FROM

THE

MILLENNIAL HARBINGER.

Number VI.-----Volume VI.

---

A. CAMPBELL, EDITOR.

---

Bethany, Va. June, 1835.

JAMES TOWN, Ohio, April 25, 1835.      

Beloved brother Grew,

      YOUR admonition of the 6th instant, published in the current volume of the "Harbinger," has been read, and its contents carefully examined. I may have been a little too fast, or too severe, in my essay on the subject of "faith alone." There may be some exceptions to the general rule. Some who advocate that notion may practise and teach acts of obedience; but surely they would leave [269] out the word "alone" after "faith," if they considered those acts of obedience necessary to forgiveness of sins. The Apostles have not added the word "alone." And if it were added to other expressions, as it has been to "faith," we should have abstraction in all its sublimity. Thus, "eight souls were effectually saved by water,"--If the word "alone" were added to "souls," we should have it about as the "faith alone men" fix things; there is nothing said in the passage about bodies, and there is as strong grounds to contend for the salvation of naked souls from this passage, as there is to contend for salvation by naked faith, because the adjuncts are not mentioned.

      Your figure of the "wife case," relative to repentance, I conclude is not in point, that being a case of personal violence--the other, a transgression of law. If we were to speak of repentance for violence done to "the wife," without a knowledge of her or of the act of violence, it would then be coming towards the point. For repentance for sin, or transgression of law, without a knowledge of the lawgiver or law, or rather without belief in the lawgiver or the law, is what I conceive to be contended for by such as place repentance before faith.

      I cannot help coming to a different conclusion from the reasoning adduced by you to that to which you come. You reason thus:--"Indeed, it is impossible for a man to, accept forgiveness while he is insensible that he has offended." Faith in the lawgiver (Christ) and in the law transgressed, must necessarily precede repentance and application for forgiveness. For how can application be made to him of whom we have never heard? and how can we ask forgiveness without the knowledge of transgression? and how can we obtain the knowledge of transgression without the knowledge of law? Therefore, faith must necessarily precede both repentance and forgiveness. This is the conclusion to which your reasoning brings me.

      But I wish to say a few things relative to the famous case of Abraham. Every faith alone, man, without exception, adduces this case to prove "remission of sins by faith alone;" whereas they can prove no such thing from the case. They suppose the term "justification" when used in reference to Abraham, means the forgiveness of sins. If it have any such meaning when applied to the old Patriarch, I have mistaken his character entirely. Let us now carefully review the case.

      Paul says, Heb. vi. "By faith Abraham when called to go out into a place which he should afterwards receive as an inheritance, obeyed, and went out, not knowing whither he was going.". Here Paul plainly declares that Abraham was a man of faith and of obedience too, before God made the promise of a numerous seed to him, the belief of which promise was counted to him for righteousness. And Moses says, Gen. xiv. that before God made the promise to Abraham of the numerous seed as the stars of heaven, "that Melchizedek the Priest of the Most High God blessed him." Who would infer from the history of this case, that Abraham was an ungodly sinner, an unpardoned wretch, at the time God made the promise to him. It is calumny to speak thus of the Patriarch; but in this case there was a [270] direct promise of a numerous seed, without any condition on the part of Abraham: "And he said to Abraham, Look now towards heaven, and count the stars if you can number them. And he said unto him, So shall thy seed be." Abraham could do nothing more in this case than believe; for without a command, there can be no obedience.

      Now for the next case, in which Abraham is said to have been justified. Some 26 years after the first promise and justification by the belief of God's promise, Abraham was commanded to offer Isaac in sacrifice, in whom the first promise rested. lie did it, still believing the first promise relative to the numerous seed. Herein he gave proof of his faith, and perfected it. But who would infer from the history of this case, that Abraham received the pardon of his sins when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? No such conclusion can be deduced from the history of the case. For neither Moses, Paul, nor James, ever Intimates that Abraham had at any time transgressed any command or law of God; and to infer the forgiveness of sins without transgressions of law, is to infer the destruction of that which never existed. Therefore all the arguments for the forgiveness of sins, built upon the case of Abraham, are like superstructures built in the air--they have neither foundation nor props. The term justification, when applied to Abraham, can mean nothing more nor less than the approbation or approval of God, and may be applied in the same sense to the saints of the Most High God, as often as they believe God's promises, or do what he commands.

      If the forgiveness of sins can be shown to depend upon an unconditional promise of God, like to the promise of a numerous seed made to Abraham, then, and not till then, can "faith alone" men sustain their position; but when that is done, universalism will also be established.

      I will now say a few things relative to "charity," the meaning of which is perhaps as much perverted in this our day, as any other expression used by Jesus or his Apostles. It has now assumed the meaning of courtesy, or rather sycophancy. He that says to all the sects in christendom, 'Go on and prosper; you will all reach heaven at last, if you are honest and hold out faithful to the end,' is counted the charitable man in this our day. If ignorance or error will save men, then he may be said to be charitable; but if a strong desire for men's salvation be true charity, and nothing but the belief of truth and the obedience of God will save men, then he is the most uncharitable of men; for when he finds men in ignorance and error, and living in disobedience to God, he tells them to persevere in the road to destruction. If this be charity, then may bitter and sweet be said to mean the same thing.

      But I agree with you, that all the soldiers of Jesus Christ ought to be courteous towards all men, and especially the aged. If at any time I err in this, I thank the friend or brother who apprises me of it, and consider it a pleasure, rather than a pain, to ask forgiveness for my rudeness. If, then, in my former essay, I have thus transgressed, I now, ask the forgiveness of the brother addressed; as well as of all others [271] who have read my rude remarks. O that God may forgive all our blunders in trying to advocate his cause upon the earth!

      Yours in the christian hope,

A WINANS.      

      IN the absence of the Editor, we feel induced, by the above communication, to express a feeling of deep regret, that a reformation, which we humbly suggested, and respectfully submitted to the consideration of the friends and lovers of truth and peace throughout all the churches, more than twenty-five y ears ago, for the express purpose of putting an end to religious controversy among christians, should appear to take the unhappy turn, to which, with painful anxiety, we have seen it verging for the last ten years; namely, to "verbal contentions, from which come envy, strife, evil speakings, unjust suspicions, perverse disputings,--rather than godly edification which is in faith;"--from all which we are divinely admonished to abstain; and "not to fight about words for no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers:--For the servant of the Lord must not be contentious, but gentle towards all men, fit to teach, patiently bearing evil, with meekness instructing those that set themselves in opposition; if, by any means, God may be pleased to grant them reformation, to the acknowledgment of truth." Wherefore, as an alternative for the unhappy contentions and desolating divisions, so inimical to genuine christianity, with which the church had been vexed and torn to pieces for upwards of fifteen centuries, we adventured, as above stated, to adopt for ourselves, and to recommend to our divided brethren, "the rejection of all human opinions and inventions of men, as of any authority, or as having any place in the church of God, that so we might for ever cease from farther contentions about such things;--that, returning to, and holding fast by, the original standard, we should take the divine word alone for our rule,--the Holy Spirit for our teacher and guide to lead us in all divine truth,--and Christ alone, as exhibited in the word, for our salvation; that, by so doing, we might be in peace among, ourselves, follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. And that, for this blissful purpose, we would countenance and support such ministers, and such only, as exhibit a manifest conformity to the original standard of christianity in conversation and doctrine, in zeal and diligence;--only such as reduce to practice that simple original form of christianity expressly exhibited upon the sacred page, without attempting to inculcate any thing of human authority, of private opinion, or inventions of men, as having any place in the constitution, faith, or worship of the christian church,--or any thing as matter of christian faith or duty, for which there cannot be expressly produced a "thus saith the Lord," either in express terms, or by approved scripture precedent." [See Declaration and Address of the Christian Association of Washington, Pa. published 1809, pp. 3, 4.] Having thus advised and resolved, we proceeded, in our subsequent address, earnestly to urge the adoption of the above resolutions, go the only just, relevant, and practicable ground of religious unity, instead of the impossible unity of opinion;--endeavoring to evince, beyond the possibility of rational objection, the abundant and alone sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures, without note or comment, to answer every purpose of our holy religion for the conversion and salvation of the world. In the execution of this design, we are happy to say, we so far succeeded as to obviate any attempt, on the part of our reluctant and uncompromising brethren, to exhibit a formal refutation of our overture, or of the truth, and relevancy of the arguments adduced to sustain and enforce it. And had the advocates of the proposed reformation continued to sustain and enforce it, as, in the document referred to, we are constrained to believe, that the sectarian, popular objections which have been brought against it, and with which its progress, has been unhappily embarrassed, could never have been advanced by any, who acknowledge the all-sufficiency, and alone sufficiency, of the belief and obedience of the Holy Scriptures, in their obvious [272] grammatic sense, for the salvation of sinners; for the perfect edification of the christian church, independent of all human opinions and inventions of men. And here let it be noted, that we make no larger demand in behalf of the Holy Scriptures, than they expressly and explicitly claim; see Psalm xix. 7, 11, and 2 Tim. iii. 14--17, with many other places to the same purpose. So that to deny our assumption of the alleged sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures, is to file off into the ranks of open and avowed infidelity.

      We did not then, however, flatter ourselves, nor do we yet, that the just, adequate, and unexceptionable ground of religious unity which we assumed, and proposed to our contending brethren, would have entirely exempted us from the toils of controversy; but only that it would have been of a very different and more profitable kind. For instead of detecting and exposing the supposed errors of any of the existing isms of sectarian christendom, our controversies should have been confined to verbal criticisms about the literal, contextural, or analogical meaning of the sacred text; or about the truth and justness of its translation; all of which would have a direct and proper tendency to make us better acquainted with the true, literal, and figurative meaning of the language of the sacred volume. While, in the mean time, according to our assumption, it would still be fairly demonstrable to all concerned, that, however they might grammatically differ about the correct literal meaning of a particular word or phrase, there still remained an abundant sufficiency of clear and explicit declaration, about the meaning of which there could be no doubt, without confounding all verbal certainty, the belief and obedience of which would, and must be, amply sufficient, to perfect christian character; unless it be assumed, that no person can be a true and approved christian, without possessing a correct literal knowledge of the true grammatical meaning of the sacred oracles; a position which, we presume, none will pretend to sustain. But, alas! how have we wandered from our divine premises! We have forsaken terra firma, and are again out at sea, amidst the rocks and vortices, that have absorbed every adventurer from Arius to the present day. And, indeed, if we are to calculate the future by the past, especially for the last ten years, we might live to see an exhibition of all the curious questions and perplexing controversies of the last fifteen centuries, upon the, face of the periodicals professedly in favor of the proposed reformation. Thus, instead of a genuine scriptural reformation, reducing and restoring our holy religion to its original heaven-born purity, in the belief and practice of a divine declaration, expressly legible upon the face of the sacred page;--we should have a reiteration, a renewed exhibition, of metaphysical abstractions, of theological polemics, notions and opinions, to which Buck's Theological Dictionary might again serve as a portable index. Ainsi ne soit il!

T. C.      

[The Millennial Harbinger (June 1835): 269-273.]

      Thomas Campbell's Editorial Note to "M. Winans to Elder Henry Grew" was first published in The Millennial Harbinger, Vol. 6, No. 6, June 1835. The electronic version of the essay has been produced from the College Press reprint (1976) of The Millennial Harbinger, ed. Alexander Campbell (Bethany, VA: A. Campbell, 1835), pp. 269-273.

      Pagination has been represented by placing the page number in brackets following the last complete word on the printed page. I have let stand variations and inconsistencies in the author's (or editor's) use of italics, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling in the essay. Emendations are as follows:

            Printed Text [ Electronic Text
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------
 p. 272     pp. 3, 4. [ pp. 3, 4.]
 

      Addenda and corrigenda are earnestly solicited.

Ernie Stefanik
Derry, PA

Created 10 December 1997.
Updated 9 July 2003.