Wesley Corpus

What is the difference between imputing sins, and putting them upon him? This is just of a piece with, “A sin-offering that suffered nothing; a creature ‘turned loose into a land the properest for its subsistence, while bearing upon him all the iniquities of God’s people !” (Pages 23-25.) “Thus ‘Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” Dr. Taylor, when he wrote his late books, was not apprized of the usual scripture meaning of this awful word, curse. It is often put to signify the legal punishment of sin. What the law of God threatens against transgressors, or the threatening itself, is frequently called by this name. What signifies then his trifling observation, ‘that God inflicted no curse on our first parents?’ (Gen. iii. 16-18;) that is, he did not say, in so many words, ‘Cursed art thou, O man, or ‘O woman. But God’s cursing the ground for man’s sake, was really a curse pronounced against him; and what the Lord said to the woman was really a curse, a penalty legally inflicted on her. For God is then said to curse, when he either threatens to punish, or actually punishes, his creatures for sin. See Deut. xxvii. 15, &c.; xxviii. 16, &c.; Jer. xvii. 5; Zech. v. 3.” (Pages 39, 40.) “To conclude: Either we must allow the imputation of Adam’s sin, whatever difficulties attend it, or renounce justifi cation by Christ, and salvation through the merit of his blood. Accordingly, the Socinians do this. Whether Dr. Taylor does, let every thinking man judge, after having weighed what he writes, particularly at pages 72,73, of his ‘Scripture Doctrine.’ ‘The worthiness of Christ is his consummate virtue. It is virtue that carrieth every cause in heaven. Virtue is the only price which purchaseth everything with God. True virtue, or the right exercise of reason, is true worth, and the only valu able consideration, the only power which prevails with God.” These passages are indeed connected with others, which carry with them a show of ascribing honour to Christ and grace. But the fallacy lies open to every careful, intelligent, unpre judiced reader. He ascribes to Christ a singular worthiness; but it is nothing more than superior degree of the same kind of worthiness which belongs to every virtuous man.