eeptable, 1 Tim. vi. 3. Eccl. xii. 10. He was the Surety for sinners, Heb. vii. 22. Not a sinner himself. He paid that debt which he never contracted: restored that which he took not away, Psal. lxix. 4. He became a debtor indeed, but it was in virtue of his own voluntary suretiship, when he said in effect, Upon me, my Father, upon me, be their iniquity.

No. 3.-Page 33.

Properly speaking, it is not by imputation, (as was observed, No. 1.) that our sins become Christ's, or his righteousness ours. The act of imputation necessarily presupposes a relation betwixt the party and what is imputed to him, whether it be righteousness or sin, otherwise it is not a just, but an iniquitous act. Onesimus's debt could not have been justly put to Paul's account, had he not previously engaged to pay it, Philem. 18, 19. In like manner, our sins were Christ's before they were imputed to him, viz. by his own spontaneous substitution, when he said, "Lo, I come," Psal. xl. 7. and thus also Christ's righteousness is ours, in the order of nature at least, before it be imputed to us, viz. ours by virtue of our faith in him, and our union to him. It is not imputed, and therefore ours; but ours, and therefore imputed. Thus it also is with respect to the imputation of A. dam's first sin to his posterity. It is not imputed, and therefore ours; but ours, by virtue of our legal union with him, and therefore imputed. In him we all have sinned, Rom. v. 12. and there. fore justly is his sin imputed to us. Hence

I apprehend that the guilt of Adam's first sin, mentioned in our Shorter Catechism, Quest 18th, is to be understood not of our being obnoxious to the wrath of God, but of our having in Adam's first sin, transgressed the law of God. Thus we were guilty of his first sin. In him we committed it, and hence it is justly imputed to us. When a jury bring in their verdict guilty, the meaning is, that the person has perpetrated the act charged against him. It is only in consequence of the judge's sentence, that he becomes liable to punishment. Thus, we must deserve punishment before we can be liable to it; transgress the precept of the law, before we can be obnoxious to its penalty.

No. 4.-Page 41.

Our Lord's lying in the grave was the last and lowest step of his humiliation, Psal. xxii. 15. and is therefore to be reckoned a part of his sufferings. His holy soul, though received into paradise, was still without its body, and therefore in an unnatur al state. His blessed body was lying a breathless corpse in the grave, evidently under the power of death. And therefore both were suffering in a certain sense. What though sorrow could no inore surround his holy soul; being now with his Father, to whom he, when dying, had committed it, Luke xxii. 46. and among the spirits of just men made perfect, Luke xxiii. 43. Heb. xii. 23. yet it suffered a want, being deprived of that holy body in which it originally dwelt. What though. his blessed body felt no more pain: Still it was holden of the cords of death. Though asleep, it

was in the prison house, 1 Cor. xv. 20. Sure, as it was in his resurrection only that Christ entered into his glory, Luke xxiv. 26. previous to that period he was a sufferer. Then, and then only, was he justified or acquitted from all that world of guilt, which had been imputed to him, Tim. iii. 16. Then it was that he got up the bond of suretiship, so to speak, and was taken from prison and from judgment, Isa. liii. 8. Previous to that ever-memorable period, he was under the dominion of death, Rom. vi. 9. His continuance in its territories being undeniably a part of his humiliation, or sufferings, must also belong to his satisfaction; for that any of them were not satisfactory, is a doctrine inadmissible. We therefore conclude, that he finished his satisfaction on the cross and in the grave. His solemn saying on the cross, "It is finished," John. xix. 30. must be understood in the same sense, as when he said in the guest-chamber, "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do,” John xvii. 4. i. e. I am just on the point of finishing it. Compare the servant's words, 2 Tim. iv. 7. "I have finished my course."

No. 5.-Page 45.

The sound of some phrases are so harsh to an English ear, that I would rather exchange them for others more acceptable, and as expressive. To illustrate the truth here, three things must be carefully' distinguished, the desert of sin, the sentence of the Divine law, and its awful execution, these three are not only distinct in idea, but may in fact, be separated. The sins of such as are in Christ, deserve con

demnation, and yet there is no condemnation to them, Rom. viii. 1. The elect, while in unbelief, are under the sentence of condemnation, John iii. 18. Eph. ii. 3. But that sentence shall never be executed on them, John vi. 37. Acts xiii. 48. Rom. xi. 7. John v. 24. 1 John iii. 14. Rev. xxi. 20. To apply this to our present purpose, let it be observed, that though our Surety could not possibly come under the first of these, as being a Lamb without blemish and without spot, 1 Pet. i. 19. yet he felt the other two: for he was not only condemned, but actually suffered for sins, 2 Pet. iii. 18.; the sentence of the broken law was executed on him, the sword of justice awoke and smote him, Zech. xiii. 7. Mat. xxvi 31. All the scrupulosity as to the phrases quoted by our author, arises, I apprehend, from the ideas of the place where the impenitent shall suffer, and from the endless duration of their punishment. We are wont to connect local hell and damnation, as if the latter could not be suffered but in the former: as 'when we read of the damnation of hell, Mat. xxiii. 33. and of the spirits in prison, 1 Pet. iii. 19. Place, however, is only a circumstance, not at all affecting the essence of punishment. Wherever the sentence of the broken law is put in execution, there is hell, properly speaking. Thus in the garden, and on the cross, our Surety bore the weight of God's wrath, Larger Cat. Quest. 49. Then especially he was made a curse, or became accursed for us, Gal. iii. 13. The ather difficulty arises from the duration of punishment. Because the wicked shall be tormented in hell for ever and ever, Mat. xxv. 46. Mark ix. 43.

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48. Rev. xiv. 10, 11. we are ready to appropriate the word damnation, to everlasting punishment in the place of torment, Luke xvi. 28. But let it be observed, that the eternity of punishment arises, not from the sanction of the law, but from the infirmity of the sufferer. Impenitent sinners shall be doomed to everlasting woe, because, through creature weakness, they cannot suffer all the punishment due to their guilt. They cannot be liberated from prison, till they pay the uttermost farthing of their enormous debt, Mat. v. 26. and as they can never do the one, they shall never enjoy the other. But what they through their poverty cannot do, the rich Redeemer did, 2 Cor. viii. 9. Being God-man, the one nature sustained the other, and kept it from sinking under infinite wrath; gave infinite worth to his sufferings, and thus Divine justice was fully satisfied, Larger Cat. Quest. 38. If the eternity of punishment arose from the sanction of the law, a surety could not be admitted. There can be no surety for a debt which can never be paid. Though impenitent sinners must suffer to eternity, it, by no means follows, that the surety should. If the execution of the sentence in their case, be called damnation, why may it not in his? But still with this difference, that theirs shall be eternal, his neither was, nor could. To the human authorities adduced by our author, we may add the Dutch translators. In their notes on Isa. liii. 8. they say, "Christ was ta

ken from judgment," viz. "the judgment of God: that is from damnation, which he suffered a while. for us, being made a curse for us," Gal. iii. 13.