564 THE SACRIFICE Or CHRIST. yet learned the true doctrine of the sacrificeof Christ as one . medium to procure it ? Shall he have no part in this Saviour, and the benefits of his offices, while he is willing to receive them in general, and submit to them, merely because he does not de- scend into all your particularities about them? Must such a soul be cut off from all the privileges of the priesthood of Christ who receives the high priest as an intercessor, but does not un- derstand and receive his sacrifice in the true and complete scrip- tural sense of it ? It is my opinion there may be many things necessary hi the divine transactions relating to the salvation of men, towards the contriving, procuring and applying this salva- tion, whichperhaps may be also some way intimated in the word of God, which yet may not be necessary to be known and be- lieved by every shiner that shall partake of this salvation : Nor do I think it is proper for men to make the knowledge and belief of any of these things necessary to our acceptanee with God, but what God himself has made so by most express language in his own word ; which I cannot see concerning the atonement of Christ. II. May not some of the texts of scripture which youhave mentioned, as pronouncing the condemning sentence upon Agrippa and his followers, be very fairly and justly construed and explained into a milder and gentler sense ? That in Heb: x. 26. most apparently means such a wilful sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, as amounts to a stubborn and wilful rejection of the gospel of Christ, and not of one par- ticular article in it : And for such persons there remains no more sacrifice, Re: And the expression of Peter concerning those f0 who bring upon themselves swift destruction, by denying the Lord that bought them ;" 2 Pet. ii. 1. certainly implies either a denial of God, the true God, the Father, who bought or re- deemed the Jews for his people, as it is expressed in Deut. xxxii. 6. Is he not thy Father who hath bought thee? Or a more universal renunciationof Christ in all hisoffices, and not merely a denial of his atonement or the purchase of sinners by his blood. Where is there any such sentence of damnation in scripture de- nounced against those who do believe the gospel, but disbelieve the proper atonement of Christ, as our Saviour in Mark xvi. 16. pronounces against those, who under proper and sufficient evi- dence utterly reject the gospel itself ? Concerning such persons it is said, he that believeth not shall be damned: But this is not said concerning those wh disbelive a real atonement, and with- out some such plain expression, it is hard to pronounce such a damnation merely by consequences. III. Pray, Ferventin, be so good as to inform me when this doctrine of the proper atonement of Christbegan to be neces- sary to salvation. It is-certain it was not necessary in Christ's
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