That there can be no expiation of sin where there is none, is a self-evident truth. Our blessed Lord, who was himself without spot, could therefore make no expiation of that which he never had. If expiation be made, sin must have been imputed to him, which I consider as an indubit able fact, and to which the scriptures bear the most unequivocal testimony. To what else candid phraseology like the following refer- God hath

"the cam sa

made him sin for us, who knew no sin-The
Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us allar.
who his own self bare our sins in his own body

on the tree.'

de

In the sin-offerings under the ceremonial law, confession of sin and the imposition of hands were indispensably requisite to atonement, as appears from Exod. xxix. 10.. Lev. i. 4. iii, and 2. viii. and 4. xv. 24. xxix. 16. and xvi. 21. This practice was strictly enjoined and strikingly exemplified in the conduct of the Jewish highpriest on the solemn day of atonement. Aaron, it is said, shall lay both his hands upon the. head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all

The laging

wdering effect.

their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat-and the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities. Now, if without confession of sin, and the imposition of hands, the blood of ten thousand beasts had been shed, there would have been no atonement, because the slaughtered animals would have wanted that which was essential to constitute them a sinoffering. If the punctual observation of this typical rite did not inculcate the transmission of sin from the sinner to his sacrifice, and, in consequence of that transmission, exemption from condemnation, the language appears to me inexplicable; there was nothing significant in the rite; it was an unmeaning ceremony.

By this rite, says the learned Ainsworth, they disburdened themselves of their sins, and laid them on the head of the sacrifice to be killed; which was a figure of Christ killed for our sins, upon whom the Lord laid the iniquity of us all.'

'Why, asks the very ingenious M'Ewen, should their sins be confessed in this manner, if it was not to signify, that they were in some sort laid

upon the head of the innocent victim? It was thus the great Doer of God's will was made sin for us, who knew no sin. The goat could not be guilty of these sins, for it was a brute beast. Nor could its Antitype be himself a transgressor of the law, for he was a divine person. Yet both the one and the other did bear the sins of many, to which it was, in the nature of things, impossible they could be accessary in the smallest degree. It was not thy sin, O spotless Victim, n but the sins of thy elect people, that consigned. thee over to the bloody and shameful cross! These were the sins which took hold upon the

and justified thy death. Surely he bore our griefs, he carried our sorrows, and the chastise-procured ment of our peace was upon him.' How else all our could his heavenly Father been pleased to bruise bl

him, for whom it is no more good to punish the

just, than to clear the guilty?' & franticularly the in

vitalins

Hence it is apparent, that it was the imputation of sin to Christ, or, in other words, the making him who knew no sin to be sin for us that constituted him a real sacrifice for sin. For

if there were no imputation of sin, there could be in his death no expiation of guilt.

"For guilt, not innocence, his life he pour'd;
'Tis guilt alone can justify his death;

Nor that, unless his death can justify

Relenting guilt in heav'n's indulgent sight.'

The doctrine of imputation is necessarily involved in that of expiation: and it is in consequence of relation to Christ as a Substitute suffering in our stead, that we become interested in the unutterable blessings flowing from his expiatory death. If these considerations be rejected, ⚫ he that was in himself holy, harmless, undefiled,

and separate from sinners, could not have been a sin-offering; nor could his sufferings have had *any reference to us. He might indeed have sealed

his testimony with his blood; but it would have been the blood of a Martyr, and not the blood of the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, who by his once offering up himself as a sacrifice for sin, hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.

It is from Christ standing in our stead as guilty, says one, that the benefit of his death

doth redound to us. His death had had no relation to us, had not our sin been juridically adjudged to be his, nor can we challenge an acquittance at the hand of God for our debts, if they were not our debts that he paid on the cross. He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. The laying hands upon the head of the sin-offering was necessary to make it a sacrifice for the offender, without which ceremony it might have been a slain, but not a sacrificed beast. The transferring our could iniquities upon him must in some way precede only his being bruised for them, which could not be any other way than by imputation, whereby he was constituted by God a debtor in our stead, effect is

This

be in

per

by divine pure, the

to bear the punishment of our sin; he being made sin for us, our sin was in a sort made his:

he was made sin without sin; he knew the guilt,

Therefore

the same

without knowing the filth; he felt the punish as if im puted when we believe bonae

ment, without being touched with the pollution.

Since death was the wages of sin, and passed as

a penalty for a violated law, it could not righteously be inflicted on him, had not sin first been

imputed to him.' Laith.

G

мы

querally

and bevin

may ire proponed a

to the unbeliever.