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Sunday, October 30, 2005

Avoid Extreems

Avoid Extreems
Sylvester Hassell

ADVOCATE AND MESSENGER
DEVOTED TO THE CAUSE OF TRUTH AND RIGHTEOUSNESS
R. H. PITTMAN, Editor - - - SYLVESTER HASSELL, Assoc. Editor


Williamston, N.C., December 1927

IN AVOIDING ONE EXTREME, DO NOT FALL INTO ANOTHER


In the narrow Straits of Messina, between Italy and Sicily, with a strong current, and almost a mile's depth of water, there are two rocks, not far apart, Scylla and Charybdis, and navigation between them was dangerous, so that there was an ancient saying--'In shunning Scylla, do not fall upon Charybdis.' For nearly a hundred years the most of Primitive Baptists have carefully avoided falling upon the Scylla of Fatalism, and, in doing so, I am sorry to learn that a few of them seem to be about to fall upon the Charybdis of Arminianism. I rejoice to believe that the Lord has kept the great majority of our people from being wrecked upon either of these ruinous unscriptural extremes. Falling upon either would destroy the Primitive Baptist cause. Not only is the salvation of sinners perfectly gracious, but it is also a salvation from the reigning love, power, and practice of sin. Being naturally dead in sin, we can do nothing to save ourselves from our lost condition; but the salvation which the Lord, according to His sovereign and eternal purpose, by the atonement of His Son and the regeneration of His Spirit, gives freely to all His loved and chosen people, is a holy salvation. He chooses them to obedience, predestinates them to be conformed to the likeness of His Son. He begins the work of grace in their hearts, and finishes it in the resurrection and glorification of their bodies at His second personal coming to the world. His word abounds in exhortations, not to those who are spiritually dead, but to those who are spiritually alive--exhortations to obedience to Him and submission to Him, and only by the grace of Christ who strengthens them can they overcome indwelling sin, and be obedient and submissive to Him. No man or angel has anything to do with the eternal salvation of any sinner. It is the sole work of the eternal, infinite, Omnipresent, Omniscient, and Omnipotent God, who is a consuming fire to sin in every being and every form, and who alone saves His people from sin, and is a jealous God, and will not give His glory to another.
He teaches those whom His living and holy Spirit has made alive and caused to mourn for their sins, and to hunger and thirst after righteousness, and it is those, His children, whom He exhorts, reproves, corrects, comforts, and preserves to the fulness of holiness and joy in the heaven of eternal glory. Let us not pervert His holy word in order to lead off disciples after ourselves. We should, in all things, speak according to the pure and infallible oracles of God. And thus speaking and acting, we will be one as the Father and Son are one.
Sylvester Hassell

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