They Understood Salvation  and the Call in 1689

The statement written below is included in an astounding document written in 1689. It is an excerpt from the Baptist Confession of Faith in 1689.  Recently I published a video above where one of the main topics is “the call.” I see no difference between what I believe and this excerpt. The document in its entirety is yet additional evidence that the church age of Philidelphia began with the Protestant Reformation and continued until 1901 when Pentecostalism was introduced to the world.  I believe that a significant problem in the church age of Laodicea is that we. Lost our understanding of “the call.”  Pin the statement below, this what the church age of Philadelphia believed concerning this most important subject: 

Effectual Calling

1. Those whom God has predestinated to life, He is pleased in His appointed and accepted time to effectually call by His Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death which they are in by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ. He enlightens their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God. He takes away their heart of stone and gives to them a heart of flesh. He renews their wills, and by His almighty power, causes them to desire and pursue that which is good. He effectually draws them to Jesus Christ, yet in such a way that they come absolutely freely, being made willing by His grace.

2. This effectual call is of God’s free and special grace alone, not on account of anything at all foreseen in man. It is not made because of any power or agency in the creature who is wholly passive in the matter. Man is dead in sins and trespasses until quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit. By this he is enabled to answer the call, and to embrace the grace offered and conveyed by it. This enabling power is no less power than that which raised up Christ from the dead.

3. Infants dying in infancy are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, Who works when, where, and how He pleases. So also are all elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.

4. Others are not elected, although they may be called by the ministry of the Word, and may experience some common operations of the Spirit, yet because they are not effectually drawn by the Father, they will not and cannot truly come to Christ and therefore cannot be saved. Much less can men who do not embrace the Christian religion be saved, however diligent they may be to frame their lives according to the light of nature and the requirements of the religion they profess.