Two Seed Baptist Ideology (VI)

In the next few chapters we will once again look at the Two Seed doctrine of the preexistence of both the human soul of Christ and of the souls of the elect and how Two Seeders believe that the "begetting" of the Son of God occurred before the foundation of the world and had nothing to do with his being divine but with him being human, and when Christ' human soul was begotten so too were his elect people (or bride) likewise begotten or created in him. This is why this Two Seed belief is called "the eternal children doctrine." It involves the idea of the preexistence of souls, an idea that did not originate with the Two Seeders, as many religions believe in it. 

In beginning this section we will first give citations from Two Seeders to show what is their belief about the preexistence of the human nature of Christ and of the preexistence of the souls of the elect. We have already given extensive citations from Two Seeders in years gone by and in this series I will give some of those citations as a prelude to a further elaboration on that point. I will show how two major ideas from earlier times helped to produce Two Seedism. The first was the heresy of Arianism and the second was the idea that Christ's human soul was created when he was "begotten" of the Father before the world began. 

For my previous writings on Two Seedism's belief in "eternal vital union" see (here) and (here) together with others that I will mention as we go along. I have three postings on this heresy of the Two Seed Baptists and you can read them in the blog that contains all my previous writings on Two Seedism. There is a link to that blog on this page in the list of links titled "Two Seed Baptists." In beginning this section of our present series we will cite from those previous postings to give the reader a synopsis of what is involved in this Two Seed idea. 

What Is Eternal Vital Union?

In the debate that Lemuel Potter (a leader in the "Primitive Baptist Church" in the latter half of the nineteenth century and former Two Seeder) had with W.P. Throgmorton, Dr. Throgmorton said (See here ):

"Is Brother Potter responsible for the two-seeders among his people? or is Dr. Watson? He admits that they have a considerable party of two-seeders among them, in their denomination; and so does Dr. Watson. I will read some about them. This will not be so funny to the old brethren. O, no! They will not like to hear this. What do those two-seeders among the Hardshells believe? Dr. Watson's Old Baptist Test, page 292:

2. They believe there is an uncreated-self existent, eternal evil spirit, or devil, intelligent, wicked, cunning and antagonistic to God.

3. They say that the soul of Christ is uncreated and eternal.

4. They fancy that the souls of the children of God, or the elect, are uncreated and eternal and were always in actual union with God."

Now, Brother Potter talks pretty hard against that doctrine in his book. But I think they have quite a respectable portion who believe it.

8. "They deny the resurrection of the bodies of the just and unjust."

These two-seeders do, and there is a considerable party of them, among Mr. Potter's people, mark you. And what does Potter say about those that deny the resurrection? He says that they virtually deny the whole Gospel of Christ; they do not only say that Christ did not rise, but that we are yet in our sins." (166)

I wrote the following in a post titled "Eternal Vital Union" (See here), citing Gilbert Beebe's comments on James 1: 18 which says "Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures." 

Testifies Elder Gilbert Beebe

"Perhaps the means renders will try to make some capital of the words “with the word of his power,” construing the word of his power to imply instrumentality. One of two things must be intended by these words: “With the word,” they were begotten by the Father of lights, spoken of in the context. Christ is the only begotten of the Father; but as a begotten emanation from the Godhead, he is the life of his people, head of his body, the church, mediator, &c.; as God he is self-existent, equally with the Father; but as the life and immortality of his spiritual body, he is the beginning of the creation of God, and the first born of every creature; and in this sense he only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, [not even by the magic Power of means,] whom no man hath seen nor can see; to whom be honor and power everlasting’. Amen. Now the one production of spiritual life was what we understand to be the begetting of both the head and the body, so that if Christ as the Word is intended by James, the saints have a common origin with Christ their head, and both be that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one, for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren." 

Gilbert Beebe and Samuel Trott, the two leading writers for the "Signs of the Times," here promote their own version of Daniel Parker's "Two Seedism." Who would have ever interpreted James 1: 18 in the absurd fashion of these Two Seed Hardshells? (See here) From the expressed belief of Beebe in the above words we can see why his view was identified as being "Arianism" by other Hardshells who rejected these ideas. In the above citation, however, Beebe does not deny the deity or divinity of Christ, but denies that his being begotten as the Son of God was designed to demonstrate it. This reminds me of my early days as a Hardshell Baptist elder when a leading minister, Conrad Jarrell, and a few other younger elders, such as Jackie Mott, taught that Jesus being begotten referred to his being born a human being. Their idea was that the second person of the Trinity was God and as such was called the "Word of God," and denied that the second person was God because of being begotten. It caused a stir among the Hardshells and both Jarrell and Mott were forced to form their own sub cult. These brethren argued as do the Arians and Beebe that a son who is begotten cannot be equal with his father. They denied the traditional orthodox view called "eternal generation," the belief that Christ being the begotten Son cannot be an event that took place in time, nor be in every respect like human begetting.

In an article titled "ROMANS 8: 38.39 Eternal Vital Union and Its Blessings," Gilbert Beebe wrote:

"Consequently if there ever was a period in time or eternity when any of the members of His church were NOT IN HIM, then there has been a period when His body was not full. But to imagine the existence of a Head without a body, or a body without a Head, or a perfect and complete Head, and an imperfect and deficient body, does not suit our understanding of the declaration that it pleased the Father that in Him all fulness should dwell. (Col. 1:19)" 

"All the members of Christ are IN HIM, even as the eternal Father is in Him. He is the dwelling place (not of one-third part of the Godhead, as some seem to understand it,) but of ALL the fullness of the Godhead. “That they all may be one, as thou Father art in Me and I in Thee, that they also may be one IN US.” “I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect IN ONE,’ &c. (John 17:21-23)."

"If the church is in Christ as the eternal Father is in Him, must they not have been in Him from everlasting?"

“Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He [Christ] also Himself likewise [or in like manner} took part of the same.” (Heb. 2:14) His children partaking of flesh and blood, shows that their relationship to God as children was perfect before they partook of flesh and blood; and that participation of flesh and blood no more constituted them children, than Christ’s coming into the world, and “also Himself likewise partaking of the same,” constituted Him the Son of God, or the Head of Immortality to His body, the church."

Beebe believed that "Christ" was eternally begotten by the Father (and this is not to say that he is God by this begetting), or produced (created) in the manner believed by the Arians. As a caveat, however, what he meant by "eternally begotten" was that he was begotten before the world began, not that he has always been the Son of God. The term "Son of God" does not denote Christ's divinity, but his composite nature, as part divine, part human, and a third part, a hybrid mixture of the two (thus three natures). 

Many held, as I will show, to the belief that this created (begotten) Christ involved the preexistence of the human soul and/or body of Christ, and some went further and believed that all the elect were created or begotten in Christ when he was created and begotten before the world began. So, not only did Christ preexist before his incarnation (being made flesh) but so too did the elect preexist in Christ, and had a vital or seminal union with him.

In "ETERNAL VITAL UNION," Beebe wrote the following things on the subject. [Republished by request of brother Isaac N. Moon in The 1880 volume of The Signs of The Times, page 81-82] (See here)

"But the question still may arise, how, or in what sense, we the saints in Christ Jesus before the world began?"

"As the seed of Abraham existed in him before any of them we born; and being thus in him, unto them God gave the land of Canaan, before any of them were manifested by generation. God made Abraham the father of many nations, long before any of these nations were developed. Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living; and that too, before any of her children were born. But the life of all the posterity of which Abraham was the father was in him, and though not manifested to men, they were personally identified by God; for Levi paid tithes unto Melchisedec, when he was yet in the loins of his great-grandfather Abraham. If the life of all the human family had not been in Adam, how could their development by generation and birth been regarded as a multiplication of Adam? God blessed Adam and bade him be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth. And in this, Adam is the “figure of Him that was to come,” which is Christ. And in covenant with Abraham, God said, “Surely blessing I will bless thee; and multiplying I will multiply thee.”"

"Our being born into the natural world did not make us the sons and daughters of Adam; but our original creation in him as his posterity, is that which constitutes the relationship, and our birth is but the manifestation of it. Our generation is the manifestation of that life which was given us in Christ, and makes us manifest as the children of God."

"Thus to be IN Jesus Christ seminally, as the spiritual embodiment and progenitor of “a seed that shall serve Him, and be counted to the Lord for a generation,” according to Psalms 22:30; Isaiah 53:10-12; I Peter 2:9, involves the Bible doctrine of eternal Union. A union of life, love and immortality. One with Christ even as Christ is one with the Father." 

"A birth is not the creation or origination of life, but the manifestation of life by what is called procreation. Our earthly nature which in Christians is called the old, or outward man, was created in Adam, but pro-created by natural generation. But that immortality which is in the Christian, and which is denominated the new, or the inward man, was given us in Jesus Christ, and is manifested by spiritual generation when born of God."

Of course, as the opponents of eternal vital union showed, no one has an actual existence prior to his creation and birth in the womb. Yes, they were foreknown, loved, and chosen, but only because God foresaw them before they existed. Yes, all men were "in" Adam not only by representation, but seminally (physically), as containing or contributing the seed of later generations. However, the teaching that all souls or spirits were created in Adam is not an indisputable fact. Were the souls or spirits of the elect created in Adam or in Christ before the world began? It seems the Two Seeders cannot logically have it both ways. Many of them said that only the souls of the non-elect were "in" Adam when he was created, for the souls of the elect were "in" Christ when he was begotten sometime in eternity past.

It is not appropriate to say that the elect were "in" Christ seminally when he was begotten (either in eternity past or in the womb of the virgin). The way one is joined to Christ vitally, according to the new testament, is to be born again by faith. So Jesus taught that one must eat his flesh and drink his blood in order to have him enter into the heart, mind, and spirit. (John 6: 53-57) This partaking of Christ is done in the mind when it receives the message of the gospel of Christ. 

Also, the begetting of the Son of God was not a creation of the man Christ. Christ, as man, did not exist till he was conceived in the womb of the virgin Mary. Two of the oft cited scriptures of the Two Seeders were those which speak of Christ as being the "beginning of the creation of God." (Rev. 3: 14; Col. 1: 15). They interpret such verses in an Arian fashion, except that they say they involve him being a mediator, and having both a God nature and a human from the time he was created or begotten. The doctrine of eternal vital union, and the preexistence of souls, is interwoven with serious errors on the doctrine of the Trinity.

One of the verses that has been cited to disprove that the elect preexisted with Christ in eternity past, or were "in him" before the world began, is the one from Paul who said of two named Christians that "they were in Christ before me" (Rom. 16: 7). If all the elect were literally in Christ from eternity, then how can one be in Christ before another? 

In my writings in "The Hardshell Baptist Cult" and copied for this blog (and the "Two Seed Baptists" blog) I had two chapters titled "Eternal Children Doctrine" and I want to cite from those two chapters. In the first (See here) I wrote:

Elder Gilbert Beebe - "INCARNATION OF THE CHILDREN OF GOD"

"...the participation of the children of God of flesh and blood, and the incarnation of the Son of God, are placed on the same ground, and based upon the same principle, by the inspired apostle in his epistle to the Hebrews: "Forasmuch, then, as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same." [2:14] To our mind, this text is a key to the subject..."

Beebe interpreted Hebrews 2: 14 as saying that the children of God became incarnate just as Jesus. As Jesus existed before his being made flesh, so too did the children of God. However, that is not what the text is saying. 

Now I want to go back in history to the late 17th and early 19th century and cite from some "high" or "hyper" Calvinists, some of whom were Baptists, who believed that the human soul of Christ was conceived when he was begotten by the Father and that this idea, like the idea of Manichaeistic dualism, and the idea of the preexistence of souls, came from other sources and were blended together in Two Seedism.

In "THE EMERGENCE OF HYPER-CALVINISM IN ENGLISH NONCONFORMITY 1689–1765" (here) well known author Peter Toon writes the following in chapter one titled "CALVIN AND CALVINISM" and under the sub-title "Modifications in the doctrine of the Trinity." Wrote Toon (all emphasis mine):

"Not a few “Calvinists” found the doctrine of the Trinity as explained in the traditional Creeds and Confessions difficult to accept. In his lectures on the Larger Catechism, Thomas Ridgley, minister of the Congregational Church which met at the Three Cranes, Thames Street, London, revealed that he found two orthodox positions untenable. He believed that the expressions “the eternal generation of the Son” and “the procession of the Holy Ghost” were absurd and unscriptural phrases. He thought of the Second Person of the Trinity as Son of God by virtue of His office as Mediator and not through eternal generation by the Father. Yet he did not deny the equality of the Son with the Father and His proper eternity." (pg. 47)

This was the view of Beebe. Beebe actually believed that Christ had three natures, a human, a divine, and a mediatorial. He also connected Christ's being begotten by the Father with his becoming a mediator, and his becoming a mediator necessitated that he be human. Thus, if one believes that Christ functioned as a mediator before the world began, or in the old testament before his birth of Mary, then Christ must have been human before his incarnation.

Wrote Toon:

"In his The Glory of Christ Unveil’d (1706), Joseph Hussey set out his belief that the human nature of Jesus Christ existed in heaven from the agreement of the covenant of grace by the Trinity. He believed that the verses in Proverbs 8. 22 ff. referred to the Second Person as God-Man possessing the human nature before the creation of the world." (pg. 47)

Joseph Hussey was a Hyper Calvinist. He wrote several books, but the one that promotes one of the foundational beliefs of Hyper Calvinism is the book titled "God's Operations of Grace but No Offers of His Grace" (1707). Hyper Calvinism began with the denial that salvation was to be offered to lost sinners in Gospel preaching. It seems to me that Beebe, the leading apologist for Two Seed propositions, at times parroted things that Hussey taught. One was the no offers of salvation proposition, and the other was the proposition that the human soul of Christ came into being when he was "begotten" sometime in eternity past. So, Two Seed views on this are not new. However, as we will see, they also added the idea that all the souls of the elect were also begotten or created when Christ was begotten, and thus came their tenet known as the "eternal children doctrine." I have written on this proposition in chapters 37-39 in "The Hardshell Baptist Cult" book (See here). This belief in the preexistence of souls is a belief borrowed from other religions, such as Gnosticism and several Oriental religions. 

Wrote Toon:

"Isaac Watts, who had maintained a neutral position in the subscription controversy at Salters’ Hall, found himself confused by the doctrine of the Trinity for most of his life. It was in 1725 that he first gave a clear statement of his view that a human soul was joined to the Second Person of the Trinity in heaven before the creation of the world. He believed that the human race, in its creation, was modelled by God on this archetype, the God-Man, the Mediator, Who became “the first born of all creation” (Col. 1. 15). Then from Mary, the God-Man received His human flesh and form. This Christology also appeared in his "The Glory of Christ as God-Man (1746)." (pg. 48)

I have mentioned this view of the great hymn writer in the past. I strongly believe that Beebe and his fellow Two Seed Baptists not only had been influenced by reading Hussey on the preexistence of the human soul and nature of Christ, but also in reading Watts also.

When Toon says that Watts, following Hussey, affirmed that "the human race was modelled by God as the archetype," or "God-man," that he was stating the view of Primitive Baptist Two Seeders who a century later read his writings. One Hardshell article of faith affirms this teaching of Watts. In my posting titled "Bear Creek Association & Two Seedism" (See here) I wrote about how Elder Hosea Preslar (who I have cited already in this series on Two Seedism) wrote about how Two Seed ideas had been embraced by the Bear Creek Association of Primitive Baptists, an association I was part of when I was a young Hardshell preacher. I cited from that association's articles of faith that affirmed belief in what Hussey and Watts taught. In that posting I wrote the following:

"Here is what Elder Preslar wrote about the Bear Creek Association in the days just preceding the Civil War. 

 "But in the midst of all this confusion, my desire and prayer to God was that the Bear Creek Association might be saved,--saved from the many errors by which she was surrounded, (her well known enemies) And also from some erroneous things or principles, that are now in her midst, or in her ranks, going under the name of "Old Baptist;" but when named by those who are better acquainted with its signs and marks, is the old Two Seed Parkerite heresy." 

(This citation was taken from the periodical "The Primitive Baptist" after Preslar had moved back from Tennessee to his home state of North Carolina, and mingled among the Bear Creek churches)

In that posting I then cited from the articles of faith of the Bear Creek Association which read as follows:

"Article 2. We believe in the man Jesus being the first of all God's creation and the pattern of all Gods perfection in nature, providence, grace and glory, and in relative union with the Divine Word, and thus united with the whole Trinity."

This is exactly what Joseph Hussey and Isaac Watts had taught, and others too as we will see.

In the next chapter we will continue with an investigation into these Two Seed ideas about the preexistence of both the human soul of Christ and of the human souls of the elect, and the doctrine of "eternal children" and of the effects of this teaching on other areas of theology.