448 RUIN AND RECOVERY, &C. Rahab, and of all the adulterers, the harlots, and the murderers, that ever repented and believed on Christ, are said in general to be imputed to Christ, is it proper to explain it by saying all the particular lustful thoughts, with every adulterous wish, and every impious and bloody purpose in their hearts, together with all the lewd and vile actions both of mèn and women, are in themselves imputed, reckoned, or transferred to'the pure and holy Jésus, when he was made a sacrifice for their sins ? Can Christ be counted or reputed asthe lewd Or bloody transgressor ? Can any thing else therefore be meant by suchan expression of Magdalen's, or of David's sins imputed to Christ, than that the guilt or liableness to punishment, which is 'the legal result of their crimes, was laid upon Christ when he bore all their sins in his body, on the cursed tree? Let it be considered, that if all their sinful actions could be and were imputed to Christ, which are only and properlÿ per= sonal, I cannot well see how to avoid the imputation of the vitiosity and sinfulnessand dreadful demerit of all these actions to Christ, together with the actions themselves, and thus the defilement of their sins in every had sense of it, will be transi. ferred and imputed to the blessed Jesus, the holyone of God, which I -fear would too nearly border upon the language of bias.- phemy. It is evident indeed in many places of scripture, that our " sins were imputed to our blessed Saviour, when Christ bore thesins of many, when he was made sin for us ;" that is, sin-offering, when " the Lord laid on him the iniquities of ,us all," when " the Lord pleased to bruise him,' and put him to grief, and made his soul an offering for sin t" But I think it can never mean any more than this, that he was made a proper sacrifice of atonement or expiationfor those sins, by bearing sor- rows'and punishments, and death upon that account, which were the legal result of our sins, in order to deliver us front them*.' So when we say, the righteousness óf Christ is imputed to believers, I think it can never mean that everyparticular right- eous action of Christ, as he was a holy observer of the Jewish law, a preacher of the gospel, a master of a family, or a worker of miracles, can be imputed to women or children, who were never called to' any such office, or to perform these actions ; not can his sufferings of circumcision, or his celebration of Jewish festivals in the temple, among the males of the house of Israel he minutely 'and particularly-imputed to the Gentile christians; both male and female, who never were under the command of circumcision, or who would have sinned in practising Jewish * If any onewill doubt whether in scripture the sine of one person are ever imputed to another, or borne by another, in the sense declared, let him read even Doctor Whitbyhimtelf in his exposition on I Pet. ii. 24, 25. where I think any man may find satisfaction in this point, how Christ Seri our sins in his aaS 3x/y on the tree.
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