FROM

THE

MILLENNIAL HARBINGER.

NEW SERIES.

VOL. V.	B E T H A N Y,   V A.   JULY, 1841.	NO. VII.

Dear brother Campbell,

      IT seems that my mode of expressing ideas must be very obscure, seeing I cannot be understood. I will now express them generally in your very language, which is plain and forcible. In your Christian Baptist, revised by D. S. Burnet, with your last corrections, I find you ably contending for the very doctrine I have advocated in this discussion, but which you seem now to oppose.

      On page 511--"Then he led him (Abraham) out, and said to him, Look up now to heaven, and count the stars, if you can number them. Then he said, So shall your seed be. And Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness." Gen. xv. "This faith in this promise was accounted to him for righteousness. So says Moses, and so says Paul; but so does not say John Calvin, nor John Wesley. One says his system says that it was Abraham's faith in a future Messiah, which was accounted to him for righteousness; and the other says it was Abraham's obedience which made him righteous. I am not to argue the case with them." 'Therefore it was accounted to him' (i. e. his belief in this promise, that he should be the father of many nations,) for righteousness.' It brought him into a state of favor and acceptance with God.

      "He that believes that God raised up the crucified, dead, and buried Jesus, and made him the Saviour of the world, believes in the same manner; i. e. rests upon the truth and power of God; and this belief of the promise of eternal life, through a crucified Saviour, is just the same kind as Abraham's faith--the object only different. And therefore all they of this faith are blessed with believing Abraham." [295]

      Page 512--"Now the true faith has in all ages been one and the same thing in kind, if not in degree. The true faith has ever been the belief of all the revelation extant at that time. Hence Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, &c. were all justified by believing the communications made to them. So Paul teaches, Heb. xi. 1. Noah became heir of the righteousness which came through faith, by believing God's promise concerning the deluge, and Abraham by believing, So shall your seed be.'"

      "System-makers, to form a theory in the crucible of their invention, say, that all were justified by believing the same thing. But this no man living is able to show. It is true, I contend that the ground-work of salvation by faith was either prospectively or retrospectively the sacrifice of Christ. But not a person on earth believed that the Messiah would die as a sin-offering, or rise from the dead, from Eve to Mary Magdalene. Without believing this, now-a-days, none to whom it is reported can be saved. The patriarchs had visions and anticipations of a Messiah, but so indistinct that they who spoke most clearly, Peter tells us, were not able to understand them; for, although they sought diligently what the Spirit which spoke in them could mean, they did not understand its communications. But to conclude this episode: The father of the faithful was accounted righteous through believing the promise made to him, and all his children shall be ranked with him through believing the communications made to them. Rom. iv. to the end."

      These are sentiments, with one exception, which I have been endeavoring to plead in this discussion, and which I have thought you opposed. I should be glad to know that these are still your sentiments. The one exception I have made to the above extracts, is this: 'It is true, I contend, that the ground-work of salvation by faith was either prospectively or retrospectively the sacrifice of Christ.' This I view as a mere salvo of my brother to secure his orthodoxy from impeachment. How can it be made to agree with what immediately follows, I confess I cannot see. How the sacrifice of Christ could be a means of salvation, when not one from Eve to Mary Magdalene believed or understood it, I have no conception. If it was a means, it operated on the mind of God alone, and not on man. By it I suppose you mean, God was pacified, propitiated, or made propitious, and reconciled to man, so that he could pardon the guilty and save him from sin. But of this I have more to say in its proper place.

      I now proceed to review your Letter IV. In the commencement of it you glance at the points in which you think we have concurred, which points you include in nine propositions. These, with a few exceptions, I have long since received as true. The exceptions I will now point out.

      Prop. 1. You say we concur in this--'That to expiate, and to pacify, and atone for, are scriptural ideas and expressions.' In this my brother is mistaken. I have constantly asserted that to expiate and atone for, are not scriptural expressions; they are no where found in the English Bible. Besides, I have said that 'sins atoned for,' as you express it, is not a scriptural idea, but an awkward expression used by some to support their system of religion.

      Prop. 5. If I understand you in this proposition, I can see no [296] concurrence of our ideas. It is the very point in which we most widely differ. See my Letter II. of review, page 158, 159.

      Prop. 6. You say, 'Salvation, then, under the law, spiritual and eternal was through faith, repentance, and sacrifice, as it was from Adam unto Moses.' In this sentiment you think we concur: Did I ever intimate that spiritual and eternal salvation was ever obtained by sacrifices from Adam to Moses, or from Moses to Christ? Have I not called upon my brother for proof of this your position? We have concurred in this, that the sacrificial system under the patriarchs was substantially the same as that under the law, and that they could not give spiritual and eternal salvation to any?

      On page 19 you take notice of five affirmations (as you are pleased to call them) which I have made in my previous communications to you. 1st. You say, "You intimate that errors, or as you define errors, viz. sins of ignorance, require blood; but that greater transgressions, or what are in contrast with simple errors, called sins, are forgiven without blood or sacrifice. In one sentence, that errors require blood, and that sins did not!" This last sentiment you express with a note of admiration. My brother need not wonder at it, for it is the appointment of God himself. Of the many texts to which I have already referred as proof positive on this subject, I will quote one which is decisive. Num. xv. 22-31. "And if ye have ERRED, and not observed these commandments which the Lord hath spoken unto Moses; then it shall be, if aught be committed by IGNORANCE without the knowledge of the congregation, that all the congregation shall offer one young bullock and one kid of the goats for a sin-offering. And the priest shall make an atonement for all the congregation of the children of Israel, and it shall be forgiven them, for it is IGNORANCE." (Mark this, my dear sir.) "And they shall bring their offering and their sin-offering before the Lord for their IGNORANCE. And it shall be forgiven all the congregation of the children of Israel, and the stranger that sojourneth among them; seeing all the people were in IGNORANCE. And if any soul sin through IGNORANCE, then he shall bring a she-goat for a sin-offering; and the priest shall make an atonement for that soul that sinneth ignorantly, when he sinneth by IGNORANCE before the Lord, to make an atonement for him, and it shall be forgiven him. But the soul that sinneth PRESUMPTUOUSLY" [mark the contrast] "the same reproacheth the Lord; and that soul shall be cut off from among his people, because he hath despised the word of the Lord, and hath broken his commandment, that soul shall be utterly cut off, his iniquity shall be upon him"--i. e. it shall not be purged away by sacrifice. Now, my dear sir, is it not plain from this passage that errors and sins of ignorance required blood in order to be forgiven? And that sins--presumptuous sins (for so have I defined my meaning) did not admit of sacrifice, because they were unpardonable by law, such transgressors must be put to death without mercy. If such were pardoned, this pardon was not an exemption from the death denounced by law, nor was it obtained by legal sacrifice; but it was a spiritual pardon, or justification of a soul granted to believing humble penitents, who pleaded mercy. Lev. xxiv. 40, 43. If, then, I have affirmed this, is not the affirmation based on truth?

      2. You say that I 'intimate, that there was a gospel preached to [297] Abraham, by which Jews and Greeks were justified, and that it had neither blood nor sacrifice in it.' And how will my brother prove that blood or sacrifice was a part of that gospel? You will say, Because Abraham offered sacrifice. Must I conclude that because Moses sacrificed that the law was part of the gospel? Paul says, 'The law is not of faith.' If Abraham's sacrifice was part of the gospel, so must be the sacrifice of Moses, for you admit it is the same sacrificial system.

      3. My third affirmation is, as you say, 'That the Jews under the law, and the Gentiles without the law, were justified by Abraham's gospel without any sacrifice, or deeds of the law'--and then you strangely ask, Do you make sacrifice one of the deeds of the law? I verily do. Does, brother Campbell deny it? He may deny what no intelligent man ever affirmed--that the sacrifice of Christ is not a deed of the Mosaic law, and he will boldly tell us, 'that not a person on earth believed that the Messiah would die as a sin-offering, or rise from the dead, from Eve to Mary Magdalene,' and that John Calvin's sentiment was wrong, who said that Abraham was justified by faith in a future Messiah. I refer to your lucid remarks quoted in the beginning of this letter.

      4. In this you strangely represent me as teaching that remission in all cases, both before and since the law, is without shedding of blood. Brother Campbell, I have never taught this, I have never affirmed it, I have never been conscious of such a thought passing through my mind. To this discussion I appeal for justification from this charge. I have constantly maintained that pardonable sins of error and ignorance were remitted through the blood of legal sacrifices, and that under the gospel we are all justified by faith in the blood of Christ. Had I affirmed that, 'Noah became heir of the righteousness, which came through faith, by believing God's promise concerning the deluge and Abraham believing, So shall thy seed be;' then there might have been some plausible ground for the charge.

      On page 20 you say, 'I am sorry to see my brother Stone intimate a doubt on this subject--i. e. that the seed of the woman was Christ--the bruising his heel indicated Messiah's sufferings--the bruising of the serpent's head intimated Satan's ruin--the Lamb, sacrificed by Abel, is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.' My dear brother, it would make me sorry to cause sorrow to one whom I so highly esteem as I do you. If ever I expressed any doubt on the subject you named, I am perfectly unconscious of it, and am entirely ignorant of the time and place, when and where, such a doubt is expressed. In the belief of these things I have been firm from my earliest recollections of truth. Sorrow, then, no more for me from this cause. Rest assured you are mistaken.

      Page 21--You think my opposition arises from a conviction that if you establish that sins in general were expiated by patriarchal or legal sacrifices; and especially on the principle that the victim died for, or, instead of the offerer, the whole system of old orthodoxy naturally follows. I believe I have more honesty than to oppose any doctrine, because it is old or new orthodoxy; but I have opposed some of the doctrines you advocate, from a conviction that they are not the doctrines of the Bible: I must oppose, irrespective of old orthodoxy, that [298] all sins, but the sin of apostacy, were expiated by patriarchal or legal sacrifices, for reasons already stated in this discussion. And for the same reason I must oppose the doctrine that the victim died in the stead of the offerer. I think I have clearly proved that no victim ever suffered death at the altar, as a vicarious substitute, or in the stead of the offerer, because no person, against whom the law denounced death, was permitted to offer a sacrifice for his sin. Against pardonable transgressions, against sins of error, and of ignorance, the law did not denounce death: therefore the death of the victim was not in the stead of the offerer's death. Was the woman after child-birth worthy of death, and therefore, the death of the victim slain for her, was in the stead of her death? Was the leper--the man with a running issue, and many other similar cases, worthy of death, and therefore the death of the victim was in their stead? If this be the of old or new system of orthodoxy, I must reject it, although more learned, more devout, more intelligent, and more practically useful, than old or new heterodoxy.' My rule for judging is, Does the Bible teach it?

      My brother thinks it, is my dislike of old orthodoxy, that I have so tenaciously adhered to the doctrine of sacrifices, which, as I think, were taught by Moses and Paul, and that I have opposed the opposite. Might I not also think that your fondness for old orthodoxy, and your high encomiums of it, is the cause, why you so strenuously advocate its fundamental doctrines? For when once it is admitted that the victims were substitutes, and died in the stead of the guilty, then, to be consistent, we must receive the whole orthodox system as taught by the Westminster creed-makers. For, if I understand you, the man guilty of death by law, is freed from this sentence by bringing a victim which suffers death in his stead--God is now pacified, now propitiated or made propitious; he is now reconciled and placated to the sinner. Does it not follow that the great antitype, the Lamb of God, was a substitute, and his death was in the stead of the guilty world--that God was propitiated, made propitious, and his anger turned away--that his law's demands were satisfied--and the honors of his government sustained in his granting pardon to the guilty? Then it certainly follows that Paul's doctrine of no justification by the deeds of the law, is overthrown; for the person and his surety are one in law; if the surety pays the debt, due according to law, in the stead of the person, then is the person free from obligation, anti is justified on the principle of law, not of grace; for there can be no grace, pardon, nor mercy in the justifier on this principle.

      It the surety or substitute, Christ Jesus, must suffer the penalties of the law, and part of those penalties were eternal death, then must he be eternally suffering death; and if justification or pardon cannot be granted till the demands against the sinner be satisfied, it follows that it cannot forever be obtained; for it will require an eternity to suffer the demand. If he suffered temporal death its a substitute, or in the stead of those under the sentence of death, why do all die?

      Are we not required to forgive one another, even as God forgives? Are we not to be imitators of him? 'Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.' 'If thy brother repent, forgive him.' 'A certain king would take an account of his debtors: among them was one who owed him ten thousand talents, and had nothing to [299] pay. The debt was just, and justice demanded payment--the poor debtor acknowledged it--but humbled himself, and pleaded for mercy. The king graciously forgave him the whole debt. SO IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. Had an advocate of old orthodoxy been there, he would have taught a very different doctrine from that of the Great Teacher. He would have said, The debt is just, and therefore must be paid; pardon cannot be granted on any other terms. If the debtor cannot pay, a surety must. A generous, wealthy man, becomes his surety, and pays the full demand. Now, says the creditor, I forgive--I pardon. Does the debtor thank him? Is he under any obligation to him? Is there any thing like pardon in the case? But the debtor is now justly indebted to the surety for the full amount; and his surety must forgive as God forgives; that is, when the debt is paid. Is not the idea of pardon and favor entirely excluded from this system of old orthodoxy.

      Had this been the true system taught in the Bible, is it not strange that the doctrine can never be found there? Was it taught by Christ in his sermon on the Mount? Not a hint of it. And yet said Jesus in the conclusion of it, 'Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, is like a man that built his house upon a rock.' Was it taught by Peter at Pentecost? Not a hint of it; and surely had it been true, he would not here have omitted it; yet three thousand were saved without the knowledge of it. Yet the doctrine is dubbed orthodoxy--a fundamental truth!

      On page 22 my brother still contends that the patriarchs from Abel offered up sacrifice to God, through faith in the promised seed, and were pardoned in anticipation of the redemption of the transgressions to be brought in under the New Institution. Yet you acknowledge they neither understood nor believed that Messiah would ever die as a sin-offering, and rise from the dead; and yet you quote Isaiah liii. and Daniel ix. in proof--of what? That Messiah would die, and yet they neither understood nor believed that he would die as a sin-offering. I had asked, (page 23,) Is there one instance on record, from Adam to Christ, of one person being justified by (faith in) the blood of Christ? You answer, 'Moses esteemed the reproach of Christ above all the wealth of Egypt, and endured as seeing him that is invisible.' My brother surely cannot think that Christ in this text means Christ the Lord! It means the anointed people of the Lord; for so the words Messiah and Christ often signify.

                  Your affectionate and old brother,

B. W. STONE.      

BROTHER STONE:

      Dear Sir--TOUCHING the extracts from the "Christian Baptist," above quoted by you, I have the pleasure to inform you that my mind has not undergone the slightest variation or shadow of a change.--When I assumed the responsibilities of a scribe, or editor of a religious periodical, my arrangements of the items of redemption on Heaven's part, and on man's part, were severally arranged under three heads:-- [300] On Heaven's part--1st. The grace or philanthropy of God the Father. 2d. The sacrificial death of Jesus the only begotten Son of God. 3d. The descent and gift of the Holy Spirit. On Man's part--1st. Faith in the person, office, and character of Christ, with special reference to his death as a sin-offering. 2d. Repentance. 3d. Baptism. Then are we in covenant with God through the Mediator; consequently enjoy remission of sins, the consolations and sanctification of the Holy Spirit, and the hope of eternal life. These views have only been fully stereotyped by the readings, debates, and discussions of at least one quarter of a century. I am sorry to see you express a suspicion on the most fundamental point in all that you have quoted from the "Christian Baptist," viz.--"I contend that the ground-work of salvation by faith was either perspectively or retrospectively the sacrifice of Christ." Concerning this golden sentiment you kindly suspicion me as guilefully saving my reputation for orthodoxy! My course in life, indeed, exhibits a great desire for the reputation of orthodoxy, and fully warrants such a conclusion!!! No, sir, you have wholly mistaken me. While I have contended, and do contend, that the particular objects of faith of the cloud of witnesses in Hebs. xi. were as diverse as the persons named, and therefore the better served to illustrate the power and excellency of that salutary principle; I never once said or thought that any sinner, in any age, was ever justified before God by any faith he possessed, without the influence of the death of Christ on the throne and character of the Lawgiver of the Universe. This, during my whole editorial career, has been the polar star of all my reasonings and thoughts on the great question, How shall a sinful man be just before God?

      But you cannot comprehend how the sacrifice of Christ could be a means of salvation, when not one from Eve to Mary Magdalene believed or understood it. Of course, then, you can never conceive how it could be the means of salvation to any one dying under five or seven years old--in infancy, from Eve to "Michael's trump shall sound;" and therefore you must have some way of saving at least one third of Adam's race without Christ at all, or else you must deny the possibility of salvation for one-third of human kind; nay, much worse than this, if all the dead of all ages were summoned to the tribunal of your views of means of salvation! Besides, you must have some way of saving the ancients, infants and adults, without the Holy Spirit, as now essential to life spiritual and divine, if the knowledge of its mode of existence or operation be an essential means of salvation. Nay, you are perplexed with still greater difficulties; for if the death of Christ be necessary to a proper faith in the divine philanthropy, as [301] you seem to teach, then not one of all the human race, infant or adult, from the creation till the crucifixion of Christ, could have been saved at all; since you concur with me that no one during that period could possibly understand the death of the Messiah. But, my dear sir, as it is essential to animal life that there should be oxygen gas in the atmosphere, but not essential that every one believe and understand its existence, but only that he open his mouth and receive it; so was it essential to pardon in all cases that there should be a sin-offering, but not that every one should have understood the sacrificial death of the Lord Messiah before that event transpired. Hence in the extracts quoted from the "Christian Baptist" there is one that fully meets this view of the case--"True faith has ever been the belief of all the revelation extant at the time."

      Your review of my fourth letter begins on the third page of what your printer has captioned a continuation of the review of my fourth letter. This, with some other singular typographical errors, will perplex your readers as they have perplexed me. Your remarks on the words expiate and atone for are fully met in my last, as also your singular theory of sacrifice for little offences, and no sacrifice for great offences. Please, without waiting twelve months for the review in course of your arrangement of this my 8th letter, explain to us in your next the difference between "atone for" and "to make atonement for" as a scriptural phrase; and also the difference between "expiate our sins" and "purge our sins," or "make purification for sins." This is the more necessary as I see some of our very prominent brethren, amongst whom is your able colleague and co-editor brother Thomas M. Allen, of Missouri, are occasionally tendering me some kind mementos on my essays on "Pure Speech," and "Bible Names for Bible Ideas," especially when I happen to notice any of the elect subjects of the old dispensation, as if I were pulling down the things that I had builded. It is a capital mistake. Bible names are not translators' names--Hebrew and Greek, not English nor Latin names are Bible names; and I will contend before any literary tribunal in any College in America, that "to atone for" is neither more nor less than "to make atonement for;" and to "expiate our sins" is as biblical as to "purge our sins," &c. &c. I wonder if there be no sectarian feeling in selecting a few phrases on this subject as coming under such a prohibition while I can find fifty phrases in one of your letters that have no scriptural authority--i. e. on the ground assumed in reprobating expiate, pacify, propitiate, and atone for as unscriptural.

      As you develop your views of the law I see in them the roots of those singular conclusions to which you have come. In defence of [302] your second affirmation you ask, "Was the law a part of the gospel?" and then quote, "The law is not of faith," &c. There is something called "the ceremonial law"'--for the name I am not tenacious; the law of types and sacrifices; "the law contained in ordinances"--which, although no part of the Christian gospel, was most certainly the gospel of the legal dispensation. The ten precepts had no forgiveness in them; but the law of sacrifice most certainly had. I see no point in your interrogatories about the law, unless you exclude both Christ and his gospel from the typical rites, and the sacrifices. And what chapter will this open for discussion!! Meanwhile, Paul being my guide, I affirm that the ceremonial or ritual of Moses was the gospel of Judaism. If you doubt, I pray you read again the whole epistle to the Hebrews.

      You sustain my three first affirmations of your views, even to making sacrifice "one of the deeds of the law." Then the law was co-eval with the fall: for sacrifice is as old as Cain and Abel! The law is in your logic, therefore, a part of the gospel; for it is often commended, and in its great principles enforced, by the Apostles.

      I do not exactly affirm that you represent remission, in all cases, without shedding of blood; but I do say, you either do this virtually, by affirming the remission of the great sins without blood; or you make animal blood, by its own efficacy, without any allusion to the blood of Christ, take away sins of ignorance, or your minor offences. And surely you, do not deny that you teach that, so far as forgiveness, with regard to another life, was bestowed on Jews and Patriarchs, it was in every case without the shedding of blood: for example, David's sin was pardoned, but not by sacrifice, direct or indirect. This I regard as your doctrine. Now if David's sin of murder and adultery was pardoned without shedding of blood, any other sin may be; and therefore I argue on your principles shedding of blood had nothing to do with the true and proper remission of sins as respects another life from Adam to Christ. I do not, then, so much wonder, as I once did, at your making the death of Christ for our faith, rather than for our sins.

      If, as you say, you have proved that no victim ever suffered death at the altar, as a vicarious substitute, or in the stead of the offerer, (whence came the word vicarious substitute!) then I ask you for an explanation of these words--"I have given blood to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul." If this be not life for life, soul for soul, what does it mean? See Lev. xvi. 11. When Paul says, "For a good man some would even dare to die," does he not mean to [303] die in his stead! and so when the same Apostle says, "God commends his love to us that while yet sinners Christ died for us"--is that not in our stead? This is what you and the orthodox call "vicarious." I confess I believe that Christ died for us, in our stead. Hence we who believe in him shall never die!! Believest thou this!--?

      Some two pages of your letter on orthodoxy have no bearing on the subject before us. I am not defending orthodoxy nor assailing heterodoxy. No orthodox man now-a-days would take your version of his views; but I care not for your assaults on old orthodoxy--I stand up for the Bible.

      I do not wish unnecessarily to complain of your method of prosecuting this discussion. I left this matter to your superior age and your great good sense, and did not stipulate either about the order of publication in your periodical, nor upon the necessity of direct and immediate replies. Indeed, the Harbinger was the periodical contemplated in the commencement. Since that time you have revived the "Messenger," and have for months past occasionally placed me on its pages in the singular attitude of replying in one number to your letter in some preceding number; while you as frequently follow me up with a reply to some letter written three or four months before. In almost any other person I would have regarded this as an ingenious contrivance for effect; but your venerable years and high reputation for candor and guileless magnanimity elevate you far above all such suspicions.--Your letters had, however, better be curtailed in length, as latterly they very much exceed the bounds prescribed for our communications. If I am mistaken in the relative space occupied by as both in this discussion, I shall intimate it after my compositor shall have reported the number of m's we had so far respectively employed. Many say it is time that we had fully discussed Isa. liii., Rom. iii., and Heb. ix.; which they think ought to suffice. But this I leave to your own mature reflection.

      Very benevolently, in the hope of immortality, yours, &c.

A. C.      

[The Millennial Harbinger (July 1841): 295-304.]