Peck on Hardshell Errors

John Mason Peck

(1789–1858)

In a writing titled "THE BAPTISTS Regular, Separate and United" by John M. Peck, written in 1855 just a few years before his death (See here), we have these words about the beliefs of "Regular Baptists" and how they are not in agreement with Hardshells and their Antinomianism and Hyper Calvinism. 

"But there are some things which Regular Baptists have been accused of propagating, and some speculations preached by good men, which cannot be found, or legitimately inferred, by implication from this Confession of Faith. These things are not there, and can not be implied from the doctrines taught:

1. "That God is the author of Sin." So far from any such idea being taught directly, or deduced by any fair implication, just the reverse is taught explicitly. In chapter 3d, entitled "God's Decree" -- but which we have given in the foregoing synopsis, as being more intelligible to our readers, "God's Council and Foreordination, or Predestination" -- after stating the doctrine that God's council and foreordination includes "all things whatsoever cometh to pass," the chapter in explanation says, "yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established."

2. Regular Baptists in the Mississippi Valley have enunciated a dogma as unscriptural, unphilosophical and useless as this. Some may yet imagine and teach that the Spirit regenerates the elect without means, or the subordinate agency of his gospel. But in this they teach directly contrary to the unequivocal declarations of the Confession of Faith, no less than against the scriptures. The doctrine of means, or the instrumentality of the gospel in regeneration, as well as in all its adjuncts, is taught very plainly and directly in chapters 1st, 7th, 8th, 10th, 13th, 14th, and 20th; and is taught by implication in several other chapters. The only exception made is in chapter X, under "Effectual Calling," sec. 3: --

"Elect Infants, dying in Infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh, when and where, and how he pleaseth. So also all other persons, who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the word."

The construction put on the first clause of this section by brethren in the Philadelphia Association was this: That the phrase "Elect Infants" includes all who died in a state of unconscious infancy -- that the second clause referred to adult idiots, and others, who were rendered incapable of being "outwardly called by the ministry of the word," by some providential acts.

The authors and revisors [sic] of this "Confession" would have repudiated with the expressions of horror, the mischievous speculation that God has an elect people, scattered among the nations of the earth -- that he knows his own -- and that he quickens or regenerates these without the gospel or any of the instrumentalities he has provided. REGULAR BAPTISTS were missionary Baptists, and knew the meaning of the great commission to preach the gospel to every creature, specially in view of their conversion and salvation. 

"The Confession of Faith teaches the doctrine of "particular election," without regard to human merit; but it also teaches the necessity of preaching the gospel to all men, without which sinners capable of hearing the gospel cannot be saved. The anti-christian dogma that the gospel need not be preached to sinners of every class and grade, for the specific purpose of being the instrument of their conversion and salvation through the mighty working of the Holy Spirit, has no place in the Confession of Faith of Regular Baptists."

To see the lengthy write up I did on the response of Elder Gilbert Beebe, Hardshell founder and editor of "The Signs of the Times," the first Hardshell periodical, see my post titled "Beebe vs. Howell & Peck" (here).

J.M. Peck was one of the leading opponents of the anti missionaries. He held debates with Daniel Parker, one of the ringleaders of the new Hardshell cult. He certainly showed how the Hardshells were not "primitive" or "original" in their views on several areas of doctrine. 

The time of the writing of Peck's words above show that even in the late 1850s, many Hardshells were beginning to deny means altogether. However, that anti means view did not gain prominence till the last quarter of the 19th century. Further, many of the first Hardshells believed that regeneration and the new birth were not the same thing, that the former preceded the latter, and that the former was apart from means while the latter was by means. 

Also notice how Peck says that all who die without faith in Christ are lost. Again, this is counter to Dr. Flowers, Dr. Graham, and C.S. Lewis, as well as our Hardshell brothers. John Gill said the same as Peck, affirming, just like the 1689 Confession, that all the heathen who die in ignorance of Christ are lost.