Benoni Stinson's Second Speech
on Hume's First Proposition
STINSON'S SECOND REPLY
ON THE FIRST PROPOSITION.
Gentlemen Moderators, Ladies and Gentlemen: I rise without a single argument to reply to, except a few points in connection with some of the quotations. Our brother told us I had anticipated him correctly when I said I supposed he was keeping back some of his strongest points for another discourse. If he has none stronger, however, than those he has given us in his last speech, we think there will be but little trouble in answering them. The first quotation which I have marked, is from Ephesians i, 1. I hope you will bear in mind the interpretation he has given of that chapter. When I have done you will discover how one little word will change the meaning of a whole chapter. Putting in or leaving out a word, however small, enables us to prove almost anything. But let me here quote one text that may stand before Brother Hume and myself, for I bow to it submissively. Peter says: "Our beloved Paul wrote things hard to be understood." I bow to the truth of that. But he tells us more than that, that some by failing to give them their right interpretation, have "wrested" the scriptures to their own destruction.
[HUME.--Yes, sir, that's so.]
I make this remark to show that a different meaning may be derived from a more complete reading of the first chapter of Ephesians. If it takes up the whole of my time to read that chapter, I shall consider I have not spent it in vain. [At this point Elder Stinson read from the first to the twelfth verse. These verses are omitted in the report, the reader is referred to them.] Now, let us notice the 12th, 13th and 14th verses: "That we should be to the praise of his glory who first trusted in Christ, in whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory." Now, my friends, notice the point, "in whom also ye trusted after that ye heard the word of truth." I ask my opponent, does Paul incorporate himself with these? There has been much said about faith, and the apostle says all men have not faith; but he was good enough to tell us how faith comes: "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." In whom also ye trusted after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also ye then believed, and were sealed with the holy spirit of promise. My friends, does it look like eternal justification? Does it look as if they were sealed before the world was? Does it look as if the apostle was writing to a people who had been chosen and elected before the foundation of the world? He tells them plainly that after they heard the gospel and believed, they were then sealed with the holy spirit of promise. On the supposition that his position is correct, were they not chosen, elected, already made fast or sealed? If so, here is a people who had been sealed twice. Paul says to the Corinthians: "If any man be in Christ he is a new creature." If the elect were in Christ before the world was, and their salvation does not depend upon the exercise of faith, they were always Christians; hence, where is the necessity of becoming new creatures? My friend will, perhaps, explain this to our satisfaction. I wish to present this idea to your minds. Paul sets out here by telling them of all the blessings that he, in connection with the Jewish converts, had received from God. After having expressed himself on this subject, he tells them that they, too, after they believed, after they heard, and believed, and trusted, obtained salvation and were sealed with the holy spirit of promise. So much for the first chapter of Ephesians. Our bother next brings up the fact before our minds, and this he has done in every speech he has made since the commencement of this discussion, that "atonement is made for the remission of sins." What advantage he expects to gain by pressing this idea, I am at a loss to know. I have never denied it. I have asserted from the start that the atonement had two objects. I had this incorporated in my proposition. One of these objects was to make satisfaction to the Adamic law, and the other was to offer salvation to the race from personal son. I can not get him to discern the difference between satisfaction being made for Adam's sin, and propitiation being made for the sins of the world. I will quote another text to help him. It is from Paul to Timothy, if I be not mistaken, and reads thus: "Therefore, we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe." I have not introduced this text before, but I thought just now it would fit admirably; and let my friend explain it away, if he can. Let him tell us that it did not mean, in any sense, that Christ is the Saviour of all men, especially of them that believe. He certainly will not understand that to mean the elect only. Suppose he brings in his rule of interpretation, it will make it read thus: "he is the Saviour of all the elect, and especially of the believing elect;" that is the way it would have to read in order to make sense of it, according to his interpretation of the scriptures he has introduced. He next quotes from Rev. xvii, 14: "They that are with him are called and chosen and faithful." Where does the foundation of that lie? Just close by the end of time. Could he have got Moses, or some other one away back yonder, to have brought up this in connection with the creation of the world, it would be a more plausible application; but the apostle lays the foundation of this occurrence away down the stream of time close to the end of the world. I endeavored to show, yesterday, that God chooses to save every believer; therefore, all who believe on him to the end of the world, God will choose to save. He next goes on to speak about atonement, and tells us that it means freeing from sin. He gets us away back into the old dispensation, and tells us that when man has atoned--made and offering-- he is free from sin, and yet he says he had to do this every year to free himself from sin, and that atonement referred to sins of the past. I now call upon him to show, in the Bible, where Christ limits the virtue of his atonement exclusively to things to come. He forgets that Paul says: On account of Christ's "righteousness he can be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus." God can be just on account of Christ's death and justify him that believeth in Jesus. Here you see, the atonement has reference to the Adamic law, and frees the race from the guilt contracted without their agency. My quotation will stand as a bulwark, and as having sustained that point. After the guilt was removed, the guilt of the first transgression, in which man had no direct agency, except the first man; after that guilt is removed, them provision is made, according to the economy of redemption, for all people, in all ages and nations, by which the believer in Christ may be justified.
But to proceed. Admitting that every text he has quoted, meant what he said it meant: admitting that there were many elected in Christ Jesus, has he shown that all were; that the whole Church of God were? But there is a fatal point in his proposition, that Christ died exclusively for the elect. Has he sustained that? He has shown that Israel was redeemed; he proved that this morning, so far as the nation of Israel was concerned; he showed us that when Christ broke the bread, and told his disciples that it was the figure of his body, and the wine, the figure of his blood, that was shed for many. But did he prove that it was shed for all? Is it not a matter of astonishment that Christ should die for part of the race? On the supposition that his views are true; would it not have been as easy for the Saviour to have said: "This is my blood, shed for a part of the human race." Is it not remarkably strange, that he can not find, in a great book like the Bible, one text that says, only a part of the race. He concludes that the word many means only a part of the race. Then I ask, why was not the word incorporated in the text? If he could find one text of that kind, I would never have come here to deny its truth. I have read and prayed for the truth, but I have failed to find one text that says, there are some for whom he did not die.
Elder Hume has launched out, to establish this proposition; he has one more half hour to fix it up in; he may yet have his heaviest artillery behind; he may yet mass his battery, and thunder in a way that will make everything give way before him, but we shall see how it is done. Thank God, to-day, it is my privilege to reply to his last argument. Yesterday and the day before, clear on back to the commencement of this debate, I have never had the opportunity of replying to his last argument; but now it is changed. I could have introduced a great many of Scripture, which would have been in point, but I told you before that the scripture that proved a general atonement, disproved his position. I array them against him, I bring them to stand in opposition to this view. He has but a little while to do a great deal of work in. We have seen him fail to establish either of the first two features of his proposition. He has yet to prove that Christ died for them only; he then has to prove that that part for whom he died will certainly be saved. Mark, the first two propositions must be proved before the third one can even be admissible; but having failed in the first two, what advantage will he have by quoting a thousand texts to prove that all that Christ died for will be saved, when he fails to tell us how many Christ did die for. I know his candor and honesty; but neither can change the word of God from its legitimate meaning, unless advantage be taken of the rules of interpretation.
(Time expired.)
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