II. Fuller-Weekly Sermons on Apocalypse Throughout 1810

ANDREW FULLER (1754-1815), Baptist theologian, writer, and missionary advocate, of Ketteingham, England, was deeply exercised by religious questions in his boyhood. At sixteen he joined the Baptist church at Soham. His powers of exposition and exhortation were so marked that in 1775 he was called to the gospel ministry to serve his home church. Later, in 1782, lie went to Kettering, where lie remained until death. He was one of the founders of the Baptist Missionary Society, which was organized at. Kettering in 1782. He was, in tact, its first secretary, with Carey as its first missionary. It was Fuller to whom Carey said, using the miner’s phraseology, “I will go down (into the pit), if you will hold the rope.” None was more concerned over missions than he. And the prophecies were a motivating factor.PFF3 350.3

Fuller was a man of great force and energy. Whatever he undertook he did with his might, and his controversial activities were constant. An able preacher and author, he wrote nine books, including Expository Discontses on the Apocalypse, published in 1815, the year of his death. ^{18Fuller’s complete works were assembled in five volumes in 1837.} He also wrote numerous tracts, and contributed to various magazines. He received the degree of D.D. from both Princeton and Yale, but never used it. ^{19Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 7, p. 750.} It was Fuller who gave to William Cuninghame, of Lainshaw, Scotland, the idea that the seven last plagues were being poured out in the French Revolution. He had had it brought to his attention by Captain Charles Maitland.PFF3 351.1

As indicated by the title page, Fuller’s Expository Discourses on the Apocalypse was originally preached to his Baptist congregation at Kettering throughout the year 1810, ^{20Andrew Fuller, Expository Discourses on the Apocalypse in his Complete Works(London, 1837 ed.), vol. 3, pp. 385, 429.} with a vivid sense of dependence upon the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. It was written under the consciousness that “the time is at hand,” and because “the events of the present times” “called for a special attention to prophecy.” Writing out his personal conclusions first, Fuller then consulted with other available writers. This in itself was significant. Finally, after frequently re-examining the manuscript over a five-year period, he sent it forth in 1815. ^{21Ibid., p. 436.}PFF3 351.2

1. SEVENTH SEAL EMBRACES ALL TRUMPETS

In general. Fuller clings to Mede’s old theory that the seventh seal contains the whole of the trumpets, and the seventh trumpet, in turn, the whole of the seven vials.” ^{22Ibid., p. 285.} And as the seals overthrew the pagan Roman Empire, so the trumpets overthrew the Christian,”’ ^{23Ibid., p. 287.} representing the Saracens and Turks, by which both the Eastern Empire and church were overthrown. The earthquake of Revelation 11 is the upheaval in France, following the close of the sixth trumpet. ^{24Ibid., pp. 287, 325.} The sixth vial, producing Armageddon, involves the overthrow of Turkey. ^{25Ibid., pp. 289, 290.}PFF3 351.3

2. SARACENIC WOK (612-762); TURKISH WOE (1281-1672).

Fuller places the five months, or 150 years, of the Saracenic scourge from 612 to 762, when the Saracens ceased to extend their conquests and settled down peaceably in the conntries conquered.” ^{26Ibid., p. 334.} Their cavalry and their crown like turbans seem to fulfill the symbolisms of the prophecy. The sixth, or Turkish woe, trumpet he begins in 1281 with the first “decided victory over the eastern Christians.” The 391 years (the hour, day, month, and year), which he dates from 1281, lead past Othman in 1299, and the taking of Constantinople in 1453, to 1672, the year of their last victory over the Poles, and from which time they have been dwindling in power. ^{27Ibid., p. 336.} Their glittering harness and use of gunpowder are both foretold. Fuller held the seventh trumpet to be a kind of Jubilee, announcing the year of enlargement for the gospel as well as the pouring out of the plagues of devastation. ^{28Ibid., p. 357.}PFF3 352.1

3. FRENCH EARTHQUAKE-REVOLUTION IN TENTH OF CITY

Revelation 10 deals with the Western, or Latin, apostasy, and the 1260 years of the apostasy. ^{29Ibid., p. 338.} Contending that the “earthquake” must denote a “revolution,” the city the “Romish church, or the Apocalyptic Babylon,” and the tenth part, or one of the ten horns, he says:PFF3 352.2

“I know of no event that seems to correspond so well with the prophecy as the late revolution in France. Thus it has been understood by some of the ablest expositors, and that for ages prior to the event.” ^{30Ibid., p. 355.}PFF3 352.3

Fuller then cites Goodwin (10-59), Vitringa (1710), and Gill (1748), as this was being discussed in the current. Eclectic Review. ^{31Eclectic Review, February, 1814 (New Series, vol. 1), pp. 127-140.} He then observes:PFF3 353.1

“The revolution in France has truly been a moral earthquake, which has shaken the papal world to its center. One of the ten kingdoms which composed it, and that the principal one, has so fallen as at present to be a scourge rather than a support to it.” ^{32Fuller, op. cit., p. 356.}PFF3 353.2

4. FLEEING TO WILDERNESS INCLUDES AMERICA

In Revelation 12 the woman represents the true church during the time of Antichristian corruption. ^{33Ibid., pp. 288, 364.} Referring to the second out burst of persecution, following the Protestant Reformation-the massacre of St. Bartholomew, in 1572; cruelties in the Piedmontese valleys, in 1655; and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685-Fuller observes:PFF3 353.3

“If one place was more distinguished than another, as affording shelter for the woman at the time of this her second flight, f suspect it was North America, where the church of Christ has been nourished, and may continue to be nourished during the remainder of the 1260 years.” ^{34Ibid., p. 366.}PFF3 353.4

5. SECOND BEAST SAME AS DANIEL’S LITTLE HORN

The first beast of Revelation 13 is the Roman Empire, particularly in “its last or papal form,” when the ten kingdoms have arisen. It is not, he believes, “the pope, or popedom, nor the church of Rome,” but “that secular power which has supported the church of Rome through the whole of her corrupt and bloodprogress. The beast is not the harlot, but that on which the harlot rides.” ^{35Ibid., p. 368.} The second beast is the same as Daniel’s little horn-“they appear to be one, and the same.” As to the mark and name of the beast, Fuller conceives it to be “opposed” to “the seal of God.” ^{36Ibid., p. 374.}PFF3 353.5

6. DRYING EUPHRATES Is DIMINISHING OF STRENGTH

Applying the spheres of the various vials to the earth (continent)as France and Germany, the sea (maritime powers) as Spain and Portugal, and the fountains adjacent to Rome as Italy. Fuller says that the beast is the governments that supported the papal Antichrist. I lie sixth vial dries up the Euphrates, as Turkey “fitly expresses this diminution of strength and defence in a nation which issues in destruction.” ^{37Ibid., p. 388.}PFF3 353.6

7. HARLOT CHUKCHI INM. UKNCES MANY NATIONS

Fuller discusses the Harlot of Revelation 17-“the opprobrious name given to the woman determines its reference to a corrupt and false church as opposed to the bride the Lamb’s wife.” ^{38Ibid., p. 392.} is Her activities were not to be confined to a “single city or nation, but would extend over a number of nations.” ^{39Ibid., pp. 393, 394.} Her attire and “meretricious ornaments” were those of no ordinary harlot. It was the ancient practice of harlots to put their names not only on their doors “but. some of them upon their foreheads.” This name on her forehead was expressive “not only of the general character of the antichristian church but of her impudence; practicing day by day the foulest and filthiest impostures, and yet calling herself the holy catholic church.” ^40Ibid.PFF3 354.1

Fuller closes by alluding, in a later note, to the strong tide in Europe in 1815 “In favour of old establishments, and so in favour of popery.” And, he concludes, “the antichristian power may rise and fall repeatedly before it falls to rise no more.” ^{41Ibid., p. 430.}PFF3 354.2