Old Regular Baptists
Members who do not comply with the strict dress code and practices face losing their membership in the congregation.The Washington District Association, however, upon being organized adopted the Preambles and the Constitution of the Regular Baptists.The terms "Old School", "Old Regular", "Old Order", and "Primitive" came into usage during the same time period and were being added to the Baptist name to show they were of the old form of worship and had rejected what they considered modern innovations, such as Sunday or Sabbath Schools, theological seminaries, missions boards and the like.The 1892 Minutes of the New Salem Association stated that the New Salem Association feared the doctrine of an absolute predestination of all things that made God the author of man's sins, and the doctrine of Arminianism that taught the works of the creature to be essential to eternal salvation.A circular letter in the Three Forks of Powell River began to circulate supporting Actual Eternal Vital Union.The Old Regular Baptists of Central Appalachia have, in fact, experienced several different divisions through the years over doctrine and practice.There is one side of the Synergistic Old Regular Baptist that teaches that God dealt to every man universally a "measure of faith", and it must be put to work by the creature in order for salvation to occur.Any prior reference to the terminology in Old Regular Baptist records or usage uses the "Measure of Faith" to mean a gift to the regenerated and not the unregenerated.The Old Regular Baptist in Appalachia were more tolerant in doctrine, originally allowing for different views on the atonement.The Red Bird, Red River, Spencer, Sandlick, Mates Creek, Burning Springs, Mountain, Rock Springs, North District, Licking, Mud River, Twin Creek, and parts of the New Salem and Union Associations of Old Regular Baptist held to Special or Limited Atonement.Several of the churches that walked out after N.T Hopkins' sermon were reconciled back to the New Salem Association, and the ministers decided among themselves to just preach the scriptures and that Christ died for all that believe and repent through Grace.The New Salem Association at one time contained ministers holding to three different views on the atonement, and was thereafter able to exist fairly peacefully.All evidence shows that the church that sent the query had not taken the proper steps according to Old Regular Baptist decorum.Today, depending on which faction one hears preach, their doctrine ranges from absolute predestination to man being a free moral agent.The majority of Old Regular Baptists hold to a doctrine that is between these extremes, with absolutism the smallest minority.The Old Regular Baptists are united in their eschatology, all factions hold that the binding of Satan took place during Christ's earthly ministry and that the thousand years is to be taken symbolically rather than representing a measure of time.Old Regular Baptists hold to the Godhead Three in One, The Scriptures Old and New Testament being the written Word of God and infallibility thereof, using the King James Bible exclusively, sinners being called to repentance, both faith and repentance being required prior to baptism, and justification being by the Imputed Righteousness of God.Conversion experiences may be a lengthy process, beginning with an awakening to sin, through a period of conviction and travail of the soul, to repentance and belief.One feature of worship that has garnered much attention for the Old Regular Baptists is their lined-out, non-instrumental, congregational hymnody.The practice of lining out psalms and hymns was once common across Britain and America, but in the British Isles, but the only remaining vestige of the tradition can be found in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, where it is done in Gaelic.