Further, The success of the gospel in the times of the apostles is ascribed to the influence of the Holy Spirit, as its first or primary cause. That the truth of the doctrine, and even the manner in which it was delivered, contributed as second causes to its success, is allowed. Such appears to be the meaning of Acts 14:1, “They so spake that a great multitude believed.” But if we look to either of these as the first cause, we shall be unable to account for the little success of our Lord’s preaching when compared with that of his apostles. He spoke as never man spoke; yet compared with them he laboured in vain, and spent his strength for nought and in vain. It is the Holy Spirit to which the difference is ascribed. They did greater works than he, because, as he said, “I go to the Father.”

In promising to “be with his disciples to the end of the world,” he could refer to no other than his spiritual presence; to this, therefore, he taught them to look for encouragement. To this cause the success of the apostles is uniformly ascribed. “The hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed, and turned to the Lord.—God always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.—The Lord opened the heart of Lydia, and she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.—The weapons of our warfare are mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.”

The great success which prophecy gives us to expect in the latter days is ascribed to the same cause. Upon the land of my people shall be thorns and briers—“until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high.” Then the wilderness would be a fruitful field, and that which had been hitherto considered as a fruitful field would be counted a forest.

If the success of the gospel were owing to the pliability of the people, or to any preparedness, natural or acquired, for receiving it, we might have expected it to prevail most in those places which were the most distinguished by their morality, and most cultivated in their minds and manners. But the fact was, that in Corinth, a sink of debauchery, God had “much people;” whereas in Athens, the seat of polite literature, there were only a few individuals who embraced the truth. Nor was this the greatest display of the freeness of the Spirit: Jerusalem, which had not only withstood the preaching and miracles of the Lord, but had actually put him to death—Jerusalem bows at the pouring out of his Spirit; and not merely the common people, but “a great company of the priests, were obedient to the faith.”

To the above may be added, the experience of those whose ministry has been most blessed to the turning of sinners to God.—Men of light and speculative minds, whose preaching produces scarcely any fruit, will go about to account for the renewal of the mind by the established laws of nature; but they who see most of this change among their hearers see most of God in it, and have been always ready to subscribe to the truth of our Lord’s words to Peter, “Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven.”

To this brief statement of the evidence of the doctrine, we shall only add a few remarks to enforce “the prayer of faith” in your endeavours to propagate the gospel both at home and abroad.—This is the natural consequence of the doctrine. If all our help be in God, to him it becomes us to look for success. It was from a prayer-meeting, held in an upper room, that the first Christians descended, and commenced that notable attack on Satan’s kingdom in which three thousand fell before them. When Peter was imprisoned, prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him. When liberated by the angel, in the dead of night, he found his brethren engaged in this exercise. It was in prayer that the late undertakings for spreading the gospel among the heathen originated. We have seen success enough attend them to encourage us to go forward; and probably if we had been more sensible of our dependence on the Holy Spirit, and more importunate in our prayers, we should have seen much more. The prayer of faith falls not to the ground. If “we have not,” it is “because we ask not;” or, if “we ask and receive not,” it is “because we ask amiss.” Joash smote thrice upon the ground and stayed, by which he cut short his victories. Something analogous to this may be the cause of our having no more success than we have.

Fuller, A. G. (1988). “The Promise of the Spirit the Grand Encouragement in Promoting the Gospel,” Circular Letters. The Complete Works of Andrew Fuller: Expositions—Miscellaneous (J. Belcher, Ed.; Vol. 3, pp. 361–362). Sprinkle Publications.