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Daniel Steele
Daniel Steele (October 5, 1824 – December 2, 1914) was an American preacher, theologian, and scholar whose ministry significantly shaped the Methodist Holiness movement in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Windham, New York, to Perez Steele and Clarissa Brainerd, he graduated from Wesleyan University with a B.A. in 1848, an M.A. in 1851, and a D.D. in 1868, serving as a mathematics tutor there from 1848 to 1850. Converted in 1842 at Wilbraham, Massachusetts, he joined the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1849 and was ordained, beginning a pastoral career that included churches in Massachusetts such as Fitchburg, Leominster, and Springfield until 1862. Steele’s preaching career expanded into academia when he became Professor of Ancient Languages at Genesee College in Lima, New York (1862–1869), acting as its president from 1869 to 1871, and later served as Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at Syracuse University in 1871 after Genesee merged with it. From 1886 to 1893, he taught Doctrinal Theology at Boston University, preaching to students and congregations with an emphasis on entire sanctification, a doctrine he passionately defended in works like Love Enthroned (1875) and Milestone Papers (1878). Author of numerous books, including A Defense of Christian Perfection (1896), he remained unmarried and died at age 90 in Milton, Massachusetts, leaving a legacy as a key Holiness advocate and biblical interpreter.
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Daniel Steele preaches about the concept of unavoidable infirmities and ignorances not needing expiation, citing examples from Hebrews and Leviticus to emphasize the importance of atonement for sins of ignorance. He highlights that sins not committed willfully but through human infirmity or with partial awareness of their moral wrongness can still be atoned for through the blood of sprinkling. Steele points out that even unconscious sins or those committed with passive consciousness are included in sins of ignorance, as seen in the case of Saul of Tarsus finding forgiveness due to his ignorance of Jesus as the true Messiah.
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No Sins of Ignorance
OUR author says, "Unavoidable infirmities and ignorances need no expiation." He could not have read Heb. ix, 7, in his Greek Testament, nor in the Revision, just before writing that sentence: "Not without blood which he offers for the ignorances of the people," or " errors," as in the Authorized Version. Nor could he have read Heb. v, 2, nor Lev. iv, 13: "If the whole congregation of Israel sin through ignorance, and the thing be hid from the eyes of the assembly, and they have done somewhat against any of the commandments of Jehovah . . . When the sin, which they have sinned, is known, . . . then they shall offer a young bullock for the sin." In this chapter there are precepts respecting the sin of ignorance of "a soul " and of the anointed high priest, who must first offer sacrifice for his own ignorances. The great day of atonement assumes that he and "his household" and "all the congregation of Israel" have need of expiation (Lev. xvi, 17), not because they are all conscious of willful sin, but their involuntary "errors " in the presence of the holy God need the screen of the atonement. All sins not committed "with a high hand," in open defiance of the known law of God, "but through human infirmity, or with a half-consciousness only of their moral turpitude, and such as when recognized as sins, are truly repented of" (Delitzsch), were atoned for by the blood of sprinkling. What CREMER calls "unconscious sin, as well as sin wherein consciousness is passive," is included in "sins of ignorance." Saul of Tarsus found forgiveness because his sins were committed in ignorance, not with a high hand. He did not know that Jesus is the true Messiah.
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Daniel Steele (October 5, 1824 – December 2, 1914) was an American preacher, theologian, and scholar whose ministry significantly shaped the Methodist Holiness movement in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Windham, New York, to Perez Steele and Clarissa Brainerd, he graduated from Wesleyan University with a B.A. in 1848, an M.A. in 1851, and a D.D. in 1868, serving as a mathematics tutor there from 1848 to 1850. Converted in 1842 at Wilbraham, Massachusetts, he joined the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1849 and was ordained, beginning a pastoral career that included churches in Massachusetts such as Fitchburg, Leominster, and Springfield until 1862. Steele’s preaching career expanded into academia when he became Professor of Ancient Languages at Genesee College in Lima, New York (1862–1869), acting as its president from 1869 to 1871, and later served as Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at Syracuse University in 1871 after Genesee merged with it. From 1886 to 1893, he taught Doctrinal Theology at Boston University, preaching to students and congregations with an emphasis on entire sanctification, a doctrine he passionately defended in works like Love Enthroned (1875) and Milestone Papers (1878). Author of numerous books, including A Defense of Christian Perfection (1896), he remained unmarried and died at age 90 in Milton, Massachusetts, leaving a legacy as a key Holiness advocate and biblical interpreter.