TWO SEED doctrine, The, C.H. Cayce The eternal Two-Seed doctrine is that God made choice of certain persons from among the human family for His children to dwell in for awhile here in time. Hence, they claim to believe in the doctrine of election; but they do not believe that sinners of Adam’s race were chosen to be saved in heaven. They teach, as stated, that God made choice of persons of Adam’s race for His children to dwell in for awhile here on earth.
In the work which we call regeneration they teach that there is an eternal spirit or child which comes down from God out of heaven and takes up its abode in the Adam man, and remains in the Adam man and torments him until the Adam man dies; when the Adam man dies, this eternal child goes back to God where it came from and the Adam man goes to the ground where he will always remain.
The eternal Two-Seeder claims that the body of the Adam man is no part of the child of God; that the child of God is on the inside of the Adam man; the child of God is a man on the inside of the man you see. They carry this doctrine to its logical conclusion and deny the resurrection of the body, claiming that the body remains in the dust, and will not be raised again.
The eternal Two-Seeders also hold that God unalterably fixed and decreed all the wickedness that men do, and that wicked men and devils are doing God’s will in their nefarious crimes and meanness as much so as is being done by His children rendering gospel service and living a life of righteousness; that the devil does the will of God as much as Jesus Christ did in His perfect life of obedience to the law of God. (Cayce’s Editorials vol. 3, ppg 364, 365)
C.H. Cayce: The doctrine of eternal Two-Seedism is that in the work which we call regeneration, an eternal child, or eternal spirit, comes down from God out of heaven and takes up its abode in the Adam man, and remains in the Adam man until the man dies; then that eternal child goes back to God where it came from, and the Adam man goes to the grave and remains there forever.
Thus the Adam man is not a subject of salvation. It is also taught that there are two families in the flesh—that Cain was a child of the devil by ordinary generation, and that Seth was a child of God by ordinary generation—that there are two families existing in the flesh—the family of God and the family of the devil, and that these two families have continued to exist all along from then until now. This is their teaching, although we have not learned how the devil got his family across the flood. These are some of the teachings of the Two-Seedism system, which we think are enough to show that the system is false. (Cayce’s Editorials vol. 2, ppg 104,105)
Lemuel Potter: Elder Hearde . . . . undertook to prove in his affirmation that the people of God are a seed which existed in heaven prior to the formation of the Adam man, and that they would all go back to heaven where they came from. I do not pretend to say that I have his proposition verbatim, but this is the substance of it, and he led out in the opening of that question, with a speech for one hour, in which he made a number of scripture quotations to show that God’s people were a seed. He quoted this among others: “A seed shall serve him, and it shall be counted to the Lord for a generation.” And “In thee and thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed.” “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and it shall bruise his heel.”
Quite a number of other texts of this character were introduced in his first speech, without a great many comments. He stated that he intended to merely lay his planks down loose, in this speech, and that he would come with his hatchet and nails and fasten them down in his next speech.
In my reply to his arguments on these proof-texts, to prove the pre-existence of God’s people, I simply admitted that I believed that the Lord’s people were a seed, and that was all that he had proven by these texts. I was not here to deny that God’s people were a seed, but that I was here to deny that they had an eternal existence, and that there was not a single text in all the catalogue of texts that he had quoted that said anything about the pre-existence of the people mentioned in the proof-texts.
I thought then, and do yet, however, that he did about as well in proving that doctrine as any man could do. I felt very confident that he could not prove it by the Bible. He finally inquired where the Lord got his people, if they did not eternally exist. I replied that he made them. That I knew of no people as the subjects of eternal salvation, only the people that God made. That the Bible frequently spoke of the fact that God made his people. “Thy Maker is thine husband,” is one expression of scripture, and the very idea of a Maker is the best inferential testimony that they must have been made.
Again, I do not believe that they had an eternal existence, because it was said that Adam was the first man, I could not conceive of the idea of there being a man before him, and not only was he the first man, but that he was made of the dust of the ground. This was the man that I believed had transgressed the law of God, and fallen under its curse, and became subject to death, and all the miseries consequent upon sin, and that they were the subjects of salvation. But I will not stop here to give a full detail of the arguments, any more than to say that I became more fully convinced during that discussion against the doctrine of the pre-existence of God’s people than I had ever been.
I believe that God eternally knew his people, and that it was as easy a matter for him to know them before they existed as it was afterwards. I believed then, more than that, that God foreknew his people, and how he foreknew his people and they have an eternal existence I could not understand, for I thought to foreknow a thing was to know it beforehand, that is, to know it before it was, so if he foreknew his people, he knew them before they were, and the apostle says, “Whom he foreknew, them he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son.” It would be impossible for him to foreknow them, or to know them before they were, if they eternally existed.
He finally, however, made this remark, that if I would admit the pre-existence of God’s people, he did not ask any boot on the question on the resurrection. So, I say today, that the non-resurrection doctrine is the legitimate consequence, and the inevitable result of the doctrine of the pre-existence of the children of God.
Men may talk all they wish about the doctrine of eternal vital union, eternal children, eternal justification, and so forth, but I do not believe in the eternal existence of God’s people; neither do I believe in eternal vital union. Now, if a man admits the doctrine of eternal children, he may as well admit the doctrine of non-resurrection. We discussed this proposition a day and a half, after which I affirmed that there will be, in the future, a resurrection of the bodies, both of the just and the unjust, of Adam’s posterity, some to eternal life, and some to everlasting punishment.
I give the substance of the proposition from memory, for I do not remember it verbatim. I argued that resurrection meant to restore to life that which once had life and that to put one man down and take another up in his place, would be no resurrection, but to lay one body down in death, and then take that same body up alive, is a resurrection, and nothing short of it is.
I believed then, and do today, that it was the Adam sinner that was saved, the same man that was made of the dust of the ground. I did not then believe, nor do I yet, that any part of him came from heaven. I believe that the very same body that goes to the grave will be precisely the same body that will be raised from the dead, and finally taken to heaven. I contended for that doctrine in this discussion. As before stated, after this discussion was over, the visits of those men ceased among the churches in our part of the country.” (Lemuel Potter)
[In another debate with a man named Williams, Elder Potter had this to say about whether the children of God are eternal, whether they have always existed in heaven (two seedism), or whether they are creatures of time. (Emphasis added)].
Lemuel Potter: I quote Isaiah 64:8,9, “But now, O Lord, thou art our Father; we are the clay and thou our Father: and we all are the work of thy hand. Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, neither remember iniquity forever; behold, see, we beseech thee we are thy people.” From this text we learn that these were the people of God. They were the clay; they were the work of God’s hand. They never came from heaver. Job 33:4-7, “The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. If thou canst answer me, set thy words in order before me, stand up. Behold, I am formed out of the clay. Behold my terror shall not make thee afraid, neither shall my hand be heavy upon thee.” . . . . “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more,” Psa. 103:13-16. The last text quoted proves not only that man dies, but it proves that he is of the dust of the ground and also that he is the object of salvation.” (Lemuel Potter)
Lemuel Potter: One man who believed in the doctrine of the pre-existence of God’s children, in reply to an article that I had written, some years ago, stated that he could not see how God chose his people in Christ, before the foundation of the world, if they did not exist then; that he did not choose them into Christ, but that he chose them in Christ, was his argument, and that they must have been there, in some sense or other, or he could not have done it.
I claim that God foreknew his people, and that he was as well acquainted with them, before they had a being, as he is after they have a being, and that he did choose them in Christ to eternal salvation, before the foundation of the world, although they had no actual being at that time.
On the subject of the pre-existence of God’s children, there has been a great deal said, and the legitimate result of that doctrine is a denial of the resurrection of the bodies of God’s people. I was asked, in a debate on this question once, if the people of God did not exist through all eternity, where did he get them? My answer was, he made them, and I refer to Isa. 54:5, as one text that proves that he did make them, “For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. The God of the whole earth shall he be called.”
From this it sounds like the church had a Maker, and I never could conceive of a maker of something that had existed from eternity. God’s people were made. He made them of the dust of the ground. They were the first people in existence. The apostle Paul said, “The first man is of the earth earthly.” If the earthly man is the first man, I argue that there was no man before him, hence, the earthly man is the first man.
Again the apostle says, “Howbeit, that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual.” The natural man is the earthly man, and he was made of the dust of the earth, and there was no man before him, consequently it would be impossible for God’s people to have existed before the first man existed. I published a work a few years ago, entitled, “Unconditional Election Stated and Defined; or the Denial of the Doctrine of Eternal Children, or Two Seeds in the Flesh.” I sent a copy of it to all the editors of Old School Baptist periodicals in this country.
One man wrote a lengthy editorial in reply to the position I took against the pre-existence of God’s children. He said, “According to Bro. Potter’s views, God has no people, only as he takes them out of Adam’s family and adopts them into his own.” That is precisely what I believe, and I feel proud that I am understood, even if I am not endorsed, on that subject. I believe that the subject of salvation is the Adam sinner, and I do not believe that he had an eternal existence. The apostle speaks of God’s people as being foreknown. “Whom he foreknew he did also predestinate, to be
conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first born among many brethren.” Again, whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called, them he also justified,” etc.
I take the position that if God’s people were as old as himself, that he did not foreknow them. To foreknow a thing is to know it beforehand, and he foreknew his people, and it was the people that he foreknew that he predestinated to be conformed to the image of Christ. I take the position that God purposed the salvation of his people, and that he saves the people according to his purpose.
The text says that we are predestinated according to the purpose of him who “worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.” This is the way we are predestinated. The apostle says, “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God. to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Lemuel Potter)
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