Friday, July 3, 2015

From "The Primitive Baptist" (1837)

"The following article was prepared for the 1st No. of this volume ("The Primitive Baptist" periodical - see here - pg. 25 of April 8 issue) but it happened to be mislaid: —

SYNOPSIS OF FAITH

This number begins the 2nd vol. of the Primitive Baptist. In the last number of vol. 1st we promised to give in this a synopsis of our faith. We now proceed to redeem this promise.

1. We (as an individual,) believe that the true God is one, and triune; and his names are, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

2. We believe that the only right rule of faith and practice is clearly laid down in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.

3. We believe that God, before the foundation of the world, did elect a certain number of men and angels to eternal life; and that this election is eternal, particular, and without merit or condition on the creature's part.

4. We believe in God's distinguishing Foreknowledge, his unalterable Purpose to Save, his Predestination to salvation, his Triune Covenant; in Christ's righteous obedience, his atoning death; the imputation of his Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, and Redemption, to his elect; and that all God's gracious decrees and gospel blessings in Earth and Heaven are the effect of his eternal love to his chosen.

5. We believe that man was made upright & in the image of God, that the law was delivered to all our race in Adam; and that in his transgression, and by hereditary sinfulness, all his posterity became guilty.

6. We believe that mankind cannot keep the law of God perfectly; and that they can neither repent nor believe evangelically, but by the sovereign influence of the Holy Ghost.

7. We believe that all the chosen of God shall be called with a special, sweetly-subduing, call to a feeling sense and blessed enjoyment of forgiveness, justification, and sanctification.

8. We believe that justification before God is by the imputed righteousness of Christ, received by faith, in him.

9. We believe that God's elect shall be converted, changed from the love and practice of sin, to the love and practice of holiness; and that all such will be saved eternally.

10. We believe that such as are truly converted will make it manifest by a well ordered life.

. — Ed.

Now, if we want to know what the first Hardshells of the 1830s believed, here is evidence of it. 

Do today's Hardshells believe as did these first Hardshells?

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