HOSEA BALLOU.
Rev. JOSEPH WALTON.
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LETTER IV.
FROM THE REV. JOSEPH WALTON TO THE REV. HOSEA BALLOU.
PORTSMOUTH, JAN. 11, 1811.
Sir,—I have received your answer to my letter sent you, dated Dec. 7, 1810, and now desire to answer it, in the fear of God, in as concise a manner as I am capable, agreeable to the scriptures of truth. Sir, I thank you for the civilities you manifest toward me, and that you received my letter in a friendly manner as I think I sent it, wishing it might be received and improved for your benefit; not that I supposed that I was capable of convincing or confuting you of what I conceive to be erroneous in your doctrine or principles, but relying on the blessing of God to make it effectual for your everlasting good, and those you profess to be over in the Lord.
I shall not take into consideration every argument you make use of, but shall give it a general answer. Since I have received it I have had a great number of scriptures occuring to my mind which I might quote if I thought expedient. In the first place you speak or write as if I thought death was originally designed by the Almighty for the damage of mankind; I say death was threatened to be the consequence, if mankind did transgress the law of their Creator; our first parents transgressed, and the penalty was executed according to the threatening, "Thou shall surely die;" they were condemned to die; they were under sentence of death; they became spiritually dead, immediately; they lost the knowledge of their Creator; darkness covered their minds; they endeavoured to hide themselves from God among the trees of the garden; they brought misery upon themselves and upon their posterity; we feel the woeful effects of their fall and apostasy until this day; by nature we are spiritually dead; as it is written, "you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." Sir, if there is a law made by our legislature, is there not a penalty annexed unto it? If that law is transgressed, is not the person who transgressed punished some way or other?—Yet the law is made for the good of the whole; the legislature is not to be impeached, as if he made it for the damage of his people, whom he governs; the law-breaker is punished either in his own person or his surety, though the pain, shame and punishment is for the damage of the transgressor, yet the law is for the good of the whole, and the law maker is not in the least to blame; the transgressor also, if he repents and is reformed, is benefited by it, &c.
I think, sir, your giving your hearers encouragement in your preaching that Christ will save them all, whether they repent and believe the gospel or no, is of a dangerous nature. Christ has said, "if ye believe not that I am he ye shall die in your sins," John viii. 24. Read, if you please, the proceeding context. The decrees of God, you say, is my creed, and that I believe that God foreordained whatsoever come to pass. I do not think I ever told you so. And so you think God foreordained, according to my creed, death, for a damage to his creatures. I have said death is punishment for sin, as I wrote, and I can maintain it from scripture; death was introduced by sin; the person that lives a life of sin and dies without regenerating grace, which all true believers in Christ have, will be miserable, and be "punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power." I believe every true believer is a true penitent, is regenerated, is in Christ by a vital union is a "new creature," and that those persons will be saved and none else, according to the doctrine of Christ and his apostles. I believe that God the Father worketh all things according to the council of his own will; that his redeemed and saved people should be to his glory. You say, in my writing to you, I said, "do you think Christ or his apostles would preach universal salvation in one place of scripture and contradict it in another? I believe they would not."—Here you designedly, I think mistake; I do not believe that Christ or his apostles ever did preach universal salvation, that is, that every son and daughter of apostate Adam, would be saved. I believe that this gospel of the kingdom is to be preached to every creature, and "whosoever believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." Do me justice, sir; do not animadvert upon what I have just quoted, as if I think our Saviour is to be understood as if every individual would have the privilege of hearing the gospel. I conceive that the apostles' commission runs thus: "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every human or rational creature."—What I meant by saying, do you think Christ would preach universal salvation in one place, and in another contradict it, is, that those texts which you suppose supports your doctrine, is not to be understood as you apply them; for if they prove universal salvation, as you would have them, then they will contradict many texts which Christ and his apostles improved otherwise; therefore I still assert, that the scriptures ought to be carefully examined, conscientiously improved and applied. The faithful minister of Christ will renounce the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending themselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. "For we are not as many which corrupt the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ."—See 2d Corinthians, ii. 17. And I would take it as a favour, if you would read the 15th and 16th verses in the same chapter, and seriously consider them. Those texts of scripture, which you have quoted from Rom. 8th chapter, are not to be applied as you apply them, neither doth the apostle apply them so. And methinks you know they are not, if you consider the connexion from the 28th verse of the chapter to the end. And that passage of scripture quoted from 1 Cor. iii. 21, 22, 23, is only to be applied to real Christians; and this, sir, I presume you know; but it would not suit you and your scheme of Universal Salvation to apply them so.
I would ask you, if, when I am writing a letter or an epistle to Mr. Hosea Ballou, it would be proper for me to apply what I write in particular to you, concerning your affairs or circumstances, to the whole world? Ministers of Christ should rightly "divide the word;" and should take the precious from the vile; then they would be as God's mouth to the people. See Jeremiah xv. 19, see likewise, Ezekiel xiiv. 23, "The priests of the Lord are to teach the Lord's people the difference between the holy and the profane," and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean;" it is by this general way of preaching, errors are introduced, not only by your denomination, but by others also. I could multiply quotations from the Bible, both from the Old and New Testaments, but what would it avail, unless you will consider them and endeavour to improve them, and apply them as the Holy Ghost would have us to to? "For holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," see 2 Peter i. 25. You say, you were somewhat embarrassed in understanding what I meant when I wrote that men undertaking to explain the scriptures in their own strength and wisdom, and their making havoc of them, &c. by explaining them in a mystical or literal sense. I will endeavour to explain what I meant—1st. To allegorize the scriptures in a mere moral or mystical sense, or altogether in a figurative sense, is a degree of enthusiasm, (as to say there is no devil but our carnal nature, &c.) and in a mere literal sense is to understand and improve them not in that spiritual sense in which they are to be understood, but resting in the letter only; as we may observe when Christ said in St. John, 6th chapter, "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you;" "Whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day;" "These things said he in the synagogue as he taught in Capernaum;" "Many therefore of his disciples when they heard this, said, this is a hard saying, who can hear it? Christ said, doth this offend you?"—And informed them he did not mean that they should eat his human flesh, and drink his blood literally, but he was to be understood in a spiritual sense. He informed them "it is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing, the words I speak unto you they are spirit and life." Some have since misunderstood him, and, to this day, misunderstand this piece of scripture; and have from thence introduced the absurd doctrine of transubstantiation, that after the words of consecration, the bread and wine are the real body and blood of Christ. So some adhere only to the letter of the word and expound the law of God in a mere literal sense. It seems the apostle Paul, before his conversion, understood it so.—Read the 7th chapter of Romans, from the 6th to the end of the 13th verse. Paul was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, a doctor of the law; yet, while in his unregenerate state, knew not the spiritual meaning of the law of God, (I mean the holy or moral law) and no doubt he spake by experience when he says, (as I wrote to you from I Cor. ii. 14) "But the natural man received not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." By the natural man, I conceive, the apostle meant the unregenerate man: yea, with the highest degree of human teaching and knowledge without he is taught of God, by his word and spirit, he cannot truly understand the things of the spirit of God; and therefore they are, as I say, misapplied, mangled and made havoc of. Faith is, by some, only held as a bare assent that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. None do truly believe that, but by the Holy Ghost.