ANSWER TO Elder PLUMMER WATERS ON JUSTIFICATION (TROTT) 1839

Brother Beebe: I sometimes since received, through you, a pamphlet published in Maryland, purporting to be a scriptural vindication of the doctrine of justification; but proving to be an attempt to refute my “Thoughts on Justification” by criticisms on those scriptures which I quoted. There are very few if any texts that he notices that he does not attempt to rest from their plain English as they stand in the common translation, either by confining a word in one text, to the identical sense it has in another without any reference to the connection, and when there is a manifest difference, or by some criticisms of the Greek. Some few instances will be hereafter noticed.

I have much hesitated whether to notice it at all; and not that there is nothing in it worthy of notice, or that the book is unanswerable. But, in the 1st place, I am aware that many of our brethren are tired of the discussion of the subject of justification through the Signs. In the second place, where I attempt to answer it through the Signs, I might be blamed for availing myself of an accommodation which the writer had not; And I could not think of publishing a book, especially in answer to an anonymous writer. This work you declined to publish through the Signs in accordance with a standing and wholesome rule of yours, not to admit any communication into your paper, without the writer giving you his name.
In the 3rd place, the manner in which the writer has misrepresented both the sentiments I had advanced on this subject and the arguments and proofs I've produced in support thereof, would render it a very unpleasant task to answer him. What to ascribe this misrepresentation to, I know not; I cannot describe it to ignorance, for, so far as respects language, he appears to possess considerable learning; to ascribe it to want of candor would be to contradict the professions of wishing only to use fair argument, I will therefore leave it undecided. 

Suffice it to say that I laid the book by several times, in hopes that on looking at it at a future I might view the production in a more favorable light; still however as often as I recur to it, its characteristics appear to be the same.

Hence I have declined to attempt to answer it; But still, there are some things in it, which I cannot consent to let pass without a brief vindication of myself from; And some views, from which I wish to clear our old school brethren who are advocates or eternal justification, lest it might be supposed that they were old school sentiments, seeing they have been by this writer thus connected with his views of justification; And more especially, as the book comes out under the sanction of the name of Elder Plummer waters; who has assumed the responsibility of being its publisher, and whom I once introduced to the readers of the Signs, as one of whom, I thought, was, in principle, an old school Baptist.

I wish here to assure those brethren who are tired of this subject, thinking probably that nothing new or instructing to them can be elicited by a further discussion concerning justification, that it is not my intention to offer a single argument further in what I now right, either in support of my own views or in opposition to eternal justification; though I may possibly in conclusion give a simple explanation of what my views are, as they seem so much misunderstood. In reference to brevity in my writings which some have justly recommended, I have to say that I am like the witness represented anecdote; I must be allowed to tell my story in my own way, or not at all; Although the readers of the Signs probably might not, by thus frustrating me, suffered loss, as did the lawyer, in attempting to control his witness method of stating his testimony.

The first thing I wish to notice is the reason assigned by the writer for not attaching his name to this production. In his preface, (page 4,) he says, “The present is an inauspicious moment for any new names to be added to the advocates of the old school cause, and I would be unwilling to put my name among any inharmonious set of men.” The ground thus taken by the writer, is strongly commended in an additional preface, I presume of course, by the publisher elder Plummer Waters. He says, (page 5,) “the reader will observe that the author has expressed his unwillingness to put his name among any inharmonious set of men; And what prudent man under the influence of the religion of Jesus Christ, or even sober reason will widely differ from him? 

For what advantage can such a man derive from a mere party name, since names are nothing?” How are we to reconcile the great zeal which elder waters has manifested to promote and continue the controversy which had commenced among all school Baptist brethren on the subject of justification, in his volunteering his services to publish this book for the writer, with his recommendation to stand aloof from all who may not perfectly harmonize in views and sentiments upon every point of doctrine, I will leave for others to determine.

I will first call the attention of elder waters (should he see this,) to the circumstance of his denominating what the author expresses by the term, advocates of the old school cause, a mere party name. If elder waters will plainly tell us which he considers the old school Baptists, as such, to be a party of, whether the of the true visible Church of Christ, or of the anti-Christian Church, and will bring forward his strong reasons in support of his position, whichever he takes, I will join issue with him, and maintain that, as old school Baptists, we are not a sect or party of either of those interests; that we are the visible Church of Christ, itself, though we may at this time be divided into parties on the subject of justification.

In reference to the idea of being united with any harmonious set of men, if the difference of opinion that exists among us on the subject of justification, be considered as destroying harmony, I can tell both of these gentlemen that on these principles they need not have singled out the present as peculiarly an inauspicious moment, for if such diversities of sentiment is to be held a barrier, the moment never has been since the apostles day when they could have joined the Church of Christ. See the discussions between the Grecians and Hebrews in the Church of Jerusalem, (Acts 6,) in the church at Antioch, (acts 5,) between Paul and Barnabas, in the same chapter, verses 36, 39. In the church at Corinth, and the churches of Galatia. 

I would ask elder waters whether a man living in Antioch or Corinth, on being brought to believe and to see it his duty and privilege to be baptized, and to give himself to the church, would not be under the influence of the religion of Jesus christ, have added his name to either of those churches notwithstanding the want of harmony among them.

But to the point. If Elder Plummers and his author do not view the old school cause, or that cause for which we distinctively as old school Baptists contend, as being the cause of revealed religion, and have not that love to which it would induce them to become the openly avowed advocates of it, whoever else may oppose it, or whatever difficulties and reproaches may be in the way, I would advise them still to keep their names detached from its advocates, as enough have already volunteered their names, who have again fallen away.
Incoming to those points from which, I wish to privilege of vindicating myself, I will observe that it is my intention to give only some specimens of the writer’s misrepresentation for me.

1st he has set up a man of straw of his own building, to combat my sentiments, representing me as having taken the ground that individual or experimental justification did not actually take place in any, until the resurrection of Christ, and that the redemption of Christ had only a future reference; whereas I have neither believed nor advanced any such thing, notwithstanding his resting some of my arguments so to represent me. Hence his arguments to prove the reverse were only proving what I never denied. The justification which I denied being eternal, is what I have always understood Gill and others to ascent was eternal, the justification of the church, as the body collectively of Christ, in him, her head. 

For I never understood them to advance the sentiment that the elect was ever justified separately or experimentally, otherwise then progressively, as they were born and brought to believe in Christ, whether before or after his crucifixion. If I had not been particular in the communication entitled Thoughts on Justification to mark the distinction between the two branches into which I understood the subject of justification to be divided, there might have been some excuse for this writer misunderstanding me on this point.

2nd he represents me as so holding the oneness of Christ and his people as that there existed a union between the holiness of Christ and the sinful and sinning soul of man. And yet I have fully declared that the elect as they were set up in Christ, and therefore as one with him possessed a spiritual beauty and glory, which nothing arising from their connection with Adam and the law can add to, and that in him or in that life which constituted their union with him they never sinned or fell. If he means by his assertion, that the Adamic nature of the elect, or those who were predestined to be quickened with that life which would bring them into actual existence as members of Christ's body, was thus sinful and sinning, I admit it, for it to admit of eternal justification I cannot admit it to be a sanctification of their humanity. And I would ask if those characters named, first Corinthians 6.9-10, were not sinful and sinning, and yet it is evident from verse 11, that they were of the elect of God, and if eternal personal justification be true, they were thus while sinning, personally justified.

3rd he charges me with meaning by the term law when I use it, exclusively the law of Moses, and of attempting to show that previous to the giving of the law there could be no charge of course, no condemnation, (page 12.) Have I ever said anything like it? Have I ever ascribed the obligation of the Gentiles to obey God, to his delivering Israel out of Egypt, and their sins, to their having transgressed a Sinai covenant? He seems to think that I had forgotten the text, (Romans 2.12;) that I had not, nor (verse 14-15) neither the apostles' argument, (Romans 5.13-14) to show that man was under law previous to the giving of the law by Moses.

If the writer was so ignorant of the general import of the term law as used in theological discussions as to really think it confined to the written law of Moses, or of the obligation, or law, binding upon man as a creature of God. Elder waters could not be, and I therefore cannot view it, as coming under his sanction, in any other light than a misrepresentation, not through ignorance.

4th he charges me with wishing to give a future signification to the text, (2nd Corinthians 5.21.) From the word might. But as any person looking at my quotation of this text in Thoughts on Justification, (signs, volume 5, page 195, column i,) we'll see that in my remarks on it, I make no reference at the time, as such, but only to cause and effect, and showed from expressions which I believe are correctly translated in our bibles, that are being made the righteousness of God in him, was not the cause of his being made sin for us, but that his being made the righteousness of sin for us, was to procure our being made the righteousness of God in him. To get rid of the force of this text, he gives this turn to my remarks, and also to carry out his charge that I confine the effects of Christ's death to Saints under the gospel. He makes a similar charge (page 8,) concerning my quotation in my Thoughts on Justification, of (Romans 5.25,) and upon about the same grounds.

5th he directly charges me in several instances of resting and perverting texts of scripture, some of which I will notice. 1st Hebrews 9.26. He charges me with resting from the intention of the author, (page 11.) This text, I call it to show that the scriptures speak of the atonement of Christ as being a time act, and thus not the expression, once in the end of the world show that? And does the circumstance of Christ's one offering being contrasted with the many offerings required by the law, alter the force of those expressions? I think not. 2nd my quotation of (Hebrews 9.22,) “for without the shedding of blood is no remission.” He charges with being a resting of the text from its connection, (page 17.) But does not the sacred writer go on in verse 23 and on, to speak of Christ's sacrifice and blood, and thus give the general position thus laid down, in the quotation, as much a bearing toward his better sacrifice as toward the legal? If so, where did I wrest it? 3rd he charges me (page 10) with quoting (romance 3.24) and with perverting it in my quotation. When the fact is, I did not quote it at all; I simply said, “According to (Romans 3.24) we are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” and using in part the words of the text I marked them in italics, but I did not mark the passage as a quotation, nor the words we are in italics, I simply laid down a position for which I referred to (Romans 3.24) as my authority.

And does it not fully sustain my declaration? If all are thus justified, are not the we who are a part of that awful? The truth is, I wished merely to bring to view the idea that justification was through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, and to show that we are so taught in that text. Had I undertaken to make a quotation of the text, I should have had to quote two verses to give the full expression. But the attempt of this writer to show from my mode of expression here, that I wish to confine the effects of the redemption wrought by Christ, to the Saints since his resurrection, is altogether gratuitous. Have I ever advanced such a sentiment? Did I not (volume 5, Signs, page 195, column 2) in reference to Romans 3.25-26, expressly declare, that in the resurrection of Christ, there was a reference to the individual justification of the Saints under the former dispensation, and more to that point? If the Saints under the former dispensation belong to the same one body of Christ, then in substituting according to Apostolic example, we and us in the place of the word saints. I, of right, ought to have been understood as including all the members of that one body, former and latter. 4th Galatians 4.5.

He charges me, (page 11,) with dismembering this text and not quoting the latter part of verse 5, which he says, goes to contradict my argument. If there is any meaning to his expression, he makes an error or crime, in stopping short in my quotation quite as great as to sever the head and body, Christ and his church asunder. By reference to the passage in my Thoughts on Justification, (volume 5, Signs, page 193, column iii) it will be seen that in connection with having shown the intimate relation which justification had to redemption, I called this text to show that redemption was manifestly a time act, and I quoted so much as showed this fact, and also the fact that those thus redeemed were previously under the law, and therefore, not before justified from it; the part omitted being an explanation of the part quoted or telling to give a different view of the subject, then I should have been so to be blamed.

Such a quotation we have in this pamphlet. The writer, (page 17,) referring to Galatians 3.8, notices that part of it which reads thus, “preach before the gospel unto Abraham,” and referring to these expressions, (page 20,) he draws from the wonderful conclusion that, “because the gospel was preached to him beforehand, he had a perfect knowledge of the state of believers under this gospel,” (that is as I understand him, in the gospel day,”) “and of the parts performed by the apostles in its propagation,” whereas if he had read the whole verse, he would have found the apostle clearly explaining what he meant by saying the gospel was preached before unto Abraham, simply this, that the promise was made to him that, “and you shall all nations be blessed.” Without saying that this is resting the scriptures, I will lead the writer and his friend Elder Waters to make what they can of it. To return to the text Galatians 4.4-5, I will say that I have not the ability to discover how, in any sense, the part left, which reads thus, “that we might receive the adoption of sons,” contradicts my argument. 

I have supposed that a pretty strong argument might be drawn from it, in its connection, in favor of my views of justification; but as I am pledged not to bring forward any argument, not knowing what the writer would make from this text, I will simply say that in writing my Thoughts on Justification, I supposed I was writing for the consideration of those who knew the difference between having been predestinated to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ, and a receiving of the adoption of sons, in having the spirit of God's son sent forth into their hearts crying, Abba, father; and who well recollect a period when they had not received this adoption, and when they would have given the world, if they had had it, for the privilege of calling God dear Father.

I pressed to be of those who do not handle the word of God deceitfully, and to be under the influence of that fear of God which would deter me from wresting the scriptures to support any point, and to be thus publicly charged with wresting and perverting the scriptures repeatedly, and that upon no better grounds, does not sit well on me; I have therefore been constrained thus to vindicate myself from the charge. However, it is, on the whole, better for the charge to have been made, on these false grounds, than that I should have given just ground for such charges.

I will leave the vindication of my old school brethren, to another communication.

Yours as ever, the subject of fears within, and fightings without,

Samuel Trott Centerville, Fairfax Co, Va., February 4, 1839

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