FROM

THE

MILLENNIAL HARBINGER.

NEW SERIES.

VOLUME IV.-----NUMBER VI.

B E T H A N Y, VA. JUNE, 1840.

JACKSONVILLE, Illinois, March 30, 1840.      

Brother Campbell--

      LAST evening I returned from Missouri, after an absence from home of five weeks. I see in your Harbinger for February last, a friendly invitation to me to correspond with you on a number of religious subjects, which you have named. The same thing you communicated to me privately some weeks before. I then answered you that [243] I would take the proposal by you under consideration; but suggested to you my fears that, though we might discuss those points in a perfect Christian spirit, yet the minds of the people might be withdrawn from humble piety and devotion, to strife, contention, and division. My friends persuade me that such fears will never be realized. I have consented to comply with your invitation, though I am conscious that years have despoiled me of much of that vigor and strength of mind I may have once possessed.

      All the subjects you have proposed are but so many fractions of one common denominator, which I shall call the atonement. To this they all refer.

      You "affectionately solicit from me an essay on sin, and sin-offerings, scripturally setting forth the import of these terms in sacred writ."

      1st. With respect to sin. "Sin is the transgression of the law." 1 John iii. 4. "To him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." James iv. 17. From these two texts it is plain that sins are of two classes--sins of commission, and sins of omission; into which two classes, it is believed, that all are resolvable. To treat of the tendency, and evil effects, and of the awful consequences of sin, is another subject, to which reference may hereafter be made in the progress of these numbers.

      2dly. Your second inquiry is respecting sin-offerings. With regard to the victims offered for sin, as lambs, bullocks, goats, and the great antitype, the Lamb of God, there can be but one sentiment in the Christian world--and that these victims for sin were offered to God, admits of no doubt. But the purpose, why these offerings were made to God for sin, has been, and yet is variously set forth by good, but erring men. Their discrepant, jarring systems on this subject, has long been the fruitful soil of discord, strife, and division.

      Doctor A. Clark, on Lev. i. describes the purpose, end, or design of sacrifices or offerings for sin, thus: "By the imposition of hands, the person bringing the victim acknowledged, 1st. The sacrifice as his own. 2d. That he offered it as an atonement for his sins. 3d. That he was worthy of death, because he had sinned, having forfeited his life by breaking the law. 4th. That he entreated God to accept the life of the innocent animal in place of his own. 5th. And, all this to be done profitably, must have respect to Him whose life in the fulness of time, should be made a sacrifice for sin." From the 3d, 4th, and 5th items of this paragraph I must dissent, for the want of evidence, and because they stand in direct opposition to the sacred scriptures. The law admitted no person worthy of death, or who had forfeited his life by breaking the law, to offer a victim for sin. Sins of ignorance, and ceremonial defilement, only admitted of sacrifice for purification. Therefore the death of the victim could not be in the stead of the death of the offerer, seeing his sin did not require his death. But the Doctor says farther, that the offerer, in order to be profited, must have respect to Him whose life in the fulness of time should be made a sacrifice for sin. I know it is a common opinion that the Israelites under the law always looked through their sacrifices to Christ the Lamb of God, who died on Calvary, without which view they could not be profited.--Paul thought differently: he declared that the veil was on their heart, [244] that they could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished. Now the thing abolished is sacrifices, and Christ was the end. Did they see this end in their offerings? Did the Jewish nation believe that Christ was to die? No: for when he taught them this truth, they said, "We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth for ever." Christ crucified to the Jews was always a stumbling block, and is to this day to that unhappy people. The disciples of Jesus themselves could not believe that Christ was to die and rise again, till the facts proved the truth.

      From these remarks it is evident that the Doctor, and all who think as he does, are mistaken. The design of the legal sacrifices was not to deliver from death, but to purify and cleanse the offerer, and thus make an atonement or reconciliation between him and his God and the congregation--before this purification was effected by sacrifice, he was separated by his sin and uncleanness from the fellowship of the congregation, not being permitted to enter the tabernacle and worship with them there.

      This perfectly accords with the inspired views of the great commentator on Moses, Heb. ix. 22. "And almost all things by the law are purged with blood, and without shedding of blood is no remission." One exception of the "all things purged with blood" by the law, is, the person guilty of a sin worthy of death he must die without mercy under two or three witnesses--by the law there is no remission without shedding of blood, and as he is debarred by law from an offering for his sin, if he is forgiven, his forgiveness is not by sacrifice, or shedding of blood. Why does my brother Campbell so confidently assert that "without shedding of blood there never was remission of sin"? Christian System, page 37. Was every moral transgressor under the law, and before the law, cut off by death, unforgiven? Though condemned by law to certain death, could not the penitent offender find mercy and forgiveness by the law of faith, as did Abraham the father of us all, and as did many others recorded in the scriptures?

      There are others who view the purpose or design of sin-offerings to be for reconciling God to us; so the Methodist Discipline states, that the death of Christ reconciled the Father to us. As this assertion is destitute of all scripture testimony, and as enlightened reason fails to lend her aid in its support, I pass it by as a relic of unauthorized tradition, probably taken from heathen mythology, or pagan customs. The pagans offered human as well as brute sacrifices for the purpose of appeasing or reconciling their angry gods to them; but this cannot be the design of divine sacrifices, whether under the Old or New Testament.

      I am sorry my brother Campbell has very similar views with those just stated. You say, "Sacrifice atones and reconciles. It propitiates God and reconciles man. It is the cause, and these are its effects on heaven and earth, on God and man." Christian System, page 36. The sacrifice of Christ then, in your opinion, has an effect on heaven--on God, to propitiate him to man. "To propitiate is to appease one offended, and to render him favorable." Webster. Do, brother Campbell, point us to the scriptures that say that sacrifices either under the Old or New Testament, were ever designed to propitiate God, or that such an effect was ever produced or effected on him. This, to me, [245] would be more convincing than volumes of speculations and philosophic reasoning from uncertain premises. Indeed, I think my brother has advanced a few steps farther than any other system-maker, when you say that "every sin wounds the affection of our heavenly Father," and that the death of Christ "soothes and delights the wounded love of our kind and benignant heavenly Father." Christian System, page 48, 49.

      This is a strange speech to me; but if this be the doctrine or language of the Bible, do show it to us. Till then I shall be silent.

      Others think that Christ by his death or sacrifice "magnified the law and made it honorable." Isaiah xlii. 21. Whether this text has any reference to Messiah is very doubtful. The context is against the idea. But admitting that the Messiah is intended, is it said that the law was magnified and made honorable by his sacrifice? Is there one hint of this in the text?--in the Bible? I can clearly see how he magnified the law and made it honorable, in his exposition of it in Matth. v. There he shows how spiritual, how extensive it was, extending from the sinful act to the very fountain of sin in the heart--he made it honorable in submitting to be made under it, and fulfilling every jot and tittle of it. Had it been a bad, dishonorable law, he would not have done it such honor. Did he, as the substitute of sinners, suffer the punishment which the violated law required of sinners in their stead, and thus pay their debts, that pardon might be granted consistently with the honors of law? By what inspired writer is this taught? I cannot find.

      I have only hinted at the different theories current on the subject of sin-offerings, none of which can I receive without better testimony than I have yet seen. This I have done to prepare the way to state my own. For another number I must reserve that exposition. My avocations are many, and therefore I may be prevented from sending my communications regularly. Try to exercise patience with me. I have introduced a few sentiments of yours from your Christian System, in order that you may, if possible, establish them by plain scripture, and not in the wisdom of words. If they be found true, I shall joyfully receive them. May the Lord direct your mind and pen to the edification of the saints!

B. W. STONE.      

BROTHER STONE,

      Dear Sir--I MOST cordially concur in opinion with those brethren who have persuaded you that your fears were groundless, or would "never be realized," concerning the discussion of those points which you called for, under date of your letter of November 11, 1839, published page 21st of the current volume. The discussion of any of the grand elementary principles of the remedial or evangelical economy, "in a truly Christian spirit," never can, in my judgment, "withdraw the minds of the people from humble piety and devotion to strife, contention, and division." Shall those who love truth and peace fear that this love of peace and of truth, if fully developed, will issue in strife or impiety! [246]

      When in your kind epistle of November 11th, you asked me for my definition of a Unitarian, and assured me that you denied the name, though often applied to yourself, and urged me to say whether I "designed to co-operate with Trinitarians against Unitarians," &c. I felt it my duty to make the proposition alluded to in your letter of March 30th. I have done so in the full persuasion that the contemplated discussion is not only expedient, but necessary, and that it can be so managed as to disabuse the public mind of injurious prejudices both against you and myself. You have long disavowed Unitarianism, and I have also disavowed Trinitarianism and every other sectarianism in the land; and therefore that morbid state of feeling elicited by these partizan wars about the polemical abstrusities of metaphysical abstractions, which, in its excessive irritability, forbids the scriptural investigation of the great points which have been so often distorted and mangled on the racks and wheels of party discord and proscription, should have no abiding in our minds, much less prohibit a scriptural examination of the facts, and precepts, and promises, on which these unhallowed theories have been reared.

      The fear of irritating these old sectarian sores has, I verily opine, kept the minds of many brethren and of the public in suspense, if not in comparative darkness, upon the greatest questions in this earthly world. There is no subject so vital to man as the death of Christ.--The designs of his death are interwoven with all the designs of the universe, and are replete with the temporal, spiritual, and eternal destinies of man. Christ crucified is the most transcendent mystery in the moral dominions of God. Its power is the mainspring of all heavenly impulses, and it is itself the consummation of all divine wisdom and prudence. As all earthly waters arise from the ocean and descend to it, so the deep and the high counsels of God issue in this mysterious fact and emanate from it.

      The subjects to which I invited your attention, my venerable brother--viz. Sin, Sin-offerings, Sacrifice for Sin, Atonement,"^{1} &c. you very justly regard as terminating in what is usually called the atonement, or as all summed up in it. True, the doctrine of what is usually called "the atonement" is made to include the whole; but I designed no trite nor common-place examination of this subject, as it issues from the fiery furnace of sectarian zeal and bigoted devotion. I wish to explore the scriptural roots and grounds, the remote and the immediate connexions, bearings, and designs of "the blood of the New Institution."--I am glad, therefore, that you have so promptly advanced to the subject, and I most sincerely supplicate the FATHER OF LIGHTS to subdue our spirits and to imbue them with the holy spirit of the gospel of [247] Christ; that, with all piety, benevolence, Christian meekness and mildness, we may examine this great subject--so necessary to right conceptions of God, of Christ, and of ourselves.

      You properly begin with sin. Its existence, nature, and tendencies gave birth to the redemption that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Wrong conceptions of this thing necessarily cast their penumbra over the Bible, and obscure all its golden treasures. I object not to your definition of sin, so far as it goes. You give us the word of the Lord for sin, as a violation of a law, and a neglect of it--commission of wrong, and omission of right. Your quotations are apposite and striking. I will only add a definition in fact. There are definitions by words, and definitions by facts. Sin is the cause of death; or "the wages of sin is death," is verbal; but when we see Satan lose heaven, Adam lose Eden, and millions of infants lose life, we have a definition in fact, that death follows sin as the shadow follows the substance standing in light. Sin, then, is a mortal thing. Death is in it. "The soul that sinneth it shall die." I emphasize on this, because of its bearings upon all bloody sacrifices--upon sin-offerings--upon the havoc of life under the Patriarchal and Jewish institutions.

      2d. On sin-offerings as presented to God, all cordially harmonize; but, you say, not so on "the purpose" of them. You then review Doctor Adam Clark, and dissent from his conclusions. He is public property, and you have a right to lay on your warrant. I shall not dispute your right. You pronounce three of his conclusions, in your opinion, as in direct opposition to the sacred scriptures. Of course his friends will pronounce your conclusions in these three points, as, in their opinion, in direct opposition to the sacred scriptures; and thence we have Dr. Adam Clark and Dr. B. W. Stone as affirmative and negative; and their friends all take their station accordingly.

      But you are led to express some important conclusions which involve some great scriptural facts, of which I am not so sure. These are:--

      1. "Sins of ignorance and ceremonial defilement only admitted of sacrifice for purification." These sins you do not consider as deserving of death; and therefore you conclude that "the death of the victim could not be instead of the death of the offerer"--"seeing," you add, "his sin did not require his death."' Your view, then, is, that the law made no provision for any sins but those of ignorance or legal defilement--that these were not mortal sins; and consequently the sin-offerings of the law saved no one from death. Nay, you assert that "the law admitted no person worthy of death, or who had forfeited his life by breaking the law to offer a victim for sin." These are very important propositions, and deeply penetrate the whole subject of sin-offerings.-- [248] If legal atonement or expiation was made only for sins of ignorance or legal defilement, then they could not be typical of the death of Christ, else the death of Christ expiates only sins of ignorance. I must then conclude my brother Stone has expressed himself obscurely, or I have misconceived his meaning; for certainly he admits that the legal sacrifices were types of the true; and that the true sacrifice expiates more than sins of ignorance: for surely brother Stone believes that all manner of sins, excepting one, may be forgiven, because the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. There is a radical mistake here: I trust it is in my misconception of your meaning.

      But is it a fact that the legal sacrifices and offerings expiate sins of ignorance only? Read Leviticus vi. 1. "If a soul sin and commit a trespass against the Lord, and lie unto his neighbor in that which was delivered him to keep, or in trade, or in a thing taken away by violence, or has deceived his neighbor, or has found that which was lost, and lieth concerning it, and sweareth falsely in any of all these things that a man doeth sinning therein, then it shall be because he has sinned and is guilty; he shall make restitution, add one-fifth to it, and bring his offering to the priest; and the priest shall make an atonement [an expiation] for him; and it shall be forgiven him for any thing that he has done in trespassing therein." Do you call these "sins of ignorance or legal impurities?" or do you consider that there was no expiation or atonement made for them? I have been in error for many years if these were sins of ignorance or legal impurities, or if the law had no sin-offerings but for such sins as you have enumerated. I agree with you in differing in some points from Dr. Clark; but I cannot go quite so far as you go in these three items. But I have to do with Moses and Paul, and not with our erudite Doctors living or dead.

      There is but one character for whom the law and for whom the gospel makes no purifying sacrifice. This is the man who presumptuously despised Moses and the Holy Spirit, or who renounces either dispensation. One of us may have mistaken this case. You say, "The law admitted no person worthy of death, or who had forfeited his life by breaking the law, to offer a victim for sin." You might have said, 'The gospel admits no person who, under it, has forfeited his life by despising or renouncing it, to any forgiveness through Christ's sacrifice;' for to such Paul says, "There remaineth no more sacrifice for sin; but the mistake, as it appears to me, consists in making out of a single case, or class of character, a general law against wilful transgressors. Hence you conclude that wilful transgressors of law, or those who sinned wittingly under the law, could [249] find no sin-offering. This would, indeed, be a complete annihilation of the typical character of all the Jewish sin-offerings; and would, so far as it goes, exclude the hope of forgiveness through the antitypical sin-offering every person who had sinned wittingly or wilfully in any matter against God or man. I especially request your views of Lev. vi. 1-7., and more especially I call your attention to the great annual and national expiation minutely detailed Lev. xvi. In this chapter we are told most unequivocally that when the priest laid his hands upon the scape-goat he was to confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the scape-goat; and again, the goat shall bear upon him "all their iniquities;" and again, "the priest shall make an atonement for you, to cleanse you, that you may be clean from all your sins." "This shall be an everlasting statute to you to make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a-year." Bat I will not exhaust this subject at one effort, especially as I may have misunderstood you. Your allusions to, the "Christian System," and quotations therefrom, shall all be considered in due time. I shall be exceedingly thankful to you, my aged and venerable brother, to examine that work with the utmost care, and to point out to me any ambiguous or erroneous expressions in it, as I may probably soon be called upon to stereotype it. The demand for it is very great, and I have had the most flattering intimations of its usefulness to the public from numerous and eminent quarters of' the professing world.^{2}

      Give me leave to add, that I concur most sincerely with you in your objections to the Methodistic notion of sacrifices reconciling God to us. There must be some great obscurity in my style if you could infer from any thing I have ever written, that I entertain such an idea. When I speak of sacrifice as propitiating or pacifying the Divine Father, (a scriptural idea truly,) I intend no more, as I have explained myself, than opening a way in which his favor might shine forth. The opening of a vent for water to flow is making it to flow: so the opening a way for God to be propitious, is making him propitious, in all propriety of language--as appears to yours, most sincerely and affectionately,

A. CAMPBELL. [250]      

[The Millennial Harbinger (June 1840): 243-250.]