AN APPENDIX. 451
the Argives. So Papinius [Statius] introduceth him treating [with]
his gods: —
" Armorum superi, tuque 6 qui fuuere tanto Indulges mihi, Phoelbe, mori, date gaudia Thebis, Quae pepigi, et toto quae sanguine prodigus emi." — [Theb. x. 757.]
He reckoned that he had not only repelled all death and danger from Thebes, by his own, but that he had purchased joy, in peace and liberty, for the people.
And where there was none in public calamities that did voluntarily devote themselves, the people were wont to take some obnoxious person, to make him execrable, and to lay on him, according to their superstition, all the wrath of their gods, and so give him up to de- struction. Such the apostle alludes unto, Rom. ix. 3; 1 Cor. iv. 9, 13. So the Massilians were wont to expiate their city by taking a person devoted, imprecating on his head all the evil that the city was ob- noxious unto, casting him into the sea with these words, Ilspl-^\^i^fj,a Ti//.m yhou' — " Be thou our expiatory sacrifice." To which purpose were the solemn words that many used in their expiatory sacrifices, as Herodotus [lib. ii. 39] testifieth of the Eg}^tians, bringing their oiferings. Saith he, Karapeoi/ra/ b\, rdde Xsyovrig, rriei ■/.apa'kfiiSiV £/ ri /Jjs'k'koi »5 (}(pisi ro7st ^uouff/, ji A/yv'^ruj rr\ (SuvairaGTi 'A.ax,hv ysvisdat sg %t(pa\riv raiiTYiv rpa'TTsodar — " They laid these imprecations on thek heads, that if any evil were happening towards the saciificer, or all Egypt, let it be all turned and laid on this devoted head."
And the persons whom they thus dealt withal, and made execrate, were commonly of the vilest of the people, or such as had rendered themselves detestable by their own crimes; whence was the complaint of the mother of Menoeceus upon her son's devoting himself: —
" Lustralemne feris, ego te puer inclyte Thebis, Devotumque caput, vilis sen mater alebam?" —
[Statius, Theb. x. 788, 789.]
I have recounted these instances to evince the common intention, sense, and understanding of that expression, of one dying for another, and to manifest by examples what is the sense of mankind about any one's being devoted and substituted in the room of others, to de- Hver them from death and danger; the consideration whereof, added to the constant use of the words mentioned in the Scripture, is suf- ficient to found and confirm this conclusion : —
"That whereas it is frequently affirmed in the Scripture, that ' Christ died for us, and for our sins,' etc., to deny that he died and suffered in our stead, undergoing the death whereunto we were obnoxious, and the punishment due to our sins, is, — if we i-espect in what we say or believe the constant use of those words in the Scripture,
452 AN APPENDIX.
the nature of the thing itself concerning which they are used, the uncontrolled use of that expression in all sorts of Amters in express- ing the same thing, with the instances and examples of its meaning and intention among the nations of the world, — to deny that he died for us at all."
Neither will his dying for our good or advantage only, in what way or sense soever, answer or make good or true the assertion of his dying for us and our sins. And this is evident in the death of the apostles and martyrs. They all died for our good ; our advantage and benefit was one end of their sufferings, in the will and appointment of God : and yet it cannot be said that they died for us, or our sins.
And if Christ died only for our good, though in a more effectual manner than they did, yet this altereth not the kind of his dying for us; nor can he thence be said, properly, according to the only due sense of that expression, so to do.
I shall, in this brief and hasty discourse, add only one consideration more about the death of Christ, to confinn the truth pleaded for; and that is, that he is said, in dying for sinners, " to bear their sins. " Isa. liii. 11, " He shall bear their iniquities;" verse 12, " He bare the sin of many;" explained, verse 5, " He was wounded for our trans- gressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him." 1 Pet. ii. 24, " Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree," etc.
This expression is purely sacred. It occurreth not directly in other authors, though the sense of it in other words do frequently. They call it " luere peccata;" that is, "delictorum supplicium feiTe," — "to bear the punishment of sins." The meaning, therefore, of this phrase of speech is to be taken from the Scripture alone, and principally from the Old Testament, where it is originally used ; and from whence it is transfeiTcd into the New Testament, m the same sense, and no other. Let us consider some of the places : —
Isa. liii. 11, ^3D^ X^n Dniiy. The sameAvord, i'??, is used verse 4, Ci?5P ^^''?^9^\ — " And our griefs, he hath borne them." The word signifies, properly, to bear a weight or a burden, as a man bears it on his shoulders, — "bajulo, porto." And it is never used with respect unto sin, but openly and plainly it signifies the undergoing of the punishment due unto it. So it occurs directly to our purpose. Lam. V. 7, ^Jbo Dn^niij; ijn;« n^^N^^sDn ^ynht<_" Our fothers have sinned, and arc not; and we have borne their iniquities;" the punishment due to their sins. And why a new sense should be forged for these words when they are spoken concerning Christ, who can give a just reason ?