John Mcleod Campbell and Thomas Erskine: Scottish Exponents of Righteousness, Faith, and the Atonement David P
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Loma Linda University TheScholarsRepository@LLU: Digital Archive of Research, Scholarship & Creative Works Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects 9-1985 John McLeod Campbell and Thomas Erskine: Scottish Exponents of Righteousness, Faith, and the Atonement David P. Duffie Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarsrepository.llu.edu/etd Part of the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Duffie, David P., "John McLeod Campbell and Thomas Erskine: Scottish Exponents of Righteousness, Faith, and the Atonement" (1985). Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects. 421. http://scholarsrepository.llu.edu/etd/421 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by TheScholarsRepository@LLU: Digital Archive of Research, Scholarship & Creative Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects by an authorized administrator of TheScholarsRepository@LLU: Digital Archive of Research, Scholarship & Creative Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. UNIVERSITY 11131414WeN, LOMA Lliva)/11, CALIFORAITA LOMA LINDA UNIVERSITY Graduate School JOHN McLEOD CAMPBELL AND THOMAS ERSKINE: SCOTTISH EXPONENTS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, FAITH, AND THE ATONEMENT by David P. Duffie A Thesis in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in Religion September 1985 © 1985 David P. Duffie All Rights Reserved 11 Each person whose signature appears below certifies that this thesis in his opinion is adequate, in scope and quality, as a thesis for the degree Master of Arts in Religion. , Chairman Dalton D. Baldwin, Professor of Christian Theology Paul . Landa rofessor of Church History a ,ztiL A. aham Maxwell, Professor of New Testament iii Abstract JOHN McLEOD CAMPBELL and THOMAS ERSKINE: SCOTTISH EXPONENTS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, FAITH AND THE ATONEMENT by David P. Duffie This thesis focuses upon the reaffirmation and clari- fication by two independent 19th-century theologians of cer- tain New Testament and Reformation emphases which had become largely obscured amid the rigidities of later Calvinism. These emphases, when employed by Campbell and Erskine in their largely lay ministries, resulted in grassroots reviv- al on the one hand, and ecclesiastic opposition on the other. The early chapters examine the elements in Campbell's preaching which were considered heretical and which resulted in his trial and deposition from the Church of Scotland. He was faulted for preaching "universal pardon" and "assurance of faith." What he really meant by these questionable terms is scrutinized. Highlights of his trial are vignetted in Chapter 2; and just how his ideas were applied to his par- ishioners to kindle revival are looked at in Chapter 3. Chapter 5 reviews Campbell's Christ the Bread of Life, which addressed the trend in Britain toward Romanism. In it he criticizes certain substitutionary and imputational con- cepts of scholastic Protestantism as constituting as great a perversion of spiritual realities as does the Catholic doc- trine of the transubstantiation of the Mass. The central chapters introduce the reader to the com- plexities and profundities of Campbell's highly regarded but seldom understood Magnum Opus on the atonement. The retro- spective and prospective aspects of the atonement, and the Godward and manward movements of the Mediator, are consider- ed in turn. That the atonement be viewed in the light of the incarnation, rather than vice versa; that central place be given to Christ's "vicarious penitence;" and that belie- vers' participation with Christ by the Spirit be seen as a keyword in understanding the atonement--these are some of Campbell's burdens which are highlighted in this section. In Chapter 9, entitled "The Righteousness of Faith," Campbell virtually equates faith in Christ with righteous- ness. He sees the believer's having (through the Spirit) the faith of Jesus, i.e., the same trust in God that Christ had, as being even more important and central to the gospel than his having faith in the work of Jesus in His earthly sojourn, essential as that was. A later chapter shows how the insights of Erskine re- inforced, again and again, the central concepts of his dear friend. His "free translation" of Romans 3: 21-26, and his exegetical understanding of the two Greek nouns pertaining to justification are given prominence. The last two chapters survey the influence these men have exerted upon Christendom generally, and the impact which their insights might yet have upon Adventism. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1 Chapter 1 The "Row Heresy" 15 Chapter 2 Highlights of the Heresy Trial 34 Chapter 3 The Anatomy of a Revival 64 Chapter 4 The Middle Years 1831 - 1851 82 Chapter 5 Christ the Bread of Life 90 Chapter 6 The Nature of the Atonement 127 Chapter 7 Retrospective Aspects of the Atonement 143 Chapter 8 Prospective Aspects of the Atonement 157 Chapter 9 The Righteousness of Faith 170 Chapter 10 Erskine on Justification and Faith 189 Chapter 11 An Enduring Legacy 215 Chapter 12 Relevance to Adventism 230 Endnotes 243 Appendix: Nature of the Atonement diagramed by Torrance 271 Bibliography 272 iv INTRODUCTION John McLeod Campbell (1800-1872) and Thomas Erskine (1788-1870) were two 19th century religious thinkers whose writings are attracting renewed interest in the twentieth. The two men were devoted friends. The one was a pastor- evangelist who was deposed from the Church of Scotland for "heresy" at the age of 31. The other was a lay theologian and one-time barrister. Their convictions, which were very similar, were to a large extent, arrived at independently, by close study of Scripture)- They each wrote several books. Campbell is best remembered as the author of The Nature of the Atonement, a work that was recently acclaimed by J. B. Torrance as "one of the classics of all time on this doctrine."2 Erskine is perhaps best known for his friendships with prominent people of Britain and the Contin- ent (e.g., Thomas Carlyle, F. D. Maurice, Thomas Chalmers, Benjamin Jowett, Merle D'Aubigne, Alexandre Vinet), and for his charming correspondence, which has been preserved by William Hanna (whose Life of Christ was treasured by Ellen White). Importance Recognized It is probable that no British writers of the 19th Century have exerted greater or more lasting influence upon 2 theological thinking than have these two men. Many who have been moved by that influence have been unconscious of its source. The great importance of their work, however, has been recognized by the discerning from their day to ours. And their influence is still growing. The German historian, Otto Pfleiderer, in his work entitled The Development of Theology in Germany since Kant and its Progress in Great Britain since 1825, affirms that "the ideas of Erskine of Linlathen and McLeod Campbell are the best contributions to Dogmatics which Brit'ish Theology made in the 19th Century. “3 R. S. Franks, in his History of the Doctrine of the Work of Christ, although he himself was critical of some points in it, nonetheless declared The Nature of the Atonement to be "the most systematic and masterly book on the work of Christ produced by a British theologian in the 19th century.IA Similarly, a Scottish reviewer in 1878 stated: No modern theological work, upon the whole, has made a more remarkable impression upon many thoughtful minds. Mr. Campbell's works will continue [to be] a living 3enfluence over the course of theological opinion.' In 1897, Methodist theologian, John Scott Lidgett, in The Spiritual Principle of the Atonement, calls attention to "the conspicuous service rendered by McLeod Campbell in his great attempt to rescue the atonement from Calvinistic and governmental explanations, and to interpret it in terms of Fatherhood." He freely acknowledged that Campbell's book 3 "puts us on the highroad to a true conception of the matter. n 6 As we move on into the 20th century we find P. T. Forsyth ("the Barth before Barth"), during a series of talks at a ministers' study conference in 1919, remarking: "I hope you have read McLeod Campbell on the atonement. Every minister ought to know that book and know it well."7 In the Preface to his book, The Death of Jesus (the Cunningham Lectures for 1937) A. B. Macaulay stated: "Readers will easily perceive who my masters have been: Dr. J. McLeod Campbell and Principal James Denney." He added, "A nobler book on the death of Jesus than the former's Nature of the Atonement has, in my judgment, never been written in any age or language."8 James Denney was a most prolific writer on the subject of the atonement. His own appraisal of Campbell was likewise eulogistic. He wrote: Of all the books that have ever been written on the atonement, as God's way of reconciling man to himself, McLeod Campbell's is probably that which is most completely inspired by the spirit of the truth with which it deals. There is a recon- ciling power of Christ in it to which no tormented conscience can be insensible. The originality of it is spiritual as well as intellectual, and no one who has ever felt its power will cease to put it in a class by itself. He walks in the light all the time, and everything he touches lives.9 In 1937, Eugene Garrett Bewkes, Professor of Philoso- phy, Colgate University, New York, published a book enti- tled, Legacy of a Christian Mind: John M'Leod Campbell, 4 Eminent Contributer to Theological Thought. In it he stated: John M'Leod Campbell is one of the greatest spir- itual minds of the Nineteenth Century, who has not been sufficiently remembered in the Twentieth. More and more in the last three deca4§, Campbell has emerged with increasing prestige.lu A PhD thesis from Toronto, Canada, appeared in 1961, written by George Milledge Tuttle, entitled The Place of John McLeod Campbell in British Thought Concerning the Atonement.