We Must Give Account

A letter by Andrew Fuller, to his good friend, John Ryland, Jr., who was soon to move to Bristol to take up a teaching post at the Baptist College. The letter was written on December 3, 1793:

My Dear Brother,

I have no other occasion for writing, than to express my earnest desire, that your important removal may be for good. I am satisfied you are in the path of duty; on this consideration, I am willing to part with you. I loved Carey, but I loved the cause of Christ better; and on that account, I could not be sorry at his departure [to India]; though it was with a probability never to see him more.

Your views of divine truth, I consider as of great importance in the Christian ministry. Go then, my Brother, pour them into the minds of the rising generation of ministers. Perhaps, there could not have been a station in which you would have had so fair an opportunity of propagating gospel-truth. Let us do all we can in our different stations. Respectability of character and situation affords great opportunity of doing good. We have several of us, in different ways, hereby, fresh openings for usefulness. It is a trust, as well as other things, of which we must give account; and I hope our account will be with joy, and not with grief.

I have found, the more I do for Christ, the better it is with me. I never enjoyed so much of the pleasures of religion, as I have within the last two years, since we have engaged in the Mission business. Mr. Whitfield used to say, “The more a man does for God, the more he may.”

I should have been glad to have seen you at Kettering. As that cannot be, the Lord God of Israel prosper your way!

I am,
Very affectionately, yours,
Andrew Fuller

P.S. I will write as often as I find something interesting to write about, and opportunity admits. I hope you will do the same.

The Work of Faith, the Labor of Love and the Patience of Hope: Illustrated in the Life and Death of the Rev. Andrew Fuller, by John Ryland, published by Button & Sons, Paternoster Row, London, 1818, pp. 225-26.