the person punished, nevertheless retains that which constitutes it vicarious punishment, as we have sufficiently explained in another place.

It only remains for us to conclude this chapter by declaring our dissent from what some have incautiously affirmed, that we were punished in Christ; which ought by no means to be admitted. For he who is punished in a friend, does himself receive some detriment and injury from the evils inflicted on that friend. In this way parents are punished in their children; whose calamities are attended with loss, sorrow, or disgrace, which may be considered as a punishment, to the parents themselves. But the contrary of all this has been the effect of those punishments which Christ endured for us. Not only have they never produced the least detriment or injury to us, but they have procured the pardon of our sins and eternal salvation. Hence it is easy to perceive, that there is a wide difference between our being punished in Christ, and his being punished for us. For to affirm that we have been punished in Christ, will be, by consequence, to maintain that we have received some injury from the sufferings of Christ: which is very far from the truth. But to affirm that Christ endured punishment for us, is to maintain, what is strictly true, that punishment was endured by him, in order that we might be delivered from punishment.

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CHAPTER VI.

Passages of Scripture which represent Atonement as effected by the Death of Christ.

FROM our examination of passages in which the death of Christ is expressly described as a vicarious punishment, we now proceed to those in which he is declared to have sanctified or purified our persons, or to have expiated or purged our sins, either by himself, or by his blood or sacrifice.

To this purpose is the following language of the apostle to the Hebrews.* "We have an altar, "whereof they have no right to eat which serve the "tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts, whose "blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high

priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Where"fore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people "with his own blood, suffered without the gate." To sanctify the people, here, signifies the same as topper purify the people; and to purify the people, is to expiate the sins of the people. Since it appears therefore from this passage, and that with evidence too plain to be contradicted, that our sins were expiated by the blood or death of Christ, the only point for controversial discussion is, upon what principle, or in what manner, his death accomplished this. But this question will easily be determined, if we are disposed to follow the train of the argument. For as the apostle is here speaking of Christ as a piacular victim, and of the blood of Christ, as the blood of a piacular victim; his death must be considered as expiating sins in the same way as the death of a pia

Heb. xiii. 10---12.

cular victim. It was by vicarious punishment, that all piacular victims expiated the sins for which they were offered-upon the same principle, therefore, and in the same manner, our sins were expiated by Christ.

The illustration which has been given of this passage serves also to illustrate another of the same apostle:* "When he had by himself purged our sins, " he sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high." To which may be added the following from St. John: "But if we walk in the light, as he is in "the light, we have fellowship one with another, and "the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from "all sin." In these passages the same property of expiating sins, which belongs to a piacular victim, is attributed to Christ and his blood. In the latter, this is clear from the mention of cleansing effected by his blood. In the former, Christ is introduced as having purged or expiated sins by himself, that is, by himself as sacrificed. The manner in which piacular victims expiate sins is by vicarious punishment:-the same mode of expiation, therefore, is in these passages attributed to Christ.

II. We now come to those passages in which either the expiation of sins, or, what is precisely the same, the purification of the guilty, effected by the death or blood of Christ, is denominated the redemption of them. Thus the apostle to the Hebrews: "And "for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that, by means of death, for the redemption

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+ ATOλUTEWOIS. This word, as used by the writers of the New Testament, answers to 5 in the Jewish writers, and denotes expiation, Atonement, purging by sacrifice,

§ Heb. ix. 15.

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"of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance." The redemption of transgressions by means of death, is equivalent to the expiation of sins effected by the death of Christ, as a victim and it was by the vicarious punishment of the slain victim, as we have already shown, that all such expiation was made.-Observe also the language of St. Paul concerning Christ in two of his epistles:*"In whom we have redemption through "his blood, the forgiveness of sins." The original word denotes not any redemption whatever, but such as consists in the expiation made by a piacular victim. This is evident from the mention of blood, and the forgiveness of sins; of blood, as the blood of a surety making expiation; and of forgiveness of sins, as procured by the expiation of that surety. Nor can it be doubted that the apostle, when he mentioned these two things in such close connection, had in view both the expiation by the blood of piacular victims among the Jews, and the remission of sins procured by that expiation. The apostle to the Hebrews thus mentions them both :† "And almost all things "are by the law purged with blood; and without "shedding of blood is no remission." Since St. Paul, therefore, in the passages just quoted, speaks of the blood of Christ, as of the blood of a piacular victim, there is no doubt that he attributes to the death of Christ the same kind of efficacy which belongs to the death of such a victim. And this efficacy, as we have frequently observed, is of such a nature, that by the vicarious punishment of the slain victim it procures for the sinner the pardon of his sin.

III. The meaning here assigned to the Greek word rendered redemption may be confirmed by the universal acceptation of the correspondent term among the Jewish writers.* Baal Aruch speaks the sense of them all:† In every place where any one says, Let

me be his expiation, it is the same as if he had said, 'Let me be substituted in his place, that I may bear 'his iniquities: which is equivalent to saying, I, in 'order that he may obtain pardon, do take his sins

upon myself.' Hence we gain some illustration of the passages just quoted from St. Paul. For though Christ, indeed, was not substituted in our place, in such a manner as to bear the same kind of punishments from which we are delivered, yet the punishment which he suffered does as truly expiate our sins and procure the pardon of them, as if they had been precisely of the same kind that we were ourselves liable to undergo. This is the very idea conveyed by the apostle, when he says, that "in Christ we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of "sins;" and he seems to suggest the same, when he speaks of "them that believe being justified freely by his" (that is, God's) "grace, through the redemption "that is in Christ Jesus."

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IV. We next advert to the passages of scripture in which Christ is said to be a ransom:§ a term which the Jewish writers are accustomed to apply to every piacular victim; which they describe as the 'substi'tute and ransom of the sinner,' affirming the life of the animal to be sacrificed instead of his life.'||

* See note on § 2. + See Dis. I. c. xxii. § 9.

Rom. iii. 22. 24.

§ Aurgov and AvriλUTgov. These words answer to the word 5 in the Jewish writings.

# See quotations from several rabbies, Dis. I. c. xxii. § 10.