A LETTER IN REPLY TO THEIR CRITICISMS UPON THAT TRACT.

My dear brother,-Many thanks for sending me a copy of The Advent Review & Sabbath Review, for July 14th, '91, containing remarks by the editor (Uriah Smith) on my little tract, which you published, taking up their teaching on atonement. His personalities as to myself may be taken for what they are worth. As I read a paragraph, however, in his " Editorial Notes," p. 439, in which he contends for drawing a distinction between men and principles (the very thing I had done in my tract) ; as also the first sentence in his article ; I could not help thinking, What a pity the learned editor does not practice what he preaches! And the words " Physician heal thyself " rose instinctively to my lips. A refutation of my tract from Scripture would certainly have been much more weighty than the personalities and assumption which he so largely indulges in. The perusal of his article made me feel sorry (among other things) for the poor Adventists, if this is the way they are bolstered up in their faith ; especially seeing that these leaders are the men who are following "the advancing light " (?) while the rest of Christendom is left in the dark ! I only hope they may be led. to procure my little tract and read it for themselves.

The editor charges me with " not having discernment enough to understand their position, or, understanding it, not candor enough to state it correctly." And again, of " misstating and perverting their views." Bold words these are for Mr. Smith to write ! But I fear he has made a mistake this time ! He has turned his artillery the wrong way, and is blowing his friends to pieces ! I did not think he would have treated Mrs. White in such an unkind way. It is really too bad of him after all ! I have been led to understand that she is the great Oracle of the Seventh-Day Adventists ; (I don't mean this unkindly) ; and the way her books are pushed by their agents, especially " The Great Controversy," made one ' infer that it was a kind of text book, or " Confession of Faith,"among them, and inferior to none as an exposition of their doctrines ; not even excepting the large volumes of Uriah Smith himself, or those of others.

Now, as I not only quoted verbatim from " The Great Controversy," but gave page and line ; to be told I am "misstating and perverting their views " is certainly not very flattering to Mrs. White, who surely ought to know ! Moreover, when the editor himself subsequently acknowledges in his own article the correctness of my statements of their views, and which I sought to expose in my tract, and which he contends for as being according to Scripture, and " distinctions generally overlooked in the theological world," the charge of "misrepresenting and perverting" recoils on himself. Intelligent readers can see this for .themselves if they read my tract and his article.

But let us briefly glance at what Mr. Smith has to say for himself and his friends. He writes:"What is it he is so disturbed about ? Oh, we do not believe the atonement is yet finished. But what is there so terrible in this?" Let him read my little tract again, and he will find his answer. Nay, I will tell him once more, what is so terrible in this. If atonement is not completed, God is not glorified as to the question of sin, and therefore cannot act in righteousness in blessing sinners-Christ is not raised from the dead and could not be-no sinner is saved or ever can be-and the Bible is a lie. Jesus said, " I have glorified Thee on the earth. I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do." (Jno. 17:4.) And we are told that He "purged our sins, and forever sat down," yea, four times in that epistle to the Hebrews we are told that Christ has "sat down " (see 1:3 ; 8:i ; 10:12 ; 12:2, the everlasting witness of an accomplished work. Indeed the contrast is drawn by the apostle of the earthly priests ever "standing" because the sacrifices which they offered "could never take away sins (chap. 10:n), and the Lord, who has "-sat down" because His one sacrifice has done it, and gives the worshiper " no more conscience of sin." (chap. 10:2.) Therefore I say again, if the doctrines of the Seventh-Day Adventists be true, then the Bible is a lie. To Mr. Smith, these of course are " false and foolish conclusions." But to the simple-minded Christian, they are conclusions which Mr. S. has not met and cannot; and leave my charges of " blasphemous and abominable doctrines'" as proved against Seventh-Day Adventists.

If "assumption " were the standard by which to settle who is right, I would at once bow to the editor and his followers. Their assumption is prodigious. Indeed, it characterizes all their writings that I have taken up as yet. They assume certain things, and then reason and draw their conclusions and deductions, and set it down as truth which is settled and cannot be gainsaid, without one solitary proof from Scripture ; but with plenty of texts worked in to give the semblance of truth to those deductions and conclusions, and thus the more easily deceive those not taught in the Word.

Mr. Smith writes, "This man fails to see the distinction between Christ bearing our sins as a sacrifice, which He did upon the cross, and His bearing them as priest, which He does as our Mediator before God." This is a sample of what I have just said. And if it is not a piece of the grossest assumption, and a begging of the question, 1 confess I know not what is. Why has he not told us where Scripture makes such a distinction ? Simply because it does no such thing. It is all the imaginations of the leaders who have formulated this system of teaching, to bolster up their stupid blunder about the Lord coming in 1844.

Scripture does say of the Lord Jesus that " Once in the end of the world (or consummation of the ages) hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." (Heb. 9:26.) And as the result of that one offering, God can and does say of believers, "Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." (Heb. 10:17.) But where is there such a thought in the New Testament as Christ in His character as Priest bearing our sins ? Nowhere ! His present priestly service on high is connected with our infirmities, and not our sins. (Heb. 4:15, 16.) The above passages, with hundreds of others, prove that the sin question was once and forever, settled ere Christ ascended. Yea, the reasoning of Paul in i Cor. 15:with regard to the question of resurrection puts that beyond dispute, for he says, " If Christ be not raised, ye are yet in your sins ; our preaching is vain ; your faith is vain." But if He is risen, the believer is not in his sins. Again, " He was raised again for our justification. (Rom. 4:25.) But how could God justify any one if the sin question was not settled? It would be impossible! The resurrection of Christ is God's public seal on the settlement of the sin question by His well beloved Son. At the same time Scripture as plainly teaches that Christ now carries on His present priestly service for us after the complete and perfect settlement of the sin question.

Then we are told that I " ignore Christ's service in the first apartment of the true sanctuary above into which Christ entered when He ascended, and where He was in the presence of God, just as much as He is in the second apartment." But I ask, What "first apartment" did Christ enter at His ascension? why did not the editor tell us from Scripture ? Does not Matthew tell us, " The vail was rent in twain from the top to the bottom." (Matt, 27:51.) How, then, could there be two apartments any longer when that which divided them and made them two was rent in twain by God Himself? I may be told I am confounding the earthly and the heavenly, the type and the antitype. But does not the Holy Ghost use this fact in Heb. 10:19, 20 in connection with the heavenly, when he tells us we have "boldness to enter into the holiest (not the first apartment) by the blood of Jesus; by a new and living way which He hath consecrated for us, through the vail, that is to say, His flesh"? The apostle shows in Heb. 9:8, that so long as the first apartment stood as such, "the way into the holiest was not made manifest." But now that the vail is rent, the way is made manifest and the believer has access to God as a purged worshiper. It is this which characterizes Christianity. We have a finished work-an opened heaven-the Holy Ghost dwelling within us-and liberty and ability to draw near to God, and worship in the holiest. Seventh-Day Adventism denies all this. It keeps up the vail and puts Christ only in the first apartment from His ascension till 1844. Afterward, it puts Him in the holiest to cleanse it, but with the vail still standing, shutting God in, and man out. It thus completely denies Christianity, and is in itself antichristian..

And here I should like to ask these people about another point they assume, but give no Scripture authority for ; and one I have never yet seen explained and proved from the Word in any of their writings that I have ever seen. If Christ only entered the holiest in 1844 to cleanse the sanctuary ; how did the sins get there ? Can they tell us this? Mrs. White says, "As the sins of the people were anciently transferred, in figure, to the earthly sanctuary by the blood of the sin-offering ; so our sins are, in fact, transferred to the heavenly sanctuary by the blood of Christ." This assumption, is of course, to be taken an explanation. What abominable blasphemy ! And this in the face of Lev. 17:ii :" It is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul ; " and "the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." (i Jno. 1:7.) God says the blood makes atonement, and cleanses from sin. Mrs. White says, and all the Adventists say, No! It is the means of conveying sins into the presence of God, and then it is the priest that carries them out, and it is the scape-goat (the devil) who takes them away and perishes with them ! !

But what I want to know is, How did the sins get there for the priest to carry them out? In the ritual on the day of atonement, no one but the priest went into the holiest once a year, and it was he who took in the blood. Now, if this teaching be true, there were no sins there till the priest took there by carrying in the blood. Then, as Christ is the Priest, there were no sins in the true sanctuary till He took them there. (God forgive the thought!) So we are asked by Adventists to believe that the blessed Lord Jesus defiled heaven by carrying sins there, and then had to cleanse away the defilement He Himself had taken there. Is this not awful blasphemy ? The question, however, is still left unanswered :How did the sins get into the holiest if He only entered it in 1844 to cleanse it ? If He went in to cleanse it-if that was the object for which He entered, there must have been something defiling already there. The sins must have been there before. How, and when did they get there ? The whole thing is a mass of nonsense and contradiction, not to speak of its blasphemous character, and is "a veritable Pandora's box of confusion," as Mr. Smith is pleased to term the views of the theologians which have so long " afflicted the religious world."

Are we to believe that Christ defiled the sanctuary in 1844, by carrying in the sins which He afterward has to carry out? If so, what becomes of the Holy Ghost's statements in Hebrews, that "Christ by Himself purged our sins and sad down on the right hand of the Majesty on high"? (chap. 1:3; 8:i; 10:12; 12:2.) Was all this true when it was written to the Hebrew Christians, or was it all a lie ? If Adventist doctrine is true, then it is all a lie ; and no amount of personalities or denial of these conclusions, or calling them "false and foolish," can make it otherwise. If Christ purges our sins, then, how can He be at present in heaven bearing them as the Priest ? It is absolute nonsense and contradiction.

Did Christ only go into the first apartment at His ascension as Mr. Smith affirms? Then till 1844 Judaism was still existing, with the vail between God and the people, and His claims had never yet been met by the blood on and before the mercy-seat, and Christianity was a mistake. But Heb. ix 24, says, " Christ is not entered into the holy place made with hands, figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." " Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus." (chap. 10:19.) Thus, Scripture says Christ is in the holiest
-in the presence of God (not in the first place with the vail shutting God in) and we have boldness to enter there also. Could any one enter the tabernacle, even into the first apartment, on the day of atonement before the whole day's ceremony was ended and atonement for the twelve months completed according to Jehovah's command ? Lev. 16:17 says, No ! Read it and see. Could then Heb. 10:19, be true either in Paul's day or at any time till 1844? Nay, it could not be true even now, if atonement is not completed, and if the Priest is still inside doing the work. Impossible ! It is because it is done, finished, completed, over eighteen hundred years ago, and Christ seated on high, as the proof of its accomplishment, that we have boldness to enter into the holiest, blessed be God. This alone shows the folly of their views.

Mr. Smith says that I " see no difference between one bearing sins as the priest did, to atone for them and put them away" (though he does not tell where that is taught), "and one bearing them as the scape-goat, to perish with them." True, I do not see the difference. Why ? Because it does not exist in Scripture. I have never yet seen such a thing, in Lev. 16:or in the pages of the New Testament. I have read that "Jehovah laid on Him (Christ) the iniquity of us all." (Is. 53:6.) And that Christ bare our sins in His own body on the tree." (i Pet. 2:24.) But where is there in such scriptures, any thing about " perishing with them " ? Instead of seeing all these various parts of the atonement fulfilled by our blessed Saviour, we are to believe (according to these new-fangled and blasphemous notions) that the devil is the scape-goat, and therefore he helps to make the atonement. Mr. Smith says that I " accuse them of having the devil make the atonement." I beg his pardon ; he had better read my tract again, and be more accurate in his statements. I did say, and do still say, with Lev. 16:
10, before me, that if their teaching is true, then the devil helps the Lord to make the atonement. And that we are indebted, not to the ever blessed Lord (as the true scape-goat), who, as our Substitute, bore our sins away forever; but to Satan, and although he helps to make the atonement, he is to be "blotted out" for his kindness !What a shocking and revolting thought !

Mr Smith asks, "Are sins atoned for before they are committed, repented of, or forgiven?" Let us turn the question, and ask him, Are sins only atoned for after they are committed, repented of, or forgiven ? If so, where is the righteousness of God in forgiving a sinner whose sins have not yet been atoned for ?What is the use of the epistle to the Romans if this be true ? It is quite evident the editor has not yet grasped the difference between the work of Christ as meeting God, and laying the basis for His righteously coming out in perfect grace toward all, and the purging of our consciences, and the forgiveness which we receive when we repent and believe the gospel. (Rom. 3:22.) A most important difference which Romans clearly teaches. As to the "Ultra doctrine of predestination, election, and reprobation " being true according to my teaching, as the editor remarks; these are conclusions which exist only in his own mind, or in some theological creeds; certainly not in Scripture, nor in the mind of the Spirit-taught Christian. Moreover, if Christ on the cross "bore the sins of the world," as Mr. Smith says (but which Scripture is most careful never to say), then universal salvation must be true. But it is only he who says so, not Scripture. And " the atonement coming at the conclusion, not at the beginning, of Christ's work as Priest," as he re-marks, shows plainly he has not grasped either the moral or the dispensational bearing of Lev. 16.

But I can say no more. One cannot take up everything they advance; it would occupy too much time. May God in His mercy deliver any of His own who may be exposed to these awful doctrines. It is by grace alone we stand. We need to be clad in the whole armor of God, to be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. May we each be found "holding fast His Word, and not denying His name," not "carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but growing up unto Him in all things," till the summoning shout is heard which call us up to meet Him in the air, to be "ever with the Lord." W. E.