sEOTION li. 539 Paulines added yet further, I would say again in the third place, would the Jews to whom the gospel of a crucified Christ was first preached in the days of the apostles have understood these phrases of taking away sin by sacrifice, or making atone- ment far sin in this Socinian sense ? And surely this gospel was preached and written by the apostles in such expressions, as the Jews might readily and easily understand : Surely they would so express their doctrine as that their hearers in Judea should receive the mostcommon and obvious sense of the words as they were used in their nation ; otherwise the gospel would be hidden and lost to them. Again let us enquire of the heathens among whom the apos- tles preached this gospel, and who had been used to sacrifices and atonements ; let us ask of them, whether they would under- stand those sacrificial phrases in this strange sense ? Would they ever imagine that their sins were atoned for by the death of Christ, .merely because God the Father wasso well pleased with his submission to death, for which death they yet give no suffi- cient reason,that he raised him to life again, and gave him power M forgive the sins of men? Was this their meaning of atone- ment when they spoke of and practised their own making atone- ment to their gods for sin by the sacrifice either of beasts or men? And why should this be supposed to be the sense of the apostles in preaching the gospel which neither Jews nor Heathens used, pad which neither of themwould readily understand ? There is no Christian denies this truth, that God did raise Christ from the dead, and give him power to forgive sins; but this is not the meaning of his atoning for sin, which is ever as- scribed to his blood and death, but never to his life and kingdom. It was after," he bad purged away sins by himself, that is, by the sacrificeof himself ;" Heb. ix. 26. C0 That he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high, and received his king- dom and power ;" Heb. i. 3. But to return to my paper of queries I must nowintreat your excuse for dwelling upon these representations of things too long, and perhaps for rehearsing them too often : But as I am sensible of the great importance of the contest that is between us, I am content to be called a " re- peater," if I may be so happy as to hit the soul of the man who hears or reads this in a right vein, and convey the doctrine of the propitiation of Christ for sin with some light and force to the mind by all this variety of expression, and this repetition of ideas. Here I desire it maybe observed, that several of the queries which I have made concerning theatonement of our sins by the death of Christ, might be also made with the same justice con- cerning the sanctification of our natures by the Holy Spirit: which two great doctrines are eminently and peculiarly some o the prime subjects and glories of the gospel, and are equally left
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