Confession Of Faith -- By: Andrew Fuller

Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 17:2 (Summer 2013)
Article: Confession Of Faith
Author: Andrew Fuller


Confession Of Faith 1

Andrew Fuller

edited by Michael A. G. Haykin

Michael A. G. Haykin is Professor of Church History and Biblical Spirituality at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

He is also Adjunct Professor of Church History and Spirituality at Toronto Baptist Seminary in Ontario, Canada. Dr. Haykin is the author of many books, including “At the Pure Fountain of Thy Word”: Andrew Fuller As an Apologist (Paternoster Press, 2004), Jonathan Edwards: The Holy Spirit in Revival (Evangelical Press, 2005), and The God Who Draws Near: An Introduction to Biblical Spirituality (Evangelical Press, 2007), and Rediscovering the Church Fathers: Who They Were and How They Shaped the Church (Crossway, 2011).

I.

When I consider the heavens and the earth with their vast variety, it gives me reason to believe the existence of a God of infinite wisdom, power, and goodness that made and upholds them all. Had there been no written revelation of God given to us, I should have been without excuse, if I had denied a God or refused to glorify him as God.

II.

Yet, considering the present state of mankind, I believe we needed a revelation of the mind of God to inform us more fully of his and our own character, of his designs towards us, and will concerning us. And such a revelation I believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be, without excepting any one of its books, and a perfect rule of faith and practice. When I acknowledge it as a perfect rule of faith and practice, I mean to disclaim all other rules as binding on my conscience, and as well to acknowledge that if I err, either in faith or practice, from the rule, it will be my crime. For I have ever considered all deviations from divine rules to be criminal.

III.

From this divine volume, I learn many things concerning God, which I could not have learned from the works of nature, and the same things in a more convincing light. Here I learn especially the infinitely amiable moral character of God. His holiness, justice, faithfulness, and goodness are here exhibited in such a light by his holy law and glorious gospel as is nowhere else to be seen.

Here, also, I learn that though God is one, yet he also is three—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The idea which I think the Scriptures give us of each of the sacred three

is that of person.

I believe the Son of God to be truly and properly God, equal with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

Everything I see in ...

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