Hardshell Heretical Statements

The following are some absurd, wacky, and heretical statements mad by a Hardshell apologist.

"This birth is the beginning of the Christian experience, and all that is ever seen, felt, heard, and known of grace in this world, or glory in the world to come, is but the development of the life imparted in this birth. All knowledge of Christ is vital or experimental knowledge; this includes all knowledge of the need of Christ. I once thought that the time when a child of grace received his hope and experienced deliverance was when he was born again; but I have come to a different conclusion. Who can remember when he was born naturally? Let the mind run back to childhood, to our earliest recollections, even to the very borders of infancy; but our birth was prior to that. All things fade from our memory, and we are lost in a sea of oblivion, and still the time of our birth is not reached. We grew into the domain of memory, passing through a long stage of which we know nothing at all. Think back over your spiritual experience; you were to many Ebenezers, to many milestones and memorable places; you approach the time when hope came to you, a helpless sinner; but the birth was before this. You pass on to the time when you first realized that you were a sinner indeed; but the birth was before this, and this was only the result of it. How long before you felt the first movements of soul, I cannot tell, but life was before this. Those who place their birth upon conditions to be complied with by those receiving it, have never seen the necessity of it. If a man can repent of his sins and believe in Jesus before he is born again, then the Scriptures are not true. This notion of religion puts the cart before the horse, puts the fruit before the tree, the effect before the cause."

"One of the best evidences that any one has ever had that he is born again is that he is personally concerned about his own case."

"...the import and necessity of the birth are only communicated through the birth itself."

"The knowledge of sin is one of the brightest evidences that you will ever have that you have passed from death unto life."

"Belief in Jesus is an effect of the new birth, and consequently an evidence of it."

"Believing in Jesus is brought about by the new birth."

("THE NEW BIRTH" By H. M. Curry)

http://www.mountzionpbc.org/Pdf/vol4no3.pdf

Friends, this is classic Hardshellism or Hyper Calvinism. It puts regeneration before faith and repentance, and makes these things non essential to it or to final salvation. It gives a non scriptural definition and description of the experience of the new birth, watering it down to almost nothing, a "hollow log" experience (see earlier chapters on the "Hollow Log Doctrine").

Can you believe a man would affirm that a knowledge of sin is an evidence of biblical regeneration? No wonder the Hardshells have historically had difficulties with "No Hellism" and "Universalism"!