Watts - BX5200 .W3 1813 v.4

SECTION M. 551 Saviour that alone can make atonement for sin ? Where does that text stand ? Now since Doctor Clarice allows him to be so excellent a being, as to be employed by the father in making this world and all the inhabitants of it ; is there not worth and merit enough in the Maker to die as a ransom for the things that he made ? Is he not a being of sufficient dignity. to redeem aworld ofmankindby his death, when;they are all the works of hishands ? But this only by the way : I would not divert the current of your zeal : Nor would I, says Ferventio, suffer this to go unanswer- ed ; but I must now proceed to chewwhat other mischiefs are contained in a denial of the atonement of Christ. Secondly: Is it not a foul dishonour and injury to the holy law of God, as well as an affront to the wisdom, the authority, and the justice of the law -giver, to take awáy from him that noble and glorious satisfaction which the death of Christ has made for the sins of men i Does not this denial of his atone- ment construe his deaths either into a mere martyrdom, or at best into an empty sign and figure of what sin deserved ? For Agrip- pa does not seem to have any notion of the mercyand justiceof God accepting of a surety instead of the death of the original offender, and thereby consenting to forgive his offences. Was this all the Son of God died for, to be a sign and figure of what sin deserved ? These are useful things in religion when they are invented and appointed óf God, as emblems and types of that more substantial and more important sacrifice which should effectually take away sin from the conscience : Such a sign and figure was the bloodof bells and goats, which were slain under the Levitical dispensation ; and it is honour enough for bulls and goats to have their blood made a shadow or type of sucha sacri- fice. But it is certainly a dishonour to the great God and his Son, to sink the design of the death of Christ to so low apur- pose; it is high dishonour to have those great, important, and substantial things, viz. thebloody and painful death of the blessed Jesus, and the real atonement which was made for sin thereby, and which was the price of the ransom ofour souls, reduced only to a figure and sign of the punishment which sin deserved, with- out any real expiation of it : And hereby the sins of men are supposed to be forgiven withoittany reparation} of the dishonour done to the law of God. Thirdly, 'fhis doctrine of Agrippa, which denies the pro- pitiation of Christ, staggers the faith of a humble penitent chris- tian, it breaks in upon his hope, it unhinges his soul in its daily transactions with God, it weakens his efforts in duty, andcon- founds his sweetest consolations For he has been instructed by the plain language of the New Testament, to build his eternal hopes on the atoning sacrifice of the Son of God, and to draw his surest expectations of pardon from thence. He has been

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