FROM

THE

MILLENNIAL HARBINGER.

NEW SERIES.

VOL. V.	B E T H A N Y,   V A.   FEBRUARY, 1841.	NO. II.

      Brother Campbell--IN my No. II. I was endeavoring to prove that sin-offerings under the law were the means appointed by God of purging, cleansing, and forgiving pardonable sins and ceremonial uncleanness, and thus reconciling or at-one-ing the person to God. In this No. I. I will show that these types were all fulfilled in the great Antitype, "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." The blood of the offered Lamb under the law, purged (kathairo) or took away the sin of him who offered it; it was the means appointed by which the purifying was effected. So the blood of the Lamb of God is the means appointed of God, by which he-purges, cleanses, and forgives the patient obedient believer. This I will now endeavor to make appear.

      We will begin with the Prophet Isaiah, liii. 4. "Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." This is explained by Matthew viii. 16, 17. "When the evening was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils, and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the Prophet, saying, "Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses." By this it is understood [59] that he took, or carried them away, or removed them. I have introduced this text in order that we may understand the true meaning of the Hebrew word nasa, translated in this 4th verse, "he hath borne our griefs"--that is, has borne them away. Thus have you rendered the Greek word in your version of the New Testament, [Matth. viii. 17.] "He hath carried off our infirmities," In the same sense it is said in Isaiah liii. 12. "He bore [nasa, bore away] the sins of many." This the Septuagint translates by the Greek word anaphero, which same word you in your version rightly translate bear away; as in Heb. ix. 28. "Even so Christ, being once offered to bear away the sins of many;" and 1 Peter ii. 24. "Himself bore away our sins in his own body on the tree."

      You then agree with me that the word nasa, connected with sin, means to bear away, to carry off, or to take away, sin--to remove it, or to forgive. This will farther appear from the following arguments:--

      1st. God is frequently said to bear sin in the sense stated above, and this is so expressed by the same Hebrew word nasa. This cannot mean that he bore the punishment due to sin, as many explain the phrase "to bear sin;" therefore the Septuagint and king James' translators have given the word nasa a different rendering, translating it "to forgive, to pardon, to take away" sin; as in the following examples:--

      Exodus xxxii. 32. "Oh, this people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive" [nasa; Sept. aphiemi.] This translation of the Septuagint, aphiemi, all Greek scholars know, when connected with sin, signifies to forgive.

      Exodus xxxiv. 7. "The Lord God--keeping mercy for thousands, [nasa; Sept. aphairo.] iniquity, transgression, and sin." The Septuagint translation, aphairo, is rendered by our translators to take away. See Luke i. 25.; x. 42.; xvi. 3.; Rom. xi. 22.; Heb. v. 4, 11.; Rev. xxii. 20, &c.

      Num. xiv. 8. "The Lord is long suffering--forgiving [nasa; Sept. aphairo] iniquity and transgression."

      Psalm xxv. 18. "Forgive [nasa; Sept. aphiemi] all my sins."

      Psalm xxxii. 1. "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven," [nasa; Sept. aphiemi.]

      Psalm xxxii. 5. "Thou forgivest [nasa; Sept. aphiemi] the iniquity of my sin."

      Psalm, lxxxv. 2. "Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people," [nasa; Sept. aphiemi.]

      Isaiah xxxiii. 24. "The people shall be forgiven [nasa; Sept. aphiemi] their iniquity."

      Hosea xiv. 2. "Take away [nasa] all iniquity."

      Micah vii. 18. "Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth [nasa] all iniquity!"

      Joshua xxiv. 19. "He is a jealous God: he will not forgive [nasa] your transgressions, nor your sins."

      Job vii. 21. "And why dost thou not pardon [nasa] my transgressions?" See also Numbers xiv. 9.; Ps. xcix. 8.; Isaiah ii. 9, &c.

      2d. That nasa, connected with sin, means to pardon, to remove, or take away sins, is farther evident from Exodus xxiii. 21. "Behold I send an angel before thee--provoke him not, for he will not pardon [nasa] your transgressions." [60]

      3d. The priesthood are said to bear iniquity, which is expressed by the same word nasa. Exod. xxviii. 38. "And it shall be upon Aaron's forehead, that Aaron may bear [nasa] the iniquity of the holy things." The Septuagint renders the word exhairo, which commonly means to bear away, to put away, to remove. So have you translated the word in your version, Matth. v. 29.; 1 Cor. v. 2, 13, &c.

      Lev. x. 17. "Wherefore have you not eaten the sin-offering in the holy place, seeing it is most holy, and God hath given it to bear [nasa] the iniquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them before the Lord." The Septuagint translation of the word is aphairo, which, as shown before, signifies to bear away, to take away, to pardon. So king James translators, and your version, commonly render the word: Luke i. 25.; Rom. xi. 27.; Heb. x. 4.; Rev. xxii. 19, &c.

      Num. xviii. 1. "And the Lord said unto Aaron, Thou and thy sons, and thy father's house with thee, shall bear [nasa] the iniquity of the sanctuary, and shall bear [nasa] the iniquity of your priesthood." Paul's comment on the word nasa, or bearing the iniquity of the tabernacle and congregation, is decisive; Heb. ix. 22. Here he explains it by purging--as, "Almost all things by the law are purged with blood, the tabernacle, the congregation," &c. Indeed, Moses, in the verse quoted above, explains it to make atonement for them; and this, as I have proved before in No. II., signifies to purge or cleanse from sin or uncleanness. See also Num. xviii. 23.

      4th. That nasa, connected with sin, signifies to bear away, to pardon, to forgive, is farther evident from the following texts:--

      Gen. i. 17. "So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive [nasa] the trespass of your brethren, and their sin; and forgive [nasa] the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father."

      Exod. x. 17. "Pharaoh said unto Moses, Forgive [nasa] my sin only this once."

      1 Samuel xv. 35. "Saul said unto Samuel, Pardon [nasa] my sin."

      1 Samuel xxv. 18. "Abigail said unto David, Forgive [nasa] the trespass of thy handmaid." In these two last verses the Septuagint translation is hairo, which, connected with sin, is, I think, always by our version, and yours, translated to take away. John i. 29.; 1 John iii. 5., &c.

      5th. That the word nasa, in connexion with sin, signifies to bear away, appears plain from Lev. xvi. 22. "And the scape-goat shall bear [nasa] upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited." None will dispute that it bore away their iniquity.

      6th. How frequently is it said of the transgressors of the law, 'They shall bear [nasa] their iniquity.' If their iniquity was pardonable by law, then they must offer a sin-offering; by which means their iniquity was borne away, or pardoned through the priesthood. "Wherefore have you [the priests] not eaten the sin-offering in the holy place! God hath given it to you to bear [nasa; Sept. aphairo] away the iniquity of the congregation." But if their sin was unpardonable by law, the transgressor must bear his own sin, or bear it away by suffering death himself, as in the case of a murderer. Num. xxxv. 31-32. "Moreover, ye shall take no satisfaction [kaphar, atonement,] for the life of a murderer, who is guilty of death; but he shall be surely put to death--so shall ye not pollute the land wherein ye [61] are; for blood it defileth the land, the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it." And Lev. xxiv. 15.

      Yet because these murderers, blasphemers, idolaters, adulterers, &c. could not have the privilege of sin-offerings or sacrifice, by which their sins might be purged, borne away, or pardoned by law, or that they might be freed from the suffering of temporal death; yet we are not to suppose that all these persons were doomed to suffer eternal death in the future world, without mercy or forgiveness; for such of them as truly repented were forgiven by the great God of the universe, not by the law of Moses, but by the law or covenant of Abraham. Ezek. xviii.; John viii. 3-11, &c.

      7th. That the common meaning of the word nasa is to take away, to carry away, to bear away, I refer to the following texts, in which the word is so translated in our English Bibles:--

      Gen. xlvii. 30.; Exod. x. 19.; Lev. x. 4.; Num. xvi. 15.; 1 Sam. xvii, 34.; 1 Kings xv. 22., and xviii. 12.; 2 Kings xxiii. 4.; 1 Chron. x. 12.; 2 Chron. xiv. 13., and xvi. 16.; Job xxiv. 10., and xxvii. 20.; and xxxii. 32.; Eccles. v. 15.; Isai. viii. 4., and xv. 1., and xi. 24., and xli. 16., and lvii. 13., and lxiv. 6.; Ezek. xxix. 10., and xxxviii. 13.; Daniel i. 16., and xi. 12.; Hosea i. 5., and v. 14.; Amos iv. 2.; Micah ii. 2.; Malachi ii. 3., and many others.

      I have been thus particular on the word nasa, to bear sin, to show how weak, how inconclusive, and unfounded is the argument drawn from Isaiah liii. iv. 12. "He bore the sins of many." It cannot mean that he bore the punishment due to the sins of many. The arguments above forbid the idea. Can we think that God himself bore the punishment due to sin? or that the angel in the wilderness bore the punishment due the sins of the congregation? or that the priesthood bore the punishment due the sins of Israel? Or one man bore the punishment due the sins of another? or that the scape-goat bore the punishment of all the sins of Israel, when it was neither slain nor suffered any thing? The pardonable sinner must bear away his own sin by the blood of the offering. So is the will of God.

      No one will affirm that either God, the angel, the priesthood, ever bore the punishment due to the sins of Israel. Why, then, will they affirm that Christ bore the punishment due to the sins of many, when the very same word and expressions are also applied to God, to the angel, to the priesthood, and others? Besides, this same expression of Isaiah respecting Christ, is fully explained in the New Testament, to mean to take away, to bear away; and so have you translated the word in your version, as seen above; and so has Thompson, and Taylor, the Hebrew critic, and Dr. Doddridge, and a host of others. I have wondered why divines, leaving the plain explanation of the word in Isaiah liii., as given by Christ and his Apostles, should yet be continually pressing that chapter in support of the imputation of sin, and vicarious punishment in the sense of the Westminster Divines. Is it safe to build a system on an exposition of one text, which is unsupported by another passage in the entire Bible? And which text is explained by divine authority to have a different meaning from that they attach to it?

      The doctrine of vicarious, or substituted punishment, is the [62] fundamental of orthodox divinity. Where, brother Campbell, shall we find the term substitute with application to Christ? Did he, as such, satisfy the demands of law and justice against the sinner, and reconcile or propitiate God to a sinful world? Does law or justice admit of such substituted punishment? Where is it required, or found in the Bible? The contrary appears to he plainly taught in Deuteronomy xxiv. 16.; 2 Kings xiv. 6.; 2 Chron. xxv. 4.; Jeremiah xxxi. 30.; Ezekiel xviii. Could a holy and righteous law be satisfied and pleased with the wicked--the most wicked and lawless act ever committed--the death of the innocent Saviour by the hands of wicked men? If the claims of law and justice against the sinner be death temporal and eternal, and if Jesus suffered the penalty against us, is he not yet suffering eternal death? Or has an endless thing come to all end? If the penalty be temporal death, why have the world yet to suffer it? If the debt of suffering he folly paid by the substitute, where is grace seen in the pardon of the debtor! Many such inquiries will pass in the mind of the diligent inquirer, who will not be satisfied with the ipse dixit of uninspired man.

      How the death of Christ bears away our sins, or takes them away, I will endeavor to illustrate by a figure. In the early settlement of Kentucky a colony resided on the border of that country, continually exposed to the bloody incursions of the Indians. In this colony was a man of marked benevolence and goodness: he was wealthy, and had a care over all, that none should want the necessaries of life. He had a son, the very image of himself. Among them also lived a man of opposite character--of marked malevolence and wickedness. He hated this good man and his son, and endeavored to injure them in their persons, property, and character, though of their beneficence he shared in common with others. A banditti of Indians passed by, and apprehended this wicked man, and hurried him off to the wilderness. The good man with pain and sorrow heard the news: he called his son and told the distressing situation of his neighbor. My son, will you at the exposure or sacrifice of your own life, rescue him? I go, father; and instantly started--found the trace--rapidly pursued, and overtook them. He saw the trembling wretch bound to a tree, and the pile of wood around him ready to burn him, and the Indians preparing to dance to his shrieks and cries. The son rushes to the tree, cuts with his tomahawk the cord that bound him: in an instant the man flees and evades the torture. But the son is apprehended and burnt.

      The wicked man now sees the great love and goodness of the father and of the son. He is convinced of his sins against them, and repents; he hates his sins, and his haired to the good man and his son is slain, taken away--he is reconciled. He feels constrained to go to the father, confess his sins, and plead forgiveness. He goes weeping, humbly confessing his sins, and asks forgiveness. I forgive you, said the father joyfully, well knowing when he gave his son that nothing else could save the poor man, destroy his enmity, and reconcile him. Surely it was the love and goodness of the father and his son, and this love seen in the death of the son, that effected this great change in the man--that brought him to repentance, and consequently to forgiveness.

      Now what effects did the death of the son produce in the father? [63] Did it produce in him love, favor, or good will to the wicked man? No: these were in him before. Did it dispose, or make him more willing to pardon him? No: he was always willing to pardon him whenever he repented or came within the sphere of forgiveness. It had no direct effect on the father; it directly effected the wicked man to a change and repentance; it indirectly effected pleasure and joy in the father at the change and repentance directly effected in the man by the death of his son.

      The application to our heavenly Father and to his Son is easy, and shows how repentance, forgiveness, redemption, sanctification, and the beating away of sin, are effected by love to the believing obedient soul. This figure is introduced only to show what principle leads to repentance and forgiveness--the goodness of God.

      I will further remark, that forgiveness, and grace, or favor, are eternal attributes of God; they are therefore not effected in him by any thing in the universe. They, like every other perfection in him, flow to the proper object. Now the proper object of for is a penitent soul. As you say, the favor of God is like water damned up--a way must be made for it to flow, or it must remain damned up. Now I say that the impenitence of the sinner is the dam that prevents the forgiveness of God to flow to him. As soon as he repents the dam is removed, and God's forgiveness flows to him. An impenitent sinner is never pardoned. The grace of God flowed in the gift of Christ to the world; and the great work of Christ is to bring mankind to repentance or reconciliation. "Whom God has exalted to give repentance and remission of sins"--and "God was by Christ reconciling the world to himself." This was the ministration of the Apostles, and this the great design of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, which they every where preached. Faith in the gospel begets repentance, and forgiveness flows. Christ therefore has removed the dam which prevented the forgiveness of God flowing. The dam, the obstruction, was in the breast of the sinner, not in God. The death of Christ influences the sinner alone, but produced no direct effect on God.

      We are directed to forgive, even as God forgives. But whom are we to forgive? "If thy brother repent, forgive him." "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us." Now if God will not forgive us till the claims of law and justice are fully satisfied by a substitute--then, as we are to forgive even as God forgives, we must not forgive till all legal and just claims are satisfied by our debtor, or his substitute or surety. Is this forgiveness at all? But as our surety has paid our debts, are we not indebted to him? How, then, can he forgive us, even as God forgives, till the debt is paid to him? We or another substitute must pay it. And yet we remain in debt to the second substitute, and so on forever. In fact, on this plan there can be no forgiveness forever. How unlike to this is the forgiveness of God! See Matth. xviii. 24.; Luke xv., et passim.

      The government of God is the true model of all good civil governments among men. Mercy is always vested in the Executive by the supreme law of the land. Though a man be condemned to death by law, yet it is in the power of the Executive to forgive him, or remit the penalty. This is done when the Governor is assured by respectable [64] petitioners for his pardon, that they believe he is penitent. Is this pardoning act against law? No! it is done according to the supreme law of the land. And is the law of God against his promises? Is not mercy in him from eternity? What shall hinder him from pardoning the penitent? Man by feigned repentance may deceive man, but God, who knows the heart, cannot be deceived.

      In my next I will notice your objections to my views from the beginning.

B. W. STONE.      

BROTHER STONE:

      My dear Sir--PERMIT me, with all respect for your superior years, to make a few suggestions on some points of order:--

      1st. The numeration and titles of our letters are out of order. For example, the first article in your November Christian Messenger, is a letter to me, titled "Atonement--No. IV." The next article is my letter to you, titled "Letter III.--To B. W. Stone." The next is your letter to me, titled "Atonement--No. III." In this way receding, a few more essays and you will get back to No. I.! This, in my optics, is all confusion. Neither we, ourselves nor our readers can refer to any of these essays with accuracy or intelligibility. I may be to blame for so much of this as arose from the loss of your third article. But I move an amendment. I have therefore placed at the head of these articles their proper caption, and intend to do so hereafter.

      2d. It also appears to me that there is a series of letters on hand without any connecting thread of argument: for example, instead of replying to my Letter IV., printed in your last, you print a new letter on a new subject. In this way we might print each a score of letters and develop no point, except how far we agreed or disagreed upon one of the most vital points in the Bible. True, you inform us at the close of your last, that you intend in your next to notice my objections to your views "from the beginning." I suggest to your experience whether a detailed and regular reply to each letter would not be better than a wholesale replication once in a long time.

      3d. With all deference I would add a third suggestion. You sometimes seem to be fighting over the battles which some thirty years ago you waged against Kentucky orthodoxy, instead of endeavoring to come to an understanding among ourselves on what the scriptures teach on atonement. For example, at the: close of the first paragraph of your last letter you say, "So the blood of the Lamb of God is the means appointed of God, by which he cleanses and forgives the penitent obedient believer." "This," you add, "I will now endeavor to make appear." But who of us doubts or denies this!! Then come six pages of your Messenger filled with references to the Hebrew nasa, and the Greek anaphero, in proof that nasa signifies not to bear punishment of sin, but to bear sin away, to forgive it. This affects the questions debated by you thirty years ago, but is not called for in the present discussion. I have not introduced either nasa or anaphero into this investigation. But all this seems to me irrelevant to any thing yet between us; for whether correct or incorrect, it demonstrates [65] not in what way the blood of Christ is the means of pardon. That it is the means of pardon we both agree, and you need not prove it. But in what way is it the means of pardon? This you have not yet shown, and your six pages of criticisms and references reach not this point at all.

      4th. Hear me once more upon your illustration, as also partaking somewhat of the same ambiguity and irrelevance. You introduced it for one purpose, and then command us to apply it to another. The first sentence is, "How the death of Christ bears away our sins, or takes them away, I will endeavor to illustrate by a figure;" and at the end of the figure you tell us, "This figure is introduced only to show what principle leads to repentance and forgiveness--the goodness of God." Unless you mean the death of Christ bears away our sins by bearing repentance to us, I can see no relevancy between the introduction and application of your figure. May I be permitted to add, that in the six pages of Hebrew and Greek references, as well as in the illustration which follows them, the grand point is strangely forgotten or overlooked. The difficulty is not about the necessity of his death in order to reconciling us to God; but it is about the necessity of his death in order to God's pardoning us. Would you have one to believe that you make our repentance or reconciliation to God the only reason why he should forgive us! One might suppose that the drift of your letter before indicated the following to be the philosophy of your atonement:--The death of Christ is to be contemplated merely as a proof of God's goodness--that his goodness perceived in the death of his son, induces repentance; and that this repentance superinduces the pardon of sin. Hence the only necessity for the death of Christ to have occurred, is its superior fitness to produce repentance, which of itself alone when called into being constrains forgiveness. And would you have any one to think that Christ's death occurred simply to demonstrate God's goodness; and that this demonstration occurred simply to induce repentance, and that repentance alone superinduces forgiveness? Brother Stone, you must be explicit in this point, else we shall be greatly misunderstood, if not traduced by our opponents. For my part, I will stand up before the universe of God, not only in affirming, but in attempting to prove, that the death of Jesus Christ our blessed and only Lord, was, and is, and evermore shall be, AS NECESSARY TO DEMONSTRATING THE JUSTICE AS THE GOODNESS OF GOD IN FORGIVING SIN. To unite mercy and justice in forgiving the sinner, was, in my view, the supreme end of God's sparing not his own son; and I trust on this vital point there will be no difference between us. Come up to it frankly and explicitly, brother Stone; the brethren and the community desire to understand us clearly on this great subject.

      After the pains you have taken in this long epistle to enlighten the community upon nasa and anaphero, it will be expected that I should write something less than six or sixty pages indicative of my views. Allow me, then, to make a few remarks on the inductions you have laid before us. Time was when such array did intimidate your old antagonists, and awe into acquiescence the uneducated and speculative community. But in this more sceptical and inquisitive age we may concede all, at least much, of what you have advanced, (and [66] certainly I, for one, do,) and yet contend that it positively and actually avails nothing at all as respects the great point at issue.

      That nasa is often rendered as you say, is unquestionably true; but just as true it is that if there be any word in Hebrew or Greek that imports or could import bearing sin as a burthen, a load, and suffering under it and for it, or as a punishment; these are the words that can and do express it.

      I need not inform one of your learning that nasa is found hundreds of times in the Hebrew Bible; and that, in the judgment of our most learned biblical critics and lexicographers, it is found in more than twenty-five different acceptations. Nay, you know that it is one of the most extensive roots in the Hebrew language. If I were to go into the detail, I shall engage to produce numerous and clear instances of its denoting to impose heavy burdens, to load beasts, to impose grievances, taxes, and usury, to bear sin in a vicarious manner, to bear punishment, &c. &c.; and from these facts, which can be fully substantiated from the Hebrew Bible, of what value is the induction which you have been at pains to collect? Anaphero, too, is only found ten times in the Greek Testament, and in half of these, at least, it is incapable of the translation you give it. Please consider Heb. vii. 27., where it occurs twice, and cannot signify to bear away; and also xiii. 21.; as well as 1 Peter ii. 5. and 25. Consult also James ii. 21. I will not, unless compelled by the high regard I have for your learning and your virtues, go into these inductions; for surely our numerous readers would not thank us for our pains.

      I will only add, after requesting you to brush the dust off your Parkhurst Hebrew Lexicon, and if you choose to refresh your memory, you may look into Roys, (not a work of high authority, except as a concordance,) and you may find from one to two hundred occurrences of this interesting word, diverse from those you have given. I say, I will only add that your reasonings and inductions on nasa leave Isaiah lii. 4, 11, 12, as it was. If, indeed, this whole chapter do not teach that the Messiah did suffer for us, the just for the unjust--that he both bore our sins, and bore them away--that he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, stricken of God, and afflicted for our offendings--that it pleased Jehovah to bruise him, to put him to grief, and to make his soul an offering for sin--it can prove, it does prove, nothing at all.

      Speculators and system-mongers, unable to make these scriptures tally with their notions of justice and expediency, have contended against the language of Apostles and Prophets as figurative and far-fetched, and sought to substitute for the doctrine of the Spirit a vocabulary of their own, more agreeable to their respective theories. I fear some may imagine a squinting of this sort in some remarks of yours, as the following:--"Does law or justice admit of such substituted punishment?" What law, or what justice? In return I ask, Does law or justice admit of the punishment by death of an innocent person? My dear sir, we have many very imperfect logicians among system-makers as well as in other classes of society. They dash on Scylla while steering from Charybdis. We see the divine law impinged when something impinges our theory of God's justice; but we do not see that while we are protecting the law we are dishonoring [67] the character of God by imputing to him the sacrifice of his Son most unjustly and cruelly. For, mark what I say, if the Messiah, God's Son, did not die under the imputation of sin, as a sin-offering, and for us sinners, all the logicians in America will not convince me that it was just to suffer him to die at all. And who allowed his death! Was he not delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God? He asked to be spared; but God could not spare him and save man; and therefore he submitted, saying, "Not as I will, but as thou wilt." "He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all."--"Awake," said Jehovah, "O sword, against my Shepherd--against the man that is my fellow--smite the Shepherd, and let the sheep be scattered." We know who has applied this to the Father and the Son.

      I have weighed the above italicised proposition, and am sorry to discover that it does not seem to have impressed its momentous weight upon your mind. Why, my dear sir, if God's only and well beloved Son could be murdered according to prophecy, by his counsel and foreknowledge, by his own immutable will, without any sin done by him or imputed to him, who could feel safe in the universe of God, though innocent as Jesus, and pure as the throne of Jehovah? When, then, you ask, "Does law or justice admit of such substituted punishment!" remember what the denial of it implies and involves. I ask, Do law and justice admit of the punishment by death of an innocent person! Nay, what moral law justifies the suffering of an innocent person? Every demurrer against the imputation of sin with whom I have debated, is stricken dumb just at this point. Any one that can show me the justice and the law of reason that sanctions the death of those dear innocents whom Herod slew, whom God has slain in the deluge, in Sodom, Egypt, and Jerusalem, that he slays every day by the scythe of death, I will in return show to him the justice of substitution and imputation--I will justify the death of the Messiah as a sin-offering by all the facts, documents, and reasons by which he justifies events innumerable, occurring still in the fortunes of every family in the observation of every man of sense and reflection.

      As I have not now room for a full exposition of my views on this subject, I must defer till another moon. Meantime, my dear sir, I will send you this, in proof, a month before the number appears, that you may have time to explain yourself before the next number be due. Come up to the points now elicited, and leave the Westminster Divines and your orthodox opponents to themselves. We have the Bible, and that is enough. Our brethren are anxious for the full examination of this whole subject.

                  As ever, yours,

A. C.      

[The Millennial Harbinger (February 1841): 59-68.]