Garrett stated:
"Does David Pyles agree with Jason? That the elect who hear the gospel will believe it? Are those who are preaching this being well received by today's Hardshells? Does he agree with Jason that the split with the Absoluters should not have occurred? Again, what will today's Hardshells think of that?"
I cannot speak for Elder David Pyles definitively. I have corresponded with him in years past in a few emails in which he testified to me from his travels that only a minor group of Primitive Baptists were given over to universalism and an unbiblical application of conditional time salvation. Elder David is an agreement with the idea that the Bible presents unbelief in the gospel as characteristic of the eternally damned, as can be seen from his article online, "Extent of the Gospel", which Garrett has reviewed and criticized on the "Baptist Gadfly".
Yet, he allows, as I allow, that the elect can be hindered in obedience to the gospel, and that God has blessed some of the elect with a greater knowledge of the gospel than others, as can be seen by contrasting Old and New Testament believers.
I have read him argue on his list server at pb.org, before he dissolved it, that he believed that Mark 16:16 evidences the general truth that, of those that do hear the preached gospel by man, one that does not believe it shall be eternally damned and he that does believe it will be eternally saved.
I do not believe there is any disagreement with him and his father, Elder Sonny, as he mentioned in email correspondence to me Elder Sonny's rejection of universalist applications of Conditional Time Salvation, and Elder Sonny states in his sermon (available here: http://www.primitivebaptistsermons.org/sermons.php?page=75&st=&searchFor= - select the "Will All the Elect Hear and Obey the Gospel" that is divided into two parts, as the one shown as Gal. 3:8 on the same topic is the same sermon with the beginning minutes cut off) that unbiblical teaching of conditional time salvation was used to justify universalism. Their views from preaching on this subject seem to be harmonious.
The only theoretical point of difference I have been able to infer between David and Sonny Pyles is that Elder David seems to subscribe to an instrumental view of justification, and all the sermons I have ever heard in which teaching on justification has come up from Elder Sonny (And I have listened to everything available) evidences Elder Sonny's support of eternal justification. This "difference" would have very little practical application as they both view the effectual call to be of the Spirit alone, and would only be evident in the precise application of certain texts like, Ephes. 2:8 in terms of whether the 'through faith' indicates instrumentality to the end of eternal life or references a subjective knowledge of eternal salvation.
I just listened to a magnificent sermon by Sonny Pyles on 1 John 3:9 (Whosoever is Born of God http://www.primitivebaptistsermons.org/sermons.php?page=74&st=&searchFor=) in which Pyles argued for a positional, eternal application of this text by virtue of the elect being born into the relation of the family of God. The full appreciation of such a sermon is not possible unless one understands the systematic consistency of such an emphasis in the larger context of an eternal covenant.
Where I might proffer a caveat to this emphasis of fully delineating fellowship from relationship in 1 John, and I do so with much caution in deference to Elder Sonny, is how the succeeding text of 1 John applies the relational, positional truth of 3:9: "In THIS the children of God ARE MANIFEST, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother." There is clearly here a presumption of fellowship in those truly related. I would suspect that such a caveat as I offer would not be far from Elder David's consideration.
As reagrding Absoluters, I do not know his precise view. Most Primitive Baptist Absoluters enthusiastically affirm God's causative and positive relationship to sin in a way that is unscriptural. I don't think these could be fellowshipped. But, regarding the views of Hassell or Oliphant in regard to Romans 8:28, or God's absolute Providence, I doubt very seriously that Elder David Pyles would accuse them of teaching the Absoluter heresy proper: that God's attitude to sin is the same as God's attitude toward grace and holiness. As far as I know, he fully agrees with the Fulton brethren. Some ignorant Primitive Baptists accuse the Fulton brethren of being Absoluters as well, which I think I can safely presume that Elder David would deny.
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