C. B. Hassell

Elder Cushing Biggs Hassell

1809-1880

C. B. Hassell was the chief author of the book commonly known by "Primitive" or "Hardshell" Baptists as "Hassell's History of the Church of God." His son Elder Sylvester Hassell was a co-author and completer of that work and it is recognized by Hardshell Baptists as a most authoritative work. The following words from that history were written by the older Hassell and show that he did not believe like today's "Primitive Baptists," nor even like his son Sylvester. But, even Sylvester would not be in agreement with today's Hardshell Baptists on their doctrine of salvation. 

C. B. Hassell wrote the following in his history:

"Should the Lord create an humble, teachable and inquiring disposition in the heart of an inhabitant of China, Japan or the unexplored parts of Africa, He would sooner send an angel from Heaven, or a minister from the uttermost part of the earth, to show him the way of salvation, than leave him destitute of that knowledge, for which he longs and prays without ceasing. The alms and supplications of such persons spring from right principles and motives, and go up as a memorial before God, not to merit His favor, but to plead with Him to fulfill His gracious promises." (pg. 203 of Hassell's History)

Today's "Primitive Baptists" do not agree with this. Hassell did it because he believed like many old Primitive Baptist articles of faith stated, that "all the elect will be regenerated AND converted." 

Also, if one reads the first periodical called "The Primitive Baptist," one that C.B. Hassell supported and wrote for, he will find where Hassell wrote the following in the March 1845 issue:

"On the contrary we believe, the gospel is God's system of salvation for ruined man, and that He saves them by grace of His and not by works of theirs. Kehukeeites believe, that the Saviour took the law place and stead of his people, and for them and in their behalf fulfilled it to a punctilio...This they are made to believe by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, and this belief is counted to them for righteousness without the deeds of the law. They are then no longer under the law but under grace--no longer dead in trespasses and sins but alive to holiness,-- having their fruit unto the same and the end thereof everlasting life. This belief in Christ, caused by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, is their creation anew in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that they should walk in; and henceforward they abound in good works to God, begotten by the active principle of grace within them, not from a principle of slavish fear, by which they expect to escape eternal punishment." (March 8, 1845; See here)

This is taken from a long reply made by Hassell to a circular put out by the Chowan Association against him and the Kehukee Association, and where several charges were made against the Old Schoolers. Hassell says that "belief in Christ by the teaching of the Holy Spirit is their creation anew in Christ Jesus" and that "the gospel is God's system of salvation for ruined man." That is not what today's "Primitive Baptists" believe and yet it is what the supporters of the "Primitive Baptist" periodical believed in the 1830s onward. He says that without faith in Jesus through the Gospel a person is not a new creation in Christ Jesus. I agree and I am therefore a true primitive or original Baptist and those who pretend to the title today are not. Notice that he puts faith before quickening, saying that it is when a person believes that he is "then" no longer dead in sin.

In reply to the third charge of Antinomianism Hassell wrote: 

"Charge 3. The Report indirectly charges Kehukee Baptists with believing or teaching, that those who finally die in a state of impenitence, are taken to heaven by an absolute decree of God. The Report need lay claim to no originality here, for this same charge was full grown in the apostolic age and must be quite grey headed by this time...Paul denied the charge, treated it as a slander and so does the Kehukee Association."

Hassell denies that those who die in a state of impenitence will be saved. However, today's "Primitive Baptists" do not agree with Hassell. In my recent post about the Potter-Throgmorton debate (1887) I cited where Elder Potter said that repentance was no condition for salvation. (See here)

In the same long reply we also read these words of Hassell:

"All this and more too, the Holy Ghost carries home to the conscience of a sinner, hitherto dead in trespasses and sins, by which he is now aroused from his lethargic slumbers, convinced of sin and converted to a knowledge of the truth as it is in Christ."   

In these words of Hassell we see where he did not divorce being quickened into divine life (regeneration) from conversion or a knowledge of the truth about Christ. 

So, my modern day "Primitive Baptists," will this information about one of your greatest leaders cause you cognitive dissonance? Will you still say that the "means" Primitive Baptists embraced that teaching in the latter 19th century when the split occurred between those who believed in means and those who rejected that belief? One of the leaders on the means side was E.H. Burnam* (or Burnham), and many of the anti-means Hardshells said that he and those aligned with him brought this doctrine into their ranks. But, as we see, that was all a lie. In fact, most "Primitive" or "Old School" Baptists prior to the Civil War believed in means. So, it is the anti-means Hardshells who are the innovators. This was also what Elder John M. Watson testified to in his book "The Old Baptist Test" in the late 1850s. 

*I have several historical writings on the division involving Burnam. Use the search engine to find those writings.