Salem Association of Predestinarian Baptists
CIRCULAR LETTER
by James Gaines, 1843
Mount Pleasant Baptist Church
Boone County, KY
[Old Bullittsville area]
DEAR BRETHREN: -- Through the mercy of God we are spared to meet once more in an associated capacity, and as you will expect a circular from us, we feel disposed to address you on the important subject of the love of God; and also the duty of saints loving one another. Saith the apostle John, "If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." It is a truth revealed from heaven, that God hath loved his people with an everlasting love. The effect of this love is manifest in giving Jesus Christ in covenant for his people; herein is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. God's love again is manifested in choosing sinners in Christ, and that before the world began; "according as he has chosen us in him before the world began."-- and again, the love of God is displayed in bringing sinners from death to life, from darkness to light, and delivering them from the power of Satan, and bringing them divinely near to himself in the work of regeneration, which is effected by the Holy Spirit. We understand that life, eternal life, is communicated to the soul, then, and not until then, genuine repentance exercises the soul; being a gift of God, the soul then mourns under a sense of the dishonor he hath done to God by transgression; this being the work of God to grant repentance; he alone grants remission of sins, being confident of this very thing, that he who hath begun a good work in you will carry it on until the day of Jesus Christ. And as there is a time to mourn, there is also a time to rejoice; in God's time the burdened soul is made to rejoice in hope of the glory of God; they receive the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father: if a son, then an heir of God through Jesus Christ; those have a title to the inheritance upon Gospel principles - the grounds of their justification is Jesus Christ being made surety of a better covenant - being made sin for us by imputation; he hath in time bore our sins in his own body on the tree - satisfied divine justice -- magnified the divine law - brought in an everlating righteousness. This righteousness being imputed to believers, they are justified from all things from which they could not be by the law of Moses. Well might the apostle say to his brethren, We are complete in him; yea, the Eternal Father, beholding the bride of Jesus Christ dressed in his righteousness, saith, I have not beheld iniquity in Jacob, nor perverseness in Israel. Is not all this the effect of God's everlasting love, placed upon sinners? Now the saints, with the humiliation of soul, may adopt the language of the apostle, and say, We love him because he first loved us: and who hath made you to differ from the world of mankind? If God hath bestowed such distinguishing love upon us, ought we not to love one another? [F]or they are all united in Christ, their head, and apprehend this union by a living faith, born of one spirit -- heirs of one inheritance -- children of one father - subject in a great degree to the same trials - and partakers of the same joys, -- members of the mystical body of Christ - members one of another; many members but one body. We think it impossible to love God that begetteth, without loving those that are begotten. The apostle saith, If a man says he loves God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; then let us not love in word only, but in deed and truth. The effect of this love constrains the believer to choose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, then to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. They esteem even the reproachs of Christ greater than riches, than all the pleasures of this perishable world. Love to God and their brethren leads them, like the ancient saints, to speak often one to another -- to bear each other's burdens - to watch over one another for good; they delight in meeting each other in the house of prayer, and say with the Psalmist, "I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness; one day in thy courts is better than a thousand." The love which the saints have for each other does, or ought to, lead them to esteem others better than themselves, to admonish each other in the bowels of tenderness. And this is not all that love leads them to: in obedience to the commands of their master, it leads them to administer to their temporary wants, as God, in his providence, hath given ability. Saith the apostle James, "If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body, what doth it profit, so faith, if it have not works, is dead, being alone." Again, we are commanded to love our enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. In short, all the duties we owe to God, to our brethren, and to our fellow mortals, are clearly marked out in the sacred Scriptures, to which we would do well to take heed.
============ [From the Associational Minutes, 1843. Document provided by Mrs. Elizabth Kirtley, Florence, KY. jrd]
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