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“I Believe In Free Will” “Me, Too”
“That’s where we differ”, said my questioner, “I believe in freewill.” What do you mean by freewill? In one sense nothing can exist, or function, except God permits it, including man’s will. Man is not God, he is not free and self-existent. Man’s will is free only to the extent God allows. “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will” (Proverbs 21:1). Yet, undoubtedly, God has allowed men a degree of freedom in their choices and decisions. He does not force us. Even the powerful, sovereign operations of God’s grace in conversion do not drive men to unwilling obedience. Rather, the elect of God, for whom salvation has been eternally purposed are…
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Tom Nettles Versus George Ella On Fuller
Having been of quite another opinion than The Founders Journal so often about what I believe and disbelieve and having met their ill-founded and quite misleading arguments to a large extent in various articles and books, I was surprised to read an online article today (20.10. 2014) by Tom Nettles, originally published in Issue 53 of the Founders Journal for 2003 and entitled ‘Jonathan Edwards: An Appreciation’, containing a doubly mistaken report appertaining both to myself and Andrew Fuller. I had obviously missed this at the time it was written. In Nettles’ article, the author creates an effigy of wax to stick pins into which he gives my name in order to create an Andrew Fuller after his own heart. Bad as I believe Fuller’s…
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Fuller and His Thirst for Theological Reading
This afternoon (12.11.2020), I received an article which Michael Haykin had uploaded to Academia.educ who kindly sent me a copy. The 17 paged article with seven pages of endnotes affixed is entitled ‘A Great Thirst for Reading’: Andrew Fuller the Theological Reader’. As Haykin has been promising new information on Fuller’s life, ministry and theology for many decades, I am always curious on receiving anything from Haykin’s pen concerning new insights on Fuller as he has daily contact with Fuller’s records. Nobody is in such a fine position to do this work. Haykin is a university Professor of Fullerite Teaching and has every opportunity to spend his time researching Fuller assisted by a staff of scholars and an extensive library. Sadly, there was nothing new…
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Chapter 12: Of Exhortation To Sinners To Come To Christ, In Preaching The Gospel, Examined.
The bowels of Jesus Christ are the greatest bowels to sinners, Phil. 1:8, and therefore let us understand what the bowels and mercies are, Phil. 2:1, and understand what the mind and will of the Lord is, Eph. 5:17, in exhortations. An exhortation plainly differs from an invitation, {though we see that men have mismatched them, as if they understood not the property of them,} and likewise is the difference from an offer of Grace. It is sheer ignorance in the thoughts of any men to take them up promiscuously; that is, without order or consideration, without any regard or respect to difference. An offer, as I’ve have shown, is before a person, and an invitation is of a person, and is sent out after…
Further Study
Chapter 13: Of Preaching With And Without Notes, Considered.
Title Page
Chapter 3: Proof Of The Second Of The Three Points In This Debate; Or, The Proof Of This Proposition, That To Propound The Grace-Offer In The External Means, Is No Means Of The Spirit’s Working An Internal Ability In Sinners To Close Savingly With The Offer; Neither Doth Or Will He Set In With Offers To Any Such End.
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The Works of Andrew Fuller with a Biography (Part 2)
The Works of Andrew Fuller with a Biography by the Editor Andrew Gunten Fuller A Banner of Truth Trust Facsimile Reprint Part Two The bulk of BOT publications between the late nineteen-fifties and mid-eighties were a great support to the churches. Since then the BOT have lowered their standards to meet a wider readerships and have bowed to popular demands for less solid doctrines. Surprisingly, this broadening of views has led to the BOT adopting a narrow, intolerant, party spirit against those who refuse to take their lead. With their reprint of Andrew Fuller’s works, the BOT have now abandoned Reformation teaching altogether, giving their readers a philosophy of religion which appeals to the fallen human heart and mind. Fuller based his gospel on the…
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Chapter 11: Of the Invitation of Sinners to Come to Christ.
Having handled the matter of this treatise through the Father’s Donation of Christ, and through the Spirit’s Operation with Christ, I have beaten down, as an instrument in the Lord’s hand, the minister’s dishonourable oblation of Christ. The substance hath been to show, that whilst an offerer of Christ preaches Christ {as he calls it} immediately for acceptance, a faithful steward of the mysteries of Christ {not handling the word of God deceitfully, but workmen like, II Cor. 4:2,} preaches Christ first of all in the Father’s preparations, next in the Son’s procurements, and last of all, under the same communications of the anointing, he preaches Christ in the Spirit’s principles to discern and receive him. I now therefore come to some brief account of…
Further Study
Chapter 13: Of Preaching With And Without Notes, Considered.
Chapter 4: The Third Principal Point Is To Prove That An Offer Of Grace Is No Gift Of Grace; And Then Where Is Your Offer?
Chapter 3: Proof Of The Second Of The Three Points In This Debate; Or, The Proof Of This Proposition, That To Propound The Grace-Offer In The External Means, Is No Means Of The Spirit’s Working An Internal Ability In Sinners To Close Savingly With The Offer; Neither Doth Or Will He Set In With Offers To Any Such End.
