I say, as we agree on the nine; for with a single exception to my proof of one of these, and I requested your objections in a former epistle on any of the points involved in them, I conclude there is a concurrence in them all. You object to my views of the faith by which Abel obtained testimony that he was righteous, rather than to the fact that God testified of his gifts at the altar. You ask me how I know that Abel's offering was a sin-offering, &c. Because of the matter of it, and because of the state of mind in which it was offered. It was a bleeding lamb, and it was offered in faith. These are both facts. Now Cain's was neither. In matter and form they differed. Abel believed the promise in its two branches-1st. That the seed of the woman was a Son of Man; and that he would avenge the quarrel by bruising the serpent's head; that he would redeem man from sin and Satan, and that at the expense of suffering himself. The circumstances gave to Adam's family their interpretation of the matter, and that the bruising of the serpent's head meant the bruising of Satan's power over man, is farther evident from Paul's use of the terms, Rom. xvi. 20. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, by his prophecies, as intimated by Jude, shows how greatly we moderns underrate both the knowledge and faith of the antediluvians. If you demand a priori proof, it cannot be given for this and many other such matters farther than I have given it; but the a posteriori proof is obvious; for God always required faith in the Messiah and sacrifice, and never asked less from one than ano her. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Melchisedec, &c., lived under the same dispensation. Abel was only the prototype, as he was the protomartyr of that economy. The seed of the woman was therefore Christ; the bruising his heel indicated Messiah's sufferings; the bruising of the Serpent's head intimated Satan's rain. Abel believed, built an altar, and sacrificed a lamb, the antitype of which is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. I am sorry to see my brother Stone intimate a doubt on this subject.

There are some indistinct affirmations and negations between us on the sins of ignorance and presumptuous sins. You seem to conceive of nothing between these. I do not, my venerable brother, wonder at it, inasmuch as the whole subject of the Jewish sacrifices and offerings are but little understood and very imperfectly examined by our scribes and elders. Presumptuous sins cue a person off from any in stitution under which man was ever placed. If a man "sin wilfully,” i. e. presumptuously-"there remains no more sacrifice," &c. is as true of Christ's administration as of that of Moses. Some, with you, imagine that as sin-offerings refer so often to sins of ignorance, there is no institution for any other kind of sins. Now, sir, should I grant

that sin-offerings, as defined by Moses, refer to sins of ignorance alone, and to all sins of ignorance, (which by the way I do not concede,) still it by no means follows that there were no sacrifices under the law for any other sins or errors than those of ignorance. This is evident for two reasons:

1st. Because the sins of ignorance for which sin-offerings are specially designed in the law, are defined to be but one class of said sinsnamely, sins of ignorance against negative precepts; or, to use the words of Moses, "If a soul shall sin through ignorance against any of the commandments of the Lord CONCERNING THINGS WHICH OUGHT NOT TO BE DONE—and shall act against any of these." This specification shows the peculiar province of that species of sin-offerings as referring to those absolute prohibitory precepts which, if violated wittingly, constituted presumptuous sins. Of this class of precepts concerning things which ought not to be done, the Jews counted three hundred and sixty-five, of which only some forty would subject a wilful transgressor to excision. Now only for transgressions of these through ignorance was that class of sin-offerings ordained.

2d. But besides those emphatically styled "SIN-OFFERINGS," there were other sin-offerings-such as the burnt-offerings, the trespassofferings, and the peace-offerings; all of which were sin-offerings; some of them, too, for sins of ignorance against positive precepts; of which, according to some Rabbis, they had two hundred and fortyeight. But other sins besides sins of ignorance against positive precepts, are enumerated by Moses, as I before demonstrated to your satisfaction, I hope, from Leviticus, 5th and 6th chapters, 1-7. There are sins of knowledge, of doubt, and of ignorance, specified under the law of trespass-offerings-as any one may see who will impartially read the passage referred to.

With regard to the occasion of this discussion of sin-offerings, permit me to offer a few remarks. Your opposition to it seems to arise from a conviction that if we establish that sins in general were expiated by the legal, or by the patriarchal sacrifices, (for they are different institutions)—and especially on the principle that the victim died for, or instead of the offerer, the whole doctrine of old orthodoxy naturally follows; and to this you would make it appear you have a peculiar dislike. Well, now, I have no predilection for, nor antipathy against, either old or new orthodoxy or heterodoxy: I care not a fig how my reasonings will affect either system. The question with me is, Is it true? Do the Prophets and Apostles teach it? If so, I teach it. If not, I teach it not. You have been so vexed with old ortho. doxy, that, like the burned child, you dread the fire. You have been

22

scorched, and burned, and bruised by men calling themselves orthodox. Well, be it so. Still old Orthodoxy is, as I before said, more learned, more devout, more intelligent, and more practically useful than old or new heterodoxy. Both have been professedly men whose hearts never felt the love of God, and therefore both are stained with When in power both are intolerant, proud, blood of human sacrifice. proscriptive, and persecuting. This you will see fully sustained in my last number, under the caption of "A Sin against Orthodoxy." It has used me very ill; but that is no reason why I should detract aught from its well founded pretensions.

I cannot now write a dissertation on burnt-offerings, sin-offerings, trespass-offerings, peace-offerings, meat-offerings, drink-offerings, thank-offerings, &c. &c. Four of these, suffice it to say, the four first, were sin-offerings for sins of different attributes; and by these offerings once a year all the sins of the people in or under the covenant were expiated and remitted, so far as the penalties of the Jewish institute required.

Before the Jewish institution began, the saints, one and all, through faith in the promised seed, offered up sacrifice to God; and God, as in the case of Abel, Noah, Abraham, Job, testified of their gifts and justified them. They were pardoned in anticipation of "the redempcion of the transgressions" to be brought in under the new, or at the close of the legal institute-of which I have something to say in its own place.

When Enoch prophesied of the last days of the Christian age, when Jesus affirmed that Abraham saw his day and was glad, and when Job before Moses said, "I know that my kinsman (redeemer.) my Goel liveth, and that he shall stand upon the earth in the latter day, and that in the resurrection I shall see him;" who can limit the boundaries of faith or knowledge possessed and displayed by the patriarchal people and the Jes! May we not then conclude that when the gospel was preached to Abraham sacrifice and blood were in it as well as in our gospel, whose first fact is, THE MESSIAH DIED FOR OUR SINS according to the seriptures." Isai. liii. Dan. ix. &c. &c. of which more fully when you develope your views of Christ's death. May you not then, my dear sir, notwithstanding all the truth which you utter concerning presumptuous sins and sins of ignorance, in which I presume, as now explained by both of us, we agree; I say, may you not be too rash in affirming that "if the saints from Adam to Christ were pardoned, and purified from sins by faith in his blood, it could not have been from any knowledge they had of it"? True, ndeed, they may have looked for redemption in Israel, and by the

Messiah too-the son of Eve and the son of Abraham, without fully, or at all, understanding him; or by what means, or to what extent, this redemption was to be effected.

I am sorry to hear you say that one of my most prominent assertions is with you doubtful. Your words are, "Your broad assertion that no sin of any description was ever pardoned but by shedding of blood." Am I not backed by Paul? "Without shedding of blood there is no remission." You ask with confidence of a negation, "Is there one instance on record, from Adam to Christ, of one person being justified by the blood of Christ"? You must mean, in so many words, I presume. I would also ask you how was it that Moses, when near the throne of Egypt, "esteemed the reproach of Christ above all the wealth of Egypt, and endured as seeing him that was invisible"? How was it that Isaiah said, "By the knowledge of him my righteous servant shall justify many whose iniquities he shall have borne." And Daniel, After so long a time, "shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself," &c.-"He was wounded for our transgressions," &c."He brought in an everlasting righteousness," &c. Do you think no one believed those things! All your questions in this section suppose that unless daily offering up sacrifice the Jews could not be pardoned by blood. Cannot our sins be pardoned through faith in a blood shed two thousand years ago!

You say you have accepted "Paul's simplified plan of sacrifice." I suppose, then, you have left me Paul's complex plan! He reduces them, you say, to a few points. The points of his simplified plan

are

1st. An annual and daily remembrance of sin.

2d. The purgation of all things, including persons; for as "all things were made by him" includes all persons, so almost all things being purged by blood, means almost all persons.

3d. By law without shedding of blood there is no remission;" but by the gospel there is. Yet Christ has not shed his blood in vain; for those sacrifices were typical of his blood. Sin is seen, remembered, and condemned by it. The death of Christ does three things in Paul's plan, as simplified:-Condemn sin, exhibit sin, and remember sin. This is the whole matter? Then come your remarks upon honoring the law, taking vengeance on the Son, and the substitution indispensable to orthodox atonement, first invented by the Catholic Archbishop Anselm in the 11th or 12th century, according to Professor Murdock. In giving the simplified plan it is presumed you intended to give not a part of it, but all. I think you have forgotten some of it, and will not regard this as your view of the whole matter till I hear from you distinctly again on the subject.

34

In prosecuting the development of this simplified plan you make passing comment on the words "to make an atonement for," which you say, in your second uumber, you have proved to mean "to cleanse, to purge”—in a figure I presume; as when the tailor says, 'I have made a coat for A. B.,' he might mean I have warmed him.' But, in Reason's name, is making a coat and warming a person identical expressions! As much as atonement and cleansing.

ent.

By the way, Professor Murdock's reading and mine are very differHe certainly has forgotten the history of the first four centuries, else his guides and mine are very different. But, my dear sir, what have you or I to do with any professor or with "the system of orthodox atonement?" We are in pursuit of Paul's view of atonement. I care as little for what is "indispensable to orthodox atonement" as for what is indispensable to heterodox atonement. But I can excuse my aged and venerable correspondent when I reflect on the wars he has waged against orthodoxy in the days of his youth. Like an old acquaintance of mine, long engaged in the border wars with the ndians, if in his old days he unexpectenly heard a rifle, he would involuntarily exclaim, "The Indians are there!" So father Stone, when he thinks of honoring the law by the wicked crucifixion of the only begotten Son of God, "who suffered the just for the unjust," he thinks of Archbishop Anselm and his orthodox atonement. All these allusions we can excuse in our aged and amiable friend, believing that as the discussion advances he will dissipate all theories, orthodox and heterodox, and come out as large as life in the language and ideas of Prophets and Apostles.

Sincerely and affectionately yours, &c.

A. CAMPBELL.

THE WORD OF LIFE-BY ELDER A. BROADDUS.

WE make the following extract from a Sermon delivered before the Virginia Baptist Education Society, Richmond, June 6, 1840-by A. Broaddus, The sermon is one that may be read with advantage If it fail in any thing, it is because it is too neat, too by any one. eloquent, too short, too modest, and has too much poetry in it.— There would not be too much poetry in it for the oration of a young man, but there is too much in it for an Elder in Israel. The example is contagious. We have a growing taste amongst young preachers for dashing into the British poets, and giving us more texts from Shakspear or Byron, than from Paul or Peter. There are but five