THE ASSERTED TRANSFER OF SINS TO JESUS CHRIST.

BISHOP Tomlin, in his Exposition of the "Thirty-nine Articles of Religion," a work in high esteem with the clergy, while treating on Article II., remarks as follows:

"The article concludes with stating, that the object of Christ's passion was, to reconcile the Father TO US,* and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for actual sins of men." By original guilt," the bishop proceeds to observe, "is meant that guilt which was incurred by the disobedience of Adam, and transmitted to all his posterity; and by actual sins are meant those sins which individuals actually commit [and, it is presumed the bishop means, all sins committed from Adam to the passion of the cross, and thenceforward], 'for there is no man that sinneth not.'" (1 Kings viii. 46.)

I shall transcribe (says Bishop Tomlin) Bishop Burnet's excellent explanation and proof of this part of the Article, to which it will be unnecessary to make any addition:- -"The notion of an expiatory sacrifice was this, that the sin of one person was transferred on a man or beast, who was upon that devoted, and offered up to God, and suffered in the room of the offending person; and by this oblation, the punishment of the sin being laid on the sacrifice, an expiation was made for sin, and the sinner was believed to be reconciled to God."

The reader is requested to note the total want of parallelism between this supposed case, and the case it is intended to illustrate. A man actually sins; his sin is transferred to a substitute punished in his room, and the man is thus absolved from his sin and its consequences, that is, he altogether escapes punishment in his own person.

From Adam to the incarnation actual sins were committed; they were transferred (it is said) to Jesus Christ, as a substitute for these identical sinners, who had for longer or shorter periods found their place in hell, and he was punished in their room, and they were in consequence absolved from their sins, and, of course, from their consequences, that is, they altogether escaped punishment in their own persons.

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Consequently, to make out the bishops' parallel,—all who, for their sins, were in hell when the Lord was punished in their room," were released, and admitted into heaven! But did the learned bishops believe this? Do "Evangelical preachers" teach this? Was ever such an idea

* Exactly the reverse is stated in 2 Cor. v. 19: "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself."

even thought of? Who ever believed, for instance, that Dives was pardoned when the Lord was punished "in his room," and joined Lazarus in Abraham's bosom? All who were in heaven when the Lord suffered, needed no substitute to be punished for their sins; they were more than pardoned; they were rewarded. It was not for their sins that the Lord was punished; it must have been altogether for the sins of those in hell that he was punished vicariously, but what did they gain by it? THEY ARE STILL under actual punishment for the sins transferred to their substitute, and will so remain for ever and ever! They are, in fact, punished doubly, first in their own persons, and secondly in the person of their substitute! This, verily, is a rare method of purchasing forgiveness for sinners by punishing them by proxy; and its rarity, surely, must be that in which consists the alleged "excellence" of the parallel agreed to by these two right reverend fathers and learned doctors! Why, a charity boy of our day would be ashamed of drawing a parallel so essentially and totally defective. Were such a doctrine and illustration of it presented for the first time, in this scrutinizing age, it would be rejected with scorn and derision! But it has become sanctified by prescription and usage. And yet, so persuaded are the advocates of the vicarious atonement that the subject is too mysterious for analysis, that they are content with forming the most vague conceptions concerning it. Misty ideas float dimly across their imaginations, indeterminately touching, at one time the sin of Adam only, at another, the actual sins of all prior to the Lord's passion, and again, actual sins thenceforward. But the question must now be distinctly met, on the clear ground of reason and Scripture. If sins were transferred to Christ, were they the sins previously committed, and still remaining unforgiven; or the sins since committed, and forgiven by faith in the atonement? Also, Did Jesus suffer punishment for sins past, or for sins to come, or for both? The object of his suffering was to procure forgiveness for those who committed the sins transferred to him, for if no sin had previously been committed, there would have been no occasion for a substitute-victim, nor any sins in existence to be transferred to him. The suffering was borne, but was the forgiveness obtained? Certainly not! The alleged sole object of the suffering remains unaccomplished. Those who committed the sins for which Christ suffered punishment "in their room ARE NOW IN HELL, actually burning without being consumed (as the bishops believed, and as John Wesley asserted), in real fire, fed by real brimstone. Here, then, is the broad fact-the sins said to have been transferred to Christ still remain unforgiven! And so long as those

who committed them remain in hell, it is an absolute falsehood to say that Christ was "punished in their room."

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But possibly those who believe with the bishops, might cry out,—“Ah! but Christ suffered for sins to come; we believe that Christ suffered for past sins, in order to give God the Father a ground for pardoning, on repentance and faith, sins to come." To which it might be replied, that apostolic authority says nothing of the passion of the cross being endured for sins to come, but distinctly limits the cause or object of that stupendous event to sins committed under the Old Testament dispensation; for thus writes the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews:- For this cause [the efficacy, that is, of the blood of Christ to cleanse the conscience] He is the mediator of the New Covenant, that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions under the First Covenant, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” (Heb. ix. 15.) If apostolic authority, then, has any weight, the death of Christ had no reference whatever to sins to come; it had an exclusive reference to the removal of the spiritual effects, the direful hereditary evils resulting from the sins under the covenant or covenants existing antecedently to the Lord's coming. And as for past sins being punished to afford a ground for pardoning sins to come, where, in this supposition, is the likeness to the bishops' parallel? To be in conformity with it, every Israelite who offered sacrifice, and thereby transferred his sins to the animal, should himself get no forgiveness (!) but merely open a way for the pardon of some future sinner or sinners. This is the only analogy to the naked fact, that the sinners who occasioned the alleged punishment of Christ, got no benefit for themselves, but only for their posterity. But there is still another defect in the bishops' analogy. The offerer of sacrifice in the parallel was a voluntary agent in transferring his sins to his sacrifice, but the hosts of hell, whose sins, it is said, were transferred to the Messiah, were no parties to such transfer!

Nothing can prove more satisfactorily to any candid mind, the utter fallacy of the notion that the suffering of the cross was a vicarious punishment, than the utter failure of proof of these eminent bishops, who, no doubt, did their best, and the best, probably, that can be done, to make out that Jesus Christ's sufferings were penal, whereas they were entirely purificatory, as distinctly declared in these words, "Christ learned obedience by the things which he suffered, and being made perfect [through suffering and temptation], he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him." (See Heb. ii. 10, 18; iv. 15; v. 9.) But the bishops having adopted the Romish error, so opposed to this declaration,

that the Lord's Humanity from Mary was immaculate, there was no alternative for them but to make the sacrifice of the cross penal, or else to say, with the Unitarians, that it was only a testimony to the truth of Christ's mission, in other words, the seal of martyrdom.

If Jesus Christ's suffering was verily and truly a vicarious sacrifice, or punishment, it has been demonstrated that not a single soul could be benefited by it! The good, then in heaven, did not need it; the wicked, then in hell, are there still; and as for his suffering being a punishment by anticipation, endured exclusively for sins to come, the idea is so preposterously absurd, that it would be an insult to the reader's understanding to dwell upon it for a moment. Just grant that the Lord was punished for the sins of sinners, who got nothing by his being punished "in their room," and then it directly follows, that if they had not sinned, there I would have been no sacrifice for sins to come! Hear this, then, ye sinners, forgiven (as you think), through faith in Christ's punishment for your sins! You are wholly indebted for your salvation to the sinful sufferers now in hell, who lived before Christ came, and whose sins were the occasion of your pardon! Had they not sinned, Christ would not have suffered, and your sins would, in accordance with your doctrine, have certainly placed you where they are now! Their groans of agony, which Christ fruitlessly suffered "in their room," are the very foundation of your expected Hallelujahs!

Surely it is self-evident, that if Christ was punished for sins to come, God should have punished him before Adam sinned, that he might have ground for pardoning Adam, instead of devoting him and all his posterity to hell, as commonly taught by Evangelical teachers, though how this condemnation of all Adam's posterity to hell, consists with Abraham, and also Moses and Elias, being in heaven, as taught by our Lord, and testified by evangelists, is indeed a mystery! If God's mercies are over all His works, and God is Love, and if Christ's suffering was a punishment-a punishment fruitless to past sinners, and beneficial only to sinners to come, certainly the vicarious punishment of Christ would never have been deferred; it would have preceded the creation of the first man, whose fall was foreseen, that an all-merciful God might have a ground for forgiving him, and also all subsequent offenders.

The bishops' statement has clearly involved them in the following dilemma. According to them, the sins transferred, and the sins forgiven, were identical. If the sins committed previously to the Lord's Passion were then transferred to him, they must have been forgiven, that is, of course, to those who committed them; but they were not! What sins, then, were transferred to him? If they were sins to come,

how could they be transferred before they were committed? And if not transferred, how could they be forgiven?

The utter fallacy of the comparison made by the bishops to the Mosaic sacrifices, is further demonstrated by the consideration, that there is no possible way of transferring sins, or sin's consequent disorder, hereditary evil, except by procreation. If sin could be transferred to an animal incapable of sin, it could equally have been transferred to a stock or a stone. One is as truly capable of being the moral subject of guilt as the other! The truth is, that the one and sole instance (that recorded in Leviticus) of a transfer of sins from the Israelites to a brute animal, that is, to the goat called Gnazazel (commonly called the scape goat), was not a real transfer of sin, for this is impossible, but a figurative representation, the instruction involved in which is attainable only by a knowledge of the spiritual sense of the Word.

Let it first be observed, that whether idolators confessed sins over their sacrifices or not, this is the only instance recorded in Scripture of confession of sin taking place, when the hand of the priest who offered up the sacrifice was laid on the head of the animal to be sacrificed; he always laid his hand on the animal's head, but only in this case was the following direction given-" Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities [PAST, be it remembered] of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness." (Lev. xvi. 21.) Now the reader will observe, that when there was a figurative transfer of sins to an animal, there was no sacrifice made of it; and, consequently, a transfer of sins to Christ was incompatible with his being a sacrifice for sin! Again, then, we ask, What becomes of the bishops' parallel? And what becomes, in fact, of the so-called Gospel of the so-called Evangelical professors? In every case in which the priest's hand was laid on the animal without any transfer (figuratively) of human guilt, the animal was sacrificed; but when the transfer of sin was made to the animal, it was not sacrificed.

It is true that all the Mosaic sacrifices had for their object to effect an external or figurative atonement or reconciliation of the worshipper to God; being, at the same time, a representative or figure of the future internal and real reconciliation through regeneration, to be effected in the minds of the faithful under the succeeding spiritual dispensation of the Gospel. The Israelite obtained his outward reconciliation by the implicit obedience of ignorance; the Christian must obtain his inward reconciliation by the enlightened obedience of wisdom-an inward and