Garrett's Prescription For The PBs

In this posting I want to give my prescription for the salvation of the "Primitive Baptist Church." One of the top ten postings of this blog is the one titled "Elder Hildreth on Hardshell Decline" (see here). In that posting I gave Hildreth's prescription for saving the Hardshells from certain death. He acknowledges that their churches continue to dwindle and die. I made some comments on that prescription. In this posting I want to enlarge upon the comments I made in that posting (underneath those made by Hildreth).

1. Retrace your steps to the place where you, as a denomination, departed from the path of truth, from what you all affectionately call "the old paths." You are not on the "old path," but on a new path. I have proven such in this blog. Your forefathers did not hold to your aberrant views. You hold new doctrines that your forefathers did not believe. You must throw away those new teachings and come back to the historic old Baptist doctrine. That doctrine is expressed in the 1689 London Confession. It is the confession all your forefathers endorsed (many times through the Philadelphia Confession). The "Fulton Confession" acknowledges that the 1689 Confession is the historic confession of the PBs. You must acknowledge that the "footnotes" that were attached by your leaders at the time (1900) to that old confession were distortions of what the old confession really taught, and that those who signed the Fulton document were being deceitful and were changing the faith of your forefathers.

2. Once you have returned to an adherence to the 1689 confession, you will discover that there are lots of Baptists who adhere to the old confession and your circle of fellowship with be greatly enhanced thereby; And this cannot but help you to grow and prosper. You will need, of course, to become more open to fellowship and quit trying to restrict your fellowship so narrowly. You need to learn to be more forbearing and let each local church be independent. Simply put, you need to be less strict in your terms of fellowship. It will help you, not hurt you. There are many good churches and preachers outside of your group and your shutting yourself off from their fellowship has not been good for you.

3. You must throw away your novel doctrines. You must quit believing that God does not use his word to beget faith and to save his elect. You must become like Spurgeon. You can still preach the doctrines of grace and be evangelistic. John Leland did it. All your forefathers did it. They preached to the lost and called upon them to believe and repent and warned them of the consequences for not doing so.

4. You have got to see that there is nothing wrong with Sunday schools, theological schools, musical instruments, and missions. You need to follow the lead of the Progressive PBs in this regard. They are the ones growing, or at least holding their own, while you "old liners" are almost dead.

5. Change your name. With all the things attached to the name "Primitive Baptist" today, there is just too much baggage with it. Why not call yourselves "Old Baptist Church"?

It is really that simple! Spurgeon showed the way. He preached to thousands each week. He could preach sovereign grace better than anyone and yet he could still address the lost, still involve himself in missions to reach sinners. "Go thou and do likewise." That is my prescription for you my Hardshell brethren. Take it or not. I hope you will take it.