FROM

THE

MILLENNIAL HARBINGER.

NEW SERIES.

VOLUME IV.-----NUMBER IX.

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

Brother Campbell,

      BEFORE we proceed to publish No. II., which is in your hands, I wish you to print the following remarks immediately before that number, in order that we may be understood as we progress.

      You object to the proposition I made, "That the law admits no person worthy of death, or who has forfeited his life by breaking the law, to offer a victim for sin--and that 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 offerer, seeing his sin did not require his death."

      Can you deny the first part of this proposition? If you do, please to produce the scriptural testimony for my benefit, and for that of our readers. You dissent from the second part of the proposition for the [387] following reasons:--1st. "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^{1} only sins of ignorance." And does not my brother C---- believe that all those sacrifices, offered for sins of ignorance and ceremonial defilement, were not typical of the death of Christ? This, to me, is a new doctrine. But, as you say, we have to do with Moses and Paul, to Paul we appeal. Let us read Hebs. 9th and 10th chapters, and without doubt you will be convinced of your error.

      2. You ask, "But is it a fact that the legal sacrifices and offerings expiate sins of ignorance only?" (you refer to Lev. vi. 1.) and then ask, "Do you call these sins of ignorance, or legal defilement? Or do you consider that there was no expiation or atonement made for them."

      I answer: Those sins mentioned in Lev. vi. 1. were not mortal sins, or sins that subjected the sinner to death; and therefore a sacrifice was admitted, and an atonement made for his sins. Hence my conclusion is good, that the death of the victim could not be in the stead of the offerer's death, seeing his sin did not require his death. To this point my mind was turned when I wrote the sentiment. 2dly. Those sins, purged with blood, come under one general name of errors. Heb. ix. 7. But into the second went the High Priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and the errors of the people. 3dly. Paul says, "It is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sin." But they did take away errors, therefore there is a marked distinction between sins, and errors, according to Paul. The sacrifice offered by the priests can "never take away sins"--but they took away errors, or sins of ignorance; therefore, Paul did not consider these as sins subjecting the transgressor to death. The legal sacrifices did not purge the conscience--did not make him who did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience; they only sanctified to the purifying of the flesh. Heb. ix. Now can we, my dear brother, in the face of such authority, say that the legal sacrifices could, and did take away sins--all their sins, whether moral, political, and ceremonial? 4th. Paul to the Romans and Galatians labors this point to show the Jews that by the deeds of the law no person could be justified in his sight--that they were justified by faith without the deeds of the law. How can you reconcile your doctrine with this?

      3dly. You refer me to Lev. xvi., in proof of your position that legal sacrifices did take away sins--all their sins. To this let us attend. "And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and [388] confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness, and the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited, and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness." And you add, "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."

      You emphasize the expressions all their sins, all your sins, and all their iniquities, in proof of your position that sins of all descriptions are intended. I observe, first, that the scape-goat, that bore all their iniquities, was not sacrificed, or slain; therefore, the scape-goat does not bear them away by blood; no, not one of them. Their iniquities were purged with the blood of sacrifices, which were offered, at the same time. 2d. The expressions all their iniquities, all their sins, did not include sins of every description, for reasons already stated; because "it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins," &c. 3d. Again, Paul commenting on the transactions of that same great day of atonement, speaks thus: Heb. xi. 7. "But into the second went the High Priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and for the errors of the people." All their iniquities, all their sins, he includes in the general term errors. The original word translated errors, is agnoeemata. Now every Greek Lexicon, which I have seen, defines this word, an error, sin of error, or ignorance. Parkhurst, Greenfield, and Schre. This is the only definition given; and, indeed, the derivation of the word confines it to this. No word is better defined.

      You yourself admit that all their iniquities did not include all sins; for you say, "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." This sin, then, is an exception. But, brother C., you will admit that this "one character" includes all idolaters, Deut. xvii. 7.--all blasphemers, Lev. xiv. 10.--all sabbath breakers, Exod. xxxv. 2.--all disobedient children to parents, Exod. xxi. 15, 17. Deut. xxi. 18.--all murderers, Exod. lxxxi. 12.--all adulterers, Lev. xxi. 10, 11.--all manstealers, Exod. xxi. 16.--all false witnesses, whose testimony went to convict of a capital crime, Deut. xix. 16--all presumptuous sinners, Num. xv. 30, 31. All these classes of sinners were despisers of Moses, and were to die without mercy under two or three witnesses, without the privilege of sacrifice. The [389] passage in Lev. vi. 1. I have long considered difficult to be reconciled with Moses and Paul on the law of sacrifice; if what I have written be insufficient to clear the difficulty, it devolves upon you.

      Your concluding remarks are to me unsatisfactory. You say, "When I speak of sacrifices as propitiatory, 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 a vent for water to flow, is to make it flow; so opening a way for God to be propitious, is making him propitious, in all propriety of language."

      I ask my brother, Is propitiating and pacifying the Divine Father by sacrifice, a scriptural idea truly? In what part of the Bible is it written? You say you intend no more by these expressions, than opening a way in which his favor might shine forth. I ask, Where do the scriptures declare this to be the intention of Christ's sacrifice? Water obstructed, or dammed up, must have a vent made for it to flow forth. So the favor of God was obstructed, and could not shine forth till a vent was made for it by by the sacrifice or death of Christ. How does this agree with Paul, Heb. ii. 9. "That he by the favor of God might taste death for every man"? Your opinion is, that the death of Christ opened a way for the favor of God to flow, or shine forth. Paul teaches that the favor of God flowed to the world before the death of Christ, and was the reason why he did die. You farther say, "The sacrifice of Christ made God propitious." This is your intention or meaning; but what saith the scripture? Do tell us the difference between the death of Christ reconciling the Father to us, (which you reject,) and propitiating him? I understand your views, as those stated in the old orthodox system. They represent the door of mercy closed by the strong bars of the broken law, and offended justice; and that the death of Christ satisfied law and justice, and opened the door of mercy, that it might flow to the world. Let this be established by the divine scriptures, and I yield to the old orthodoxy.

      I thank you for the honor you have done mein requesting me to give your "Christian System" a careful examination, and privately to propose to you my objections, previous to its stereotyped edition. This I will gladly do as I may have opportunity. Do not hurry the work, for I do believe you will see good reasons for correcting a few inaccuracies.

      Yours in warm affection,

B. W. STONE. [390]      

BROTHER STONE:

      My dear and much respected Sir--YOUR favor before me reverts to the beginning; and, glancing at numerous points, teaches the necessity of doing one thing at a time, and of doing it well. Your questions and remarks on the legal sacrifices call for a more distinct enunciation of my views on the legal system. Permit me, then, with a reference to your demand, "Do I deny 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"--I say, permit me in reference to the question to lay down a few propositions:--

      Prop. I. The legal institution of sacrifice is but a national dispensation of a previously existing sacrificial system--a system contemporary with the Fall, and indispensable to any fallen man's acceptable approach to God.

      Proof.--Abel offered a bloody sacrifice in faith two thousand five hundred years before the law. Faith presupposes testimony; and hope a promise. No testimony, no faith. No promise, no hope. Pious Jews may, therefore, like the pious patriarchs Abel, Enoch, Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Job, &c. &c. have had views superior to the legal economy.

      Prop. II. That all the legal sacrifices were for the exclusive benefit of those who were in the Sinaitic covenant with God, and consequently if they broke that covenant and apostatized from God, its sacrificial provisions extended not to them.

      Prop. III. The life and death, the blessing and the curse of the law were merely fleshly and temporal, and therefore the virtue of its sacrifice could extend no farther than to temporal life and temporal blessings. When, therefore, a Jew had forfeited these, the sacrificial law had no blessings in store for him. Deut. xxviii. 1-68.

      Prop. IV. But until a man had forfeited these, the legal sacrifices accompanied with repentance, and the previous qualifications, had power to remit all the penalties of that institution, to sanctify its subjects, and to save them from the consequences of transgression. See Lev. vi. 1-7.; xv. 31.; Num. xix. 13.

      Prop. V. That while the law of Ten Commands constituted the substance of the Sinaitic covenant to which the sacrifices were annexed in good keeping with the fleshly people who were its subjects, the fleshly privileges that were its blessings, and the fleshly and temporal curses which were its penalties, it wisely and benevolently regarded the overt act only as the violation of its precepts. Hence no [391] sin under that covenant, but the literal and overt violation of those precepts, could debar a Jew from the benefits of the altar and the priest.

      Prop. VI. That no transgression or sin, even that of ignorance, or of mere ceremonial defilement, however trifling, could, without sacrifice, be forgiven. No repentance, nor amendment of life, without shedding of blood, could obtain remission.^{2}

      Prop. VII. That the legal institution was typical. Its covenant, altar, priests, victims, "all were but the shadows of good things to come through a greater and more perfect tabernacle." Therefore faith, repentance, baptism, prayer, and all acts of obedience, without the blood of the new institution, cannot obtain the remission of the least sin in the universe of God.

      While these seven propositions contain in extenso my reply to your emphatic interrogatory, I have other uses for them to which in the sequel I may apply them.

      My remarks on your second proposition, viz.--"That legal atonement was made only for sins of ignorance, or legal defilement," you seem to have misunderstood, if I may judge from the question you ask. You did not note my words accurately. You pass by the word only, on which my question turns. You call it a new doctrine, &c. On reconsideration you will perceive the error.

      But have I not shown from Lev. vi. 1-7. in contrast with Lev. v. 15., that yours is indeed a new doctrine? Have we not, Lev. v. 15., the law for a trespass through ignorance; and also a second general law for any and every sin of ignorance in the 17th and 18th verses of the same chapter, immediately preceding another law for sin-offerings, without a single allusion to sins of ignorance? Nay, verily, but to the contrary: for it is impossible to suppose any of those to be sins of ignorance. This instance, not to cite others, is all-sufficient to show how unscriptural the conclusion of some is, that legal atonement was only for sins of ignorance and ceremonial defilement. I truly admire your candor in giving up Lev. vi. 1-7. as irreconcilable with that system.

      I can sympathize with you in your morbid excitement about certain terms--such as expiation, pacified, propitiate, &c., and bear with all good feeling your admonition about living up to my maxim about the pure speech, and the language of Ashdod. I know the reasons of this peculiar sensitiveness on certain terms. It is, believe me, my venerable brother, unhealthy: for in the same breath of complaint against the [392] word expiate as unscriptural, you use the still more unscriptural terms "victim," "ceremonial defilement," &c.--to which terms I make no objection.

      But is expiate an unscriptural term?, Open your Cruden's Concordance, and see the opinion of that greatest of verbal interpreters. Or do you assume that all other renderings than those of King James are unscriptural! Cruden gives expiation, Num. xxxv. 33. as the proper term. "The land cannot be cleansed (expiated) of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it." Macknight also so renders katharismos, Heb. i. 3. "When he had expiated our sins, or made expiation for them." Hilaskomai, a word found in the Greek of both Testaments, often in the Old, is, by all good Lexicographers, rendered atone, expiate, propitiate; so Parkhurst, Greenfield, Robertson, Screvellius, &c. &c. You quote Webster to prove that expiate is not scriptural because he defines it "to atone for;" and is to atone for an unscriptural phrase? What is the difference between "to atone for" and "to make atonement for"? Please explain to me, for I do not appreciate any. Now are not the words "to make atonement for" of frequent occurrence? You will find them, I think, eight times in a single chapter, (Lev. xvi.) According to Webster, then, expiate is a scriptural and proper term! The words atonement, propitiation, and expiation, are equally scriptural, being all of them a current coin in the hands of all Lexicographers for one and the same class of words, both in the Septuagint and New Testament Greek. So, I conclude, and will thank brother Stone to show me any error in this conclusion.

      Permit me also, my respected brother, to suggest for your reconsideration a few objections to some points in this letter. Touching a certain matter you request me to read Heb. 9th and 10th chapters, and you say, 'without doubt I will be convinced of my mistake.' Touching that matter, however, it happened there was no mistake by either of us, except your passing without notice the word only. But as to this recommendation, I have to say, that I thank my brother Stone for it, and am glad to perceive the high value he places on these chapters, as well as his high estimate of their perspicuity. The Epistle to the Hebrews I committed to memory when a child; I recommitted it when a man; I have repeated it many a hundred times; and yet so enamored am I with it, that I lately spent the greater part of a day in thinking upon one or two verses in these two chapters. They afforded me a feast while I rode some forty miles.

      Through my delightful musings on this epistle I have come to the conclusion that the reformation has lost much by the unhappy controversy which has made us all so sensitive on sacrifice, atonement, [393] expiation, &c. &c. I am fully persuaded there are some very erroneous opinions and much ignorance among us on the subjects treated of by Paul in this epistle. Therefore I the more cheerfully responded to the call of my venerable brother Stone to discuss some of these subjects. And I earnestly importune the Father of Lights, that, with all candor and Christian feeling, these great questions may be reconsidered, and that our brethren may be more enlightened on the Epistle to the Hebrews. But from this episode to return.

      You say, "Those sins purged with blood" (and what, I ask, were the sins purged without blood!) "came under one general name--errors. Heb. ix. 7." My dear sir, is not this building a castle on one stone! The word rendered errors, on which you descant, is found but once in the whole New Testament. You reason as follows:--The blood of bulls and goats could not take away sins; but they could take away errors! This, of course, you would not call speculation! This blood, you repeat, did take away errors; but these errors, you admit, are sins of ignorance. And does my brother Stone teach that the blood of bulls and goats had virtue to expiate sins of ignorance--errors; but no virtue to expiate other sins. From this I do, indeed, wholly dissent. I do not believe that all the blood of all the animals on earth, were it all poured out at the foot of one altar, could take away one anoeema--one sin of ignorance--one of the errors of the people. I do, moreover, regard the contrast between sins and errors to be purely speculative and imaginative. If I am called upon I will prove it by a list of quotations, in which those errors are called sins; and, as such, it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats could atone for, expiate, or cleanse from one of them.

      Brother Stone, you will perceive, then, that you have also mistaken me as much as I presume you have Paul, when you ask, Can I say "that the legal sacrifices did take away all their sins?" I never said so, only in the sense of my third proposition. No sin, or error, ever was taken away, but as respected temporal blessings and curses, by all the blood shed from the foundation of the world, except that of the SLAIN LAMB OF GOD. Hence the transgressions forgiven, as respected all legal penalties, in those who obtained the earthly Canaan, were redeemed or expiated as respected God and conscience by Jesus Christ. Might I ask you, my dear sir, to read and consider again Heb. ix. 15. Mark these words--"The Mediator" Jesus, by means of (his own) death for the redemption of transgressions, not transgressors--not sinners, but sins--committed by the called under the first or former Testament.

      You appear to me equally unfortunate in a former allusion to this chapter, Letter I. page 245. You quote Heb. ix. 22. "And almost all [394] things by the law are purged with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission." Here are two propositions--a general one and a universal one. The one respects things--the other respects persons. The general one is, "Almost all THINGS are purged with blood"--the universal one is, 'Without shedding of blood there is no one pardoned, or there is no REMISSION.' You say, one exception of the "almost all things purged with blood," is the person guilty! A hint to the wise is sufficient.^{3} I trust you will not again ask, Why does my brother Campbell so confidently assert without shedding of blood there never was remission! Does brother Stone teach that errors were forgiven through blood, and sins without it! Or what means this question--"Could not the penitent offender find mercy and forgiveness by the law of faith, as did Abraham the father of us all?" And was Abraham saved by faith, without blood, without sacrifice--by faith and works, without a sin-offering! Surely my brother forgot himself here. Abraham worshipped always through blood; hence Jesus said, "Abraham saw my day and was glad." I have not many objections to your remarks on Lev. xvi. concerning the great national atonement. That concerning errors and sins in contrast is already noted. Two things are taught in the slain goat and the scape goat--forgiveness and forgetfulness. "Their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more." They were borne away into the land of forgetfulness by the scape goat; but they were first atoned for by the slain goat.

      You wish to find some exception to the "all sins" and "all iniquities" atoned for, and would make my words concerning a certain character countenance your conclusions. But the character to which I allude was not that day in that congregation. "The man that despised Moses' law," and renounced his mediation, is not by me regarded as one of that immense host, all of whose sins were that day expiated. So that your conclusion receives no countenance from my words.

      You ask me another important question near the close of your letter. "Is propitiating and pacifying the Divine Father a scriptural idea?" The language is divine, and of course the idea also. Our heavenly Father is said to be against evil doers--to be angry, incensed, provoked--and to be pacified, pleased, &c. See a notable example of this style Ez. xvi. 63. "When I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done"--"Many a time turned he his anger away"--"His anger endureth but for a moment"--"He retaineth not his anger for ever," &c. You can add to these many such sayings. Now Jesus is called OUR PEACE. He is the PRINCE OF PEACE. At his annunciation it was [395] shouted from heaven, "Glory to God! Peace on earth and good will among men!" &c. This language authorizes the idea that although God is immutable and benevolent, gracious and merciful, and full of compassion, still because of our iniquities he is spoken of as above; and in reference to such bold and correct imagery Jesus Christ is called a Mediator, our peace and propitiation, our mercy-seat; and God set him forth in this style to justify him in showing mercy to sinners. But of all this in its proper place.

      As to your allusion to old orthodoxy, I have only to remark, that I go neither for orthodoxy nor heterodoxy, but for orthopraxy. Still I think "old orthodoxy" is just as learned, as respectable, as pious and moral a thing as young heterodoxy. But I advocate neither. I do not adopt nor reject tenets because of nick-names, fashionable or unfashionable. And I am glad that in this, as in a thousand other points, you cordially concur with

                  Yours with much esteem and affection,

A. C.      

      P. S. Although our style is diffuse and the points numerous, perhaps this method of glancing at every thing may be more entertaining; but to me it is by no means agreeable. One single point in a letter is enough. If you will now select the points, I will follow.

A. C.      

[The Millennial Harbinger (September 1840): 387-396.]