Fuller and Irresistible Grace: The Necessity of Regeneration as Prior to Repentance and Faith

by Tom Nettles

Editorial note: This is the third post in a series on Andrew Fuller’s theology. Here is the series so far: Fuller the Non-Calvinist? (Part 1), Fullerite: Doctrine of Inability (Part 2), Fuller and Irresistible Grace (Part 3), Fuller and the Atonement – 1/4 (Part 4), Fuller and the Atonement – 2/4 (Part 5), Fuller and the Atonement – 3/4 (Part 6), and Fuller and the Atonement 4/4 (Part 7).

John Ryland Jr., the dear friend and memoirist of Andrew Fuller, in recounting many of the writings of Fuller put in his own comment on the Sandemanian controversy as something of a summary of the argument of his deceased friend. “Nor can a man, while under the dominion of sin, believe that it is a most blessed privilege to be saved from sin itself, as well as from it’s [sic] consequences. Hence I still conceive,” Ryland continued, “that regeneration, strictly so called, must in the order of nature, precede the first act of faith. Not that it can be known except by it’s effects; nor that a consciousness thereof is necessary to warrant the sinner’s first application to Christ.” [221, Ryland, Life and Death of the Rev. Andrew Fuller]

 

 

 

Read the entire article here.