Andrew Fuller - Kettering

The last stop of our day was in Kettering at the Fuller Baptist Church. This was the church Andrew Fuller pastored. To the left I am standing in the origianal pulpit of Andrew Fuller that is now located on the second floor of the church.

Below and to the right I am standing in the pulpit that is now located in the sanctuary.

Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) was an eminent Baptist minister, born in Cambridgeshire, and settled at Kettering.

William Carey said that, "Andrew Fuller held the ropes that lowered me into the pit." This was speaking of William Carey's great missionary journey to India.

Fuller was a zealous controversialist in defence of the gospel against hyper-Calvinism on the one hand and Socinianism and Sandemanianism on the other, but he is chiefly distinguished in connection with the foundation of the Baptist Missionary Society, to which he for most part devoted the energies of his life.

During his life, Fuller pastored two congregations -- Soham (1775-1782) and Kettering (1782-1815). He died May 7, 1815 at Kettering, Northamptonshire.

John Newton - Amazing Grace!

The Oxford study group then traveled on to Olney where John Newton's church still stands today. We had a chance to actually sing Amazing Grace, the famous hymn that Newton composed, in the choir loft of Newton's church. Here, I am standing beside the pulpit of John Newton! (Click on the pictures to enlarge them)

Read below to find ot more about John Newton and his amazing transformation! John H. Newton Jr. was born in Wapping, London, in 1725, the son of John Newton, Sr., a shipmaster in the Mediterranean service, and Elizabeth Newton (née Seatclife), a Nonconformist Christian. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was 6. Newton spent 2 years at boarding school, at the age of 11 he went to sea with his father and sailed with him on a total of six voyages until the elder Newton retired in 1742. Newton's father had planned for him to take up a position as a slave master at a sugar plantation in Jamaica but in 1743, he was pressed into naval service, and became a midshipman aboard HMS HarwichAfter attempting to desert, to see his girlfriend / fiancee, Newton was put in irons and court martialed. The captain was determined to make an example of Newton for the rest of the crew. Thus, in the presence of 350 members of the crew, the 18-year old midshipman was stripped to the waist, tied to the grating, and received a flogging of 96 lashes, and was reduced to the rank of a common seaman.

Following that disgrace and humiliation, Newton initially contemplated suicide, but he recovered, both physically and mentally, and, at his own request, he was placed in service on a slave ship bound for West Africa which eventually took him to the coast of Sierra Leone. He became the servant of a slave trader, who abused him. It was this period that Newton later remembered as the time he was "once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa." Early in 1748 he was rescued by a sea captain who had been asked by Newton’s father to search for him on his next voyage.

Sailing back to England in 1748 aboard the slave-ship Greyhound on the Atlantic triangle trade route, the ship encountered a severe storm and almost sank. Newton awoke in the middle of the night and prayed to God as the ship filled with water. It was this experience which he later marked as the beginnings of his conversion to evangelical Christianity. As the ship sailed home, Newton began to read the Bible and other religious literature. By the time he reached Britain, he had accepted the doctrines of Christianity. The date was March 10, 1748, an anniversary he marked for the rest of his life.

(Notice the bottom of the stained glass window - it depicts the story of the storm at sea and Newton in the pulpit! This glass is located inside the sanctuary of Newton's church)

From that point on, he avoided profanity, gambling, and drinking, although he continued to work in the slave trade. He later said that his true conversion did not happen until some time later: "I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time afterwards."

Newton returned to Liverpool, England and, partly due to the influence of Joseph Manestay, a friend of his father’s, obtained a position as first mate aboard a slave trading vessel, the Brownlow, bound for the West Indies via the coast of Guinea. During the first leg of this voyage, while in west Africa (1748-49), Newton acknowledged the inadequacy of his spiritual life. While he was sick with a fever, he professed his full belief in Christ. He later said that this experience was his true conversion and the turning point in his spiritual life. He claimed it was the first time he felt totally at peace with God.

He later wrote a tract decrying it in aid of abolitionist William Wilberforce.

William Carey - The Great Missionary!

Today we traveled to Moulton, England. Moulton was the place that William Carey first developed his missionary vision while preaching and cobbling shoes. The Carey Church was very gracious and provided tea for our group. I also had a chance to have my picture taken next to his pulpit. Tead further to learn about William Carey and his desire to fulfill Jesus' Great Commission command.

William Carey - born August 17, 1761 and passed from this life on June 9, 1834. He was an English Protestant missionary and Baptist minister, known as the "father of modern missions." Carey was one of the founders of the Baptist Missionary Society. As a missionary in the Danish colony, Serampore, India, he translated the Bible into Bengali, Sanskrit, and numerous other languages and dialects.

Carey became involved with a local association of Particular Baptists that had recently formed, where he became acquainted with men such as John Ryland, John Sutcliff, and Andrew Fuller, who would become his close friends in later years. They invited him to preach in their church in the nearby village of Barton every other Sunday. On October 5, 1783, William Carey was baptized by Ryland and committed himself to the Baptist denomination.

In 1785, Carey was appointed the schoolmaster for the village of Moulton. He was also invited to pastor the local Baptist church. During this time he read Jonathan Edwards' Account of the Life of the Late Rev. David Brainerd and the journals of the explorer James Cook, and became deeply concerned with propagating the Christian Gospel throughout the world.

His friend Andrew Fuller had previously written an influential pamphlet in 1781 titled The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation, answering the hyper-Calvinist belief then prevalent in the Baptist churches, that all men were not responsible to believe the Gospel. At a ministers' meeting in 1786, Carey raised the question of whether it was the duty of all Christians to spread the Gospel throughout the world. J. R. Ryland, the father of John Ryland, is said to have retorted: "Young man, sit down; when God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid and mine." However, Ryland's son, John Ryland Jr., disputes that his father made this statement.

In 1789 Carey became the full-time pastor of a small Baptist church in Leicester. Three years later in 1792 he published his groundbreaking missionary manifesto, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens.