Some good people have contracted a strange prejudice against the doctrines of the gospel, accounting them dry and uninteresting matters. They like experimental religion the best, they tell us. But I do not understand the distinction of religion into doctrinal and experimental after this sort. I would ask such a person, What is experimental religion? Is it any other than the influence of truth upon the mind by the agency of the Holy Spirit? You love to feel godly sorrow for sin; so do I: but what is godly sorrow for sin but the influence of truth upon your heart? Is it not the consideration of the great evil of sin, its contrariety to what ought to be, its being committed against light, love, &c., that dissolves your heart in grief? Were you not to realize these truths, it would be impossible for you to weep over your sin. But you love to feel joy and peace in believing; so do I: but must you not have an object to believe in? Take away the great doctrine of the atonement, and all your faith, joy, and peace are annihilated. Much the same might be said of other gospel doctrines; instead of being opposed to experimental religion, they are essential to its existence. That some doctrinal sermons have been dry and uninteresting is granted; but that must have been the fault of either the preacher or the hearer. If Scripture doctrines were delivered in their native simplicity, and heard with a heart suitable to their importance, they could not be dry; they must be like the doctrine of Moses, which “dropped as the rain upon the grass, and as the dew upon the tender herb.”

Fuller, A. G. (1988). “On Spiritual Declension and the Means of Revival.” The Complete Works of Andrew Fuller: Expositions—Miscellaneous (J. Belcher, Ed.; Vol. 3, p. 618). Sprinkle Publications.