Monday, December 7, 2015

John Leland and Duty Faith

In writing upon the subject of "faith" in its relation to salvation, John Leland (whom Hardshells claim as a believer in "anti means" or as one of them) wrote (emphasis mine):  (See here)

"...that men are under the strongest obligations to hear and believe all that God reveals, admits of no doubt..."

Not only did Leland believe in duty faith, in the responsibility of all men to believe what God reveals, but so did leading Hardshell founding fathers, Elders Samuel Trott and James Osbourn.  It is sad that today's Hardshells have "gone off the deep end" on this issue and no longer believe as did their forefathers.

Notice also these words of Leland:

"Nothing is here intended to chill the burning zeal of those, who so pathetically call on all to repent and believe the gospel, and deal out the vengeance of God and the wrath of the Lamb to unbelievers: but let them at the same time remember, that there is a faith superior to all duty, called, sometimes, the spirit which God pours out upon them; at other times, the water of life; an unction from the Holy One; the word of God which liveth and abideth in the saints; Christ in them the hope of glory, &c. This kind of faith, Adam, in innocency, had not; this faith came not by Abraham or Moses, but by Jesus Christ, and is life eternal." (pages 428-30)

Leland was an evangelistic Calvinist and would be condemnatory, were he alive today, of the lack of preaching to the lost that characterizes the stale Hyper Calvinism of our modern Hardshell brethren.

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