J. H. Oliphant
1841-1925
"If you be unregenerate and unconcerned, what think you of what I have written? Are you sure that your case is not so bad as I have here described? Is it true with you that there is no fear of God before your eyes? Is your heart on the things of this world that must pass away? Oh, dear reader, do not flatter yourself that this disease is anything but fatal. There is but One Physician in the whole universe who can cure you. I may faintly describe your disease, and you will find it as bad as I describe before you are through with it, but I can't cure it. It must be treated by the Physician himself. It can not be treated by letter or prescription, as some say, but by his own presence. Let me ask you seriously to think on what I have written, compare it with the word of God, and may God Almighty grant you grace and wisdom to know what is true. This fatal indifference that you now manifest must be cured. Your self-sufficient confidence must be broken. But if you have seen and felt yourself to be thus corrupt and evil, so that you long to be free from sin; if you have thirsted for a Savior's love and longed for righteousness, I must say truly that these are good signs of recovery. If your sins fill your heart with grief, and your eyes with tears, and you are led in secret to confess your awful guilt before God, it is a hopeful sign. Never did God ultimately cast away a poor wretch who sought pardon at his hands. His invitations are to the ends of the earth, and such are you; the hungry, and thirsty, and the lost, and such are you. You will, if you have been killed to sin, one day rejoice in God as a Savior. Oh, how sweet the name of Jesus sounds to those who know the real nature of sin. The whole plan of salvation is full of importance to you. Let us ever adore the God of all grace; that life and immortality have ever been brought to light, and may it be the privilege of the reader and writer to enjoy the full benefits of a crucified Savior in vast eternity."
Today's "Primitive Baptists" do not preach to sinners in this way. They have gone so far astray in their Hyper Calvinism that they believe it is wrong. One of the leaders in their anti-mission movement from the 1830s through the 1860s was Elder John M. Watson from the Nashville area. In his book "The Old Baptist Test" he wrote:
"A gospel without exhortation; without a call on the sinner to repent and believe; a gospel which does not in word address itself to all; is not the gospel which Christ ordained subordinately for the bringing in of his "other sheep."" (page 86)
"Let us take a practical example. We have it on record in the 13th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. When Paul and Barnabas preached at Antioch of Pisidia, had any of our ultra brethren been there and heard their zealous appeal to all those present, they would have called them Armminians." (ibid)
"Let us see: The zealous preacher calls on all to repent, earnestly, faithfully and I may add, gospelly, but alas! the old brother whose head has got wrong, whose heart has grown cold, says all cannot repent, some have not the power to do so. How does he know? Peradventure the Lord has given the power to repent to the very ones whom he has in his feelings excluded.." (page 87)
In "Hardshells & Gospel Invitations" (See here) I cite from "The Primitive Preacher" that gives several of the sermons of Elder Grigg Thompson and show how he addressed lost unregenerate sinners and exhorted them in the way of salvation. Said Thompson to such sinners:
"O, sinner, this is thy state; think of it, lay it to thine heart; better thou hadst died from the womb, better the knees had prevented thee, and the breasts which thou hast sucked, than that thou shouldst live and die a stranger to the new birth. You today may regard this truth as a hard saying; you may hate it, and try to cast it from your mind, but he before whom you will have to stand in the great day of judgment, has spoken the truth with his own infallible lips, “Except ye be born again, you can not see the kingdom of God.” Dear, dying sinner, don't be deceived; all who point out some other way for you to become a new creature in Christ Jesus are but lying spirits, and to follow their counsel will be eternal ruin. I love you, therefore I tell you the truth; I do not wish to daub you up with untempered mortar, or to beget within you a false, delusive hope. There is no salvation for you unless you be a new creature in Christ; your soul must be regenerated by the Spirit of God; you must be born of God, or be lost forever. O, may God be merciful to you; may he, who by his grace, changed and made a new man out of a persecuting Saul' change you, and make you meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. May God prepare all our hearts to receive the truth in the love of it." (CHAPTER 4—A NEW CREATURE IN CHRIST, pages 180, 181)
I also cited these words from Elder John Watson in his book "The Old Baptist Test":
"But alas! you may be altogether an unbeliever, but hardly so, for if that be your character, you would, I fear, have laid aside this book before reaching the conclusion. But you may providentially have opened it just here. What shall I say to you? I must in meekness and in love instruct you, if peradventure, the Lord may give you repentance to an acknowledgment of the truth, as it is in Him. I know no other way but to declare unto you, Jesus Christ our Lord. He is exalted to give repentance, and this you must have or perish. He is the great object of faith, and he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned."
"Do none of the things of Christ move your heart? Have you no relish for His name? No concern about His salvation? If not I must leave you under the law; I am unwilling, knowing the terrors of the law, to leave you there. II Cor. 5:11...Then call upon HIm while He is near, submit to His gracious plan of saving sinners. We regard it as a privilege, and know and feel it to be a duty to tell you these things, though it be in word only, praying that they may reach your heart in the power and assurance of the holy spirit." (pages 53,54)
"Do none of the things of Christ move your heart? Have you no relish for His name? No concern about His salvation? If not I must leave you under the law; I am unwilling, knowing the terrors of the law, to leave you there. II Cor. 5:11...Then call upon HIm while He is near, submit to His gracious plan of saving sinners. We regard it as a privilege, and know and feel it to be a duty to tell you these things, though it be in word only, praying that they may reach your heart in the power and assurance of the holy spirit." (pages 53,54)
How different are the sentiments of Watson, Oliphant, and Thompson to what Elder Sonny Pyles said in a sermon a few years ago, and which I wrote about in "What Bible Preachers Said To The Dead" (See here).
I cited from a sermon of Elder Sonny Pyles who said:
"It would be just as ridiculous to go down in Virginia or Kentucky and start yelling at the rock and the mountains as it would be for me to preach the gospel to an alien sinner never born again of the Spirit of God."
"It would be just as foolish to go over to the shopping center, walk up to a brick wall and start saying "by grace are ye saved through faith" - and people would think I was a moron."
"It would be just as foolish to go over to the shopping center, walk up to a brick wall and start saying "by grace are ye saved through faith" - and people would think I was a moron."
Obviously he is not in agreement with the old Baptists I cited.
I also cited from Elder C. H. Cayce ("Cayce's Editorials" for 1905)
"The Forked Deer Association met with the church at Flowers Chapel, near Rutherford, Gibson county, Tenn., on Friday before the second Sunday in September, 1905. Elder John Grist, of Friendship, Tenn., was moderator, and L. J. Law, Trenton, Tenn., was clerk. The following appears in their minutes as the third and fourth items of their business on Saturday:
By motion and second, agreed that we adopt as the sense of this association the action of five of our churches as expressed in their letters, that we declare non-fellowship for the idea of a federal form of government, that the commission was given to the church and not to the apostles or ministry, that it is the duty of the ministry to admonish the alien sinner to repent and believe the gospel, and against affiliation in and with secret institutions."
By motion and second, agreed that we adopt as the sense of this association the action of five of our churches as expressed in their letters, that we declare non-fellowship for the idea of a federal form of government, that the commission was given to the church and not to the apostles or ministry, that it is the duty of the ministry to admonish the alien sinner to repent and believe the gospel, and against affiliation in and with secret institutions."
In 1905 it was a heresy to preach in the manner described by Watson and the others cited!
In chapter four on election and predestination Oliphant wrote:
"Acts 18:9-10: The Lord visits Paul in a vision and informs him that he has much people in that wicked city, and, if so, they were at that time unregenerate."
This is not what Hardshells teach today, for they all say that when the Lord said to Paul that he had "much people" in the wicked city of Corinth he meant that he had many regenerated people in that city who were worshiping idol gods and who knew not the true and living God nor Jesus Christ and his way of salvation.
Oliphant also wrote:
"The London Confession of Faith and the Philadelphia Confession have been regarded by the Baptists as sound. They who claim to be old Baptists and yet oppose these sentiments, do shamefully expose their own ignorance."
This is an indictment of today's "Primitive Baptists" who reject those old confessions because they teach God's universal decree of all things and that the Gospel is God's ordinary means of birthing his sons and daughters.
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