What "Primitive Baptists" Believed in 1916

Recently in my series on "Two Seedism" I cited from Elder C.H. Cayce's paper "The Primitive Baptist" for November 14, 1916, from his editorial "Curtain Raised Again" and a letter from Elder W. E. Brush who was an assistant editor of Cayce's paper. It seems that Elder Brush also served on the editorial staff of the historical Primitive Baptist publication "Youth's Guardian Friend," founded by Elder J.M. Thompson. At this time both Thompson and Brush had asked Cayce to remove their names from the editorial staff of Cayce's paper because of disagreement over the "whole man" doctrine. Elder John R. Daily writes the following in chapter five of his autobiography "Pilgrimage of a Stranger":

"I wish to say here that while we were living on Dr. Oilar's farm I attended a term of school taught by R. W. Thompson, who was then a young man. His brother, John M. Thompson, was a pupil in the same school. These are both now (1903) able ministers. The former is Editor of the "Primitive Monitor," and the latter is editor of the "Youth's Guardian Friend."

Elder Brush wrote (emphasis mine):

"First, it has stood for the doctrine of election and predestination, and that unconditional on the part of the sinner...And now all that God the Father chose in Christ, Christ died for, the Holy Spirit (the third Person in the divine Trinity) will, here in time, make known to the heirs of promise what God the Father and Jesus Christ have done for them, by going where they are and revealing this one most noble truth to them. And now in this revelation I have understood the P. B. to teach that men and women, together with children as well, were taught to know God, whom to know is life eternal; and that in this teaching they were taught to know God only in soul, spirit, or heart; that this work of regeneration or the new birth did not teach men to know God in the flesh. Am I right? Or have I been mistaken all this long time as to what the P. B. taught on this point? I never understood it to teach that this revelation that the Spirit makes to the heirs of promise here in this life, with its purifying power, reached the entire man and partially purified him all over; or in the revelation, or the work of quickening the heir of promise, it left him, in some mysterious way unexplainable, quickened, both soul and body that is, it did not leave any part of him dead in trespasses and sins, and if not dead in trespasses and sins, then necessarily alive in Christ." 

All this is quite interesting to me as a "Primitive" or "Old School" Baptist historian. It seems, from the words of Elder Brush, that at the time this was written (1916) it was the view of the "Primitive" or "Hardshell" Baptists that a regenerated person has the Gospel of salvation revealed to him by having been taught to know God. Many of them, after this date, began to teach that people could be regenerated in heathen lands by the direct speaking of Christ to them and yet remain cognitively ignorant of Christ and believers in other deities. 

Elder Sarrels, who was part of this debate about the "whole man" doctrine, as we have seen, later in his life wrote a book titled "Systematic Theology" (1978). I have cited much from this book in several posts which showed that he believed that regeneration did NOT teach people about who is the true God, nor of Jesus Christ and the way of salvation through him. (See this post here for instance) Here are a couple citations from Sarrels in that work that substantiate this fact:

"We here give some attention to a matter mentioned earlier in this chapter: Since we hold, (a) that God, without the use of the gospel as a means, regenerates his loved ones in heathen lands as well as in cultured lands, and, (b) that in all of these lands, both heathen and cultured, the Holy Spirit performs his convicting work, we make the following differential observation: As the innate knowledge of God's existence, or First Truths, may exist in only faintly discernible ideas about the Supreme Being, and may range from this all but dormant and little understood stamp of the Maker to the highest and most enlightened concept of God's existence, so the facts connected with conviction--and conversion--may begin with the faintly dim ideas about sin, righteousness, and judgment, about repentance, faith, and justification, and range from this to the most advanced intellectual concepts concerning these progressive steps in the experience of a believer in gospel lands." (pages 365, 366)

"Not only does this view limit salvation to areas where the gospel is preached; it actually limits salvation to those who believe the gospel and obey it. (As the Scriptures themselves do!) The Moslems, the Buddhists, the Brahmans, and all other non-Christian adherents, even in gospel lands, are according to the strict sense of this view doomed. Not only this--strictly interpreted and applied, this view would exclude Jews and Unitarians, and, by some, even Catholics, who do not believe what is preached (like the gospel?) as some religious groups would present the matter. These are hard facts which need to be placed before the world. For reasons which are but briefly alluded to in some parts of the work, but developed more fully in other parts, we hold that God, despite the teachings of man, saves his chosen people all over the world." (page 434)

This view of Sarrels (published in 1978) was the standard view of the "Primitive Baptist Church" when I joined it in 1972 (my father joined them about 1965). They taught that people in other religions had been regenerated and yet not converted to Christ, but who remained in false religions. 

In the "Christian Baptist" periodical for January, 1978, Elder S.T. Tolley, editor (who I knew personally), wrote: 

"Primitive Baptists have always believed that it was unnecessary for the gospel of Christ to be preached in order that sinners be saved from hell."

"Elder John R. Daily in a debate with W. P. Throgmorton in 1912 said: 

"Men in heathendom are regenerated by the Spirit of God without the Gospel (Daily-Throgmorton Debate, p. 273).

Daily, Cayce, and Sylvester Hassell lived about the same time and were each recognized as leaders and defenders of the "Primitive Baptists" in their beliefs. 

Cayce in his day seemed to advocate both sides. At times he would affirm as Elder Brush, saying that all the elect will have the gospel preached to them directly by Christ himself and be made believers thereby. At other times he would say that people had been regenerated but who remained pagans, knowing nothing about Jesus. For instance, in commenting upon Paul's preaching in Athens, Greece and commanding them all to repent, a thing Cayce denied that ministers should do, Cayce wrote (emphasis mine):

“Paul is here preaching to a people who are the offspring of God--born of God--a people who have been worshipping God ignorantly, having an altar erected to the unknown God. They are commanded to turn away from their ignorant or idolatrous worship, and all those who are born of God, the offspring of God everywhere, who are engaged in such worship are commanded to repent. There is nothing in this text for the unregenerate. It is to the children of God who are engaging in false worship, and it is the duty of the ministry to admonish all such persons to repent, turn away from it and worship the Lord as directed in His word." ("The Spirituality Of The Gospel," Editorial Writings, Vol. 1, July 24, 1906, pages 98, 99)

So, even though the Athenians did not know about Jesus and his resurrection or his Messiahship, and were believers in many pagan gods and goddesses, yet because Paul says "we are all the offspring of God" (Acts 17: 28), and because Cayce believes that only those who are born again are to be exhorted to believe and repent, Cayce will argue that they had already been regenerated before Paul arrived there and preached the gospel to them. That is a view unique to the Hardshell Baptists. All Bible commentators believe that by Paul saying "we are all the offspring of God" that Paul means that every human being is God's creation. This is because the context shows this to be the case. Notice it:

"25 Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; 26 And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; 27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: 28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring." (kjv) 

If "we are also his offspring" denotes the new birth or regeneration, then we must say that every man who is God's creature and has breath and life from God are all born again and this leads to Universalism.

But, one wonders why the Athenians did not know anything about Jesus and were worshipers of other gods if Christ had already personally appeared to each of them and preached the gospel to them. Elder Sylvester Hassell, who lived in the time of Cayce, and who was a recognized leader as he was, wrote in "Question and Answer" the following:

"Jesus is the Great Preacher, and, by His omnipresent Spirit, He preaches His gospel savingly to His people (Isa. 61:1-3,10,11; Luke 4:16-30; Heb. 2:11,12; Psalm 110:3)." (see here)

This viewed was shared by Cayce, who often argued in his debates with others, on the subject of whether the gospel (as preached by preachers) was a means in regeneration, that Jesus spoke directly to each one of the elect in his regenerating them. In another editorial on 1 Peter 3:18-21 for October 23, 1906, Cayce wrote:

"By the same Spirit by which His body was quickened He went and preached unto the spirits in prison. This shows very clearly that there is a work upon spirit which is performed by the direct work of the Spirit. “And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” - (Ephesians 2:17-18). There is a preaching, or a work, which Jesus does by His Spirit, or by the Holy Spirit. This work is what is also called regeneration. Through the work of Jesus, His offering, both Jews and Gentiles have access to the Father by one Spirit in the work of regeneration. The Holy Spirit makes the application of the blood of Christ in the work of regeneration."

Cayce also said:

"A saving knowledge and faith in Christ does not come through the gospel; but one must have that before he can be reached through or by the gospel." (Cayce's Editorials, Vol. VI, page 176)

So, what can we conclude from all this? Answer: that at the beginning of the twentieth century there was no unified answer to the question as to whether a person must hear the gospel and believe in Jesus to be saved. Some said yes but that it was only by the personal preaching of Jesus. Others said that Jesus does not personally preach the gospel to people, though he speaks to them in commanding them to arise from the dead, and so they remain worshipers of false gods. 

The last statement by Cayce is ridiculous and against the plain declarations of scripture. It contradicts what the apostle Paul wrote in Romans chapter ten, where he says: 

"14 How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? 15 And how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!" 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our report?" 17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (nkjv) 

Paul also wrote:

"Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?" (I Cor. 3: 5 kjv)

We also read this about the preaching of John the Baptist:

"There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe." (John 1: 6-7 kjv)

These scriptures overthrow Cayce's statement that knowledge and faith in Christ does not come by the gospel. Further, if Hassell is right, and if what Cayce said in other places is right, then such saving faith does come by the gospel when Christ preaches it personally to all in regeneration.