Elder John Watson on Galatians 4: 6

In my recent post titled "Because You Are Sons?" I wrote against the Hardshell Hyper Calvinistic view of Galatians 4: 6. (See here) Since then I have refreshed my mind on things that Elder John M. Watson wrote. He was a first generation leader of those who called themselves "Primitive Baptists." I found what he wrote on this text in his book "The Old Baptist Test." It can be found in pages 241-242 (See here for his book). Watson wrote (emphasis mine):

"Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts crying, Abba, Father." Gal. 4:6."

"The Parkerite exults greatly in this text, and pretends to see a confirmation of all his fancies in it! He says that God sent forth his Spirit into their hearts because they were actually sons, always spiritual ones, of course, if actual ones; and yet the spirit finds them, as the actual sons of God, dead in trespasses and sins, and without the Spirit of God! How can this be? What an absurdity is involved by such a view of the text! The plain meaning of the text is, that because ye are chosen unto salvation, from the beginning, God hath sent forth his Spirit into your hearts; or, because ye are the elect of God, because ye are predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, God hath sent forth his Spirit into your hearts to perform that work - because we are predestinated to the adoption of sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of adoption into your hearts, whereby we cry Abba, Father-having received the adoption of sons."

Watson's reasoning overthrows those "Primitive Baptists" who say that the text means - "because you are regenerated sons of God, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts." As I showed, this cannot be the meaning of the text. Watson points out the absurdity of this view and makes a point that I did not make in my former writing. He says that if the Spirit was not received till after they had been regenerated, or after they were already the spiritual sons of God, then ergo they were regenerated or sons of God without having the Spirit, which is absurd.

It may mean "because you are chosen to sonship" as I stated in my article, and showed that this was the view of A.T. Robertson the great Baptist Greek scholar. This is what Watson believed. My view was a little different. Both views deny however that one is a spiritual son of God prior to receiving the Spirit of God by faith.

Notice also how Watson connects the view of the Hyper Calvinists with Parkerism, or Two Seedism.