That many saints lived from Adam to Christ is evident-that their sins were pardoned, and pardoned through faith, and not by the deeds of the law, is true as far as we are informed; but that they were justified by the blood of law sacrifices, looking through them by faith to the blood of the great antitype to be shed in future, I must reject for reasons stated in my first number on Atonement. If they were pardoned and purified from sin by the blood of Christ, it could not have been by faith in the blood, or from any knowledge they had of it. It could therefore have no direct influence or effect on them to reconcile them to God, or lead them to repentance-that whole virtue, influence, and effect of his blood, must have been directly on, or in God himself; who by it was so affected that he was pacified, propitiated, or reconciled, and the honor of his` law and government so well sustained that he granted pardon and favor to sinners. Of all this we have no account in the scriptures.

My dear brother, are you not inconsistent when you state that "the legal institution of sacrifice is but a national dispensation of a previously existing sacrificial system;" that this institution extended no farther than to temporal life and blessings; and yet that the old saints in the patriarchal age, as Abel, Shem, Noah, &c. received spiritual pardon and spiritual blessings through their sacrifices? The reason you assign is because they may have had views superior to the legal economy. May have had is no argument that they really had superior views, so that they through their sacrifices saw the blood of Christ to be shed in future, when the Israelites under the law could not see it. How do you know whether Abel's offering was a sin-offering, or a thank-offering? Why was Abel's offering accepted and Cain's rejected? Not because Abel's was a sacrifice of blood, and Cain's was not; but because Abel offered in faith. Faith in what? In the blood

Of this you, my dear brother,

of Christ to be shed 4000 years after' are as ignorant as myself. Do read the 11th chapter of the Hebrews, and understand the faith by which the elders obtained a good report. In all the instances of faith there recorded, do you find one that had the blood of Christ as its object? Do read again the last chapter of Job, and see whether the sin pardoned there was not wholly an error, or sin of ignorance; and this pardon not by faith in the blood of Christ. You think David, in the case of Uriah, was pardoned by sacrifice. Once more read this case in Psalm li., and you will see your mistake. David says, "For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it." This shows that he had not given it, because his sin admitted not of sacrifice. As to God smelling r sweet savor from the sacrifice of Noah and others, nothing more is intended than that God was pleased with his obedience and piety, But of this more fully hereafter.

Your broad assertion that no sin of any description was ever pardoned but by shedding of blood, is very doubtful. Was it by blood of any description that pardon was granted to those, Num. xiv. 19, 20? How were the Israelites pardoned in Babylon for seventy years? Not by blood of victims; for their temple, altar, and all were in ruins, and sacrifices must be slain at the temple. How were those pardoned who were not cleansed according to the purification of the sanctuary? 2 Chron. xxx. 18, 19. How were those pardoned who were led captive into foreign lands? Read 2 Chron. vi. 34, 20. Is there one instance on record, from Adam to Moses, of one person being justified by faith in the blood of Christ? Not one. Is there one case of such justification from Moses to Christ? Not one. It is easier to assert than prove.

Paul's simplified plan of sacrifice I have accepted. He adduces them to a few poinis. 1st. By them a remembrance of sin was made every year, and we may say correctly, every day. No ravenous unclean beast or fowl was admitted for sacrifice; the sight of such dying could excite in the mind of the worshipper no pity nor compassion. But the innocent and clean beasts and fowls were only required.— When the offerer saw these innocent animals writhing in agony and death, he then was made to remember sin, and saw its effects-misery and death. Had not sin entered into the world, death had been unknown. These dead works, or works of death, were considered by Israel as the foundation of repentance. Heb. vi. 2.

2d. "Almost all things by the law were purged with blood"-men as well as things; for all things include persons as well as things. John i. "All things were made by him:" surely persons are here included. To make an atonement for, means to cleanse or purge, as have proved in my second number. None can say that God was ever cleansed by any sacrifice under the law or gospel. This needs no proof. I know not any better reason why God ordained sacrifice for purification, than his own will; thus in type pointing to the death of his Son, "who is exalted to give repentance and remission of sins."

3d. By law, without shedding of blood there is no remission. Heb. ix. 22. This is evidently Paul's meaning. Now remission of sin is granted to the penitent only-the blood of the victim cleansed the offerer, who by it was made to remember sin; which is essential to repentance in every age.

4th. These sacrifices were typical of the blood of Christ. Did the innocent lamb suffer death for sin-sin not its own? And in this, is not sin in its evil nature bringing misery and death, seen and remembered? So in the innocent Lamb of God is sin in all its horrors seen,

remembered, and condemned. Sin instigated the powers of earth and hell to hate, to persecute, and kill him." "Away with him-crucify him, crucify him," was the voice of sin in the mouths of wicked men, his servants. Satan put it into the heart of Judas to betray him. The wicked slew him, and to them is the crime charged. God did not kill him, nor instigate others to the horrid act, nor did he league with hell and the wicked world in the wicked deed. Now a question arises, How is the justice of God displayed and glorified in this wicked deed? How are the honors of his law secured by this death so contrary to all just laws, human and divine? How can the authority and dignity of divine government be glorified by such a wicked deed? I confess I cannot see as is generally stated. The death and sufferings of Christ, according to the first prophecy, were to be inflicted by the old serpent the devil. Gen. iii. 15. "He had the power of death." Heb. ii. 14. God in his predeterminate counsel delivered up his Son into the hands of wicked men, foreknowing their treatment of him—that they would crucify him. Yet he determined through this very death of his Son to condemn sin, and to save sinners. This was his will, that the Son came to do. The Father was well pleased with the offering the Son made-it was to him a sweet savor-hence "it pleased the Father to bruise him”—i. e. to suffer him to be bruised. He was not pleased with the pains and dying groans of his Son, only as they were suffered in obedience to his will, and were the means through which he would "destroy him that had the power of death”—i. e. the devil, and deliver them "who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage❞—and through which means he would condemn sin and save the sinner.

Who took vengeance on the Son? The orthodox say God did ithimself poured out the vials of his wrath on the head of his Son. If Jesus was the substitute in the law, room, and stead of sinners, then the Lord must take vengeance; for he it is who takes vengeance or inflicts punishment on the wicked; therefore he must on the substitute of the wicked. This is indispensable in the system of orthodox atonement; and yet we have just seen that God did not crucify or slay his Son, but the wicked did it. What, then, becomes of the system? It must be sheer speculation, infinitely foreign from truth, though long sanctioned by human authority from the Catholic Archbishop Anselm in the eleventh or twelfth century, down to the present day. Before his day, according to Professor Murdock, we cannot find this doctrine of substitute punishment taught by any.

Brother Campbell, I shall after this attend to my original plan. In my next two numbers I shall publish the 3d and 4th numbers on

Atonement, which have been sent you some months ago; the 3d you inform me is mislaid and cannot be found. After I have published these numbers I will then take a general and particular review of your objections against my views of this doctrine, and consider particularly your own.

As ever yours in love,

October 1st, 1840.

B. W. STONE.

BROTHER STONE:

LETTER IV.—To. B. W. STONE.

My dear Sir-MAY the new year be to us both the most useful and happy year of our lives! On entering a new year it is good to reconsider the past and to amend our ways. "Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom."

It becomes necessary for the sake of new readers and to refresh the memory of the old, to glance at the points in which we have concurred, and at the points in which we differ so far in this investigation. And first at the points in which we have concurred:

1. That to "expiate," and "pacify," and "atone for," are scriptural ideas and expressions.

2. That sacrifice is as old as the fall of man, 2500 years older than the law, and that the legal institution of sacrifice is but a national dispensation of a previously existing sacrificial system.

3. That the legal sacrifices were for the exclusive benefit of those who were under that dispensation, and intefered not with the nature, design, or use of sacrifice as practised by all the saints from Abel to Moses.

4. That the life and death, the blessing and the curse of the law were merely fleshly and temporal, and that therefore the virtue of its sacrifices could extend no farther than temporal life and temporal blessings. These forfeited, the law had no other blessings in store for them.

5. 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, so far as the law caused the offence to abound.

6. Salvation, then, under the law, spiritual and eternal, was through faith, repentance, and sacrifice, as it was from Adam to Moses.

7. All sacrifice, altars, victims, and priests were typical, whether

before or under the law: the antitype of them all is Jesus the Messiah, our sacrifice, altar, victim, and priest.

8. There never was on earth a divine system of religion without blood in it. Sacrifice, altar, and priest, are the skeleton of every dispensation.

9. That without faith and repentance sacrifice never did, never can, avail any thing. That it was in consequence of faith that Abel's sacrifice excelled that of Cain.

So far as I can understand your communication, we agree in these nine propositions. But you seem to differ from me in the following, which I shall call the tenth:

10. That neither divine mercy nor human repentance, without sacrifice, is adequate to the remission of sins.

I may misunderstand you on this point; and if I do, it is from such affirmations as the following:

1st. 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 in order to remission errors required blood, and that sins did not!

2d. You intimate that there was a gospel preached to Abraham by which Jews and Greeks were justified, and that it had neither blood nor sacrifice in it. This you quote in the letter before me from an Address published by you the second time in 1821, which I never had, as far as I recollect, the good fortune to read.

3d. In your interpretation of this gospel, as you quote your Address, it would seem that the Jews under the law, and the Gentiles without law, were justified by Abraham's gospel without any sacrifice or deeds of the law, regarding (as you seem to me) that when Paul said, "You are justified by faith without the deeds of the law," he meant justified by faith without blood or sacrifice. Do you make sacrifice one of the deeds of the law!!

4th. You object to my strongly affirming with Paul that without shedding of blood there is now, and there never was, remission of sin to one of Adam's race. Your objecting to this would seem to indicate that you teach that without shedding of blood there is remission in some cases-nay, in all, before and since the law.

5th. And finally, that there was no sacrifice or sin-offering under law but for mere errors, or sins of ignorance and ceremonial defilement. As there is some confusion in your style, some misprinting too in the copy before me on this point, as well as in some of the preceding, I hope I misunderstand you, and that when you fully explain yourself we will fully agree on these five as we agree on the nine.