The Baptists
In All Ages
By J.S. Newman
1940
Elder Harold Hunt
P 0 Box 5352
Maryville TN 37802
DEDICATION
In, Loving Memory of that Eminent Scholar of Ecclesiastical History, Evangelist and Pastor,
ELDER JOSEPH SYLVESTER NEWMAN
This volume is affectionately dedicated to all those precious brethren who have given their life’s blood in defense of the cause of Jesus Christ; and
To those martyrs in the dark ages, to those who remain faithful at this present time, and to all that great family that shall wear the name in doctrine and practice of Baptist:
May God’s blessings forever abide with His House.
ELDER ARIEL WEST.
PREFACE
For several years the Primitive Baptists have desired the writings of Elder J. S. Newman published in book form. Elder J. S. Newman prepared a manuscript on “The Church” and desired it published; however, he did not feel that the response of our people was sufficient to enable him to go ahead with the work. We regret very much that his manuscript as revised by him was not available for publication.
The editor of this work has taken Elder Newman’s entire writings, covering the subject of “The Church,” and to the best of his ability has compiled the most valuable part into a history, entitled, “THE BAPTISTS IN ALL AGES.”
We wish to acknowledge the first eleven chapters are articles published in Elder C. H. Cayce’s paper, The Primitive Baptist. These articles are word for word as Elder Newman wrote them, or as they appeared over his signature. In the year 1912 Elder Newman published a booklet which bore the title of this present volume. Chapters twelve to eighteen are a republication of that work, which was published in 1912. In the year 1902, he published a work, entitled, “WHO ARE THE PRIMITIVE BAPTISTS?” The concluding chapters of this volume are a part of that work.
Elder Newman needs no introduction to the people of our churches. He was a writer and a preacher who conveyed deep thought in simple language so that most anyone could understand. His able writings will live on as will his untiring labor among the Baptists.
The writer here wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Elder A. D. Wood, of Glen Rose, Texas. Without his assuming half of the responsibility of the distribution of this book we could not have undertaken the publication. Brother E. L. Kelley, of Madisonville,
Ky., is the financial sponsor. Without his encouragement and assistance, Elder Wood and myself would not have undertaken the publication.
It is our sincere desire that this volume will be for the good of the Primitive Baptists, and also any and all who love the truth.
ARIEL WEST.
Luling, Texas, April 22, 1940.
CHAPTER 1
Elder J.S. Newman,
Dear Sir—I noted in the “Peoples Column” of the Bristol (Va.) Herald that a lady said if anyone wished to know of the “One Church,” to write you for the information. I am a member of the Church of Christ. I would appreciate any information you could give me concerning the true church.
Yours sincerely.
[Name omitted]
MY REPLY
Taking it for granted that the lady whose name is signed to the above request is sincere and really wants information concerning the “One Church,” I wish to say that I have an absolutely correct history of the “One Church,” from which I wish to make a few quotations concerning this “One Church:”
“My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother (covenant of grace), she is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her, and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her:” Song of Solomon 6: 9.
Jesus the Son of God claimed this one dove, one church, as “my undefiled.” He said: “She is the only one of her mother,” as well as the “choice one of her that bare her.” This one church that Jesus built is the only church that has Jesus as her husband. He made this church, and she is the only one He made, or ever will make. It is said of this one church, “For thy Maker is thine husband,” Isaiah 54:5.
John said, “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd,”John 10:16. There was just one shepherd, and this one shepherd has only one wife, one church, one body, one family, and He is absolutely the Head, the Foundation, Maker and Builder of this “One Church.”
This one church has many members in it, all alike in Christ. All have the same kind of heart, the same hope, the same heavenly Father, the same Elder Brother and the same Holy Spirit to comfort, guide and lead them. Paul said, “For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office; so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another,” Rom. 12:4,5. Paul taught the Ephesian brethren—that, “There is one body, and one spirit,” Eph. 4:4. This one church, one body, one kingdom, was set up by God himself. “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever,” Dan. 2:44.
Any church that can be traced back to some man as its originator is not the “one church” of the New Testament. It is said by a man inspired that the church was set up by the God of heaven, and that it “shall never be destroyed,” and it “shall stand forever.” This being absolutely true, it is also absolutely true that any so-called church that has originated this side of the days of these kings cannot be the church that God set up in the days of these kings. Jesus said, “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,” Matt. 16:18. This is the church that the God of heaven established in the top of the mountains (Isa. 2:2), and is being built, and will continue to be built, upon this Rock, which is Christ, until the end comes. The church was not built on revelation made to Peter, but upon Jesus Christ, who was talking directly to Peter. Revelation is one thing and Jesus Christ the Anointed of God is something else. “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ,” 1 Cor. 3:11. In Hebrews 12:28, we have this positive statement, “Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.” As the church was established upon Jesus as its foundation, and as it cannot be moved, destroyed, prevailed against, and must stand forever, we have positive proof that the one church has been in existence ever since the days of these kings.
CHAPTER 2
[Note: In this chapter Elder Newman discusses the Montanists and Novationists of the third century, also the Donatists of the fourth century. According to Roman Catholic records, the Novatians were condemned by the general Council of Nice. The Donatists were condemned by the Catholics at Rome in 313, and at Arles in 314—Catholic Religion Defined, page 534]
Jesus the Son of God said, “Ye shall know them by their fruits,” Matt. 7:16. Remember that the charges that were pronounced against these Baptists were made by the dominant party. The two main charges made against the different groups of Baptists were that they were two-seeders, or Manichaeans, and they “rebaptized the members that came over to them.” These things were told on all the different sections of those whom we claim as our religious ancestors, which is sufficient to prove that these different groups of Baptists all believed fundamentally the same things. As they all had the same origin, and all believed the same doctrine, and adhered to the same practice, it follows to a demonstration that they were the same people, though frequently known and called by different names.
Montanus did not originate the people called by his name. He protested against the corruption that had in various ways, at different times, and places and by different designing men, found its way into some of the local churches of Jesus Christ. Montanism first appeared at Phrygia, which at that time comprised the greater part of Asia Minor, about the middle of the second century. At this time there was no fundamental and no noticeable departure from New Testament doctrine.
Some of the city churches had allowed new things in practice to enter in among them, which was a source of annoyance to such men as Montanus and Tertullian. “Let it be remembered that the theological chairs of the German universities have been the greatest strongholds of infidelity in the nineteenth century. The chief opposition to the Alexandrian school and to Gnosticism and to the substitution of philosophy for Christianity was, in the second century, made by those called Montanists, of whom Tertullian became, in the third century, the ablest writer * * * They sought to emphasize the great importance of the spirituality and purity of the church, and especially the absolute indispensability of the Holy Ghost, and the dispensableness of human philosophy. “Tertullian calls the Greek philosophers the patriarchs of all heresies, and scornfully asks, ‘What has the Academy to do with the church?’ ” Hassell. Pg. 367.
It is a fact well known by all historians that Montanus, Tertullian, and Donatus were all members of the same church at Carthage in North Africa. The corruption that had from time to time found its way into this church seemed to be more than a match for Montanus and Tertullian, and they withdrew from the majority represented by Cyprian, who had introduced a modified form of Catholicism into this church. Cyprian was teaching this church the heresy known as church salvation, and baptismal regeneration, while Montanus and Tertullian “denied that baptism was the channel of grace,” Armitage. pg. 177. Schaff says, “Montanism was not originally a departure from the faith, but a morbid overestimating of the practice of morality of the early church,” vol. 1, pg. 302.
Montanus, Donatus, and Tertullian were together at Carthage. Donatus went to Rome and joined Novatian, and it is a fact that Novatian did not require Donatus to be baptized again. Novatian recognized the work of Montanus, Tertullian, and Donatus, but rejected the work of Cyprian at Carthage, and those allied with him, as well as the work of Cornelius of Rome, and those who stood with him. Hase, Pg. 67, says, “Novatian was a prudent advocate of the faith generally embraced in the church.” He believed in predestination as held by the Primitive Baptists of our day. He held to a regenerate church membership, and re-immersed all who came to them from the dominant or Catholic party.
The Donatists, like the Novatians, insisted on the purity of the church, and declared that the church at Carthage (meaning the dominant party) had fallen from the dignity of a true church and deprived herself of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Their enemies said, “Hence they pronounced the sacred rites and institutions void of all virtue and efficacy among those Christians who were not precisely of their sentiments, and not only rebaptized those who came over to their party from other churches, but even with respect to those who had been ordained ministers of the gospel, they observed the severe custom, either of depriving them of their office, or obliging them to be ordained a second time,” Mosheim, part 2, Chap . 5, Sec. 8. The above expresses the objection the Catholics had to the Donatists, and exactly what is still held against their descendants, and in this we see an exact likeness of the Primitive Baptists of our day. “The Donatists maintained that the church should cast out from its body those who were known by open and manifest sins to be unworthy members,”Neander, Vol. 2, Pg. 203. “They refused infant baptism.” Long.
The Paulicians are another sect everywhere spoken against through which we trace the church, and when we begin to study their history through which we trace the church, and when we begin to study their history about the first objection to them is they were Manichaeans and “rebaptized” all that came to them from the Catholics. These same charges were made against Tertullian, Montanus, Novatian and Donatus, which proves that these different groups of the same people, known by different names, were Calvinistic in their theology.
CHAPTER 3
The Paulicians arose about the middle of the seventh century and continued till the eleventh century, when they amalgamated with the Waldenses and other kindred sects (Benedict. pg. 51). The Paterines arose about the tenth century in Italy. They spread extensively in that kingdom, also in Poland, Bohemia, and France, and were finally absorbed, in the thirteenth century, in the great body of the Waldenses. Mr. T.R. Burnett, a Campbellite editor and debater, said, “The Baptists have connection with the apostles through their line of succession, which extends back three hundred and fifty years, where it connects with the Waldensian line, and that reaches to the apostolic day,” Christian Messenger, Dec. 8, 1886.
Three hundred and fifty years carries the Baptists back to 1536, and there the Primitive Baptists, Burnett says, connect with the Waldensian line, and that line connects them with “the apostolic day.”
The Catholics accused the Waldenses of being two-seeders, of believing that God was the author of sin, that man is like a log or a stone, and that, according to their view of predestination, “It is of little consequence whether we do good or evil,” and “that we reject repentance and confession of sins,” and “that the church was once actually lost.” Now read their answer to the above charges: “We do therefore reject all the above articles falsely imputed to us, as heretical; we condemn and detest them; and from the very heart denounce an anathema against those who teach them,” Peyran’s History of the Waldenses, ppg. 467, 468. Lindanus, who was a Catholic, said that Calvin inherited the doctrine of the Waldenses. Mezeray said of the Waldenses, “They held nearly the same opinions as those who are now called Calvinists.” Gualtier, a Catholic monk, said that the principles of the Waldenses and those of the Calvinists coincided with each other. Pope Pius II declared the doctrine taught by Calvin to be the same as that of the Waldenses, (Jones, pg. 297).
I wish to copy their third article of faith, published in 1544: “1. We believe that there is but one God, who is a Spirit—the Creator of all things—the Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all; who is to be worshiped in spirit and truth—upon whom we are continually dependent, and to whom we ascribe praise for our life, food, raiment, health, sickness, prosperity, and adversity. We love Him as the source of all goodness; and reverence Him as the sublime being who searches the reins and trieth the hearts of the children of men.
“2. We believe that Jesus Christ is the Son and image of the Father—that in Him all the fulness of the Godhead dwells. and that by Him alone we know the Father. He is our Mediator and advocate; nor is there any other name given under heaven by which we can be saved. In His name alone we call upon the Father, using no other prayers than those contained in the Holy Scriptures, or such as are in substance agreeable thereunto.
“3. We believe in the Holy Spirit as the Comforter, proceeding from the Father, and from the Son; by whose inspiration we are taught to pray; being by Him renewed in the spirit of our minds; who creates us anew unto good works, and from whom we receive the knowledge of the truth.
“4. We believe that there is one holy church, comprising the whole assembly of the elect and faithful, that have existed from the beginning of the world, or that shall be to the end thereof. Of this church the Lord Jesus Christ is the head—it is governed by His word and guided by the Holy Spirit. In the church it behooves all Christians to have fellowship. For her He (Christ) prays incessantly, and His prayer for it is most acceptable to God, without which indeed there could be no salvation.
“5. We hold that the ministers of the church ought to be unblameable both in life and doctrine; and if found otherwise. that they ought to be deposed from their office, and others substituted in their stead; and that no person ought to presume to take that honor unto himself, but he who is called of God as was Aaron—that the duties of such are to feed the flock of God, not for filthy lucre’s sake, or as having dominion over God’s heritage, but as being examples to the flock, in word, in conversation, in charity, in faith, and in chastity.”—Jones, pg. 278.
These ancient Waldenses were Primitive Baptists or Regular Predestinarian Baptists. Jones says, “They had no reverend gentleman, no privileged order of clergymen, paid or pensioned, for discharging the duties of the pastoral office among them.” Osiander said, “Our Anabaptists were the same with the Donatists of old.” Danvers on Baptism, p. 223, “The Donatists of old were with Montanus and Tertullian and these men were directly connected with Polycarp, and Polycarp was the disciple of John.” In the year 1633 a number of Independents, who were Pedobaptists, became convinced of the correctness of Baptist doctrine and practice, and sent Richard Blunt into Holland to a Baptist church known to be in the regular succession from the ancient Waldenses. The church that was organized September 12. 1633, was called a Regular Baptist church. This church and six other churches in England and one in Gaul, or France, first published the London Confession of Faith in 1643, and from these Baptists the Primitive Baptists of the United States principally descended.
CHAPTER 4
Barnes, in his history, p. 119, says, “The Waldenses, or Vaudois, a Calvinistic community living in the valleys of Piedmont, were now treated with terrible severity. Three thousand persons are said to have been massacred; their houses were burned; the fields were laid waste; the woods cut down, and the district was converted into a desert.”
According to Thomas Howies’ history, the ancient Waldenses and groups of Baptists held to the following points of doctrine:
“1. Of God’s eternal purpose and predestination of an elect people; and those, comparatively few, ordained to life and glory eternal.
“2. That man had lost all ability to do good, and freedom of will to choose it; and was in his nature, as fallen, inclined to evil.
“3. That nothing ever did or can alter this propensity of the human heart, but the Holy Ghost, by His own immediate agency upon the souls of men.
“4. That a sinner is and can be justified by faith only; and this not of himself; being unable, either to comprehend or receive the things that be of the Spirit of God; and therefore, the faith itself must be the gift of God.
“5. That merit in the creature, there is none, nor ever can be. From first to last a sinner must be saved by grace.
“6. That the vicarious atonement by the one oblation of Christ upon the cross, is effectual, not for the many called, but for the few chosen.”— Page 391.
The glorious doctrine believed and promulgated by those ancient Waldenses was the merit of the atonement for the salvation of sinners, and the Spirit of God as the only means of regeneration.
I have before me a copy of a book written by J. W. Chism, a Campbellite. He was trying to prove that the seventy weeks mentioned by Daniel could not be fulfilled until the little horn waxed great against the host of heaven or the children of God. If I understand him, he was contending that the papal power was the little horn, and papal Rome was to wax great toward the children of God, and to kill many of them. He seemed to realize that he could not find in the pages of history where papal Rome had ever waxed great against and murdered any of his people. So when he made his application, he referred us to Armitage’s history, page 173, where the historian referred to the persecution under Diocletian, A. D. 303, The historian said, “Then Christianity revived, illustrating the words of Tertuliian, uttered long before: “Our number increases the more you destroy us. The blood of the Christians is their seed.”
Amongst the many illustrative cases which exhibit the fortitude of the martyrs is that of Laurentius, a deacon, of whom the magistrate demanded the money of the church, for the poor. This iron-nerved Old Baptist said, most cheerfully, that the church had valuable treasures, asking the court to send horses and wagons for them, and give him three days to produce them. His request was granted, and when the day arrived, he brought loads of widows and the poor, saying: “These are the treasures of the church.” For this, they roasted him alive on a gridiron; but so resolutely did he bear his sufferings, that he told the executioner: `This side of my body is roasted enough, now turn it and, roast the other; and then, if thou wilt, devour it.” Tertullian joined the Montanists A. D. 200, and was a member .with. them at the time of his death.
The writer next refers us to page 196. Here we have another account of the persecution of Diocletian, which began Feb. 23, 303. So we have traced the church up to A. D. 303 by Mr. Chism. He next calls our attention to page 287. This quotation has reference to the Catholics persecuting the Petrobrusians in 1126. So the church was with those persecuted people. Mr. Armitage says, “But the death of Peter was not the end of his cause. Labbe calls him `the parent of heretics, for almost all who were thus branded after his day trod in his steps; and especially all Baptist heretics.”‘ The writer next calls our attention to page 292. Here his witness was describing the cruel persecution of Arnold and his followers, and as the Campbellites teach that God has no children out of the church, the church was with the Arnoldists in the twelfth century. He next calls our attention to page 312. The historian said, “Of the Waldensians and other murdered sheep of Christ, he (Innocent III.) said: `They are like Samson’s foxes. They appear to be different, but their tails are tied together.’ ”
Let me quote from Mr. Chism’s book, pages 87, 88: “So I need but call attention to the fact that the papal power had, this sway over the people of God for years of the world’s history. This is so commonly known that I need not attempt to prove it by a quotation from history; but for the sake of leaving nothing to stand. The suppression of the Arians, as cited above, is proof of this; and again, the massacre of the Waldenses and others who opposed the pontiff of Rome. * * * `And it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them.’ This gives us the casting down of some of God’s people and of some of the illustrious men of the church of God to the ground.” The church was with the Waldenses in the fifteenth century. The Anabaptists and the ancient Waldenses were the same in doctrine. The Anabaptists said, “That those which He foreknew He also ordained before that they should be alike fashioned into the shape of His Son.”-Vedder, pg. 110.
Armitage said, pg. 304, “There was, however, a remarkable association between the Waldensians of the dispersion and the Baptists in the sixteenth century, both in doctrine and practice. * * * Indeed, in some cases, the Baptists evidently sprang from the WaIdensians.”
The Primitive Baptists of today have much in common with the original Waldenses. They absolutely rejected the error of regeneration by baptism, as held to by the Catholics. They believed in and practiced immersion only. Erasmus was as bitter an Arminian as I ever read after, and it might be interesting to some to know how his attacks on election, predestination and the sovereign grace of Cod in the salvation of sinners were answered. Erasmus, like all other Arminians, contended that if the above mentioned doctrines were true there was no use in preaching, “for if these things be so, who will amend his ways?” “I answer, without the Holy Ghost no man can amend his life to purpose. Reformation is but varnished hypocrisy, unless it proceed from grace. The elect and truly pious are amended by the Spirit of God, and those of mankind who are amended by Him will perish. It is not in a man’s power to believe himself such, upon just grounds, till he be enabled from above. But the elect shall be so enabled; they shall be enabled to believe themselves to be what indeed they are. Yet you would have us abstain from the mention of these grand doctrines, and have our people in the dark as to their election of God.”
The Primitive Baptists charge that the original Waldenses were their religious ancestors. They believed as the Primitive Baptists do on election, predestination, redemption, atonement, depravity, the work of the Holy Spirit as the only means of regeneration, church succession, the preservation of the saints to grace and glory, baptism by immersion and that of believers only. They also believed that God called men to preach the gospel; and if their preachers did not live as the Holy Scriptures required them to live, they should not be allowed to preach; and some of their churches washed feet, just as the Old Baptists do now. They did not make feet washing a test of fellowship, and just so it is now with the Old Baptists.
ABSTRACT OF PRINCIPLES
NOTE: As the principles of the ancient Waldenses have been set forth in this chapter, we here think it expedient to publish the following Abstract of Principles which Old School Baptists contend for in 1940. The reader will do well to compare them. These Abstract of Principles are copied from The Primitive Baptist.
ARIEL WEST.
“1. The existence, immutability, omnipotence, omnipresence, and eternal perfection of the only true and living God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
“2. That the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are a revelation from God, written by inspiration, and that they are the standard of faith, and the only rule divinely authorized for Christian practice, teaching, as they do, all that we ought to believe, know, or practice religiously.
“3. The total depravity and just condemnation of the entire human family, in virtue of our union and relationship to the first man, Adam, in whom we sinned and fell under the law, becoming dead in trespasses and in sins.
“4. The eternal and unconditional election of the saints unto glory.
“5. That the atonement and the redemption of Jesus Christ are for the elect only, and that they are justified in the sight of God by the imputed righteousness of the Son alone.
“6. The sovereign, irresistible, direct, immediate, and, in all cases, the effectual work of the Holy Spirit in calling, regenerating, and sanctifying the elect of God, and that in His own appointed time and way.
“7. The final preservation and eternal happiness of all the elect of God by grace.
“8. The resurrection of the dead, and that the joys of the righteous will be eternal, and the punishment of the wicked everlasting.
“9. That baptism and the Lord’s supper are ordinances of Jesus Christ, and that true believers (those who have been born again) are the only proper subjects for baptism, and that immersion in water is the gospel mode.
“10. That the Church of Christ is composed exclusively of baptized believers; that to her are given ministers of the New Testament, “for the perfecting of the saints, for the edifying of the body,” etc., and that none others have any right or authority to administer the ordinances, and that baptism is not valid unless administered by those thus given to the church and authorized by her to administer the ordinances.
“11. That the children of God (those already born again) are all under law to Christ,.and that it is obligatory upon them to obey this law; that in doing so they enjoy the blessings promised; but in disobedience thereto, they suffer the penalty thereof, while here in this world.”
CHAPTER 5
The efforts made by Carey, Fuller and others to remodel the doctrine and practice of the Old Primitive Baptist Church of Jesus Christ was a signal failure. To imagine for a moment that aught is left for man’s wisdom to suggest or supply must be regarded or looked upon as a flagrant insult offered to the King of Zion, her Law-giver, as well as to the sacred volume.
It is admitted by the Missionary Baptist historians that the Welsh Baptists. who were principally firm Hyper-Calvinists, and that it was said by Dr. Armitage, p. 606, that the Welsh Baptists “had a warm controversy among themselves on Arminianism.” The Baptists who held to a general atonement” were called “Arminians.” And when Carey and Fuller began to contend for a “general atonement,” the Baptists in England had the same experience and “warm controversy” that the Baptists had in Wales, when Winters and others introduced the “general atonement” among them. If the Baptists” in Wales and England had been Modern Missionary Baptists they would have believed the “general atonement” doctrine, for that doctrine is the foundation of modern missions. It is not said that when a “limited atonement” was introduced among the Baptists they had a”warm controversy” among themselves.”
For forty years the Baptists in England were in “warm controversy among themselves” over an effort made by the Fullerites to introduce the Arminian doctrine and practice into the Primitive Baptist Church. Preaching the “general atonement” doctrine has never caused the Missionary Baptists a particle of trouble, or provoked a”warm controversy among them.” Should some of their preachers begin to preach the doctrine the Baptists preached before Carey’s and Fuller’s day, the cry of “Antinomianism” and “Do-nothingism” would likely be heard all over the country.
The doctrine and practice introduced into the Primitive Baptist Church by Carey, Fuller and others were something new; and it was the introduction of “new things” that interrupted the peace and fellowship of the Baptist Church, and finally resulted in what is now known as the Missionary Baptist Church.
I believe I will quote from “Methodism,” by Rev. A. A. Kidd, pp. 25. 26: “Three years after the Alexander Campbell organization, in 1830, under the leadership of one Thomas Andrew Fuller, there came a division over the question of `missions’ in the Primitive Baptist Church. Fuller, an orthodox Calvinist and a minister among them, advocated belief in and practice of missions as an expression of obedience to Christ’s great commission. This `unholy innovation’ was stoutly opposed by his denomination; nevertheless, Fuller succeeded in winning to his missionary idea one-third of the entire denomination. Forty thousand followed Mr. Fuller, while eighty thousand remained as before. Fuller and his forty thousand became a group all to themselves— unorganized and unnamed. Gradually, however, they became organized under the same form of government; held to strict or exclusive immersion; denied baptism to infants; continued close communion; preached orthodox Calvinistic, theology; and practiced feet washing for a few years, but finally abandoned it altogether. The Missionary idea—home and foreign missions—was the cause of the separation, and explains why the Fullerites (as they were first called) left the maternal home and set up housekeeping for themselves. By this separation there came to be two distinct Baptist churches in America. For nearly two hundred years the mother wing of the Baptists had been called `The Baptist Church,’ but now there are two Baptist churches; so what shall the new one be called? Missions being the peculiar, in fact the only, mark of distinction between them, naturally they accepted the name Missionary Baptist Church, by which name they are known unto this day.” The view of Mr. Benedict on the cause of the division is expressed by him on page 893 of his General History of the Baptists: “The commencement of the missionary age. This caused another war, and the division of churches and associations.”
In speaking of the efforts of Mr. Rice on collecting money for modern mission purposes and organizing missionary societies, Mr. Henry C. Vedder, a Missionary Baptist historian, says, on page 103, “These results were not achieved without opposition; in fact, this new missionary enterprise split the churches of the United States into two parties, the Mission and the Anti-Mission.” I believe “new” means “lately made, invented, produced, or come into being; that has existed a short time only; recent in origin; novel; opposed to old; lately introduced to our knowledge:, not before known; recently discovered.” No one would think of accusing Dr. H. C. Vedder of not knowing what the little word “new” meant. “Enterprise,” I believe, means “that which is undertaken, or attempted to be performed; an attempt; a project attempted.” Mr. Vedder gave the modern Missionary movement the correct name when he called it “a new enterprise,” through which a few crafty men attempted to have the Baptists believe in a few years the heathen would all be saved. Job said, “He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise,” Job 5:12. Through this new enterprise crafty men introduced new doctrine and practice into the Old Baptist Church, and it was the new things that interrupted the peace and fellowship of the Old Baptists.
If to preach a special or a limited atonement, or that all that Christ died for will be finally saved, and to not have Missionary boards. conventions, societies, or Sunday schools, unchurches the Primitive Baptists in the twentieth century, would not the absence or lack of those things unchurch them in any previous century? If not, why not?
The views of John Gill were the prevailing doctrine held to or believed by the Baptists prior to the introduction of modern missions among them. The new kind of preachers that came among our people were evidently dissatisfied with the doctrine and practice they found among them. It seems to have been uppermost in the minds of Fuller and Carey that they could never succeed with their modern Missionary operation without first changing the doctrine the Baptists held to when they joined them. “Andrew Fuller’s `Gospel Worthy of all Acceptation’ has had much to do in awakening this zeal. This treatise was aimed directly against that Hyper Calvinism which denies all duty to God in the regeneration, and refuses to call them to repentance and Christ. Fuller’s book kept him in warm controversy for twenty years, but modern Calvinism triumphed completely, and was followed by an awakening of the missionary spirit, chiefly under the labors of William Carey and Andrew Fuller.”
“The first Baptist movement in foreign missions was made at a meeting of the Northhampton Association in I784.”-Armitage, pg. 579.
CHAPTER 6
The Baptists of some kind had existed as the Baptist Church for 1784 years before “the first Baptist movement in foreign missions was made.” If the Baptists must engage in the modern mission work to be Scriptural, or the church Jesus built, then it follows that the Baptists were not Scriptural, not the church Jesus built, for the space of 1784 years. The modern Missionary Baptists can go back one hundred and fifty years, and there they find themselves confronted with a Baptist family that held to what they call Hyper-Calvinism; had no Sunday schools, mission boards, conventions, mite societies, nor any of the cumbrous load of mission machinery that has made its entrance into their ranks on the Missionary train that first left Rome. “It is, however, a very remarkable circumstance, that in modern missions Papal Rome has led the way.”–Minutes of Philadelphia Association, pg. 429.
Mosheim informs us that “when the Roman Pontiffs saw their ambition checked by the progress of the Reformation, which deprived them of a great part of spiritual dominion in Europe, they turned their lordly views toward the other parts of the globe.” There was a society formed in 1540 which took the denomination of Jesuits, or the “Company of Jesus,” and were by the Pope chiefly employed, at first in India, Japan and China, after which they spared no pains in propagating their erroneous sentiments in the West Indies, and on the continent of America. Just two hundred and fifty-two years after the Jesuits organized their society to propagate their erroneous sentiments in the different sections of the world for the purpose of saving sinners, Carey, Fuller, Sutcliff and others organized a society in a back hall of the residence of Mrs. Beebe Wallis October 2, 1792, at which time they saw King Hyper-Calvinism die, and in their estimation they saw the Roman Catholic train just in from Rome high and lifted up, and they boarded it. They had not been riding on this train long until they began to upbraid those who refused to contribute to the upkeep of this fast train with ignorance and having no concern whatever in the salvation of sinners.
Mr. Fuller removed to Kettering in 1782, at which time the church there believed the doctrine he called Hyper-Calvinism. It is said he became an eloquent, original and successful preacher, while in theology he was one of the lights and leaders of the world. He loved to see the churches shake off the shackles of Hyper-Calvinism, for he said, in his strong language, that “had matters gone on but a few years the Baptists would have become a perfect dunghill in society.”-Armitage. pg. 584. The church at Kettering were Hyper-Calvinistic in belief and the Missionary Baptists say they were like the Primitive Baptists of the United States. I will let Elder William Gadsby, of England, tell us what the Fullerites called and still call Hyper-Calvinism:
“This is the last will and testament of me, William Gadsby, of the township of Chatham, in the parish of Manchester, in the county of Lancaster, Baptist minister of the everlasting gospel of God our Saviour, by the matchless grace of God, through the invincible power of God the Holy Ghost, made and published as follows; that is to say, First, I am brought firmly to believe and maintain that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God, and the only certain rule of faith and practice. And I also further observe that I firmly believe in three equal Persons, namely, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, in one glorious undivided Jehovah; and that each glorious Person is an object of Spiritual worship, and is loved, praised, and adored as such by all the heaven-born family of God; and that a denial of this glorious truth is altogether Anti-Christian, and repugnant to the glory of God. I also believe in the glorious doctrine of absolute, personal, and unconditional election; and that God’s dear elect were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, both to grace and glory. I believe in special, definite, and particular redemption by the glorious Person of Immanuel; and that the doctrine of an indefinite atonement is, to say the least of it, an invention of men, calculated to vamp up a whole-hearted sinner, and distress those whose hearts the Lord has broken. I believe in effectual grace in calling; and that God the Holy Ghost both has made and will make all the elect willing in the day of God’s power. I believe that all the sins of the elect are absolutely pardoned through the glorious atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ; and that their persons are justified in His glorious righteousness, without an idea as to their works, worth, or worthiness, as the cause, in any sense whatever, of their justification before God, but absolutely in and by the righteousness of Christ imputed to them, and that they stand complete in Christ. I believe in the eternal and inseparable union of the elect to the Lord Jesus Christ, as the glorious Head of the church. I believe that all spiritual blessings are treasured up in Christ, and that all grace and glory, necessary for the holiness and happiness of God’s elect, are secured in Christ for them, and made sure to them. I believe that nothing short of the divine quickening power and special teachings of God the Holy Ghost can make a sinner spiritually acquainted with the glorious truths of God’s grace; and that all religion short of that which God the Spirit teacheth and leadeth into by His glorious, quickening, enlightening, teaching, guiding, anointing, and sealing power, is at best but a fair show in the flesh; and every elect sinner must have his fleshly religion rooted up by the roots, to be fuel for the fire, in the day when God purgeth His people `by the spirit of burning’ (Isaiah iv. 4); for every real believer in Christ must and shall in this world have his works tried by fire (1 Corinthians 3:13). 1 believe that the kingdom of God is a spiritual kingdom in all its bearings; and that God the Spirit sets up and maintains the kingdom of grace in the hearts of all His people, and by His invincible power enables them to give God the whole of the glory. And I believe that all religion short of a spiritual religion, taught and maintained by the Spirit of God, will leave its possessor to perish in his sins. I believe that while God’s quickened children remain in this vale of tears there will be a constant warfare between flesh and spirit, the old man and the new, but that `grace shall reign through righteousness unto eternal life.’ “-Life of Gadsby, pg. 139.
In this lengthy quotation we have the doctrine expressed that the Baptists believed before Carey and Fuller came among them, and they still believe it. The Missionary Baptists do not believe it. Therefore, they are the fallen away party and not the original kind of Baptists in doctrine and practice.
CHAPTER 7
For about forty years after the Fullerite doctrine and practice were introduced into the Old Baptist Church in England and Wales the Primitive Baptists were up in arms against the new things, and during the disturbance the Baptists were emigrating to the United States from the different countries, with their different views, both in doctrine and practice. Fuller was willing to fellowship John Gill with his “Hyper-Calvinism” and “anti-mission views,” provided Gill would fellowship him and his views on the atonement and modern missions and his other new things. This was the proposition placed before the Primitive Baptists in the United States by the Fullerite or fallen away party. The Primitive Baptists and the Missionary Baptists could have been together today if the Primitive Baptists would have been willing to have fellowshipped, or remained with, them.
Carey and Fuller could not well afford to have non-fellowshipped what they called Hyper-Calvinism, for in doing so they would have declared non-fellowship for the Baptists prior to their affiliation with them. Our people in England looked upon Andrew Fuller as being the worst enemy the Baptists had. “Mr. Gadsby always considered, and often stated publicly, that Andrew Fuller was the greatest enemy the church of God ever had, as his sentiments were so much cloaked with the sheep’s clothing.”–Life of Gadsby, pg. 33. On page 122 it is said, “Mr. Gadsby was no great friend to missionary societies, as he believed that the bulk of missionaries went out to publish erroneous doctrine. He also considered that there was great fraud practiced by some of the missionaries, even in temporal things.” In a paper called the Baptist Reporter for January, 1845, a statement appeared that Elder Gadsby’s hostility to missionary societies had of late years considerably abated. In the March number of the same paper Elder Gadsby’s son said the report “was not true.”-pg. 123. On page 111 it is stated that “Mr. Gadsby was also averse to musical instruments in a place of worship. In a chapel that was on one occasion hired for him, there was an organ. When it began to play Mr. Gadsby started up and requested that it be stopped.” It was told on Elder Gadsby that he said “There were children hanging up in hell like legs of mutton,” “it being well known, on the contrary, that he was a firm believer in infant salvation.” pg. 110. It will be remembered that Elder Gadsby was what was known as a Strict Baptist, and preached during his long and useful life just what the Primitive Baptists of his day believed and exactly what they are preaching in England to this day. On the account of his preaching a limited atonement, particular redemption, and that all Christ died for would be saved, he was accused of being an Antinomian and a Hyper-Calvinist. He was not unfaithful to the trust committed to him. “As to faithfulness, he paid no more regard to offending Arminians and Fullerites than he would to Satan and his agents; for, the sentiments of these classes he abhorred, and always set his face as an iron pillar and brazen wall against them. His `Everlasting Task for Arminians’ will, we believe, live while the world stands, as an unanswerable testimony against the doctrines of man’s free will.”-pg. 103. “He loved me, and gave Himself for me,” says Paul. But Elder Gadsby would sometimes remark, “If Christ died for the whole human race, the damned in hell might get up and say the same, `He gave Himself for me, and yet I am damned. So what’s the use of Paul’s making so much fuss about that? He gave Himself for me, but that has not kept me out of hell. So something else must have saved Paul, and he does not know it.’ But no. Christ died for all whom He loved, and all for whom He died will be saved.”-pg. 104.
Andrew Fuller and those allied with him did not believe the death of Christ was sufficient to save all He died for; “He died for the human race; while He made an atonement for the elect only, the atonement was sufficient to save the non-elect if they would only believe. The atonement was sufficient to save and would save the elect,” said Mr. Fuller, “regardless of whether they ever heard the gospel or believed in Jesus or the atonement; but the non-elect must believe in the atonement in order for it to be able to save them.” If one of the “non-elect” has believed and was saved by the atonement, there is one person in heaven that God did not choose to be there. The above was the Fullerite position briefly stated. On page 24 we have this statement:
“Mr. Gadsby was called to the work of the ministry about the time Baptist associations and academies were springing up. He invariably kept aloof from them all; and certainly the labours of none of these associating and academy-taught ministers have been blessed like his.”
On page 70 we have this language: “Mr. Gadsby always objected to the term Reverend being applied to any human being.”
Brother Gadsby believed in personal election; he believed that the atonement was limited; he believed that all Christ died for will be saved; he believed that the salvation of all the Lord’s people was made sure by the work of the Son of God. He was opposed to Fuller’s doctrine and practice; he objected to instrumental music in his churches; he did not endorse modern missions and missionary societies; he objected to Reverend being attached to any human being; he believed in close communion and in exclusive immersion as the only baptism of the New Testament.
The first Baptist Church in Boston was organized in 1665, and here is what Isaac Backus says about it, Vol. 1, pg. 489:
“The Church of Christ in Boston, in New England, of the faith and order of the gospel, baptizing visible believers. upon the profession of their faith, and believing the principles of a particular election of a certain number, who shall continue in the perseverance in grace; unto the several churches of Christ that are in the same faith and order of the gospel, in London, do heartily desire your increase and growth in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus, and in all the graces of the Holy Spirit.”
I have before me a copy of Rushton’s Reply to Fuller on the atonement, which was first published in 1831 in Liverpool, England, and re-published by Elder John R. Daily in 1904 at Luray, Virginia. On page 17 we have this statement:
“You will, I doubt not, agree with me when I say that a great change has taken place, during the last sixty years, in the principles maintained by the Particular Baptist churches.”
Mr. Rushton wrote his book one year before the general division of 1832. Said division was caused, the Missionary Baptists say, by the introduction of modern missions among them. The introduction of the missionary societies in the Baptist Church had no foundation in fact, unless a change in doctrine could be effected. Rushton says, “A great change has taken place, during the last sixty years, in the principles maintained by the Particular Baptist churches.” The Missionary Baptist churches of our day are the outgrowth of the movement organized October 2, 1792. At that time an effort was made to change the. doctrinal principles ever maintained by the Particular Baptist churches. Rushton well said, “Men have risen up amongst us everywhere speaking perverse things; the churches have been gradually drawn aside by them, until at length professors will not endure sound doctrine, but are yearly heaping to themselves such teachers as will gratify their itching ears.”-pg. 18. What was going on at that time among our people in England was transpiring among us in the United States. “Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.”-Acts 20:30. Hear Paul again:
“Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences, contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.”-Rom. 16:17, 18. It is absolutely impossible for a church to change her doctrine and practice and be in faith and practice what she was before she changed. In Fuller’s day it was not the church trying to change her doctrine and practice. The church remained true to her organized faith and finally, after bearing with those new things introduced by Fuller and Co., for about forty years, the Old Baptists excluded the Fullerites, and then the church was just like she was before these church troublers came among us. The Baptists prior to Mr. Fuller’s day were in doctrine and practice fundamentally just what the Old School Baptists are in our day. They maintained that the atonement made by the Son of God met heaven’s highest demands and the sinner’s deepest necessities, and through its amazing efficacy God was glorified, man was redeemed, saved in the mind and purpose of God, justified, and will ultimately be brought to God’s holy habitation, and the enemy will be completely overthrown and his power completely destroyed.
Rushton, on page 126, says: “It has been provided in the course of these letters that the doctrine now prevailing amongst us relative to the glorious atonement and righteousness of Christ is quite a different thing from that which is handed down to us in the Scriptures, and it has also been shown that such doctrine induces worldly conformity and a dead profession.”
CHAPTER 8
The doctrine and practice introduced into the Baptist Church by Carey and Fuller would not have caused a particle of trouble in any of the Arminian “churches,” because such doctrine and practice belong to the world; and while it was in the church, it was away from home, and its intention was to conform the church in doctrine and practice to the world. It served to establish, if possible, the original stock of Baptists more firmly in the. doctrine of sovereign grace. Instead of the new things introduced into the church carrying the church over to the world, the church, after a forty years experience, placed these new things right back where they came from and exactly where they belonged, and the worldly woman has been crying, “Give, give,” ever since. “These carnal notions have had the most pernicious influence on our profession. There is now but little of that unity, that simplicity, that gospel fellowship, which the earlier churches enjoyed. Formerly believers were hated of the world; and, being separate from it, they found comfort in the fellowship of Zion; but now we are conformed to the world, and the love of many waxes cold. We shall one day find that our apparent prosperity is a poor compensation for the word of faith, the comfort of the Holy Ghost, and the communion of saints. Whoever is alive to the things of God, must acknowledge that the spirit is remarkably withdrawn, divine consolations are but little enjoyed, and primitive Christianity is comparatively unknown. These complaints are not applicable exclusively to our own denomination. The Independents are as different from what they once were as we are.”-Rushton, pg. 111.
I feel safe in saying that as a people the Missionary Baptists have departed from the ancient landmarks our fathers set faster than any other body of religious people I have ever read after. The Holy Spirit absolutely sends His ministers to some countries, to other sections He suffers them not to go. Paul and those with him were “forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the gospel in Asia.” Read Acts 16:6, 7, and you will see “They assayed to go into Bithynia; but the Spirit suffered them not.” The Missionary Baptists tell us that the gospel is God’s ordained means in saving sinners, and it seems that the Holy Ghost interfered with God’s ordained means in the salvation of sinners by forbidding Paul and His companions preaching the gospel in Asia and Bithynia. It was the Missionary Baptists of the modern type that fostered the idea of erecting all kinds of worldly modern machinery for the spread of their worldly modern gospel of works for the salvation of those Jesus came to save, and those He did not come to save, Mr. Rushton said, “The first Christians erected no human machinery for the spread of the gospel. They never sought the support of the great and rich; nor did they ever complain of the want of pecuniary means, nor suggest that adequate funds would enable them to convert the world.”-pg. 120.
According to Fuller, what the Baptists believed and practiced before the Fullerites came into their house or church had almost reduced the church to a dunghill in society. Here are Mr. Fuller’s words:
“When I first published my treatise on the nature of faith, and the dutv of all men who hear the gospel to believe, the Christian profession had sunk into contempt among us; insomuch that had matters gone on but a few years longer, the Baptists would have become a perfect dunghill in society.”
The things the first churches did not have, the Missionary Baptists now have! The first Christians “erected no human machinery for the spread of the gospel.” The Missionary Baptists have done this. “They never sought the support of the great and rich.” The ancient Baptists “never complained of the want of pecuniary means, nor suggested that adequate funds would enable them to convert the world,” The very thing the first churches did not teach and do, are the things the Missionary Baptists are erecting, teaching and doing: and yet they say they are the original Baptists in origin, doctrine and practice.
I will quote from the minutes of a Missionary Baptist association of Kentucky, 1891, pp. 24, 25:
“Our people have all the money necessary to conquer the world for Christ, and the want of which is keeping back the overflowing glories of their common Redeemer, but alas, our people do not choose to give it, and the work of saving the heathen moves too slowly. How can this difficulty be removed, is the problem that is now puzzling the brain and saddening the hearts of the Foreign Missionary Board. Appeal after appeal, pathetic and piteous, they have published throughout our Baptist Zion, and only the few hear and answer. It is hoped that a new era is dawning. The effort to celebrate the centennial of missions which is now being inaugurated and organized, it is hoped will so fire the hearts of our people that one hundred new men can be sent into the field. This can be done if only the money can be obtained. Brethren, prayers are essential and must not be withheld; stirring speeches, or good moving sermons, are good; but all will be in vain if the money is not forthcoming with which to do the work.”
I have many friends among the Missionary Baptists. I love them. I recognize them as erring children of God; and I wish to show them, or prove to them, by their own writings that they are not the original Baptist Church.
CHAPTER 9
I wish to call attention to the doctrine held to by the churches composing the Norfolk and the Suffolk Associations of England, recorded first by Dr. Rippon in his Baptist Register and copied by Rushton, ppg. 44, 45, 46:
“We are kept by the power of our covenant God steadfast in the great and glorious truths of the everlasting gospel, the God-honoring, soul-enriching, and heart-warming doctrines of a Trinity in the God-head of the sovereign, eternal, and immutable love of the Triune Jehovah, centering in Jesus, and resting, with all its unfading glories and unnumbered blessings, upon the sons of God—the eternal election of some of the human race to everlasting life and glory in Christ Jesus, proceeding from and directed by the absolute, uncontrollable sovereignty of Jehovah’s will—the eternal and indissoluble union of all the chosen in Christ, who was set up from everlasting as their federal Head and glorious representative; in whom their persons were accepted in love—their predestination to the adoption of children, as God the Father’s act, proceeding from the boundless love of His heart in His Son, and designed for the praise of the glory of His stupendous grace—the eternal, gracious, and infinitely wise covenant transactions of the Holy Three, relating to the salvation of offending mortals—the transfer of all the sins of the elect from them to Christ, and the full condemnation and punishment of them in Him—the complete atonement made for them by the one glorious and all-sufficient sacrifice of Christ’s spotless humanity, presented to infinite justice upon the altar of His divinity, in all the flames of His transcendent love—the personal and all-perfect obedience of our great Immanuel to the holy law, performed in the room and stead of His people, accepted for them, and imputed to them by the God of all grace; and their free, full, and everlasting justification by it in His sight—the glorious redemption, perfect cleansing, and full pardon, of all the vessels of mercy, through the precious blood of the cross—their regeneration, effectual calling, and conversion, by the glorious, almighty, and irresistible operation of God the Holy Ghost—the life of faith they live upon the fulness of Jesus, and the good works they perform in love to the Trinity in covenant, for the honor of discriminating grace, and the glory of the Triune Jehovah—in fine, their preservation by the power of the Almighty, through faith, to that glory to which they were destined by electing love before the foundation of the world.
These sublime truths we consider as the glory of the Bible, the soul of Christianity, the ground of a sinner’s hope, and the source of a believer’s joys; and we can say in truth that we esteem them beyond the riches of the Indies. Nor are we yet possessed of a sufficient degree of modern candor to treat them with cold indifference, or to view them as non-essentials, but think ourselves bound to maintain them to the utmost of our ability, and to reject all assertions inconsistent with them.”
This lengthy quotation contains the gist of the doctrine our people believed then, and was the doctrine Fuller found in the Baptist Church when he joined them. The above extract contains the doctrine the Fullerites called “Hyper-Calvinism” and “Antinomianism” over in England, and they are to this day in our beloved United States charging the same upon the Primitive Baptists; and in doing so, they recognize the Primitive Baptists as being identical with the Hyper-Calvinists of England, Poland, Wales, and other countries in doctrine.
Our people in England were not only opposed to Fuller’s views on the atonement as well as modern missions, but they were opposed to schools for the purpose of preparing “pious young men” for the ministry. From J. M. Crump, a Missionary Baptist historian, pg. 438, we are told that the Bristol College was founded in 1770, and was the only college the Baptists in England had at that time, “But afterward, when Christianity became corrupted, nominal conversions took the place of regeneration, and the kingdom of the clergy began to rise. The nations professing Christianity had no love for the truth, and as for the Spirit, they knew Him not. The simple gospel was exchanged for a scholastic theology, founded on the philosophy of this world and the wisdom of Aristotle. Then were universities instituted, that by them men might be fitted for the Christian ministry. These have been the nurseries of the clergy in all ages, vomiting forth their anti-Christian divinity like the smoke of the bottomless pit, out of which a carnal priesthood, like locusts, have proceeded and overspread the earth.”
Says our author again, “Schools of learning considered simply as a means of knowledge, are good, but when they are employed to invade the prerogative of Jesus Christ, when they are instituted to accomplish what none but the Spirit can effect, they become an engine of Satan and are abominable to God.”-Rushton, ppg. 120, 121.
It is surely commendable to have schools in the natural family in order to prepare the children of that family to intelligently serve in that family. That kind of school cannot prepare men for the ministry.
Preaching the gospel is not a profession, but a divine vocation. “I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.”-Eph. iv. 1. On the account of the Primitive Baptists opposing schools for the purpose of qualifying, or preparing men for the ministry, they are charged by the Fullerites and other Arminians of being opposed, to education.
Dr. Mather, in 1631, accused the Baptists of the sin of Jeroboam, who made priests of the lowest of the people, “in which,” said Mr. Russell, “we easily understand what he means.” Backus, Vol. 1, pg. 395, says, “Our evil in this respect, is our calling to office those who have not been bred up in colleges, and taught in other languages, but have been bred to other callings. It is not because we are against learning, for we esteem it and honor it in its place; and if we had such among us who were, together with that, other ways duly qualified for the work of the ministry, we should readily choose them. But we do not think the Spirit of God is locked up so in the narrow limits of college learning, that none are to be called to office in a church but such, nor that all such are fit for that work, be they never so great scholars; neither do we think that all those who have not that learning, are to be accounted the lowest of the people. Indeed, the priesthood was bounded to the tribe of Levi, by divine institution, but we cannot find that the Lord hath, by divine institution, given the work of the ministry to men of such learning only. Whom He will He fits and qualifies for that work; neither are we left without a plain rule in the New Testament to direct us in this matter. In these plain gospel sentiments have the Baptists, on both sides of the Atlantic, persevered to this day.”
The first Baptist college the Baptists ever had anywhere was founded in the bounds of the Philadelphia Association, in our beloved United States, in 1762. In proof of the above statement I will quote from Vedder’s History of the Baptist`s of the Middle States, pg. 212: “In all this the Baptists of America were a unit, and they of the Philadelphia Association were chiefly instrumental in the founding of the first Baptist college in the world.” In 1804 the name of this first Baptist college was changed to Brown University. According to the charges made by the modern Missionary Baptists against the Primitive Baptists, the Baptists were opposed to education for 1762 years. From the same source came the charge that the Primitive Baptists are opposed to preaching the gospel to every creature. This charge is made solely for the reason that the original Baptists refused to acknowledge as scriptural the new things introduced by Carey and Fuller. If the Baptists, to be right, must have colleges, then the Baptists were wrong for 1762 years, and they made themselves right by getting up a college in 1762, and since that time they have been getting more right, and therefore more and more scriptural.
If the modern Missionary Baptists are the original Baptist Church, then they became so by departing from the faith and practice of the Baptist Church when Fuller and Carey joined them. William Carey joined the Baptists in 1783 and was baptized by John Ryland, Jr. “While Carey was quietly doing his work in India, Great Britain was kept in a ferment by war on the mission, which drew many of its ablest pens into the conflict, not only in the reviews, but by the pamphlet and newspaper press.”-Armitage, pg. 582.
It is not a hard task for the Mission Baptists to trace their so-called Baptist Church back to Andrew Fuller and William Carey; but when they reach Fuller’s day, they find the Baptists without a missionary board, Sunday school or theological school. They find them believing that all Christ died for will be saved; they find them earnestly contending for a limited atonement; for personal election, and for salvation by sovereign, irresistible grace. If the Church was with the Baptists while they held to the above views, and had none of the modern inventions that the modern Missionary Baptists now have, why is it that the Primitive Baptists are censured for claiming to be the original Baptist Church? If the Church was not with the Baptists when Fuller said they were Hyper-Calvinistic and Antinomian in doctrine, will some Missionary Baptist tell us where it was?
I have before me a copy of the Hardy-Wallace debate, and I wish to quote from page 61 to prove that the Baptists in 860 held the same views they did when Carey and Fuller joined them. Wallace was a Missionary Baptist and Elder J. B. Hardy was a Primitive Baptist. “I will read from here (Mosheim, pg. 227) a clause of the articles of faith, and the belief of the Baptists as they were in the year 860, over one thousand years ago, `That God did not desire or will the salvation of all mankind, but that of the elect only; and that Christ did not suffer death for the human race, but for those persons only whom God has predestinated to eternal salvation.”‘ Mr. Wallace admitted, pg. 301, this was Old Baptist doctrine. Brother Hardy said, “Please notice the words `much more’ here. What is meant? Does it mean all having been redeemed some will be left to perish? No; that is not the truth of the Bible. `Much more, then, being justified by His blood, we shall be saved.’ I take the position that everybody justified by the blood of Christ alone shall be saved. Is that Old Baptist doctrine or not?”‘
Mr. Wallace: “0, we all know that.”
Mr. Hardy: “Then why don’t you acknowledge it?”
Mr. Wallace: “That is Old Baptist doctrine, I mean.”
Yes, indeed it is, and that is the doctrine the Baptists maintained from the days of Christ until now (1935). Elder Hardy, in his debate with Wallace, said, pg. 1, “I shall set up the truth as we profess to believe it, and our system, of which we are not ashamed; and I shall then trace that people from the days of the apostles down to the present time (1880), as having always believed the same thing.”
Orchard, Vol. 1, pg. 62; says, “A council was convened at Arles, and at Lyons, 455, in which the views of the Novatianists on predestination were controverted, and by which name they were stigmatized.” Those calling said council were Arminian in doctrine and did not agree with our people on the subject of predestination. Four hundred and five vears after this, or in 860, the Baptists believed in a definite atonement, or that all Christ died for will be finally saved. Jones’ Church History, pg. 347: “Pope Pius II declares the doctrine taught by Calvin to be the same as that of the Waldenses.” Orchard, Vol. 1, pg. 253, says, “Yet the Baptists were still a scattered community, and were named now Anabaptists and Picard Calvinists.” On page 296 the same historian says, “Lindamus, a Catholic bishop, asserts, Calvin inherited the doctrine of the Waldenses.”
Mr. Wallace, in his debate with Elder J. B. Hardy, pg. 215, in speaking of Old Baptists, says, “We are the father of them.” If this be true, let all of the Primitives say. “I have said to corruption, Thou art my father.”-Job xvii. 14.
CHAPTER 10
It is a well known fact to many that the Baptists in Wales, Ireland, Poland, Germany, France, Holland, England and Switzerland were Calvinistic in sentiment and often fraternized with each other, and from these different countries and different groups of Baptists, fundamentally the same, the Baptists or Anabaptists, as they were called by their religious opponents, began to emigrate to North America. There was some unsoundness in doctrine and practice introduced into at least some of the different groups of Baptists before they left their home land. Davis, in his history of the Welsh Baptists, tells us of certain preachers coming over to the Baptists from. the Pedobaptists who advocated a general atonement and conditional salvation, which caused disturbance among the old Welsh Baptist churches as well as the Old Baptist churches elsewhere. When this new kind of preachers made their appearance among the old, apostolic Baptists. they had some new and hitherto unknown things to present, and this must be done in a way not to create suspicion so that a departure from the original faith would be discovered.
It is claimed by the New School Baptists that in England “the English Baptists were greatly reduced in numbers by certain undermining influences in the early part of the eighteenth century, but since then the current has greatly changed.” It is said by Armitage, pg. 579, that “Andrew Fuller’s `Gospel Worthy of all Acceptation’ has had much to do in awakening this zeal. This treatise was aimed directly against that Hyper-Calvinism, which denies all duty to God in the unregenerate, and refuses to call them to repentance and Christ. Fuller’s book kept him in warm controversy for twenty years, but moderate Calvinism triumphed completely, and was followed by an awakening of the missionary spirit, chiefly under the labors of William Carey and Andrew Fuller. The first Baptist movement in foreign missions was made at a meeting of the Northhampton Association in 1784.” It is true that the first movement by the Baptists in modern missions was made in 1784, which movement was 1784 years two young to be of divine origin. The Baptists that Andrew Fuller was in “warm controversy with for twenty years” were Primitive Baptists. The editor of the Baptist Reflector said, “There are four different sets of Baptists in England, the Hyper-Calvinists, like our Primitive brethren.” The above statement was followed by the following remarks: “The Hyper-Calvinists of England answer to our Primitive brethren of the United States.”
Andrew Fuller, while pastor of a church at Kettering, England, in 1783 said, “The prevailing system of doctrine among Baptist churches at this period was Hyper-Calvinsm.” Hyper-Calvinism is only another name for the doctrine Gill of England preached, and the Baptists believed, before Carey, Fuller, and others began to remodel the system and doctrine of the ancient Baptists.
Benedict, in his “Fifty Years Among the Baptists,” pg. 101, says, “Forty years ago large ‘bodies of our people were in a state of ferment and agitation, in consequence of some modifications of their old Calvinistic creed, as displayed in the writings of the late Andrew Fuller, of Kettering, England. This famous man maintained that the atonement of Christ was general in its nature, but particular in its application, in opposition to our old divines, who held that Christ died for the elect only.” On the same page we have this language, “Dr. John Gill, of London, was, in his day, one of the most distinguished divines among the English Baptists, and as he was a noted advocate for the old system of a limited atonement, the terms ‘Gillites’ and ‘Fullerites’ were often applied to the parties in this discussion. Those who espoused the views of Mr. Fuller were denominated Arminians by the Gillite men, while they (the Fullerites), in their turn, styled their opponents Hyper-Calvinists.” I have before me a copy of Pendleton’s work on the atonement, and on page 110 he says, “it is said by some that Gillism is on the increase in the Baptist denomination. It is to be hoped that they labor under a mistake. Sad would be the day, for our churches and for the world, if there should ever be, on the part of our ministers and people, anything like a general adoption of Dr. Gill’s views. May God spare the denomination from such a calamity.”
The views of Carey and Fuller on, the atonement were absolutely a departure from the doctrinal sentiments of the Baptists before their day. It was the introduction of the general atonement system by Fuller and others that disrupted the Baptist churches in England as well as in this country.
Prior to Fuller’s and Carey’s day the Baptist Church believed that the atonement was made for the elect only, that all who were chosen in Christ were redeemed from all iniquity by Christ, and all He redeemed were predestinated unto the adoption of sons. In just a few words let me tell you that before Carey’s day the Baptists believed that the work of God the Father, the work of the Son of God, and the work of the Holy Spirit made the eternal salvation of all that will ever be saved absolutely certain. Carey and Fuller did not believe this kind of doctrine, and the New School Baptists of our day do not believe it; hence, they are the fallen away party and, therefore, not the original Baptist Church. If the doctrine and practice of the Primitive Baptists of the twentieth century unchurches them, then for at least 1784 years they could not have been the church. On the other hand, if the Missionary Baptists are the original Baptists, they became the original Baptist Church by denouncing what the Baptists had been preaching for 1784 years. It is claimed by Missionary Baptists that William Carey is the father of modern missions on two continents. The father, then, of this Ishmaelite stayed in the Old Baptist Church forty years, not as a peace-maker, but as a peace-breaker. Ishmael was born out of wedlock through an effort made by Sarah, Abraham’s wife, to help the Lord fulfill His promise, just as the mission cause was born to help the Lord save sinners. Ishmael was born in the house of Abraham, just like modem missions was born in the Old Baptist Church, but Hagar was its mother and Carey its father. This foreign missionary effort was conceived by the Catholics, and later adopted first by twelve Baptist ministers, and then by some Baptist churches.
William Carey was born August 17, 1761, at Paulersbury, England, and in 1783, at the age of twenty-two, he was immersed in the river New by John Ryland, Jr. After this he taught school, but in this he did not succeed. It is stated that the church did not give him enough money to pay for his clothes worn out in their service. Armitage tells us, page 580, that “While teaching school, he reveled in Cook’s `Voyages Around The World,’ and closely studied geography. He made a globe of leather, and traced the outline of the earth upon it for his classes. Then the thought flashed upon him that four hundred millions of people had never heard of Christ, and that moment, surrounded by a handful of Northamptonshire urchins, with his eye on that russet globe, the great Baptist missionarv enterprise was born.” From
Moulton. England, Carey removed to Leicester, England, where he served as pastor and predecessor to Robert Hall. Armitage informs us that Carey, while there, “determined to do something for the heathen and wrote on the subject. His `Inquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathen’ was published in 1792, but found few readers and produced little effect. To most of the Baptists his views were visionary and even wild, in open conflict with God’s sovereignty.
At a meeting of ministers, where the senior Ryland presided, Carey proposed that at the next meeting they discuss the duty of attempting `to spread the gospel amongst the heathen. Fuller was present, but the audacity of the proposition made him hold his breath, while Ryland. shocked, sprang to his feet and ordered Carey to sit down, saying: `When God pleases to convert the heathen, He will do it without your aid or mine.”‘ Soon after this, Carey felt encouraged on finding that Fuller, Sutcliff, Pearce, and young Ryland had very recently held to his views on foreign missions, while Stennett, Booth and others stood aloof. The association met at Nottingham, May 31, 1792, when Carey preached his great sermon from Isaiah liv. 2, 3. It is said by the friends of this foreign mission enterprise that this sermon of Carey’s settled the question, and the churches were seized with a sense of criminal neglect, and Carey seized Fuller’s hand and demanded that the first step be taken on the spot. His heart, it is said, was breaking, and his sobs compelled the assembly to stop. “It was resolved, `That a plan be, prepared against the next ministers’ meeting at Kettering, for the establishment of a society for propagating the gospel among the heathen.’ Such a meeting was held October 2, 1792, and at its close twelve men met in the parlor of Mrs. Wallis, a widow, and formed the first Baptist Missionary Society.”
On page 114 of this same history we find this statement: “An exact likeness, therefore, of the apostolic churches should be sought at the outset, as the test to which every position, and fact in the whole investigation, must be brought back and tried. We never can be wrong in following the pattern found in the constitution of the apostolic churches.”
On page 116 the same historian says, “Yet, He has given His law in the Bible, and every form of church life that is not in accordance with that law, directly sets it aside. So then, in a very important sense, it partakes of disloyalty to say that Christ has not made sufficient provision for His Churches in the Scriptures, in everything that affects their well-being.”
On page 117 we have this language: “Yet, this fact is perfectly clear, namely: That the New Testament contains all that entered into the faith and practice of the apostolic churches. Whether it contains little or much, it covers all that they had, and all that we have, which has any claim on the churches of Christ. * * * The question of time merely has nothing to do with authority. When the line is drawn between the close of inspiration and all after-time, what follows stands upon another and a lower level.”
As the New Testament Church did not have a Sunday school, a theological school or foreign missionary society, and as the Primitive Baptists have nothing of the kind, how exactly alike are their churches and the New Testament Churches. It is absolutely impossible for our New School Baptists to get back to the apostolic churches, with all of their improvements; and if this could be done, how unlike the New Testament Churches theirs would be!
CHAPTER 11
I have before me a copy of a small book called “Christian Union,” written by Ben M. Bogard. I wish to quote the following from page 56:
“Before the year 1832 the Baptists believed and practiced the same things. At that time (1832) they divided on the following questions: Missions, salary to preachers, boards, conventions, schools and colleges, etc. Previous to this, all were one, and such a question, as, “Who were the Primitive Baptists,” was never asked, because they were all primitive. Whatever was practiced and believed before the year 1832 by the Baptists was the practice and belief of Primitive Baptists. Those Baptists who do not teach the doctrines which Baptists taught before the year 1832 are not Primitive Baptists.”
I wish to place before my readers another quotation from a Missionary Baptist:
“For it matters not which party is in the majority when a separation occurs, it is always true that the party which departs from the faith has fallen away.”-Ray’s Baptist Succession, pg. 160.
If we can find out what the Baptists believed before 1832, and then can find a group of Baptists believing the same things now, they are Primitive Baptists; and those who do not believe the same doctrine, are not Primitive Baptists. Crosby, the English Baptist historian, observes that “there have been two parties of Baptists in England ever since the beginning of the Reformation—those who followed the Calvinistic scheme of doctrine, and from the principal point therein, personal election, have been termed Particular Baptists; and those who have professed the Arminian or Remonstrant tenets, and have also from the chief of these doctrines, universal redemption, have been called General Baptists.”
Speaking of the doctrine held to by the Baptists prior to 1832, Smocker, in his history, pg. 40, says:
“The doctrinal system of this denomination of Baptists is Calvinistic and orthodox. They believe in the eternal decree of God, in reference to the salvation of the elect, and hold that such as have been predestinated to be saved from the foundation of world shall be saved, and no others.”
This is what the Baptists believed before the division in 1832. If the Missionary Baptists believe this doctrine, they are Primitive Baptists. If they do not believe this doctrine they are the fallen away party and are not Primitive Baptists. Ben Bogard says they are not.
I have before me what is known as the Benjamin Keach’s Catechism. Elder Keach was born in 1640 and died in 1704. Elder Hanserd Knollys was born in 1598 and died in 1691. These two, with thirty-five other Old Baptist ministers have their signatures signed to the old London Confession of Faith, published first in 1643 by the authority of seven Old Baptist churches, and last by the authority of upwards of one hundred Old Baptist churches in 1689. These churches were from England and Wales, and they unanimously asserted they did not believe in a general atonement or the Arminian doctrine. The Missionary Baptists have never met denying the general atonement doctrine, therefore the “upwards of a hundred” congregations could not have been what is now known as Missionary Baptist churches. The catechism of Elder Keach may be found in D. C. Haynes’ Church History, pg. 76:
“Did God leave all mankind to perish in the state of sin and misery? Answer: God having, out of His mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace, to deliver them out of the state. of sin and misery, and to bring them into a state of salvation, by a Redeemer.”
Elder Keach, being a Primitive Baptist, did not hesitate to say that God saved His people through His Son. If he had been a modern Missionary Baptist he likely would have said, “It has been a glorious work, this work of saving the lost through the preaching of the blessed gospel, a work that the angels of God would delight to do. But what a small part of this work we are doing! As we look over the reports from the churches of the year’s work our hearts are saddened at the thought that so little is being done ‘by us to save the world for Christ.”-Minute of Oconee Association of Tennessee, 1896.
The Missionary Baptists tell us that they are our father; and as it is a fact that parents are older than their children, we children want to call our parents’ attention to what they taught before they made us. Of course the “upwards of one hundred congregations” that met in London in 1689 were our parents—the Missionary Baptists. We are going to let our parents tell what they believed before they made us: “God hath decreed in Himself from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His will, freely and unchangeably, all things whatsoever come to pass; yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin, nor hath fellowship with any therein, nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established, in which appears His wisdom in disposing all things, and power and faithfulness in accomplishing His decree.” This is a part of the doctrine our parents said they believed before they gave their children being. And now they denounce their children as Hyper- Calvinists, Antinomians, Do-nothings, Anti-Missionaries and Hardshells. But let me quote some more of the doctrine our religious parents left on record for their children:
“As God has appointed the elect unto glory, so He hath by the eternal and most free purpose of His will foreordained all the means thereunto; wherefore they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ, by His Spirit working in due season; are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by His power through faith unto salvation; neither are any other redeemed by Christ, or effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only.”
I will quote from the Articles of Faith of the Strict or Hyper-Calvinistic Baptists of England, as our so-called parents, the Missionary Baptists, call them:
“We believe that the eternal redemption which Christ has obtained by the shedding of His blood is special and particular; that is to say, that it was intentionally designed only for the elect of God, the sheep of Christ, who therefore alone share in the special, and particular blessings thereof.”
This is what the Baptists believed before the division of 1832, and the Baptists that believed the above doctrine then still believe as they did then. If Fuller & Company had believed the doctrine they found the Baptists contending for when they joined them, they would not have wanted it changed. Fuller and Carey did not change the doctrine and practice of the church they joined. They introduced new doctrines to correspond with the new practices they introduced into the Church. The Missionary Baptists have not the same doctrine and practice the Baptist Church had before the division of 1832; therefore, they are not Primitive Baptists, they themselves being judges. “We believe that the justification of God’s elect is only by the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ imputed to them, without consideration of any works of righteousness, before or after calling, done by them, and that the full and free pardon of all their sins, past, present, and to come, is only through the blood of Christ, according to the riches of His grace.”
But let me quote again from the Old English Baptists:
“We believe that the work of regeneration is not an act of man’s free will and natural power, but that it springs from the operation of the mighty, efficacious, and invincible grace of God.” “And we also believe that man’s works, good or bad, have nothing to do with his call, or being quickened, by the Holy Spirit.”
Article 12 of the faith subscribed to by Gill, Gadsby, Philpot and others reads: “We believe in the effectual calling of all the elect vessels of mercy out of the ruins of the fall in God’s appointed time, and that the work of regeneration, or new birth, is the sovereign work of God, and His work only, the sinner being as passive therein as in his first birth, and previously thereto dead in trespasses and sins.” Article 24 says, “We believe that the invitations of the gospel, being Spirit and life, are intended only for those who have been made by the blessed Spirit to feel their lost state as sinners and their need of Christ as their Saviour, and to repent of and forsake their sins.” “We deny that Christ died for all mankind.”
I have before me a copy of J. C. Philpot’s Meditations. On page 171 he says, “The determinate choice of the members of this mystical body, which we believe to have been not general and indiscriminate, not national as to privileges, not with respect to faith and obedience foreseen, as any other such scheme as the wit of man has devised to nullify or render palatable a doctrine offensive to the carnal mind; but an election personal and individual; in other words, an absolute, unconditional, and distinct choice of every individual member, so that there should be, in their totality neither more nor fewer than should make a perfect body. This personal and individual election is intimated in the words, ‘According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.’-Eph. i. 4.”
At about the age of 18 William Gadsby baptized John Kershaw. I have before me a copy of the history of the life of Elder Kershaw, from which I wish to make a few quotations. On page 34 we have this language :
“The elect are God’s people that He hath loved and chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world, and ordained them unto eternal life and salvation through Christ; and He has done this according to His good will and sovereign pleasure, as He has said to Moses, `I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.’ * * * Thus, you see, it is those whom He has loved and chosen and ordained to eternal life that will be saved, and none else.”
The Gospel Standard Strict Baptists of England most nearly of all the people in England resemble the Primitive Baptists of the United States. They have Sundav schools in which they teach their children to read the Scriptures. They do not claim that the Sunday school is a nursery of the church, as the Missionary Baptists do. They do not practice feet washing as a literal observance in their churches. They condemn theological seminaries. They do not have associations as our people do in the United States. They do not send out men to preach, neither do they contribute to missionary societies. I aim to show that the early Baptist churches in the United States were not modern Missionary Baptist churches either in doctrine or practice. I am aware of their claims to being the original Baptists, and that is the reason why I wish to prove that their claims have no real foundation. There is no doubt about many of them being the children of God, and if they only knew it, they are really Primitive Baptists at heart. I hope to be able to reach many of that class of their members, and should my writings on the church question be the means of saving just one from the error of his way, I shall be remunerated for my labor of love.
CHAPTER 12
Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth, not the true origin of my people, the Primitive Baptists, but to cast reflections and aspersion upon them, I have taken in hand to set forth in miniature, and regular order, a declaration of their origin and faith which are most assuredly believed by us, His witnesses, even as the Lord delivered them unto us, “Which from the beginning were witnesses, and ministers of the word-“Luke i. 2. It seemed good to me also, having had some knowledge, and understanding of the things believed, “from the very first,” to write unto thee in order, most versatile enemies of truth, what we believe about our origin. We feel to be of age, and amply able through divine grace to know of our origin and from whence we came. We are absolutely sure that the God of heaven set up or established His church. “And in the days of these kings (described above) shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.”-Dan, ii. 44. The Son of God said, “And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”-Matt. xvi. 18. Paul well said, “Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.”-Heb. xii:28. “Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.”-Eph. iii. 21.
These Scriptures prove that the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed, which shall not be left to other people, which shall consume all these kingdoms; which shall stand forever; which was built upon a rock; which the gates of hell shall not prevail against; which was received by the saints; which cannot be moved; in which glory was to be found by “Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” I will now proceed to prove by the Campbellites themselves that the Church which God set up was a Baptist Church. “First Century, Anno Domini, 33: We read in a well attested history of a large Baptist Church which was formed and exhibited as a GRAND MODEL, by the immediate agency of the Holy Spirit. It is incontrovertibly evident that the first Christian Church planted on earth was, in respect of baptism, as now distinguished, a Baptist Church, or a church composed of baptized believers. It is true it is not called by Luke a Baptist Church, for all churches were imitators of the First Church; and to have called it a Baptist Church would have implied that there was a Pedobaptist church, too, which was a thing unknown in the apostolic age, as ancient historians declare. The second church planted on earth was also composed of men and women who professed faith before baptism; consequently, a Baptist Church. The third church of note, and in order of time, was the church of Caesarea, a church interesting to us, inasmuch as it was a Gentile church, or a Gentile people composed it. This church was evidently a Baptist Church.”—Campbell-Walker Debate, ppg. 262, 263.
Thus we prove by Campbell that the first three churches organized were Baptist Churches and were, therefore, models for all after-time. Campbell claimed that as the kingdom was with national Israel until they rejected Christ; just so the Church was with the Baptists until they rejected him and his teachings in 1827. Hear him: “That as it was with the Jews in the times of the Messiah, so it is now with the Baptists.” “The nation, as such, continued to be the kingdom of God until they rejected the offered salvation.”—Millennial Harbinger, Vol. 1, ppg. 57, 58.
In speaking of the Church, T. R. Burnett said, “In the days of Alexander Campbell it was wearing the name Baptist Church.”—Ray-Burnett Debate, pg. 5. On page 7 of the same book he says, “With Alexander Campbell, we say the kingdom was with the Baptists before he and his coadjutors started the reformation, and (they) are yet a part of that kingdom, though entangled in some errors.”
The Church, according to Campbellite testimony, started with the Baptists, and it continued with them until the reformation started by A. Campbell and his coadjutors. If, as Campbell and Burnett teach, the Church started with the Baptists, and Daniel was correct when he said, “And the kingdom shall not be left to other people” (Dan. ii. 44), then it follows to an absolute demonstration that the Church is still with the Baptists. The Campbellites are entirely another people; and the Bible being true, the Church is not with them.
Hear Campbell again: “The Baptists can trace their origin to the apostolic times, and produce unequivocal testimonies of their existence in every century down to the present time.”—Campbell-Walker Debate, pg. 262. On page 264 Mr. Campbell says, “The testimonies of God are the foundation on which our faith and practice rest; therefore, when we quote other authorities, it is not as foundations, on which the faith of any should rest, either in whole or in part; but to put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, who ignorantly assert that the Baptist sentiments are novel, or that the sect is of modern date.”
In speaking of the second century, Mr. Campbell says, “Justin Martyr’s public defense of the Christians of the second century is a sufficient document to show that the Baptist sentiments at that time universally prevailed.” Ibid, pg. 265. In speaking of the fifth century, Mr. Campbell says, “As the object of this brief sketch is merely to produce a competent number of witnesses to the truth, that believers baptism, or that Baptist principles were professed, and taught, and practiced in every century since the Christian era to the present day, I shall not be too prolix in my quotations. “–Ibid, pg. 263.
In speaking of the thirteenth century, Campbell says, “In this century Jacob Merningus says, `That he had in his hand, in the German tongue, a confession of the faith of the Baptists.'” Ibid. pg. 270. On the same page he further says, “The Confession of the Thaborites, in the year 1431, confirms that in this century there were many Baptists, especially in Bohemia.” Speaking of the fifteenth century, the same writer says, ‘In this century the Baptists spread amazingly .” Ibid, pg. 270. On page 273 Mr. Campbell says, “While on the subject of the antiquity of the Baptists, and of the evidence of their existence since the birthday of Christianity, I will, for the entertainment of the common reader, give in a few sentences the history, in miniature, of Christianity in England, or rather in Britain, whose history is so interesting to so many.”
On page 278 Mr. Campbell, in speaking of the concession of Mosheim, said, “This concession from a noted enemy, in a great measure, proves (had I no other proof) the correctness of the proposition I assumed, and documented with so many extracts, viz.: That the Baptists commenced on the day of Pentecost and continued from that time until now.”
The debate from which I have been quoting was held in 1822. For that length of time the Church of Jesus Christ was with the Baptists, so says the founder and head of the Campbellite church. I have before me a copy of the Campbell-Maccalla Debate. This debate was held in 1823. On page 378, Mr. C. says, “And we might more reasonably tell of the bloody deeds of the Catholics, Calvinists, Lutherans, and impute them to their followers than Mr. Maccalla to tell us of the German Anabaptists, whom we disclaim; and independent of whose existence, clouds of witnesses attest the fact, that before the reformation from popery, and from the apostolic age to the present time, the sentiments of the Baptists and their practice of baptism have had a continued chain of advocates and public monuments of their existence in every century can be produced.” On page 386 Mr. Campbell said, “But that upon the Presbyterian hypothesis, the Baptists were still in a better condition as to this peculiar power of office than the Presbyterians; for there were Baptists in all ages that never acknowledged the mother of harlots.”
I have before me Mr. Campbell’s work on baptism, edition of 1851, which was published by him twenty-four years after he was excluded from the Baptists. On page 409 he says, “Hence, it is that the Baptist denomination, in all ages and in all countries, has been, as a body, the constant asserters of the rights of man and liberty of conscience. They have often been persecuted by Pedobaptists, but they never politically persecuted, though they have had it in their power to do it.” Mr. Burnett, who is a Campbellite preacher, editor and debater, said, “The Baptists have connection with the apostles through their line of succession, which extends back three hundred and fifty years, where it connects with the Waldensian line, and that reaches to the apostolic day. This is not a Baptist line, but the Baptists have connection with this line, and through it have connection with the apostles. We were talking about successional connection. Baptists also have connection with the apostles in what they teach and practice.”-Church Perpetuity, pg. 314. Mr. Burnett made the above statement in 1886, which carries the Baptists back to 1536, which was seventy-one years before John Smyth.
In 1905 Mr. B. said “There were no Baptist churches on earth during the first fifteen hundred years after Christ. I have not been able to find a Baptist Church in history prior to John Smyth (1607).”Baptist Blunders, pg. 32.
And yet he said they extended back to 1536, and still he is unable to find them in history prior to 1607.
CHAPTER 13
“The first regularly organized Baptist Church of which we possess any account is dated from 1607, and was formed in London by a Mr. Smyth, who had been a clergyman in the Church of England. It was formed on the principles of the General Baptists.”-Benedict’s History, p. 304.
The above quotation is relied upon by Campbellite preachers and debators; to prove that Mr. Benedict claimed that as the date of the origin of Baptists: Mr. Benedict quoted the above statement from “The Baptist Jubilee Memorial,” pg. 202, which give a “summary account of the Baptists in this kingdom from the earliest times.” “And as far as it goes,” says Mr. B., “It gives the heads of all I shall be able to say on this part of the English Baptists.”
I will prove by the Campbellites themselves that 1607 is not the place that marks the origin of the Baptists. If I should prove there were Baptists prior to 1607. 1 will prove they were Particular Baptists, as 1607 is claimed by the Campbellites to be the time when the General Baptists originated. And before I make further quotations to prove that the Baptists did not start with John Smyth in 1607, I will ask the reader to turn back and reread chapter twelve, and you will see that Campbell said that “the first church was organized A. D. 33. and was a Baptist Church.” He also said that “the second and third churches were also Baptist Churches.” This of itself is an eternal veto to the false claims of Campbellite debaters.
Campbell said, “Justin Martyr’s public defense of the Christians of the second century is a sufficient document to show that the Baptist sentiments at that time universally prevailed.”—Campbell-Walker Debate, pg. 265. Baptist sentiments could not have existed in the second century if there were no Baptists. There being Baptists, and Baptist Churches in the first and second centuries, they could not have originated in 1607. Campbell, in the same book, page 270, in speaking of the thirteenth century, says, “In this century Jacob Merningus savs, `That he had in his hand, in the German tongue, a confession of the faith of the Baptists, called Waldenses.”‘ From this we know that the Baptists must have been numerous in the beginning of the thirteenth century as they had a published confession of faith. Of the fourteenth century Campbell said, “The confession of the Thaborites. in the year 1431, confirms that in this century there were many Baptists. especially in Bohemia.” In speaking of the fifteenth century, Mr. C. said, “In this century the Baptists spread amazingly.”Ibid, pg. 270. In speaking of the Baptists, Mr. C. Says, ppg. 276, 278, “Many suffered in 1528. Seven Baptists who came from Holland were imprisoned, and two of them burned at Smithfield.” “In 1535, twenty-two Baptists were apprehended and ten put to death.” “In 1539, sixteen men and women were banished for opposing infant baptism; and on their going to Delft, in Holland, were pursued and prosecuted for being Baptists and were put to death for the same; the men were beheaded and the women drowned.”
M. Campbell further says, “Thus I have shown that even in England the Baptists have continued from the apostolic times to the present day, and also that there have been in every century advocates for Baptist principles.”-Ibid, pg. 278. Campbell did not believe that the Baptists started with John Smyth in 1607. If he had, he would not have said, “Thus I have shown, that even in England, the Baptists have continued from the apostolic times to the present day.” The Campbellite preachers of our day have the littleness to say that Campbell meant that there had been bodies of people and individuals that held to immersion from the days of our Saviour. Mr. Campbell had reference to the Primitive Baptists, for he belonged to them at that time, and was defending them in joint discussion with the Presbyterians. Jarrell, the historian, says, “The President of the Campbellite College, at Bethany, Va., wrote me: `The Baptists appeared first in Switzerland. Who founded the first Baptist Church that ever existed, cannot be determined.’
“A. P. Cobb, pastor of the First Campbellite. church, in Springfield, Ill., wrote me: ‘Was there, a Baptist Church when Luther began his Reformation? Yes, in Switzerland, 1523. Large churches fully organized in 1523-30 in South Germany. Who originated the first Baptist Church? I cannot tell.’
“The pastor of the First Campbellite church, Ann Arbor, Mich., wrote me: `Was there a Baptist Church when Luther began his Reformation? The Baptists had large churches fully organized between 1520-1530 in Switzerland. They were persecuted by both Zuingli and the Romanists. Who originated the first Baptist Church that ever existed ? I do not know.’
“B. D. Dean, Professor o f Church History in Hiram College, says, `In Switzerland, in Germany, in Holland, it has been found impossible to decide when the Baptists first appeared, or which were the first churches o f Baptists in. those lands * * * and it is quite difficult to decide the question about Baptists in England.’ “-Jarrell’s Church History, ppg. 59, 60 and 61.
I feel sure that the president of the Campbellite College at Bethany, the pastor of the First Campbellite church in Springfield, Ill., the pastor of the First Campbellite. church at Ann Arbor, Mich., and the professor of church history in Hiram College were well acquainted with Benedict’s History; and as they did not refer to the quotations at the head of this chapter, they did not understand the quotation to mean that to be the origin of the Baptists. Notice, reader, the questions asked in the above quotations.
“Who founded the first Baptist Church that ever existed?”
Notice the answer of the president of Bethany College, “Cannot be determined.”
Such perverters of Church History as Joe S. Warlick, J. W. Chism and C. R. Nichol say they can tell where, and by whom the Baptists originated. The pastor of the first Campbellite church, in Springfield, Ill., says “there were large churches fully organized in 1520-30 in South Germany.” In answer to the question, “Who originated the first Baptist Church?” he says “1 cannot tell.”
If these men had believed as the Campbellite preachers in Texas say they do, don’t you know they would have said the first Baptist Church was started by John Smyth in London in 1607. If B. P. Dean, professor of church history in Hiram College, believed that the Baptist Church started with John Smyth in London, why did he say, “And it is quite as difficult to decide the question about Baptists in England?” Reader, be not deceived. The Baptists are the only people on earth today that can be traced back to the apostolic age. I will prove from the article Benedict copied that there were Baptists prior to 1607, and that there was a Baptist Church in London prior to 1607.
“England undoubtedly received the gospel in the days of the apostles.” * * * Austin was sent to England by Pope Gregory the Great for the purpose of promoting the subjection of the British to the Papal See.”—Benedict, pg. 302. I will read from page 343: “The Baptist historian in England contends that the first British Christians were Baptists, and that they maintained Baptist principles until the coming of Austin. The church in this island was divided into two parts, the old and the new.
The old or Baptist Church maintained their original principles. But the new church adopted infant baptism, and the rest of the multiplying superstitions of Rome.” Austin was sent by Pope Gregory the Great to England, A. D. 597. Benedict, pg. 302, says: “During that interval (from 597 to the Reformation), many continental Baptists visited England, seeking refuge from the persecution which raged against them.” This quotation is from an article the quotation at the head of this chapter is taken from, and shows beyond doubt that the writers thereof were not giving the origin of the Baptists. “Baptists were afterward found in Herfordshire and South Wales. At the Reformation, the Baptists came to light again.”-pg. 303. All this is prior to 1607, and a part of the article heading this chapter. Here is some more of it:
“Two circumstances connected with that period are prominent in history of the Baptists, the publicity into which they emerged and the hostility which was evinced against them; these are exhibited in the extraordinary movements of the parties then in power. In 1536 the National Clergy met in convocation, declared the sentiments of the Baptists to be detestable heresies utterly to be condemned. In 1538, a commission was given to Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, and others, to proceed against Baptists, and burn their books; and on the sixteenth of November in the same year (1533), a royal proclamation was issued against them, and instructions sent to the justices throughout England, directing them to see that the laws against the Baptists were duly executed. Several were burned to death at Smithfield; and of those who fled to foreign parts, it is recorded that some were martyred.
Brandt writes thus in his history of the Reformation: “In the year 1529, thirty-one Baptists, that fled from England, were put to death at Delft, in Holland; the men were beheaded, and the women drowned. One conclusion is fairly deducible from these narrations; that the Baptists of that period were not few nor insignificant. Bishop Latimer, in a sermon which he preached before King Edward VI., referring to the events of Henry’s reign, observed Baptists were burned in different parts of the kingdom, and went to death with good integrity. The Reformation begun by Henry was carried on under Edward; but to the oppressed Baptists of those times, no mercy was extended. Such was the furious bigotry with which they were pursued, that when King Edward passed an act to pardon Papists and others, the Baptists were excepted; and in the following year (1547), a fresh commission was issued to the Archbishop to search after all Baptists; and under that commission, the celebrated Joan of Kent, who was a Baptist, was burned on the second of May, 1549. Several others shared the same fate. The reign of Mary is well known to have been cruel, even to ferocity. One circumstance in Baptist history accords with the spirit of that execrable reign.
A man named David George, a Dutchman, was disinterred in St. Lawrence’s church three years after his death, and his body burned because it was discovered he had been a Baptist. This relentless cruelty against the Baptists continued even under Queen Elizabeth. A royal proclamation was issued, in which it was ordained that all Baptists, and other heretics, should leave the land; but they seemed to gather fortitude, for some formed themselves into separate societies; and in 1575, the seventeenth year of Elizabeth’s reign, a congregation of them was found without Aldgate, London, of whom some were banished, twenty-seven were imprisoned and two burned to death in Smithfield.
It was a peculiarly interesting characteristic of primitive Christians that notwithstanding the overwhelming power of potentates and priests against which it had to contend, opposition seemed but to augment its strength and to accelerate its progress; so it was with the persecuted Baptists. Two years after the event just referred to, Dr. Some, a churchman of great note in the reign of Elizabeth, wrote a book against the Puritans, in which he inveighs against the Baptists, stating in the language of complaint that they had several conventicles in London and other places.”-pg. 303. I have made these lengthy quotations to prove beyond question that the compilers of the “Jubilee Memorial,” of which the quotation at the head of this chapter is a part, did not mean that 1607 was the origin of the Baptists.
I will now mention some of the reasons why the writers of the, “Jubilee Memorial” did not believe or teach that the Baptists originated with John Smyth of England in 1607.
( l) They were Baptists,. and as such did not believe 1607 to be the place marking their origin. (2) They believed England received the gospel in the days of the apostles, and they were Baptist preachers. (3) That during the interval between 597 and the Reformation, many Baptists visited England, thus proving that the Baptists were in existence during the eighth, ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries in England. During the reign of William the Conqueror, a considerable number of Baptists came over from France, Germany and Holland; and so greatly did they prevail, that Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote a book against them. William the Conqueror reigned during the eleventh century; therefore, as the Baptists were in existence in France, Germany and Holland, and as the Archbishop of Canterbury wrote a book against the Baptists in the eleventh century, it is absolutely true that the same people that recorded these facts did not say the Baptists started with John Smyth in London in 1607. (4) The Baptists were found in Herefordshire and South Wales. This was before John Smyth’s day. Notice the statement, “found there.” As the Baptists, were “found there” before 1607, hence, the statement of Campbellite preachers is absolutely false.
Two circumstances connected with that period are prominent in the history of the Baptists. The writers of the above quotations were Baptists and were speaking of circumstances connected with Baptist history prior to 1607. The “two circumstances” connected with that period of history were:
(1) “The publicity into which they emerged.” (2) “And the hostility which was evinced against them,” which proves.. beyond a shadow of a doubt that Benedict nor the writers of the “Jubilee Memorial” believed what the Campbellite debaters say they did. (3) “In 1536, the National Clergy met in convocation, declared the sentiments of the Baptists to be detestable heresies, utterly to be, condemned.” How could this be true if they started with John Smyth in 1607?
“In 1538 a commission was given to Cranmer * * * to proceed against Baptists and burn their books.” Again I ask, how can this be true if there were no Baptists prior to 1607? “Proceed against” a people that did not exist; and not only so, but absolutely burned. the books of people that did not exist. It may suit Campbellite preachers to thus pervert church history with the book before them. (4) “In the year 1539 thirty-one Baptists that fled from England were burned to death at Delft, in Holland.” From this we learn that there were Baptists in England before John Smyth’s day. How could they have “fled from England,” and how could “thirty-one of them have been put to death in 1539” if there were none of them prior to 1607, as Campbellite preachers say? In speaking of the period from 1538 to 1549, we learn that “the Baptists of that period were not few nor insignificant.” Bishop Latimer, in a sermon he preached before King Edward VI, “observed Baptists were burned in different parts of the kingdom, and went to death with good integrity.” Again, “But to the oppressed Baptists of those times, no mercy was extended. King Edward passed an act to pardon Papists and others, the Baptists were excepted.” In the following year, 1547, “a fresh commission was issued to the Archbishop to search after all Baptists, and under that commission the celebrated Joan of Kent, who was a Baptist, was burned on the third of May, 1549.” With these facts before us, how can we believe that Benedict said the Baptists started in 1607? (5) “David George, after he had been dead three years, was disinterred and his body burned, because it was discovered he had been a Baptist.” A proclamation was issued during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, “in which it was ordained that all Baptists, and other heretics, should leave the land.” In 1575 * * * a congregation of them were found without Aldgate, London.” I ask once more, how could this be true if they started in 1607? “Dr. Some wrote a book against the Puritans, in which he inveighs against the Baptists, stating in the language of complaint, that they had several conventicles (churches) in London and other places. * * * On page 309, Benedict says: “The only account of any church of the Baptist order existing at this period in England, is thus given by Mr. Ivimy:`There is a remark in Robinson’s dissertation in public preaching prefixed to Claude’s essay, which refers to a period forty years after this and proves that the demon of persecution was at that time neither dead nor chained. `I have,’ says he, `before me a manuscript register of Gray, Bishop of Ely, which proves that in the year 1457 there was a congregation of this sort in this village, Chesterton, where I live, who privately assembled for divine worship, and had preachers of their own who taught them the very doctrines we now preach.”‘ Here was a Baptist Church 250 years before John Smyth organized his so-called church, and yet Campbellite preachers unblushingly tell us that Benedict said the first Baptist Church was organized in 1607. I will now let Mr. Benedict say whether the Campbellites are telling the truth on him. In speaking of the John Smyth church, he says on page 329: “`This appears to have been the first Baptist Church composed of Englishmen, after the Reformation. It was formed about 1607 or 1608.” Benedict did not say or believe that Baptists started in 1607.
Hear him again: “From all the fragments of history, I am inclined to the belief that Baptist churches, under various circumstances, have existed in England from the time of William the Conqueror, four or five centuries prior to those of which any definite accounts have come down to us; and that the more the history of the dark ages is explored, the more this opinion will be confirmed. Baptist churches in persecuting times are merely household affairs, which must, of necessity, be hid from public view. More than three centuries had elapsed before any of the Baptists in England had any knowledge that a church of their order once existed in Chestertown, in 1457,”-ptg 337.
Benedict, I repeat, did not believe that the Baptist Church started with John Smyth. We will let Benedict speak for himself: ‘”I had intended in my closing remarks to show that the Baptists as a body, in all ages and countries, have literally adhered to the grand primordial principle of all churches in Christendom, national or dissenting.”-pg 5 of preface. Again he says: “The history of foreign Baptists, as I have arranged it, embraces a period of fifteen centuries, from the introduction of Christianity till the Reformation, in the early part of the sixteenth century.”-Benedict, pg 1.
“The churches of England, Scotland, Holland, Switzerland. or the Helvetic church, and the Reformed church of Germany, or Calvinists, all come under the head of National churches; they all seek protection and support from the civil power, and are zealous advocates for the old doctrine of Union of Church and State, which the Baptists in all ages have reprobated and condemned as fraught with absurdity and harm.”-pg 2. “The first three centuries, I shall omit the recital of the common arguments of the Baptists in favor of their cause from all that appears in the New Testament, and in the histories of the primitive times, and will only say that I have always considered their appeal to the records and commands of the great Christian Law-giver, the bulwark of their defense for their defense for their departure from the Pedobaptist system.”-pg 2.
CHAPTER 14
“The first regularly organized Baptist Church of which we possess any account, is dated from 1607, and was formed in London by a Mr. Smyth, who had been a clergyman in the Church of England. It was formed on the principles of the General- Baptists.”-Benedict, pg 304.
I will prove that John Smyth, at the time he organized his so-called church, knew that there were Baptists then in existence and that he was on “good terms” with them, though he did not agree with them, they being Calvinistic in their belief and he Arminian. Before John Smyth organized his so-called church in 1607, he was a member of the ancient English Separatists church. At that time his people were in a warm controversy on the nature of a visible church. Mr. Smyth published a work on “The Fallen Church,” and also one on “The Character of the Beast.” This led Smyth, Helwys, Morton and thirty-six others to form a new church which should practice believers’ baptism and reject infant baptism. Finding themselves unbaptized, they were in a strait. They were on good terms with the Dutch Baptists, but would not receive their baptism, lest they should recognize them as a true church; for they (Smith and his followers) believed that the true churches of Christ had perished. Besides, Smyth did not believe with them in the lawfulness of a Christian to serve as a magistrate, nor on the freedom of the will, and the distinctive points of Calvinism, he being an Arminian, which points he considered vital.”History by Armitage, pg. 435. How could Smyth have been on good “terms with the Dutch Baptists,” if there were no Baptists at that time? Remember that John Smyth and his followers were General, or Arminian Baptists, and the “Dutch Baptists” believed in election, predestination. redemption and grace as do the Primitive Baptists of our day. I will trace those kind of Baptists by Armitage from 1607 back to the apostolic age.
“On the accession of James I, 1603, the four sects of England were: The Roman Catholic. The Church of England, divided into the Puritans, who conformed in some things, and others who conformed in all. The Brownists, afterward known as the Separatists and Independents, and a few Baptists, who were disowned of all.”-Armitage, pg. 452.
In 1589 Dr. Some “wrote a treatise, attacking them and their faith. His charges against the Baptists were: That they insisted on maintaining all ministers of the gospel by the voluntary contributions of the people; that the civil power has no right to make and impose ecclesiastical laws; that the people have a right to choose their own pastors: that those who are qualified to preach ought not to be hindered by the civil power; that the baptism of the Church of Rome is invalid; that a gospel constitution and discipline are essential to a true church: Ibid, pg. 452. “About 1579, Archbishop Sandys declared both of the Brownists and Baptists * * * for it is said that in 1571 there were nearly four thousand Dutch and other foreigners in Norwich alone, many of them Dutch Baptists.”-Ibid, pg. 432.
“Four years afterward, under Edward VI, we have the fearful martyrdom of Joan Boucher of Kent, probably of Eythorne, near Canterbury, where there was a Baptist assembly.”—Ibid, pg. 449. “Eythorne Baptist Church,” says Mr. Davis in the letter already referred to, “was founded not later than 1550. Joan Boucher, or Joan of Kent, was a member of this church. She was a lady of means, a zealous Christian ; and on May 2, 1550, she was led to the stake.
The church still exists:—Shackelford’s History, pg. 277, “A congregation of Baptists was found in London in 1575, twenty-seven of whom were imprisoned, and two burned in Smithfield; and the sect can be traced by their blood all through the century, aided by the light of Burnett, Fuller and Fox.”—Armitage, pg. 448. “The Lollards had prepared the way for the rapid spread of the principles of these Dutch Christians; and since 1535, Baptist witnesses for the truth have stood firmly on British soil, either as individuals or as organized churches.”-Ibid, pg. 446.
“It appears, therefore, that the origin of English Baptists. as a distinct sect, is to be found amongst the Baptist refugees who were driven from the Netherlands.”—Armitage, ppg. 445, 446. From this quotation we learn that the English Baptists existed long before John Smyth’s day, and that the origin of the English Baptists is to be found amongst the Baptist refugees, who were driven from the Netherlands. The King of Holland appointed a committee to prepare a history of the Reformed church. The committee appointed Dr. Ypeij, professor of theology at Gronigen and Rev. I. J. Dermont, chaplain to the King of the Netherlands. These men were both learned Pedobaptists. These men published their history in 1819 at Beda, and devoted one chapter to the Baptists of the Netherlands, where the English Baptists came from: “We have now seen that the Baptists who were formerly called Anabaptists, and in latter times, Mennonites, were the original Waldenses; and who have long in the history. of the Church, received the honor of that origin. On this account, the Baptists may be considered as the only Christian community which has stood since the days of the apostles, and as a Christian society, which have preserved pure the doctrines of the gospel through all ages. The perfectly correct, external and internal economy of the Baptists denomination, tends to confirm the truth, disputed by the Romish church, that the Reformation brought about in the sixteenth century, was in the highest degree necessary; and at the same time, goes to refute the erroneous notion of the Catholics, that their communion is the most ancient.”-Shackelford’s History, ppg. 257, 258. Thus we see that the English Baptists came from the Netherlands and that the Baptists in Holland extend back to the apostles.
“Despite these persecutions, they perpetually multiplied. Keller says that in 1530 there was scarcely a village or city in the Netherlands where Baptists were not found. * * * In 1550 the leading reformed element, according to Ten Kate, was Baptist, and in Friesland, in 1586, one inhabitant in every four was a Baptist.”—Armitage, pg. 415.
“Then, as none of them gave him (Menno) scriptural authority in the case (infant baptism), he went to the Bible as his only guide; and finding it silent on the subject, he cast the doctrine aside as a human figment, united with a Baptist Church, and began to preach the gospel:-Ibid, pg. 410. Mr. Vedder, in his History of the Baptists, pg. 104, says of Menno:”He resigned his priest’s office, and, in 1536, he was rebaptized on confession of faith and became numbered among the Anabaptists.” Thus we see that Simon Menno did not originate the people that were afterward called Mennonites, for the reason that he joined a Baptist Church in 1536.
“Augsburg was the headquarters of South Germany. It was a rich city with a large laboring class, whose chief comfort sprang from the gospel. Dr. Osgood writes, that in 1527 the Baptist Church there numbered eight hundred members.”-Ibid, pg. 388. “In 1530, there were about fifty Baptist churches, ranging from four to six hundred attendants each, and stretching from the Eifel to Moravia.”-Ibid, pg. 383. On page 347 the same historian says: “The only result of this and other measures was that Ecolampadius advised the council to treat the obstinate with greater severity; and on April 1, 1529, it issued an edict to imprison all Baptists, and keep them there on bread and water till they publicly retract; then, if they apostatized, they should be put to death by the sword.” Mr. Armitage, on page 280, says: “Amongst the Cathari, however, we find a Baptist body at Cologne and Bonn; whence they came, we are not informed; but they appeared in 1146; and Evervine gives a full account of them in writing to Bernard, of whom he seeks aid in their suppression.”
In speaking of the fourth century, Mr. Armitage says: “How are the mighty fallen! Their lawful Sovereign and good friend was hailed as their head, and they waited for his image and superscription to attest their orthodoxy; for the first time the Old Baptist Churches of the world are found crouching at a Monarch’s feet.”-pg. 204.
In speaking of the third century, the same writer said, pg. 173: “This iron-nerved Old Baptist said, most cheerfully, that the Church had valuable treasures, asking the court to send horses and wagons for them, and give him three days to produce them. His request was granted; and when the day arrived, he brought loads of widows and the poor, saying: `These are the treasures of the Church.’ For this they roasted him alive on a gridiron.” Mr. Armitage, speaking of Polycarp of the second century, said: “The answer of this simple hearted Old Baptist was: `Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any wrong; how, then, can I blaspheme my King and Saviour?”‘-pg. 158.
Of the same century, and on page 157, we have this statement: “The Church of God which sojourns at Rome, to the Church of God which sojourns at Corinth. Even thus early the Corinthian Baptist Church had learned how to abuse its own chosen pastors.” On the same page we have this language: “It would be most interesting to trace the biography of this group of Old Baptists,” but space will not allow.” On page 156 the writer said: “These early Baptists decided all questions of doctrine by an appeal to their sacred books, being very zealous of forged books, which abounded very early.”
Thus I have traced the Baptists by Armitage to apostolic times, as I promised to do.
CHAPTER 15
The Baptists of England do not claim John Smyth as their founder. “It seems, then, that the Baptists had, at this early period (1538), formed distinct churches of persons of their own sentiments. both in London and different parts of the country.”—Ivimy’s History of the English Baptists, Vol. I, pg. 108.
Mr. Goadby’s By-Paths to Baptist History, page 23. says: “The Church at Eythorne, Kent, owes its origin to some Dutch Baptists who settled in the country in the time of Henry VIII.“ “Eythorne Baptist Church,” says Mr. Davies in the letter already referred to, “was founded not later than 1550.”— Shackelford, ppg. 276, 277. “Baptists and Baptist churches have existed in England since the days of the apostles. There is no record of Baptists having ever become nonexistent in England. The earliest dawn of the Reformation finds Baptists in England.”—Church Perpetuity, pg. 318.
In speaking of Henry VIII, Mr. Cramp, pages 232 and 234, says: “The hatred to Baptists was further shown in excepting them from the general acts of pardon. Such acts were published in 1538, 1540 and 1550.” On page 235, he also says: “But they could not put down the Baptists, who grew and flourished in spite of them. Congregations were discovered in Essex, at Feversham, in Kent, and other places.”
Again Mr. Cramp, on page 242, says: “There were many Baptists among the sufferers in Queen Mary’s reign. Some endured painful imprisonments, and some passed to heaven through the fire.”
“During the reign of Elizabeth and James, a large number of Baptists fled from Holland and Germany to England.”— Herzog Ency., Vol. 1, pg. 211. The author that I have just quoted is an Old School Presbyterian, and says positively that “a large number of Baptists fled from Holland, and Germany to England, and that, too, in John Smyth’s day. The Penny Encyclopedia says: “Little is known of the Baptists in England before the sixteenth century. Their name then appears among, various sects which were struggling for civil and religious freedom. Their opinions at this early period were sufficiently popular to attract the notice of the National establishment, as it is evident from the fact that a convocation, held in 1536. they were denounced as detestable heretics, to be utterly condemned. Proclamations allowed to banish the Baptists from the kingdom. Books were burned, and several individuals suffered at the stake. The last person who was burned in England was a Baptist.”-Vol. III. ppg. 416, 417.
In speaking of the times before John Smyth’s day, Dr. Frowde says of the Baptists: “History has for them no word of praise: yet they were not giving their blood in vain; in their deaths, they assisted to pay the purchase money of England’s freedom.”-History of England, Vol. II, p. 359.
“We have strong reasons for believing that on the continent of Europe, small hidden societies, who have held many of the opinions of the Anabaptists, have existed from the time of the apostles. In the sense of direct transmission of divine truth and the true nature of spiritual religion, it seems probable that these churches have a lineage or succession more ancient than the Roman Church.”—Clifford’s History of English Baptists, pg. 9.
Bishop Burnett says: “That in the time of Edward VI, 1537, Baptists became very numerous, and openly preached their doctrines, that children are Christ’s without water.”—Church Perpetuity, pg. 331. “It may be fairly gathered from the `Articles of Visitation’ that there were many Baptist churches in the kingdom at the time. This is also clear from the fact that the Duke of Northumberland advised that Mr. John Knox should be invited to England and make a bishop, that he might aid in putting down the Baptists in Kent.”—Church Perpetuity, p. 332.
The “Articles of Visitation” were drawn up by Mr. Riddley, in 1550, which shows conclusively that there were many Baptist churches before 1607. “In 1538, under Henry VIII, there were so many Baptists as to bring upon themselves the fiercest hatred.”—Evans History of English Baptists, pg. 51. “To stamp the character and principles of these troublers of the commonwealth, the legislature, closing its session in 1551, exempted the Baptists from the pardon which was granted to those who had taken part in the late rebellion.”—Evans History of English Baptists, Vol. I, pg. 97.
“Dr. Wall seems anxious,” says Neal, “to persuade his readers that there were no Baptists in England when Henry VIII ascended the throne at the commencement of the sixteenth century, A. D. 1511. But upon that supposition it is not easy to account for the sanguinary statutes, which in the early part of this reign were put forth against the Anabaptists. If the country did not abound with Baptists at this time (1511), why were those severe measures enforced against them? In 1536 the sect of the Anabaptists is specified and condemned. In fact, it is easy to trace the Baptists in England at least a hundred years prior to the time mentioned by Fuller at least to 1438. In the year 1539 we find certain legal documents promulgated, one of which was against the Anabaptists. From this it appears that the Baptists not only existed in England, but that they were in the habit of availing themselves of the art of printing * * * in the defense of their peculiar and discriminating tenets. * * * Bishop Burnett informs us that at this time (1547), there were many Baptists in several parts of England.”—Neal’s History of the Puritans, Vol. II, ppg. 354, 355. “The first John Knott became the pastor of the Eythorne church somewhere between 1590 and 1600, and the last John Knott removed to Chatham in 1780.” In speaking of this church, Goadby remarks, “It is worthy of record that the Church of Christ in this little village continued more than three hundred years without a single unfriendly division and with a steadfast adherence to the faith and practice of the Primitive Church.”—Goadby’s By-Paths to Baptist History, pg. 26.
“The Bocking Braintree church book, still in existence, carries back the authentic records of the Church for more than two hundred years; but there is no question that the origin of the Church itself dates back to the days of Edward VI.”—Goadby, pg. 26.
“Tiverton church is said to have existed since the last years of Queen Elizabeth.”-Ibid, pg. 28. Queen Elizabeth reigned from 1550 to 1603. “We have reliable evidence that a Separatist, and probably a Baptist Church, has existed for several centuries in a secluded spot of Cheshire, on the borders of Lancashire, about a mile and a half from Warrington.”-Ibid, pg. 22. “Of the Hill Cliffe church, Rev. D. 0. Davis, of Rockdale, England, who attended the Southern Baptist Convention in Birmingham, Ala., in 1891, as a representative of the English Baptists, says: “The oldest Baptist Church in this country is Hill Cliffe. * * * Tradition declares that this church is five hundred years old. A tombstone was recently discovered in the burial ground of the place bearing date of 1357. In digging the foundation to enlarge the old chapel, a large baptistry was discovered. which was made of stone, and well cemented. The baptistry must have belonged to a previous chapel. Oliver Cromwell worshiped in this church. It is one of the pre-historic churches, and a regular Baptist Church.” —Shackelford’s History of the Baptist`, pg. 274. In speaking of Henry V1II, who reigned from 1509 to 1547, Goady says: “Bitterly as he hated the Papist party * * * he revealed a still more bitter hatred for all Baptists, English and Continental.”—Goadbv, pg. 72. Jarrell says: “Laying all this aside, I have already proved that the Hill Cliffe and other churches have a history far back of the time of John Smvth; and that two years before Smyth organized his church, he spent nearly all night `in debate with elders’ of the Crowle church, which existed in 1599; how, long previous, no one knows.”—Church Perpetuity, ppg. 344, 345.
“The sect in England which rejects the custom of baptizing infants, are not distinguished by the title of Anabaptists, but by that of Baptists. * * * They are divided into two sects, one of which is distinguished by the denomination of General or Arminian Baptists, on account of their opposition to the doctrines of absolute and unconditional decrees; and the other by that of Particular or Calvinistic Baptists, from the striking resemblance of their system to that of the Presbyterians, who have Calvin for their chief.”—Mosheim’s Eccl. History, Cent. 16, Sec. 3, Chapter 3, pg. 21.
“At Crowle, in Lincolnshire, a few miles from Gainsborough, there was, according to an old church book recently copied, a Baptist society as early as 1550. To that rural community Smyth went in the year 1604 and debated nearly all night with Elders Henry Heluisse and John Morton, who defended our cause well.”—Dr. John Clifford’s History of English Baptists, pg. 15. There were the Calvinistic Baptists that Smyth was on “good terms with,” but would not receive baptism of them for fear that he would acknowledge them to be the Church of Jesus Christ. After John Smyth had organized his so-called Baptist Church, he saw his mistake and offered to join the Dutch Baptists. “Smyth and his congregation met in a large bakery for a time, but he soon saw his mistake in his hasty sea baptism, and offered to join the Dutch congregation of Baptists. * * * Part of his congregation under the leadership of Heluys would not unite with Smyth in his movement, but excluded him from their fellowship, and warned the Dutch church not to receive him:’—Armitage, pg. 454.
Mr. Neal, who was a Pedobaptist historian, and wrote the history of the Puritans, Vol. II, pg. 351, of the origin of the Particular Baptists of England, says: “When after long search, and many debates, it appeared to them that infant baptism was a mere innovation, and even a profanation of a divine ordinance, they were not frought to lay it aside without many fears and tremblings. They were persuaded that believers were the only proper subjects of baptism, and that immersion or dipping the whole body into the water, was the appointed rite. They were at a loss for an administrator to begin with. After often meeting together to pray and confer about this matter, they agreed to send over into Holland Mr. Richard Blunt, who understood the Dutch language, to a Baptist Church there. He was received kindly by the society and their pastor; and upon his return, he baptized Mr. Samuel Blacklock. a minister. These two baptized the rest of the company to the number of fifty-three.”
Mr. Crosby, in speaking of the above circumstance, says: “So that those who followed this scheme did not derive their baptism from the aforesaid Mr: Smyth, or his congregation at Amsterdam, it being an ancient congregation of foreign Baptists in the Low Countries to whom they sent.”—Crosby’s History of English Baptists, Vol. I, pg. 101. I am sure the Particular Baptists of England must have believed that Baptist churches of Holland were in regular line with the apostolic churches. Well might Mr. Orchard say: “The Particular Baptist Church in London at its formation. A. D., 1633, deputed Mr. Blount to visit a church in Holland and receive from the Waldensian Baptists scriptural immersion. The Baptists are the only Christians that can prove a scriptural immersion and order descended to them from the days of John the Baptist.”—Orchard, Vol. II, pg. 261.
Crosby, in speaking of John Smyth, said: “If he were guilty of what they charge him with, it is no blemish on the English Baptists, who neither approved of any such method, nor did they receive their baptism from him.”—Crosby’s History, Vol. I, pg. 99.
H. Collins, a Baptist preacher of England, said in a work published in 1691 that the English Baptists did not get their baptism from John Smyth. “It is absolutely untrue, it being well known to some who are yet alive, how false this assertion is; and if J. W. will give a meeting to any of us, and bring whom he pleases with him, we shall sufficiently show the falsity of what is asserted by him in this matter, and many other things he has un-Christianly asserted.”— Ivimy’s History, Vol. I, pg. 140.
“The Vale of Carleon is situated between England and the mountains of Wales, just at the foot of the mountains. It is our Valley of Piedmont, the mountains of Merthyn Tydfyl, our Alps; and in the crevices of the rocks, the hiding places of the lambs of the sheep of Christ, where the ordinances of the gospel to this day have been administered in the primitive mode. without being adulterated by the corrupt church of Rome. It would he no wonder that Penry, Wroth and Erbury, commonly called the first reformers of the Baptist denomination in Wales, should have so many followers at once, when we consider the field of their labors was the Vale of Carleon and its vicinity. Had they, like many of their countrymen, never bowed the knee to the great Baal of Rome, nor any of the horns of the beast in Britain, it is probable that we should not have heard of their names; but as they were great and learned men, belonging to that religion (or rather irreligion), established by law, and particularly as they left that establishment and joined the poor Baptists, their names are handed down to posterity; not only by their friends, but also by their foes, because more notice was taken of them than those scattered Baptists in the mountains of the Principality. As this denomination has always existed in this country from the year 63, and had been so often and severely persecuted, it was by this time an old thing. The Vale of Alchon also is situated between mountains almost inaccessible. How many hundred years it had been inhabited before William Erbury visited this place, we cannot tell. It is a fact that cannot be controverted that there were Baptists here at the commencement of the Reformation; and no man on earth can tell where the Church was formed, and who began to baptize in this little Piedmont. Whence came these Baptists? It is universally believed that it is the oldest Church; but how old, none can tell. We know at the Reformation, they had a minister named Howell Vaughn, quite a different sort of Baptist from Erhury, Wroth, Vavasor Powell and others, who were the great reformers, but had not reformed so far as they should have done, in the opinion of the Olchon Baptists. And that was not to be wondered at, for they dissented from the Church of England, and probably brought some of her corruptions with them: but the Mountain Baptists were not dissenters from that establishment. We know that the reformers were for mixed communion, but the Olchon Baptists receive no such practices. In short, these were plain, strict apostolical Baptists. They would have order and no confusion—the Word of God their only rule. The reformers, or the reformed Baptists, who had been brought up in the established church, were for laying on of hands on the baptized; but these Baptists whom they found on the mountains of Wales were no advocates of it. The Olchon Baptists must have been a separate people, maintaining the order of the New Testament in every generation, from the year 63 to the present time.”—Davis’ History of the Welsh Baptists, ppg. 19, 20.
Davis’ History of the Welsh Baptists is a translation of Thomas’ History. It was first published by Thomas in 1778, and translated by Davis in 1788.
CHAPTER 16
Mr. Orchard says: “During the first three centuries Christian congregations, all over the east, subsisted in separate independent bodies, unsupported by government, and consequently without secular power over one another. All this time they were Baptist Churches.”—Orchard’s History, Vol. 1, pg. 36.
Again Mr. Orchard said: “The churches, during this early period, were strictly Baptist in their practice and constitution. These early interests stood perfectly free of Rome, and after periods refused her communion.”-pg. 51. “When these severe measures emanated from the Emperor Honorius against rebaptizers, the Baptists left the seat of opulence and power and sought retreat in the country and the valleys of Piedmont.”-Orchard, Vol. 1, pg. 256.
“And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three-score days.”-Rev. xii. 6. Twelve hundred and sixty years was the time the Church should remain in Piedmont.
“We have already noticed the writers who declared innovation (infant baptism). In 1412, the Baptists were banished as heretics. In 1413, Innocent sent letters of advice to various ministers. In the same year the Baptists, for rebaptizing. were sentenced to death.”-Baptist Magazine, Vol. I, pg. 256. “Osiander Says. ‘Our modern Anabaptists were the same with the Donatists of old. Fuller, the English church historian, asserts, that `the Baptists in England in his days were the Donatists new dipped;’ and Robinson declares `they were Trinitarian Anabaptists.”‘-Orchard, Vol. 1, pg. 87.
“They are also freed from the baneful charge of Manichaeism. and are not taxed with any immortality, but were condemned for various rules of action, which all in power accounted heresy. At different periods, and from various causes, these Baptists considerably increased.”-Orchard, Vol. 1, pg. 143. This was in the eighth century.
“These dissenting Baptists were the only class in this kingdom not given up to the corruption of the times. Luxury, covetousness, and adultery universally prevailed among the Catholic clergy.”-Orchard, Vol. 1, pg. 148. “Many of the Bulgarian Baptists lived single, and adopted an itinerant life, purposely to serve the cause of their Redeemer.”-Orchard, Vol. 1, pg. 171. This was in the ninth century.
“The persecution experienced by the non-conformists in Greece occasioned many of the Baptists to migrate. and Gibbon says. `They effected an entrance into Europe by the German caravans.’ “-Orchard, Vol. 1, pg. 231. This was in 845. Again on the same page he says, “There were two great and powerful families who patronized the Baptists in this quarter, and manifested much attachment to them.” Mr. Orchard, page 233, says, “Other testimonies prove existence to a later date. So that after the twelfth century documents are extant, proving the existence of the Baptists in Bohemia and Poland.” This was in 1176. “We have now detailed the history of the Puritans through several nations, and under various names, and shall by these records have proved at the Reformation, that the Baptists have been the only Christian community which has stood since the days of the apostles, and as a Christian society, which has preserved pure the doctrines of the gospel through all ages.”-Ibid, pg. 340. Mosheim says, “That the German Baptists passed in shoals into Holland and the Netherlands, and in the course of time, amalgamated with the Dutch Baptists.”Eccl. History, Chap. 16, Sec. 11, pg. 336. This was in 1510.
“Consequently, several persons of the views of the Baptists made their appearance at the same time in different countries. This appears from a variety of circumstances, especially from this striking one, that all the Baptist ministers of any eminence were, before the Reformation, almost all heads and leaders of particular and separate sects, or congregations.” —Orchard, Vol. 1, pg. 341.
“The Reformers gave very considerable support to the Baptists in these measures. Luther had no great objection to the Baptists in his early efforts. He encouraged the Munzer of notoriety, who was a Baptist minister, and so highly esteemed by Luther as to be named his Absalom. Their united efforts greatly increased persons of the Baptist persuasion.”-Ibid, ppg. 344, 345. This was in 1521. “When some of Luther’s assistants went into Bohemia and Moravia, they complained that between Baptists and Papists they were very much straightened, though they grew among them like lilies among thorns. The success and number of the Baptists exasperated him to the last degree.”-Robinson’s Researches, pg. 519. This was in 1522. “The true origin of the Baptist denomination, who espoused the Mennonite views, and who acquired the stigma of Anabaptist, by administering anew the rite of baptism to those who come over to their community, is hid in the remote depths of antiquity.”— Mosheim’s Eccl. History, Vol. 3, pg. 420. “Of all the teachers of religion in Germany at this period, the Baptists best understood the doctrine of civil and religious liberty.”—Orchard, Vol. 1, pg. 349. “He (Luther) and his colleagues had now to dispute their way with hosts of Baptists all over Germany, Saxony, Thuringia, Switzerland and other kingdoms for several years.” “The support which the Baptists had from Luther’s writings made the Reformers’ effort of little effect. * * * These efforts to check the increase of Baptists being ineffectual, carnal measures were selected.
In defiance of this law (re-baptism), the Baptists persevered in their regular discipline. * * * Many Baptists were drowned and burned.” —Ivimey’s History, Vol. 1, pg. 17. This was from 1516 to 1527.
“Wherever the Baptists settled, Luther played the part of a universal bishop, and wrote to the princes and senates to engage them to expel such dangerous men; but it was their refusing to own his authority, and admit his exposition of the scriptures, which led him to preach and publish books against them, taxing them with disturbing the peace. We have recorded that the Baptists were the common objects of aversion to Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists, whose united zeal was directed against their destruction.”—Robinson’s Researches, pg. 543.
“The Reformers’ influence and reflection on the Baptists, with the Catholic hatred, made the situation of our brethren very critical, independent of the iron bondage many endured under their lords.”—Orchard, Vol. 1, pg. 358. This was in 1526.
Mosheim, the Lutheran historian, Vol. 3, pg. 79, says: “In almost all countries of Europe an unspeakable number of Baptists preferred death in its worst forms to a retraction of their sentiments. It is true, indeed, that many Baptists suffered death; not on account of their being rebellious subjects, but merely because they were judged incurable heretics.”
“It is now evident that many persons of the Baptist persuasion and views existed on the continent long before the affair of Munster blackened their escutcheon.”—Orchard, p. 355.
Cardinal Hosius, a Catholic, says of the Baptists: “If the truth of religion were to be judged of by the readiness and cheerfulness which a man of any sect shows in suffering, then the opinions of no sect can be truer or surer than those of the Anabaptists, since there have been none for these past twelve hundred years who have been more grievously punished.”— Orchard, Vol. l, pg. 364. The “twelve hundred years past” carries the Baptists back to 370.
“Mosheim, in speaking of the Baptist Church, says, `Their churches are founded on this principle, that practical piety is the essential of religion, and that the surest and most infallible mark of a true church is the sanctity of its members. It is at least certain that this principle was always and universally adopted by the Baptists.’ “—Orchard, Vol. 1, pg. 363. “The Mennonite Baptists consider themselves as real uccessors to the Waldenses, and to be the genuine Churches of Christ.”—Orchard, Vol. 1, pg. 368.
“When the Mennonites assert that they are descended from the Waldenses, Petrobrusians, and other ancient sects, who are usually considered as witnesses of the truth, in the time of universal darkness and superstition, they are not entirely mistaken,” says Mosheim, “for before Luther and Calvin, these lay concealed in almost all the countries of Europe, many people who adhered tenaciously to the doctrines of the Dutch Baptists.”—Vol. 3, pg. 320.
“Nevertheless, the Baptists began publicly to teach their sentiments, and Zwingli as publicly withstood them.”-Baptist Martyrology. Vol. 1, pg. 7. This was in 1516. “Of course, the Baptists were confuted, at least so say their adversaries, who exhorted them to abandon their sentiments; or, at all events, to hold them in secret.”-Ibid, pg. 7. This was in 1525. “For their rejection of human preachers and magisterial interference with conscience, were many of the Baptists imprisoned and banished.”-Ibid, pg. 8. “The magistrates exhorted the Baptists to give glory to God, and confess their heterodox opinions; but as they remained steadfast. they were thrown into prison.”Ibid, pg. 9. Felix Mantz, who was a native of Zurich, and educated in the learning of his age, began to study the Holy Scriptures, and at once began to doubt the scripturalness of infant baptism and to lay aside the rites of Rome. “This brought about a separation, and to the final adoption, on the part of Mantz, of the sentiments of the Baptists.” Ibid, pg. 13. Leonhard Keyser, who was a learned mass-priest, went to Wittenberg where he examined the writings of Zwingli and Luther. “Returning into Bavaria, and observing the fruits and doctrines of Baptists, and of Luther and Zwingli, he took up the cross, repairing and uniting himself in the year 1525 to the Baptists, the separated Church of the Cross.”-Ibid. pg. 135.
“The Baptists were called Garden brethren, from their custom of meeting by night in the gardens and solitary places of the town to escape the notice of their foes.”-Ibid, pg. 57.
In speaking of Balthasar Hubmaier, the writer said, “His appearance in that city was with very different feeling and result to his former visit. Now he was a Baptist; a proclaimed adversary of Zwingli, a hunted bird that quickly fell a prey to the arts of the fowler.”-Ibid, pg. 71. Hubmaier was born at Fieldburg, Bavaria, in 1480, and was baptized by Reubline, a Baptist preacher, at Walshut in 1525, and” was martyred in 1528. “Sebastian Frank relates that. the Baptists at first increased to many thousands, so that the world was apprehensive of an uproar from them, but of this (as I hear, writes he) they were found innocent.”-Ibid, pg. 80. This was in 1528.
“Notwithstanding the edict of the council of Zurich to put to death every stubborn Baptist, the magistrates of Groningen displayed a desire to deal leniently with the prisoners.”-Ibid, pg. 81. This was also in 1528. Augustine Wurzelburger, who was probably a native of Landshut, was baptized on a confession of his faith in Christ in the Pruklerwald, not far from Regensburg. “He also became a leader and teacher among the Baptist churches in Bavaria, visiting its various towns to make known divine truth.” The edicts of the Emperor Charles V, against the Baptists, published A. D. 1535, Ibid, pg. 138. As the force of conscience and power of truth did not cease, but were increased and inflamed by the opposition of the papacy against the pious.
Christians who had, according to Christ’s command, been baptized upon a profession of their faith, it came to pass that a certain pious brother named Quirinus Pieterson, born at Groningen, separating himself from the papacy, repaired to the Cross-bearing Church of Jesus Christ, called Baptists, or as they were contemptuously named Anabaptists, and was incorporated into the Church, being baptized upon a confession of his faith by Menno Simons, who at that time was one of the principal teachers in Friesland.”-Ibid, ppg. 261, 272. About six years after Pieterson joined the Baptists he removed to Holland and settled in Amsterdam. in order to live there in quiet enjoyment of his faith and conscience. He was soon discovered by the Romish magistrates: was apprehended, and being unwilling to swerve from what he believed to be the truth, he was finally condemned on the sixteenth of April in the year 1545, to be committed to the flames, and thereby to suffer death.
CHAPTER 17
Inasmuch as the Campbellites say that we claim the “Mad Men of Munzer” as our religious ancestors, I have decided to devote this chapter to that subject. It is a fact well authenticated that our people have never claimed the Munzerites as their brethren, but denied the charge while Thomas Munzer was living, and have denied that they were our people ever since. I have before me a copy of “Baptist Blunders,” by J. S. Warlick. I will make a lengthy quotation from him:
“The next link for our examination shall be the Anabaptists. In Buck’s Theological Dictionary, pg. 13, I find the following concerning their faith and practice. After stating that there were two factions of them, one of which remained with the Reformation as advocated by Luther, while the other, the only one left for the Baptist chain, did not, he says, `Others, not satisfied with Luther’s plan of reformation, undertook a more perfect plan, or, more properly, a visionary enterprise to found a new church entirely spiritual and divine. This sect was soon joined by great numbers, whose characters and capacities were very different. * * * The most pernicious faction of all who composed this motly multitude was that which pretended that the founders of this new and perfect church were under divine impulse and were armed against all opposition by the power of working miracles. It was this faction that in the year 1521 began their fanatical work under the guidance of Munzer, Stubner, Storch, etc. These men taught that among Christians who had the precepts of the gospel to direct, and the Spirit of God to guide them, the office of magistracy was not only unnecessary, but an unbaneful encroachment on their spiritual liberty, that the distinction occasioned by birth, rank, or wealth, should be abolished; that all Christians, throwing their possessions into one stock should live together in that state of equality which becomes members of the same family; that as neither the laws of nature nor the precepts of the New Testament had prohibited polygamy, they should use this same liberty as the patriarchs did in this respect. * * * Munzer and his associates, in the year 1525, put themselves at the head of a numerous army and declared war against all laws, magistrates and governments of every kind, under the chimerical pretext that Christ Himself was now to take the reign of all governments into His hands; but this seditious crowd was routed and dispersed by the elector of Saxony and other princes, and Munzer, their leader, put to death. At first they tried to propagate their sentiments by persuasive power; but not succeeding in this way very well, our author says ‘They then madly attempted to propagate their sentiments by force of arms.’ For my part (says Joe S. Warlick ), I dislike to charge the Baptists with being related to such a people as this; but they claim the kin themselves. So, I am in no way responsible for the relation.”-ppg. 24, 25.
If Joe S. Warlick had the documentary evidence demonstrating that Baptists “claim the kin themselves,” he should have produced it. Mr. Maccalla, a Presbyterian preacher, in his debate with Mr. A. Campbell accused the Baptists of descending from the Munzerites. Mr. Campbell said: “That while Mr. M. endeavored to accuse the Baptists with the deeds of German fanatics which the Baptists ever disclaimed.”pg. 381. Joe S. Warlick says they “claimed the kin themselves.” Campbell says they “disclaimed” the kin. On page 389 Mr. Campbell says: “As to his favorite point, the German Anabaptists, we have shown that his slanders from that source fall to the ground. We disclaim that people in word and deed.”
I have before me a copy of the Campbell-Walker Debate and will quote from pages 272, 273: “It would be imposing upon the reader, and an imputation of his understanding to be more copious in furnishing documents to put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, who would assert that the Baptist denomination grew out of the wild fanatic, enthusiastic Anabaptists of Germany. That men professing Baptist principles have acted in many instances incorrectly, is a very common truth. That some individuals professing Baptist principles might have been in that, or any other insurrection, may be conceded without, at the same time, yielding that the Baptists arose from the Anabaptists of Germany. As truly might it be said that the Church of Christ in Jerusalem, planted A. D. 33, arose out of the Anabaptists of Germany in the sixteenth century.”
Thus we see that Campbell himself repudiated the slander in his day and disclaimed all connection with the Munzer insurrectionists. To this the Campbellite preachers of our day object by saying, Mr. Campbell said that while he was a Baptist. I have his work on baptism, edition of 1851. On page 409 he says: “Hence, it is that the Baptist denomination, in all ages and in all countries, has been as a body, the constant asserters of the right of man and the liberty of conscience. They have often been persecuted by Pedo-Baptists: but they never politically persecuted, though they had it in their power.”
This quotation shows very conclusively that Mr: Campbell did not after his exclusion from the Baptists charge them with the errors of Thomas Munzer. Mr. Campbell claimed that there were Baptists in all ages; therefore, he did not believe the Baptists originated with Munzer & Co. He also said that the Baptists have never persecuted anyone, though they have had power to do so. He said Thomas Munzer did; therefore, he did not believe that the Munzerites were Baptists.
Menno Simons joined the Baptists or Anabaptists on confession of faith in 1536. Here is what he says: “Beloved reader, we have been falsely accused by our opponents of defending the doctrine of Munsterites, with respect to king, sword, revolution, self-defense, polygamy, and many similar abominations; but know, my good reader, that never in my life have I assented to those articles of the Munster confession; but for years, according to my small gift, I have warned and opposed them in their abominable errors. I have by the word of the Lord brought some of them to the right way. Munzer, I have never seen in all my life. I have never been in their communion. I hope, by God’s grace, with such never to eat or drink (as the scriptures teach), except they confess from the heart their abominations and bring forth fruits meet for repentance and truly follow the gospel.”— Vedder, ppg. 104, 105.
The enemies of the Baptists are not willing to credit the testimony of men who lived in that day. Here is what Dryzinger, who was a Baptist, and was martyred in 1533, said, after being interrogated as to whether the Baptists approved of the way the Munsterites did: “They would not be Christians if they did.” Here is what Hans, another Baptist martyr, said: “We are daily belied by those who say that we defend our faith with the sword, as they of Munster did. The Almighty defend us from abominations.”–Church Perpetuity, pg. 225.
Dosie, who was a Baptist, and endured cruel slaughter for his love to Christ, was asked by the governor’s wife if he and his brethren were not of the disgraceful people who took up arms against magistrates. His reply was: “No, madam, those people greatly erred. We consider it a devilish doctrine to resist the magistrates by outward sword and violence. We would rather suffer persecution and death at their hands and whatever is appointed us to suffer.”—Church Perpetuity, pg. 225.
Mr. Brown, the editor of Religious Encyclopedia, says: “It is but justice to observe, also, that Baptists in Holland, England, and United States, are to be considered as entirely distinct from those seditious and fanatical individuals above mentioned, as they profess an equal version to all principles of rebellion on the one hand, and of enthusiasm on the other.”-pg. 78.
D’Aubigne; a Pedo-Baptist historian, says: “On one point it seems necessary to guard against misapprehension. Some persons imagine that the Munster Anabaptists of the time of the Reformation and the Baptists of our day are the same. But they are as different as possible.”
We have the testimony of the Royal Encyclopedia quoted by J. R. Graves in Tri-Lemma, pg. 137: “It is to be remarked that the Baptists, or Mennonites, in England and Holland are to be considered in a very different light from the Enthusiasts we have been describing; and it appears equally uncandid and invidious to trace up their distinguished sentiments, as some of their adversaries have done to those obnoxious characters, and then to stop in order, as it were to associate with it the ideas of turbulence and fanaticism, with which it certainly has no natural connection. Their coincidence with some of those oppressed and infatuated people in denying baptism to infants, is acknowledged by the Baptists; but they disavow the practice which the appellation of Anabaptists implies; and their doctrines seem referable to a more ancient and respectable origin. They appear supported by history in considering themselves the descendants of the Waldenses, who were so grievously oppressed and persecuted by the despotic heads of the Roman hierarchy.”
The charge that Baptists claim the Munsterites as their kin and that they originated with them is not new. The charge was first made by the Catholics. The Baptists said: “These were not our brethren. We have no fellowship for such men. The men of Munster were among yourselves or of your party. They did not admit, or even intimate, that they went off from them, or were ever in their connection. But they bitterly complained of having to suffer for the faults of others that they knew nothing about, because some of them agreed with them in rejecting infant baptism.”—Baptist Succession, pg. 98.
The new American Encyclopedia says: “There was another class of Anabaptists widely different from those who have been described as the Munster men.”
Fessendens, in his encyclopedia, says: “Anabaptists: The English and Dutch Baptists do not consider the word as applicable to their sect. It is but justice to add that the Baptists of Holland and England and the United States are to be regarded essentially distinct from those seditious and fanatical individuals.” Mr. Brockland, of the Rochester Theological Seminary, says: “But the peaceable Anabaptists, who made it a religious principle to bear no weapons, use no force, love their enemies and suffer all things unresistingly, existed by many tens of thousands during and after the time in Switzerland, Germany, Moravia, and the low countries. In these distinctive principles they were identical with the Waldenses before them, and the noble Mennonites after them.”—Church Perpetuity, pg. 232.
I will introduce Mr. Armitage, being a favorite witness with the Campbellites. On page 364 he says: “We see here how religion entered the contests of the peasants’ war, and by whom it was introduced. It is simply absurd to say that these peasants were Anabaptists.'” * * * The peasants were Catholics and Lutherans, and their enforced ministers were the same.” The Munsterites were not Anabaptists of any kind. They were called that simply because they rejected infant baptism. On page 366 Armitage says: “On the contrary, Keller, in his late work on the `Reformation’ (pg. 370), says that Cornelius has shown that in the chief points Munzer was opposed to the Baptists.” On page 367 we have this language: “Most of the later writers agree with the author of Johnson’s Cyclopedia in saying that “he entertained peculiar ideas of infant baptism; similar to those of the Anabaptists, with whom however he had no direct connection.” The Munsterites were not our people. Our people did not claim them then, neither do we claim them now as our people. On page 368, Mr. Armitage says: “Few writers have treated this subject with greater care and clearness than Ypeig and Dermont in their `History of the Netherland Church.”‘ They say of the Munster men that while they are known in history as Anabaptists, they ought by no means to be known as Baptists. “From the nature of the case,” says Mr. Armitage, “the majority of the Romanists knew no difference between the various Protestant parties and sects, and would make no distinction. Hence, the abhorrence only deserved by some of the Anabaptists was bestowed upon all Protestants. The honest Baptists suffered the most severely from this prejudice, because they were considered by the people to be the same and were called by the same name.” The same historians say: “The emperor and all his statesmen knew that the Baptists generally had, both by word and deed, said that their peace-loving hearts abhorred the seditious conduct of the Anabaptists.”-pg. 370.
In speaking of the Romanists the same authors say: “They would not see that which they might have seen. How evident it was that although the Baptists appeared to agree with the Anabaptists in respect to the baptismal question, the former entirely disapproved of the course pursued by the latter. For it had been, and continued to be, a doctrine of the Baptists, that the bearing of arms was very unbecoming to a Christian. Did not the Anabaptists (Munsterites) pursue a course directly the opposite of this? * ** who could have imagined that such a purpose prevailed among the Baptists, who were the meekest of Christians? And yet the Romanists, without dissent, agree in ascribing these things to all the Baptists. We have nowhere seen clearer evidence of the injurious influence of the prejudice; nowhere have we met with a more obstinate unwillingness to be correctly informed, and a more evident disposition to silence those who better understood the truth of the matter. Prejudice, when once deeply imbibed, blinds the eye, perplexes the understanding, silences the instincts of the heart and destroys the love of truth and rectitude. We shall now proceed more at length to notice the defense of the worthy Baptists. The Baptists are protestant Christians, entirely different from the Anabaptists (Munsterites) in character. They were descendants from the ancient Waldenses, whose teachings were evangelical and tolerably pure, and who were scattered by severe persecutions in various lands, and long before the time of the Reformation of the Church were existing in the Netherlands. In their flights they came thither in the latter part of the twelfth century.”-pg. 370.
The Campbellites occupy precisely the same ground that the Romanists did at the Munster affair. On page 371 our author says: “That ignorance is inexcusable which attributes the rise of the Baptists to the period of the Munster kingdom; much rather can it be proved that in the lands mentioned, Baptist churches existed for many decades and even centuries. No greater injustice can be done to any people than has been done to the German Baptists, in the attempt to saddle them with the peasants’ war and the villainies of Munster.”
Frank, who wrote in 1531, says of the Baptists: “They teach love, faith and the cross. They are long suffering and are heroic in affliction. The world feared they would cause an uproar, but they have proved innocent everywhere. If I were emperor, pope, or Turk, I would not fear revolt less from any people than this.” * * * All the Baptists oppose those who would fight for the gospel with the sword. Some object to war or any use of the sword, but the most favor self-defense and justifiable war.”pg. 373.
Mr. Armitage well said: “So much has been said of these disgraceful transactions at Munster, and said so rashly, to the injury of Baptists that one is tempted to add cumulative evidence on the subject, even to prolixity. The mean-spirited charges were flung in their faces by men who persecuted them at that time, and they repudiated them with deep feeling, as cruelly adding insult to injury.”-pg. 373.
The Schleitheim Articles, as well as many private writings, throw a strong light upon this subject. Not only does the sixth article, on “The Sword,” relieve them from this odium, but they wash their hands of the revolutionary transactions at Zwickaw and Muhlhausen, the first in 1521, the last in 1524, under Munzer. They say to the Baptist congregations concerning the Munsterites: “Beware of such, for they serve not our Father, but their father, the devil. But ye are not so, for they who are in Christ have crucified the flesh, with all, its lusts and longings.”-pg. 374. On page 375 the same writer says: “The Baptists of our day are the first and the freest to wash their hands of all the black deeds of Munster, not only because they are black, but also because their true brethren of the sixteenth century renounced them honestly and earnestly.”
Mr. Burrage, in his history of the Anabaptists of Switzerland, on page 89, says, alluding to a meeting between Thomas Munzer, Grebel and Mantz: “Nor do we find that the Swiss radicals had any subsequent dealings with him. As Grebel’s letter shows, he and his associates were not in agreement with Munzer in reference to baptism. They did not believe in the use of the sword as he did. Doubtless, they now found that in purpose they and the Saxon reformer differed widely.” Well did Mr. Vedder say: “The fanatical outbreaks in north Germany had no connection with Hoffman. Their chief leader, if not instigator, was Thomas Munzer. He is invariably called an Anabaptist, but in reality he never belonged with that body.”-pg. 98. The Munsterites were not Baptists of any kind. They were called Baptists or Anabaptists because they said infant baptism was not taught in the Bible. Munzer practiced infant baptism as long as he lived; therefore, he could not have been a Baptist of any kind. “It is sufficient to reply that contemporary records make no charge of sedition against the Anabaptists. They were condemned for Anabaptism and nothing else. The record stands in black and white for all men to read.” Vedder, ppg. 81, 82.
Though persecution at first increased the number of Anabaptists. They were for the most part plain, unlettered, rich in nothing else than faith, and little able to hold out unaided and unled against a persecution so bitter and determined.”—Vedder, pg. 84.
The Catholics left nothing unturned that they thought would bring shame and contempt on the Baptists. The Campbellites are just as bitter and determined foes as the Catholics were and are. While it is true that the Campbellites have never put people to death for disagreeing with them, we can readily see the same spirit of falsehood and misrepresentation in their preachers that we see in the Catholic priests.
CHAPTER 18
In this chapter I will discuss the doctrine of election and predestination as taught in the Bible, and by church historians and other standard works.
ELECTION, in theology. means divine choice, or the predestination of God, by which persons are distinguished as objects of God’s sovereign mercy; become subjects of efficacious grace, and are sanctified, and thus prepared for heaven. God’s choice of His people was in Christ; not in time, but in Christ before the foundation of the world. Paul said: “According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in 1ove.”-Eph, i. 4. This text tells where the people were chosen— “in Christ.” It also tells us when— “before the foundation of the world,” as well as the reason why— “that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.”
Jesus said: “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.”-John vi. 37. The Father certainly did not give more or less to His Son than He chose in Him. As the choice of the people was in Christ before the foundation of the world, the gift of the people by the Father to the Son must have been before the foundation of the world.
They were given that they “should come.” They were chosen that they “should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” Jesus said: “And shall not God avenge His own elect?”-Luke xviii. 7. The people He chose were His “own elect.” Jesus said: “If it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.”-Matt. xxiv. 24. In verse thirty-one we have this language: “And He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.”
“His own elect,” “the very elect,” and “His elect,” evidently have reference to all the Father gave the Son, or chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. In Romans ix. 11 we have this statement: “For the children [Jacob and Esau] being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth.”
“Election” cannot be of human works of any kind, because it antedates or is anterior to the existence of man. God “formed man of the dust of the ground,” while God chose His people in Christ before the foundation of the world; hence, before He made man of the dust of the ground.
Paul said: “Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work. What then? Israel bath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.”-Rom. xi. 5; 6, 7.
These scriptures very conclusively demonstrate that our election to salvation is of God, through grace and not of our works. Paul argues that if election is of grace, then it is not of works; and, if it is of works, then it cannot be by grace. Let us have some more of the Pauline doctrine: “But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.”-2 Thess. ii. 13.
The end sought from the beginning was the salvation of all God chose from the beginning. If all thus chosen will not be saved, then God chose some to salvation whom He knew He would not save. Our obedience cannot be the cause, or even one of the causes, of our election to salvation, from the fact that Paul said our election was ‘;by grace and not by works.” And Paul said: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast.”-Eph. ii. 3. 9, 10.
Peter said: ‘`Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace. he multiplied.”-1 Pet. i. 2. Election is according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, and not because of our Obedience, but “unto obedience,” “unto salvation,” that “we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” Paul said: “Knowing, brethren. beloved, your election of God.”-1 Thess. i. 4.
Our “election of God” was in Christ “before the foundation of the world.” Our “election of God” was “from the beginning.” Our “election of God” was by “grace,” and not “of our works.” Our “election of God” was “unto salvation” and “unto obedience.” Our election was “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.”
Paul asked this question: “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth.”-Rom. viii. 33.
From this text we are sure that God has an elect people, and that they were His by choice before they were by justification. Many other scriptures could be introduced to prove the doctrine of election, but I think that the above texts are ample and sufficient to satisfy any reasonable and fair minded man or woman.
PREDESTINATION—This doctrine, like the doctrine of election, has been perverted, distorted and made to serve evil purposes. The predestination of God, as it relates to salvation, embraces the elect of God as well as all the means necessary to carry into effect the salvation of all the Father gave the Son. The God of the Bible is a God of purpose, and He makes His purpose known according to the “good pleasure of His will,” Eph. 1:9. The purpose or predestination of God is like Himself, eternal, immutable, and therefore, unchangeable.
The purpose or predestination of God embraces all events, good or bad. All righteousness, effectively or causatively, and all evil, He permits, suffers, allows or does not hinder.
Anything that comes to pass that God could hinder, without interfering with what He had purposed, are such things, and those evil things that He has the power to keep from coming to pass, and yet does not do it. While the things He purposed to come to pass must necessarily come to pass just as He purposed they should. Such things He could not prevent or hinder without wrecking and destroying His wisdom and the immutability of His counsel.
God had the power to have kept Adam from sinning. To deny this is sheer nonsense; and to confess it. is to acknowledge that He purposed to permit (not license) it, allow it, suffer it or to not hinder it. If we say God permitted it, suffered it, allowed it, did not hinder it, and then say He did not purpose what He did, then we say He does some things that He did not intend or purpose to do. When we say that we believe God saves sinners, we say we believe He purposed to save them.
When we say we believe that God “suffered all nations to walk in their own ways” (Acts xiv. 16), we say we believe God purposed to do so; or else we say God did something He did not purpose or intend to do. God once suffered or permitted things that grieved Him, and He is doing the same yet. “But with whom was He grieved forty years? Was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness ?”-Heb. iii. 17.
God did not purpose for the people to do, the things that grieved Him. If He did, then He was grieved over things that occurred just as He had fixed for them to occur. God purposed to suffer them to do things that grieved Him.
I do not think it would be right to say that God permits, suffers, allows, or does not hinder the salvation of sinners, for the reason that God purposed the salvation of sinners, and He could not hinder it without hindering His own work. If God eternally fixed all things, as some blindly and boldly say, then it is futile, and worse than folly for the people to spend their time and best energies in trying to have better times, either religiously, morally, socially or financially.
Paul and Barnabas said, while preaching to the Gentiles: “And as many as were ordained to eternal life, believed.”-Acts xiii. 4-8. The “many” that were ordained to eternal life were the elect of God among the Gentiles. “Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name,” xv. 14. The “many” among the Gentiles that were ordained to eternal life were a part of “all the Father giveth Me.” “As thou hast given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him.”-John xvii. 2. The “many” the Father gave the Son are saved by grace according to the purpose of God. “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.”-2 Tim. i. 9.
This text tells us that God saves and calls us. It also tells us how God saves and calls us as well as how He does not save and call us. We were not elected through our works or obedience (l. Peter i. 2); neither did God purpose to save us through our works, “but according to His own purpose and grace.”
Paul said: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose.”-Rom. viii. 28. God’s choice of His people was in Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph, i. 4)
His purpose to save us was also in Christ before the world began Eph. iii. ll). “For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first born among many brethren.” All God foreknew must be all He gave His Son, or chose in Him; and all “He did predestinate to be conformed to the image f His Son,” must likewise be all the Father gave to, or chose in His Son. God did not foreknow more or less than He gave to His Son as His people or portion. “For the Lord’s portion is His people.”-Deut. xxxii. 9. The Lord will not call more than He foreknew; neither will He call less. “Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified.”
Just as sure as God purposed to call someone, just that sure will He call that one. “I have purposed it, I will also do it.”-Isa. xlvi. 11. God predestinated that His portion, or all He gave, or chose in His Son should, in regeneration, be adopted into His spiritual family. “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will.”Eph. i. 5. The “us” He predestinated to the adoption of sons, are all He gave His Son. All He foreknew, all He chose in Christ. The elect of God will all obtain an inheritance in Christ in the new birth. “In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who worketh all things after His own will,: Eph. 1.11.
So far as I know, the above is what our people have believed from the days of our Saviour till now as a body. I am sure should some one come to our people denying the above principles that he would be rejected. The above being Bible doctrine, we, as a people, must believe and preach it in order to be in line with the New Testament Churches.
I shall now proceed to prove that the above doctrine was the belief of the Baptists, whose history I have given in the previous pages. If I succeed in doing this, then I shall prove that the Primitive Baptists are in line with the Bible on election and predestination. However, before I do this, I will say that the Primitive Baptists and the Missionary Baptists were once together, and as we are now two separate and distinct people, it might be well enough to say: “For it matters not which party is in the majority, when a separation, it is always true that the party which departs from the faith has fallen away.” —Church Succession, pg. 160. We will let the Baptists say what they believed before the general division of l832 on the doctrine of election. predestination and the atonement, and then let the reader decide as to who have departed from the faith of the Baptists, as well as who is the fallen away party.
Mr. Mosheim, in speaking of the Baptists of 860, said they believed “that God did not desire or will the salvation of all mankind, but of the elect only, and that Christ did not suffer death for the whole human race, but for those persons only whom God has predestinated to eternal salvation.'”-Vol. l, pg. 227. 1 have before me the history of all religions by S. M. Smucker. On pages 40, 41, he says: “The doctrinal system of this denomination of Baptists is Calvinistic and orthodox. They believe in the eternal decrees of God, in reference to the salvation of the elect, and hold that such as have been predestinated to be saved from the foundation of the world shall be saved and no others.” In speaking of our people in the thirteenth century, Mr. Smith, in his history of the Christian Church; said on page 297: “They asserted that all who had been and shall be saved, have been elected of God before the foundation of the world; and that whosoever upholds free will, absolutely denies predestination, and the grace of God. By an upholder of free will, they undoubtedly meant one who maintains that there are resources in the nature of man sufficient to enable him to live to God as he ought, without any need of the renewal of his nature by divine grace.”
I have before me a copy of the history of the Waldenses, by Peyran. On page 462 he said: “That this Church consists in the union of believers, who, chosen of God before the foundation of the world, and called with an holy calling, are united to follow the Word of God, and cherish a salutary religious fear; namely, such as is productive of holiness and a reformation of manners.” “We believe that there is one holy Church comprising the whole assembly of the elect and faithful, who have existed from the beginning of the world, and shall be to the end thereof.”—Orchard, Vol. 1, pg. 288.
The above is the fourth article of a confession of faith published in 1554. I have before me a copy of the Confession of Faith put forth by seven Baptist Churches in London about 1643:
“Art. 3. God hath decreed in Himself, before the world was, concerning all things, whether necessary, accidental or voluntary, with all the circumstances of them, to work, dispose and bring about all things according to the counsel of His own will, to His glory (yet without being the author of sin, or having fellowship with any therein), in which appears His wisdom in disposing all things, unchangeableness, power and faithfulness in accomplishing His decree; and God hath, before the foundation of the world, foreordained some men to eternal life, through Jesus Christ, to the praise and glory of His grace; leaving the rest in their sin, to their just condemnation, to the praise of His justice.”
“Art. 6. All the elect, being loved of God with an everlasting love, are redeemed, quickened and saved, not by themselves, nor their own works, lest any man should boast, but only and wholly by God, of His free grace and mercy, through Jesus Christ, who is made unto us by God, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption, and all in all, that he that rejoiceth might rejoice through the Lord.”
Art. 21 says: “Jesus Christ, by His death, did purchase salvation for the elect that God gave unto Him; these only have interest in Him, for whom He makes intercession to His Father in their behalf, and to them alone doth God by His Spirit apply this redemption; as also the free gift of eternal life is given to them, and none else.”
The doctrine contained in the above quotations was believed and preached by the Baptists prior to the introduction of the Fuller system. The seven churches that drew up the above articles of faith were called Anabaptists. See Neal’s History of The Puritans, Vol. 2, pg. 475.
In 1689 the ministers and messengers of upward of one hundred Baptist Churches of England and Wales met, denying Arminianism, and drew up a confession of faith which has stood unquestioned as an expression of what our people believe on the points mentioned; which “confession we own as containing the doctrine of our faith and practice, and do desire that the members of our churches respectively furnish themselves therewith.”
I will now quote a few articles of the above Confession of Faith: “God hath decreed in Himself from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His will, freely and unchangeably, all things whatsoever come, to pass; yet so, as thereby is God neither the author of sin, nor hath fellowship with any therein, nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established, in which appears His wisdom in disposing all things and faithfulness in accomplishing His decree.”
“By the decree of God for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated or foreordained to eternal life, through Jesus Christ to the praise of His glorious grace; others being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation to the praise of His glorious justice.”
“These angels and men thus predestinated and foreordained are particularly and unchangeably designed, and their number so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished.”
“Those of mankind who are predestinated to life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of His mere free grace and love, without any other thing in the creature as a condition or cause moving Him thereunto.”
“As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so He hath, by the eternal and most free purpose of His will, foreordained all the means thereunto, wherefore they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by His Spirit working in due season, are justified, adopted, sanctified and kept by His power through faith unto salvation; neither are any others redeemed by Christ, or effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified and saved, but the elect only.”
If the Missionary Baptists do not believe the doctrine contained in the above quotations, then they are not the original Baptists, for the above is what the Baptists believed, preached and published before the division between us in 1832.
The first Baptists that came to the United States emigrated from England and Wales. They did not come here seeking to save lost souls, but to find a place where they might have a respite from persecution. Dr. John Clark, who came to the United States from London, organized the first Baptist Church in the United States, which occurred in March, 1638.
I will now quote from Mr. Backus, Vol. 1, pg. 206, to prove that the first Baptist Church planted on United States soil believed the same doctrine that was believed and preached by our people in England and Wales:
“The decree of God is that whereby God hath from eternity set down with Himself whatsoever shall come to pass in time. All things with their causes, effects, circumstances and manner of being, are decreed by God (Acts ii. 23). Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God (Acts iv. 28). This decree is most wise (Rom. xi. 33); most just (Rom. ix. 13, 14); eternal (Eph. i. 4, 5); necessary (Ps. xxxiii. 2) ; unchangeable (Heb. vi. 17); most free (Rom. ix. 13); and the cause of all good (Jas. i. 17); but not of any sin (1 John i. 5). The special decree of God concerning angels and men is called predestination (Rom. viii. 30). Of the former, viz., `angels,’ little is spoken in the Holy Scriptures; of the latter, more is revealed, not unprofitable to be known. It may be defined, `the wise, free, just, eternal and unchangeable sentence or decree of God,’ determining to create and govern man for His special glory, viz., the praise of His glorious mercy and justice. `Election’ is the decree of God, of His free love, grace and mercy, choosing some men to faith, holiness and, eternal life, for the praise of His glorious mercy. The cause which moved the Lord to elect those who are chosen, was none other but His mere good will and pleasure. The end is the manifestation of the riches of His mercy. The sending of Christ, faith, holiness and eternal life, are the effects of His love, by which He manifesteth the infinite riches of His grace. In the same order, God doth execute this decree in time. He did decree it in His eternal counsel.”
The above is a part of what Dr. John Clark said he believed. The first church organized in the United States was organized by Dr. John Clark, in March, 1638, at Newport, Rhode Island. Here is what Mr. Backus, Vol. 2, pg. 28, said it believed:
“The first church at. Newport had now about fifty members; the first in Swanzey, two hundred, and their sister church in Boston, eighty. These held to particular election.” The church, in Boston was organized March 28, 1665, with ten members. See history of “First Church in. Boston,” by N. E. Wood, pg. 56. This church was, at the time of its constitution, in line with the New England Particular Baptists, which the following will prove:
“The Church of Christ at Boston, in New England, of the faith
and order of the gospel, baptizing visible believers upon the profession of, their faith, and believing the principles of a particular election of a certain number, who shall continue in the perseverance in grace, unto the several Churches of Christ that are in the same faith and order of the gospel, in London, do heartily desire your increase and growth in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus, and in all the graces of His Holy Spirit:’—Backus, Vol. 1, pg. 489.
CHAPTER 19
Mr. Backus, in speaking of what the first Baptist Churches believed in the United States, said, “In particular, they believe:
“1st. That God set Adam as the public head of all mankind; so that when he revolted from heaven, and seized upon the earth as his own, all the human race fell in him, and all bear his earthly image, until they are born again.
“2nd. That in infinite mercy the eternal Father gave a certain number of the children of men to His beloved Son before the world was to redeem and save, and that He, by His obedience and sufferings, has procured eternal redemption for them.
“3rd. That by the influence of the Holy Spirit, these persons individually, as they come into existence, are effectually called in time, and savingly renewed in the spirit of their minds.
“4th. That their justification before God is wholly by the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ received by faith.”-Vol. 2, pg. 232.
I have before me a copy of the minutes of the Philadelphia Baptist Association from 1707 to 1807. The Baptists who at first belonged to this association emigrated to the United States from England and Wales and came directly from the Baptists, whose history you read in the first part of this book.
On page 150 we have this statement: “That God, the supreme, who is self-existent, and every way an independent sovereign, the Creator of all things, hath an absolute right to dispose of all His creatures, and before His works of old, to appoint and determine all things to a certain end. This article of our belief, both scripture and reason, do jointly and sufficiently confirm. The rule of His fore-appointment of what shall come to pass in time, is the wise counsel of His most holy will and pleasure. In accomplishing His purpose, no violence is offered to the will of the creature, good or bad, nor the use of means taken away; neither is God, in any wise, the author of sin, though He decreed to permit it. When all the human race, by the sin of the first man, were involved in guilt, and fallen under condemnation, and all become the children of wrath, it would manifestly be doing them no injustice if they were, every individual, left in that state and eternally punished for their sins. This would have been their proper desert, their just reward; but God, out of His mere free grace and love, without any moving cause in the parties chosen, hath predestinated some unto life, through a Mediator (without any wrong done to others), together with all the means subservient to this end, viz., their redemption by the blood of Christ, and renovation by the Spirit of holiness, to the praise of His glorious grace; the others left to act in sin to their final destruction, to the glory of divine justice.”
On pages 177 and 178 we read: “From the whole, then, we see that there was a counsel held in eternity, even from everlasting, respecting the recovery of man; that the Triune God did then contrive, find out, adjust and settle, speaking after the manner of men, the whole plan and scheme of that great and glorious work, who should be saved, by what means, and after what manner; that the Son of God, the Second Person in the Trinity, should be a Mediator, should undertake for His chosen ones as their surety, and should assume human nature, that He might make satisfaction to divine justice in their behalf; that all the gifts and graces necessary for the purpose should be treasured in Him. * * * Thus, dear brethren, we have briefly laid before you the plan of our redemption, as concerted in eternity and brought into effect in time. You see the glorious covenant of grace, which was well ordered in all things, and sure. You see the Son of God appointed to the mediatorial work, and all grace treasured up in Him for that purpose; you see Him undertake, go through with it, and the Spirit cooperate to accomplish the wholly; you see the dispensations of grace to man are free, absolute and unconditional; the gifts of God dispensed in a testamentary way, free and firm. Nothing of works, but all of grace. Nothing of the will of man, but all of the will of God; that we might all, and at all times, cry, `grace, grace,’ and whosoever glorieth, might glory in the Lord.”
The doctrine in this long quotation is in perfect harmony with the Holy Scriptures, and exactly what the Primitive Baptists believed then, as well as what they now believe. Yes, this was the doctrine of Jesus and the apostles and the martyred thousands of our people, who chose death rather than deny the Lord who loved them and gave Himself for them. This is the doctrine of the Primitive Baptists of our day, and will be their theme till Jesus comes again.
The Ketockton Association was organized August 19, 1766, with four churches which formerly belonged to the Philadelphia Association. I have before me Elder W. Fristoe’s history of the Ketockton Association, from which I wish to quote a part of the articles of faith upon which the churches first, then the association was constituted:
“Art. 5. That in eternity, God, out of His own good pleasure, chose a certain number of Adam’s progeny to eternal life; and that He did not leave the accomplishment of His decrees to accident or chance, but decreed all the means to bring about the event; therefore, they are chosen to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Their calling was decreed in the purpose of election. It is said, when called, that they are called according to His purpose and grace given in Christ Jesus before the world began, and all in order to manifest the glory of His grace. “Art. 6. That the covenant of redemption was between the Father and the Son, that the elect were given by the Father to the Son to be by Him redeemed, and finally saved; and that the Son, as Head and Representative of His people, engaged to perform everything necessary or requisite to carry their complete salvation into effect. It is called in scripture `a well-ordered covenant in all things and sure.’
“Art. 7. That in the fullness of time, the Son of God was manifested by taking human nature into union with His divine person, in which capacity He wrought out a righteousness for the justification of His people; yielding a perfect and spotless obedience to all the requisitions, of the divine law, and submitted Himself to a shameful and ignominious death on the cross, as an atonement for their sins, and reconciliation of their souls to God.
“Art. 8. That those who are redeemed by Christ are, in due time, called to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus, embracing Him as the only way to God, and Saviour of poor sinners. This effectual calling is accomplished by the agency of the Holy Ghost operating in a free, irresistible and unfrustratable manner.”
The Kehukee Association was organized about 1765. See page 36, of Burkett’s History :
“Art. 3. We believe that God, before the foundation of the world, for a purpose of His own glory, did elect a certain number of men and angels to eternal life; and that this election is particular, eternal and unconditional on the creature’s part.
“Art. 9. We believe in like manner, that God’s elect shall not only be called and justified, but that they shall be converted, born and changed by the effectual working of God’s Holy Spirit.”-ppg. 51-53.
I have before me the history of the Mississippi Baptists by B. Griffin. The first Baptist Church that was constituted in Mississippi was Salem Church, on Cole’s Creek, in Jefferson County, in 1795. The first association was the Mississippi Association, and was organized with Bethel Church in Wilkinson County, September, 1807. Here is what they believed
“Art. 4. We believe in the everlasting love of God to His people; in the eternal, unconditional election of a definite number of the human family to grace and glory.
“Art. 6. We believe all those who were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world, are in time effectually called, regenerated, converted and sanctified, and are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.
“Art. 7. We believe there is one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who, by the satisfaction which He made to law and justice, in becoming an offering for sin, hath by His most precious blood redeemed the elect from under the curse of the law, that they might be holy and without blame before Him in love.”-ppg. 77, 78.
“It will be necessary here to take some notice of Dr. James Mullin, a Baptist preacher, who moved into the territory about 1797. The doctor contended and preached for the general atonement system, which was so contrary to Regular Baptist doctrine and the articles of faith, on which the Baptist churches in the territory; had been constituted, that he was unable to obtain membership.”-pg. 74.
I have before me the history of the Georgia Association which was the first body of the kind in Georgia, and is thought to have been organized in 1784. Their articles of faith tell the story as to what kind of Baptists they were when first organized as churches and as an association :
“Art. 4. We believe in the everlasting love of God to His people, and the eternal election of a definite number of the human race to grace and glory; and that there was a covenant of grace, or redemption, made between the Father and the Son before the world began, in which their salvation is secure, and that they in particular are redeemed.”
On page 56, we read: “The Georgia Association was thus, in the year 1815, resolved into a missionary society.” At the time this “resolve” occurred, they were just what Primitive Baptists are today.
I have before me a copy of John Taylor’s history of the Kentucky Baptists. On page 137 we find this statement:
“Art. 4. That according to God’s foreknowledge, previous to time He did predestinate His people; and being chosen in Christ before the world began, He died as our second Adam, the Lord from heaven, assumed human nature, yet without sin, and by His obedience, in His incarnation, making an atoning sacrifice for sin, brought in an everlasting righteousness for the rebellious; and when said blessed merit is imputed, or applied to them through faith in His blood, they are thereby justified before God, and being effectually called by His grace and Holy Spirit, shall finally persevere therein to happiness and eternal glory.”
Mr. H. C. Vedder, in his history of the Baptists of the middle states, in speaking of the objection of some to come forward to be prayed for that they might be born again, says on page 152: “The objection to it really rested an a theological ground. The Old School, extreme Calvinists, were not willing to allow that the human will had any self-determining power. In their belief, conversion followed regeneration, a mysterious process wrought immediately by the Holy Spirit on the hearts of the elect.”
I have before me a book containing the history of the life and belief of John Kershaw, of England. On pages 34, 35 we have this language: “The elect are God’s people, whom He hath loved, chosen in Christ from before the foundation of the world, and ordained them unto eternal life and salvation through Christ; and He has done this according to His good will and sovereign pleasure, as He has said to Moses: `I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and compassion on whom I will have compassion.” So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.’ Thus you see, it is those whom He has loved and chosen and ordained to eternal life that will be saved, and none else; and as Paul says in Rom. xi. 7: `But the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded.’ ”
From a copy of Benedict’s Fifty Years Among the Baptists, which I have before me, I find the following on page 135:
“Forty years ago large bodies of our people were in a state of ferment and agitation, in consequence of some modification of their old Calvinistic creed, as displayed in the writings of the late Andrew Fuller, of Kettering, England. This famous man maintained that the atonement of Christ was general in its nature, but particular in its application, in opposition to our old divines, who held that Christ died for the elect only.”
On page 138 Mr. Benedict says: “In my early day the Associated Baptists were all professedly Calvinistic in their doctrinal sentiments.”
On page 140 he says: “On the introduction of the Fuller system, a very important change followed on the part of many of our ministers in their mode of addressing their unconverted hearers on the subject of repentance and believing the gospel.”
On page 141 we find this statement: “The Fuller system, which makes it consistent for all the heralds of the gospel to call upon men everywhere to repent, was well received by one class of our ministers, but not by the staunch defenders of the old theory of a limited atonement. According to their views, all for whom Christ suffered and died would certainly be effectually called and saved.”
I have before me the articles of faith of the Strict Baptist Churches of England, a few of which I will copy:
“Art. 3. We believe in the everlasting and unchangeable love of God, and that before the foundation of the world, the Father did elect a certain number of the human race unto everlasting salvation, whom He did predestinate unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will; and we believe that in fulfilling this gracious design, He did make a covenant of grace and peace with the Son and with the Holy Ghost on behalf of those persons thus chosen; and that in this covenant, the Son was appointed a Saviour, and all spiritual blessings provided for the elect, and also that their persons, with all the grace and glory designed for them, were put into the hands of the Son as their Covenant Head and made His care and charge. And we believe that, by the fall, all men were rendered both unable and unwilling spiritually to believe in, seek after, or love God until called– and regenerated by the Holy Ghost. We * * * believe that this human nature (of Christ) was not sinful, peccable or mortal, though capable of death by a voluntary act, but essentially and intrinsically pure and holy, and that in it He really suffered, bled and died, as the substitute and surety of His Church and people, in their room and stead, and for no others. We believe that the eternal redemption which Christ has obtained by the shedding of His blood is special and particular; that is to say, that it was intentionally designed only for the elect of God, the sheep of Christ, who therefore alone share in the special and peculiar blessings thereof. We believe that the justification of God’s elect is only the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ imputed to them, without consideration of any works of righteousness, before or after calling, done by them, and that the full and free pardon of all their sins, past, present and to come, is only through the blood of Christ, according to the riches of His grace. We believe that the work of regeneration is not an act of man’s free will and natural power, but that it springs from the operation of the mighty efficacious and invincible grace of God.
“Art. 9. We believe that all who were chosen by the Father and redeemed by the Son, and no others, shall at the appointed time, certainly be convinced in their hearts of sin by the Spirit be brought in guilty before God, and made the recipients of eternal life, coming to Christ for salvation, and believing on Him as the Anointed of the Father, and the only Mediator between God and man; but that none can spiritually come to Christ unless drawn by the Father, and that all the elect shall be thus drawn to Christ, and shall finally persevere; so that not one of the elect shall perish, but all arrive safely in glory.”
I have before me a book written by Elder James Osburne in 1818, and published in 1819. On page 74 the writer said: “Thou (God) lovest me (Jesus) before the foundation of the world. If this be true, He loved the Church before the foundation of the world; and that she was chosen in the Son and loved by the Father from the same date is plain from what is written: `According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world.”‘
On page 119, in speaking of the work of the Spirit in regeneration, he said:
“For such is the natural depravity, and bias of the human heart, that they will not, nor cannot come to Jesus for salvation without the irresistible operations of the Holy Ghost.”
The above is what our people believed in 1818, as well as from the days of our Saviour to that date, and it’s what we believe in 1912. On page 149 we have this language:
“If Christ died for more than will be saved, God loved more than will be saved, and Christ intercedes for more than will be saved, for He died for no more than His Father loved, and He intercedes for no more than those for whom He died. The resurrection of Christ is another conclusive proof that all, everyone for whom He died; will be eternally saved.”
I have before me a copy of the history of the Mississippi Baptists, by Benjamin Griffin, and wish to quote a paragraph from the Union Association, which was organized in September, 1820, and was the second association constituted in the state. On page 155 we find the following:
“Secondly, we, now proceed to notice another heretical doctrine propagated by those who call themselves Baptists, viz : A general atonement, but especially applied (Fullerism, alias Missionism, alias New Schoolism), which is such a contradiction in itself that a hope in Christ may see its fallacy. The error in this place must be in the term general; for Christ saith, `All that the Father giveth me, shall come to me,’ from whence it follows that the receipts of the Saviour will be equivalent to His purchase. And if the atonement be general, why did Christ refuse to pray for the world? Why did He say to the Jews, ‘Ye are not of my sheep, my sheep hear my voice?’ ”
I will quote next from the Yazoo Baptist Association, which was organized November 2, 1,832, with churches out of the Union Assaciation :
“Art: 4. We believe in the everlasting love of God to His people; in the eternal, unconditional election of a definite number of the human family to grace and glory.
“Art. 5. We believe that sinners are justified in the sight of God only by the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is unto all and upon all them that believe.
“Art. 6. We believe that all those who were chosen in Christ, before the foundation of the world, are in time effectually called, regenerated, converted and sanctified; and are kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation.”-pg. 160.
The Primitive Baptist Association of Mississippi was organized on Friday before the fourth Sunday in April, 1837, and on page 176 the association said :
“We object to the doctrine of general atonement; and that, too, for no other reason than because it is contrary to the Word of God. A general atonement would be a general forgiveness; and all who will search the scriptures, except those who are wilfully ignorant, must see the fallacy of such an idea. And notwithstanding you may nurse it in your bosoms, we boldly affirm that it will die on your lips, together with all your [the historian has reference to the Missionary Baptists.-J. S. N.] unscriptural doctrines and practice.”
I will now add a few quotations from the Missionary Baptists to show that they are not in line with the ancient Baptists, whose history I have chronicled in the previous pages:
“The extent of the atonement has been, and still is, a matter of honest but not unkind difference. Within the last fifty years a change has gradually taken place in the views of a large portion of our brethren. At the commencement of that period, Gill’s Divinity was a sort of standard, and Baptists imbibing his opinions, were what may be called almost Hyper-Calvinistic. A change commenced upon the publication of the writings of Andrew Fuller, especially his `Gospel Worthy of all Acceptation,’ which, in the northern and eastern states, has become almost universal. The old view still prevails, if I mistake not, in our southern and western states.”-Wayland, pg. 18.
Dr. Alvah Hovey, who was then president of Newton Theological Seminary, said, “For it is plain that God purposed from the first to save certain persons of our race; that these persons were given to Christ, in a special sense, to be His flock, and that He had particularly in view their actual salvation when He laid down His life. Thus far, at least, it would seem as if there could be no question as to the sense of the scripture. But this is not all. We are taught by the Word of God to say, in the second place, that the atonement was meant by its Author to be a provision for the salvation of every man who would repent. In other words, it put out of the way every obstacle to universal pardon, except that of unbelief. And in this sense, Christ died for all; not only was His expiatory sufferings a sufficient reason for the pardon of all mankind, in case of repentance, but it was meant to be this.”-Seven Dispensations, by J. R. Graves, pg. 105.
On page 106 we find this language: “We come back, then, to the obvious meaning of the apostles’ testimony, and conclude that some for whom Christ shed His blood upon the cross will perish at last. And if He died for some who will perish, it may safely he inferred that He died for all. Nor can it be said that His intention was in part defeated, for His atoning death was not, strictly speaking, meant to effect the salvation of all, but to remove any obstacle existing outside of their own hearts to their salvation; and this was fully accomplished.”
The Missionary Baptists, in the first place, teach in the above extracts that the atonement was made to “save certain persons of our race;” and in the second place, they teach “that the atonement was meant by its Author to be a provision f or the salvation of every man who would repent.”
W. M. Barker, editor of The Flag at the time, said: “The Hardshells endorse the London Confession, just like Campbellites endorse the Bible, and one has adhered as closely to his creed as the other.” Again the writer said: “If Christ died for only a part of the race, and all He died for will be saved, whether they hear the gospel or not, why preach the gospel? * * * The Hardshell brethren and a little company of the kind among us, will have to abandon, either special atonement, or the general judgment. They must also either abandon unconditional salvation, or the efficacy of the gospel in the salvation of sinners.”
Ben Bogard, D.D., editor of Arkansas Baptist and debater, said: “The doctrine of unconditional salvation is a Hardshell doctrine. Before refuting this paralyzing doctrine from the pit (hell), we will say that all Missionary Baptists are supposed to believe in the doctrine of election and predestination and foreordination. ” * * Of course, God foreknew all things; and one of the things He foreknew was that man should be free to accept or reject salvation. Men are free to accept or reject salvation because God decreed that they should be. We base man’s freedom on God’s decree. God foreordained, decreed, foreknew, predestinated that men should exercise a free will in the matter of accepting or rejecting salvation. Nobody ever thought of any other construction of these doctrines among Baptists until Daniel Parker began to preach unconditional salvation about one hundred years ago.”
For a refutation of the statement made in this last quotation, that Daniel Parker originated the doctrine of unconditional salvation and unconditional election, the reader is asked to reread this chapter. H. D. Duggan, of Iola, Kansas, said in the Flag of December 10, 1910: “We frankly admit that the Bible speaks at large concerning the elect, and we know, therefore, that the elect exist, and we know that such could not be the case until an election was held; and we know that such an election could not be held without voters; and we know from the Word of God that there are but two voters, and man is one of these, and God is the other. How do you like that? Hardshells all deny this, but all sound Baptists know that it is very true. The Bible teaches that man must first cast his vote, and then God votes just as the man voted. If I vote–to accept Christ as my Saviour, and believe in His name, God will vote in the same way, and I will he elected to eternal life by faith in Jesus. Upon the other hand, if I vote to reject Christ, and will not receive Him, then God will vote the same way, and I must then die for the sins I have committed, for the only reason that I was not elected to eternal life. If you will pry open the lid of your thinking box, and drop this one idea into it, you will then say: `Farewell forever to the doctrines of Hardshells.’ * * * It is just as easy to overthrow the Calvinistic system of grace as it is any other doctrine taught by the devil.”
According to Missionary Baptist doctrine, when the sinner votes for God, then God votes for him, and the sinner is then elected. Before the sinner voted, he was neither an elect or non-elect, for he is not rejected until he votes against God. If the sinner should die before he votes for God, I don’t think he would go to heaven, for all who go there were elected. I hardly think he would go to hell, for none go there except the condemned, and they are not condemned till they reject Christ. This is Missionary Baptist doctrine.
CHAPTER 19
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”-Genesis
i. 1.
The above are the first words found in God’s holy Book, and in them we have a very important fact stated concerning the creation of the heaven and the earth. The existence of “the heaven and the earth” incontestably proves the existence of the Creator to be prior to the thing or things created. The being, or existence of God, is the sublimest of all mysteries. His being is absolutely beyond the ken and conception of men or angels.
The existence of God has frequently been referred to as the profoundest of all mysteries, yet it furnishes a key to unlock a thousand other mysteries that would have been enveloped in the “unknowable.” A knowledge of the being, or existence of God, furnishes us a clue to account for the existence of other things. There is nothing that can be accurately accounted for only on the hypothesis that there is a God. If there is no God, the fool is right, and nothing can be truthfully or satisfactorily known; and all things, whether they exist by fate or chance, are in hopeless confusion and darkness.
Speculative theologians may, by searching, attempt to find out God; but to the humble, consistent children of God, such a procedure is only an effort to be wise above what is written.
“Behold, God is great, and we know Him not, neither can the number of His years be searched out.”-Job xxxvi. 26.
“Touching the Almighty, we cannot find Him out: He is excellent in power, and judgment, and in plenty of justice. He will not afflict.”Job xxxvii. 23. There are heights and depths in the infinite Being that we cannot ascend to, neither can we descend to them; for we can now only see and know in part. “Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth and broader, than the sea.”-Job xi. 7, 9.
If we could ascend into heaven we could not find out the being, or perfection of God; or, if we could descend into hell, we could not find Him out, for He is “deeper than hell;” or, could we explore the earth and all deep places, His being is longer than the earth and broader than the sea. God is such a being that “hell is naked before Him, and destruction hath no covering. He hath compassed the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an end. He divideth the sea with His power, and by His understanding He smiteth through the proud. Lo, these are parts of His ways: but how little a portion is heard of Him? but the thunder of His power who can understand?” -Job xxvi. 6, 10, 12, 14.
There is nothing out of the sight of the Lord Almighty. All things, good or bad, are naked before Him; they are all committed in His presence. He knows every act, thought, or word we have ever had or spoken, or ever will have or speak. While it is true that we cannot find out the being of God, it is also true that we need not try to tell God what is in man, for He knoweth man.
“0 Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thoughts afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, 0 Lord, thou knowest it altogether.”-Psalms cxxxix. 14.
Let us all confess as David did, that “such knowledge is too wonderful for me: it is high, I cannot attain unto it.”-Psalms cxxxix. 6. While we are frequently lost in wonder and amazement while meditating and contemplating the existence of God, who has an eternal existence, the causes of whose existence are exclusively in Himself, we should welcome with all the earnestness and seriousness of our hearts the sublime and eternal truth that there is just such a Being, and say as did Paul, “For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen.”-Rom. xi. 36.
When we ascend to the being of God, we can go no farther, for He is the ne plus ultra of all our inquiries, or the great First Cause of all things. With this most precious truth in our minds and hearts we can know something about the world, and whence it came, and also about the universe, and why it exists. Without this most blessed truth all is vain, wild, and a conglomeration of confusion and uncertainty. God is infinite in wisdom; justice and mercy are the habitation of His throne.
There is nothing for God to learn. He does not know things successively, or as they occur. All that God knows now, He always knew; all that He sees now, He always saw; and all He hears now, He always heard. The Christian’s God does not change. “But Thou art the same, and Thy years shall not fail.”-Heb. i. 12. God is no older now than when He made the world; neither is He wiser, for He is the same. The enemies of God, and Christianity, have persistently attempted to set aside a belief in the existence of God. Criticism has, with a death-like tenacity, assailed His existence, and science and philosophy have also been invoked to discredit His being. Astronomy, in its various disclosures, has been consulted for some fact to disprove, and disparage His being. Geology, in its deep researches in the earth, has been importuned and asked for something that suspicion might be cast upon the being of God.
The God of the Bible is transcendently great. He is everywhere. The fact that we are in the presence of God should be an incentive restraining us from sin.
Oh, may these thoughts possess my breast
Where’er I rove, where’er I rest;
Nor let my weaker passions dare
Consent to sin, for God is there.
CHAPTER 21
Did I not know that a great contrariety of opinions existed at the present time among the Primitive Baptists of the United States relative to the extent of predestination, I would not thus address you. It is not my intention to discuss men, or widen the breach that has been made by extreme positions occupied by “men of our own selves” producing distressing, alienating and divorcing results.
I shall attempt to write in love and not anger, hoping that God will give repentance to those who have erred from the truth and thereby pierced themselves with many sorrows.
It is observable that the expression, “absolute predestination of all things,” is not found in the Bible. The use the above sentence has been put to, and the claim that it contained the doctrine of the Bible on the point mentioned, has been a painful source of controversy and division of our people.
If we had followed the expressions of Inspiration on the subject of “predestination,” not a wave of trouble would have entered the family of the saints of God on that subject. But, alas, men have arisen who love the expressions of men more than the fellowship of the saints; and by contending that God has decreed all things to come to pass as they have, do, or may, have sowed the seeds of discord in our hither-to peaceful Zion.
If this should be denied by anyone, I wish to call your attention to the fact that those called “limited predestinarians” believe sincerely that God has purposed all His works, and that He will consummate His works minutely, accurately and harmoniously. This idea of the predestination of God is also truthfully believed by the “unlimited predestinarians;” but they further believe that God has just as minutely, accurately and definitely purposed all the wicked acts of men and devils; but at the same time they claim that God does not do, or cause to be done, any of the wicked acts of men or devils. Still they believe that every wicked act, thought or impulse of the wicked hearts of men were embraced in the eternal purpose of God, and could not have been otherwise than they have been, or may be.
The origin and refutation of the doctrine embraced in the trite saying, “absolute predestination of all things, good and evil,” is aimed at in these pages. The purposes of God are eternal; they are fraught with wisdom; they are free; they are unchangeable, and in God’s purposes, “violence is not offered to the will of the creature,” as our English brethren taught.
When the purposes of God are so presented as to reduce man to a mere machine and to exclude the will of the creature altogether, then “violence is offered to the will of the creature.” We have the creature beautifully referred to in the expression, “And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”-Rev. xxii. 17. Just as well say that the “whosoever” of the text does not refer to man, as to say that the “will” does not refer to man’s will. If the will of the text is God’s will, and God’s will is a part of His being, then the “whosoever” of the text does not “take of the water of life freely.”
The eternal purpose, of predestination of God, extends to all of God’s works in natural and spiritual creation, causatively, efficiently and effectually, and to sin and wickedness permissively. Not that God purposed sin and wickedness, but that He purposed to allow or suffer man to sin. There are some things that God does not suffer. “He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.”-Psalms lv. 22.
David would have us to know, though we forsake His law and walk not in His judgments, “Nevertheless my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail.”-Psalms lxxxix. 30-33. The above scriptures evidently belong to God’s immutable and efficient purposes. There are things, however, that God suffers. The devils that entered into the Gadarene asked to be permitted, or allowed, to enter a herd of swine. “And there was there an herd of many swine feeding on the mountain; and they besought Him that He would suffer them to enter into them. And He suffered them.”-Luke viii. 32. In speaking of the Lord’s national people, Luke said: “And about the time of forty years suffered He their manners in the wilderness.”-Acts xiii. 18. And concerning the same people, the same writer says again, “Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways.”-Acts xiv. 16.
The last texts as I understand belong to God’s permissive decrees; and if this distinction had been observed by all who have preached or written on the subject, my opinion is all would have been peace, so far as the controversy on predestination is concerned. The works of God in the creation of the world in six days, and in the salvation of sinners, was and is so systematically arranged that we are forced to the belief that God works according to a systematic, accurate, and, therefore, a predetermined plan. The works of God are the absolute, unavoidable and undeniable results of His predestination. He works all things according to a fixed and immutable determination of His own unchanging and unfrustratable will. God’s works and commandments are in perfect harmony with His purpose. The purposes of God are wise and good and, therefore, cannot produce opposite kinds of works. Nothing can occur in conjunction with the eternal good purpose of God that is not profitable to man, or to God’s glory.
God purposed to create the “heaven and earth.” The creation of the heaven and earth were among the things embraced in the eternal purpose of God. God purposed to make the heaven, the earth, the day, the night, the sun, the moon, the stars, the living creatures in the waters, or that fly in the open firmament; the whales, and every living creature that moves or lives in the water. God told them to be fruitful and to multiply and to fill the waters and the seas. He also commanded the earth to bring forth the living creatures after his kind, the cattle and every creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind, and it was so. (Gen, i. 22, 23.)
God decreed to create the heaven and the earth before He did the man. The proof of this is He made the heaven and earth before He did the man. The earth was made to be inhabited by man, and was therefore first in the order of God’s creation. After God had created the earth, it was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. “The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”-Gen. i. 2. God divided the light from the darkness and He called the light day, and the darkness He called night. God also made the firmament and said, “Let it divide the waters from the waters.” The waters were gathered unto one place and God called the gathering together of the waters seas, and the dry land He called earth. And He decreed for the earth to bring forth grass, and it was so.
Thus far we plainly see that all that God created or made was good; and not only so, but we see the Almighty fiat, or decree of God, displayed in all that He had made or created. God is an Almighty Sovereign, and in the incipiency of time He only had to speak and it was done; and to command, and it stood fast. At His word, the heaven and earth were instantaneously created. The day, the night, and all created things exist according to His firm decree. “I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.”-Isa. xlvi. 11. God tells us of some things that never came into His mind. Mind means: “Intention; purpose; design.”-Webster. “But He is in one mind, and who can turn Him? and what His soul desireth, even that He doeth. For He performeth the thing that is appointed for me; and many such things are with Him.”-Job xxiii. 13, 14.
God’s desire is expressed in His purpose. If otherwise, then there is something in God’s purpose that He did not desire. All He purposeth, He doeth; what His soul desireth, even that He doeth. In speaking of the awful sins committed by which Jerusalem was estranged by burning incense in it unto strange gods, “whom neither they nor their fathers have known, nor the kings of Judah, and have filled this place with the blood of innocents; They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind.” -Jer. xix. 4, 5.
It will be observed that “unlimited predestinarians” claim that God’s eternal mind, or purpose, embraces all the wicked acts of men or devils, and not His revealed or written will. The above wicked acts of men in polluting the city of Jerusalem and burning their sons by fire, were not commanded by the Lord, neither came it into His mind. How the wickedness mentioned above could be a part of the eternal purpose of. God, and yet never be commanded by the Lord, nor come into His mind, is strange indeed; and “Whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle.”-Jer, xix. 3. Whatever God has spoken, He will bring it to pass; and whatever He has purposed, He will also do it. “God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent; hath He said, and shall He not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?”-Num. xxiii. 19.
Has God said anywhere in His Word that the wicked acts of men and devils are embraced in His eternal purpose? If so, “I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.” It is plainly taught in the scriptures that whatever God purposeth that He doeth. The manner or way God consummates His decree may not be understood by His people. Job said: “I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause: which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvelous things without number.”-Job v. 8, 9.
Solomon, though a wise man, did not understand the works of God. He said, “Then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun, because though a man labour to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea farther; though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it.”-Eccl. viii. 17.
We should be satisfied to deal with the plainly revealed truths of the Bible, as it is just such truths that belong to us and our children. The truths thus revealed to us in the Bible do not confuse and bewilder the dear children of God. In the language of Isaiah, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord.” This exhortation of Isaiah, however, would be futile if the Lord has fixed all things by His firm decree. No reasoning could unfix what God has fixed. If any difference existed between the children of God in Isaiah’s day, and the eternal fixedness of all things is true, reason, nor any amount of it, could not unfix the disturbance that may have existed at that time.
In Genesis i. 26 we have this language: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” This is one of the things God said. Did He not bring it to pass? This is also one of the things God had purposed, and did He not do it? Verse twenty-seven reads thus: “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him, male and female created He them.” The creation of Adam and Eve in the image of God was according to the purpose of God. When He thus created Adam and Eve, He had just the kind of man and woman He wanted. If He did not have the kind of man and woman He wanted, then the Lord made the kind of man He did not want. I am confident that Adam and Eve, as they came from the plastic hands of their Creator, were beautiful, for they were created in the image of God. Solomon said: “He hath made everything beautiful in his time:’-Eccl. iii. 11.
When we say that God decreed to create Adam and Eve in His image, and at the same time say that God purposed that Adam and Eve should not retain that image, then we say that according to the same eternal purpose of God by which Adam and Eve were created also was embraced, the decree of God, when consummated, destroyed what had been created by the same decree. If such is true, then God purposed to destroy what He purposed to create and did create. If the sin of Adam was one of the things God purposed, “I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.”-Isa. xlvi. 11.
To me it is plainly taught in the Bible that whatever God predestinated would not have come to pass, but for His predestination. Then if the Lord purposed the sin of Adam and of all his descendants, Adam and his descendants would not have sinned, if it had not been for the predestination of God.
If the thing purposed would have come to pass without the purpose of God, then the decree of God respecting that event, or thing, would have been superfluous, seeing that that very thing would have come to pass without the predestination of God.
If the thing, or things, predestinated would not have come to pass but for the predestination of God, then the purpose of God caused the thing, or things, to come to pass, as they would not have come to pass, if they had not been embraced in the decree of God.
If God purposed for Adam to sin, He certainly wanted Adam To me it is plainly taught in the Bible that whatever God predestinated would not have come to pass, but for His predestination. Then if the Lord purposed the sin of Adam and of all his descendants, Adam and his descendants would not have sinned, if it had not been for the predestination of God.
If the thing purposed would have come to pass without the purpose of God, then the decree of God respecting that event, or thing, would have been superfluous, seeing that that very thing would have come to pass without the predestination of God.
If the thing, or things, predestinated would not have come to pass but for the predestination of God, then the purpose of God caused the thing, or things, to come to pass, as they would not have come to pass, if they had not been embraced in the decree of God.
If God purposed for Adam to sin, He certainly wanted Adam to sin, unless there is something embraced in God’s purpose that He does not want.
If God did not want Adam to sin, and He purposed that he should sin, then the Lord purposed for Adam to do what He did not want him to do.
Again, if God purposed for Adam to sin, and he would not have sinned, but for the decree of God, did not God cause Adam to sin by fixing it so he had to sin? And did not God do it (cause Adam to sin), since whatever God purposed, that He doeth?
If Adam fulfilled the purpose of God when he sinned, then God told Adam not to fulfill His purpose, for the Lord told the man not to do what he did.
If God purposed for Adam to sin, could he have kept from sinning? If Adam could not have kept from sinning, didn’t he have to sin? If he had to sin, was he responsible?
If Adam could not keep from sinning, because it was fixed by the decree of God, is it not true that God causatively, and not permissively, decreed for Adam to sin?
To me it is clear that if what God said to Adam was an expression of His will and what He wanted Adam to do, that if the Lord–had fixed it so Adam had to sin, then the Lord got what He did not want when His purpose was fulfilled in the fall of Adam.
If God desired Adam and Eve to sin, then He also desired to tell them not to do as He desired to have them do. So we have the desire of God against His desire, and His predestination against His predestination.
God said to Adam: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”-Gen. ii. 17. If God purposed for Adam to eat, then He purposed for Adam to die.
If God purposed for Adam to die, then He purposed to tell Adam not to die, and at the same time fixed it so the man must die.
If God predestinated for Adam to sin, and His predestination is an expression of what He does and wants others, to do, then. He wanted Adam to sin. If otherwise, then God, purposed what He did not want; and if He got what He did not want, then He, would have got just what He wanted, but for His own predestination.
If the sin of Adam was embraced in, and a part of, the eternal purpose of God in Christ, and the will and desire of God is expressed in His eternal purpose in Christ, then God willed, wanted and desired for Adam to sin; and when God told Adam not to sin, He did not express to Adam what He willed, wanted and desired him to do.
Again, if Adam’s sin was according to God’s eternal purpose, or will, then sin entered the world in perfect agreement with the will of God. If God is displeased with sin, and God purposed sin, then He is displeased with what He purposed.
If it is argued that God decreed for Adam to sin, then it follows that the purpose of God has a two-fold relationship to Adam. First, God said, “Thou shalt not eat of it.” Secondly, “Thou shalt eat of it.” The first part of God’s predestination puts a “not eat” in the command; while the second part of the same purpose of God puts a “shall eat” in the same command.
God will not hold His people guiltless who thus pervert His blessed Word.
CHAPTER 22
If the Lord purposed for Adam to sin, He has nowhere said so, or recorded it in His Word; and as the scriptures are a thorough furnisher unto all good works, I conclude that it is not a good work to preach that God decreed for Adam to sin.
When Adam sinned, he fell from God and immediately plunged himself and posterity into the vortex of sin. We are asked to believe that Adam is now just the kind of man, and in the condition, that the God of mercy, love and pity wanted him to be in.
The statement is frequently made that as the covenant of grace was made for sinners, that if Adam had not sinned, the covenant of grace would have been frustrated. Such a position involves us in the rankest, kind of Arminianism. The position plainly is, that the good man God made had to do wrong in order to salvation.
If it was necessary for Adam to sin that there be sinners for God to save, then sin was necessary to man’s salvation; and as sin came by man, man was active in fulfilling the stipulations of the covenant of grace.
If Paul had preached such a doctrine, I can’t see but what the charge, “Let us do evil that good may come,” was true. Paul said: “For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto His glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?” Let us read the text thus: “For if the purpose of God hath more abounded through Adam’s transgression unto God’s, glory, why am I also judged as a sinner?” “And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.”-Rom. iii. 7, 8.
If Paul preached that if Adam had not sinned, the covenant of grace would have been a failure, and some one had reported that Paul said, “Let us do evil, that good may come,” would you think that Paul had been slandered?
God hates, detests, abhors, punishes, and will finally destroy sin, which incontestably demonstrates that God did not will it, desire it, want it, nor purpose it.
With the divine persuasion of this wholesome and comfortable truth written in every chapter and verse in the Bible, yet we have brethren who foolishly charge God as having purposed sin. But reason, as well as the scriptures, positively and loudly proclaims that God, who is transcendent in purity and absolutely holy in all His divine perfections, can not be so intimately associated with sin as to will it and to purpose it.
The Bible tells us plainly how sin came about, and I feel in my heart that the only safe way for anyone to preach or write on the subject is to be sure to stop with the Bible narrative and not speculate and theorize about something we know nothing about. Please get your Bible and turn to the third chapter of Genesis: “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.”
The serpent contradicted what the Lord said. “And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die,” and offered the following argument through which he beguiled Eve: “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.”
Adam and Eve “heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and they hid themselves among the trees of the garden.” God said to Adam, “Where art thou?” Adam said, “I heard thy voice and I was afraid, because I was naked.” Adam is now a poor naked sinner, and he was afraid. God said to him, “Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?”
Adam told the Lord the truth when he said, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” The Lord then asked the woman what she had done. She did not say: “Just what you wanted and purposed for me to do;” but she told the truth even on the serpent when she said: “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.”
Adam and Eve nor the serpent did not even intimate that it was God’s will and purpose for them to violate His law. But as Adam has multiplied and become more corrupt, he can, and does, assume the prerogative, without a particle of divine authority, to say that when Adam and Eve sinned they did so in perfect harmony and conjunction with God’s righteous purpose and will.
Adam and Eve did not even try to get behind the purposes of God to hide their nakedness; but they did hide themselves among the trees of the garden. The man who tries to hide behind the purposes of God by claiming that when he sins he only acts in harmony with God’s secret and decretive will, blasphemes the God of purity, imprecates the Holy Spirit, stultifies the scriptures, and traduces Christian experience.
Adam and Eve are now sinners, and there is not a friend or foe on earth today, nor ever has, nor ever will be, who can prove by the Bible that God purposed they should be sinners, for the very good reason the Bible does not say so.
Paul refers to the entrance of sin into the world in the following language: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”-Rom. v. 12. When Adam sinned, he disobeyed God, which would not have been true, if he sinned according to God’s will and purpose.
Paul says, “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous.”-Rom. v. 19. If Adam did what God purposed and willed for him to do, how is it that Adam disobeyed God?
Strange as it may appear, some of the people of God are now contending that in order that it be sure for Adam to sin, the Lord so fixed it that he must do wrong. The Lord then fixes a sore punishment on the man for doing what He willed and purposed for him to do.
The question may be asked, “Do you believe Adam could have kept the law?” To which I readily answer, “Yes!” Again it may be asked, “Do you believe the Lord knew Adam would sin?” To which I answer, “Yes.” If God’s knowing that Adam would sin did not disable him, then Adam could have kept from sinning as he was able to do so.
If Adam was not able to keep the law, and all the ability he had was of God, then the Lord only gave Adam the ability to disobey Him; so Adam could not have acted right because the Lord did not give him the ability to act right. If it was right for Adam to keep the law, and the Lord decreed for him to violate it, then Adam could not do right because the Lord predestinated that he should do wrong.
The predestination of God fixes the things embraced in His decree, while the foreknowledge of God does not fix the things foreknown. To put God’s purposes before His divine foreknowledge (and He has no other knowledge), means that His predestination was without knowledge. If God must predestinate a thing before He can positively know whether the thing will come to pass, then there is nothing certain in God’s foreknowledge. If God knew a thing with more certainty after He purposed it than He did before, then His foreknowledge was imperfect and deficient until He purposed that man should sin.
If it is true that man must sin, as the covenant of grace was made to save sinners, then man by disobeying God put himself in a position that God could save him; whereas, if the man had obeyed, the Lord could never have saved him according to the covenant of grace. So according to this theory, the covenant of grace could never have been effectual in the salvation of man, if man had not sinned.
Elder J. C. Sikes, in speaking of the transgression of Adam, said: “I suppose, however, that all who claim to be Primitive Baptists will admit that He had both the wisdom and power to have had it different, if He had wanted it different; but this would be an admission that He did not want it different, which would be to say that He wanted it to come to pass as it did.”–Advocate of Truth, April 1, 1901. According to the philosophy of this extract, God made man good, but He did not want a good man long. God told Adam to obey Him, but He wanted him to disobey. God told Adam to do right, but He wanted him to do wrong. God told Adam not to eat lest he die, but He wanted the man to eat and die.
God told Adam to dress the garden, but He wanted him to sin that He might drive him out. Is it sound philosophy? Is it scriptural to say that because God has power to prevent a thing and doesn’t do it, that He wanted that thing? I think not. God had power to have kept Cain from murdering his brother, but did not do it; therefore, God wanted Cain to murder Abel.
He had the power to have kept Noah from getting drunk, but He did not prevent it; therefore, He wanted Noah to get drunk. Indeed, if all things were fixed by the. Lord in eternity, God Himself could not have prevented a single thing occurring as it has without frustrating and thwarting His eternal purpose in Christ.
Again, if the Lord, before the world began, by His eternal will, purposed all things that have ever occurred, or ever will occur, then if God wanted men and women to do better than they have done, or are doing, or may do, God could not make them do better, or have had things different to the way they have been.
If all things were purposed in Christ before the world was made, and God should have prevented, or kept one thing from coming to pass, either good or evil, that has come to pass, He would by so doing have kept one thing from coming to pass that He had predestinated to come to pass.
Again Elder Sikes says: “If God had rather sin had not entered the world, then it follows that there has never been one single act, or creature, or thing, in this universe that has been as God originally would rather have had it.” But as Elder Sikes believes that God wanted sin to enter the world, every act, creature or thing has been precisely as God wanted it to be.
In Gen. vi. 5, 6 we have this language: “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart.” If the Lord predestinated for Adam to sin, He could not have kept Adam from sinning without preventing His purpose from being fulfilled.
So the man whose wickedness was great in the earth was just the “creature, or thing,” God wanted. The man, the thoughts
of whose heart is only evil continually, is precisely the kind of man God “rather have.” It repented the Lord, though, and grieved Him at His heart that He made man on the earth. “And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man and beast * * * for it repenteth Me that I have made them.”Verse 7.
We are asked to believe that “every act, creature or thing,” is exactly as God “originally rather” it should be, still God was grieved at His heart when “every act, every thing and every creature” was as “God originally would rather have had it.”
It is too bad to think that any child of God is so confused and wrapped up in vain philosophy as to claim that because God has the power to prevent a thing and doesn’t do it, that He wanted that thing.
My feeble feet aspiring climb
The narrow steep, ascend to God;
Onward I press, with hope sublime,
Along the road the fathers trod.
The above philosophy was never taught by our fathers and we should shun it, for it genders strife and confusion.
CHAPTER 23
If it is so fixed that men must sin, and it must be if all things were eternally predestinated, who is it that will not exclaim, “How foolish it is to deliver precepts to that man who is not at liberty to perform what is commanded, and how unjust it is to condemn him who had not power to fulfill the command?” It is clear that this idea of predestination destroys man’s responsibility and accountability. Man could not have acted different to the way he has acted, for the very good reason the “predestination of all things” says that the way the man acted was the way God fixed for him to act. To say that man could have had one more evil thought than he has had, or committed one more wicked act than he has, or could have had less evil thoughts than he has, or done less wickedness than he has, is a denial of the predestination of all things efficiently. God does not purpose a thing and then give a man the power to not do what He purposed for him to do. The doctrine of the “absolute predestination of all things” is, that “God’s national people had to trust in lying words.” “Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit:’-Jer. vii. 8.
The theory is, the people had to trust in false words, and in something to no profit. We are asked to believe that God had decreed for this thing to be, and that the people must murder and burn their children. If this should be denied, I wish to call your attention to the fact that trusting in lying words and burning their children are things; and as it is claimed that God has predestinated all things, then the things occurred as they were purposed to occur. “Will ye steal, murder. and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?”-Jer. vii. 9. 10. The Lord’s people could not have kept from stealing, murdering, committing adultery, swearing falsely, burning incense unto Baal, and walking after other gods, if the doctrine be true that the Lord purposed all these things. The argument is that, what God does not prevent, He wants. So God wanted His people to steal, to murder, to commit adultery, to bear false witness, and to walk after other gods. Notwithstanding God had told His people not to do these abominations, yet we are asked to believe that what God said was not what He wanted. God said, “do not steal,” yet it is said that God had secretly decreed for the people to steal; and as God has things as He wants them, He wanted His people to steal, fall down to stocks and stones, to inflame themselves with idols, under every green tree, and to slay their innocent children in the valleys. under the cliffs of the rocks. These were children of transgression, a seed of evil doers. (See Isa. lvii. 4.)
Yet we are asked to accept it as truth, that the God of Israel had decreed all these abominations; still the Lord says He did not command it, neither did it enter His mind. God told His people not to do these things; still we are taught to believe that God had secretly decreed the thing, or things, He told His people not to do. If it is right to do what God said for His people to do, and He has decreed for His people to disobey Him, then the Lord’s people cannot do right unless they do different to what God has predestinated for them to do. The “absolute predestination of all things,” good and evil, antagonizes God’s judicial law or government. One item in God’s law says: “Thou shalt not kill”. (Ex. xx. 13). We are asked to believe that God’s secret will is, “Thou shalt kill,” and also that His revealed will is, “Thou shalt not kill.” So God’s secret will antagonizes and contradicts His revealed will. God Himself, according to such a theory, could not have kept Moses, from killing the Egyptian without interfering with the consummation of His purpose. If it was right not to kill, and God fixed it so man must kill, then we must do wrong, unless we can do different to the way God has eternally fixed for us to do. Certainly some of our people have mingled themselves with the doctrines of the ancient schoolmen and have learned some of their trite sayings, and are unthoughtedly serving some of their idols, which is a snare unto them.
W e frequently find in the scriptures where the Lord was displeased with His people. In Deut. ix. 7 we read: “Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the Lord thy God to wrath in the wilderness.” I am sure that if the eternal fixedness of all things is true, then it was fixed for the people to do as they did, and the people could not have acted otherwise, for God wanted it as it occurred, is what we are asked to believe. If the people had done. as the Lord said for them to do, they would have interfered with the consummation of God’s eternal predestination relative to the matter. They disobeyed God’s revealed will, but minutely and accurately obeyed His will of purpose. If the people had obeyed God’s revealed will, the Lord would not have been “provoked to wrath.” The people simply had to violate God’s holy law; they could not have kept it, for God had secretly decreed for them to break it, if all things are predestinated.
“Also in Horeb ye provoked the Lord to wrath, so that the Lord was angry with you to have destroyed you: ” -Deut. ix. 8.
Turn to the thirty-second chapter of Exodus, and you will see that while Moses was in the mount the people said to. Aaron: “Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.” So Aaron told the people to get the earrings of their wives, sons and daughters. They did so, and brought them to Aaron, “and he received them at their hands, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said,
These be thy gods, 0 Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.”-Verse 4. When the Israelites got what they asked Aaron for, they got just what we are asked to believe the eternal purpose and will of God provided for them to have. The gathering together of the people for the purpose of having “gods” of their own was in perfect harmony with the purpose and will of Israel’s God, but was a positive violation of God’s revealed will. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.”-Ex. xx. 3.
Strange as it may appear, we are asked to believe that what the people did was wrong; and that while God told them to do right, He had decreed for them to do wrong. “Thou shalt have no strange gods,” is the revealed will of ‘God. “Thou shalt have strange gods,” is the secret and irresistible will of God. The Israelites could not have obeyed God’s revealed will, which said, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me;” as God had purposed that they should make a molten calf and worship what He told them not to worship; and not only so, but if what I am writing against be true, God fixed it so the people He told to be truthful, simply had to lie.
After the Israelites got their molten calf made, as God purposed (if He purposed all things) it should be, the children of Israel said: “These be thy gods, 0 Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” In this the Israelites lied, for the very good reason the “gods” were not made until after the Lord had brought them up out of the land of Egypt. “The people had to lie,” is the doctrine we are asked by a few to believe to be good Old Baptist doctrine.
“I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.”-Amos v. 21. The people of God had to have the “feast days” mentioned in the text, if “all things” were purposed of God. So when the “feast days” the Lord had predestinated for His people to have were had by the people, the Lord ,said: “I hate, I despise your feast days.” So God predestinated to hate and despise what He predestinated to be. The eternal fixedness of all the events of time is incompatible with the plain statements of the Bible. To say that God’s will of purpose is one thing, and His revealed will is something else, is wrong. If the eternal purpose of God in Christ embraces all things, good and evil, as held to by some of our ultra brethren, then for a while, or at short intervals, the people obey God; and then for a definite time, the same people disobey God; and not until they commit each and every sin the Lord purposed for them to commit, will they quit sinning.
If the “absolute predestination of all things,” good and evil, is embraced in God’s secret will, then the doctrine does not belong to the children of God. “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.”-Deut. xxix. 29.
It is not the doctrine of the Bible, nor the Old Baptist doctrine, that God has fixed it so His people cannot obey Him. When His people get to where they cannot obey, it is because they have been misusing the grace of God; and it is not the voice of a prophet, Jesus Christ, nor any New Testament writer, to say that the Lord predestinated for His people to neglect the gift that is in them. We do not fail to obey God because God wanted it, willed it, or purposed it, or because the grace of God was not sufficient, but because we did not do as the grace of God in our hearts taught us to do. He who would attempt to shield himself behind the foreknowledge and predestination of God and say we are delivered to do all these evil things, will find out some day that the vengeance of God is revealed from heaven against those who hold the truth of God in unrighteousness.
It is simply ridiculous and shameful to think that we have men among us who claim to believe that God fixed each act and the beliefs of the myriad human beings on earth, and still such men fall out with the way the Lord has fixed the acts of men and what they should believe. Men certainly cannot act and believe different to the way they have acted or believe. If they acted wrong it was so fixed, and they could not have acted any other way. If they believe wrong, it had to be just that way, for it is said God purposed it that way.
If your son were murdered, it was done, you say, as God decreed it should be. If your daughter has been humbled, or seduced, you say God had power to have prevented it; He did not do it, therefore, He wanted it. Brother, sister, friend, or enemy, when you read this, if your daughter has been seduced, your mother, or wife, outraged, your father, brothers or sisters murdered, will you say God willed it, God purposed it, and it had to be? No, your heart would sicken at such a thought; yet, that is just what you say you believe when you accept the doctrine of the “predestination of all things.” It matters not what kind of calamity happens to you or your family, you are asked to believe that God purposed it.
Brother, sister, when this doctrine comes home to you, you will not be so willing (likely) to believe it, nor try to get others to believe it. Say, father, do you want to tell your son that there is no cursing, or just so much profanity, allotted him, or that there is none, or just so much whiskey for him to drink, that there is no lying, or just so much lying, for him to do, or that there is no stealing, or just so much stealing for him to do? If that is the doctrine you want preached to your son or daughter, then you and I do not believe alike.
Well might Brother Neal say:”
“Oh, hear the sad tale,
see how Zure’s suppressed,
While many, I fear,
are with devils possessed;
Saints persecuted,
by these who seek applause,
And thus we are. hated,
and that without cause.”
When we read of the abominations of the people, both ancient and modern, and then think we are asked to believe it all occurred as God had purposed for it to come to pass, our heart sickens and revolts at such a shocking doctrine. The Pagans anciently worshiped a countless number of idols, but Osiris and Isis were regarded as their chief gods. These were called the general gods of Egypt, which were worshiped by the king and his courtiers. Some of the Pagans worshiped dogs; others oxen; some hawks; some owls; some crocodiles; some cats; and others ibis, which is a sort of an Egyptian stork. These idolatrous people would fall out with each other over their idols, and a bloody war would ensue as to whether a crocodile, or a cat, was a god.
It is stated that a Roman soldier inadvertently killed a cat at Alexandria. The populace rose up and in an infuriated manner dragged the man from his house and murdered him. We are called upon to believe that the idolatrous worship and unparalleled murders of these people were according to the secret will and eternal purpose of God. Such idolatry is condemned in God’s Word, and by all right thinking people.
Just think, we are asked to believe that God purposed the above idolatry and murder; yes, and all the idolatry and murder of earth; and not only so, but that God purposed for His people to condemn what He purposed for them to do and believe. Dear little children of God, does it feed your poor, hungry soul to tell you that should you lie, get drunk, steal, swindle and bear false witness, it is in agreement with God’s secret will and purpose?
God hates sin, punishes sin, and will finally destroy it, which means that God did not will it, want it, nor purpose it.
CHAPTER 24
In this chapter I will succinctly notice some of the scriptures relied upon to prove that the Lord has predestinated all the wicked acts of men and devils.
Proverbs xvi. 4 reads: “The Lord hath made all things for himself; yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.” If the “all things” of the text includes sin and wickedness, then sin and wickedness did not come by man, for God made it; and that, too, for Himself. Such an idea would make God the author of sin and wickedness, unless God could make a thing and not be its author, or maker. The “all things” made for Himself in the text were made by the Lord according to His predestination. If this text proves that God purposed sin and wickedness, then it proves that God made sin and wickedness.
Sin and wickedness is no part of the make-up of man. Man, in all his parts, or original make-up, or creation, was a complete man before he sinned; hence, God did not make a sinful, wicked man, but a good man; and by the disobedience of the good man God made, he became a sinner.
Amos iii. 6 reads thus: “Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?” If the evil of the text means sin and unrighteousness, and the purpose of God embraces it, then the Lord did it. “Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?” It will not do to say that the Lord purposed the evil mentioned in the text, but did not do it, for the text says, “Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?” God is not the author of sin, for sin is not a creature, but a transgression of law.
Job ii. 10 is relied upon to prove the “predestination of all things.” It reads: “But he [Job] said unto her [his wife], Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil ? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.” If the evil of the text means sin and wickedness, then good and evil, righteousness and unrighteousness, have precisely the same fountain; and, of course, come from the same source. Such an idea would unavoidably make God the author of sin. The evil of the text evidently means afflictions. Job was patient in his sore afflictions and did not sin with his lips. Job was a good man; “none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil.”-Verse 3. The “boils”
Satan put upon Job was the evil, or afflictions, that he received of God, and not sin and wickedness. God did not afflict Job because he had violated His law. In this, Job was a type of Jesus. God did not afflict His Son because He was a sinner. Job said: “For he breaketh me with a tempest, and multiplieth my wounds without cause.”-Job ix. 17. “In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.”-Job i. 22.
Isaiah xlv. 7 is also introduced to establish the universal predestination of God. It reads thus: “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.” If darkness and evil in the text signify sin and wickedness, and the text proves that God purposed sin and wickedness, then the inevitable conclusion is, “I the Lord do all these things.” The Lord fully explains the real meaning of the text in subduing nations by Cyrus; also in “frustrating the tokens of liars, and making diviners mad, and turning wise men backward, and also in making their knowledge foolish” (Isa. xliv. 25). “That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure.”-Isa. xliv. 28. It was the pleasure of the Lord to say of Cyrus: “Whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut:’Isa. xlv. 1. The Lord went before Cyrus and made the crooked places straight, and broke in pieces the gates of brass and cut asunder the bars of iron. The Lord also gave Cyrus the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places. Isaiah informs us that God raised up Cyrus: “Who raised up the righteous man from the east, called him to his foot, gave the nations before him, and made him rule over kings? he gave them as the dust to his sword, and as driven stubble to his bow. He pursued them, and passed safely; even by the way that he had not gone with his feet. Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the Lord, the first, and with the last (Cyrus); I am he.”-Isa. xli. 2, 3, 4.
Now, let us read the text: “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things”-through Cyrus. Isaiah xlvi. 10, 11 are parallel verses with Isaiah xlv. 7, and reads, “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: Calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that executeth my counsel from a far country: yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.”
What Cyrus did was right. He executed the counsel of God in subduing nations and thus freed the Lord’s people. God had told of this long before. See Num. xxiii. 19. “I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it.” If sin and wickedness are the things not yet done mentioned in the text, then the Lord did the things mentioned in the text. “I have purposed it, I will also do it,” which, to my mind, would make God the author of sin and wickedness. “Remember this, and shew yourselves men; bring it again to mind, 0 ye transgressors.”-Isa. xlvi. 8.
Isaiah xiv. 24 is also relied upon to prove the “predestination of all things.” “The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand.” The next verse plainly explains the verse just quoted. It says, “That I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot; then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders. This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth; and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? And his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?”
Psalms xxiii. 11 is also introduced as a text supporting the “predestination of all things,” and reads, “The counsel of the Lord standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.” This text plainly teaches that the counsel of God is immutable and that His thoughts standeth for ever to all generations.
Job xxiii. 13 is also made to serve in support of the same doctrine. “But he is in one mind and who can turn him? And what his soul desireth, even that he doeth.” If this text proves that God predestinated sin, then it also proves that he desired it; and what he desireth, “even that he doeth.” If sin was the thing God desired, and what He desireth even that He doeth, then God sinned; for that is what He desired, and what He did. The next verse explains this text: “For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me, and many such things are with him. Therefore am I troubled at his presence; when I consider, I am afraid of him. For God maketh my heart soft, and the Almighty troubleth me.” This is what the Lord’s soul desireth, “that is appointed for me,” the thing the Lord “performeth,” the thing “even that he doeth.”
Paul preached the same doctrine. He says, “That no man should be moved by these afflictions; for yourselves know that we are appointed thereunto,” -1 Thess. iii.3. “In all their afflictions he was afflicted,” -Isa. lxiii. 9. “And many such things are with him.” -Job xxiii. 14.
1 Kings xxii. 20-23 is also referred to for the purpose of demonstrating that God has purposed all the wickedness of earth. “And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him. And he Lord said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade, and prevail also; go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee.”
These scriptures beautifully illustrate the permissive decree of God relative to the matter. The lying spirit wanted to be a lying spirit in the mouth of all of Ahab’s prophets, and the lord said, “Go forth and do so.” The Lord put a lying spirit in the mouth of all the prophets of King Ahab by permitting, allowing, or suffering, them to do as they desired to do. On the same principle the Lord afflicted Job by allowing, or suffering, him to be in the hand of Satan (Job ii. 6).
It was not necessary at all for the Lord to decree for Satan to smite Job with sore boils, for that was exactly what Satan wanted to do, and what he did when the Lord said: “Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.”-Job ii. 6. The spirit by which Ahab was deceived was a lying spirit, and God suffered it to go where it wanted to go, and to do just what He knew it wanted to do. In this sense, the Lord put a lying spirit in the mouth of all of Ahab’s prophets. God had purposed to destroy Ahab at Ramoth-gilead. “And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?”-1 Kings xxii. 20. Here was the mystery of iniquity at work in Elijah’s day. Paul said: “For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.”-2 Thess. ii. 7. God permitted, let, or suffered, the lying spirit to get Ahab to Ramoth-gilead whom the Lord consumed with the spirit of His mouth. Ahab disguised himself and went into the battle: “And a certain man drew a bow at a venture, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness.”-1 Kings xxii. 34. Verse 37 says, “So the king died.” So the Lord smote “the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips He slew the wicked” (Isa. xi. 4). Job said: “Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off? Even as I have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow wickedness, reap the same. By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed.” -Job iv. 7, 8. 9. Ahab and his prophets plowed iniquity and sowed a crop of wickedness and thus troubled Israel, and the Lord with the blast of His mouth cut Ahab and his prophets down.
“And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him. And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk n the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethhaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal: and worshiped him. And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baa1, which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab made a grove: and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.“-I Kings xvi. 30-33.
God’s dealings with Ahab and his prophets does not prove the “predestination of all things,” but that God hates sin and iniquity, and will finally overrule it to His glory. If Ahab did as God purposed for him to do, then Ahab violated God’s law according to God’s will. We are taught .to believe that God had two wills relative to Ahab’s conduct. The first will of God was for Ahab to do all the wickedness he did. This is called the “secret” will. or “eternal” purpose of God in Christ. This will embraces, we are told, all the wicked acts of men and devils, and cannot be violated. According to this will, we are told that Ahab walked in the sins of Jeroboam and took Jezebel to wife, served Baal, reared up an altar for Baal, and made a grove also for him; and if the doctrine be true, then the Lord predestinated that He Himself should be provoked, for “Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.” God’s second, or “revealed” will, we are told, was for Ahab not to do any of the wrong things he did. So, according to this view of the matter, God’s wills are at variance—they antagonize each other.
We are told that God’s “eternal will” is always obeyed; which, if true, then His second, or “revealed will,” can only be obeyed as often as it was decreed in His “secret will.” So Ahab could not have obeyed God’s revealed, or written will, because God had secretly decreed for him to violate it. God Himself could not have kept Ahab from doing any or all of the wickedness lie did without violating, or causing some one else to violate, His eternal purpose in Christ. If it is argued that Ahab’s conduct was embraced in the eternal will, or purpose of God, and God’s eternal will cannot be violated, then God efficiently and causatively purposed for Ahab to do as he did. If the eternal purpose of God is in Christ, as Paul affirms, and that eternal purpose embraces righteousness and unrighteousness, then the two opposites have the same Predestinator, and are unchangeably fixed in the same eternal purpose; hence, it must be true that a good fountain can send forth good and evil at the same time.
Judges ix. 23 is likewise brought in to try to prove that God has purposed sin. It reads: “Then God sent an evil spirit between Abimeleeh and the men of Shechem; and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech.” It will be remembered that the country was in quietness forty years in the days of Gideon (Judges viii. 28). “And it came to pass, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel turned again, and went a whoring after Baalim, and made Baalberith their god.”-Judges viii. 33.
Abimelech, the son of J.erubbaal, went to Shechem unto his mother’s brethren, and there he entered into a conspiracy with all the men of Shechem, * * #“and their hearts inclined to follow Abimelech: for they said, He is our brother.”-Judges ix. 3. “And they gave him threescore and ten pieces of silver out of the house of Baalberith, wherewith Abimelech hired vain and light persons, which followed him.”-Verse 4.
Peter, in speaking of this very thing, says: “But these; as natural brute beasts, made to be taken (the Lord hath made all things, yea, even the wicked for the day of, evil) and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption; And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you; Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children: Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor. who loved the wages of unrighteousliess.”-2 Pet. ii. 12-15.
Abimelech “beguiled unstable souls” who were “vain and light persons” and loved the wages of unrighteousness, and went into his father’s house and slew or killed his brethren threescore and ten upon one stone. After this occurred, the men of Shechem and all the house of Millo gathered together and made Abimelech king (verse 6), which was told Jotham, who said: “If ye then have dealt truly and sincerely with Jerubbaal and with his house this day (“who riot in the day,” said Peter), then rejoice ye in Abimelech, and let him also rejoice in you: But if not, let fire come out from Abimelech, and devour the men of Shechem, and the house of Millo; and let fire come out from the men of Shechem, and from the house of Millo, and devour Abimelech.”-Judges ix. 19, 20.
Jotham, the brother of Abimelech, ran away because he was afraid of his brother. “Then God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem; and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech.” The reason for this is plainly given in the twenty-fourth. verse: “That the cruelty done to the threescore and ten sons of Jerubbaal might come, and their blood be laid upon Abimelech their brother, which slew them; and upon the men of Shechem, which aided him in the killing of his brethren.” Thus we see that when Satan is divided against himself, he cannot stand.
The fire came out from Abimelech and devoured the men of Shechem and the house of Milllo, and a fire came out from the men of Shechem and devoured Abimelech. After this, Abimelech went to Thebez and took the city. “But there was a strong tower within the city, and thither fled all the women, and gat them up to the top of the tower. And Abimelech came unto the tower, and fought against it, and went hard unto the door of the tower to burn it with fire. And a certain woman cast a piece of millstone upon Abimelech’s head.. and all to break his skull.” Then Abimelech said to his armourbearer, “Draw thy sword and slay me, that men say not of me, A woman slew him.” The young man thrust Abimelech through, and he died. “Thus God rendered the wickedness of Abimelech, which he did unto his father, in slaying his seventy brethren: And all the evil of the men of Shechem did God render upon their heads: and upon them came the curse of Jotham the son of Jerubbaal:’-Judges ix. 36, 57.
Instead of the text proving the “absolute predestination of all things,” it shows God’s absolute sovereignty over all things, and His absolute way in disposing of wicked men. Hosea, in speaking of wicked men, said: “And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness; now their own doings have beset them about; they are before my face.”-Hosea vii. 2.
The wickedness of Abimelech, and the men of Shechem, was before the face of the Lord, and the Lord had purposed to condemn those wicked persons for their wickedness. “Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup.”-Psalms xi. 6. God put a snare, or an evil spirit, between Abimelech and the men of Shechem that aided Abimelech in killing his seventy brethren. This was the Lord’s chosen and purposed way of destroying the house of Ahab and the house of Millo. This is the people, and kind of people, “who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men.”-Jude 4. Ahab and his house were ungodly. Abimelech, the men of Shechem, and the house of 117iI1o were also ungodly. It was not their ungodliness that was appointed, but ungodly men were ordained to this condemnation. Shimei’s cursing David is frequently referred to as proof that God purposed all things. It will be remembered that David had Uriah put to death; “But the thing David had done displeased the Lord.” -2 Samuel xi. 27. If the thing David “had done” was purposed, then the Lord purposed that He Himself should be displeased, which evidently means that God was displeased with what He had purposed to be. When David had Uriah killed, he despised the commandment of the Lord, which, if purposed, David had to despise the commandment of the Lord and thus displease the Lord. If David had kept the command of God, he would have pleased the Lord; but David, if all things were purposed, could not please the Lord as God had purposed that David should displease Him.
David killed Uriah with the sword of the children of Ammon. “Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbor, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun. For thou didst it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.”-2 Sam. xii. 9-12. Read chapter sixteen, verse twenty-two, and you will see the fulfillment of the above text, which was a part of the evil brought upon David for his sin in having Uriah put to death.
When Shimei cursed David, he did not do so by using profane language, for here is what he said: “And thus said Shimei when he cursed. Come out, come out, thou bloody man, and thou man of Belial.”-2 Sam. xvi. 7. David felt that it was just that he should be thus cursed, or condemned, by Shimei. He said, “And let him curse; for the Lord hath bidden him.”-2 Sam. xvi. Il. Notwithstanding David was a child of God, he did wrong, and gave great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, and while the Lord “had put away his sin.” yet David must be rebuked in the sight of all Israel. David afterward said : “Who can understand his errors? cleanse me from secret faults.”Psalms xix. 12.
If the Lord purposed for David to kill Uriah, then the Lord wanted Uriah murdered; and when the Lord got what He wanted, and predestinated to be, the Lord was displeased, and great occasion was given for the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme the Lord.
Psalms cv. 25 is relied upon to prove the “predestination of all things:” “He turned their heart to hate his people, to deal subtilly with his servants.” God’s people were in Egypt at the time the Lord turned the heart of Pharaoh and his people to hate His people. This text plainly shows that the Lord let (did not hinder) the new king from setting taskmasters over them to afflict them with burdens; thus, the new king dealt subtilly with the Lord’s people. Finally, the Lord overthrew the king and drowned his people in the Red Sea; thus, God raised up Pharaoh that He might shew forth His power in him. The text beautifully portrays God’s sovereignty, and His righteous hatred for sin.
The crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ is said to be positive evidence that God has purposed all the wicked acts of men: “For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.”-Acts iv. 27, 28.
The scripture just quoted has reference to just one thing, which was the crucifixion of the holy child Jesus; and when Jesus was crucified, that was the end of the counsel and determination of God relative to the matter. If the text means that God predestinated all the wicked acts of men and devils, then the parties whose names are mentioned in the mob met to do all the wicked acts of men and devils. If the mob did what it met to do, that is conclusive evidence that the wickedness of men since that time is no part of what the hand and counsel of God determined before to be done. No man with the Bible in his hand can prove that the hand and counsel of God, as mentioned in the text includes more nor less than was done on that occasion. When Jesus was crucified, the thing was done that the hand and counsel of God determined before to be done. The time had fully come for Jesus to be cut off. “And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself.”-Dan, ix. 26. This is what the Lord determined before hand to he done; and when Jesus was cut off out of the land of the living, that was the end, or fulfillment, of the “whatsoever” God determined before to be done. It was certainly the purpose of God for His Son to die as He did. He died for sinners, according to the predestination of God. His death could not have been avoided and the scriptures be true. Man had sinned, and Jesus must die, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. There was no other way for a poor sinner to be redeemed to God. The death of Jesus was God’s ordained way of reconciling sinners to Himself. The crucifixion of Jesus is the most remarkable token of pure heavenly love for sinners I ever read, or ever heard of. The mother of Jesus and His aunt stood near the dying Jesus, and Jesus in all the tenderness of His heart, said: “Woman, behold thy Son!”
Brethren, let us follow after the things that make for peace, and the things wherewith one may edify another. The doctrine of the “absolute predestination of all things,” good and evil, has been, and is now, a source of strife and confusion. Let us not preach a doctrine that confuses and alienates the Lord’s dear children. Better it would be for all who believe the doctrine to not preach it, or contend for it publicly. “Hast thou faith? have it to thyself!” It is not right for me to eat meat if it causes my brother to offend. It was wrong to offend one of these little ones who believes in Jesus. If we love Jesus as we should. and each other, we will willingly abandon that which is an offense to the children of God. To preach that God knows all things, offends no one; to preach that Jesus has all power, is not offensive. To preach that our God is a sovereign and doeth all things well, is a most wholesome truth, and is not offensive to the poor and afflicted people of God. To preach that our blessed God predestinated to save poor sinners from all their sins, is good and profitable to men. Such preaching is meat indeed, and drink indeed. It is not the safest and best for the children of God to positively affirm that a certain thing is true when the Bible does not plainly say so. Let us take the stones out of the way, and not put something in the way of some dear child of God.
CHAPTER 25
Paul said: “But with many of them (the Israelites) God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness.”-1 Cor. x. 5.
If every act of man was purposed, then the Lord fixed it so that His people had to “lust after evil things,” to be “idolaters,” “commit fornication,” “tempt Christ,” and to “murmur.” All of this abominable wickedness we are asked to believe is a part of the eternal purpose in Christ, which, if true, had to occur just when it did, and just as it did; and not only so, but if it was a part of the Lord’s eternal will or purpose, then when the Lord’s will was not done He “was not well pleased.” Again, if the above was a part of the counsel of God, and He works all things after the counsel of His own will, as Paul affirms, then God was not well pleased with what He worked according to His own counsel and will. Paul said: “Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.”-1 Cor. x. 6. If all things were purposed of the Lord, then the Lord predestinated for the Israelites to lust after evil things, and the same eternal purpose of God in Christ was for Paul to say, “Neither, be ye idolaters, as were some of them;” “Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed;” “Neither let us tempt Christ;” “Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured.” Paul concludes by saying: “Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.”-1 Cor, x. 11.
While we are lovingly and tenderly admonished in the above exhortations to do right, which is God’s revealed will, we are unblushingly asked to unquestionably believe that the secret, immutable will of God was for them to do just as they did; which, if true, the people could not have done right, for the very good reason the Lord purposed for them to do wrong. The Spirit inspired and influenced Paul to say, “To the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.” We are also asked to believe that the same Spirit had secretly fixed it so that some of the people should “lust after evil things, as they also lusted.” James said: “From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members.”-James iv. 1. The wars and fightings mentioned in the text are forbidden in God’s revealed will, but we are asked to believe that it was a part of God’s secret will for the children of God to have the wars and fightings condemned in the text. Indeed, we are asked to believe that while the Lord had secretly and unfrustratably decreed for the above wrongs to occur among His people, He also purposed for James to rebuke His children for doing as He had purposed, willed and wanted them to do. If it is right for the children of God to not war and fight each other, is it not strange that the Lord would fix it so His people could not do right? Paul said; “But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye he not consumed one of another. This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh,”-Gal. v. 15, 16.
The above is an expression concerning God’s revealed will, which is obeyed just as often as it is decreed in God’s secret will; and is also disobeyed as often as it was decreed. So if the children of God bite and devour one another, they are doing as God fixed for them to do. If they do not bite and devour one another, they are doing as God predestinated for them to do.
The doctrine of the “absolute predestination of all things” is the most unconscionable doctrine I have ever met with. It dresses up with a medley of clothing. If its outer clothes are clean and neat, its underclothes are filthy and ragged. There is absolutely an out-of- sight underground current about the doctrine that is obnoxious and uninviting. When the doctrine is undressed, we have a loathsome. unhallowed, unpalatable spectacle to offer the dear children of God. The babble and incessant loquacity of some of the children of God over the “unlimited predestination of all things” presents an aspect that is not at all inviting.
James said: “My brethren, these things ought not so to be.”-James iii. 10. If the “things” referred to in the text that “ought not so to be” were some, or a part, of the all things predestinated, then the Lord, by purposing it, fixed it so that what “ought not so to be” had to be. If the eternal fixedness of all things he true, then the God of all grace fixed it in the ancients of eternity that what ought not so to be had to he, and the same eternal Spirit of God inspired James to say, “holy brethren, these things ought not so to be.” So we can see, according to the “predestination of all things,” that God purposed these things to be, while the Holy Spirit moved James to say that “these things ought not so to be.”
Paul said: “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts. we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.”-Titus ii. 11, 12. From this text we observe several things. First, grace bringeth salvation; secondly, grace teaches us, or the saved, first to deny ungodliness; secondly, to deny worldly lusts; thirdly, that we should live soberly; fourthly, that we should live righteously; and fifthly. that we should live godly in this present world. Many of the Lord’s people do not at all times deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and live soberly and righteously in this present world, Peter did not deny ungodliness when he denied the Saviour by saying”Woman, I know him not.”-Luke xxii. 57. The grace of God teaches us to deny ungodliness of every kind (sin in all its phases), while we are asked to believe that the eternal God secretly fixed it so His people could not do as the grace of God teaches them to do. We see, according to the doctrine, that the Lord fixed it in His secret and eternal will for the people to do wrong; also in the same purpose, the Lord fixed it so that Peter must tell the people to do right. So, according to the theory, the grace of God must fail to get the people to do as it teaches them to do, because the Lord had fixed it so they could not do what grace taught them to do.
Paul said: “Let no man deceive you with vain words.”-Eph. v. 6. As many of the Lord’s dear children are deceived by vain words it must be, as deception is a thing, that the Lord so purposed. If the Lord purposed for His people to be deceived, do you think it is possible for what the Lord purposed to be not to be? Do you think the Lord purposed for the people to be deceived and also purposed for Paul to tell them to allow “no man” to do what He predestinated for the man to do? If the Lord purposed for a man or people to be deceived, do you think that it is possible for that man or people to avoid being deceived? If the Lord decreed for the man to be deceived, the man simply could not help himself without frustrating the eternal purpose of God in Christ. The man, or people, had to be deceived, and Paul had to tell the man, or people, to let no man do what the Lord purposed for him to do.
If what the Lord said in His revealed will was what He wanted, and He purposed that His revealed will should be violated, then the predestination of God kept Him from getting what He wanted. If the secret will of God contains all the Lord wants, and this will cannot be violated, and it is decreed in this secret will for a man, or people, to be deceived, then His revealed will must he violated. A man, or people, must transgress in order for the Lord to get what He wanted!
Again Paul said: “But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine.”-Titus ii. 1. Many of the children of God are doctrinally unsound. If unsoundness is a thing, and all things are predestinated, then such as are unsound could not be sound, or speak the things that become sound doctrine, for the very good reason that the Lord fixed it so that they had to be unsound. If the doctrine that I am now combating be sound, the people had to be sound or unsound. If it was fixed for them to be sound, they could not be unsound. If it was fixed for them to be unsound, they could not be sound. So it was absolutely impossible for such men as were unsound to speak the things that become sound doctrine without thwarting the purpose of God.
John said: “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come.”-Rev. xxii. 17. Some of the Lord’s people disobey Him in not joining the Church, and in various other ways. If the purpose of God fixed it so that all who do not obey Him could not obey, or come, is not the Spirit impressing or influencing men to do what He does not want the people to do? If the Lord wanted the people to come, and He fixed it so they could not come, then the Lord fixed it so He could not get what He wanted. If the Lord predestinated all things, and disobedience is a thing, and we know it is, then the Spirit is powerless so far as being able to cause one of the Lord’s children to obey that the Lord purposed should disobey. If the Holy Spirit says to a man, “Come,” and God has decreed that the man should not come, then it is a very clear fact that the Spirit’s work in saying “come” is in open rebellion and conflict with the purpose of God, seeing that the Spirit says “come,” and the purpose of God has fixed it so he, or they, could not come.
If it is true that God has purposed for so many of His people to obey Him, and a definite number to disobey Him, then it is a fact that the Spirit of God could not have caused one of the number to obey that He had purposed should disobey. So the “absolute predestination of all things” renders the Spirit and grace of God powerless in every case of disobedience on the part of the Lord’s people. If anyone should deny this, then I ask you the question, Do you think the Spirit or grace of God could cause a thing to be different to the way God predestinated for it to be? If you say the Spirit and grace of God did not want the man to obey, then you say that the Spirit and grace of God had no desire in the matter, or else the Spirit and grace of God wanted the man to disobey.
If the Spirit of God causes a man to want to obey, and the Lord has predestinated for him to disobey, is it not a fact that God is arrayed against Himself in His work? And is it not also true that the man might have obeyed if the Lord had not decreed otherwise?
If God’s predestination fixed it so he had to disobey, and his disobedience was a sin, is it not true that God caused that man to sin, seeing he had to do just what God purposed, and what God purposed was sinful?
Jesus said to His disciples: “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”-Matt. xvi. 6. Jesus, was not warning His disciples against anything that the Pharisees and the Sadducees might have believed that was the truth. The disciples did not at first understand what Jesus meant and, of course, according to the “predestination of all things,” it was so fixed that they should not understand for the time being. Just as soon as the purpose of God, relative to the disciples not understanding what the above text meant, was consummated,
“Then understood they how that he bade them not to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Matt. xvi. 12. The Pharisees believed in “absolute predestination of all things,” and tried to harmonize the doctrine with “free-will” in an Arminian sense; while the Sadducees were “nonresurrectionists” and “free-willers.”
If God eternally purposed in Jesus all things that come to pass, then the people had to believe as they did. So we are asked to believe that according to the purpose of God, some believe one thing and some another.
Paul said: “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”-1 Cor. i. 10. It is a fact that the Corinthian brethren did not all speak the same thing, “For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?”–1 Cor. iii. 4. And not only so, but there were divisions among the Corinthian brethren, “For whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal and walk as men?”-1 Cor. iii. 3. We cannot be consistent and believe that a merciful God had purposed all that the Corinthian brethren did. If so, the the Lord fixed it so that Paul must tell them to do right, and at the same time fixed it so that they must do wrong.
Paul said: “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lust thereof.”-Rom. vi. 12. This text is an exhortation to God’s people to do right, and I am quite sure that many of His people have not heeded the advice of Paul. If all things were predestinated, they could not have obeyed the injunction of Paul, as it was otherwise fixed. We are asked to believe by the purpose of God that they had, or must disobey the exhortation. It is perfectly clear to my mind that such is not the predestination of Israel’s God. Paul preached predestination just as it should be preached today. He said: “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first born among many brethren.”-Rom. viii. 29.
In this text we have a clear, lucid and concise distinction given between the foreknowledge and predestination of God. All that He foreknew are those that He chose in Christ before the foundation of the world. God purposed the eternal salvation of poor, lost and ruined sinners, and nothing can hinder what God has purposed to be. The salvation of sinners by grace exclusively is the immediate, direct and irresistible work of God in Christ since the foundation of the world. God purposed that Jesus Christ should make an atonement for His chosen and foreknown people, which He did; and this atonement immutably secures the eternal salvation of all for whom it was made. To deny this is to deny the purpose and wisdom of God in making the atonement. God purposed to redeem sinners; and in the fullness of time, Jesus came and redeemed all the foreknown and chosen.”
Paul said: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.”-Eph. i. 7. God purposed to reconcile His people to Himself, and this He did. “For if, when we were enemies, were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”-Rom. v. 10. It is plainly taught in the scriptures that God also purposed for all His people to bear the “image of His Son,” and this image He causes them to bear. He purposed to keep them by His power, and He is not slack concerning what He has purposed or promised.
“Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified,” -Rom. viii. 30. Paul said nothing about God predestinating sin, or any of its long chain of evils. As Paul nowhere preached any such doctrine, do you think a man can preach as Paul did on the subject and say that God predestinated all things, good and evil? If Paul preached the truth on predestination, and did not once say that God purposed sin, do you think it right for you or I to go farther with predestination than Paul did? If you preach the doctrine of the “absolute predestination of all things,” good and evil, and the scriptures nowhere positively say so, how can you positively prove that God did what you positively affirm he did?
Paul said again, “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,” -Eph. 1. 5. If the above texts are not a clear, concise and unmistakable elucidation of what Paul believed on the subject, then no one has any means of finding out what Paul did believe on the subject of predestination. If Paul believed the doctrine of “absolute predestination of all things,” good and evil, he kept it to himself, or at least it is not recorded, and we simply have no way of proving that Paul believed the doctrine that I know of. Paul said, “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good,” -1 Thess. v. 21. I for one am not willing to even try to prove that Paul believed in the “predestination of all things,” as he never said he did, and none of the other New Testament writers ever said he did.
Again Paul said, “In whom we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will,” -Eph. 1. 11. Paul would have us understand, as well as the saints at Ephesus, that we obtained the inheritance upon the principle of divine predestination.
Peter said, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” -1 Pet. 1. 3-5. This is evidently the inheritance unto which all the heirs of the eternal purpose of God were righteously appointed, and each heir is absolutely sure to obtain his blood-bought, incorruptible inheritance, for it was so decreed in the “counsel of His will.”
It will not do to say that Paul did not preach all that was necessary to be preached on the sublime subject of “predestination.” If Paul preached all that was necessary on “predestination,” and did not preach that “God purposed all the wicked acts of men and devils.” we should emulate his conservative example. Paul said: “And how I kept back nothing that: was profitable unto you, but have shewed you. and have taught you publickly, and from house to house.”-Acts xx. 20. What Paul preached on “predestination” was profitable, and he preached all that was profitable. He did not preach “predestination of all things,” good and evil. He kept back nothing that was profitable; therefore, “predestination of all things.” good and evil, is unprofitable.
Paul said again: “Wherefore I take vou to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.”–Acts xx. 26, 27. As Paul nowhere said or preached the doctrine of the “absolute predestination of all things,” good and evil, and as he declared all the counsel of God, therefore, the “absolute predestination of all things,” good and evil, is no part of the counsel of God.
Paul said again: “Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will: The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds: But the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel.”’ Phil. i. 15, 16, 17. Paul preached the gospel as it should be preached today—“in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” He nowhere preached the “predestination of all things,” good and evil; hence the doctrine is no part of the gospel of the grace of God. If the doctrine of the “predestination of all things,” good and evil, is a part of the gospel, and as Paul was set for the defense of the gospel, he, somewhere in his writings, would have defended it. The profound silence of Paul on that subject conclusively demonstrates that it is not the truth and, therefore, no part of the gospel of peace.
Again Paul said: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”-2 Tim. iii. 16, 17.
The scriptures plainly mention every point of the doctrine of God our Saviour. The scriptures nowhere say God has “purposed all things,” good and evil; therefore, the doctrine mentioned is not profitable; and as the doctrine of God our Saviour is profitable, the “absolute predestination of all things” is no part of the doctrine of God our Saviour. As the scriptures abundantly teach us that preaching the gospel is a good work, and as Paul said and preached all that was right for him to say on the subject of good works, and as he nowhere said that he believed that God had purposed all things, good and evil, therefore, I conclude that it is not a good work to preach such a doctrine.
Paul said: “Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again.”-Titus ii. 9. We know that some servants have disobeyed their masters and have not pleased them well in all things. This we are asked to believe is a part of the counsel and predestination of God. The Spirit of God inspired Paul to give the young men good advice, while the same Spirit we are taught to believe had secretly fixed it so the young men must reject that which was told them and do wrong. “Not purloining. but shewing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.”-Verse 10. When the saints of God do what the scriptures tell them to do, they adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. We are also asked to believe that when a man lies, steals, bears false witness, gets drunk, commits fornication. murder, or commits any other sin, that all of this was predestinated and goes to make up the clothing to adorn the predestination of God. Joshua was once clothed with filthy garments (Zech. iii. 3, but the filthy garments did not belong to Joshua. Let us take the filthy garments mentioned off of the doctrine of predestination, for they do not belong to it.
CHAPTER 26
I shall endeavor to write a few articles on the origin of “two-seedism” and “absolute predestination of all things,” good and evil. The two points of doctrine mentioned have precisely the same originators. This I feel quite sure no informed man will deny. The people who first preached the “two-seed” doctrine and “absolute predestination of all things,” good and evil, had no connection with the Church of God. This being true, the Church should have nothing to do with either of the above named heresies. If the doctrines mentioned above have an heretical origin, it is unsafe, unwise and unscriptural and, therefore, wrong for the Church to countenance the doctrine of heretics. These doctrines have not had a uniform name all the time. Calling the same doctrine by another name does not change the nature of the doctrine. “Two-seedism,” in all of its various ramifications and deceptive appearances, should be shunned, for it carries with its divergent make-up the elements of devastation, declension and division.
In the days of our Saviour there was a heresy which was opposed by John; called by historians, “Gnosticism.” The teachers of this heresy were men who belonged to the schools of Egypt and of Alexandria, which were the very mud-sills of scholastic rottenness and vain philosophy. These men who, from blending the philosophy of the East, or of Greece, with the doctrines of the gospel, pretended to be wise and amply able to explain the doctrine of the New Testament, and even boasted of their revelations, new discoveries, and deeper knowledge of the scriptures and theology than others. I have seen this same spirit among some of the Absoluters of our day. They would say “we should not fall out with a brother because more has been revealed to him than to you or I.”
I do not object to revelations of the right kind, but when anyone claims that God has revealed something to him, and that man preaches that revelation to the Lord’s people and they know nothing about it, that man is mistaken in the source of his stupendous revelation. Secret things belong to God, but revealed things belong to us and our children.
The origin of “Gnosticism” has been variously stated. The principal ingredients of this heterogeneous, divergent, Platonic, Pythagorean doctrine of metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls, is much older than New Testament Christianity. The Gnostics believed that the body of Jesus Christ was only an imaginary body, and thus they strenuously contended that Jesus did not come in the flesh and were, therefore, opposed byJohn. They believed in two antagonistic principles or spirits—one good and the other evil—and that the children of God were emanations from God, and when they died, returned to God from whence they came.
Among these ancient heretical Gnostics, Two-seeders and Absoluters, there were various branches, just as there are among the modern Two-seeders and Absoluters, yet they all belonged to precisely the same family and corrupt origin. These doctrines, in their incipiency, had a corrupt and poisoning influence; and it is observable that age, and even getting among the Lord’s people and into the sacred precincts of the Church of God, has not rendered it respectable. or, in the least, removed its original devastating and offensive influence. There were the Cabbalists and Cerinthians, against whom John wrote. There were also the Nicolaitans mentioned in Revelations, and the Ebionites, all of which were branches of the same system and corrupt fountain.
The Cabbalistic system was said to be a kind of science held to by some of the Jews, and they pretended to get the doctrine by revelation. If we will only take time enough to read, I think we will be thoroughly convinced that instead of the Jews getting this ‘”two-seed,” “non-resurrection,” doctrine by or through revelation, that it is a tenet of the Pythagorean, Platonic, Oriental and Alexandrian philosophy of heathen origin and, therefore; borrowed from the Egyptian schools. Just so with the Absoluters; if they would read, they would find that the Bible nowhere taught that “God purposed sin.” And not only so, but if they would read history, they would soon find that it was the haters, maligners and inveterate enemies of Jesus Christ and New Testament Christianity, who first preached and taught in their schools the “absolute predestination of all things,” good and evil.
The following is an epitome of the tenets held by the originators of the doctrine that is now called “two-seedism,” or “non-resurrectionism:” “Human souls are distant emanations from Deity; and after they are liberated from their material vehicles, will return, through various stages of purification, to the fountain from whence they first proceeded.”-Watson’s Dict., pg. 190.
The Cerdonians were an ancient sect of heretics who lived in the first century, and believed in two eternal principles. They also denied the incarnation of the Son of God and the resurrection of the body (Buck’s Theo. Dict., pg. 62).
The Carpocratians were a branch of the ancient Gnostics, and lived in the second century.
The Encratites were also another ancient sect of the Gnostic kind, and they also lived in the second century.
The Marcionites were a very ancient and seemingly a popular sect of the same Gnostic fraternity. They also held to two principles, one good and the other evil. They also denied the real birth and passion of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of the body.
The Manicheans, so named from Manes, who was a Persian and educated among the Magi, were another sect that believed in two eternal principles, one good, the other evil. They also believed that at death the good spirit went back to God, while the evil spirit went back to Satan. They also denied the resurrection of the bodies of the saints of God.
“Manes borrowed many things from the ancient Gnostics, on which account many authors consider the Manicheans as a branch –of the Gnostics. * * ” They denied that Jesus Christ, who was only God, assumed a true human body, and maintained it was only imaginary; and therefore they denied His incarnation and death.”-Buck’s Theo. Dict., ppg. 258, 259.
Thus Manes, who is said to have been born in Persia A. D. 240, and put to death about 277, revived the “two-seed,” “non-resurrection,” doctrine held to by the Gnostics and other heretical sects, some of whom I have briefly) mentioned above, who were the ecclesiastical ancestors of Manes and his followers.
“They denied the real existence of Christ’s human nature, and supposed Him to suffer in appearance only. They denied the doctrine of the resurrection. Christ came, they said, to save the souls of men, and not the bodies. In many leading principles they thus evidently agreed with the Gnostics, of whom indeed they may be considered a branch.”—Watson’s Theo. Dict. pg. 658.
The above doctrine has been believed by a few among the Old Baptists. Some seventy or eighty years ago, to the detriment of the Old Baptists, especially in some parts of the United States, it developed that an Old Baptist preacher, Elder Daniel Parker, had revived and imbibed the old Manichean heresy that had been dead for centuries. Elder J. M. Watson said: “Our exposition of the resurrection brought to view such a palpable difference in our tenets that it will be useless to compare them here. Why, brethren, so great a difference between us? From whence came Parkerism, with all its perverting tendencies? It was born of a Persian Magi, reared in the nursery of Polytheism, about the year 277, was brought into parasitical union by Manicheans with the gospel; since then it has presented itself, in many new and changing forms, to the consideration of the Christian world; of late years it has assumed the modification and name of Parkerism, and it is so adroitly attired in Christian apparel as to deceive many real Christians, who are now bewitched by its semi-Pagan doctrines. Set up as it is, at this time, it invades the eternity of God’s being, and then in Pagan blindness attempts to set up an eternal, self-existent spirit of evil; rejects the great truth that God is the Great First Cause of all things; defies the souls of the elect, in giving them an eternal existence and union actually with God, and withholds them from the non-elect; brings Adam up out of the earth as a formation to receive those souls as an infusion from God, as a portion of divinity, and has him to fall in such a way as to exclude the non-elect from a participation in it, then multiplied the woman’s conception into bodies for the seed of Satan to dwell in; then at death, annihilates the bodies of both the elect and non-elect. Nor is this all. It goes forth with a hard spirit here; has, of course, no sympathy or concern for the children of the devil; hints that prayer is useless in our pulpits, or elsewhere; dries up the sincere milk of the Word; poisons the strong meats of the gospel; and confusion. contention. disunion and chilling winds follow in its serpentine wake! This is Parkerism, when stripped of its Pagan patches, of its semi-Christian garments, and made to stand forth in all its naked ugliness! Will you have it. brethren, notwithstanding all this? Will you say we misrepresented it? If so, prove it, and we will retract anything of the kind.”-0ld Baptist Test, ppg. 296, 297. Yes, and all the above can be said of “absolute predestination of all things,” good and evil, for it is a scion of the same corrupt stock, and the family resemblance is so striking that any unbiased mind will readily perceive the likeness. I will now give verbatim the first article of faith containing the “two-seed” doctrine among the Baptists:
“We believe the serpent has a seed also, and they are of their father, the devil, whose work they will do. We believe both of these seeds to be spiritual, and have a spiritual existence in their respective fathers before they are manifested or developed in. the flesh. or in the world.”-Old Baptist Test, ppg. 301.
The Two-seeders will unblushingly tell you that they are the old stock of Baptists, still the above is the first article of the kind that ever appeared among the Baptists purporting to be Old Baptist doctrine. It is true that the Catholics accused the Waldenses of the “two-seed” heresy in the following language: “That with the Manicheans the Waldenses believed in two principles; one, the good. God, the Creator of good; and one, evil, which is the devil, the creator of evil.” In reply, the Waldenses said: “We believe that the Holy Trinity created all things, both visible and invisible, and that He is Lord of all things in heaven, earth and hell, as it is said by John, `All things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made.’ “-Old Baptist Test, p. 302..
I will now give the first article that was ever put forth by the Baptists purporting to be Old Baptist doctrine that contained universal predestination. Elder Gilbert Beebe, in his prospectus, said: “2. The absolute predestination of all things.”—Editorials, Vol. 1, p. 7. The Signs o f the Times published the above article of faith as an expression of what its editor believed in 1832. The above is the first article of the kind ever put forth by the Baptists of any kind. I would kindly ask anyone who now believes in the “absolute predestination of all things” to show any article of the. kind put forth by the Baptists prior to the one above. Old Baptist history simply furnishes nothing of the kind. It is absolutely new among the old order of Baptists, and no man can trace the above expression farther back among the Baptists than the beginning of the Signs of the Times, which was in 1832. It is a fact that the –two-seed” doctrine was introduced among the Primitive Baptists by Daniel Parker, and it is also true that the doctrine of the “absolute predestination of all things” was introduced among the same people by Elder Gilbert Beebe, the originator of the Signs of’ the Times, in 1832. The introduction of two-seedism among the Primitive Baptists marks a painful epoch in the history of our people. The same may be truthfully said about “absolute predestination of all things.” Its best and ablest admirers cannot, and have not yet explained it so the great body of Baptists have understood it or believed it.
I will now make a few quotations from history to show that “two-seed” doctrine is still alive and advocated by men who claim to be Primitive Baptists.
Dr. S. M. Carlton says,”They are lost upon a principle of justice, and that justice is based upon the fact that the heirs of perdition (in a spiritual sense) are not God’s. They come from the infernal regions. and they will return to Satan, the author of their spiritual existence. And in like manner, the heirs of promise will return to Christ in heaven from whence they came, who is the author of their spiritual existence.”-Diagram of the Churches, ppg 10, 11. Here is the Gnostic, Platonic, and Pythagorean doctrine.
The doctor says again: “It is therefore reasonable to suppose from common sense, as well as from inference, admitting that the scriptures were silent upon this subject, that all who were not embraced in this covenant were heirs of perdition. and that their spiritual existence hailed from the under world, and must by right return from whence they came.” pg. 71.
Again the doctor says: “Suppose we say that the family of perdition stood condemned in the mind of Jehovah before all worlds were, and that their spiritual existence was virtually in the loins of Satan before God spoke into existence their natural beings, and that God made them for the very purpose that His foreknowledge comprehended for them, and that without them He could not have shown His wisdom, power and goodness toward the children of mercy; for the terms `good’ and `heaven’ would have been vague terms, without meaning if they had not had their opposites, `evil’ and `hell;’ and God was compelled, according to the very nature of things, to create inhabitants for both conditions and places, or the creation of such conditions and places would have been wholly unnecessary.”-pg. 12.
On page 14 the doctor says: “And so far as choice is concerned, God chooses the heirs of promise because they are His; and does not choose them to make them His; and He rejects the heirs of perdition because they are not His.”
H. H. Hays, who was a Missionary Baptist preacher, in reviewing the above sayings of Dr. CarIton, says on pages 50 and 51: “But I know its father, Daniel Parker. It is not like the Babe that lay in the manger, but it is as one coming from the horrible pit from which the doctor says a part of the human family came. I am astonished at Dr. Carlton. claiming to be an Old Baptist and believing such a theory. If I was an anti-Mission Baptist I certainly would sue Dr. Carlton for damages for publishing any such creed over my name.”
A. Gordon said: “Now, my dear sister, we agree with you, that God has no partnership with the devil or his children, or that the devil draws upon Eve for bodies. We believe that every seed produces its own body–.”-Potter, on “Election,” pg. 2.
The editor of the Herald of Truth.” who was a”two-seed” Baptist, said: “No man will be taken to an eternity of bliss, or sent to an eternity of woe, for what he does in this world. But those that are accounted worthy of an eternity of bliss will receive it upon a principle of heirship, as an inheritance for what they are, and not for what they do. So, also, with those sent to the regions of misery will be sent there for what they are, and not for what they do. We say, without fear of successful contradiction, that our doings in this life only effect us in this life.”-Potter. on “Election,” pg. 2.
Elder G. Dalby said: “The non-elect are no more related to the elect than the cocklebur is to the Corn—both growing in the same field.”-Ibid. pg. 3.
Martin Ellis said: “Then I ask the question, Which is the oldest in substance. Christ or His bride? The figure that Paul uses in the earthly Adam shows they were the same age.”-Ibid, pg. 3.
The above quotations positively connect and identify in doctrine some claiming to be Old Baptists with the Gnostic heretics who were condemned by John and other New Testament writers.
When the Paulicians were accused of Manichean tenets, they repeatedly denied the charge. In speaking of the Paulicians, Milner said: “That this sect also despised the whole of the Old Testament, is asserted. but on grounds which seem utterly unwarrantable. For they have said to have done this as Gnostics and Manichees, though they steadily condemned the Manichees, and complained of the injustice which branded them with that odious name. They are also charged with holding the eternity of matter, and the existence of two independent principles; and with denying the real suffering and real flesh of Christ. It seems no way was found so convenient to disgrace them as by the charge of Manicheism. “But I cannot believe.” says Milner, “that they held these tenets; not only because they, themselves denied the charge, but also because they unquestionably held things perfectly inconsistent with such notions.”-Milner’s Church History, Vol. III, pg. 204.
The modern advocates of the ancient dualistic “two-seed” doctrine who are now separated from the old order of Baptists, it seems needs must dispute. The doctrine is continually being attired in a new dress; and when its new clothing is taken off, it is very perceptible, that “it cares neither for the general peace of Zion, the union of associations, nor the order of Old Baptist churches” (Watson).
In this chapter I have looked into the origin, in a brief way, of the “two-seed” doctrine, and shown how it surreptitiously connected itself with the old order of Baptists some seventy or eighty years ago through Daniel Parker. Since its serpentine introduction among us, we have had a fight on our hands. Just so with its twin sister, or brother, “absolute predestination of all things.” These two doctrines are perverters of the truth, disturbers of the peace and happiness of God’s people. Thank God, the day of their rebuke and final rejection is at band! I see daylight coming! Come, 0 sweet day of rest! My soul longs for thee; for thee I live: for thee I sigh! Oh, brother preachers, “‘let us put on the whole armor of God.” gird on the sword of the Spirit, and cut those noxious, corrupting, hurtful and destructive doctrines down. Let us go forth in the spirit and meekness of Jesus and defend the sweet and precious doctrines of Jesus and the apostles against the defamers and defacers. who persistently and rigidly attempt a defense of the heresies mentioned in this chapter. But above all things, let us have fervent and reverential charity for one another, and avoid both of the above extremes, for they eat as cloth a canker. They live by disputation, and if we will quit disputing with these mythological, mutinous and ruinous doctrines, they will die on their own feedings.
CHAPTER 27
In the preceding chapter I have succinctly shown the origin of what our people call the “two-seed,” “non-resurrection” doctrine; also its connection with our people; and I am quite sure that no one who is acquainted with the history and origin of that doctrine will deny what I have said. In this chapter I shall attempt to show the origin of “predestination of all things,” and at the proper place show how, and when, and by whom it was introduced among the Primitive Baptists.
The “absolute predestination of all things” is an alien to God, a stranger in the camps of Israel. a perverter, a disputer, a foreigner, having no hope and without God in the world. Its origin is bad, its claims are false, vociferous and pretentious. It cries for admittance into the sacred precincts of the Church of God; and when it gains the admittance sought for, it wants to be recognized as of heavenly origin. The only way to satisfy this doctrine is to let it have its way in all things. It does not love to be opposed and exposed. It seems to have some knowledge of its internal deformity and ugliness and; therefore, does not lovingly admire the man who exposes its rottenness and ugliness to public gaze.
Myers’ Outlines of Ancient History. page 338, says: “Zeno, founder of the celebrated school of the Stoics, lived in the third century before our era (about 362-364. He taught at Athens in a public porch (in Greek. stoa) from which circumstance comes the name applied to his disciples.”
Zeno was a philosopher of the Pythagorean school.
Pythagoras, who lived some three hundred eighty or four hundred years .before Christ, and is claimed to be the originator of philosophy. taught the doctrine of “the transmigration of souls,” an idea he had doubtless brought from Egypt” (Myers, pg. 30). Zeno taught the doctrine of the “predestination of all things,” or “fatality,” in his school at Athens several centuries before the advent of Christ into the world.
Robinson, in his history of the Bible, page 133, says: “Stoics, a sect of fatalistic heathen philosophers, so named from the Greek word, signifying “porch,” or “portico,” because Zeno, its founder, more than three centuries before Christ, held his school in a porch of the city of Athens.”
It may he claimed that the Stocis were Atheists, or did not believe in a Supernatural Being and, therefore, that is the reason they are, and were, called “fatalists.”
“They believed in the doctrine of fate, which they represented as
no other than the will and purpose of God, and held that it had no tendency to looseness of life.”-Buck’s Theo. Dict., pg. 427.
Remember that Zeno first taught the doctrine in his school at Athens, and also that the Stoics were philosophers and embraced the doctrine of “predestination of all things” from this Stoical school, and were teaching it in the city of Athens in Paul’s day. “Now while Paul waited for them (Silas and Timotheus) at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him. Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said. What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.”-Acts xvii. 16, 17, 18.
Thus we see that Paul was not a Stoical predestinarian, or an Epicurean Arminian, but occupied just where all Old Baptists should occupy today between the two extremes. Paul did not believe as the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers did. If he had, they would not have `’encountered him,” or said he was “a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.” So the Primitive Baptists of our day; like Paul did at the city of Athens, do not agree with those who are preaching “fatality,” or “predestination of all things.”
It may be said that there is a difference between “fatality” and “absolute predestination of all things,” good and evil.
“FATE. 1. Primarily a decree or word pronounced by God, or a fixed sentence by which the order of things is prescribed. Hence, inevitable necessity; destiny depending on a Superior cause, and uncontrollable;.”-Webster. According to the Stoics, every event is determined by fate.
The eternal fixedness of all events; good or bad, is a “fixed sentence by which the order of things is prescribed.” Surely if all things were fixed, men cannot do otherwise than the way prescribed, or fixed, for them to do; hence, inevitable necessity. I understand the phrase, “absolute predestination of all things,” to mean that “every thought, every act, either good or evil, was so minutely and definitely determined that all things have, and will occur just precisely as God fixed for them to come to pass,”
The Jewish Pharisees also believed in “absolute predestination of all things.” Josephus. the Jewish historian in “Wars of the Jews,” Book II, Chap. viii., Sec. 14, says of the Pharisees: “These ascribe all to fate (or providence), and to God, and yet allow that to act what is right, or the contrary, is principally in the power of men; although fate does co-operate in every action. They say that all souls are incorruptible, but that the souls of good men only are removed into other bodies, but that the souls of bad men are subject to eternal punishment.”
Fleetwood, in his `’Life of Christ,” page 250, in speaking of the Pharisees, said: “A third tenet was, that all things were subject to fate; or, as some expressed it, to the heavens. It is not easy to conceive what they meant by this. Josephus, indeed, will have it that they designed to reconcile the fatality of predestination of the Essenes with the free-will of the Sadducees.”
Robinson, in speaking of the Pharisees, said: “They believed with the Stoics, that all things and events were controlled by fate; yet not so absolutely as to entirely destroy the liberty of the human will.” Bible Dict., pg. 339.
Mosheim, in speaking of the Pharisees, said: “They held absolute predestination, and at the same time, with the Sadducees, they held ‘free-will.’”’-Eccl. History, pg. 164.
Jesus said to His disciples concerning the Pharisees and Sadducees: “Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.” Matt. xvi. 12. Jesus said again: “But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”-Matt. xv. 9.
The phrase, “predestination of all things,” is of man, and not of divine origin or sanction; and those of our brethren who hold on to it are absolutely guilty, for “thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition” (Matt. xv. 6). The phrase. “absolute predestination of all things,” violates this scripture: “Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.”-2 Tim. i. 13. Paul said again: “If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.”-1 Tim. vi. 3-5.
Is the doctrine that God has “predestinated sin and all ungodliness” wholesome words, “even the words of the Lord Jesus Christ,” and “according to godliness?” Is lying, stealing, idolatry, adultery, fornication, murder, falsehood and all the abominable wickedness of earth, according to godliness? If so, “These things teach and exhort.”Verse 2.
The Essenes were also a Jewish sect and, according to Josephus, were held in honor by Herod. Josephus. in his “Antiquities of the Jews, Book 13, Chap. v. Sec. 9, of the Essenes, says: “But the sect of the Essenes affirm that fate governs all things, and that nothing befalls men but, what is according to its determination.”‘
Again Josephus said: “The doctrine of the Essenes is this, that all things are best ascribed to God.”
Fleetwood, in his “Life of Christ,” page 253, says of the Essenes: “With respect to their faith, they believed in the existence of angels, the immortality of the soul, and a future state of rewards and punishments, like the Pharisees, but seem to have had no notion of the resurrection. They considered the souls of men as composed of a most subtle ether, which, immediately after their separation from the body, or from the cage or prison, as they call it, were adjudged to a place of endless happiness or misery. ” * * * They were likewise entirely averse to the Sadducean doctrine of free-will, attributing all to an eternal fatality or chain of causes.”
Mosheim said of the Essenes: “They viewed the law of Moses as an allegorical system of spiritual and mysterious truths, and renounced all regard to its letter in the application of it. They held absolute predestination, and that only the soul would be punished in a future state.”
The celebrated German critic, Michalis, defines the Essenses as “A Jewish sect, which began to spread itself at Ephesus, and to threaten great mischief to Christianity in the time (or, indeed, previous to the time) of St. Paul; on which account, in his epistles to the Ephesians, to the Collossians, and to Timothy, he declares himself openly against them.”-Michalis, Vol. IV., pg. 79.
Moshiem, the great ecclesiastical historian, says: “It was in Egypt that the morose discipline of asceticism (the Essenian or Therapeutan) took its rise; and it is observable that that country has in all times, as it were by an immutable law or disposition of nature, abounded with persons of a melancholy complexion, and produced, in proportion to its extent, more gloomy spirits than any other part of the world. It was here that the Essenes dwelt principally, long before the coming of Christ.”-Vol. I, pg. 196.
Here is what Gibbon, the infidel historian., says about one of the schools in which the philosophy of “absolute predestination of all things” was taught: “The groves of the academy, the gardens of Epicurus, and even the porticos of Stories, were deserted as so many different schools of scepticism or impiety.”-Chap. 16.
The primary and largest library that ever was in the world, was said in that day to be at Alexandria in Egypt. The first of all that most mischievous of all institutions or universities was the University of Alexandria in Egypt; where lazy, indolent and corrupt monks, wily and infuriated fanatics, first found the benefit of clubbing together to keep the privileges, benefits and advantages of learning to themselves, and concocting holy mythological mysteries and inspired legends, to be dealt out as the craft should need, for the perpetuation of vain philosophy, deceit, tradition, and Egyptian ignorance, superstition and consequently of the ascendency of juggles and Jesuits, who were holy hypocrites and reverend rogues and defamers among men.
From this pandemonium we get the doctrine of eternal antagonistic principles, now called the “eternal children” doctrine, or two-seedism; also the “absolute predestination of all things.” “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” Job says, “Not one.” These ancient schools were the treasure cities of Pharaoh, and the senility of the schools and the age of “absolute predestination of all things” does not commend them to the children of God. The doctrine of “absolute predestination of all things,” when separated from truth, or the people of God, cannot live long, for it carries within its make-up the very elements of starvation, and in a short while it will unavoidably die on its own feeding. The closer we rummage this doctrine the more incompatible will it appear to us. It does not exclusively appear attired with the royal inwrought habiliments of the King of Peace, but also with the ragged, filthy garments of sin and ungodliness. It says it fixed the destiny and every act of men and devils before the highest dust of the hills was fashioned. The eternal purpose of God is in Jesus Christ, and we are asked to believe that the eternal purpose of God in Christ, which is full of grace and truth, does not only embrace truth and righteousness, but falsehood, unrighteousness and all the midnight crimes of men and demons. My heart sickens when I see so many of the Lord’s people bewitched by this impetuous, implacable and importunate doctrine of Pagan contrivance.
Watson; in his Theological Dictionary, page 370, says of the Essenes: “From the account given of the doctrines and institutions of this sect by Philo and Josephus, we learn that they believed in the immortality of the soul; that they were absolute predestinarians.”
This heresy did not originate with Christ and the twelve apostles, but among heathen and Greek philosophers who attempted to supplant and suppress the religion of Jesus Christ. Paul fought with those philosophers, Two-seeders and Absoluters at Ephesus. He says: “If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for tomorrow we die:” -1 Cor. xv. 32. Paul said again to the Ephesian brethren: “Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them.” -Eph. v. 6, 7. When a man comes along affirming that “God purposed sin,” ask him to prove it; and when he fails, tell him that such are vain words and are calculated to “deceive the hearts of the simple” (Rom. xvi. 18).
Jeremiah said: “For thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Let not your prophets and your diviners, that be in the midst of you, deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed. For they prophesy falsely unto you in my name: I have not sent them, saith the Lord.”-Jer. xxix. 8, 9.
The man who says that God purposed sin simply cannot prove it by God’s Word, for it does not say so; and by it we are commanded to “prove all things” (1 Thess. v. 21) that we preach. It is as clear as the noon-day sun in its meridian heights that “absolute predestination of all things” is not of God. When that doctrine is preached it has a chilling, blighting, confusing, dividing and frost- like influence among the children of God. It does not bring peace, comfort and consolation to the weary and feeble of the flock of God. It does not bind up the broken-hearted, or give joy and gladness to the halting and feeble lambs of God. Isaiah said: “And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever.” -Isaiah xxxii. 17.
Where this doctrine is preached, churches are chilled, cold, lifeless, inactive, not prosperous; hence, to preach it is not a work of righteousness. If the preaching of this doctrine was a work of righteousness, its effect would be quietness. As this doctrine, when it is preached, has a turbulent, disturbing, dissatisfying and perplexing influence, it should be shunned and avoided by the people of God. It carries with it a spirit of apathy and antipathy for all those who essay to call in question its divine origin and scriptural authenticity. It is anxious to tell you that all your sins were embraced in the almighty fiat of God, and that all things must be just as they are; that if they were not just as they are, and have been, no one could tell how things would have been; and when you reply that you do not believe any such stuff, it turns and rends you, and at once denounces you as being unsound in the faith. It will tell you that you are an Arminian; and at the same time, if the doctrine be true, your belief could not have been different without frustrating the eternal purpose of God in Christ. That doctrine is an enemy to God and to Jesus Christ, for it forestalls God’s judicial government of His people. It antagonizes His laws, exhortations to obedience, and sets at naught His commandments. Ever since the entrance, by adoption, of this frantic, frigid, frolicsome child of the dark ages among the Old Baptists, they have had a war on their hands. The advocates of this doctrine may furbish, scour, polish, embellish, ornament, illustrate and explain it, yet they can never so clothe it or explain it so that the Lord’s people will have it. It is a fact that the ablest and most careful advocates of this doctrine are in almost all they say or write on the above subject trying to explain it, and when their explanation of the doctrine passes into the hands of some brother who does not believe the doctrine he cannot, it seems, correctly represent what his brother believes on predestination of all things with his brother’s explanation in his hand. That doctrine should be relinquished, which needs everlasting explanation, and will repine almost every time anyone says aught against it. It will encounter you on the street, in the lane, in the church house, in the closet, or on the housetop. It is a renegade, for it has deserted its original associates and comrades and come to live with the Old Baptists, and it seemed to know that the Old Baptists took the Bible, as the man of their counsel; so it paints its face like Jezebel of old, with divine authority and sanction, and is upstairs and wants unmolested possession and preeminence in the household affairs. Preaching that “God has purposed all the murder, adultery, fornication, lying, cheating, and every other evil act,” is not a work of righteousness, for when such is preached, the Church is disturbed, and peace is destroyed. There is no quietness where the tenet is preached. It may be said that the doctrine of `.predestination of all things,” good and evil, does not make God the author of sin. Just how sin and all its concomitants can be a part of God’s eternal purpose, and God not be the cause and the author of the things embraced in His eternal purpose, is yet to be explained.
CHAPTER 28
The Bardesanists is a sect so denominated from their leader, Bardesanes, a Syrian of Edessa, in Mesopotamia, who lived in the second century. They believed that the actions of men depended altogether on fate, and that God Himself is subject to necessity. They denied the resurrection of the body, and the incarnation and death of our Saviour (Buck’s Theo. Dict., pg. 35).
It may he objected that the doctrine of “absolute predestination of all things” subjects God to “necessity.” If it was fixed by the Lord for Cain to murder Abel, could God have kept Cain from murdering Abel without interfering with and keeping His decree from being .fulfilled? If not, God Himself is subject to “necessity.”
In speaking of heaven and hell, Dr. Carlton says: “And God was compelled, according to the very nature of things, to create inhabitants for both conditions and places, or the creation of such conditions and places would have been wholly unnecessary.” -Diagram of the Churches, pg. 12.
Compel means to “drive or urge with force or irresistibly; to constrain; to oblige; to necessitate.”-Webster. Thus we see that the doctrine of “absolute predestination of all things” subjects God to the doctrine of “necessity;” compels Him to do certain things, and will not let Him keep men from committing the awful crimes they are guilty of.
The Priscillianists held to a mixture of Gnostic and Unitarian tenets. They denied the resurrection of the body, and said that men are subject to “necessity to sin.”-Rutter’s Church History, ppg. 84, 85.
Priscillian, the originator of this sect, was put to death A. D. 381. If God purposed sin, men had to sin; hence, under the necessity of sinning. The Eunomians existed in the second Century, and were a branch of the Arians. They believed that “There is one God, uncreated and without beginning; who has nothing existing before Him; for nothing can exist before what is uncreated; nor with Him, for what is uncreated must be one; nor in Him, for God is a simple and uncompounded Being. This one simple and eternal being is God, the creator and ordainer of all things; first, indeed, and principally of His only begotten Son; and then through Him of all other things.”–Rutter’s Church History, pg. 172.
The reader will please note the fact that all who believed “absolute predestination of all things” in the centuries of which I now speak, were called heretics and, therefore, had no connection whatever with the Church and people of God. It is strange, indeed, if this doctrine was taught by the apostles that they never recorded it. The reason why they never recorded it is because they never preached it. And the reason why they never preached it is because it is no part of the gospel of the grace of God.
And is it not strange that some historian has not told us and proved it, that the Novatianists, Donatists, Paulicians, Waldenses, nor the Anabaptists believed in the “absolute predestination of all things,” good and eveil, if they believed such a doctrine? No, those in early times who believed in that doctrine did not belong to the Church of Jesus Christ. And as long as it remained where it belonged, it was not an intruder; it was harmless; but when it got a footing among us, it has harmed us, for it has put at variance churches and associations, and disturbed the peace and happiness of individual churches.
Mohammed was born at Mecca, Arabia, about the year 570, A.D.; began preaching his religion in 610, died in 632 (Hassell, pg. 414). Mohammed believed in God, in angels, in his scriptures (the Koran), in his prophets, in the resurrection and judgment, and in God’s absolute decrees. He said: “The heavens and the earth are His own, and there is nothing in all their copious furniture, but what invariably obey Him,” —Smucker’s History of All Religions, ppg. 173, 174.
This is what extreme predestinarians are now claiming is Old Baptist doctrine.
Again the historian said: “The doctrine which they call orthodox is that whatever doth or shall come to pass in the world whether it be good or bad, proceedeth entirely from the Divine Will, and is irrevocably fixed and recorded from all eternity in the preserved table; and that God has secretly predetermined not only the adverse and prosperous fortune of every person in the world, but also his obedience or disobedience, and consequently his everlasting happiness or misery after death; which fate or predestination it is impossible by any foresight or wisdom to avoid,” —Smucker, pg. 178.
The above is “predestination of all things” straight.
Historians tell us that Mohammed was born on Monday, began his apostolic functions on Monday, fled from Mecca on Monday, made his entry into Medina on Monday, took Mecca on Monday; and at last, it is said, he died on Monday.
For over eight hundred years have we traced this heathenish, dualistic doctrine of “two-seedism” and the “absolute predestination of all things,” good and evil, and not once have we found the least vestige of it among the Lord’s humble poor; neither can any man on earth do such a thing during this period.
Brother Hassell said, “Mohammed was a licentious, ambitious and vindictive man; and his religion was a strange compound of truth and error, of Judaism, Rabbinism, Christianity, Heathenism and Fatalism,” -pg. 415.
If Mohammed preached “absolute predestination of all things,” good and evil, and that was “fatalism” in his day, how is it that the same sentiment is not fatalism yet?
Here is Brother Hassell’s definition of fatality: “Fatalism is the doctrine that all things, great or small, mental and material, were eternally and inexorably predetermined by an eternal, irresistible fate, or destiny, or necessity, an endless and adamantine chain of causes and effects so that nothing, not even any thought, or feeling, or word, or action of any human being can, by any possibility, in the slightest respect, be different from what it is, and thus no man is really to blame for anything he does, because he cannot help it.”
Messenger, 1894, pg. 181.
If “all things” are embraced in God’s eternal purpose, and the “all things” thus embraced should fail to come to pass, then it would follow that the thing God decreed to be, failed to be. The eternal fixedness of “all things” by the purpose of God is exactly the definition of fatality, as defined by Elder S. Hassell in the above quotation. If it was predestinated for Adam to sin, do you think Adam could have kept from sinning? If he could not keep from sinning, didn’t he have to sin? If this is not exactly what the phrase, “absolute predestination of all things,” means and asserts, then I am honestly mistaken in what the expression means. If there is one thought, emotion, or pulsation of heart or nerve, good or bad, or one act, good or bad, that was not eternally purposed of God, then the oft repeated expression is positively untrue. If the purpose of God is eternal, and we know it is, (Eph. iii. 11) and the purpose of God includes all events of time, good or bad, then just so many good acts were definitely fixed for us to do; and let come what may, we must do just that many good acts; while on the other hand, we must do just so many bad acts, and let things be as they may, nothing can be brought to bear to cause a failure along this line, for our destiny and every intervening act was minutely, definitely, accurately, effective1y, indubitably, immutably and indomitably fixed by the eternal and inexorable purpose of God. So, according to this doctrine, God’s people had to do just as they have done, for it was effectually thus fixed in eternity. We are asked to believe, by the God of heaven, that the wicked and vile had to do as they have done; for the same eternal purpose of God, we are taught to believe, also fixed all the mean things that have been, or may be, done. Yes, if it is fixed for us to disobey, we cannot obey; and on the other hand. if it is fixed for us to obey, we cannot disobey. If this be true, then God does not and cannot control us, even by the law of the Spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus.
If the acts of men, both good and bad, were determined and fixed by the Lord before He made man, then that man cannot be governed or controlled by law, seeing that his acts and every movement are purposed and fixed and, therefore, controlled or governed by the purpose of God. The judicial and moral laws of God cannot operate or be in force under the law of the absolute fixedness of all things.
Eider R. H. Boaz says: “But if God is trying to get His children to obey Him, and they will not do it, but disobey Him, then their course, is independent of God. Yea, more, this idea that God designed that a preacher should preach in a certain locality, and that he should preach on a certain line, but the preacher refuses to go in said locality; or if he goes, he preaches on a different line to what God intended, or that God designed any obedience whatever on the part of His children, and has made an effort in that direction, and has failed to reach the end designed, then I say this idea denies the existence of God; God the Supreme Being * * * the eternal and infinite Spirit, the Creator and the Sovereign of the universe. “–Boaz’s Pamphlet, ppg. 47, 48.
According to the above, the preacher is under an absolute and arbitrary law; which, if true, the preacher cannot disobey or obey, for he is under an unconditional law and not a moral law. This is about what Mohammed and his heretical ancestors taught on the absolute decrees of God. According to the above quotation, the obedience of God’s people was eternally, absolutely and irresistibly fixed, just as the eternal salvation of alien sinners was fixed; just as the will of the alien sinner is excluded in regeneration, just precisely the same way is the will of the children of God excluded in their obedience to God. If the preaching of the gospel was purposed of God just as the salvation of sinners was purposed, then no preacher ever disobeyed’ Gad. The preacher that is under this absolute and arbitrary law, in order to disobey God, would have to frustrate the eternal purpose and counsel of God; which, of course, he could not do. So, according to this theory, the preacher had just so much preaching to do, and he, had to preach on certain lines, or just as the purpose of God had prescribed; and he will have to go just where and when, and preach on just such a line as was eternally fixed for him to preach on. If the preacher stays at home, the theory is, he had to stay at home; he did not have the ability to go to preaching that day. Certainly no “Absoluter” believes the preacher has the ability to go to preaching when the Lord had purposed for him to stay at home. Do you think a man can do what God has purposed for him not to do? If so, what, becomes of the eternal purpose and design of God?
Again the same writer says: “The Baptists have held that foreknowledge can only be upon the principle of the fixedness, or the unchangeableness of the thing foreknown; that if there was any way possible for a thing to be one of two ways at the option of a thing, that there would be no way to determine how, or which way, the thing would be beforehand, that this could only be determined by the thing itself at the time.”-Ibid, pg. 19. .
Thus we have in the above extract the eternal fixedness and unchangeableness of all things foreknown. The argument, or rather the idea of the text cited above, is that the unchangeable foreknowledge of God fixed all things one way or the other. If the man obeys, that is the way it was fixed; if he disobeys, that is the way it was fixed; “which fate, or predestination, it is impossible by any foresight, or wisdom, to avoid,” so said Mohammed, and so say the Absoluters of our day. What say you, brethren? And as the alien sinner is passive in regeneration, so the children of God are passive in obedience, for they are under absolute and unconditional law, if under law at all; therefore, their wills are not consulted at all in the matter of obedience.
Boaz quotes Brother Kirkland as saying: “How many souls have hungered for the Word you were impressed and gifted to speak? How many hearts have longed for the comfort that you were impressed to write in an article to your family paper? How many brethren have stumbled for want of the light you have smothered under the garments of your disobedience?” Here is Boaz’s comment on the above humble and Christian statement: “Now, may I ask in this connection, how long has it been that the Baptists of this country would have suffered such glaring blasphemy as the above to pass without rebuke?”-ppg. 20, 21. Boaz further says: “Who but a proud blasphemer would say so?”
If Brother Kirkland said what he is quoted as saying, he said right. It was only one of the many good things he has said, and Boaz believes that it was purposed of the Lord and, therefore, fixed for Brother Kirkland to say it; and when he said it, Boaz thinks it was “glaring blasphemy.” If Brother Kirkland had acted independently of the purpose and will of God in this matter, Boaz says that would have been “fatalism;” but as he acted according to the will and purpose of God, it was only “glaring blasphemy.” Who but a poor deluded mortal would say so? Think of the idea, when the will and purpose of God are fulfilled, or complied with, a servant has “glaringly blasphemed” his God! God had the power to have had it different; but as He did not have it different, that is the way He wanted it to occur, is the unscrupulous philosophy of some of our modern philosophers.
Dr. S. M. Carlton, whom I think well of, and believe he is my friend and not my enemy, said, after quoting Dan. iv. 35: “Does this look like God has delegated permissive free agency to wicked men and devils, or does it look like He was controlling all their actions by His sovereign and unchangeable decrees? but all for His own glory. All things were created by Him, and for Him, and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist (Col, i. 16, 17). Did He create evil? If He did, He created it for Himself, out of which evil all sin emanates. `I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things’ (Isa. xlv. 7). Well, He created evil for Himself! He had a special use for it, or He would not have created it.”–Open Letter to A. P. Koen, -October 1, 1901.
Thus we see, according to the doctor’s philosophy, that God does not control His people by law, but by “His sovereign and unchangeable decrees.” Such a doctrine absolutely and flatly denies and contradicts any judicial and governmental control of the people. There is no place in such a doctrine for the Lord to govern and control His people by law. I suppose that is the reason why the doctrine has in the last few years taken upon itself the garment of unconditional enjoyment and happiness of the Lord’s people in this life. If the statement of the doctor is true, that “God created evil, out of which all sin emanates,” then sin proceeded, as Mohammed taught, from the Divine Will. Surely, whatever God creates is God’s creature. If God created evil, out of which sin came, then evil is a creature, and from this creature of God sin came. If God created evil in the sense the doctor claimed He did, then God created evil before man sinned, as sin emanates from evil. Paul said: “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.”-Rom. v. 12.
It seems that we must have a few men among us today who will hear or read some such expressions as the last quotations, and that “God predestinated the first sin and all other sins,” and many other similar expressions; and then when the asserter of these things says, “I do not believe that God is the cause of sin, though He purposed it. willed it, and wanted it, and the covenant of grace would have been a failure without it, and I do not believe God is the author of sin, or the influencer of sin,” the offence is removed, the odium and odor is extinguished. Yes, a simple denial that God is not the cause or the author of the thing He created for His own special use, is a sweet, soothing palatable, for by it the turbulent waves are stilled and tile contrary, angry, cyclonic winds cease to blow. So along the lines of march, there is occasionally the gentle sound or voice of some sentinel heard, or echoed, “There is no vital difference—only a difference in expression!”
I will quote from another Absoluter: “And in every place where He speaks of the goodness of His works, He says, `And it was good,’ i, e., His work was good,—not good in its nature, but the work was good. Like in natural things, and men’s work here in this world. I may make a good ax handle out of pine timber; i.e., my work will be good, I have done a good jab, and yet the ax handle is not a good one in its nature, because it is made of pine wood, and pine is too soft and brittle to make a good, durable handle. If I had made it of hickory, or of some other tough, durable wood; it would have been a great deal better handle in nature, and yet the work done by myself no better, and maybe not so good. So if the reader will read the first chapter of Genesis carefully and thoughtfully, he or she will find that it was the work that was done that was good, and not essentially the nature of the thing made. God always does good work. He never does any but good work. * * * He made the devil, and He made him to be a devil, and so he is a good devil in his place, for he has ever filled his place so well that his fame is very notorious.”-Five Books of Moses, ppg. l, 2.
From this we learn that William Ransom Welhorn is a full-blood “Absoluter.” He believes that the creation of Adam was like a man making an ax handle out of pine. The man’s work was good, and the handle would have been good also, but for the fact that the nature of the material was not good. So the reason why Adam was not a good man, the Lord had bad material to make him out of. The work of God was all right, that was good. Was there any part of Adam that was not God’s work? Suppose you subtract the work of God in thee creation of Adam from Adam and then tell us what is left. And then suppose you tell us who created that part of Adam that was not God’s work. And the “devil was a good devil!” Who told you so? It seems that Welborn believes that the Lord did a better job when He made the devil than He did when he made Adam. When the Lord made Adam, the Lord’s work was what was good, “i,e., His work was good.” “He made him to be a devil, and so he is a good devil in his place!” Jesus once said to the Pharisees, who believed in absolute Predestination of all things: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lust of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beinning and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it,”-John viii. 44.
None of the prophets, Jesus Christ, nor the New Testament writers, seemed to have as good opinion of the devil as William R. Welborn. Is there not a cause?
I will now quote from page 28: “My theory is that God created Esau, and that He wanted him and gave him every principle which he possessed; for if He did not, then some one else had a part in Esau’s formation.”
Yes, that is it, “my theory,” which has led many of God’s people away from the truths of the Bible. That is just what the whole thing is, ‘my theory,’ and “my theory” has no department in the gospel of peace. The etymological derivation of this “theory” is enough to condemn it in the minds and affections of all right-thinking and peace-loving people into perpetual oblivion.
A doctrine that depreciates and vitiates God’s judicial government of His people should be shunned, for it has so fixed things that men, yes, the children of God, must be delinquents; and until the doctrine is deodorized of its Pagan, scholastic and theorizing aspects, the children of God had better “handle not and touch not the unclean thing.” It is deleterious and delusive for the children of God to countenance any theory or doctrine that does not conduce to their happiness and well being. This doctrine seems to have an intoxicating, delirious and deplorable effect on many of the children of God. It seems as they delve into and penetrate this doctrine, that it creates an irremediable relish for a reverie into the theorizing and speculative regions of unrevealed things. I feel sure that the genuine Christian or child of God will not be ashamed or offended at the unvarnished truth, for he loves to be sincerely dealt with. And as for hypocritical perverters and pretenders, they. I suppose, ought to be offended: that, either they may be humbled and made to repent of their pretentions, or be allowed no right to the profession which they disgrace. And now, my dear reader, in whose heart the love of God is shed abroad by the Holy Ghost, in whom this divine and energizing Spirit hath breathed His heavenly life, and whom He hath anointed with the holy unction and oil of gladness. what saith thy heart to this heavenly truth, that God by His spirit and grace works in you the will and all holy desires or inclinations to right doing? We cannot have a right thought as a child of God, a wish, an affection, a work acceptable in the least degree without Jesus, for He plainly says. “Without me ye can do nothing.” The Spirit and the scripture are witnesses to us that this is true. Indeed, the Christian’s heart feels it is true. Superficial Christians may doubt this truth, but the real child of God cannot, for they have heard Him and been taught by Him, and also by His Word, that none but almighty– and puissant power could have raised us up from a death of trespasses and sins: and nothing but irresistible and invincible grace could have protected us since we were thus raised. And since having been thus raised, we have seen in manifold ways and instances how readily the Lord has come to our relief, when but for His delivering power, we would have sunk under our temptations and environments. The blessed Jesus furnishes us with knowledge; not notional or speculative, but with such complete intelligence of indispensable and necessary truth which enables us to receive it as a most heavenly and priceless truth, which belongs to us to relish and enjoy. He sanctifies our afflictions to our good and prevents our entanglement with things beneath which would lead to our ultimate destruction. He gives us, at least occasionally, a sweet and reverential complacency of heart or soul and many happy hours of sweet repose, which no eye but His beholds, and no mind but a true Christian’s can conceive. Oh, how kindly, tenderly and compassionately He subdues the emotions of sin in our mortal members, and checks those harsh and rugged dispositions which no strength belonging to the natural man could subdue. What meek and loving submission, what placid and serene contentment, what abstraction and loving separation from the world, and from self, doth it induct or introduce into a heart which was like a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke! Oh, what a debtor, yes, a daily debtor, we are to Jesus for His wisdom, power and grace to sustain and comfort and save us! This is indeed a salvation, a deliverance, which is a priceless gift, an almighty rich and free salvation which all the heavenly hosts and the redeemed family of God have to richly enjoy. We have a bad world, indeed, to live in for awhile. Many are its snares. pitfalls and difficulties, but soon the joyful news will come, “Child, your Father calls, come home!” Grace is to be had here; yes, in this world, and we receive grace for grace, and thus we grow in grace and in the knowledge of divine and heavenly things. Soon, yes, very soon, shall the time come when the shadows shall all disappear, and the day of the Lord shall dawn, and the full effulgence of divine beatitude and glory shall irradiate in all its transcendent realities, and fill and make unalterably and inexpressibly happy our redeemed spirit. Yes, soon we shall see Jesus and be just like Him! Oh, brother. we have a wonderful Saviour, and He has wonderfully saved us and wonderfully redeemed us from our sins to Himself! All things here are full of labor, pain and toil, but how surpassing it will be when the wonders and riches of God’s grace for poor sinners shall burst forth upon our ravished souls in those realms of heavenly bliss, where mortality shall be swallowed up of life. “0 death, where is thy sting? 0 grave, where is thy victory?” shall be on every heart when the great and notable day of the Lord shall have come. Then in the perfect illumination of the Spirit and grace of God, and without one cloud to obscure our faith and confidence, we can adopt the apostle’s words and proclaim the ineffable and unparalleled theme: “0 the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!”-Rom. xi. 33.
CHAPTER 29
We have successfully traced the doctrine of “absolute predestination of all things,” good and evil for eight or or ten centuries and have found no trace of it among the Baptists. We found it among the haters and despisers of the people and Church of God. I conclude, therefore, that the reason why we fail to find it among them, is because they did not believe it; and the reason why they did not believe it, is because it is not in their Bibles; and the reason why it is not in their Bibles, God did not put it there; and the reason why God did not put it there, was because He did not purpose to; and the reason why He did not purpose to, was because He did not purpose all things, good and evil. The things. yes, all the things, He has purposed he has plainly said so in His Word; and as He has not said in His blessed Book that He has purposed all things, I don’t know how those who believe the doctrine can prove it. If we are to prove all things we preach by the Bible, and the Bible does not say that God has decreed all things, how are we to prove by the Bible that the “predestination of all things” is the truth? You may redress, restate and explain this doctrine and still it is a receptacle for the wickedness of earth, because it includes and embraces it, You may fashion and refashion it and still you will not get rid of its heathen origin and vindictive features. The only way that I can think of is to dig it up by the roots and cast it to the moles and bats. The doctrine is a kind of summer refrigerator, and its most prominent regalia is the spirit of disputation. It is indeed a xerophagy for the dear children of God to even try to subsist upon; and it is so hard and flinty that those seeking juicy and mellow fruit will be sadly deceived if they expect such fruit of this doctrine.
The doctrine of the “‘absolute predestination of all things,” good and evil, was not preached by our people before John Calvin’s day, nor during his day. If I am mistaken in this statement, will some one who reads this please give the history that teaches to the contrary of the above statement? Surely, if our people believed the doctrine before, or during Calvin’s day, some of them preached it. If a man must subscribe to the doctrine of “absolute predestination of all things,” good and evil, to be a sound Old Baptist, and the Baptists had no such article for eighteen hundred and thirty-two years, were there any sound Baptists for eighteen hundred and thirty-two years? The doctrine was introduced among the Old Baptists by Elder G. Beebe, of New York, in 1832. No church that I have any knowledge of in Elder Beebe’s country, or any other state in the union, was constituted on such an article of faith. While this hateful doctrine was among the Reformers of the so-called Reformation, they were fussing, quarreling and fighting each other over it; and it is a painful and lamentable fact that since its introduction among the Old Baptists, they have fussed and fought; and in some sections of the country divided over it. Like the false mother in Solomon’s day, it had rather see, or have, the live child, or Church, divided than to confess its true maternity or paternity. It was while the real mother of the live child slept that the exchange was made; and when she awoke to give her child suck, “behold, it was dead” (1 Kings iii. 21).
Yes. and while the Old Baptists slept, the Reformers, who had overlaid the child of absolute predestination of all things “at midnight,” exchanged the dead child into a new bed; and when morning came, some few of the Old Baptists attempted to give it “suck,” but “behold, it was dead.” If it is so important that the Baptists must believe in the doctrine of the “absolute predestination of all things” in order to be sound Old Baptists, will you please tell me why it is that the churches are not constituted on that article of faith?
There is absolutely no use in anyone denying the symptoms of “fatalism” being plainly seen in the sayings and writings of some now claiming to be Old Baptists. Elder S. Hassell says: “Like nearly all the other doctrinal errors among Primitive Baptists, a tendency to fatalism seems to have come in through the broad door of dualism (two-seedism) about sixty years ago.”-Gospel Messenger, 1894, pg. 18 1.
Brother Hassell says again: “But I greatly regret that there is a growing tendency among some of our people to reduce the Bible doctrine of predestination to the Pagan doctrine of fatalism.”
Again the same writer says: “This unmoral tendency to fatalism and pantheism—to make God, and not man, the real author or cause of sin, and thus to destroy the distinction between right and wrong appears in such unguarded and unscriptural expressions as ‘the absolute predestination of all things’ without any explanation or qualifying phrase; `God predestinated sin in the same way He does holiness,’ `sin is a creature of God, and a very good thing in its place,’ `God introduced sin into the world,’ `God prepares the evil heart as well as the good heart,’ `God was the sole cause of Adam’s partaking of the forbidden fruit,’ `God’s suffering sin is the same as His commanding sin,’ `Sometimes the spiritually enlightened child of God hardly knows which most to admire, sin or grace,’ `Permissive decrees are permissive nonsense,’ `We are compelled to do everything we do,’ `Men are not accountable,’ `God is the moving cause of sin,’ `God is the sole efficient and responsible cause of all the wickedness in the universe.’ ”-Gospel Messenger, 1894, pg. 181.
Elder J. K. Holcomb said: “But we see here, that Sublapsarians were Arminians, and as the Primitive Baptists never were Arminians, they were Supralapsarians.”-Take Heed, p. 33.
Elder J. R. McCarty wiites me that he heard a preacher, claiming to be an Old Baptist, say: “The transgression of Adam was as necessary as the crucifixion of Christ.”
A man who claims to be an Old Baptist, living at, or near, Cash, Texas, said in a letter of March 16, 1902, to his cousin who lives near Alexander, Texas: “Could Adam have kept the law? You may answer yes; but I say, not so. The evidence is against you, my brother; for it is impossible for a man in nature, as Adam was of the earth earthy, and naturally a child of wrath (Eph. ii. 3), impossible, I say. * * * Did God have any purpose in the transgression? To be sure, He did. That very act was the cause, the first great cause, on man’s part of us receiving every blessing which we receive in time.”
“Hence, if the transgression was not a part of God’s eternal purpose, then it follows that the covenant of redemption owes its existence (not to the free and independent purpose of God outside of any extraneous influence, but) to the act of man by which it was made necessary and a way opened up for it to enter.”-J. C. Sikes, in Advocate of, Truth, April 1, 1901.
We translate the sentence thus to get at its meaning: “Hence, as the transgression of Adam was a part of God’s eternal purpose, it follows that the covenant of redemption owes its existence to the act of a man, by which it was made necessary and a way opened up for it to enter.”
Again the same writer says: “If God had rather sin had not entered the world, then it follows that there has never been one single act, or creature, or thing, in this universe that has been as God originally would rather have had it;” which, by interpretation, means, “As God had rather sin would enter the world, then it follows that there has never been one single act, or creature, or thing, in this universe different to the way God originally would rather have had it.” In the same article the writer further says: “But I will say this much more, if the logic contained herein is true, with reference to the first transgression, it is also true with reference to every other event of time.” Remember the idea is that everything is as God originally intended and purposed for it to be. God said, “Do not kill,” but He rather for them to kill. He says, “Do not bear false witness,” yet He rather for His people (some of them’) to swear lies.
I tell you, the Lord is today punishing His people for allowing those ultra or extreme views on predestination to be preached among them. Just think, that some of the dear children of God are contending that “all the wickedness and meanness just had to be as it is!” Yet they will try to get men and women to live better; still the doctrine is, “Let them live as they may, they can do no less wickedness than was allotted them or placed to their account.” If they live a life of virtue and rectitude, it was thus fixed, and no persuasion or circumstance could in th least have swerved them from such a life.
To deny this would be to deny the doctrine. On the other hand, if they live a life of profligacy, shame and disgrace, that kind of a life, we are asked to believe, was fixed and marked out for them to live, and nothing can be brought to bear that would in the least mitigate their shame. This is one of the most profuse and promiscuous doctrines I ever heard of. It will, in one instance, keep you from doing wrong by fixing it so you are bound by its iron and unrelenting clutches to do right; and then it also fixes it so you can only do wrong. If you say you do not believe such a doctrine, then you deny the eternal fixedness of all things, good and evil. If a man attacks the doctrine, he had it to do at the time he did, and in the very way he did; for to attack a thing is one of the events of time, and it just had to be, for the doctrine says it had to be. And if the attack of the man on the predestination of all things, whether it be in the right or wrong spirit, fails to work for your good, then you don’t love God, for one of your proof texts reads, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”-Rom. viii. 28.
Why all this ado and consternation about the churches declaring against the doctrine? They had it to do. What say you, brethren? Are you dissatisfied with what the churches did? If so, are you not dissatisfied with predestination of all things, or a part of it? I guess you are not satisfied with the purpose of God, relative to having those bars put up. Your doctrine has come home to you, and it will stay with you. Will you stay with it? You are bound ta know that putting up those bars was one of the many “events of time;” and when the exact and, therefore, purposed time had fully come, the Lord fulfilled His holy and righteous decree in putting up those bars; and it seems as if you were about fixing to discountenance and disown your doctrine, for you are wanting the churches to undo what you say the Lord predestinated for them to do. Don’t you believe the Lord predestinated for the churches to put up those bars? Do you think they could have kept from it? If they could not have kept from it, is it not true that they had it to do? If they had it to do, why do you censure them?
You say you have been misrepresented. If so, that was one of the events of time. And as you say that all events of time are purposed, you had to be thus treated, if the doctrine be true. Are you dissatisfied? If so, are you not dissatisfied and objecting to your doctrine? “0 man, who art thou that repliest against God?”-Rom. ix. 20. When you say you believe in the “predestination of all things,” then you say you believe God predestinated for the churches to do as they have done. And the Lord is now bringing to pass just what you say is a part of His eternal purpose, and you, are nearly dead; and some of you say you are killed. The Bible says, “A time to kill” (Eccl. iii. 3). Really, has your doctrine killed you? The doctrine is that the Lord predestinated for the churches to pass those resolutions; and at the appointed time they did it; and now you say you just will not submit to, or live under, nor recognize as sound Baptists those who did just as you say God wanted them to do. And so you just get right up in conference and declare non-fellowship for what you believe the Lord predestinated for the church to do. Why not take the doctrine when it comes home to you? It will stay with you; and if it is a good thing, why not stay with it? You say the Lord purposed for the church to pass the resolutions, and at the same time predestinated for you to non-fellowship a part of what you say the Lord purposed to be done. Do you say, yes? Do you say, no? If yes. take your doctrine; if no, quit your docerine. If all things were predestinated by the Lord before the world was made. then all things are occurring precisely as the Lord willed, wanted and desired. and it ill becomes any of His people to pray otherwise than, “Father. thy will be done.”
Why art thou so cast down? and why are you so offended at your Arminian brethren, as you call us? We had to believe and do as we have done. Don’t you think so? If yes, whv not hold your peace ? If no, they have passed no resolutions against you. You may say all this is of the flesh and only carnal reasoning. Well, let that be as it may, it just had to be that way, for the doctrine is it was thus fixed from all eternity, and I just had to so reason. Don’t you think so? Strange as it may seem. you will contend that a11 things were unalterably fixed by the decree of God ere the world was made, and then try to get your Arminian brethren, as you call us. to see things as you do, when, according to your doctrine, God had put those things out of their sight, and fixed it so they had to see differently to the way you do. If God purposed all things, then, of course, He decreed that some of His people should believe in the “absolute predestination of all things,” and at the same time fixed it by the same eternal purpose that some of His people should not believe the doctrine. What say you. brethren? Do you think I can believe something God has purposed for me to disbelieve? If the doctrine be true, then in order for me to believe and act differently, the decree of God would have to be altered or changeded. Can you change the decree of God? Can God change it and still be unchangeable? What say you, brethren? Again, if the doctrine be true, then the Lord has a class of preachers who are preaching and writing that He has purposed all the wicked acts of men and devils. He has another class who are preaching, writing and contending against the first class. He also has a third class who contend against- the first and second, and when this triumvirate meets. there is no union, no sweet fellowship and communion in spirit. Why all this? It had to be, unless things can be otherwise than you say the Lord purposed for it to be. Again, if two wicked men are shooting each other to death (and we know such things frequently occur), and that is a part of the eternal purpose of God, and a part of the “all things” He worketh after the council of His own will, did God purpose more in that thing that He worketh! Was there anything good in the affair? If so, what was it? If it was all sinful and wicked. did not God work it? Did God purpose all of it? Did God work less than he purposed? or did God purpose it and then have nothing more to do with it? If so, is not that what you call fatality?
The predestination of God is a judicious and wholesome doctrine of the Bible: but a few Old Baptist preachers have a strange way of adorning and embellishing it by including in it all the filthiness, wickedness, murder, rape and blasphemy of earth.
I wish now to subjoin a few extracts from some of the heretical sects, that held “absolute predestination of all things.” good and evil: and I want to specially ask the reader to notice the extreme sentiments and expressions, used by some of the admirers of the doctrine while it was exclusively among the Reformers and contrast them with some of the ungodly, unholy, untruthful, and unbaptistic expressions quoted above.
The materialistic philosophy and the fatalistic philosophy are kindred heresies.
The Materialist says: “That there is some fixed law of nature respecting the will, as well as the other powers of the mind, and everything else in the constitution of nature; and consequently that it is never determined without some real or apparent cause foreign to itself, i.e. without some motive or choice; or that motives influence us in some definite and invariable manner. So that every volition, or choice, is constantly regulated and determined by what precedes it; and this constant determination of mind, according to the motives presented to it, is what is meant by its necessary determination. This being admitted to be a fact (don’t that make you thing of the Absoluter?), there will be a necessary connection between all things past, present, and to come, in the way of proper cause and effect, as much in the intellectual as in the natural world. So that, according to the established laws of nature, no event could have been otherwise than it has been, or is to be; and, therefore, all things past, present and to come, are precisely what the Author of nature really intended them to be and has made provision for,” History of All Religions, by John Hayward, pg. 114.
The absolute and universal purpose of God means that nothing could have been otherwise than it has been, for the way it has been was as God intended it should be. If you have been lying, stealing, getting drunk, or if you are in jail for cold-blooded murder, you were only doing as God intended and purposed you should do; and it could not have been otherwise, for God thus purposed and fixed all things to occur just at they occurred. Have I misrepresented your doctrine? If so, was not that one of the all things God intended to be? If it is one of the all things God intended to be, and you are dissatisfied because I misrepresented you, are you not dissatisfied with your doctrine?
Here is what Elder D. Bartley said: “Then, certainly, every sin and all the iniquities of all His countless people were imputed to Christ, and God imputed them to His Son; therefore, they were all definitely known to God, and positively determined and fixed in His unalterable counsel and purpose; so accurately determined in number and magnitude that not the least sin could possibly be omitted, or left out, nor one more committed than Christ redeemed His people from.”-Advocate of Truth. June 1, 1901.
And thus we see that the Absoluters and Materialists believe alike on the decrees of God. The Absoluters believe that the people have a definite number of sins to commit, and that it is impossible for the people to commit less sin than was purposed, or even one sin more than the Lord really intended or purposed. Is it possible that Old Baptists are going to allow some of their preachers to preach that the Lord has certainly, definitely, positively, accurately and unalterably fixed the number and magnitude of the sins of His people?
Do I misrepresent you when I say you preach that God wanted His people to commit each and every sin they have committed, or ever will commit? Do: I misrepresent you when I say you preach that sin was an absolute and indispensable necessity in the salvation of human beings? Do you believe God could have saved Adam if he had not sinned? If no, then don’t you believe salvation was conditional? Really, don’t you preach that if Adam had not sinned that the covenant of grace would have been a failure? Don’t you preach, or believe, that in order for the covenant of grace not to fail; a good man had to sin ?
Now let us read the following from Dr. Bartley: “Yea, heaven itself, holy, happy heaven, is peopled with a countless multitude of glorified saints through the ordained entrance of sin and death.”Advocate of Truth, June 1, 1901.
According to this quotation from Dr. Bartley, God’s people go to holy, happy heaven through the ordained entrance of sin and death. Dr. Bartley believes that a good man (Adam) had to do mean, or he could never go to “holy, happy heaven.” If the doctor says that I misrepresent him, and it is sinful for me to do so, the reader will please remember that the doctor believes that the Lord certainly, positively, accurately and unalterably fixed the number and magnitude of all my sins; and the doctor and all other unlimited predestinarians further believe that it is impossible for me to commit less sin than was allotted me or placed to my account, for the doctor says, “They were all in God’s infinite account.” So if I misrepresent the Absoluters, and it is sinful for me to do so, then I had it to do, for the Lord, you say, purposed for me to commit just so many sins. If I misrepresent you, and you are not satisfied with it, is it not true that you are dissatisfied with your doctrine?
But let us hear the Materialist again: “To establish this conclusion, nothing is necessary but that through all nature the same consequences should invariably result from the same circumstances; for if this be admitted (don’t that make you think of the philosophy of the AbsoIuters? ), it will necessarily follow that, at the announcement of any system, since the several parts of it, and their respective situations, were appointed by the Deity, the first change would take place according to a certain law established by Himself, the result of which would be a new situation; after which the same laws containing another change would succeed, according to the same rules, and so on forever; every new situation invariably leading to another, and every event from the commencement to the termination of the system being strictly connected, so that, unless the fundamental laws of the system were changed, it would be impossible that any event should have been otherwise than it was.”-Hayward, pg. 114.
Thus we see that the materialistic idea is that man is a necessary agent, and that in some irresistible and incomprehensible way every act and thought of his life were unavoidably and unalterably fixed and determined so positively “that not one past action could possibly have come to pass, or have been otherwise than it has been.”
I am sorry indeed that some of the Primitive Baptists have run predestination into the “fatalism” of the Stoics, Pharisees, Essenes. Gnostics, Mohammedans, Materialists and the Necessarians.
The Necessarian says: “That everything is predetermined by the Divine Being; that whatever has been, must have been; and that whatever will be, must be; that all events are pre-ordained by infinite wisdom and unlimited goodness; that the will, in all its determinations, is governed by the state of mind; that the state of mind is, in every instance, determined by the Deity; and that there is a continued chain of causes and effects, of motives and actions, inseparably connected, and originating from the condition in which we are brought into existence by the Author of our beings.”-Watson’s Dictionary of All Religions,” pg. 747. .
Thus we see a very striking analogy between the Necessarians and the “absolute predestination of all things.” If predestination extends to all events, then all things had to be as they have been, or may be. If you deny the analogy, then you say that it is possible for a thing not to be as it was purposed to be.
Elder J. K. Holcomb, who has a name with the Old Baptists, has this to say about the Primitive Baptists in his pamphlet, page 33:”Now, a brother said once that the Primitive Baptists were Sublapsarians; but we see here that Sublapsarians were Arminians, and as the Primitive Baptists never were Arminians, they were Supralapsarians.”
The Supralapsarians were a heretical sect that lived in John Calvin’s dav and had no connection, doctrinally or otherwise, with the Baptists. Here is an abridgement of their faith: “The Supralapsarians are persons who hold that God, without any regard to the good or evil works of men, has resolved by an eternal decree, supralapsum, antecedently to any knowledge of the fall of Adam, and independently of it to save some and reject others; or in other words, that God intended to glorify His justice in the condemnation of some, as well as His mercy in the salvation of others; and for that purpose, decreed that Adam should necessarily fall.”-History of All Religions, by Milner. pg. 432.
The doctrine in the above extract has never been the doctrine of our people, and I, for one, am not willing for it to he preached among us as Old Baptist doctrine.
I have before me a copy of Dr. Carlton’s book, and in it is a complimentary letter from Elders Charles Holcomb. J. K. Holcomb and Noah T. Freeman, and here is what they say of Dr. Carlton: Our dear brother has harmonized the apparent contradictions (to the casual reader of the scriptures) and has thoroughly established, to our minds, God’s absolute predestination of all things, good and evil, and all for His own honor and glory. He has shown beyond cavil why God chose His elect people in Christ before the world began, and did not choose others; Why God created evil in opposition to good, the reason God was compelled to have a hell in order to have a heaven, and that he was obliged to have bad men in order to have good men: and that good could not exist without its opposite evil.”—Diagram of the Churches, pg. 7.
Now, reader. please follow me while I quote some of the sayings of the haters, maligners, and heretics of John Calvin’s day. John Calvin said: “A wicked man, by the just impulse of God doeth that which is not lawful for him to do.”—Watson’s Theo. Dict. Pg. 202.
Zuinglius said: “When God makes an angel, or a man, a transgressor He Himself doth not transgress, because He doth not break a law. The very same sin, namely, adultery, or murder, inasmuch as it is the work of God, thee author, mover and compeller, is not a crime: but inasmuch as it is of man, it is a wickedness.
Here is what Dr. Twisee said: “God can will that man shall not fall by His will, which is called voluntrus signi; and in the meanwhile, he can ordain that the same man shall infallibly and efficaciously fall by His will, which is called voluntrus beneplaciti. The former will of God is improperly called His will, for it only signifieth what man ought to do by right; but the latter will is properly called a will, because by that decreed what should inevitably come to pass.”
Again the writer said: ‘`God’s will doth pass, not only into the permission of sin, but into the sin itself which is permitted.”-Ibid, pg. 202. Zanchius said: “Reprobates are compelled with a necessity of sinning, and so of perishing, by this ordination of God; and so compelled that they cannot choose but to sin and perish.”
Again the same writer said: “God works all things in all men; not only in the godly, but also in the ungodly.”
Piscator, another writer of Calvin’s day, said: “Judas could not but betray Christ, seeing that God’s decrees are immutable; and whether a man bless or curse, he always doeth it necessarily in respect of God’s providence; and in so doing, he doeth always according to the will of God.”
Again the writer said: “It doth, or at least may, appear from the Word of God, that we neither can do more good than we do, nor omit more evil than we omit; because God from eternity hath precisely decreed that both (the good and the evil) should so be done. It is fatally constituted when and how much everyone of us ought to study and love it.”-Ibid. Pg/ 202.
The historian from whom I am now quoting, in speaking of the time Baxter assailed the above extreme expressions, says: ‘`From that time to the middle of the eighteenth century, those dogmas which are usually designated as ultra-Calvin or Antinomian, received no support, except from such divines as Dr. Crisp and his immediate admirers.”pg. 202. “These last were of the views of Tobias Crisp, whose sentiments had disturbed the churches in past years. * * * The above churches met in assembly April 17, 1704, at Larimore’s Hall. * * * This assembly disapproved Dr. Crisp’s sentiments, and stated such for the government of the churches.”
Again the writer said: ‘”The meeting regrets he irregularity of some professors, who had withdrawn from this association, probably from the censure passed on ultra-Calvinism. Among the brethren, forty preachers in the meeting present great unanimity prevailed.”
—Orchard, Vol. II., ppg. 332.
Dr. Crisp’s sentiments are disturbing the churches again; and because some of the churches have censured Dr. Crisp’s sentiments, some of his immediate admirers have withdrawn from the churches and associations. Such expressions as “predestination of all things.” “God purposed sin,” “God willed sin should enter.” ‘God created evil,” “God has a special use for sin,” are borrowed, and the proverb is true: “And the borrower is servant to the lender.”-Prov. xxii. 7.
Who are the Primitive Baptists? Those among us who have borrowed from our enemies and refuse to say, “Alas, Master, and it was borrowed,” or those who. have not borrowed any of the ashdotish language’?
CHAPTER 30
We frequently hear some of our brethren saying that the Baptists in John Gill’s day were ultra-Calvinists; and they are fond of repeat ing the saying of a Missionary Baptist that “the prevailing doctrine among the Baptists at that time was ultra-Calvinism.” The Baptists of the old order, I am glad to know, are not now, nor never were ultra-Calvinists. The Baptists are not in debt to John Calvin for a single truth he may have contended for, for the very good reason that the Baptists had that truth before he was born. John Calvin was born at Nogen, in Picardy, July 10, 1509. He was raised a Catholic. After he embraced Protestantism he was forced to leave France. He settled at Basle. At this place he published his celebrated “Institutions of the Christian Religion.” We next find him at Geneva, where Farel and other Reformers induced him to live. At Geneva he was chosen as a minister of the gospel. John Calvin denounced the tyranny of Rome, but had Servetus put to death because he was an heretic according to his views. Michael Servetus was passing through Geneva and John Calvin saw him and immediately had him seized by the magistrates as an impious heretic. Forty heretical errors were said to be proven against the unfortunate Servetus; and because he would not give up his heretical views, Calvin ordered the unhappy man to be burned. So on October 27, 1553, Servetus was conducted to the stake where he was tortured for two hours before death relieved him. John Calvin, of course, believed that God had purposed for him to have Servetus burned at the stake. Elder Bartlev believes that very sin of Calvin was purposed of God, and one of the number God had fixed for Calvin to commit. Elder J. C. Sikes believes that God purposed for Servetus to go when he did, and just as he did, that God had ordained everything leading to the burning of Servetus.
In speaking of cold-blood murder, Elder J. C. Sikes said: “But I have always claimed that, that together with all things else, were embraced in God’s predestination, and comes to pass at the very time and in the very way God had determined for it, and I am astonished to think that anyone claiming to be a Primitive Baptist will deny it.”Baptist Trumpet, ‘March 27, 1902.
John Calvin was president of what is called by historians, a “Consistory,” which was composed of six preachers and twelve laymen. This Consistory was for the purpose of excommunicating persons of every age and sex. A child was beheaded for striking its father and mother. Another child, for attempting to strike its mother, was sentenced to death; but on account of its youth, the sentence was commuted. But the child was publicly whipped with a cord around its neck, and then the child was banished from the city. “A woman was chastised with rods for singing secular songs to the melody of the Psalms.”
Oh, how sad and heart-revolting to think that we have men among us today who boldly tell us that John Calvin and his hell-hounds beheaded the little child in conjunction, and agreement, with the will and purpose of God! Declare it not in Gath, publish it not to the world, that this Consistory, or pandemonium, presided over by the devil and his willing subjects, had met to do whatever God had determined before to be done!
It is claimed that the “Catholics have murdered fifty million human beings, with every imaginable device of diabolical cruelty, thus shedding enough martyr blood to fill a stream ten feet wide, ten feet deep, and twenty-five miles long.”-Hassell. All this, we are asked to believe, occurred in keeping with the will and predestination of God. Just think, a few Old Baptist preachers are now spreading and publishing it to the world that the Catholics anciently murdered, tortured, fined, imprisoned, whipped and put to death innocent men, women and, children in agreement with the will and purpose of God! I will refer to some of the sayings of John Calvin, and ask those who delight to he called ultra-Calvinists, to consider well his sayings: “Hence, men will repent or not repent, be lost or saved; precisely as God has decreed from all eternity.”-Srnucker, ppg. 163, 164. This text is easy of solution. If you repent. God decreed it; if you do not repent. God decreed that you should not.
John Calvin, in his Institutes, Book 3, Chapter 5, said: “Predestination. we call the eternal decree of God, by which He hath determined in Himself what He would have to become of every individual of mankind. For they are not all created with similar destiny; but eternal life is foreordained for some, and eternal damnation for others. Every man. therefore, being, created for one or the other of these ends, we say, he is either predestinated to life or death.”
This is just what the absolute and eternal fixedness of all things plainly asserts, and Dr. Carlton so understood it. He said: “And what a wise provision in God’s eternal purposes, and how moralizing in its tendencies, for man not to know that he is doomed to hell by the eternal decrees of heaven.”—Diagram of the Churches, pg. 18.
Again John Calvin says: “Predestination, by which God adopts some to the hope of life, and adjudges others to eternal death, no one desirous of the credit of piety dares absolutely to deny.”—Book 3. Chapter 21, Sec. 5. Vol. II, .pg. 144.
Again John Calvin says: “But though I concede to them, that Paul softens the asperity of the former clause by the difference of phraseology, yet it is not at all consistent to transfer the preparation for destruction to any other than the secret counsel of God.”—Book 3, Chapter 23, Vol. II., pg. 164.
In speaking of the Divine will, Calvin says: “Which is in fact, and is justly entitled to be, the cause of everything that exists.”—Book 3, Chapter 23, pg. 105.
This is what Mohammed taught, and that is where Calvin got it; and the Baptists who believe it, got it from John Calvin. In speaking of the finally impenitent, Calvin says: “But though I ever so often admit God to be the author of it, which is perfectly correct.”-Ibid, pg. 166).
The reader has doubtless heard some of the asserters of the “absolute predestination of all things” try, after saying that “God’s eternal purpose embraced all things, and that all things are precisely as God originally intended them to be,” to show that God is not the author or cause of all He predestinates. Have they ever explained that point to your satisfaction? I venture the assertion that they have not.
In speaking of life and death, John Calvin quotes Valla approvingly, who says: “Both life and death are acts of God’s will, rather than of His foreknowledge. If God simply foresaw the fates of men, and did not also dispose and fix them by His determination, there would be room to agitate the question, whether His providence or foresight rendered them at all necessary.”-Ibid. pg. 169.
John Calvin said again, “The scriptures proclaim that all men were, in the person of their father, sentenced to eternal death. This not being attributable to nature, it is evident that it must have proceeded from the wonderful counsel of God.—Vol. II. pg. 170.
Again: “Nor should it be thought absurd to affirm that God only saw the fall of the first man and the ruin of his posterity in him, but also arranged all by the determination of His own will:”—Vol. II, pg. 170.
Again John Calvin said: “For the first man fell because the Lord had determined it was so expedient.” Yes, some one has said the covenant would have been a failure without it; hence, the doctrine, “Let us do evil that good may come.” “The reprobates wish to be thought excusable in sinning, because they cannot avoid a necessity of sinning; especially since this necessity is laid upon them by the ordination of God.”-Vol. II, pg. 172.
Augustine, who was a Catholic monk, said: “The whole mass of mankind having fallen into condemnation in the first man, the vessels that are formed from it to honor are not vessels of personal righteousness but of Divine mercy; and the formation of others to dishonor is to be attributed, not to iniquity, but to the Divine decrees.” pg. 174.
Calvin quotes the above saying from Augustine approvingly. The only apology I offer the reader for the copious extracts I have made from John Calvin’s Institutes is to show you what he believed on the subject that is now interrupting our peace and happiness. When you read all his sayings in this chapter, will you please ask yourself the question, “Do I believe in ultra-Calvinism?”
The old London Confession of Faith is a partial transcript of the old Westminster Confession of Faith, which was gotten up by Old School Presbyterians. Here is what the Presbyterians said: “By the decree of God. for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.”—Confession, pg. 27.
In regard to the above article, here is what the English Baptists of 1689 said: “By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated, or foreordained to eternal life, through Jesus Christ, to the praise of His glorious grace, others left to act in their sin to their just condemnation, to the praise of His glorious justice.
If the the English Baptists believed as the Absoluters do, that some men were Ordained to everlasting death, why did they change part of the article so as to have it, read. “Others being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation. to the praise of His glorious justice?.” Again, when the English Baptists got to the seventh article Of the Westminster Confession, they left it out entirelv. Here it is: “The rest of mankind God was pleased. according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will, whereby He extendeth or withholdeth mercy as He pleaseth, for the glory of’ His sovereign power over His creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of His glorious justice.” —Presbyterian Confession, pg. 30. The Absoluters follow the Westminster Confession, and not the London Confession of Faith, on the decrees of God. Who are the Primitive Baptists on this point?
Again, Calvin said: “In conformity to the clear doctrine Of’ the scriptures, we assert that by an eternal and immutable counsel, God hath once for all determined both whom he would admit to salvation, and whom he would condemn to destruction.” —Book 3, Chapter 21. “Many, indeed, as if he wished to avert odium from God admit election in such away as to deny that anyone is reprobated. But this is puerile and absurd. because election itself could not exist without being opposed to reprobation; whom God passes by, He therefore reprobates; and from no other cause than His determination to exclude them from the inheritance which He predestinates for His children.”—Book 3, Chapter 23.
Brethren, are you ultra-Calvinists? If so, here is something else vou believe: “They further object, were they not by the decree of God antecedently predestinated to that corruption which is now stated as the cause of their condemnation? When they perish in their corruption, therefore, they only suffer the punishment of that misery into which, in consequence of His predestination, Adam fell, and precipitated his posterity with him.”—Ibid, pg. 166.
Let us hear Calvin again: “I confess, indeed, that all the descendants of Adam fell, by the Divine will, into that miserable condition in which they are now involved; and that is what I asserted from the beginning, that we must always return at last to the sovereign determination of God’s will, the cause of which is hidden in Himself.”
If a little ultra-Calvinism is good. I guess more is better. So here is more of it: “I say, with Augustine, the Lord created those whom He certainly foreknew would fall into destruction, and that this was actually so, because He willed it.”
Again: “For since God foresees future events only in consequence of His decree that they shall happen, it is useless to contend about foreknowledge, while it is evident that all things come to pass rather by ordination and decree.”
Again, the man the Old Baptists borrowed the doctrine of “predestination of all things from” said: “It is a horrible decree, I confess; but no one can deny that God foreknew the future fate of man before he created him; and that He did foreknow it, because it was appointed by His own decree.”
Again Calvin savs: “But what reason shall we assign for His permitting it. but because it is His will? It is not probable, however, that man procured his own destruction. and without any appointment of God.” —Book 3, Chapter 23, Sec. 8.
In writing Castellio, John Callii said: “-You say Adam fell by his free will. I accept against it. That he might not fall, be stood in need of that strength and constancy with which God armeth all the elect, as He will keep them blameless. Whom God has e1ected He props up with all invincible power unto perseverance. Why did He not afford this to Adam, if He would have had him stand in his integrity?
This is the man from whom the Old Baptists have borrowed the doctrine over which they are wrangling today. Let some one who thinks he is able, show that the Old Baptists had the universal decrees of God in any of their confessions of faith before they adopted it, after it was formulated by the Old School Presbyterians in 1643. The Baptists had their articles of faith prior to 1643. Let me tell you now, no Old Baptist preacher will attempt to prove by history that the Primitive Baptists had an article in their confession of faith even favoring the “unlimited predestination of all things” prior to 1643. The inveterate enemies of tile Primitive Baptists formulated the phrase, `’predestination of all things,” while Elder G. Beebe added “absolute”‘ to the phrase. So we have “absolute predestination of all things,” good and evil as a bone of contention. As long as men. insist upon the use of the above expression, there will be trouble in Zion.
The Baptists made a compromise with the Arminians in 1737 (see Coffee’s History, pg, 100), but I, for one, am not willing to compromise with the “Absoluters.” This heresy has been wrapped up in the Baptist family until there is a stench in the Old Baptist camp. “And I have made the stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the Lord.”- Amos iv. 10. Indeed tile prophecy of Isaiah is true: “‘And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent: and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth, and burning instead of beauty. Thy men shall fall by the sword. and thy mighty in the war. And her gates shall lament and mourn; and she being desolate shall sit upon the ground.” -Isaiah iii. 24-20.
Yes, in many places. the dear people of God are sitting upon the ground; their hands are weak and their knees are feeble. Oh. that the dear servants of God would go forth in the spirit and power of the God of Israel and “strengthen the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees. And say to them of a fearful heart. Be strong fear not; behold, our God will come with vengeance, and save you. Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped,” and your hearts will be filled with joy, and peace will flow like a river of water; you can drink and quench your thirst; yes, eat and be satisfied! Oh. that we would humble ourselves in sackcloth and get down on our bended knees at a throne of God’s grace and confess our faults to each other! It certainly would be a day of rejoicing to see the dear people of God “Lay aside every weight, and the sin which loth so easily beset them, and run with patience the race that is set before them, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of their faith.” Any doctrine in which we cannot see Jesus is false, and should be shunned by the children of God.
In conclusion, let me kindly ask the reader to carefully compare what I have said with the scriptures and Christian experience, and I shall be satisfied. Should it be the means of converting one, yes, just one, from the absurd notion that God has purposed his sins, I shall be happily remunerated for all my trouble and expense in preparing this little volume.
To my children in the flesh. I want to say that when you are called upon to pay the last tribute of respect to your poor, imperfect father, will you occasionally get this little volume and read it, that you may know where he stood on this great and marvelous question. Let me say to you plainly, that there is nothing but grace that can save you and give you a home in heaven. May the robe of righteousness and the kind protecting hand of Providence be over you and around you. May His love be in your hearts to regulate your life in the way of righteousness and peace, and give you a sweet calm and repose when the curtains and stings of death are drawing near to thee. Each of you are near and dear to your father and mother, and we want to live with you while we are here; and when we die, we do not wish to be separated from you. May the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ. “Finally, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever’ things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on, these things.”
I hereunto subscribe my signature this the sixteenth day of January, A. D. 1903.
JOSEPH SYLVESTER NEWMAN
Glen Rose, Somervill County. Texas.
THE CHURCH
ARTICLE 1
I believe I will write a few short articles for The Primitive Baptist. and if the editor thinks they will do a little good and no harm he can let his subscribers read them. I believe I will select the Church question as my subject and discuss it from a scriptural and a historical standpoint. It is a well established fact in the minds all who are acquainted with our people, that they claim to be the Church of’ Jesus Christ. I will tell in a brief way why we claim to be the Church. and if those who differ with me think it is little and narrow in us. I will just say that a good woman believes that her husband has just: one woman for his wife, and she sincerely believes that she is that woman. I will not be so vain as to think I will do the subject justice, or that I will produce some new argument on the subject.
When we say we are the church, we just mean what we say, and we do not, and we did not, say that those who do not belong to the Primitive Baptists are not children of God. Our position is that you must be a child of God before you are fit to belong to the Church of God. We do not teach that vou must be a member of the Church in order to be a child of God. To be a child of God you must be born again—you must be a new creature— then, and not until then, are you eligible for membership in the Church of God.
I am sure that the Son of God has one wife only, and I am also sure that His wife knows her Husband; and why should it be thought a thing incredible for her to say, “I am my beloved’s, and my Beloved is mine: He feedeth among the lilies.”-Songs vi. 3. A good man that is married has just one wife, and the good woman that is married has just one husband. The good woman will say, “I am my Beloved’s, and His desire is toward me.”-Songs vii. 10. The Church has never had but one Husband, and Jesus Christ has never had but one wife: and He speaks of her in a very lovely and endearing way,” My dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of herr mother, she is the choice one of her, that bare her. The daughters saw her, and blessed her; yea, the queens and the concubines. and they praised her.”-Songs vi. 9. The Church has just one mother. Everything else claiming to be the Church are the daughters of men (Gen. vi. 2). The Church is the only one of her mother. Being the only one, there is not another. The Church is not just one member, but it is just one body. “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body; so also is Christ.”—I Cor, xii. 12. The mother of the Church is the covenant of grace. “But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.”-Gal. iv. 26. Children, according to Arminianism, have two mothers. While they are the children of the bondwoman, they are required to work to be the children of the free woman; and what they do while the children of the bondwoman is the cause of their being born of the free woman. The covenant of grace weans her children, while the covenant of works never weans her children for her breasts are dry (Hosea ix. 14). Sarah raised Isaac on the breast. This I know to he true, because she weaned him. Hagar raised Ishmael on the bottle and he cried for water when thirsty. “And she went, and filled the bottle with water. and gave the lad drink.”-Gen. Xxi. 19. Hagar reared her child on the bottle, for it was water he desired. Sarah reared her child on the breast, for he desired the sincere milk of the it word (1 Pet. 2).
The Prophet Isaiah called the Church a house. “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall he exalted above the hills: and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye. and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob: and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the 1aw, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem:” -Isa. ii. 2, 3. I hardly think that those who read their Bibles will call in question the statement that the prophet had allusion to the setting up of the Church of God. Mountain in this text could mean empire or some human government, while hills could mean the organizations of men belonging to the governments of this world. It will he remembered that the devil took Jesus up into an exceeding high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of’ the world and the glory of them; and the devil said to Him, “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” -Matt. iv. 9. The Church of Jesus Christ was set up above all the kingdoms of this world. “‘Many of the daughters (of men) (Gen. vi. 2) have done virtuously, but thou (the Church) excellest them all.”-Prov. xxxi. 29. As the Church is above all the governments and empires and organizations of men. secret or otherwise, the children of God who are members of the Church must go down hill to get into them; and as they go down hill, they are going away from the Church, for the reason that the Church is exalted above the hills, or any thing that men or any set of men can possibly set up. The prophet well said, “My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains; they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their resting place.”-Jer. l. 6. Do you want to be taught the way of the Lord more perfectly? Come let us go up to the house of the Lord; our heavenly Father lives there, our Elder Brother dwells there and the Holy Spirit abides there. Wonderful teachers these are! “He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths.” David had faith in God as his teacher. “Lead me in thy truth, and teach me; for thou art the God of my salvation.”-Psa. xxv. 5. David also believed that the Lord is good: “Good and upright is the Lord: therefore will He teach sinners in the way. The meek will He guide in judgment: and the meek will He teach His way. All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep His Covenant and His testimonies. “-Psa. xxv. 8-10. If you love and want to find the place where the honor of the Lord dwelleth, just find the Church of’ God. “Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honor dwelleth.” -Psa. xxvi. 8.
The house or Church of God is unlike all other houses or churches; it cannot be moved, for it is firmly fixed and built upon the tried and sure foundation. God is her refuge; His Son is her strength, while the Holy Spirit is her comforter, a very present help in trouble. She has no reason to fear, though the earth be removed, and the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea: though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains and governments of earth assail her, yet There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst of her: she shall not be moved: God shall help her. and that right early.”-Psa. xlvi. 4. 5.
ARTICLE 2
The Church of God is His Church. He bought it with His blood (Acts xx. 28). He set up His Church at the proper place and time. It was not set up before He said it was, neither was it set up since He said it was. The Church He set up has been in the world ever since He set it up. This being true, there has never been any reason why something else should be started called the Church of God or of Christ. The holy scriptures are the inspired words of God and the only perfect history the children of God have of the Church of God. What the Bible says about who set up the Church. and where and when is absolutely authentic. It would he extremely ridiculous and absurd to say that God inspired some prophet or New Testament writer to tell us when and where it was set up, and then some uninspired writer claim that the scriptures teach that it was set up at some other place and time.
Again, if God inspired men to tell us that the Church He set up would stand forever, and, for this reason, should never be destroyed, we must believe what the inspired and holy men of God said, or believe that the inspired men of God lied about it. “Let God be true, but every man a liar.”-Rom. iii. 4. The work of God is perfect. “He is the Rock. His work is perfect.”-Deut. xxxii. 4. The wise man said, “I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever, nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken front it: and God doeth it that men should fear before him.”-Eccl. iii. 14.
I will now proceed to prove by the Bible that God set up the church, and that he did it that men should fear before Him; and also that the Church God set up has existed from the day he set it up until the present time, and that when Jesus comes to this earth again He will find a people of the same faith they were when Jesus ascended to His Father.
I will quote Dan. ii. 44: “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.” If there was not another text in all the Bible that said one thing about the setting up of the Church, this one, proves, first, that God set it up; second, that it was set up in the days of these kings; third, that it should never be destroyed; fourth, that it should not be left to other people; fifth, that it should stand for ever. In order to prove that the Church or kingdom that the God of heaven set up is not here now, you will be compelled to prove that the kingdom that God said shall not be destroyed has been destroyed, and that the kingdom He said shall stand for ever has not stood for ever.
I shall Prove that the kingdom, or Church, that God set up is an everlasting kingdom. “His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and His dominion is from generation to generation.”-Dan. iv. 3. 1 shall prove that the kingdom God set up is from generation to generation. “His kingdom is from generation to generation.”-Dan. iv. 34. “If it can be proven that there has not been a succession of generations or families, then it can be proven that there has not been a succession of the kingdom or Church.
Daniel did not say one thing about a certain thing one time, and then say a different thing about the same thing at some other time. Read what he said in Dan. vii. 14: “And there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, and all people. nations, and languages, should serve Him; His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed. The kingdoms, empires, and governments, of men have come and gone. but the kingdom of God—the government of God—was set up upon an immovable foundation, and it has not and cannot be, moved off of its foundation.
In speaking of this kingdom Daniel said. “But the saints of the most High shall take the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever, even for ever and ever.” -Dan. vii. 18.
Paul said, “Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let its have grace. whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear,” -Heb. xii. 28.
Daniel said the saints shall take the kingdom of God. Paul said the saints received it. It is theirs by gift. They should appreciate it and lovingly abide in it. “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”-Luke xii. “12. The Church God set up, and then gave to His people, was to be possessed them forever. It is theirs to this day. and will be theirs as long as time lasts.
Like Solomon’s temple, it is all glorious within. Her clothing, her origin, her doctrine and practice, is unlike all the so-called churches of this world. “The King’s daughter is all glorious within; her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the King in raiment of needlework: the virgins her companions that shall follow her shall be brought unto thee.” -Psalms xlv. 13, 14.
The Church of God has clothing, or garments, that are unlike the clothing of the daughters of men. “All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad.”-Psalms xlv. 8. Her food, her drink, is unlike the food and drink of the institutions of men: one is heavenly and spiritual, the other is natural and earthy. The doctrine and practice of the Church is different from the doctrine and practice of the institutions of men.
ARTICLE 3
The Church of God is the New Testament Church and the New Testament. Church is the Church of God. This church is a model Church in origin, doctrine and practice; and any organization that does not conform to this original and divine model cannot be the Church of Jesus Christ. The model and pattern of this Church has not and cannot be changed and altered, and be an exact pattern of the original. If it was necessary for the Church in the days of our Saviour to be as the Son of God said it was, is it not just as necessary in our day? He said. “My kingdom is not of this world.” If it was not of the world then, can the kingdom be of the world now and be like the original ? If it is not like the original, then it must be of the world.
If the Church now is of the world, and the Church God set up was not of the world, then the church now is not like the original. If it is not like the original, then it is not the original. If it is not the original multiplied, then its origin is wrong, and therefore it is a counterfeit. Jesus said, “Thou art Peter. and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,
-Matt. xvi. 18.
Jesus built His house or church on a sure foundation, a tried stone. “Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation; he that believeth shall not make haste.” -Isa. xxviii. 16.
God laid the foundation of His Church in Zion, and no other foundation can any man lay. “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” -1 Cor. iii. 11.
The church of the New Testament was builded upon this Rock, which is Jesus Christ. The Church was being built by the Son of God while He was here in person, when He said to Peter, “Upon this Rock I will build my Church.” He did not mean He would set up his Church on the day of Pentecost. Jesus organized His Church before He was crucified, while He was in this world as a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief. It was not the work of the Holy Spirit through the twelve apostles to set up the Church on the day of Pentecost, or any other day. It was the work of God, His Son, and the Holy Spirit to set up the first Church. This being done by the Holy Three in One, the apostles and the ministers of God had a pattern to go by. The apostles went from country to country, and from city to city, establishing churches, according to the original pattern. “And God hath set some in the Church, first apostles; secondarily prophets; thirdly teachers; after that, miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues,” -1 Cor. xii. 28.
God set up the kingdom or Church when? In the days of these kings. God set up the Church where? in the top of the mountains. Before the God of heaven set up His Church, His Son must be baptized, and there was just one preacher to baptize the Son of’ God, and that was John the Baptist, who was a Primitive Baptist minister. “Theree was a man sent from God, whose name was John.” -John i. 6. John was the messenger prophesied about by the Old Testament writers. John was not sent to regenerate or impart spiritual or eternal life to sinners. It was impossible for John to do a thing of that kind. But it was possible for him to “prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to His temple.” Matthew said..
For this is he of whom it is written, “Behold I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee. Verily I say unto You. Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding, he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. And from the days of’ John the Baptist, until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent, take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.” -Matt. xi. 10-13. The kingdom or Church dates back to the days of John the Baptist. If there was no church or kingdom in John’s day, how could there have been a least in the kingdom of heaven? and how could the kingdom of heaven suffer violence? and how could the violent take it by force?
As the Baptists were so closely connected with the first Church that, was set up, I see no impropriety in saying it started with them; and as it started with them and shall not be left to other people, it is absolutely with them right now. It is said by some that John was called a Baptist because be baptized by immersion. That might have been true in John’s day but it is not so in our day.
Matthew said, “In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” -Matt. iii. 1, 2. This is the kingdom Daniel told us about. This is the kingdom Isaiah said should be established in the top of the mountains. John the Baptist, no doubt, was baptizing the children of God at that time, preparatory to the setting up of the Church of God. John did not set up or organize the Church., but he did baptize the material used by the Son of God in organizing it. If this is objected to, then John was not sent to prepare the way of the Lord, as the prophet said he was.
John being a Baptist, is it a thing incredible for those he baptized to be considered Baptists also? It is stated that there went out to John, Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan, and were baptized of him in Jordan. confessing their sins. Little infants were not baptized by John. Those he baptized went but to him; they confessed their sins, and infants eight days old cannot do either. When John saw many, of the Pharisees, who were Absoluters, and Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, come to his baptism, he said unto them, “0 generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” To them he said, “Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance,” And then he tells them what not to do: “Think not to say, within yourselves. We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the, trees; therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down. and cast into the fire.” John said, “I baptize you with water,” and the Pedo-baptists say “with water” means that John sprinkled the water on them. I remember seeing my mother dye our wearing apparel with dye of some kind, but she did not sprinkle or pour the dye on my trousers, she put the trousers in the dye; but she dyed my clothing with dye. John baptized with water, but he put his subjects in the water, which could not be true if he sprinkled or poured the water on the people. The people John baptized with water were the children of God by regeneration: and the people of God are the only people that are eligible for baptism and church membership. Jesus Christ had a fan that was peculiarly and exclusively His. “Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into tile garner; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
The work of’ the Son of God was His, and no one else could do it. He begins His work “in you,” and in this work the sinner is thoroughly purged from his sins. It was this kind of people that John was baptizing in the river of Jordan. “Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John to be baptized of him. John, like the servants of God now, felt his unworthiness and “forbade Him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered Him. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water; and lo, the heavens were opened unto Him. And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove. and lighting upon Him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying. This is my beloved Son. in whom I am well pleased.” Jesus the Son of God at about the age of twenty-seven years went to John the Baptist and was baptized to fulfil all righteousness.
ARTICLE 4
We now have the founder and head and lawgiver of the Church baptized by the Lord’s own messenger, and God placed His seal and heavenly approbation on it. The Father was so well pleased with what his Son had done, as He came up out of the water the heavens were opened unto Him and out of heaven a voice said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” I am sure that when the children of God are baptized by the same authority that Jesus was baptized, the heavens will open unto them, and the smiles and benedictions of heaven will be theirs to richly enjoy. And the applaudit will be, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” Jesus was not only the Son of God, but He was the servant of God, “Behold my servant, whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my Spirit upon Him; He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.” -Isa. xlii. 1.
The Spirit of God abode upon Jesus when He came up out of the water. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil, where He fasted forty days and forty night. He was afterwards an hungred, and the devil, or the tempter, said, “If thou be the Son of God, command these stones be made bread.” Jesus said to the devil, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone. but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God:” After the Savour had answered the devil as He did. “Then the devil taketh Him up into the holy city, and setteth Him on a pinnacle of the temple.” The devil then told Jesus, “If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down.” The answer of Jesus was. “It is written again. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God! The devil next taketh the Son of God into an exceeding high mountain and sheweth Him all the kingdom, of the world, arid the glory of them and. in his devil-like benevolence and liberality, he told the Saviour. “All these things will I give thee if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Just notice the answer of the Son of God: “Then said Jesus unto him. Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God. and Him only shalt thou serve.” At this juncture the devil leaveth Him and the angels of God “came and ministered unto Him.” Isaiah saw this trial and temptation of Jesus, and for that reason spoke of Him as a tried stone. It was this tried stone that the prophet saw laid in Zion.
We have followed Jesus through His temptations and through Jerusalem into Galilee, and leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum in the border of Zabulun and Nephthalim. This was done that the prophesy of Isaiah might be fulfilled. “From that time Jesus began to preach. and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” John told the people to repent, for the kingdom is at hand. Jesus, after the Baptist had baptized Him, preached the same thing. After preaching that the kingdom was at hand, Jesus tells us next about calling His apostles; and Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease among the people. “And there followed Him great multitudes of people from Galilee and from Decapolis. and from Jerusalem, and from Judea. and from beyond Jordan.”
Let it be understood that Jesus is not now in Jerusalem for it is here stated that the people followed him out of Jerusalem. Daniel said the God of heaven would set up His kingdom in the days of these kings, or kingdoms. Isaiah said He would this—establish His Church in the top of the mountains, or above the, kingdoms, governments, empires and institutions of men.
I have never thought that the Church was really organized in Jerusalem, but in the Mount of Olives. “And seeing the multitudes, He went up into a mountain; and when He was set, His disciples came unto him.” “And God hath set some in the Church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.” – 1 Cor. xii. 28. Paul tells us when the Son of God did this. Wherefore He saith, When he ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
It is a matter of fact that the Son o God set up or established His Church sometime and somewhere between His descent to earth and His ascension to heaven, or else He did not fulfil all things, as stated above, It was the God-man that was to set up the first Church, and not the Holy Spirit and the apostles. After the first Church was set up, then the apostles had a pattern to go by. We have no apostles now, but the ministers have their inspired writings to go by. If Judas was a member of the Church, then we should know that the Church was organized by the Son of God before Judas hanged himself. “Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.”-Psa. xli. 9.
There can be no question about David having reference to Judas in the above quotation. Let me quote from David again:”For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it; neither was it he that hated me, that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him; But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company.”
-Psa. lv. 12-14. “The first Church organized by the Saviour had Judas in it.”’-Church Order, pg. 16. The. sermon the Son of God preached in the mountain is food for thought and sweet meditation. The length of the discourse shows plainly that it was an extraordinary occasion. This one sermon contains three chapters, and one hundred and ten verses, and was addressed to His disciples in a church capacity.
How touchingly appropriate are the words of Jesus to His disciples! “Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted, Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall he called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad. for great is your reward in heaven; for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city (Church) that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but oil a candlestick: and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”Matt. v. 1-16.
The city mentioned in this sublime sermon of our Saviour is “The city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel.” -Isa. lx. 14. “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.”-Isa. lxi. 1-4.
ARTICLE 5
In the sermon on the mountain our Saviour gave instructions to the Church to let her light shine before men, that they may see her good works, and glorify her Father which is in heaven. He said to the Church. “‘Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.” All that were in the house had the light, and the Son of God told them to let it shine. “That ye may he blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ve shine as lights in the world.”Phil. ii. 15.
The Church is a house of light, and all her material are children of light. Before the new birth they were children of the flesh; children of wrath even as others. “For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light, in the Lord; walk as children of light.”-Phil. ii. 15. When the Church walks as her Husband commanded her to, she is letting her spiritual light shine; and when the members are walking and living right, they are letting their spiritual and religious light shine. As the Church of God is a city of light, there is no hiding place in it for wrong doing. “There is no darkness, nor shadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves” in the Church of God).” -Job xxxiv. 22. Whosoever, therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven (Church); but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”-Matt. v. 19.
This indeed would be queer language for any man to use if he knew there was no church, or kingdom at the time he used it. Jesus knew He, at that time, had a kingdom or Church, and so He said. “For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness Of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” It is claimed by some that the expression found in the disciples’ prayer. “Thy kingdom come.” means that it was not yet set up, or in existence. I am at a loss to know how something could come that did not exist. To my mind it only means that the disciples were to pray for it to come with power. “That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power.”-Mark ix. 1. When our Saviour said. “Seek ye first the kingdom. of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you,” He was not trifling with, or mocking, His disciples. Just as well try to prove that His righteousness and all these things did not exist as to try to prove that His kingdom did not exist. If it did not exist at that very time, then the Saviour told, or instructed, His disciples to seek something that was not in existence, and that He knew they could not find.
In Matthew vii. 21 we have this language, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” If there was no Church or kingdom when the Saviour used this language, that those who did the will of God did not enter the kingdom of God, as He said they would. Paul said, “Who hath delivered us from the Power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son.”-Col. i. 13. 1 know this cannot be the kingdom mentioned by the Lord Jesus Christ in His sermon in the mount, for He told His disciples they entered it by doing the will of their Father. In our Saviour’s sermon in the mount He called the Church exactly by the name the prophet said it would he called. “And they shall call thee. the city of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy one of Israel.” -Isa. lx. 1-4.
It is said, “He went up into a mountain, and when He was set, came unto Him,” Matt. v. 1. Let me quote Psalm ii. 6. “Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion.” Jesus was to come suddenly to His temple, or Church. Mal. iii. 1). “And He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and He shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver. that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” -Mal. iii. 3. Let us read what Jesus said in His wonderful sermon: “Whose fan is in his hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor (people), and gather His wheat (people into the garner Church), but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”-Matt. iii. 12.
The holy man of God was to come to His His temple, not in a chariot drawn by fine horses, but upon an ass. If we can find when this text was fulfilled we may know assuredly that the Church was then in existence. “Rejoice greatly, 0 daughter of Zion; shout, 0 daughter of Jerusalem: behold. thy King corneth unto thee, He is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, the foal of an ass.” -Zech. ix. 9. We cannot expect to find this scripture fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. This scripture was actually fulfilled during the life of Jesus on earth, and, of course, before His ascension His Father. “On the next day much people that were conic to the feast, when My heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet Him, and cried, Hoxanna; Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord. And Jesus, when He had found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Sion, behold thy King cometh sitting on an ass’s colt.” -John xii. 12-15.
John the Baptist said. “He that hath the bride is the Bridegroom; but the friend of the Bridegroom, which standeth and heareth Him, rejoiceth greatly because of the Bridegroom’s voice; this my joy therefore is fulfilled.” -John iii. 29. Bride means a woman newly married, or a woman ready to get married; while bridegroom means a man just married, or fixing to get married. The holy scriptures do not teach. that the Son of God died and then married, but they do teach that He was married to His Church, or wife, and then died for His wife. “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it.”-Eph. v. 25.
ARTICLE 6
The Church certainly existed in the days of John the Baptist, for he said, “He that hath the bride is the Bridegroom.”‘ Matthew said. “From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” -Matt. xi. 12. If the kingdom or Church was not in existence from the days of John the Baptist, then Matthew was mistaken in what he said about it being in existence from the days of John the Baptist until now; he also was mistaken about the Church suffering violence, and also about the violent taking it by force. The, inspired prophet said, “For unto us a child is born; unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David, and upon His kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.” -Isa. ix 6,7. Unto us, the Church or people of God, a Child is born, a Son is given. John, in the book of Revelation. saw the Church under the law. “And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband,” -Rev. xxi. 2. Again John said, “Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife.” -Rev. xxi. 9. John was a minister of God, and he had eyes behind and in front, and he looked behind him and saw the marriage of the Son of God to His wife. “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready; and to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white; for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints. And He saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.” -Rev. xix. 7, 9.
John was evidently writing about the same thing Matthew was when he said, “And while they (the Jews) went to buy, the Bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with Him to the marriage; and the door was shut.” -Matt. xxv. 10. John said, “And His ife hath made herself ready.” Yes, she was attired as a virtuous woman. “The king’s daughter is all glorious within; her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the kind in raiment of needlework; the virgins her companions that follow her shall be brought unto thee. With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought; they shall enter into the king’s palace.” Psa. xlv. 13-15.
These scriptures were absolutely fulfilled during the personal ministry of the Son of God on earth, which is incontestable evidence of the existence of His Church at that time. He said, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”-Matt. xvi. 18. It is just as true now as it was when Jesus said to Peter, “Upon this rock I will build my church.” He is still building His Church. “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”-Psa. cxxvii. 1. Christ is the power and wisdom of God (1 Cor. i. 24).
“Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars: She hath killed her beasts: she hath mingled her wine; she hath also furnished her table.” Prov. ix. l, 2. This scripture was fulfilled while Christ was on this earth. The gospel table was well furnished by Him. The food was blessed by Him. He did not suffer anyone to go anywhere for food. He took the little they had, told the people that were hungry to sit down upon the grass. All flesh is as grass. We must crucify the flesh. Then will the blessed Christ take the bread and fishes and bless them, and then give them to His ministers that they may feed the hungry children of God; and in the end of this heavenly repast they will have twelve baskets full of fragments to feed others on.
“She hath also furnished her table.” When Jesus said “Upon this rock I will build my church,” He was not making the Church; He had already done that. “For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”-Heb. xi. 10. The Son of God is the only man that ever made the woman He married. “For thy Maker is thy Husband.”Isa. liv. 5. The Church of God is the only house that has a living foundation, a living builder, a living head and living material. “To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious.”—I. Peter ii. 4.
The material or members have the same kind of life the builder has. “He that hath the Son hath life.”-1 John v. 12. “This is the true God, and eternal life.” -1 John v. 20. “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.”-1 Peter ii. 5. The house of God, the Church of God, is unlike all other houses; it is a spiritual house. Its life is spiritual; its service is spiritual. “And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord; In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.”–Eph, ii. 20-22.
The Lord Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, is still building His Church on the tried and sure foundation He laid in Zion, as He told Peter He would. “From whom the whole (entire) body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.”- Eph. iv. 16. The Church of Christ is the only body “fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth.” There is not a joint or coupling but what is well supplied “according to the effectual working in the measure of every part.” The Church of God is so perfectly builded, as well as systematically arranged and fitly joined together “in the measure of every part” that it “maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.”
The Church that God set up is here today in all her transcendent beauty and juvenile innocency, vigor and strength. She has passed through all the persecution and bloodshed that her cruel persecutors could invent. In the midst of all the debauchery, corruption, fornication and whoredoms, there have been, and are now, true virtuous men and women, and will be while time lasts. Bad men and women have gotten into the Church, as well as wrong doctrine and practice. The statement has been repeatedly made that no one could trace the Baptist Church back to the apostles. We will see about that further on. Church perpetuity or succession is either a Bible truth or it is not. If the holy scriptures teach Church succession, then there have been churches somewhere ever since the first one. “Unto Him be glory in the Church by Jesus Christ, throughout all ages.”-Eph. iii. 21. By this text we prove the Church has been here during the past ages, and when the Husband comes again without sin, it will be for the purpose of taking His bride to glory with Him. In the dark days of popery the servants of God could say, “In the midst of the Church will I sing praise unto thee.”-Heb. ii. 12.
Christ is the maker, founder and builder of the Church. The Church is His bride. He is her head and life. The Church is His body, and the body cannot be destroyed without destroying the head, which is in heaven. “Death hath no dominion over Him.”-Rom. vi. 9.
In a few articles I will endeavor to prove that the Church (now known as the Primitive Baptist Church of Christ) has existed in every age since the day it was first set up. If it can be proven that the Primitive Baptists originated somewhere this side of the apostles, then they are not Primitive Baptists. If this can be done, I want it done at once. Please do not say it can be done and then refuse to do it.
ARTICLE 7
Before I quote one thing or word from an uninspired writer, let me quote a few scriptures from the inspired Book of God.
“There was a man sent from God. whose name was John.” -John i. 6. Now, let me read Matt. xi. 11: “Verily I say unto you. Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist.”‘ Baptist must have been his religious name. The first text says his name was John, the second scripture calls him “John the Baptist.” Now, let us read Matt. iii. 1:”In those Clays came John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness of Judea. John was the Primitive Baptist preacher. If you deny this, mention one before him. Jesus Christ was baptized by this Primitive Baptist preacher. Jesus Christ used those baptized by this Primitive Baptist minister in organizing His Church. This I know to be true, for John was sent to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. This he did by baptizing them. This first Church of Christ was a Baptist Church. I intend to prove, first by a Missionary Baptist that the first Church, organized by the Sun of God, was not a Misionary Baptist church, but an Old Baptist Church.
Waco, Texas, September 18, 1893—You ask me if I regard baptism administered by Primitive or Hardshell Baptists as valid. This is a question of great and growing importance; and for years 1 have given it earnest and prayerful study, weighing everything carefully on both sides, and my deliberate conclusion is that baptism administered by Primitive or Hardshell preachers in good standing, to a converted believer is as valid as if administered by John the Baptist. The Apostle Paul, John A. Broadus, or Jas. H. Stribling. My reasons are: First, a mistakei1-Iv reasons are: First, a mistake from honest conviction or prejudice about preaching the gospel to the heathen does not invalidate baptism. If so, the baptism of the three thousand on the day of Pentecost, and the twelve thousand during that first revival at Jerusalem would be invalid. For nothing is clearer in the New Testament than that Peter and all the apostles were at first Anti-Missionary `Hardshell Baptists.’ And the whole church at Jerusalem were so intensely Anti-Missionary or “Hardshell” that as soon as Peter returned from his first foreign mission tour the church arraigned him for trial. The third reason is that our Primitive or ‘Hardshell’ brethren have never rejected any ordinance or doctrine of the Baptist Church, as founded by Christ and the apostles one thousand eight hundred and ninety-two years ago on the banks of Jordan. It is a mournful fact that while some of our ‘Hardshell’ brethren have become fatalists. scores of our Missionary Baptists are only immersed Methodists in the Baptist Church. I repeat, our Primitive brethren have not rejected any doctrine or ordinance of Christ; but with wonderful tenacity they cling, as we do (oh, my!—Joe) to all the doctrine, and ordinances as they came from heaven. pure, simple, holy, sublime.”-R. C. Burleson, in Baptist and Reflector. April 28. 1592.
To be sure. the first Church Christ organized was the Church of Christ, but a Primitive Baptist preacher did all the baptizing, and Christ and the apostles organized the Church; therefore, it was the Church of Christ, organized by the Primitive Baptists.
I have in my hand a debate between Walker and Alexander Campbell, June 19 and 20, 1820, from which I will quote as Providence may dictate. Page 262 he says: “The Baptists can trace their origin to apostolic times, and produce unequivocal testimonies of their existence in every century down to the present time.” (1820) Again. same page: “I now proceed to show that the Baptists have existed in every century from the Christian era to the present day.” It was in 1820 he said this. Once more. “First century, Anno Domini 33. we read, in a well attested history. of a large Baptist Church which was formed’ and exhibited as a grand model, by the immediate agency of the Holy Spirit. On the day of Pentecost three thousand souls were illumined, led to repentance, converted, baptized, and added to the Church.”
On page 263, we have this statement. “The second church planted on earth was also composed of men and women who professed faith before baptism, consequently, a Baptist Church.” On same page he says, “The third church of note, and in order of time, was the church at Caesarea, a church interesting to us, inasmuch as it was a Gentile church. or a Gentile people composed it. This church was evidently a Baptist Church.” On page 264 we have this language, “The testimonies of God are the foundation on which our faith and practice rests; therefore, when we quote other authorities, it is not as foundation on which the faith of any should rest, either in whole or part, but to put to silence the ignorance of foolish men, who ignorantly assert that the Baptist sentiments are new, or that the sect is of modern date.”
In speaking of the second century, Mr. Campbell said, pg. 265, “There is no difference in the practice of the Church in this century from the preceding. Most, of the distinguished men, who lived at the beginning of it, had seen and heard the apostles, consequently amongst the churches, there was yet no great falling off in the external ordinances. Justin Martyr’s public defense of the Christians of the second century is a sufficient document to show that the Baptist sentiments at that time universally prevailed.”
On page 277, Mr. Campbell says, “Thus I have shown that even in England, the Baptists have continued from the apostolic times to the present clay, as also that there have been in every century advocates for Baptist principles.” And “That the Baptists commenced on the day of Pentecost and have continued from that time till now.” Mr. T. R. Burnett, hi his debate with D. B. Ray, pg. 7, says. “With Alexander Campbell, we say the kingdom was with the Baptists before he and his coadjutors started the reformation, and (they) are yet a part of that kingdom, though entangled in some errors.”
Accepting Campbell as authority, the Old Baptists started on the day of Pentecost as a people, and as the Church of Christ, and it continued with them for one thousand eight hundred and twelve years. I will allow Mr. Burnett to tell us how Alexander Campbell and those with him took the Church from the Baptists. Ray-Burnett Dedate, pg. 47: “Our confession that the Old Baptist Church of A. Campbell’s day (not the Missionary sprout) was a part of the kingdom, seems to trouble him greatly. He would like for us to assert that those Old Baptists were not in the kingdom at all, and that Alexander Campbell was not; then he would have some reason to say that a new church was set up. We cannot accommodate him. This old body (not the Missionary sprout) was a part of the kingdom, and A. Campbell was a member of it, and was never excluded from it, but reformed the best portion of it and moved, it back to the Bible.”
We will let Mr. Burnett speak once more: “The Baptists have connection with the apostles through their line of succession, which extends back three hundred and fifty years, where it connects with the Waldensian line, and that reaches to the apostolic day. This is not a Baptist line, but the Baptists have connection with this line, and through it have connection with the apostles. We were talking about successional connection. The Baptists also have connection with the apostles in what they teach and practice.”-Christian Messenger, Dec. 8, 1886.
I will quote once more from Campbell: “Hence, it is that the Baptist denomination, in all ages and in all countries, has been, as a body, the constant asserters of the rights of man and of liberty of conscience. They have often been persecuted by Pedo-Baptists; but they never politically persecuted, though they have had it in their power.” -Christian Baptism, pg. 409. On page 406 he says: “In the year 1300, and for several centuries before, all the citizens of Germany, France, Spain, England, and, indeed, the whole western Roman Empire, with the exception of a few Baptists, were initiated into what has been called the Church, as soon as the parents could have the rite performed: ”
The base calumny that is constantly heaped upon the Old Baptists suggests to me the propriety of modestly making a succinct and brief excursion into their history and proving by their religious opponents that when they assert their claims to being the Church of Jesus Christ, they are doing no more than they often do themselves. When any man asserts that the Primitive Baptists are of modern origin, that they were born in 1832, or that they started with John Smythe in 1607, or with the Munsterites, or with Roger Williams, you may know that that man is absolutely ignorant of the facts of history, or he has no respect for his word.
I will quote from Church Perpetuity, page 59. John C. Ridpath, a Methodist, said, “I should not readily admit that there was a Baptist Church as far back as A. D. 100, though without doubt there were Baptists then, as all Christians were then Baptists.”
Professor of history in Boston University, H. C. Sheldon, who was a Methodist, said, “A portion of the so-called Anabaptists who appeared in Germany in the third, and the following decades of the sixteenth century, might be called Baptists.”
It would be impossible for Baptists to appear at any time or place if they were not there. The professor of church history in the Gettysburg Lutheran theological seminary, said, “The Baptists were originated by some Swiss, about 1523.”
We will now allow H. M. Scott, professor of church history in the Congregational theological seminary, in Chicago, to tell us about the Baptist Church: “It arose in Zwickaw, Saxony, A. D. 1520, under the Zwickaw prophets, Storch and others.”
We will now ask Prof. A. C. Lewis, the historian in the Presbyterian seminary in Chicago to speak: “I regret not being able to give you the categorical answers you seem to anticipate. The questions as put do not admit of short and categorical answers. The first Baptist Church was not formed or organized, but evolved out of Anabaptist antecedents.”
The president of the Campbellite College of Bethany says: “The Baptists first appeared in Switzerland. Who founded the first Baptist Church that ever existed cannot be determined.”
We will hear A. P. Cobb, the pastor in 1894, of the first Campbellite Church of Springfield, Ill., testify: “Was there a Baptist Church when Luther began his reformation? Yes, in Switzerland, 1523; large churches fully organized in 1525-30 in south Germany. Who originated the first Baptist Church? I cannot tell.”
The pastor of the first Campbellite church, Ann Arbor, Mich., says, “The Baptists had large churches fully organized between 1520-30 in Switzerland. They were persecuted by both Zwingli and the Romanists. Who originated the first Baptist Church that ever existed? I do not know.”
MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES
INTEREST FOR PEACE
I am very glad that as we enter into another new year that we can see the interest for peace growing, and even broadening over our beloved Zion. I hope that during this new year the good seed of peace that have been sown the past year will produce a copious and a wonderful crop of peace-loving men and women. It is not at all right or necessary that everything should be perfectly right in order for us to have peace. If it were necessary for everything to be exactly right for us to have peace; then we could have no room for forbearance. There are too many of God’s dear people wanting and praying for peace for us not to have it. It may not come in a day or even in a year, but God will give His people peace that really desire peace. If I say I want peace and then say to those I am estranged from, “You must go back fifteen or twenty years and undo all your works,” that equals saying, “You must do something that is absolutely impossible to be done, and something that is altogether unnecessary and wrong in order to have peace.” The holy scriptures do not require the churches to be governed by what a few preachers say must be done in order to have peace. Sometimes we hear someone say, “We non-fellowshiped you fifteen years ago, and for just that length of time you have been in disorder and all you have done has been wrong.” According to this kind of reasoning, it was those who put up the bars that caused the works of the churches non-felIowshipped to be invalid. As long as God recognizes a church He will also recognize the works of that church that were scriptural. The Primitive Baptist, January 28, 1932.
CHURCH SOVEREIGNTY
Church sovereignty is a good doctrine, but church inerrability and infallibility is a bad doctrine. No one who has studied his Bible as he should will claim that the Church is so sovereign that she can do as she wishes, unless her only desire is to obey her Husband in executing His laws. When a church expels a member said member is excluded from all of our churches. If I live so that the churches in my home association will not allow me to preach in one of them, the churches in some other state are not so sovereign that they can receive me and preach me. Before I should be recognized by churches in some other state they should require me to go back where I got wrong and get right. To do otherwise would be a denial of Church sovereignty. Brethren. faithfulness requires us to respect our sister churches. and let us he faithful in the house of God.—The Primitive Baptist. February 11. 1932.
REPLY TO THE EDITOR
The Lone Pilgrim, of January 1, has just reached me, and I notice the editor is right in after J. S. Newman; and I hope the editor-in-chief will not censure or blame me too severely for offering a rejoinder to a few things he said. Beloved. You know that if I reply to you, that any reply will be exactly as you say the Lord decreed for it to be; and when you object to it, you are objecting to what You say God decreed, and to what you say you believe. Since I thought about it, I just cannot avoid replying to you, for you know you sincerely believe that God absolutely predestinated for me to reply to you in the exact way and manner I do: and you know. beloved, if the Lord predestinated for me to reply to you, that He Himself could not hinder me from doing so, without stultifying Himself and frustrating the inerrability of His firm decree.
Here is one, from a Bible standpoint, he could have kept from telling, but from his view of predestination, he had it to tell. This is what he said: “We expect to prove he once believed it by his own testimony.” What is it he is going to prove that I once believed? That God predestinated all things. How did he prove it?
By garbling and misrepresenting what I said. Here is the quotation he relies on to prove I once held his view on predestination: “The purpose or predestination of God embraces all events, good or bad.” The editor. knowingly, refused to tell how I said the purpose of God embraces all things, good or bad. “The purpose or predestination of God embraces all events, good or bad; all righteousness, effectively or causatively, and all evil He permits, suffers. allows, or does not hinder. If God eternally fixed all things, as some blindly and boldly say, then it is futile, and worse than folly, for the people to spend their time and best energies in trying to have better times either religiously, morally, socially or financially,” ppg. 54, 55.
The editor may try to console himself by saying the Lord predestinated for him to falsely charge me. but I do not think so. If unlimited predestination is true, what can the editor expect to accomplish by contending against anything, or for anything? The things I believe, you say were firmly fixed by the eternal God and I believe as I do, because, you say, the Lord predestinated for me to. Do you think you can convince me I am wrong and get me to turn from it? If you do, you are trying to get me to turn away from what you say God purposed for me to believe. Now, brother, you simply cannot gain one thing by contending for it, and you cannot lose one thing by not contending for it, for the reason you teach that God eternally fixed all things; and you cannot in your teaching. with pen or tongue, exhortation or persuasion, have one thing any better or worse, for the very good reason everything is just like God eternally fixed for it to be. Should you complain if somebody should murder your wife or your daughter? You could only say. “I believe the Lord predestinated it, and that very act is one of the all things that work for my good and the glory of God.” If a girl drinks, smokes, curses, lies and lives a life of prostitution, she is, says the editor of The Lone Pilgrim, doing what God willed and predestinated for her to do, and the advocates off this doctrine cannot object to the life she is living without objecting to what they say they believe with all their heart.
A few years ago a man murdered his wife and entire family and, for this hellish and heart sickening crime, he went to the electric chair. The editor and company believe, so they say, that God. who said, “Thou shall not. kill,” purposed for this man to murder his wife while she was asleep, as well as all their children, at the time he did and in the way he did. The predestination of all things connects and associates God in His predestination with bank robbers, highjackers, murderers, rapers, houses of ill fame, and every other crime the human family has ever committed or ever will commit. According to this view of predestination, wickedness and crime of every kind is a part of the gospel of the Son of God. To deny this is to say that a part of God’s doctrine is no part of the gospel of God. I repeat, sir, that if this imported heathen doctrine is true, then wickedness and sin, in all of its ramifications, with all of its consequences, and concomitants, and heart sickening hearings, is a component and integral part of the gospel of the Son of God. If this be true, then the gospel is according to godliness and ungodliness, according to righteousness and unrighteousness, to truth and error. The people that are guilty of the wicked acts mentioned and all other crimes, obeyed the purpose of God, fulfilled the purpose of God and were obeying the doctrine of God; and as the doctrine of God is the gospel of God, they were obeying the gospel of God in doing wrong. When the editor of The Lone Pilgrim says God predestinated the works of the devil, he teaches that God wanted the devil’s works to be just as certain as His own works; and He wanted the devil, as well as men and women, to do all they have ever done or may yet do. To deny this is to say that God purposed some things He did not desire or want. Paul said he was a “servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s elect, and the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness.’ -Titus i. 1. If the predestination of sin and wickedness is the doctrine of God, then it is the faith of God’s elect, and Paul should have said that the faith of God’s elect is according to truth, godliness and ungodliness.
MORE PREDESTINATION
Well, the second copy of The Lone Pilgrim has just reached me. I was real glad that it came to see me. I am sure it thinks well of me, or it would not have come so far alone; but Lone Pilgrim is its real name. If I believed in predestination of all things in 1912, I was doing, or believing, just what you say God fixed for me to believe; and if in 1932 I am not believing what you say I did in 1912, you know, my beloved, that you teach that the Lord fixed for me to believe as I did in 1912; and if I have changed, the change occurred just as God decreed it should. If I have changed, why complain? You cannot censure me for this without censuring what you say you believe. I never in all my life believed that God purposed my sins. I believe He purposed to allow wrong doing. The editor says, “We feel like it is not necessary for us to take up much more time or space for any further reply to Elder Newman.” What have your feelings to do with what you say, think or do? If your doctrine is true, God eternally fixed for you to feel like it was not necessary for you to do what the Lord fixed for you to do. He next calls attention to some quotations I made from historians. I believe what they said and meant, but I do not believe the construction placed upon them by the editor. But “Cayce and Newman are Baptists in name only.” Well, we are just what you say the Lord fixed for us to be; and if you do not like it, you will be compelled to prevail on the Lord to change His firm and unalterable decree; and if you can get that done, we will not say for certain just what kind of Baptists we will be. “But we have seventeen different kinds of Baptists in the U. S. A.” Well, that had to be, for you say it was predestinated to be. In the editor’s estimation, it is necessary for a man to believe that God predestinated all the wickedness that has ever been or ever will be in order to be a Simon pure Primitive Baptist. If you do not. believe this you are, in the estimation of the editor of The Lone Pilgrim, an Arminian. Let us look at that point just a moment. If a girl is seduced, raped, robbed, maimed and murdered, we must believe that God fixed for that to be; and it had to be, and that God was well pleased with it, for He arranged for it, and it occurred at the time, and in the way the Lord predestinated. If you believe this, you are a good Old Baptist; but should you fail to believe this, you are an Arminian.
“And Cayce endorsed the London Confession of Faith in 1900.” Yes, and does the same thing now; but he does not endorse the interpretation you placed on it. The editor wants to know if God has changed. No! Has His doctrine changed? No! He then refers to the “unintelligent prattle of Newman.” Well, it had to be just that way, is what you teach, and your complaint is against what you say you believe. Dear editor, when you criticize or object to anything that comes to pass; you are objecting to, and criticizing what you say God predestinated, and what you say you believe, and this “unintelligent prattle of” Hutchens is hardly worth noticing. He refers to me reading history. Yes. I have read and studied it enough to know that the absolute predestination of all sinful acts is not the doctrine of the Bible, but the doctrine of the Stoics, Pharisees and of Mohammed, and many other heretics and inveterate enemies of the Church of God.
The editor thinks there is room in the eternal fixedness of all things for exhortation, law, warning; etc. Let us see how that is. Hutchens says God eternally fixed all things as firmly as He did the sun, moon, and stars, and then God calls men to exhort people not to do what He firmly fixed for them to do, and God is having His ministers and people spend their time exhorting the people to do what He predestinated for them to do. I repeat that there is absolutely no room in such heathen doctrine for law, exhortation, or warning. The deceived editors think that if God did fix all things, that He fixed room for exhortation, law, and warnings in this system. Just as well look for room up among the sun, moon, and stars for warnings, threatening, laws and exhortation, as to look for a place for such things among creatures of the earth, for the reason that things above, and things below, are not governed by law, but by the eternal, immutable decree of God Almighty.
“Newman has something to say about the Hickman boy kidnaping little Marian Parker, and states that the Absoluter’s idea of predestination makes God a party to this devil concocted crime. This statement is an absolute falsehood.” Well, beloved, if I falsified, it was eternally fixed for me to lie, and I just had it to do or frustrate the purpose of God, and you know I cannot do that. Elder Hutchens predestinated to publish The Lone Pilgrim, but that does not make him a party of what he predestinated to do, and is doing. The elder predestinated to get married. but that does not make him a party to the affair. Now, let me apply your logic. God predestinated to save sinners, but that does not make God a party to, or of salvation. The editor asks me some questions and wants me to explain them according to what the limited believe. Was little Marian Parker any better than Jesus Christ? No, indeed! Did she die any worse death than He did? No. Was Hickman any worse than Judas? Yes, deceivers shall wax worse and worse. Did not Hickman commit his crime for the hope of money? Yes. Did not Judas betray for money? Yes. Was not Judas a devil from the beginning? The Bible does not say so. The devil entered into Judas (John xiii. 27). Judas was of the devil in what he was doing. If the spirit of Satan in a man makes the man a devil, then the spirit of God in a man makes the man a God. “We gather from Newman’s writings that his God did not desire, expect, or want the little girl killed.” We gather from Hutchens’ writings that his God desired, expected and wanted Hiekman to kidnap, mistreat and finally murder the innocent child, cut her body in twain, put it in a sack and deliver it to her father for the hope of money.
Let me quote Jer. vii. 31: “And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my heart.” I will let Elder Hutchens tell us how God predestinated for Judah to build the high places in Tophet and burn their sons and daughters in the fire and none of it ever came into His heart. According to what Elder Hutchens says he believes, the Lord willed, wanted and expected for the people anciently to burn their sons and daughters in the fire, and for Hickman to murder the little girl just as he did, and just when he did; and Hutchens does not believe that God could have prevented one thing from coming to pass just when it did, and in the way it did. Hutchens argues that it was God’s will for Hickman to murder the little girl. Elder Hutchens believes that it was God’s will to save sinners. James said, “Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?”-James iii. 11. “Yes,” says Hutchens, the same pure, holy Jehovah, whose attributes are absolutely holy, whose doctrine is holy, and whose words are pure, wills the good deeds of His people and at the same time He also wills, expects and wants men and women to do all the mean things that have ever been done, or ever will be done. No, not one thing has ever occurred contrary to God’s will; everything and everybody does God’s will. Hutchens thinks that of the little Parker girl was murdered contrary to the purpose of God, and the will of God, then she was murdered contrary to the peace and dignity of heaven. I never knew before that the Lord must fix, will, want, and desire that a brutish man must kidnap, mistreat and cut in twain a little innocent school girl in order that the peace and dignity of heaven be defended and maintained. “And if God could not prevent this crime, how can He prevent any other crime?” This is absolutism in its original Satanic aspect. It came from Italy as our lamented Elder Hassell said it did. It came not to us as a part of the doctrine of Jesus Christ. It is a stranger. It is a foreigner. It is a disturber of the peace and dignity of the Church of God. Wickedness is its fruit and its ending is distress, disturbance, division and starvation. It is the rendezvous of crime. It will tell you that all you do was eternally fixed by Almighty God and then have the calmness and hardihood. to reprove, renounce, denounce and non-fellowship you for doing what they say God fixed for you to do. It is a hot weather refrigerator, and a cold weather storage house. If you wish to see it die, cut it off, and it will die on its own food. The elder thinks that if God did not predestinate for Hickman to murder the little girl, then Newman had just as well pray to the devil. Yes, and if what you teach is true, I had as well not pray at all, for every blessing of every kind and description comes to us unconditionally. The editor thinks that if the death of Christ was in the purpose of God, which is true, then the death of Marian Parker was also in the purpose of God. “For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.”-Acts iv. 27, 28. In this decree only the death of Christ was included, and Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people cf Israel gathered together to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. There was just one thing determined, and that one thing was done, and that was the end of it. Because the death of Christ came to pass according to the purpose of God is no proof that all the crime occurs just as God fixed for it to. The dispute is not over the death of Christ being in the predestination of God, but it is over all the wicked acts of men and devils before and since His death being in the same decree. God’s predestination is part of His gospel, and if it embraces all wickedness, then all wickedness as well as all goodness is the gospel of the Son of God.
The poor deluded and confused editor says I am an Arminian. If that is so, I cannot help it; the Lord cannot help it, and the editor cannot help it. Let us try his position. The covenant was made to save sinners. Adam was not a sinner, therefore he had to sin before God could save him. This is fatalistic Arminianism. Where does the Bible say that grace reigns through sin?-The Primitive Baptist, April 7, 1932.
WAS PETER THE FIRST POPE?
I have recently been asked about the claims of the Catholics that Peter was the first pope. The Catholics tell us that the pope is the head of the Church, and that the pope is infallible in his interpretations of the Bible, and that the Catholic church has never committed an error.
The Bible does not say one word about Peter being a pope, or having more authority than did the other apostles. Neither does the Bible say one word about the Church being founded on Peter, as the Catholics say it was. The Bible says nothing about Peter being the head of the Church. The pope of Rome has construed certain scriptures to teach that the Church was founded upon Peter, and that Peter was the first pope. If Peter was the first pope, then the corrupt and wicked people that killed Peter, years after that, developed into what is now known as the Catholic church. The pope was a matter of prophecy, and this prophecy was not fulfilled until years after the Catholic church material had killed Peter.
Paul had reference to the pope of Rome, the head of the Catholic church, when he said, “Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.” Paul asked the Church to remember what he had told her about the pope of Rome, “Whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power and signs of lying wonders, with all deceivableness of unrighteousness.”
Jeremiah told us about this woman. “Babylon hath been a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, that made all the earth drunken; the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.”-Jer. li. 7. This is not only true in the United States, but in the entire known world. Catholicism is prospering in the United States as it never has before. As the mystery of iniquity is at work, as it has been for fifty years or more in the United States, Catholic principles are gaining ground by leaps and bounds. The whole religious, political, and financial world are drunken on the wine of her fornication. The kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.
John saw this whorish woman that some of our people have been flirting with, sitting upon a “scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colours, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness, of her fornication. And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus; and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.”
The Old Baptists did not come out of the Catholic church; and for that reason, they are not a protestant church. The Old Baptists excluded, in 253 A. D., a corrupt element, that had worked itself into the Church, which afterwards became what is now known as the Catholic church. The Catholic church did not exist in Peter’s day, and for this reason he did not belong to it, and could not have been its head and founder.-The Primitive Baptist, June 9, 1932.
1ST TIMOTHY 3:7
My views on 1 Timothy iii. 7 are called for, which I will briefly give. If I understand the holy scriptures, and the doctrine of the Primitive Baptists, they teach that God has a Church, and that the Church is not of the world (John xviii. 36), and that God furnishes His Church with “preachers after His heart.”
“And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and. understanding.” -Jer. iii. 15.
The minister must have straight feet. “And their feet were straight feet; and the sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf’s foot, and they sparkled like colour of burnished brass.” -Ezek. i. 7.
The sole of a calf’s foot is tender and very sensitive, and it must be careful how and where it walks. The minister’s feet or life should sparkle with good works; his life must be in harmony with his vocation; He must preach the gospel both in and out of the pulpit. “Be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.” -Isa. lii. 11. The teeth or ministry of the Church are not artificial. “Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing: whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them.”-Cant. iv. 2. Show me a church that has artificial teeth, or men-made preachers, and I will show you a church whose ministry never has, and never will have the toothache. Such preachers never say one word about their weakness, about their aches and pains. You may polish, decorate, embellish and caress Arminianism, but it is still a carcass. It is a miscarrying womb and dry breasts (Hosea ix. 14).
The man that desires the office of a bishop is a man called of God, as was Aaron, and this scriptural desire is not the product of the flesh, but a sure evidence of the internal work and indwelling of the Holy Spirit (Psa. xxxvii. 4). Paul next calls our attention to the qualifications of the bishop, or pastors. “A bishop, then, must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality.” The Old Baptist preacher must be blameless; he must live so as not to be justly censured for wrong doing; the husband of one wife; he must be vigilant, watchful, circumspect; he must not live so as to cast reflection on himself as a man, as a minister, or as a member of the Church. He must be sober in judgment, in anger, in deportment. He must be given to hospitality. It must be a part of his religious make-up to entertain successfully those who need ministerial instruction and entertainment. “Apt to teach” —fit to teach, suitable to teach, and qualified to teach. He must not be given to wine; he must not be a striker; he must not be greedy of filthy lucre; he must be patient; he must not be a brawler, a noisy fellow, or a wrangler, or a contentious man; he must not be covetous, or inordinately desirous to obtain money, excessively eager to get money. The covetous man does not care much how he discommodes any one—just so he manages to get by. He must not be a novice—a new beginner—one recently come into the faith.
Now, Brother G: C. B., I come directly to your text: “Moreover, he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach, and the snare of the devil.”
“Moreover” means beyond what has been said; further, besides, also, likewise. If an Old Baptist preacher lacks this qualification, he should stop preaching without being asked to; and if he is an honest man and wants to do the right thing, he will; but if he is not, he will go right on, if he can get any kind of encouragement. If he will not stop, his church should stop him. A man that is not considered honest, truthful, upright and dependable is disqualified to preach the gospel. The Old Baptists in some instances are not as careful as they once were about who preaches for them. If I live so that the merchants in Stockdale have no confidence in me, and the Old Baptist churches, and Old Baptist preachers will not go into the pulpit with me. I do not have a good report without, and no one is to blame, for it but me. I have never thrown myself and family on a church to be supported. I work like other men, while I am at home. I help my brethren by making all I can to eat. Yes, wife and I work. and God has blessed us and we are happy and contented and satisfied. I had rather have the frowns of men and be accused ofwanting to regulate the Old Baptists, than to have the name of being dishonest. untruthful and not paying what I owe.
Hassell said: “They excluded from their fellowship those of immoral, unscriptural or disorderly conduct. They debarred or excluded from fellowship persons who sold spirituous liquors; those who drank to excess, those who borrowed money, and did not repay; * * * those who told lies; those who swore; and those guilty of unchastitv.” Hassell’s Church History, pg. 527.
If a man fails to have a good report, the Church should not receive him. Just as sure as a church does such a thing, that church has trouble on her hands, for some of the members will side with the member often regardless of the magnitude of the report. -The Messenger of Zion, February 15, 1932.
MUST HAVE GOOD REPORT
I have no greater desire than to know that our ministers live so as to have a good report as citizens and as ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ. No man has ever paid a debt I have made. I have never borrowed a penny from anyone and failed to pay it back. Neither have I ever borrowed money, when I knew I had nothing to dispose of so as to be able to replace it. It is bad for an Old Baptist, especially a preacher, to always be in debt and to have judgments against him. I hope our people will avoid making debts all they possibly can; and when they make them, make every effort possible to pay them. Nothing will hurt a man like being careless about paying his debts. Never get money and promise to pay it, when you know you cannot do it. A man that will get money under a false pretense will lie to keep from paying it. The Old Baptists have always had the name of being a debt paying people, an honest people, and I want them to live so that can be truthfully said about them now.
The Baptists have been good to me, and I love them for it. I have never wanted to serve churches, and do not want to now.
A dear uncle of mine, Elder J. M. Baker, said to me many years ago, “Joe, you are going to be one of the worst persecuted men that ever lived in this country.” This has come true, and my daily prayer to God is for grace to bear it patiently, and to not retaliate, but to meekly submit to affliction’s needful rod. It will all soon be over with me. I have no apologies to offer for opposing known disorder.
The Church is not so sovereign that she can restore to fellowship a member that her sister churches have no fellowship for. My church must respect the rights of her sister churches. If a man’s conduct is such that the churches where he lives do not recognize him as an honest and a truthful man, it certainly would be disorderly for churches of the same faith to recognize such a man. Let such a man (if there be such) go back to where he came from; when he gets matters fixed satisfactorily there, then he will be with all orderly Old Baptists everywhere. If damaging reports are out on a man, especially a minister, that man should at once stop; and if he does not do it, his church should stop him, and have the matter investigated. A man that knows he is guilty will want the church to accept what he tells them and thus avoid an investigation. The Primitive Baptist, March 16, 1933.
NOT ALIEN SINNERS
The people on the day of Pentecost who wanted to know what to do, were not alien sinners, but inquiring children of God; and as such, Peter said unto them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” If they were alien sinners who said, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” then Peter told dead, alien sinners to, repent and be baptized in order to the remission of their sins. On the other hand, if it were the children of God who said, “Men and brethren, what shall’ we do?” then, as such, Peter said to the children of God, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you (children of God), because of the remission of your sins.”
Matthew said, “For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” It is something shed that is in order to the remission of sins. Water baptism is not something shed upon us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Lord; therefore, baptism is not in order to the remission of our sins.-The Primitive Baptist, August 17, 1933.
THE THING TO DO
There is absolutely a fearful and an alarming amount of whitewashed uninfluential profession of Christianity abroad in our country, against which the children of God are commanded to take a firm stand. In doing. this, they will be rejected by. the world, but they will be with the Son of God, whom this same world rejected ages ago. It is deplorable to see so many of our people dissatisfied, restless, and wanting to travel faster, and it seems, get so closely to the Arminian world that the difference is hard to discern. This well-trodden flesh-inspiring dope of compromising with the Arminians to gain prominence and influence with them is not the thing for an Old Baptist to do. Let us be kind, yet faithful. Let us rebuke through a life of sacrifice and self-denial and true benevolence, the self-indulgence that some are seemingly engaged in.
May God grant unto His people grace to be satisfied with the good things He has placed in His Church for His people. Lord, help us to realize that we could not stand or live here if Jesus was not living in heaven for us.-The Primitive Baptist, February 21, 1935.
CHILDREN OF LIGHT
We read in the holy scriptures something about the children of the day, and the children of darkness. As we enter into the new year, let us pause and reflect for a moment, and then ask ourselves this question in the presence of God, To which of these two classes do we belong? That we belong to one or the other is absolutely true. We may be poor in this world’s goods, despised, unnoticed, unlettered, but if through grace there is a golden link of heavenly love connecting us with the “Sun of Righteousness,” who is the “light of the world,” then we are the children of the day and destined, ere long; to shine in that celestial sphere that no vulture’s eye has ever seen, that region of heavenly glory, of which the Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal Sun. This will not be according to our own doings. It will be on the account of, and the result of, the eternal counsel and effectual operation of God Himself, who has given us light and life, joy and peace in the Son of God.-The Primitive Baptist, February 21, 1935.
GOD’S WORD ON IT
Church sovereignty is a fine doctrine, but the abuse of it is not so fine. No church has the right to receive an excluded member from a sister church she is in fellowship with. To do so would cause friction between the churches. Churches must respect each other, and they should not receive or restore a member that they know to be out of confidence and fellowship of the sister churches. Church membership without church fellowship is a strife breeder, and it should be avoided.
If a member is accused of adultery or fornication, and he is excluded for something else, such a course as that will not stand the test, and will not satisfy the report that is current. We have a case of this kind on record in the Bible, and the church of this man’s membership did not exclude him for something else. “It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.” It appears that the Corinthian Church was puffed up over this matter, and seemed to think they had the right to retain this member. “And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you.” Paul certainly did not mean to instruct the church to take this member away from among them for something he was not reported to be guilty of. Paul’s judgment was right, and the church acted according to his judgment, and the matter, as grave as it was, was settled without disturbing the different churches. “For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of the Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” This church had been glorying about this matter in some way. The church could have said, “This is only a report, commonly reported to injure this member. He was not caught in the act, and he denies it, and we believe what he says about it.” Let the glorying of the church be as if it may have been, Paul said “your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened.” Paul’s final instruction to the church was, “Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.” This man was “put away,” just as all fornicators should be, and let them live back into the fellowship of the church that excluded them. But remember, this member was excluded for the crime the report said he was guilty of, which was fornication. I do not think that our people are as strict on such as they once were. As I see it, adultery is a sin unto death, and nothing but immediate exclusion will satisfy the law of good discipline.-The Primitive Baptist, September 19, 1935.
A GOOD NAME
The world can see but little of the marks of Christ’s character in many of those who claim to be Primitive Baptists. In many ways they exhibit an humbling contrast rather than a resemblance of a true genuine Old Baptist. Just a few days ago I went into a store in Abilene to buy an article, and I was introduced to the merchant as an Old Baptist minister. The merchant replied, “The Old Baptists can get anything they want that I have in my store without the money, if they want it.” Shame on an Old Baptist that will betray the confidence the world has in him! We could not stand for one moment down here if Jesus were not living up there for us. Let us remember this and live right.-The Primitive Baptist, February 21, 1935.
BIOGRAPHICAL
By request I will attempt to write something about my life. I do not remember just when I was born, but mother and father said I was born September 23, 1857, in Karnes County, Texas. My father was the son of Joseph and Rachel Rabb Newman. My father was Joseph Austin Newman, and was born October 2, 1824, in Wharton County. Texas, My Grandmother Newman was the only daughter of William and Mary Smalley Rabb. They came to Texas from Illinois with Austin’s first families. My father first married Miss Mary Rice, and to this union two children were born—a girl and a boy. The girl died when quite young. Brother Lea Newman is still living near Yorktown, in Dewitt County, where he was born, May 23, 1849. My mother was Elizabeth Baker, a sister of Elders J. M., Abel and J. W. Baker, and W. W. Baker, who is a member of our church here in Stockdale. My Grandfather Baker’s name was William, and his father’s name was John, and John Baker’s father’s name, was Fredrick. The Bakers, Applings, Coles, Smiths and Whites moved from North Carolina, in an early day, to Wilkerson County, Georgia, and from there to Fayett County. Alabama, and, in 1849, to Dewitt, Gonzales, Caldwell and Guadaloupe Counties, Texas. My father and mother were married by a Methodist preacher, in Clinton, Texas, in about 1854. and I am the oldest child by my father’s second marriage. My father died in 1872, after being operated on by Dr. Hurff, and was buried somewhere in San Antonio. His last words to me were, “Son, I am going to San Antonio, to be operated on, and I will never see you again. I want you to stay at home with your mother.” His statement came true, but his request did not. Ever since I was seven years old I had been riding horses, and driving cattle, and herding sheep. I knew nothing about anything else. In 1874, at the age of 17, I married Miss Mirandy Sirmon. I continued to work with cattle until 1882, when it pleased the Lord to give me a good hope through grace. When this change occurred with me, there were two things I desired to do. One was to join the Church and be baptized, and the other was to preach. In July, 1883, I went forty-five miles to Good Hope Church, in Gonzales County, and joined the church, and was baptized Saturday evening before the fourth Sunday in July, 1883, by Elder J. W. Baker. Wife and I got our letters out of Good Hope Church and we were in the constitution of Pilgrim Rest Church in Lavaca County. I soon began to exercise in a public way, and on Saturday before the first Sunday in July, 1886, I was ordained to the ministry, by the authority of this church, by Elders J. G. Curington and J. W. Baker.
I love the doctrine of grace, for it is by grace I am what I am. I have traveled extensively, not in Texas only, but in a number of other states. In 1915, 1 lost the wife of my youth. She loved me while I was wild and reckless. She stayed at home and often worked in the field, while I was gone to my appointments. She did this so I could go preach the gospel she believed. She told me she wanted me to spend my life preaching. The man who has never lost his wife does not know what it means. I am living with my second wife. She was a widow indeed, and God gave her to me. She had four children when we married. Her oldest and youngest sons died since our marriage, and her only daughter is now bedfast with tuberculosis. Pray for us.-The Primitive Baptist, March 3, 1932.
APPENDIX
By Ariel West
We wish to set forth a brief history of the Baptist through nineteen centuries.
FIRST CENTURY. There were churches in Asia Minor, Southern Europe, and England. They were first called Christians at Antioch. Saul persecuted the churches. Nero and Trajan were emperors of the Roman Empire in this century. Small departures by some were made in the churches.
SECOND CENTURY. Baptists in same countries as first century. Pliny, governor of Bithynia (See Hassell. Pg. 360). Polycarp was pastor of the Church at Smyrna from 81 to 166 A.D. (See Shackelford, pg. 54). More departures over larger territory in this century. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus came to the throne of the Roman Empire.
THIRD CENTURY. Churches in souther Europe, England, Wales, Asia Minor, and North Africa. Christian churches called Paterines, Novatians, and Montanists. Diocletian became Emperor of Rome. Infant baptism originated. Wholesale departures, and the above names of Christian churches given by those departing from the faith.
FOURTH CENTURY. Churches in same countries as in preceding centuries. Christian churches called Donatists in parts of North Africa; also Puritans in Wales. Constantine the Great became emperor of Rome. Council of Nice held 325. First recorded infant baptism 370.
FIFTH CENTURY. Those departing established and enforced popery in 416. A new name give to true Christian churches in some localities, to-wit, Cathari.
SIXTH CENTURY. Catholics call Baptist or Christian churches Ana-Baptists for the first time.
SEVENTH CENTURY. True Christian churches in Armenia. The Catholics call them Paulicians.
EIGHTH CENTURY. True Christian churches still caled Ana-Baptists, Donatists. Th Catholics originate the doctrine of Transubstantiation in 780. In the first part of this century, Pope Stephen II instituted pouring as a legal ordinance of baptism in the Catholic Church.
NINTH CENTURY. Ana-Baptists in Bulgaria. In this century the Greek Catholics and the Roman Catholics become separate bodies.
TENTH CENTURY. Baptists in Wales, Italy and France, and called Paulicians and Ana-Baptists in different countries.
ELEVENTH CENTURY. Baptists were in Italy and France under the name of Paulicians and Paterines.
TWELFTH CENTURY. Baptists were called Paterines, Henricians, Arnoldists and Petrobrusians.
THIRTEENTH CENTURY. Baptists were found in Italy, France and Germany. and were called Waldenses or Vaudois, Ana-Baptists and Albigenses.
FOURTEENTH CENTURY. Baptist churches were in Germany, England and Poland; called Lollards in England, Waldenses and Ana-Baptists on the continent.
FIFTEENTH CENTURY. Baptist churches in England and Valleys of Piedmont. In this century Huss. a reformer, was burned on the eighth day of June, 1415. He was not a Baptist. The Catholics put him to death for denouncing their evil priesthood and corruption. In this century Martin Luther was born November 10, 1433; but let it be understood that his reformation had no connection with the Baptists. In this century thousands of women and children of the Waldenses perished.
SIXTEENTH CENTURY. Baptists were found in France, Germany, under the name of Waldenses. The Lutheran church came out of Rome as a distinct body, 1552. The Episcopal church sprouted from the original Roman tree, 1534, and the Presbyterian branch came into existence, 1527.
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. Baptists were called Waldenses, Baptists and Ana-Baptists. The first Baptist Church in America was organized at Newport, R. I., 1638, with Dr. John Clarke and eleven others.
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. New School movement was started in England by William Carey and Andrew Fuller among the Baptists. The Methodists became a distinct body from the Episcopal church, 1785.
NINETEENTH CENTURY. The New School movement spread to America. Black Rock address and withdrawal from the New Schoolers, 1832. The Campbellites became a sect distinct and apart from the Baptists in 1827.
DIFFERENT NAMES
We have here given an outline of the history of the Baptists in a very brief way for nineteen centuries. The question is often asked why they went by different names in different ages and countries. The Church has never named herself, but in almost all cases have been the names her enemies have given her. For instance, they were first called Christians at Antioch. Not that they named themselves, but that they were called by that name because they were the followers of Jesus Christ. In different centuries the Church has been called by different names, and in almost all cases these names were given to them by their enemies.
THE END