Andrew Fuller (1754–1815) was a pastor whose ministry coincided with the revitalization of the English Calvinistic Baptist denomination of which he was a distinguished member. He was a pathbreaking theologian, apologist, and spiritual biographer, who throughout his career remained rooted in the local church. Yet despite his multiple achievements, Fuller was probably best known at the end of his life as a pioneering missionary statesman. He was one of the founders and principal advocates of the Baptist Missionary Society, serving as the new society’s secretary from its inception in 1792 until his death. His Apology for the Late Christian Missions to India was published in 1808 to defend the BMS missionaries from those who wanted them recalled from ‘British India’ for damaging colonial interests. In the Apology, Fuller shares his passion for overseas cross-cultural mission, a passion which came to define his ministry for many of his contemporaries and also, to a significant degree, for subsequent generations. In the Apology Fuller advocates on their behalf. This new edition of the Apology includes a 30,000-word introduction setting the context, and full notes on the text itself. It is of interest to theologians and missiologists as well as specialists in the history of Christian cross-cultural mission, colonialism, and the intersection between the two.

One of the greatest Baptist theologians of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Andrew Fuller has not had justice done to him. There is little doubt that Fuller's theology lay behind the revitalization of the Baptists in the late eighteenth century and the first few decades of the nineteenth. This collection of essays fills a much-needed gap by examining the major area of Fuller's thought: his work as an apologist. The book argues that the New Testament exegesis, which is at the heart of this reformulation, is fundamentally accurate and that the resulting system is theologically coherent. The book also argues that this view is not a Baptist novelty, but is rather a recovery of the foundational Baptist thought of the seventeenth century.

Despite his prominent role during the last quarter of the eighteenth century in promoting evangelical Calvinism among British Particular Baptists, only portions of the diary of Andrew Fuller (1754-1815), one of the most important surviving manuscripts from that century, have appeared in print in various volumes published between 1816 and 1882, portions usually inaccurately transcribed and highly editorialized. The current edition is the first complete and accurate transcription of Fuller’s diary based on the sole surviving volume now residing at Bristol Baptist College. This edition, with exhaustive identifications, notes, and valuable appendices for students of Baptist history, provides a fascinating glimpse into Fuller’s ministry at Soham and Kettering during a period (1780-1801) when he became the titular head of the Particular Baptists as a result of his preaching throughout Northamptonshire and surrounding counties; his writing, such as his influential work, The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation (1785); and his multi-national work as founding secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society (1792), a position he diligently maintained until his death in 1815, having left a legacy unequalled by any other minister of his generation.

This book is concerned with English Calvinistic Baptist churches from the later 1600s until the early 1800s, arguing that there was then no connection between restricted communion and hyper- or high Calvinism. A minimal definition of restricted communion would be the reception at the Baptist communion of those alone who had been immersed in water upon a profession of faith. A sketch of English Calvinistic Baptists in the years preceding and following the 1689 Act of Toleration stresses that they were a denomination other than that of the General Baptists, and that most Baptists, irrespective of party lines, were de facto Strict Baptists. Historical arguments for and against restricted communion will demonstrate that during that period there was no definitive link between the Particular Baptists' communion discipline and their interpretations of Calvinism. Attention is given to John Gill's and Andrew Fuller's interpretations of the relation between the atonement and evangelism.