3 Minutes in Baptist History (10.03.2024)

A gospel that not only may be believed but ought to be so.

In 1781, Andrew Fuller argued that it is not only a marvelous privilege that sinners should hear the gospel, but it is also a moral obligation that those sinners who do hear about the person and work of Jesus Christ should exercise true faith in Jesus. His long-form argument was first a sermon and then a booklet, titled The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation. Read Fuller’s message in its entirety HERE.

Fuller was an English Particular Baptist during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and he was the primary sponsor of William Carey’s missionary enterprise. Carey has become known as the father of modern missions, but Fuller made Carey’s efforts possible. Read a wonderful and concise biography of Fuller HERE.

Fuller said that the gospel is like an announcement from a mighty king to the rebels who have overtaken his property and made war against him. The mighty king threatens the highest punishment for their crimes, but he also offers complete forgiveness if they will but surrender to him this instant and pledge allegiance to him from this time forth. The threatenings are certainly fearful, but the promise of forgiveness is gracious to the full extent.

With this analogy in mind, Fuller argued that unbelieving sinners are in an “alarming situation.” But he was not primarily talking about those sinners who had never heard the gospel or those who never even had the opportunity to hear it. He spoke here especially of those who had heard the gospel but remained in unbelief.

In the language of his day, he said,

“We are in the habit of pitying heathens [i.e., foreign non-Christians], who are enthralled by abominable superstitions, and immersed in the immorality which accompany [them]; but to live in the midst of gospel light, and reject it, or even disregard it, is abundantly more criminal, and will be followed with a heavier punishment. We feel for the condition of profligate characters; for swearers, and drunkards, and fornicators, and liars, and thieves, and murderers; but these crimes become tenfold more heinous in being committed under the light of revelation, and in contempt of all the warnings and gracious invitation of the gospel.

The most profligate character, who never possessed these advantages, may be far less criminal, in the sight of God, than the most sober and decent who possesses and disregards them… The gospel wears an aspect of mercy towards sinners; but towards unbelieving sinners the Scriptures deal wholly in the language of threatening.

Herein consists [the] sin [of those who hear and do not believe], and hence proceeds our ruin. God called, and we would not harken; he stretched out his hand, and no man regarded; therefore he will laugh at our calamity, and mock when our fear comes… Great is the sin of unbelief… [which becomes] unpardonable… by persisting in it till death… You cannot go back into a state of non-existence, however desirable it might be to many of you; for God hath stamped immortality upon your natures.

Like a vessel in a tempestuous ocean, you must go this way or that; and go which way you will, if it be not to Jesus, as utterly unworthy, you are only heaping up wrath against the day of wrath. Whether you sing, or pray, or hear, or preach, or feed the poor, or till the soil, if self be your object, and Christ be disregarded, all is sin, and all will issue in disappointment.

Whither will you go?

Jesus invites you to come to him.

His servants beseech you, in his name, to be reconciled to God.

The Spirit says, Come; and the bride says, Come; and whosoever will, let him come, and take of the water of life freely.

An eternal heaven is before you in one direction, and an eternal hell is in the other. Choose you, this day, whom you will serve. For our parts, we will abide by our Lord and Savior. If you continue to reject him, so it must be: nevertheless, be you sure of this, that the kingdom of God has come here unto you!”

May God graciously give the gifts of repentance and faith to those who know the gospel and have not yet believed it.