In a follow up to my previous postings citing the old Baptist minister, Robert Hall, I want to post these words from that eminent servant on issues involving the errors of the Hardshells and other Hyper Calvinists together with some comments.
Wrote Hall (emphasis mine)
"The Spirit of God in the word, in describing the character of real saints, beareth witness with our spirits, which are conscious of a real change, that we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ Jesus. Rom. viii. 16, 17. Therefore, he that believeth on the Son of God, hath the witness in himself. That is, he is conscious of the acts of his own soul, that they are in nature and kind, however they are deficient in degree, what the people of God in the Scriptures are described by. Every Christian, therefore, habitually believes that such persons as answer to the description of saints, whether themselves or others, shall have everlasting life, (and that no other but such shall be saved). He that believeth not God, hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son; and this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life; and this life is in his Son; 1 John, v. 10, 11."
This is not the description of a "saint" or "child of God" that one will get from the Hardshells. Hardshells see regeneration or the new birth as a totally subconscious experience, unaccompanied by any cognition. Every "believer" is "conscious of the acts of his own soul," of his act of faith in Christ. Further, he is no temporary believer, but is one who "habitually believes."
Wrote Hall:
"Divine requirements being superior to the ability of men in their present fallen condition, have been exceedingly perplexing to many (amen to that! SG); especially such as feel themselves without strength, which the Scriptures declare them to be for whom Christ died, (Rom. v. 6.) and to whom he says, Without me ye can do nothing, John, xv.5, whose experience of their utter inability and absolute dependence on the Lord coincides with what the apostle expresses concerning himself and his brethren, who were even able ministers of the New Testament. Their language is, Who is sufficient for these things? 2 Cor. ii. 16. We are not sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God. 2 Cor. iii. 5, 6. From a consciousness of personal inability, joined with a conviction of their absolute and necessary obligation to obedience, arise various difficulties relating to the equity of God in requiring that of his creatures which he knows and declares is not in their power to perform. To assert and maintain that men have an inherent power to turn to God and embrace the gospel, and glorify him in a course of holy obedience to his law, without the infusion of supernatural principles, is to oppose the positive declarations of God's word respecting the necessity of regeneration, and the impossibility of those who are in the flesh doing any thing pleasing and acceptable to God. See Rom. viii. 5, 8. But those who oppose the doctrine of free grace are constrained to plead for the power of man to love and obey God, representing men's inability as absolutely inconsistent with scriptural commands and exhortations to obedience and faith; these, on the one hand, declaim with an air of triumph on the absurdity of supposing God to require impossibilities; in which those heartily concur who hold the truth in unrighteousness, and represent men as quite blameless, though disobedient, because they have no power of themselves to obey. Various methods have been taken to apologize for man's imperfections, and extenuate his guilt." (pgs. 205-09)
This is a Hardshell and Pelagian error that Hall describes. These represent man's "inability" to be "inconsistent with scriptural commands and exhortations to obedience and faith." Hardshells constantly affirm that the gospel is not addressed to "dead" sinners because they are unable to hear and believe it. They affirm that it is no sin for the unregenerate to reject Christ and the gospel for they are not under any obligation to accept Christ and believe. It is for this reason that Hardshells have been styled as "Antinomian." (See the series "Hardshell Antinomianism")
Wrote Hall:
"Another method of accounting for God’s requiring perfect obedience of imperfect men, is the consideration of our being represented by Adam in the covenant which was made with him. The reasoning of many eminent men has been thus:—“We had in Adam full and adequate ability every way proportionable to the nature and extent of duty; and though men have lost their power to obey, God has neither lost nor given up his authority to command: therefore it is our duty to exert not only the strength we are now possessed of, but likewise the strength we should have had, supposing our first parent had continued in that state of purity and power.”
That is indeed one answer to the charge that depraved impotent sinners are not obligated to obey any divine requirement.
Wrote Hall:
"...it seems contrary to the common or known rules of justice and equity, to punish on the account of not performing what is naturally impossible to be performed. Hence, some who have endeavored to hold up the doctrines of grace as objects of ridicule and contempt, have boldly asserted, that according to these doctrines, future judgment would be a mere farce. For that God might as justly punish slow moving animals for deficiency in swiftness, and those for not flying who have no wings to fly with, nor in any respect formed for such a motion, as to punish men for not doing what they cannot possibly accomplish, but is as much above their power as to create a world. Such kind of checks the adherents to truth have frequently met with. And such reasoning, or rather declamation, has been very stumbling to weak Christians. Some have been severely tried by the above misrepresentation of gospel truths, and tempted to think what they dare not utter."
And it certainly has been "very stumbling" to our Hardshell brethren!
Wrote Hall:
"For the relief of such, I would propose to their calm and candid consideration a distinction between natural and moral inability which seems necessary to be well understood in order to obtain consistent views of Divine revelation, relating to the requirements of God's righteous law and the nature of his precious gospel. By Natural inability, is intended a want of a natural capacity or opportunity to know and do what is commanded, or an absolute defect in the natural powers of a man's mind or body, by which he is rendered incapable of acting although his will were bent upon the performance of his duty. Whatever totally prevents, or is in absolute obstruction in the way of a person's knowing or doing any thing, which renders the acquirement impossible, though he be ever so desirous of accomplishing it, is what I wish to have considered as included in natural inability. Moral inability consists in a disinclination to what is good, or a dislike of, and aversion to, what God has made a person's duty."(ibid)
We discussed this at length in our series "Hardshell Pelagianism" and cited from numerous great theologians on this point. I have heard Hardshells and some other Calvinists speak of lost man's inability as being physical or natural, affirming that man's inability is like the inability of a worm to fly. Such an erroneous view of what it means to be "degenerate" has led our Hardshell brothers to have erroneous views of what it means to be "regenerate." To them, regeneration gives a man additional physical or natural abilities.
Wrote Hall:
"Men are dead in sin, but that death does not consist in a deprivation of natural faculties...Duty is ever measured by natural ability."
Exactly!
Wrote Hall:
"In regeneration the Holy Spirit does not create new faculties, or bestow a new set of natural powers; he does not produce “a new head, but a new heart,” by infusing new principles and holy dispositions. But if a deficiency in natural powers was the fountain of fault, or the source of blame, from whence criminal actions proceed, there would be a necessity for the production of new faculties, or otherwise a removal of their natural deficiencies. And if so, the surest evidences of a gracious change would be a strong memory, a fertile imagination, a fund of wit, and a profound, deep understanding, or clear ideas, and strong reasoning. In short, an assemblage of fine brilliant parts would, in that case, be the best proof of true holiness."
This is what the great Jonathan Edwards wrote at length about and from whom I cited in the above series. We cited from several others on this point. The great Andrew Fuller also wrote much on this.
Wrote Hall:
"He requires nothing naturally impossible to be performed. He has not made any thing the duty of his creatures which exceeds their natural ability, nor does he punish them for not acquiring or doing what is naturally beyond their power to perform."
My views exactly!
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