impose any sense on the words of scripture, how foreign soever, than attribute to God so great a piece of injustice, as the punishing his own Son for the sins of the world. But as for the justice of this procedure, I shall endeavour by and by to clear and vindicate it.

II. He died in pure and spotless innocence: and this was highly necessary to his being an expiatory sacrifice for the sins of others. For had he been a sinner, he had deserved to die upon his own account, and the utmost effect of his death could have been only the expiation of his own sin, by which his life must have been forfeited to the divine justice; and it is impossible that he who hath forfeited his own life should by his death redeem the forfeited lives of others. And accordingly, Heb. vii. 26, 27. we are told, that such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, and undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens, who needed not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice first for his own sins, &c. because the sacrifice which he offered was his own life; so that had he been obliged to offer that for his own sins, it could have made no expiation for ours; the bare payment of a man's own debt being not satisfaction for other men. And therefore herein the apostle places the virtue and efficacy of Christ's blood, by which it was rendered sufficiently precious to be a ransom for the sins of the world, that it was of a lamb without spot or blemish, i. e. the blood of a most holy and innocent person, who never deserved the least evil on his own account, and therefore was truly precious, and fit to be a ransom for the sins of others, 1 Pet. i. 18, 19. And accordingly he is said

to be made sin for us, i. e. to be devoted as a sacrifice for our sins, who knew no sin, 2 Cor. v. 21. where you see the great emphasis of his sacrifice is laid upon his innocence, as that which was necessary to qualify him to be a sacrifice for others. So that by that spotless obedience of Christ's life, through the whole course of which he did no sin, neither was there any guile found in his mouth, he consecrated himself an acceptable sacrifice to God for the sins of the world.

III. His death was of sufficient intrinsic worth and value to be an equivalent commutation for the punishment that was due to the whole world of sinners. For the reason why God would not pardon sinners without some commutation for the punishment that was due from them to his justice, was, that he might preserve and maintain the authority of his laws and government. For had he exacted the punishment from the sinners themselves, he must have destroyed the whole race of mankind; and had he pardoned them, on the other hand, without any punishment at all, he must have exposed his authority to the contempt and outrage of every bold and insolent offender; and therefore, to avoid these dangerous extremities of severity and impunity, his infinite wisdom found out this expedient, to admit of some exchange for our persons and punishment, that so, some other thing or person being substituted in our stead, to suffer and be punished for us, neither we might be destroyed, nor our sins be unpunished. This therefore being the reason of God's admitting of sacrifice, it was highly requisite that the punishment of the sacrifice should bear some proportion to the guilt of the offenders; otherwise it will not

For since the

answer God's reason of admitting it. reason of his admitting it was the security of his authority, the less he had admitted, the less he must have secured his authority by it: for to have exacted a small punishment for a great demerit, would have been, within a few degrees, as destructive to his authority, as to have exacted none at all; to punish but little for great crimes, is within one remove as mischievous to government as total impunity; and therefore, to support his own authority over us, it was highly requisite that he should exact not only a punishment for our sin, but also a punishment -proportionable to the guilt and demerit of it : for there is no doubt, but the nearer the punishment is to the demerit of the sin, the greater security it must give to his authority. And upon this account the sacrifices of the Jews were infinitely short of making a full expiation for their sins; because, being but brute animals, their death was no way a proportionable punishment to the great demerit of the sins of the people. For what proportion could there be between the momentary sufferings of a beast, and those eternal sufferings which the sins of a man do deserve? The death of a beast is a punishment very short of the death of a man, but infinitely short of that eternal death to which the man's guilts do oblige him and accordingly the expiations, which were made for men by the death of those beasts, were very short and imperfect: for so the apostle tells us, that they only sanctified to the purifying of the flesh, Heb. ix. 13. that is, to the acquitting them from their corporal penalties and legal uncleannesses; but could not at all make them perfect, as pertaining to their consciences, i. e. could

not expiate the guilt of any wilful sin, by which their consciences were laid waste and wounded, verse 9. And accordingly the heathen seem to be aware how short the death of beasts was of the punishment which was due for the sins of men: for though in ordinary cases they sacrificed beasts, as well as the Jews, yet in great extremities, when they conceived their gods to be highly displeased with them, even the most civilized of them sacrificed men which shews that they thought the death of beasts to be an insufficient expiation for the sins of men. And indeed it cannot be denied, but that the sacrifice of a man, as such, is much more proportionable to the punishment which the sins of men deserve, than the sacrifice of a beast; because a man is a much nobler creature, as being far advanced above a beast by the prerogative of his reason; and consequently his death, considered as a man, must be a much more valuable exchange for the punishment that is due to those he dies for. But herein the heathen were miserably mistaken; that they did not consider that the men whom they sa→ crificed were sinners as well as themselves, and that it is much a greater flaw in an expiatory sacrifice to be a sinner than to be a brute: for whereas the latter only renders it less effectual and valuable; the former, as was shewn before, renders it utterly void and insignificant; and therefore, though the death of a man, considered as such, is of much more value than the death of a beast, yet, to expiate for the sins of men, there is more internal virtue and efficacy in the death of an innocent beast than of a sinful man; because the latter can expiate only for his own sin, whereas the former can have no sin but

that of others to expiate. Since therefore men were all spotted and blemished with sin, there was no life so fit for them to offer to God, in commutation for their forfeited lives, as that of innocent brutes; so that the best commutation they could make was infinitely short of their demerit. And suppose that the men which the heathen offered had been all pure and innocent, yet their lives would have been only an equivalent commutation for the forfeited lives of an equal number of sinners: unless therefore one half of mankind had been innocent, and they had been sacrificed for the other half that was guilty, it had not been an equal commutation so much as for the temporal punishment, which was due to God from the guilty; but then for their eternal punishment, a hecatomb of angels had been short and insufficient: for what proportion is there between a temporary death and an eternal misery? Since therefore, in great compassion to us, God hath thought meet to accept of a sacrifice in lieu of that punishment which was due to him from mankind; and since, to secure his own authority, it was highly requisite that what this sacrifice suffered for us should be in some measure equivalent to what he had deserved, and since we had deserved to suffer for ever, it necessarily follows that this sacrifice must be something infinitely more precious and valuable than the blood of bulls and goats, yea, than the lives of men or angels: and what can that be but the blood of the eternal Son of God, the infinite dignity of whose person rendered his sufferings for us equivalent to the infinite demerit of our sins: for it was the dignity of his person that gave the value to his sufferings, and enhanced his temporary death to