Garrett's Error

Steven Garrett has allowed his passion to overrule reason in regard to his opposition to the Primitive Baptists. I have stated in my first post that Garrett believes that the Primitive Baptist doctrine of immediate regeneration was contrived by them in the context of the anti-mission split among the Baptists in 1832.

Garrett quotes Bob Ross:

"This argumentation takes us back to one of the founding fathers of the PB denomination, to Elder Gilbert Beebe. Wrote Bob Ross:

"Gilbert Beebe (1800-1881), editor of the Signs of the Times magazine, the foremost Anti-mission periodical following the 1832 split, was perhaps the first one -- at least, one of the first -- to propagate this new theory of "direct speaking" regeneration. He says: "The word of the Lord, which is Spirit, and which is life, which liveth and abideth forever, is that by which regeneration is affected; not MERELY by the Scriptures in their LETTER, not reading or preaching them, but the words which Jesus himself SPEAKS to the individual persons who are made to hear and live." [Compilation of Editorial Articles, Vol. IV, pages 21, 22]. This theory gives precedence of power to the spoken words of Christ, which He supposedly speaks directly to the individual. Notice that the "speaking," according to Beebe, PRECEDES the "hearing" and the "life." This would mean that Christ speaks to the "dead alien sinner" BEFORE the sinner is "alive." Therefore, the Word of Christ is addressed to the "dead," yet the Hardshells object to the Baptist position that the Gospel, or Word, is to be preached to the "dead," and is accompanied by the Holy Spirit in pursuance of God's sovereign purpose in effectual calling." (History and Heresies of Hardshell Baptists, chapter 6)

http://calvinistflyswatter.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_archive.html

Brother Ross responded well to this "hybrid" and "novel" idea."

The idea that immediate regeneration was a "novel" doctrine is historical fiction. Again, Garrett seems to confuse opposition to the doctrine of immediate regeneration with opposition to a separaton of immediate regeneration from the gospel as preached by men. Garrett's true objection seems to be the latter. It is a historical fact that many Puritan Divines believed that the actual act of regeneration was not mediated through the preached word, e.g. Samuel Hopkins. Many modern Reformed Theologians take this view as well, like R.C. Sproul. The idea that this doctrine originated in 1832 is preposterous. What Garrett must mean is that the total separation of the preached gospel from the immediate act of regeneration was/is a Primitive Baptist contrivance.

However, to even attribute this to Beebe seems inaccurate, as even by Garrett's admission in various blogs John Gill is inconsistent in portraying the preached gospel as a means of the Spirit in regeneration. Obviously, for Gill to hedge on this issue speaks to an ongoing climate within Christendom way before Beebe that was to some degree uncertain about gospel instrumentality in regeneration. The idea that Baptist Theologians and Puritan Divines before Beebe were all consistently on the same page about gospel instrumentality in regeneration oversteps what can be rationally established; indeed, to make such a generalization of history attests to an irrational fervor that marks a personal vendetta.

The unscriptural application of the doctrine of immediate regeneration among many modern Primitive Baptists is when they make gospel rejection the norm for regenerate children of God. This rejection of the gospel certainly does not follow logically from the simple idea that regeneration precedes gospel faith. An underlying universalism or quasi-universalism is truly to be blamed. Indeed, the Scripture provides ample proof that the preaching of the cross is the power of God to them that are saved (1 Cor. 1:18). It is the nature of those that are regenerate to embrace in faith the revelation available to them. Gospel rejection is a fruit of the eternally damned (Mark 16:16, 2 Thes. 1:7-9).

So it is vain to oppose the ridiculous conclusions of some modern Primitive Baptists by an attack on the doctrine of immediate regeneration, as the real culprit is an underlying universalism.