To Hardshell Terry Krueger

To Terry Krueger

I have gotten a few comments lately from Hardshell Terry Krueger who has asked that I look at what Samuel Richardson wrote on "eternal justification" in his well known treatise called "Justification by Christ Alone" and of the comments made about it by Elder Michael Gowens in an article that is getting plenting of high praise from the "Primitive Baptists."

I have already dealt with this nonsense that was written by Elder Gowens and have shown how he misinterpreted Samuel Richardson on this subject, and I also showed that Richardson believed that faith in Christ, through the gospel, was necessary to regeneration, so to infer that what he wrote on justification by faith contradicted the "external means of grace" position, is a non sequiter.

Brother Terry, please go back and read chapter twenty and you will see where I already dealt with Richardson. Also, Gowens makes a claim similar to Elder C. C. Morris and others, like R. V. Sarrels, who say that across the centuries there have always been voices preaching Hardshell views on the new birth. Is that so?

Why have not a single Hardshell come forth then, as yet, and given the world the names of those men who preached this stuff prior to the "rise of the Hardshells" in the early 1800's in America?

Can they quit using Dr. Gill, and Samuel Richardson, and Elder John Watson, and Elder John Clark, and others, who clearly were not akin to modern Hardshells?

But, I will offer a few more thoughts on Richardson's views on justification and its relation to faith and regeneration in my next chapter on Dr. Gill, for I will deal with what the Hardshells have erroneously argued about Dr. Gill on the same topic, thinking that a few statements he made about justification from eternity to preclude his belief that faith in Christ or gospel means were therefore neccessary for salvation.

They misinterpret both Gill and Richardson on this topic, who, if they were alive today, would despise the Hardshells twisting their teachings as they do!