"The doctrine of eternal Two Seedism is that in the work which we call regeneration, an eternal child, or eternal spirit, comes down from God out of heaven and takes up its abode in the Adam man, and remains in the Adam man until the man dies; then that eternal child goes back to God where it came from, and the Adam man goes to the grave and remains there forever. Thus the Adam man is not a subject of salvation. It is also taught that there are two families in the flesh - that Cain was a child of the devil by ordinary generation, and that Seth was a child of God by ordinary generation - that there are two families existing in the flesh - the family of God and the family of the devil, and that these two families have continued to exist all along from then until now. This is their teaching, although we have not learned how the devil got his family across the flood. These are some of the teachings of the Two Seed system, which we think are enough to show that the system is false."
It is interesting to all historians of the "Primitive" or "Old School" Baptists to notice that in the early part of the twentieth century that several tenets of Two Seedism were still being debated among them. In several posts of former years I have cited the following words from Elder Sylvester Hassell, written near the end of the nineteenth century:
"...the heathenish perversions of Scriptural truth set forth by Eld. Daniel Parker, of Tennessee, about 1835, in his pamphlet called "My Views on the Two Seeds," have corrupted Primitive Baptist doctrine more, and rent off more members and churches from our fellowship, than any and all other causes combined. In the census of 1890, the Two-Seed Baptists claim to have 333 churches and 9,932 members in 33 States, the largest membership being 2,019 in Texas, 1,270 in Tennessee, 1,230 in Arkansas, 965 in Kentucky, 840 in Mississippi, 668 in Missouri, 641 in West Virginia, 538 in Alabama, 330 in Georgia, and from 10 to 194 in each of 14 other States. (The entire number of Primitive Baptists in the United States is probably about 100,000.) I am glad to have evidences that, at least in some sections, there is a strong tendency among the Two-Seed Baptists to renounce all the Parkerite corruptions of truth, and to return to the simple faith of the gospel. May it please the God of Israel soon to dispossess all their minds of the blighting Satanic delusions with which their churches have been cursed for nearly sixty years."" (The Two Seed Heresy The Gospel Messenger--March 1894)
Cayce in the above words gives a limited description of Two Seed tenets. What he says about Two Seedism is true as regards that segment of Two Seeders known as Two Seed in the Flesh Predestinarian Baptists though not Two Seed in the Spirit Predestinarian Baptists. Daniel Parker held the latter view, not believing that it was by physical generation or procreation that children of God or children of the Devil were produced, but by a spiritual generation through sin. Also note how there were still many Two Seed churches, said Hassell, at the end of the 19th century. He does not mention the fact, however, that even among his own fellowship of "Primitive Baptist" churches that there still remained many remnants of Two Seed ideology: And, as we will see further from the early 20th century writings of Cayce, there were still battles going on over Two Seed ideas.
In chapter twenty eight of this series I cited from history professor John G. Crowley and his book "Primitive Baptists of the Wiregrass South" (1999), who is himself a "Primitive Baptist," who said on page 133 of that book that one could still find Two-Seed doctrines expounded by today's "Primitive Baptists," "if one knows where to go and what to listen for." (page 133) We can see that in several ways, as we have seen. In the first couple decades of the twentieth century Elder Cayce is still having to deal with remnants of Two Seedism still existing within the denomination.
In an editorial titled "The New Birth" for the December 12, 1916 issue of "The Primitive Baptist," he wrote:
"The following article was written by Elder F. A. Chick, and was first published in the Primitive Monitor of February 15, 1890, and was copied on the editorial page of THE PRIMITIVE BAPTIST of September 13, 1894. Elder R. W. Thompson was editor of the Monitor when the article appeared in that paper, and is still the editor of that paper. This article shows what position our father occupied at that time, and what this paper stood for then."
Apparently there were still debates going on in 1916 about whether Cayce, like others, held to some tenets of Two Seedism. Cayce denied any change of views and cites what was published by his father in the "Primitive Baptist" periodical for September 13, 1894 to prove it. He cites from the article by Elder Chick on one of the Two Seed tenets dealing with what is meant by "old man" and "new man" in the writings of the apostle Paul. In previous chapters we have seen what the Two Seeders believed about the significance of these terms, and how it was a hotly debated point.
Chick wrote (emphasis mine):
"First, you ask me what I understand by the terms old man and new man."
"First, I desire to call attention to this one consideration, viz.: that the “new man” is not addressed and told to put off the old man, neither is the “old man” addressed and told to put on the new man. But Paul is addressing his brethren...And he says to these believing men and women that they should do this, or that have done this, viz.: have put off the old man and have put on the new. Here, if I may so speak, are three men instead of two. But, indeed, the expression, old man and new man, are simply figurative expressions for the two opposing principles which every believer finds dwelling in his own heart and waging ceaseless warfare there. We are not to suppose for a moment that the apostle means that we are to understand by these terms two fully developed men, with soul, body and spirit in each, and both dwelling in us, you and I, who constitute a third distinct man or woman. It seems to me that anyone who has the slightest acquaintance with the use of figures of speech would see at a glance that the apostle had no such meaning as this."
I believe Chick is right in his interpretation. The "new man" is not an eternal child of God who was begotten in Christ from eternity, nor does it denote a part of a man that has been regenerated, nor is it anything implanted within a man. The "old man" is the person who is lost in sin and who is guided by his own understanding and by the world, having the world's values and beliefs about God and morality. The "new man" is the person who has been converted to Christ and who is guided by the Spirit and word of God and has Christ as his example.
In another editorial titled "The Inner and Outer Man AN OLD EDITORIAL" for the February 6, 1917 issue of his paper Cayce wrote:
"It has been charged that we have changed - that we are not advocating now what we advocated a few years ago. We publish the article below to show that we have not changed - that we believe now just exactly what we did when the following article was written by our father, Elder S. F. Cayce, and published in THE PRIMITIVE BAPTIST of August 19, 1892. C. H. C.
THE ARTICLE
"The text which speaks of the children being partakers of flesh and blood will be found in (Hebrews 2:14)...The term, "partakers of flesh and blood," then, has no reference whatever to the work of regeneration nor to anything done at that time, but is only expressive of the kind of characters Jesus came to save - not eternal spirits, but sinners, "partakers of flesh and blood, those embraced in the covenant of grace and heirs according to promise..."
Recall what we observed about Hebrews 2: 14 and its interpretation by Elder Gilbert Beebe and how he thought that it taught that not only did Christ preexist before his incarnation, so too did the people of God preexist in Christ before their incarnation. Elder S.F. Cayce rightly rejects that view saying the text "is only expressive of the kind of characters Jesus came to save - not eternal spirits."
S.F. Cayce wrote further:
"Having shown that we understand this term, "partakers of flesh and blood," to be expressive of the kind of characters Jesus came to save, or of the condition His covenant people are in, or who they are, I will next give the three places in which Paul uses the expression "inner" or "inward" man, in one of which it will be observed that he also uses the term "outward" man, and of course the idea of such a term (outward or outer man) is conveyed in the other quotations also, as the inner or inward man is mentioned. "For I delight in the law of God after the inward man." (2) (Romans 7:22). "For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day." (II Corinthians 4:16). "That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man." (Ephesians 3:16). A careful reading and examination of these verses, and their connection, will certainly show that Paul was referring to two natures, or two principles, possessed by the child of God, one of which he calls the inner or inward man and the other the outward man. Not that there are two persons (or men) dwelling in the body, it (the body) being only a hull or dwelling place for the two; that is not it at all. But the child of God, having been born of the flesh first, born of Adam, has a nature or principle about him that is of the flesh or of Adam, and this Paul calls the outer man, and as he has been born of God, born again, he has also another principle, nature, or disposition about him, which Paul calls the inner or inward man. Especially does the apostle make it plain in (Romans 7) (entire chapter) that this is what he means by the expressions, inner, or inward, man and outward man. Having been born of Adam and afterwards born of God, Paul, like all others who have been born again, was a complex being had a principle or disposition that was common to his nature as a child of Adam and also another principle or disposition that was the result of "being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever, are "by nature children of wrath, even as others."
I don't think that the "inner man" and the "outer man" denote the same thing as Paul's "old man" vs "new man." We have addressed this issue in previous chapters. In other words the "inner man" is not simply another title for "new man" and "outer man" is not simply another title for "old man." The following text makes this clear:
"Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day." (II Cor. 4: 16 nkjv)
Here it is clear that the "outward man" is the physical body that houses the soul and spirit. The "inward man" is the incorporeal part of man, denoting his soul and spirit. The term "old man" denotes the man who is unsaved, the man who was "shapen in iniquity" and "conceived in sin." (Psa. 51: 5) That old man is ruled by self, by Satan, by sin, and by the ungodly world. Paul described him as being "dead in tresspasses and sins" and who "walks according to the course of this world" and "according to the prince of the power of the air" and according to "the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience" and who "conducts himself by the lusts of the flesh" and is governed by "the desires of the flesh and of the mind" and who is "by nature a child of wrath." (Eph. 2: 1-3 nkjv)
On the other hand, the new man is the man who now has Christ living in him and governing him, and who is steadily being conformed to the image of Christ. We addressed how these terms, old man and new man, are used and defined in scripture in chapters fourteen and fifteen. The "new man" is the ideal man, or "the perfect man," as exhibited in the man Christ Jesus. So Paul wrote:
"till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." (Eph. 4: 13 nkjv)
"Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me." (Phil. 3: 12 nkjv)
S. F. Cayce wrote further:
"All this shows that Paul not only calls that new principle or disposition which we receive in being born of God the new man, but he admonishes us to live after, or follow, its leadings or promptings and to keep in subjection the leadings or promptings of the old principle or disposition, the leadings of the outward man. And Peter also would teach the same lesson in his instruction to the sisters of the church, (Pet 3:3) (I Peter 3:3-4): Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price."
