being the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth, Rom. x. 4. which is the same with what he asserts in other words elsewhere concerning the righteousness of the law's the sinner, and not they. "Hast thou been an idolater, says he; a blasphemer, a "despiser of God's word, a profaner of his name and ordinances, a thief, a liar, "a drunkard-If thou hast part in Christ, all these transgressions of thine become "actually the transgressions of Christ, and so cease to be thane; and thou ceasest to "be a transgressor from the time they were laid upon Christ, to the last hour of thy "life: so that now thou art not an idolater, a persecutor, a thief, a liar, &c."thou art not a sinful person. Reckon whatever sin you commit, when as you "have part in Christ, you are all that Christ was, and Christ is all that you "were." If the meaning of this passage be true and good, I see nothing exceptionable in the expressions. All that can be said is, that the writer explicitly states his principle and avows its legitimate consequences. I believe the principle to be false.(1.) Because neither sin nor righteousness are in themselves transferable. The act and deed of one person may affect another in many ways, but cannot possibly become his act and deed.-(2.) Because the scriptures uniformly declare Christ to be sinless, and believers to be sinful creatures.-(3.) Because believers themselves have in all ages confessed their sins, and applied to the mercy-seat for forgiveness. They never plead such an union as shall render their sins not theirs, but Christ's; but merely such a one as affords ground to apply for pardon in his name, or for his sake; not as worthy claimants, but as unworthy supplicants./ Whatever reasonings we may give into, there are certain times in which conscience will bear witness, that notwithstanding the imputation of our sins to Christ, we are actually the sinners; and I should have thought no good man could have gravely gone about to overturn its testimony. Yet this is what Dr. CRISP has done. "Believers think, says he, that they find their transgressions in "their own consciences, and they imagine that there is a sting of this poison still "behind, wounding them: but, beloved, if this principle be received for a truth, "that God hath laid thy iniquities on Christ, how can thy transgressions, be"longing to Christ, be found in thy heart and conscience?-Is thy conscience "Christ?" p. 269. Perhaps no man has gone further than Dr. CRISP in his attempts at consisteney; and admitting his principle, that imputation consists in a transfer of charac, ter, I do not see who can dispute his conclusions. To have been perfectly consistent, however, he should have proved that all the confessions and lamentations of believers, recorded in scripture, arose from their being under the mistake which he labours to rectify; that is, thinking sin did not cease to be theirs, even when under the fullest persuasion that the Lord would not impute it to them, but would graciously cover it by the righteousness of his Son. John. I think, brother Peter, you expressed at the beginning of our conver sation, a strong suspicion that brother James denied the substitution of Christ, as well as the proper imputation of sin and righteousness. What has passed on the latter subject would probably tend either to confirm or remove your suspicions respecting the former. Peter. I confess I was mistaken in some of my suspicions. I consider our friend as a good man; but am far from being satisfied with what I still understand to be his views on this important subject. John. It gives me great pleasure to hear the honest concessions of brethren, when they feel themselves in any measure to have gone too far. Peter. I shall be glad to hear brother James's statement on substitution, and to know whether he considers our Lord in his undertaking as having sustained the character of a Head, or Representative; and if so, whether the persons for whom he was a substitute were the elect only, or mankind in general. James. I must acknowledge that on this subject I feel considerably at a loss. I have no consciousness of having ever called the doctrine of substitution in question. On the contrary, my hope of salvation rests upon it; and the sum of being fulfilled in us, chap. viii. 3, 4. who could not be justified by our own obedience to it, in that it was weak through the flesh, or by reason of our fallen state; therefore Christ did this my delight, as a minister of the gospel, consists in it. If I know any thing of my own heart, I can say of my Saviour as laying down his life for, or instead of sinners, as was said of Jerusalem by the captives-If I forget TREE, let my right hand forget: If I do not remember THEE, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth! I have always considered the denial of this doctrine as being of the essence of Socinianism. I could not have imagined that any person whose hope of acceptance with God rests not on any goodness in himself, but entirely on the righteousness of Christ, imputed to him as if it were his own, would have been accounted to disown his substitution. But perhaps, my dear brother, (for such I feel him to be, notwithstanding our differences,) may include in his ideas of this subject, that Christ was so our head and representative, as that what he did and suffered, we did and suffered in him.-If no more were meant by this, resumed James, than that what he did and suffered is graciously accepted on our behalf as if it were ours, I freely, as I have said before, acquiesce in it. But I do not be✓lieve, and can hardly persuade myself that brother Peter believes, the obedience and sufferings of Christ to be so ours, as that we can properly be said to have obeyed and suffered. Christ was and is our head, and we are his members: the union between him and us, however, is not in all respects the same as that which is between the head and the members of the natural body: for that would go to explain away all distinct consciousness and accountableness on our part. As to the term representative, if no more be meant by it than that Christ so personated us as to die in our stead, that we, believing in him, should not die, I have nothing to object to it. But I do not believe that Christ was so our representative, as that what he did and suffered, we did and suffered; and so became meritorious, or deserving of the divine favour.-But I feel myself in a wide field, and must entreat your indulgence while I take up so much of the conversation. Peter and John. Go on, and state your sentiments without apology. James. I apprehend then that many important mistakes have arisen from considering the interposition of Christ under the notion of paying a debt. The blood of Christ is indeed the price of our redemption, or that for the sake of which we are delivered from the curse of the law: but this metaphorical language, as well as that of head and members, may be carried too far, and may lead us into many errors. In cases of debt and credit among men, where a surety undertakes to represent the debtor, from the moment his undertaking is accepted, the debtor is free, and may claim his liberty, not as a matter of favour, at least on the part of the creditor, but of strict justice. Or should the undertaking be unknown to him for a time, yet as soon as he knows it, he may demand his discharge, and, it may be, think himself hardly treated by being kept in bondage so long after his debt had been actually paid. But who in their sober senses will imagine this to be analagous to the redemption of sinners by Jesus Christ? Sin is a debt only in a metaphorical sense: properly speaking, it is a crime, and satisfaction for it requires to be made, not on pecuniary, but on moral principles. If Philemon had accepted of that part of Paul's offer which respected property, and had placed so much to his account as he considered Onesimus to have "owed" him, he could not have been said to have remitted his debt; nor would Onesimus have had to thank him for remitting it. But it is supposed of Onesimus that he might not only be in debt to his master, but have "wronged" him. Perhaps he had embezzled his goods, corrupted his children, or injured his character. Now for Philemon to accept of that part of the offer, were very different from the other. In the one case he would have accepted of a pecuniary representative; in the other of a moral one; that is, of a mediator. The satisfaction in the one case would annihilate the idea of remission; but not in the other. Whatever satisfaction Paul might give to Philemon respecting the wound inflicted upon his cha for us; and accordingly God deals with us as though we had fulfilled the law in our own persons, inasmuch as it was fulfilled by him as our surety. racter and honour as the head of a family, it would not supersede the necessity of pardon being sought by the offender, and freely bestowed by the offended. The reason of this difference is easily perceived. Debts are transferable; but crimes are not. A third person may cancel the one; but he can only obliterate the effects of the other; the desert of the criminal remains. The debtor is accountable to his creditor as a private individual, who has power to accept of a surety, or if he please, to remit the whole, without any satisfaction. In the one case he would be just; in the other merciful: but no place is afforded by either of them for the combination of justice and mercy in the same proceeding. The criminal, on the other hand, is amenable to the magistrate, or to the head of a family, as a public person, and who, especially if the offence be capital, cannot remit the punishment without invading law and justice, nor in the ordinary discharge of his office, admit of a third person to stand in his place. In extraordinary cases, however, extraordinary expedients are resorted to. A satisfaction may be made to law and justice, as to the spirit of them, while the letter is dispensed with. The well-known story of Zaleucus, the Grecian law-giver, who consented to lose one of his eyes to spare one of his son's eyes, who by transgressing the law had subjected himself to the loss of both, is an example. Here, as far as it went, justice and mercy were combined in the same act: and had the satisfaction been much fuller than it was, so full that the authority of the law, instead of being weakened, should have been abundantly magnified and honoured, still it had been perfectly consistent with free forgiveness. Finally: In the case of the debtor, satisfaction being once accepted, justice requires his complete discharge: but in that of the criminal, where satisfaction is made to the wounded honour of the law, and the authority of the lawgiver, justice, though it admits of his discharge, yet no otherwise requirea it than as it may have been matter of promise to the substitute. I do not mean to say that cases of this sort afford a competent representation of redemption by Christ. That is a work which not only ranks with extraordinary interpositions, but which has no parallel: it is a work of God, which leaves ail the petty concerns of mortals infinitely behind it. All that comparisons can do, is to give us some idea of the principle on which it proceeds. If the following passage in our admired Milton were considered as the lan guage of the law of innocence, it would be inaccurate- Man disobeying, He with his whole posterity must die: Abstractedly considered, this is true; but it is not expressive of what was the revealed law of innocence. The law made no such condition, or provision; nor was it indifferent to the law-giver who should suffer, the sinner, or another on his behalf. The language of the law to the transgressor was not thou shalt die, or some one on thy behalf; but simply thou shalt die: and had it literally taken its course, every child of man must have perished. The sufferings of Christ in our stead, therefore, are not a punishment inflicted in the ordinary course of distributive justice; but an extraordinary interposition of infinite wisdom and love : not contrary to, but rather above the law, deviating from the letter, but more than preserving the spirit of it. Such, brethren, as well as I am able to explain them, are my views of the substitution of Christ. Peter. The objection of our so stating the substitution of Christ, as to leave no room for the free pardon of sin, has been often made by those who avowedly This may farther be illustrated, by what we generally understand by Adam's sin being imputed to us, as one contrary may illustrate another; therefore, as sin and death entered into the world by the offence of one, to wit, the first Adam, in whom all have sinned; so by the righteousness of one the free gift, Rom. v. 18. that is, eternal life came upon all men, to wit, those who shall be saved unto justification of life; and for this reason the apostle speaks of Adam as the figure of him that was to come, ver. 14. Now as Adam's sin was imputed to us, as our public head and representative, so that we are involved in the guilt thereof, or fall in him; so Christ's righteousness is imputed to us, as he was our public head and surety: and accordingly, in the eye of the law, that which was done by him, was the same as though it had been done by us; and therefore, as the effect and consequence hereof, we are justified thereby. This is what we call Christ's righteousness being imputed to us, or placed to our account; and it is very agreeable to the common acceptation of the word, in dealings between man and man. When one has contracted a debt, and desires that it may be placed to the account of his surety, who undertakes for the payment of it, it is said to be imputed to him; and his discharge hereupon is as valid as though the debtor has paid it in his own person. This leads us, VI. To consider justification as it is an act of God's free grace, which is particularly insisted on in one of the answers we are explaining; for the understanding of which, let it be observed, that we are not to suppose, that when we are justified by an act of grace, this is opposed to our being justified upon the account of a full satisfaction made by our surety to the justice of God; in which respect we consider our discharge from condemnation, as an act of justice. The debtor is, indeed, beholden to the grace of God for this privilege, but the surety that paid the debt, had not the least abatement thereof made, but was obliged to glorify the justice of God to the utmost, which accordingly he did. However, there are several things in which the grace of God is eminently displayed, more particularly, 1. In that God should be willing to accept of satisfaction from the hands of our surety, which he might have demanded of us. This appears from what has been before observed, name reject his satisfaction; but for any who really consider his death as an atonement for sin, and as essential to the ground of a sinner's hope, to employ the objection against us, is very extraordinary, and must, I presume, proceed from inadvertency. James. If it be so, I do not perceive it. The grounds of the objection have been stated as clearly and as fully as I am able to state them." FULLER. ly, that the debt which we had contracted was not of the same nature with pecuniary debts, in which case the creditor is obliged to accept of payment, though the overture hereof be made by another, and not by him that contracted the debt: whereas the case is different in debts of obedience to be performed, or punishment to be endured; in which instances, he, to whom satisfaction is to be given, must accept of one to be substituted in the room of him from whom the obedience or sufferings were originally due; otherwise, the overture made, or what is done and suffered by him, pursuant thereunto, is not regarded, or available to procure a discharge for him, in whose room he substituted himself. God might have exacted the debt of us, in our own persons, and then our condition had been equally miserable with that of fallen angels, for whom no mediator was accepted, no more than provided. 2. The grace of God farther appears, in that he provided a surety for us, which we could not have done for ourselves; nor have engaged him to perform this work for us, who was the only person that could bring about the great work of redemp tion. The only creatures who are capable of performing perfect obedience, are the holy angels; but these could not do it, for, as has been before observed, whoever performs it must be incarnate, that they may be capable of paying the debt, in some respects, in kind, which was due from us; therefore they must suffer death, and consequently have a nature which is capable of dying; but this the angels had not, nor could have, but by the divine will. Besides, if God should have dispensed with that part of satisfaction, which consists in a subjection to death, and have declared, that active obedience should be sufficient to procure our justification; the angels, though capable of performing active obedience, would, notwithstanding, have been defective therein; so that justice could not, in honour, have accepted of it, any more than it could have dispensed with the obligation to perform obedience in general; because it would not have been of infinite value; and it is the value of things that justice regards, and not barely the matter of perfection thereof in other respects: so that it must be an obedience that had in it something infinitely valuable, or else it could not have been accepted by God, as a price of redemption, in order to the procuring our justification: and this could be performed by none but our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious author and procurer of this privilege. It was impossible for man to have found out this Mediator or Surety; so that it had its first rise from God, and not from us; it is he that found a ransom, and laid help upon one that |