Note 39 — Quest. LXX., LXXI.

I am not without painful apprehension, said Peter to John, that the views of our friend James on some of the doctrines of the gospel, are unhappily diverted from the truth. I suspect he does not believe in the proper imputation of sin to Christ, or of Christ’s righteousness to us; nor in his being our substitute, or representative.

John. Those are serious things; but what are the grounds, brother Peter, on which your suspicions rest?

Peter. Partly what he has published, which I cannot reconcile with those doctrines; and partly what he has said in my hearing, which I consider as an avowal of what I have stated.

John. What say you to this, brother James?

James. I cannot tell whether what I have written or spoken accords with brother Peter’s ideas on these subjects: indeed I suspect it does not: but I never thought of calling either of the doctrines in question. Were I to relinquish the one or the other, I should be at a loss for ground on which to rest my salvation. What he says of my avowing my disbelief of them in his hearing must be a misunderstanding. I did say, I suspected that his views of imputation and substitution were unscriptural; but had no intention of disowning the doctrines themselves.

Peter. Brother James, I have no desire to assume any dominion over your faith; but should be glad to know what are your ideas on these important subjects. Do you hold that sin was properly imputed to Christ, or that Christ’s righteousness is properly imputed to us, or not?

James. You are quite at liberty, brother Peter, to ask me any questions on these subjects; and if you will hear me patiently, I will answer you as explicitly as I am able.

John. Do so, brother James; and we shall hear you not only patiently, but, I trust, with pleasure.

James. To impute,^[40] signifies in general, to charge, reckon, or place to account, according to the different objects to which it is applied. This word, like many others, has a proper, and an improper or figurative meaning.

First: It is applied to the charging, reckoning, or placing to the account of persons and things, THAT WHICH PROPERLY BELONGS TO THEM. This I consider as its proper meaning. In this sense the word is used in the following passages. “Eli thought she, (Hannah,) had been drunken—Hanan and Mattaniah, the treasurers were counted faithful—Let a man so account of us as the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God—Let such an one think this, that such as we are in word by letters when we are absent, such will we be also indeed when we are present—I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.”^[41] Reckoning or accounting, in the above instances, is no other than judging of persons and things according to what they are, or appear to be. To impute sin in this sense is to charge guilt upon the guilty in a judicial way, or with a view to punishment. Thus Shimei besought David that his iniquity might not be imputed to him; thus the man is pronounced blessed to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity: and thus Paul prayed that the sin of those who deserted him might not be laid to their charge.^[42]

In this sense the term is ordinarily used in common life. To impute treason or any other crime to a man, is the same thing as charging him with having committed it, and with a view to his being punished.

Secondly: It is applied to the charging, reckoning, or placing to the account of persons and things, THAT WHICH DOES NOT PROPERLY BELONG TO THEM, AS THOUGH IT DID. This I consider as its improper or figurative meaning. In this sense the word is used in the following passages—“And this your heave-offering shall be reckoned unto you as though it were the corn of the threshing-floor and as the fulness of the wine-press—Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and holdest me for thine enemy—If the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision—If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee aught, put that on mine account.”^[43]

It is in this latter sense that I understand the term when applied to justification. “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness—To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” The counting, or reckoning, in these instances, is not a judging of things as they are; but as they are not, as though they were. I do not think that faith here means the righteousness of the Messiah: for it is expressly called “believing.” It means believing, however, not as a virtuous exercise of the mind which God consented to accept instead of perfect obedience, but as having respect to the promised Messiah, and so to his righteousness as the ground of acceptance.^[44] Justification is ascribed to faith, as healing frequently is in the New Testament; not as that from which the virtue proceeds, but as that which receives from the Saviour’s fulness.

But if it were allowed that faith in these passages really means the object believed in, still this was not Abraham’s own righteousness, and could not be properly counted by him who judges of things as they are, as being so. It was reckoned unto him as if it were his; and the effects, or benefits of it were actually imparted to him: but this was all. Abraham did not become meritorious, or cease to be unworthy.

“What is it to place our righteousness in the obedience of Christ, (says Calvin,) but to affirm that hereby only we are accounted righteous; because the obedience of Christ is imputed to us AS IF IT WERE OUR OWN.”^[45]

It is thus also that I understand the imputation of sin to Christ. He was accounted in the divine administration as if he were, or had been the sinner, that those who believe in him might be accounted as if they were, or had been righteous.

Brethren, I have done. Whether my statement be just or not, I hope it will be allowed to be explicit.

John. That it certainly is; and we thank you. Have you any other questions, brother Peter, to ask upon the subject?

Peter. How do you understand the apostle in 2 Cor. v. 21. He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him?

James. Till lately I cannot say that I have thought closely upon it. I have understood that several of our best writers consider the word αμαρτια (sin) as frequently meaning a sin-offering. Dr. Owen so interprets it in his answer to Biddle,^[46] though it seems he afterwards changed his mind. Considering the opposition between the sin which Christ was made, and the righteousness which we are made, together with the same word being used for that which he was made, and that which he knew not, I am inclined to be of the doctor’s last opinion; namely, that the sin which Christ was made, means sin itself; and the righteousness which we are made, means righteousness itself. I doubt not but that the allusion is to the sin-offering under the law; but not to its being made a sacrifice. Let me be a little more particular. There were two things belonging to the sin-offering. First: The imputation of the sins of the people, signified by the priest’s laying his hands upon the head of the animal, and confessing over it their transgressions; and which is called “putting them upon it.”^[47] That is, it was counted in the divine administration as if the animal had been the sinner, and the only sinner of the nation. Secondly: Offering it in sacrifice, or “killing it before the Lord for an atonement.”^[48] Now the phrase, made sin, in 2 Cor. v. 21. appears to refer to the first step in this process in order to the last. It is expressive of what was preparatory to Christ’s suffering death rather than of the thing itself, just as our being made righteousness expresses what was preparatory to God’s bestowing upon us eternal life. But the term made is not to be taken literally; for that would convey the idea of Christ’s being really the subject of moral evil. It is expressive of a divine constitution, by which our Redeemer with his own consent, stood in the sinner’s place, as though he had been himself the transgressor; just as the sin-offering under the law was, in mercy to Israel, reckoned or accounted to have the sins of the people “put upon its head,” with this difference; that was only a shadow, but this went really to take away sin.

Peter. Do you consider Christ as having been punished, really and properly PUNISHED?

James. I should think I do not. But what do you mean by punishment?

Peter. An innocent person may suffer, but, properly speaking, he cannot be punished. Punishment necessarily supposes criminality.

James. Just so; and therefore as I do not believe that Jesus was in any sense criminal, I cannot say he was really and properly punished.

Peter. Punishment is the infliction of natural evil for the commission of moral evil. It is not necessary, however, that the latter should have been committed by the party—Criminality is supposed: but it may be either personal or imputed.

James. This I cannot admit. Real and proper punishment, if I understand the terms, is not only the infliction of natural evil for the commission of moral evil; but the infliction of the one upon the person who committed the other, and in displeasure against him. It not only supposes criminality, but that the party punished was literally the criminal. Criminality committed by one party, and imputed to another, is not a ground for real and proper punishment. If Paul had sustained the punishment due to Onesimus for having wronged his master, yet it would not have been real and proper punishment to him, but suffering only, as not being inflicted in displeasure against him. I am aware of what has been said on this subject, that there was a more intimate union between Christ and those for whom he died, than could ever exist between creatures. But be it so, it is enough for me that the union was not such as THAT THE ACTIONS OF THE ONE BECAME THOSE OF THE OTHER. Christ, even in the act of offering himself a sacrifice, when, to speak in the language of the Jewish law, the sins of the people were put or laid upon him, gave himself nevertheless THE JUST FOR THE UNJUST.

Peter. And thus it is that you understand the words of Isaiah, The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all?

James. Yes, he bore the punishment due to our sins, or that which, considering the dignity of his person, was equivalent to it. The phrase “He shall bear his iniquity,” which so frequently occurs in the Old Testament, means, he shall bear the punishment due to his iniquity.

Peter. And yet you deny that Christ’s sufferings were properly penal.

James. You would not deny eternal life which is promised to believers to be properly a reward; but you would deny its being a real and proper reward TO THEM.

Peter. And what then?

James. If eternal life, though it be a reward, and we partake of it, yet is really and properly the reward of Christ’s obedience, and not our’s; then the sufferings of Christ, though they were a punishment, and he sustained it, yet were really and properly the punishment of our sins, and not his. What he bore was punishment: that is, it was the expression of divine displeasure against transgressors. So what we enjoy is reward: that is, it is the expression of God’s well-pleasedness in the obedience and death of his Son. But neither is the one a punishment to him, nor the other, properly speaking, a reward to us.

There appears to me great accuracy in the scriptural language on this subject. What our Saviour underwent is almost always expressed by the term suffering. Once it is called a chastisement: yet there he is not said to have been chastised; but “the chastisement of our peace was upon him.” This is the same as saying he bore our punishment. He was made a curse for us: that is, having been reckoned, or accounted the sinner, as though he had actually been so, he was treated accordingly, as one that had deserved to be an outcast from heaven and earth. I believe the wrath of God that was due to us was poured upon him, but I do not believe that God for one moment was angry or displeased with him, or that he smote him from any such displeasure.

There is a passage in Calvin’s Institutes, which so fully expresses my mind, that I hope you will excuse me if I read it. You will find it in Bk. ii. chap. xvi. § 10, 11. “It behoved him that he should, as it were, hand to hand, wrestle with the armies of hell, and the horror of eternal death. The chastisement of our peace was laid upon him. He was smitten of his Father for our crimes, and bruised for our iniquities: whereby is meant that he was put in the stead of the wicked, as surety and pledge, yea, and as the very guilty person himself, to sustain and bear away all the punishments that should have been laid upon them, save only that he could not be holden of death. Yet do we not mean that God was at any time either his enemy, or angry with him. For how could he be angry with his beloved Son, upon whom his mind rested? Or how could Christ by his intercession appease his Father’s wrath towards others, if, full of hatred, he had been incensed against himself? But this is our meaning—that he sustained the weight of the divine displeasure; inasmuch as he, being stricken and tormented by the hand of God, DID FEEL ALL THE TOKENS OF GOD WHEN HE IS ANGRY AND PUNISHETH.”

Peter. The words of scripture are very express—He hath made him to be sin for us—He was made a curse for us.—You may, by diluting and qualifying interpretations, soften what you consider as intolerable harshness. In other words, you may choose to correct the language and sentiments of inspiration, and teach the apostle to speak of his Lord with more decorum, lest his personal purity should be impeached, and lest the odium of the cross, annexed by divine law, remain attached to his death: but if you abide by the obvious meaning of the passages, you must hold with a commutation of persons, the imputation of sin and of righteousness, and a vicarious punishment, equally pregnant with execration as with death.

John. I wish brother Peter would forbear the use of language which tends not to convince, but to irritate.

James. If there be any thing convincing in it, I confess I do not perceive it. I admit with Mr. Charnock, “That Christ was ‘made sin’ as if he had sinned all the sins of men; and we are ‘made righteousness,’ as if we had not sinned at all.” What more is necessary to abide by the obvious meaning of the words? To go further must be to maintain that Christ’s being made sin means that he was literally rendered wicked, and that his being made a curse is the same thing as his being punished for it according to his deserts. Brother Peter, I am sure, does not believe this shocking position: but he seems to think there is a medium between his being treated as if he were a sinner, and his being one. If such a medium there be, I should be glad to discover it: at present it appears to me to have no existence.

Brother Peter will not suspect me, I hope, of wishing to depreciate his judgment, when I say, that he appears to me to be attached to certain terms without having sufficiently weighed their import. In most cases I should think it a privilege to learn of him: but in some things I cannot agree with him. In order to maintain the real and proper punishment of Christ, he talks of his being “guilty by imputation.” The term guilty, I am aware, is often used by theological writers for an obligation to punishment, and so applies to that voluntary obligation which Christ came under to sustain the punishment of our sins: but strictly speaking, guilt is the desert of punishment; and this can never apply but to the offender. It is the opposite of innocence. A voluntary obligation to endure the punishment of another is not guilt, any more than a consequent exemption from obligation in the offender, is innocence. Both guilt and innocence are transferable in their effects, but in themselves they are untransferable. To say that Christ was reckoned or counted in the divine administration as if he were the sinner, and came under an obligation to endure the curse or punishment due to our sins, is one thing: but to say he deserved that curse, is another. Guilt, strictly speaking, is the inseparable attendant of transgression, and could never therefore for one moment occupy the conscience of Christ. If Christ by imputation became deserving of punishment, we by non-imputation cease to deserve it; and if our demerits be literally transferred to him, his merits must of course be the same to us: and then, instead of approaching God as guilty and unworthy, we might take consequence to ourselves before him, as not only guiltless, but meritorious beings.

Peter. Some who profess to hold that believers are justified by the righteousness of Christ, deny, nevertheless, that his obedience itself is imputed to them: for they maintain that the scripture represents believers as receiving only the benefits, or effects of Christ’s righteousness in justification, or their being pardoned and accepted for Christ’s righteousness sake.—But it is not merely for the sake of Christ, or of what he has done, that believers are accepted of God, and treated as completely righteous; but it is IN him as their Head, Representative, and Substitute; and by the imputation of that very obedience which as such he performed to the divine law, that they are justified.

James. I have no doubt but that the imputation of Christ’s righteousness presupposes a union with him; since there is no perceivable fitness in bestowing benefits on one for another’s sake where there is no union or relation subsisting between them. It is not such a union, however, as that THE ACTIONS OF EITHER BECOME THOSE OF THE OTHER. That “the scriptures represent believers as receiving only the benefits or the effects of Christ’s righteousness in justification,” is a remark of which I am not able to perceive the fallacy: nor does it follow that his obedience itself is not imputed to them. Obedience itself may be and is imputed, while its effects only are imparted, and consequently received. I never met with a person who held the absurd notion of imputed benefits, or imputed punishments; and am inclined to think there never was such a person. Be that however as it may, sin on the one hand and righteousness on the other, are the proper objects of imputation; but that imputation consists in charging or reckoning them to the account of the party in such a way as to impart to him their evil or beneficial effects.

Peter. The doctrine for which I contend as taught by the apostle Paul, is neither novel, nor more strongly expressed than it has formerly been by authors of eminence.

James. It may be so. We have been told of an old protestant writer who says, that “In Christ, and by him, every true Christian may be called a fulfiller of the law:” but I see not why he might not as well have added, Every true Christian may be said to have been slain, and, if not to have redeemed himself by his own blood, yet to be worthy of all that blessing, and honour, and glory, that shall be conferred upon him in the world to come.—What do you think of Dr. Crisp’s Sermons? Has he not carried your principles to an extreme?

Peter. I cordially agree with Witsius, as to the impropriety of calling Christ a sinner, truly a sinner, the greatest of sinners, &c. yet I am far from disapproving of what Dr. Crisp, and some others, meant by those exceptionable expressions.

James. If a Christian may be called a fulfiller of the law, on account of Christ’s obedience being imputed to him, I see not why Christ may not be called a transgressor of the law, on account of our disobedience being imputed to him. Persons and things should be called what they are. As to the meaning of Dr. Crisp, I am very willing to think he had no ill design: but my concern is with the meaning which his words convey to his readers. He considers God in charging our sins on Christ, and accounting his righteousness to us, as reckoning of things as they are. (p. 280.) He contends that Christ was really the sinner, or guilt could not have been laid upon him. (p. 272.) Imputation of sin and righteousness, with him, is literally and actually A TRANSFER OF CHARACTER; and it is the object of his reasoning to persuade his believing hearers that from henceforward Christ is 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 thine; 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, belonging 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 consistency; and admitting his principle, that imputation consists in a transfer of character, 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 conversation, 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 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 THEE, 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 believe, 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 character 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 requires 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 all 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 language of the law of innocence, it would be inaccurate—

“——Man disobeying,

He with his whole posterity must die:

Die he, or justice must; unless for him

Some other able, and as willing, pay

The rigid satisfaction, death for death.”

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 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