum is beginning to swing from Arminianism to Calvinism, for which we thank God. But the pendulum may swing too far, and Arminian “activitis” may give way to Hypercalvinistic paralysis. Can we observe in ourselves any symptoms of this disease? Are we less concerned for the salvation of souls than we once were? Do we still think it our duty to get the gospel to every creature? Have we the same zeal for missionary work? Have we grown slack in our use of tracts? Perhaps some of us are reacting too much against the Arminianism from which we have been rescued. Let us beware. Let us take heed to ourselves and to our doctrine for the sake of them that hear us. Whether or not we agree with Fuller at every point, may God give us Fuller’s “determination to take no principle at second-hand, but to search for everything at the pure fountain of God’s Word.”