July 2nd, 1942

These two subjects are very closely connected, or interwoven with each other. The doctrine that God did, before time, make choice of, or elect, a portion of the human race, and predestinate their salvation, is and has been a distinctive doctrine of the church all along the line. The Primitive Baptists hold to this doctrine. Baptists believed and preached this doctrine before John Calvin was born. But Calvin, one of the great Reformers, did advocate that doctrine. He went further with his teaching,  however, on that line than the Baptists did. The old Westminster Confession of Faith (the Presbyterian Confession by John Calvin) said: By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death. We quote this from the “Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, Containing the Confession of Faith,” etc., published in 1822. When the Baptists met together to frame the London Confession in 1689 they copied the Presbyterian Confession as far as they could conscientiously do so. The way they put this down in the London Confession reads this way: By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated or foreordained  to eternal life, through Jesus Christ to the praise of His glorious grace; others being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation to the praise of His glorious justice. Notice the difference in the reading in this matter. The Baptists did not believe in the doctrine of unconditional reprobation-or that some of the race were foreordained to everlasting death. God's predestination or foreordination has never injured anyone. When God made choice of some He did nothing to the others. They are simply left where they are by reason of sin and transgression. The Lord simply passes them by, so far as this matter is concerned. Yet, in nature all are alike. All are sinners, and God is, or was, under no obligation to do anything for any of the race. What He has done, and does do, and will do, is all a matter of grace-a stoop of mercy. In His mercy, and by His grace, He made choice of some of the race, and predestinated their salvation -predestinated that they should be conformed to the image of His Son. In this we find that election and predestination are joined closely together-that is, if this doctrine be true. What we here have in mind to do is to candidly investigate this doctrine, especially from a Bible standpoint. If this doctrine be true, then it follows that the Primitive Baptists are right in the principles which  they hold to. If it is not true, then they are altogether and entirely wrong. And if  they are wrong, we wonder, who, or what people, are right? The people who contend that there is something which the. sinner has to do in order to become a child of God or in order to be born again, differ as to what and how much the sinner has to do. If we go to them to find out from them what one must do in order to have eternal life, we find a perfect babel. It seems reasonable to us that if they are right in their contention that there is something for the sinner to do in order to obtain eternal life, then they might be able to agree as to what it is the sinner must do in order to that end. It seems reasonable to us to conclude that if the sinner must obey one command required in the Bible in order that he obtain eternal life, then he must obey every command laid down in the Book. If he must obey one of the commands in order to that end, then he must obey each and every one of those commands in order that the end be reached. So it seems to us. Another inconsistency which we have seen in some who hold that the sinner must do something in order to obtain eternal life is this: Some of them teach that the sinner can and must “get salvation,” and then claim that after he gets it he cannot lose it.
It has always seemed reasonable to us to conclude that if a man can get a thing, he can lose it after he gets it. What a man can get, he can also lose. It seems inconsistent to teach that a person has to do something in order to obtain a thing and then to deny that he has something to do in order to keep that thing. Surely, if a man has to exert himself to get a thing, he would have to exert himself in order to keep that thing after he got it. It seems logical to us that if a person has to perform a condition in order to obtain salvation, he would have some sort of condition to perform in order to keep that salvation. Hence, it is inconsistent to teach that sinners have to perform certain stipulated conditions in order to obtain eternal life, and then to teach the final preservation of the saints, and that it is impossible for a child of God to fall away and be finally lost. This makes the salvation of the sinner conditional upon his part before he is born again, or in order to be born again, and then makes his final salvation in heaven after regeneration to be unconditional on his part. It seems to us that if one is conditional the other is also conditional; or, if one is unconditional on the part of the person, so is the other. Not one of these inconsistencies are encountered in the doctrine of personal and unconditional election of sinners to be saved in glory. We have had in mind for several days to write a little article on the doctrine of election and predestination. As we began the writing these matters came into our mind, and this article is now long enough for one issue of the paper. So we stop here with the promise to try to look into the subject more directly in next issue. C. H. C.