the authority of the law; in order whereunto it is highly requisite that the punishment should ordinarily be equivalent to the demerit of the crime; otherwise it will not be a sufficient motive to warn and deter men from committing it. And herein consisted the imperfection of the ancient expiatory sacrifices, that what they suffered was much short of what the offenders, they suffered for, deserved: for they only substituted the life of a brute in the room of the life of a man, which is of far greater worth and value; and therefore, by how much less valuable the life of a beast is than the life of a man, by so much less was the punishment transferred upon the sacrifice than the guilt contracted by the offender.

Fourthly, Another necessary condition to the making of a true and perfect sacrifice was, that it should be free and unforced on the part of the offerer. For since he had deserved the punishment in his own person, it was very fit, both that the sacrifice that was to undergo it for him should be something that was his own, otherwise he could have no right to substitute it in his own stead, or to offer its life to God in exchange for his own; and that he should freely offer it to be killed in his stead, otherwise he had not been consenting to the exchange, without which it must have been invalid, and consequently the expiation void; and hence, Levit. i. 3. it is required that he should offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord.

Fifthly, It is also a necessary condition to a true and perfect sacrifice for sin, that it should be admitted and accepted by God in the room and stead of the punishment that is due to him from the of

fender himself. For by violating his laws we give God a right to exact the penalty of them at our own hands; so that, if he pleases, he may refuse to admit of any substitute to suffer for us; and if he will insist upon his right to punish us in our own persons, and refuse to admit of any exchange, what another suffers for us will signify nothing to our discharge or acquittal, because it is not our own suffering, who stand personally obliged to God to suffer the utmost evil that our sin deserves: and therefore, to admit another to suffer for us is an act of pure grace and favour in him, which he may grant or refuse as he pleases. So that the expiatory virtue of all sacrifice lies in God's admitting and accepting it in exchange for that personal punishment we owe him; and hence he is said to have given them the blood upon the altar, to make an atonement for their souls, Levit. xvii. 11. that is, to have admitted and accepted that blood which was offered on the altar as an atonement for their lives, which were forfeited to him. And thus you see what are the necessary conditions of a real and perfect expiatory sacrifice; all which, as I shall now shew you, do fully concentre in the death and sacrifice of our Saviour.

As,

I. In dying or being sacrificed, he was substituted in the room of sinful men, to be punished for them in order to their being released from their personal obligation to punishment. And hence, Titus ii. 14. he is said to have given himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works; that is, he gave his life in exchange for ours, and thereby became our avriluxos. For by what follows it is ἀντίψυχος. plain, that his giving himself for us here is to be

understood by way of an expiation; for it was, first, to redeem us from all iniquity, which is the very phrase by which the virtue and efficacy of propitiatory sacrifices is expressed; for so λurpów, which signifies to redeem in the Greek, is the same with

, which signifies to expiate by sacrifice in the Hebrew; and accordingly the Greek word λúrpov, which in the Greek signifies the price of redemption, is frequently used for the Hebrew copher, which signifies a price to reconcile or propitiate. So that Christ's giving himself for us, to redeem us from all iniquity, must signify, according to the common acceptation of the phrase, his laying down his life for us, as the price of our propitiation with God. For so among the Jews that common form of speech, Let me be your redemption, was as much as to say, Let me bear your iniquities, and undergo the punishment of them, that you may escape, Buxtorf. Lexic. Chald. 1078. Agreeably to which, in Heb. ix. 15. Christ is said to die for the redemption of transgression, that is, to buy off the punishment of them with his own blood. For so he is said to have given himself άvtíλvтpov, i. e. a ransom or price of redemption for all, 1 Tim. ii. 5, 6. and to have given his life as a λúτpov, or ransom for many, Matt. xx. 28. But then, secondly, his giving himself for us was to purify us, which also refers to the purifications which were made by expiatory sacrifices. For so the word κabapicwv signifies to cleanse from guilt by sacrifice. Thus Lev. xvi. 30. On that day shall the priest make atonement for you, to purify you, that ye may be pure from all your sins before the Lord; and so the word is generally taken, not only in the writings of Moses, but also in all other authors, by whom

expiatory sacrifices are promiscuously called ἱλαστικά, άyuσTIKά, and KalaρтIκà, i. e. " atoning, sanctifying, ἁγνιστικά, καθαρτικὰ, "and purifying." Agreeably to which, the blood of Christ is said to purify us from all sin, i.e. from the guilt of all sin, 1 John i. 7. For it was from that, that the blood of sacrifices did immediately purify men. And hence he is said to have died for our sins, 1 Cor. xv. 3. to have given himself for our sins, Gal. i. 4. and to have once suffered for our sins, the just for the unjust, 1 Pet. iii. 18. and his blood is said to be shed for many for the remission of sins, Matt. xxvi. 28. and to be a propitiation for our sins, 1 John iv. 10. by which expressions it is evident, that our sins were the cause, and the expiation of them the end of Christ's suffering; and it is upon this account that he is said to bear our sins in his own body on the tree, 1 Pet. ii. 24. that is, to undergo the punishment of them in those exquisite torments he endured upon the cross, and to be made sin for us, 2 Cor. v. 21. even as the expiatory sacrifices were made sin, i. e. piacula, that underwent the punishment of sin for the offenders that offered them, Lev. iv. 3, 29. and also to be made a curse for us, Gal. iii. 13. that is, by having the guilts of our sins transferred on him, even as the sacrifices were cursed, as was shewed before, by the very translation of the guilts of the people upon them; and accordingly, as by this translation those sacrifices were rendered cursed and unclean, and, as such, were to be burnt without the camp; so our Saviour, upon the same account, suffered without the gate, Heb. xiii. 11, 12. And, to name no more, in Isaiah liii. we are told, That he should bear our griefs, and carry our sorrows, and be wounded

for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities; that the chastisements of our peace were upon him, and that by his stripes we should be healed; that the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquities of us all, and that for our transgressions he was stricken; that his soul was made an offering for sin; that he should bear our iniquities, and be numbered with the transgressors, and bear the sins of many, and make intercession for the transgressors: all which expressions do as plainly denote him to be substituted to be punished for us, in order to our release, as it is possible for words to do; and unless we will admit that to be the sense of scripture, which the words of it do as plainly import as they could have done if it had been its sense, it will be impossible to determine it to any sense whatsoever; because men may prevaricate upon the plainest words, and with quirks of wit and criticism pervert them to a contrary meaning. And I dare undertake, by the same arts that our adversaries use to avoid the force of these testimonies, to elude the plainest words that the wit of man can invent to express this proposition, that Christ's death was a punishment for our sins; which to any reasonable man is a sufficient answer to all the Socinian cavils. And indeed the whole current of scripture runs so clear against them, that they do as good as acknowledge, that according to the most common and natural acceptation of its words, it fairly implies the doctrine we contend for, viz. that the death of Christ was a real punishment for the sins of the world. But their main plea is, that it is unjust, in the nature of the thing, to punish one man for the sins of another; and therefore we ought rather to