At age 16 in 1770, Andrew Fuller confronts a drunk church member and the member is excluded from the church. But Fuller wonders whether man can control his behavior, abstain from sin, and do good rather than do evil.
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| Andrew Fuller (1754 – 1815) was an English Particular Baptist minister and theologian. Known as a promoter of missionary work, he also took part in theological controversy. |
Andrew Fuller finds a drunk member who says he has no control over his drunkenness and Andrew tells the pastor
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| The Drunkenness of Noah by Michelangelo |
But in the autumn of the same year an unhappy affair occurred in the church, which occasioned a breach between our pastor, Mr. Eve, and the people, which terminated in his leaving them; and, what rendered it the more afflicting to me, I was much concerned in it. The case was this: 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. I knew not what else to say at that time; yet the idea of arrogating to be my own keeper seemed too much. 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 no power,' he observed, to do things spiritually good; but as to outward acts, we had power both to obey the will of God and to disobey it.'
The drunken member is kicked out of the church. But can sinful men do the will of God or keep themselves from sin?
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| An imaginative depiction of Pope Gregory VII excommunicating Emperor Henry IV. |
The business soon came before the church, and the offender was unanimously excluded: the excuse which he had made, too, was considered by all, I believe, as an aggravation of his offence. But, this affair being disposed of, the abstract question of the power of sinful men to do the will of God, and to keep themselves from sin, was taken up by some of the leading members of the church, amongst whom was my friend Joseph Diver. They readily excused me, as being a babe in religion; but thought the pastor ought to have known better, and to have been able to answer the offender without betraying the truth. They alleged that the greatest and best of characters, as recorded in Scripture, never arrogated to themselves the power of keeping themselves from evil, but constantly prayed for keeping grace; that, were it not for the restraining goodness and constraining grace of God, earth would be a hell, and the best of men incarnate devils; in short, that though we are altogether blameworthy for our evil propensities, yet, if they were restrained or conquered, it was altogether to be ascribed to God, and not to us. To support these ideas, they alleged the prayers of the faithful to be kept from evil, even from presumptuous sins, Psal. xix. 13; the declaration of the prophet, that 'the way of man is not in himself: it is not in him that walketh to direct his steps,' Jer. x. 23; the case of Hezekiah, whom the Lord left, that he might try him, that he might know all that was in his heart, 2 Chron. xxxii. 31; and the acknowledgments of such men as John Bradford the martyr, who, on seeing a man go to be publicly executed, said, 'There goes John Bradford by nature.'
If we have no power to comply with Scripture exhortations, why were they given to us?
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| Moses
Breaking the Tablets of the Law (1659) by Rembrandt. |
"On the other hand, the pastor distinguished between internal and external power. He allowed that men had no power of themselves to perform any thing spiritually good; but contended that they could yield external obedience, and keep themselves from open acts of sin. In proof of this he alleged a great number of Scripture exhortations; asking, If we had no power to comply with them, why were they given us? The opponents did not deny our being exhorted to do good and to avoid evil, nor that it was our duty to do both and our sin to act otherwise; but they denied that this implied our being sufficient of ourselves to do any thing, even to think a good thought.
Some power is necessary to render us accountable beings
"In these disputes I continued for some time on the side of my pastor; but after a few months I felt difficulties on the subject which I could not answer, and which rendered me unhappy. I perceived that some kind of power was necessary to render us accountable beings. If we were like stocks or 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 expressly affirm that 'the way of man is not in himself,' and represent the godly as crying to Heaven for preservation from evil, ascribing all the 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.
It is the grace of God alone that can make us conform to Divine precepts vs. It is a sufficiency in ourselves to conform to every Divine precept
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| Saying
Grace is a 1951 painting by American illustrator Norman Rockwell, painted for
the cover of The Saturday Evening Post's November 24, 1951, Thanksgiving issue. |
My worthy friend Joseph Diver, who sustained a high character for wisdom and integrity, would reason thus with me: -- 'We ought to hate evil, and love the Lord; but it is the grace of God alone that can make us what we ought to be.' He would often speak of the equity of the Divine requirements in the words of David, 'I esteem all thy precepts in all things to be right; and I hate every false way.' And again, 'Thou hast commanded us that we should keep thy precepts diligently: O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes!'' Thus it is,' said he, 'that we should turn every precept into a prayer, instead of inferring from it a sufficiency in ourselves to conform to it. All our conformity to the Divine precepts is of grace; it will never do to argue from our obligations against our dependence, nor from our dependence on grace against our obligations to duty. If it were not for the restraining goodness and preserving grace of God, we should be a kind of devils, and earth would resemble hell.'
Pastor Eve leaves the church
In October, 1771, our pastor, Mr. Eve, left us. I loved him, and he loved me, and took it hard that I had in some respects changed my views. I learned afterwards that he had entertained thoughts of me as being formed for the ministry, but this contention damped his hopes on that subject. He settled, when he left Soham, with a people at Wisbeach. I never look back upon these contentions but with strong feelings. They were to me the wormwood and the gall of my youth; my soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me. But though, during these unpleasant disputes, there were many hard thoughts and hard words on almost all hands, yet they were ultimately the means of leading my mind into those views of Divine truth which have since appeared in the principal part of my writings. They excited me to read, and think, and pray, with more earnestness than I should have done without them; and, if I have judged or written to any advantage since, it was in consequence of what I then learned by bitter experience, and in the midst of many tears and temptations. God's way is in the deep.
Andrew Fuller concludes that we have it in the power of our hands to do good, but we are disposed to do evil, and so to do good is not naturally in the power of our hearts
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| John Gill (1697 – 1771) was an English Baptist pastor, biblical scholar, and theologian who held to a firm Calvinistic soteriology. |
About this time I met with a passage in Dr. Gill, (I think it was in his Cause of God and Truth,) in which he distinguished between a thing being 'in the power of our hand, and in the power of our heart.' This, thought I, is the clue to our dispute. Every man has it in the power of his hand to do good and abstain from evil; and this it is which makes us accountable beings. We can do, or forbear to do, this and that, if we have a mind; but many have not a mind, and none would have such a mind but for the restraining goodness or constraining grace of God. We have it in the power of our hands to do good, but we are disposed to do evil, and so to do good is not naturally in the power of our hearts.
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| Statue of Robert Hall (by sculptor John Birnie Philip), off New Walk, Leicester. The Rev. Robert Hall (2 May 1764 – 21 February 1831) was an English Baptist minister. |
It was some time after this that I became acquainted with Mr. Robert Hall of Arnsby, who, in conversation on the subject, recommended Edwards on the Will. On reading this work, and some other pieces on physical and moral impotence, I saw the same things clearly stated, in other words, which I had learned by bitter experience.
Source: Fuller, Andrew. The Complete Works of the Rev. Andrew Fuller with a Memoir of His Life by Andrew Gunton Fuller. London, UK: G. And J. Dyer, Paternoster Row, 1846, pages 24-25.
