FULKE, WILLIAM: English Puritan; b. in London 1538; d. Aug. 28, 1589. He. was educated at St. Paul's School, London, and at St. John's College, Cambridge (B.A., 1558; M.A., 1563; B.D., 1568; D.D., 1572). After studying law for six years at Clifford's Inn he returned to Cambridge to study theology. He was appointed fellow in 1564, principal lecturer of his college in 1565, and preacher and Hebrew lecturer in 1567. On his return to Cambridge he allied himself with Thomas Cart wright (q.v.), became a zealous champion of Puri tanism and an opponent of Roman Catholicism. He took a prominent part in the vestiarian con troversy, inducing about 300 students, at one time, to discard the surplice in the chapel of St. John's. This led to his expulsion, but he was soon restored to his fellowship. On being narrowly defeated for the headship of his college in 1569 he retired from the university and shortly afterward secured the livings of Warley in Essex, and Dennington in Suffolk. In 1572 he accompanied Lord Lincoln to France and was one of the friends who persuaded Cartwright to return to England. In 1578 he ob tained the mastership of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, which he held till his death. He was also vice chancellor of the university in 1581. The same year he was deputed to hold a public disputation with Edmund Campion (q.v.) in the Tower of London, and in 1582 he was one of twenty-five theolo gians appointed to hold disputations with Roman Catholic priests and Jesuits. He was one of the ablest controversialists of his time. Of his numer ous polemic writings, directed largely against the leaders of the Counterreformation in England, the most important are: T. Stapleton and Martian (T- Popish Heretics) Confuted (London, 1580; ed. R. Gibbings for the Parker Society, Cambridge, 1848); A Defense of the Sincere and True Trans lations of the Holy Scriptures into the English Tongue,
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Bibliography: John Strype, Annals of the Reformogon, 4 vols., London, 1709-31; T. Fuller, Church HisC of Brih aim, v. 79, ib. 1845; C. H. and T. Cooper, Athena Cantabripieneas, ii. 57-61, ib. 1861; DNB, xx. 305-308.
FULLER, ANDREW: English -Baptist preacher and author; b. at Wicken (12 m. n.e. of Cambridge), Cambridgeshire, Feb. 6, 1754; d. at Kettering (13 m. n.n.e. of Northampton), Northamptonshire, May 2, 1815. He was of humble rural parentage. About Nov., 1769, he experienced conversion and in Apr., 1770, he was baptized into the fellowship of a hyper-Calvinistic Baptist church, of antinomian tendencies, at Soham. The pastor of the church was shortly afterward compelled to resign for teaching that men have the power to follow or resist God's will, the majority denying absolutely any freedom on man's part and regarding as impertinent and heretical any human effort for the salvation of sinners. Fuller, who had received only a moderate education, became greatly interested in the theological questions that were being discussed, and from 1771 onward read whatever pertinent literature was accessible. He early became familiar with the hyper-Calvinistic works of John Gill and John Brine (Baptists) and was profoundly influenced by the writings of John Owen, the Puritan, and of Jonathan Edwards, the American divine. In 1772 he was invited to preach in the Soham church and in 1774 became its pastor, sound Evangelical sentiments having by this time gained ground in the community. The influence of the Evangelical revival in England and America (led by the Wesleys, Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, and others) soon gained the mastery over Fuller, and he became the protagonist of the Evangelical and missionary movement among British Baptists. Such was his industry and strength of mind that, without academic training, he became a master in theological thinking and writing and acquired a working knowledge of the Greek and Hebrew languages. His tract entitled The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation (Northampton, 1784) was widely. circulated among dissenters and Evangelical churchmen and produced a profound impression. His moderate, sane, Evangelical Calvinism was embodied in effective form in The Calvinistic and Socinian Systems Examined and Compared as to Their Moral Tendency, London, 1794. His writings on Sandemanianism were occasioned by his coming in contact with this type of religious thought during his Scottish tours on behalf of foreign qlissions. He was one of the founders of the Baptist Foreign Missionary Society formed for the support of Carey and his coadjutors in India, and by far the most influential home promoter of its objects. His activity in visiting the churches throughout Great Britain in this cause diffused widely his interest in missions and his sane Evangelical and Baptist views. His influence on American Baptists has been incalculable.
Bibliography: The Works have appeared in many editions, -London, 1838, 1840, 1853; ed. by his son, A. G. Fuller, with a memoir, for Bohn's Standard Library, 1852; ed. J. Belcher, 3 vols., Philadelphia, 1833. For his life consult: J. Ryland, Life and Death of Rev. Andrew Fuller, London, 1816; J. W. Morris, Memoir of the Life and Wrs Dings of Rev. Andrew Puller, ib. 1816; T. E. Fuller, Memoir of Andrew Fuller, ib. 1863; DNB, xx. 309-310.
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