CIRCULAR LETTER
From the Elders, Ministers, & Messengers
Of the Several Baptist Churches Of the Western Association
Assembled at Shortwood, On May 12, 13 and 14, 1818;
"Doctrine of Election"
by Thomas Wilcox,
Plymouth Dock Baptist Church, Penn-Street.
MAINTAINING the important Doctrines of three equal Persons in the Godhead; eternal and personal Election; original Sin; particular Redemption; free Justification by the Imputed Righteousness of Christ; efficacious Grace in Regeneration; the final Perseverance of true Saints; the Resurrection of the Dead; the future Judgment; the eternal Happiness of the Righteous, and endless Misery of the Impenitent; with the congregational Order of the Churches, inviolably: To the several churches they represent, or from which they have received letter.
Grace be to you, and Peace, from God the Father, and from Jesus Christ our Lord.
Dear Brethren,
Through the tender mercy of our heavenly Father, we have been permitted to hold another annual interview, and to enjoy a renewal of the sacred pleasure which arises from the communion of Saints.
The tidings from the churches were, on the whole, pleasing; though mixed, as must be expected in the present state, with some things of a painful nature; especially from the attempts made to infect some of our churches with sentiments of an Antinomian tendency, against which we have repeatedly warned you. But we are thankful that they have not been suffered to spread farther, and trust it, will appear that the plague is stayed.*
We unite with you, Brethren, in adoring the kindness of Providence, which, during the past year, has preserved the nations of Europe in peace; whilst we deplore the manifold evils which still result to them, from the awful contest in which they were so long engaged. May the long-looked-for period soon arrive, when peace shall flow to the whole earth as a river, and righteousness as a mighty stream.
You will permit us, as friends, to our beloved country, to advert to the irreparable loss it has recently sustained, in the sudden and unexpected death of Princess Charlotte of Wales. Seldom has the Lord of all appeared to smite the rising hopes of a nation with a more untimely blast, or to call it, by so immediate and affecting a visitation from this throne, to weeping, and lamentation, and woe. He hath, indeed, caused death to come up into our palaces: we have beheld him gathering together in one, all the fairest and most attractive forms of earthly felicity, only that they might pass away in a moment, at the voice of his rebuke. We exhort you, in compliance with the monitions which this afflictive event should continue to inspire, to humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God; to supplicate the extension of his guardian care over all the future interests of Britain; and to cherish, with renewed vigilance, those convictions of the vanity of the world, and of the supreme value of the hopes and consolations of the gospel, which the Divine Spirit has already sealed upon your hearts. "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof as the flower of the field: the grass withereth, and the flower fadeth; but the word of the Lord endureth for ever, and this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you."
We now proceed, conformably to the custom enjoined upon us, to address to you the word of spiritual instruction: may we be enabled so to write, and you to receive what shall be written, as that with one heart and one mouth we may glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Several of our late annual epistles have been principally designed to illustrate the way of holiness, and to excite you to the performance of the varied duties of the Christian life: the candour and affection with which you have received these, our labours of love, afford us pleasing evidence that you are not of those who hold the truth in iniquity, and pervert the right ways of the Lord. On the present occasion, we invite your attention to the doctrine of Election, as commonly held by our churches; and thus approve our desire that, in union with the study and practice of universal righteousness, you should contend earnestly for every part of the faith once delivered unto the saints.
We are not insensible, Brethren, to the difficulties which our subject involves: we deprecate that spirit of lawless presumption which affects familiarity with the arcana of heaven, and would pry curiously into the methods of the divine decrees. Who are we, that we should darken counsel by words without knowledge; or gaze without fear where, it is probable, angels veil their faces, and cover them with their wings? It surely behoves us, in all our meditations upon the deep things of God, to cherish in our minds the most profound awe and reverence, lest we should intrude upon his province, or speak of him the thing which is not right.
On the other hand, we would not forget, that to neglect an acquaintance with the purposes of God concerning the final destiny of his intelligent creatures, so far as he has been pleased to reveal them to us in his word, is to incur the guilt of ingratitude, and to close our eyes, against a part of the light which he has condescended to shed for our instruction. Election being a truth manifestly contained in the scripture, we hesitate not to give it our decided support; how greatly soever it may be reviled by its enemies, or perverted by some of its professed friends.
The narrow limits to which we are confined, forbid us to attempt a copious illustration, or defence of this article of our faith; all we design is, to give a rapid sketch of its leading features; to justify it from charges by which it is often assailed; and to show some of the important uses to which it may and ought to be applied.
By election, we understand God's eternal, immutable, sovereign, and unconditional choice, in Jesus Christ, of a certain number of the fallen and miserable race of Adam to grace and glory. The objects of election are a part of mankind: this the very term most obviously implies; for no choice can be made except where some persons or things only are taken, and the rest are passed by, or left. How many, or how few, of the children of men, relatively considered, God may have chosen to himself, we presume not to inquire: his elect have been known, in every age of the world, as a feeble and scattered remnant; but when their aggregate number shall be counted up, on mount Zion above, they will exhibit a vast multitude, in whose complete and distinguished felicity the purposes of his love will be glorified for ever.
=============== [From a photocopy of the original at Regents Park College, Angus Library, Oxford, England. -- jrd]
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