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THE ATONEMENT
OF
CHRIST.
[SEAM.
XXXIV.
in a
few
days
or
hours,, unless
upon a
supposition
that
all
offences
committed against the infinite majesty
of
God,
have
a
sort
of
infinite
demerit
in
them.
I
beg leave to
add
this one
thought
more,
and
that
is,
if
sin has
not a sort of
infinite
demerit
in
.
it,
I
cannot
see
why
man
himself, by some
years
of penal
sufferings,
might
not
make full
atonement
for
his own
sins
:
But,
the
language
and
current of
scripture
seems
to
represent
sinful
man as for ever
lost
to all
hope
in himself,
and
then the
necessity
of
a
Mediator appears
with evidence
and glory.
.
PROPOSITION
VI. Though
man be incapable
to
satisfy for
his own
violation of
the
law,
either
by
his
obedience or
his
punishment,
and
so
to .restore
himself
to the favour
of
God, yet God
would
not
suffer all
man-
kind
to perish.
Therefore
out of
his
abundant
mercy,
he
appointed
his own Son to
undertake
this work.
His
own, his
only
begotten
Son,
who
is
the brightness
of
his
Father's
glory,
and
who lay
in the bosom
of
the
Father
before all worlds,
his Son
who was
one
with
the
Father,
by
a
communion
of
the
godhead, and
who
is
himself,
on this
account, called
God
over
all,
blessed
for
ever
;
this
well-
beloved
Son
of God
is
ordained and
appointed
to be the
great Reconciler between God and
man.
PROPOSITION
VII.
Because God
intended
to
make
a
full display
of
the
terrors
of
his
justice,
and
his
divine
resentment for the violation of
his law
;
therefore
he'
appointed
his own Son to satisfy
for the
breach
of
it,
by
becoming
a proper
sacrifice
of
expiation or
atonement:
Now, both among
Jews and
heathens, the original no-
tion and
design
of
an
expiatory
sacrifice,
is,
when some
other creature or
person
is
put
in the room
or place
of
the transgressor, and the punishment
or pain due to the
transgressor
is
transferred
to
that
other person or crea-
ture. Therefore
beasts
were slain for
the
offences
of
men, who were
supposed to deserve death.
And when
any
person
became
a
surety
for
a
city
or nation
that
was
defiled with
sin,
among
the heathens,
that
person
was
substituted
in
their
room,
arid
so
devoted
to
death.
So
the
Son
of God
became
a
surety for
sinful
men:
It
pleased the
Father
to
make'him
(heir
sacrifice,
and sub-
stituted
him
in
their stead: God ordained
that
he
should
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