536 THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST. the purpose designed by the blood of Christ, according to scrip- ture ; -and therefore they have found out a newway to explain . the phrases of as making atonement for sin, and dying as a sa- crifice for our sins;" they suppose them to reach a little further, and to signify, to us, that as the wages or punishment of sin is death, so the death of Christ was designed to shew us what sin deserved, and by this means to discover to us the great evil of sin, and to excite us thereby to repentance and a life of holiness, and that it is chiefly in this manner that we are said to " be saved by the death of Christ, or salvation is as- cribed to his blood." I grant, says Paulinus, this is something nearer to the pur- pose than the former opinion of " mere bearing witness to his gospel as a martyr ;" but still it falls far short of the grand expressions and the plain assertions of scripture, concerning the sacrifice of Christ : And though the death of Christ as an atone- ment must needs include this' as one design of it, viz. " to show what our sins deserved," yet this cannot be the whole doctrine which is meant by the sacred writers, when they teach us ex- pressly the other end and - design of sacrifices, viz. " suffering in theroom and stead of the sinner" in a much stronger manner, and apply it to the death of Christ, saying, that " he died for our sins," that he " gave himself a ransom for sinners, that we are reconciled. to God by his death, that he made peace by the blood of his cross, that he redeemed us from the curse of the Jaw, by being made a curse for us, that he bare our sins in his body on the tree, &c " all to shew that though the justice of God required death for sin, yet the mercy of God accepted of a surety to die in the stead of the principal offenders. Whymust this more important design of sacrifice be only expressed, if the other, which is far less, were the only thing that was meant ? Would not this lead almost every common reader into a gross mistake about the design of the death of Christ? I would enquire earnestly of the friends of Agrippa, if the ideasof the holy apostles and of Christ himself went no further in all their sacrificial expressions concerning Christ, than to teach us what sin deserved, why do theynot speak these ideas in pro- per language, more plainly, directly, and expressly ? Why should such phrases be so frequently used, as " making atone- ment for sin, reconciling us to God by his death, and taking away our sins by his sacrifice," if the scripture meant no more than to shew us what sin deserves ? Is ft not strange that neither Christ nor his apostles should ever once use that expression among all their speedhes or writings, or ever once tell us that the death of Christ was confined tothis design, if it really design- ed nothing more ? Besides, did not all the bloody sacrifices which were offered under the law, whichare said'to makeatonementfor
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