4 Hyper Calvinist Quotes
Below are twenty-five more statements made by Hyper Calvinists:
J. Foreman: “If it be the natural man’s duty to believe unto salvation, then it must be the natural man’s duty for God himself to be to him all what by promise and gift he is to those who through grace do believe unto salvation; and then it must be the natural man’s duty for the eternal God to be to him a covenant God – a Redeemer – a Shepherd – a Saviour – a Preserver – a Comforter – a Rock, Refuge, Sun, Shield, High Tower, Horn of Salvation, and Strength – the God of all grace – a Guide – a Father and portion for ever. All this the Lord is to them who through grace do believe unto salvation; and all this is by promise inseparable from believing unto salvation; and it must consequently be the natural man’s duty for God to be all this to him by promise, if faith unto salvation be his duty.”
E. Blackstock: “Hear St. Paul’s affectionate appeal to the church at Corinth: “For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty,” &c. This is ours. We can bless God for every line of it. No cap ever fitted a head better, than this passage doth that people now vilely traduced as Antinomians.”
J. West: “As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings; so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was another strange God with him.” Oh! That the God of all grace may enable me to be the means of stirring up your nests. Someone beautifully says that as this is true of the eagle, so our God stirs up His people, watches and hovers over them. And as the parent eagle takes her brood and bears them on herself, so that the gunner underneath must in aiming at the young ones, first shoot through the heart of the old bird. So my Christ, in whom and with whom my life is “bound up” and “hid” must first be destroyed, before the enemy can destroy my soul. All the sins that I have ever done, sins of thought, word or deed; sins under the law, sins under the gospel, sins at school, sins at college, have all absolute pardon in Christ—“for the blood of Jesus Christ cleanest us from all sin.” This is faith, not a duty faith, but “the faith of God’s elect.” This is faith! This is hope! This is repentance! A faith which is the gift of God, a hope which hovers round the Saviour, and anticipates in and thro’ and by Him a blessed immortality; a hope that hangs all her dependance on the blood of Jesus.”
E. Blackstock: ”He is now a lost sinner; he can neither will nor do; he hath ceased from his own works; he feels that he cannot believe in Christ, unless it be given him from above. Some say, “Repent;” but this man, under the law, has got a stony heart, from which no repentance can proceed. Some say, “Believe;” but that is like saying to a child that has fallen on the floor, and cannot rise, “Come here, and I’ll help you up.”
J. Foreman: “Duty faith unto salvation says in the Midland Counties Association, that the power of salvation lies sufficiently in religious means; but the Bible faith says, that the power of salvation lies alone in God the Saviour, sovereignty and severally as he will, Matt 7:13; 2 Cor 4:7; 1 Cor 12: 2.”
E. Blackstock: “ God the Holy Ghost, now and then, lets down this precious covenant into this man’s heart. This is the sheet which Peter saw in a vision. It comes down from heaven, and is taken up again into heaven, with all its contents. It contains all manner of four-footed beasts, creeping things, and flying fowls. It is knit at the four corners. Mercy and truth have met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other: so that the beasts cannot leap out, the fowls cannot fly out, and as there is no rent in this glorious sheet, the creeping things cannot creep out. Its contents are lions, bears, worms, moles, dragons, owls, and bats;—or, elect sinners, by nature strong and fierce as lions and bears; insignificant and groveling as worms; burrowing in the earth like moles; cruel, tyrannical, and terrific, as dragons; as unable to bear the light of the gospel as owls are the light of the natural sun; nocturnal nondescripts like bats: “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are justified, but ye are sanctified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” These were once too indelicate a dish for Peter’s stomach; and so they will be now for my reader, if he has not been tumbled backward into Job’s ditch. These beasts and birds were unclean, according to the law of Moses, and in the eyes of the Pharisees; indeed, they are so unto this day, and in the eyes of all self-righteous persons. Do you ask me, if there are any of these strange creatures upon earth nowadays? I have no doubt of it. The universal charity men call them Antinomians. So it seems, pious gentlemen can call names. It is most easy, and seems very convenient, to pin this ticket upon a man’s back. If he be a private character, who would deal with such a man? If he be in the ministry, who that has a character to lose would go to hear him? When I have heard they have given me that gentle epithet, I have sometimes taken comfort from the consideration that many, who are now in the realms of bliss, have carried the same badge before me, of whom the world was not worthy. Then I have rejoiced to see myself in the way the Father’s trod. At such times, I have solaced myself with the hope that I shall soon be at home—that this brittle tenement will soon be “where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary be at rest.” There the prisoners rest together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor.”
H. Bulteel: “In order to constitute it a free gift, two things are necessary; it must be done without compulsion, and without condition; either of these destroy the freeness here spoken of. But as for the former, we all know that God, except he compel himself, cannot be compelled, and consequently that when he gives, it must be from his free, sovereign, uncontrolled will; that he gives because he will give, because he loves to give, because he delights to give; as it is written, It is more blessed to give than to receive. As for the latter, no one will deny that if a man looks for a return of that which he gives, if there be any consideration which induces him to give, if he has an eye to any advantage about to accrue to himself in consequence of his act, then it can no longer be said to be a free gift. But “we have received the Spirit of God, that we may know the things which are freely given to us of God.”
E. Blackstock: “In eternity, God the Father sanctified his people by putting them into Christ; God the Word hath virtually cleansed them by his atonement; and God the Holy Ghost will manifestly cleanse them by his power and influence. They shall all pass the spiritual birth, and walk, in the way of true holiness, to their Father’s house of glory; where they shall appear, “a glorious church, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing.” I have no doubt there are, at this time, thousands of living witnesses to this truth. The Spirit has sprinkled the blood of Jesus upon their consciences. They have heard the voice of Christ in the gospel, saying unto them, “Now ye are clean through the word that I have spoken unto you.” They who have experienced this cleansing, may well bear the reproaches of men, calling them common, unclean, or, if they please, Antinomians. Be it your daily prayer, O believer, that God may show you his covenant; that you may very often be brought to close self-examination; that, as a poor sinner, you may daily look to Jesus—take hold of him, as being the Head of this covenant; that you may have this blessed covenant more and more opened to your spiritual understanding; and experience its strong consolations, and enjoy the solemn witness bearings of the Holy Ghost, to attest your adoption.”
J. Wells: “Forsake the truth—alter the truth—throw the doctrine of duty-faith in its face—make a confederacy with those who exhort dead men to do what God alone can, instead of preaching the truth to those dead men, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear, and so becoming a sweet savor of Christ unto God, by telling them the truth in them that perish, and in them that are saved; telling the truth faithfully both ways. What then, I say, forsake the truth, or make a confederacy with its perverters? Never!”
J. Foreman: “Faith unto salvation considered and enforced as the natural man’s duty, is not of grace, nor of the spirit of grace; but it is, (1) Of the spirit of that zeal by which the Jews went about to establish their own righteousness, not submitting themselves unto the righteousness of God, Rom 10: 3. (2) It is of that spirit of the five foolish virgins whose vessels were without oil, who made creatures their first recourse, and then thought by the natural duty, like self-effort of purchase, to establish a right to, and acquire to themselves the possession of all things, which the five wise virgins had and took, without any account of money, price, purchase, or duty faith; but the Lord answered them, ‘I know you not.’ Not you are come too late, the door being shut; but, ‘I know you not,’ Matt 25: 12. (3) It is of the spirit of the many who will come saying, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works?’ All done in the Lord’s name, but all self and duty faith like doings, and to whom the Lord will profess, ‘I never knew you, depart from me,’ Matt 7: 22,23. (4) It is of the spirit of those many, who shall seek to enter in at the strait gate, and shall not be able, Luke 13: 24; because they sought it on duty faith grounds; or, ‘as it were by the works of law,’ Rom 9: 32. (5) Duty faith is of the very spirit of all those ‘that kindles a fire, and compass themselves about with sparks;’ who are bid to follow the delusion they have chosen and loved more than the truth, saying, ‘Walk in the light of your own fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled.’ But hear the solemn end, for that is the main thing with never dying souls: ‘This shall ye have at mine hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow,’ Isaiah 50:2. Ancient Pharisaism was self-righteousness with the name of Moses for authority, falsely attached to it; and duty faith is Modern Pharisaism, with the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for authority, falsely attached to it; and done up so nicely too, with ‘great,’ learned, clever, and pious ‘signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it able, they shall deceive and seduce the very elect,’ Matt. 24: 24; Mark. 13:22.”
E. Blackstock: ”In this day of great profession, when there are many “itching ears,” and heaps of teachers who never had a divine warrant for their employment; when natural talents and the charms of eloquence are intended to supersede the use of spiritual gifts, and the power of the blessed Spirit; when the congregations of the dead are large, numerous, and wealthy, and the folds of Christ are generally small, lean, and lank; when truth is a libel; when the doctrines of grace are accounted blasphemous, and the work of the Spirit is deemed enthusiasm; when Religion walks out in her silver slippers in sun-shiny weather: at a time when a man is hardly accounted worthy of a place in civil society, unless he belong to some religious fraternity; when the bulk of professors, though divided, and subdivided, into numerous sects, are so blended in their doctrine and spirit that they appear as a self-moving mass, using their united power and influence to remove the ancient landmarks, and to render contemptible the Lord’s poor and afflicted people; let every lover of truth say, “Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night, for the slain of the daughter of my people.” O my companions in tribulation! Do we not feel ready to unite, as the heart and voice of one man, in a mournful address to Israel’s God, saying, “Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness, and of thy glory; where is thy zeal and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies towards us? are they restrained? Doubtless thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not, thou, O Lord! art our Father, our Redeemer; thy name is from everlasting. O Lord! why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our hearts from thy fear? Return for thy servant’s sake, the tribes of thine inheritance. The people of thy holiness have possessed it but a little while; our adversaries have trodden down thy sanctuary. We are thine: thou never bearest rule over them; they were not called by thy name.” The Arminians, and the Modern Calvinists, frequently say, “Look at our numbers and respectability, when compared with the few who profess your doctrine.” Our answer is this;—admitting the smallness of our number, and the largeness of theirs, the unpleasant contrast will by no means prove them to be right; because, “Strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” It is no good sign of the solidity of an argument when the sayings of Christ have to be reversed to support it. I am ashamed to see men go about to prove the soundness of their creed, and the superiority of their profession, by their worldly respectability and numerical strength. I repeat it (with the Bible in my hands), I blush for their conduct in this matter. Besides, the argument proves too much for them. As (in christendom) the Papists are the most wealthy and numerous, the benefit of this fallacious reasoning must be theirs. Would not our opponents reject such a mode of reasoning if used against themselves! Then why do they use it against us? Is it not because it serves to keep their classes and bands together! If that word in Matt 7:14, were reversed, we might quail under it. This alteration would suit these men to a hair’s breadth. Therefore, my tried brethren, be not discouraged at the comparative smallness of our number; “Yet many are called, but few are chosen.””
H. Bulteel: “Let us remark how God’s free giving is illustrated by another word which stands contrasted with it in the sentence. We have received. Now this expression takes away all idea of any merit, power, or wisdom in the favoured objects of God’s bounty, as completely as does the former; and when both are viewed together, they give a twofold testimony to the truth of the grace of God. John the Baptist tells us, that a man can receive nothing except it be given him from heaven. Is not this as much as to say, that the very power of receiving the free gift of God is likewise from God? so far is fallen man from being able to save himself, that of himself he is not able to receive salvation, or lay hold of it were it within his reach. No wonder therefore that we find a great champion of grace rebuking his brethren, who prided themselves upon their gifts, in words which taught them that they had forgot how they came by them: What hast thou, says he to the Corinthians, that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received? This word received stops the mouth of all boasters. See therefore, brethren, how the Scriptures delight in exhibiting to us the glorious things of the Gospel in terms like these, that we may know that all is of grace. We receive Christ, says John, (1:11.) Out of his fulness have all we received, (ver. 16.) We receive abundance of grace, and the gift of righteousness, says Paul. We have received the atonement, he says again; (Rom. 5:11.) and God hath given us his Spirit—hath given us eternal life, we find in other places; and by grace are ye saved: and we know that if it be of grace, then is it no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace; but if it be of works, then is it no more grace, otherwise work is no more work, (Rom. 2:6.) So then, brethren, when we are inclined to sing, and make melody in our hearts to the Lord, let it be to the praise of the glory of his grace, and here below as well as hereafter above, this shall be the burden of the song, We have received, and God has freely given; according to the words of my text, “We have received the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things which are freely given to us of God.”
J. Foreman: “To my apprehension, duty faith is no part of the moral law or covenant, equitably instituted on the day of creation, between God the creator and man the creature. It is no part of, nor any way belongs to the covenant of grace with Christ for the chosen seed, or to the law of the Spirit of life in him, Heb 13: 20; Rom 8: 2. And so it is neither a doctrine of the law nor of the gospel, but a muddling denial of the true spirit of both, agreeing with neither. Because it is opposed to the spirit of the doctrine of God’s for knowledge and purpose of election before time, it is opposed to the proper surety-ship of Christ, to his real and proper redemption, to the plainly stated fact that the saved by grace are the bought with a price, and to the settled imputation of the Saviour’s righteousness as the only way of a sinner’s justification of life. It is opposed to the Holy Spirit’s divine agency in the economy of triune grace, as being the only quickening power by which the sinner first comes into the life of godliness, the natural man is made a spiritual man to understand and receive the things of the Spirit, and the carnal man has his enmity smitten to the ground, and he reconciled to God by the peace- making, peace-speaking, and pardoning-love-declaring blood of Christ. It is opposed to the truth of the real state of the sinner in his nature state, as that of bring really dead in sin till actually quickened by the power of the Holy Ghost; for death under the law, and duty to have the very life of God’s favour, can never be made to agree; and, indeed, duty faith appears to put every thing out of order and agreement, in relation to the salvation of lost sinners, and the display of divine favour. And so we may observe, that between parties in a matter of duty, the oblige acts first, as must be the case in duty faith, for duty faith to mean any thing at all; but in a matter of favor, the benefactor acts first, as is the stated fact in the sacred word in every named case and character of personal faith unto salvation. Man should be the author and finisher of his own faith, if faith unto salvation be the natural man’s duty; but Christ alone is the only author and finisher of faith, and of all the saving faith known in the word of God. For faith unto salvation to be the duty of the natural man, it must be by man produced from human nature; but the only true and precious faith unto salvation known in the word of God, is obtained through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, 2 Peter 1: 1. For faith unto salvation to be the natural man’s duty it must be man’s duty to believe unto salvation previous to the new birth; but the word of God puts believing unto salvation after the new birth, as a spiritual consequent of it, saying, ‘But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believed on his name; who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God, John 1: 12,13.”
E. Blackstock: ”Pray to be made sound in the faith. What think you of the doctrines of grace! In humble dependence on the Spirit’s teaching, search the Scriptures; be careful to receive no doctrines or notions that agree not with the written word. Pray to the Lord to bless you with a teachable spirit. Do not prostrate your understanding before any master or father upon the earth. When you are led to discover that the doctrines of grace are true, receive them in God’s name, and modestly, but firmly, avow them. If men (in derision) call them “high doctrines!” you will have the pleasure of seeing that they are no higher than the written word. If others call them “dry doctrines!” entreat the Lord Jesus to wet them for you by the influences of his Spirit. It is written, “My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distill as the dew.” If men say these doctrines lead to licentiousness, watch the effects the experience of them produces upon your own conduct. Take no man’s word in this matter. Prove them for yourselves. If I were sure this was my last hour, I would say that the doctrine of free, eternal, distinguishing grace powerfully promotes true holiness. Our blessed Redeemer prayed, “Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth.””
J. Wells: “In John 10:15, the Great Shepherd has joined his death and the eternal life of those for whom he died for ever together—”I lay down my life for the sheep,” and “I give unto them,” (not I offer unto them,) but “I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish.”
J. Foreman: “Perhaps it will be said that duty faith, as held by those who embrace it, is but one among many glorious points of Bible truth and doctrine which they hold, and, therefore, not of sufficient importance to divide about. But I must say, from thirty years’ observation, that whatever other doctrines are held in connection with It, I have always seen that duty faith is leaven that leavens the whole lump. And that as a disease is contrary to the health, and alters the natural figure and countenance of a person, until he looks not at all like the man of his name; even so is duty faith contrary to the very spirit, healthy fulness, richness, freeness, harmony, and beauty of every truth by which salvation by grace only is revealed and declared, until the whole countenance of gospel truth is altered thereby, and made of doubtful appearance as to which takes the greatest share, man’s duty or the grace of God in the salvation of a sinner.”
E. Blackstock: ”Try what you hear in this sieve. Whatever bears the twofold test of doctrine and experience is wheat; it is the bread of life. Feed thereon and grow. Whatever will not bear that twofold test is chaff; throw it out to the fowls. If in your hearing, a minister make a common practice of exhorting the unconverted to believe, repent, pray, turn to God, &c., ask yourselves if in your unconverted state you could have done any of these things? I think you will then see you are at the sign of the “Labour in Vain,” where they try to wash the black moor white. Or if he say that “Christ died for all mankind,” or that “all men may be saved if they will,” when, upon due examination and prayer, you are led to see these to be erroneous sentiments, hurl them upon the dung hill. You are in the land of famine. How can you think to satisfy yourselves with these husks? If the preaching of Moses’ law to the believers makes you a raw back, and leaves you an empty belly, is it not high time to look out for a minister that preaches the word? You will find that that testimony which minutely describes your frames, feelings, and soul exercises, is at once the most savoury, comfortable, safe, and profitable, to Zion’s young men. The true Gospel is a creature-abasing, Christ-exalting word, that separates the precious from the vile; a word that contains sound doctrine, insists upon sound experience, and requires sound practice. Such a testimony, possessing a rich vein of genuine experience, is, in my opinion, one that, with God’s blessing, will do the true believer good. Any man who delivers such a testimony, whose life is blameless, should be received as a minister of the Spirit, let men call him what they will. You who sit under such a ministry, be thankful; yours is no mean or common privilege.”
H. Bulteel: “I know that there are many who, not having heard of these truths, and not troubling themselves to read their Bibles, fly out into a rage at the bare mention of them; all such are objects of pity: but there are also some who have searched into these things, and yet deny that we have a right to assurance except upon certain conditions; of all such let us stand in doubt. This is the way they teach: Before we may have any assurance of being accepted in Christ, and eternally saved by him, we must examine our hearts, and see whether there are sufficient evidences of our state; we must ask ourselves day by day, Have we repented enough? have we wept enough? have we prayed enough? have we worked enough in order to entitle us to an assured hope that Christ hath washed us in his blood, and will finally save us? And so they teach us to measure our state by our works. If we have done little, we may hope little; if we have done much, we may hope much; and so on. Now all such men are troublers of the Church of Christ; and if Paul were here he would say, I would that they were even cut off. These are legalists in disguise; while they pretend to preach the Gospel, they are drawing their hearers back again to the works of the Law. But the experienced eye will see through the veil; faith, instead of looking at what herself hath done, looks out of self at what another hath done for her: faith grounds her assurance not upon her own fruits, which vary every hour, but upon the worth, value, and efficacy of the blood and righteousness of Jesus the Son of God; both of which are for sinners, the worst and vilest; so that even the chiefest of sinners coming with all his filth to Jesus might have an assured hope of salvation thereupon. Now, on the contrary, while these men are looking inward for evidences on which they may rest their hope, Christ, the only true and certain ground and foundation, is left out of the question; so that the language of all such must be, when they are asked to shew cause why judgment should not be passed upon them, not as the believer’s is, It is Christ that died; (Rom. 8:34.) but, here are so many repentances, so many prayers, so many tears, so many performances, for each one of which, viewed apart from Christ, they deserve eternal condemnation: in short, what is the tendency of all such preaching and teaching, but to make men lean to their own righteousness, and fill them with all sorts of hypocrisy. In opposition then to all such, the word of God declares that faith is its own evidence—not to the exclusion of others, but above all others. Other evidences of our state will flow out of a true faith, as we find abundantly declared in Rom. 5:1-11, and elsewhere. But be it recollected, that not one of these gives birth to faith, but faith gives birth to them all. Now it is very pleasing and comforting to the believer to see not only faith, but all her offspring with her around the table; but many will be the time that he will be called upon to sit down with faith alone, and through various causes all the family of love, joy, comfort, peace, may for a while have taken flight. Nevertheless, faith being left, it is well: faith cleaves close to Christ—faith knows Christ—faith assures herself that Christ is her’s and that she is Christ’s. She always carries about her own evidence with her; for he that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. (1 John 5:10.) Our state then before God is declared first to ourselves by faith, then to others by the fruits she brings forth. If then there be this witness in faith, we need not go to any of faith’s fruits in order to know our own state; if it were so indeed, how could the sinner have hope who has never yet produced any fruits? But we have indeed cause to bless God, that such is the fulness of the riches of the blood of Christ, that the veriest wretch that the earth ever produced, if he do but trust in that blood, hath as much right to the fullest assurance of his state before God, as the most advanced believer in all the family of God’s elect; for there is but one and the same title to all, even the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ.”
J. Foreman: “If it be the natural man’s duty to believe unto salvation, then it must be the natural man’s duty for God to do for him, and give to him, all what by promise he does and gives to those who through grace do really believe unto salvation. And so it must be the natural man’s duty for God to give him eternal life – to pardon all his sins put away his iniquities, cleanse him from all unrighteousness, and give him peace – to bless him with all spiritual blessings in Christ – to hold him safe in his hand – to keep him as the apple of his eye – to instruct him in the way that he should go, and guide him with his eye – to make to him all crooked things straight, and rough places plain – to make all things work together for his good – to see that all his wants are supplied out of the riches in glory by Christ Jesus – to hold him in that safety so as that nothing shall separate him from the love of God in Christ Jesus to give him the kingdom of heaven, and a crown of life there for ever. This the Lord does and gives to those who through grace believe unto salvation; and if it be the duty of the natural man to believe unto salvation, then it must be his duty to secure all this to himself, by the promise of it all, made to them who through grace do believe unto salvation. The above may be considered pressing the point beyond its due measure, but if faith as the root be a duty, every inseparable branch must consequently be included, as the one, according to the Scriptures, cannot be without the other.”
J. Wells: “The doctrine of its being the duty of all men savingly to believe in Christ is from beneath: it is a basket of poisonous tares which the enemy has put into the hands of even some good men: it is a doctrine which labours by all the lying works of Satan to take the place of, and pass over, and set aside the real, vital work of regeneration. Thousands upon thousands are deluded by being thus put off with mere natural instead of supernatural faith.”
J. Wells: “You will see that we few poor despised hypers, do not deny human accountability, nor find an excuse for any one wrong of man, nor do we put the duty of the creature into the place of the grace of God, nor do we lay the blame of men’s damnation upon the grace of God, nor upon the death of Christ; but we lay the blame of man’s eternal perdition entirely upon original sin, and the amount of punishment we blame upon personal sins against light and knowledge; and those sins consisting, not in rejecting what was never meant for them, and never offered to them. Eternal life is offered to no one; it is a free, eternal, sure gift. Nor do we hypers hold out two ways of eternal salvation, one by duty-faith, and another by the faith of God s elect: we believe that these two ways, that such two doctrines, are in direct collision one with the other; we believe one of these doctrines, namely, eternal salvation by the faith of God’s elect, to be of God, but that the other doctrine is not of God, nor do the men that preach it dare to say, that any soul was ever yet saved by it. They themselves despise the thought of being saved by it; they send others that way, but they will not go that way themselves. Nor will these two doctrines ever, either on earth or in heaven, coalesce; they are a deadly and an everlasting contradiction one to the other, and the two put together make a yea and nay gospel; and so is another gospel; and would bring an angel from heaven, should he advocate such a gospel, under the apostolic curse. Let ministers, therefore, tell men the truth, and rightly divide the word of truth, and let the law of human accountability be kept in its place, and the law of life and liberty have its place.“
J. Foreman: “If faith unto salvation be the natural man’s duty, then it must be the natural man’s duty to have all what the actual believer through grace unto salvation truly and properly has, according to the word of God. And then it must be the natural man’s duty to have the fear of God put in the heart, and his law written in the inward parts, by the Lord’s own hand, according to his promise to his own, Jer. 32: 40 – to have the hope of the promise, the hope of God’s calling, the hope laid up in heaven, the hope of righteousness, the hope of eternal life, the good hope through grace, the hope of glory – to have the faith of God’s elect, the faith of the operation of God, the faith that is not of man or of works, but God’s gift only, the common faith of the household of God, and to be of that household; the faith that is the pledge, earnest, title deed and note-of-hand substance of all things hoped for on the promise of God to the heirs of salvation – to have the heritage of them that fear the Lord – to have the seed of God in the soul which the wicked one toucheth not – to have redemption in Christ – to have fellowship with God – to have the Holy Spirit as a teacher and leader into all truth, as a testifier and glorifier of Jesus, and as a comforter dwelling in and with the soul -to have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ – to have an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven – to have a name written in heaven by the hand of electing love, in the Lamb’s book of life by the hand of redeeming love, and in the book of life by the hand of quickening love – to have the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost – to have that repentance and remission of sins that Christ, as a Prince and a Saviour is exalted to give – to have all the fruits of the Spirit – to have a mansion prepared, a house of God, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens – to inherit all things at the last, and to have a crown of life, righteousness and glory laid up against that day. All this, by divine favor, is the happy lot, property and portion, of all those who through grace do believe unto salvation; and if faith unto salvation be the duty of the natural man, then it must be the duty of the natural man to possess and enrich himself with all this divine property of faith, by sacred promise given to the chosen, redeemed, adopted, and consequent believing heirs of salvation.”
J. Wells: “This duty-faith doctrine feeds Pharisees, and tips with poison the arrows that are sent at men of God. Let those who luxuriate so much upon duty-faith, beware how they despise those with whom they pretend, in the free-grace part of their creed to be one. This duty-faith doctrine is no new heresy; it is one of the last leprous spots of popery, that marked nearly all the Puritan Fathers; but still, it is high time that this black spot was taken away; it ought to be cast to the moles and to the bats; it makes empty the soul of the hungry, and causes the drink of the thirsty to fail. It aims to tie truth and error together. But why then have some good men preached this duty-faith doctrine? They have preached it for these two reasons: first, because they have thought that they have found it in the letter of the Word; and second, that they have not faith enough in God to trust him with his own truth, and therefore to make up this their lack of faith in God, they exercise a little faith in the creature; and, fearing God will not begin the work soon enough, they appeal to the creature to begin at once as it is, say they, his duty to do. They feel that they ought to speak to the dry bones as well as to the living bones, and they are not content to prophecy as the Word commands, but must call upon the dry hones to help themselves; and so, after confessing, tacitly deny the state men are in by nature, and though their duty-faith doctrine be a broken tooth, and a foot out of joint, yet they still have great confidence in it, and while they thus try to serve two gospels, they are faithful to neither. The Lord open their eyes and set them right.”
J. Brine: “What is that Faith which they maintain, is the Duty of unconverted Sinners? It is a Belief of the Truth of the Report of the Gospel concerning Jesus Christ, in his Person, Offices, and Benefits. This he asserts to be saving Faith, than which there is nothing more false. Thus the Devils believe: Thus Simon Magus believed; and such a Faith as this is a Man may carry to Hell along with him. It is merely a rational Act excited in the Mind by rational Evident. This is not a Sinner’s fleeing to, receiving of, and resting on the Lord Jesus Christ alone for Salvation.”
J. Foreman: “If duty faith were a truth, it must have some meaning with God in regard to salvation; and such a meaning too, as that if it were the universal duty of all men, wherever the gospel comes, to believe unto salvation, then salvation would be as universal as the spread of the gospel, if all men did but do their duty. And the great reason at last -why salvation is not as universal as the spread of the gospel, will be because all men did not do their duty. And so salvation finally, will not be so extensive as it might have been, if all men had but done their duty; nor so extensive as it ought to have been, if all men ought as their duty to have believed unto salvation; nor so extensive as God himself expected, if, as a duty, he expected all men where the gospel came to believe unto salvation. This brings all the counsels, purposes, covenant settlements, revealed truths, promises, and acts of the grace of God unto salvation, into immediate subjection to, and a waiting for the duty of man; and that too in such a way, as that the duty of man, and not the good pleasure of God’s will, shall and must determine the final issue of the whole! I can make nothing more or less than this, of the duty of all, where the gospel comes, to believe unto salvation. Nor can I make any thing more or less than this of your answer to Mr. Wright’s Letter in the Primitive Church Magazine. But, in my view, this is as opposite to every Bible truth, to every thing in the name and nature of the grace of God, to every thing belonging to the great and gracious name of God which he will have glorified, and to the nature of lost man’s condition, in relation to the eternal salvation of souls, as darkness is to light, and as Belial is to Christ: see Rom 9: 15,16, 18, 23, 24; 11: 5-7; Isaiah 66: 8; John 1: 13; John 15: 16; Prov 19: 21; John 10: 26. And how any man can hold the above ideas of duty faith unto salvation, and have the countenance at the same time to profess to hold election, and particular redemption, and for the real sight of, and entry into, the kingdom of God, the necessity and indispensability of regeneration, or the new birth, by the immediate agency of the Holy Ghost, I am entirely at a loss to know, for I cannot make it out.”
Jared Smith served twenty years as pastor of a Strict and Particular Baptist church in Kensington (London, England). He now serves as an Evangelist in the Philippines, preaching the gospel, organizing churches and training gospel preachers.
Jared Smith on Eldership
Jared Smith on the Biblical Covenants
Jared Smith on the Gospel Law
Jared Smith on the Gospel Message
Jared Smith on Various Issues
Jared Smith, Covenant Baptist Church, Philippines
Jared Smith on Bible Doctrine
Jared Smith on Bible Reading
Jared Smith's Studies in Romans
Jared Smith's Hymn Studies
Jared Smith's Maternal Ancestry (Complete)
Jared Smith's Sermons
