Wesley Corpus

(5) To this might be added the numerous figures that occur in the fives of the old patriarchs, prophets, and kings. But it may suffice to add to the preceding only two testimonies more of the manner of our redemption by a proper sacrifice: the one that of St. Paul - ‘Christ hath delivered us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; as it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree’ (Gal. iii. 13); the other of St. Peter - ‘Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree’ (1 Pet. ii. 24). From all this abundantly appears the substitution of the Messiah in the place of His people, thereby atoning for their sins and restoring them to the favor of God. These are the points which are so vehemently opposed by Socinus and his followers, who rob Christ of the principal part of His priestly office, and leave Him only that of interceding for us by prayer; as if any intercession were worthy of Christ which had not His full satisfaction and propitiatory sacrifice for its foundation. Indeed, these cannot be put asunder, as sufficiently appears from the words cited before - ‘He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors’; where the Holy Ghost closely joins His intercession with His satisfaction made by sacrifice. These and a thousand other solid arguments that might be advanced in proof of this fundamental doctrine overturn all the cavils that flow from corrupt reason, which indeed are weak and thin as a spider’s web.