_James._ This I cannot admit. Real and proper punishment, if I understand the terms, is not only the infliction of natural evil for the commission of moral evil; but the infliction of the one _upon the person who committed the other, and in displeasure against him_. It not only supposes criminality, but that the party punished was literally the criminal. Criminality committed by one party, and imputed to another, is not a ground for real and proper punishment. If Paul had sustained the punishment due to Onesimus for having wronged his master, yet it would not have been real and proper punishment _to him_, but _suffering_ only, as not being inflicted in displeasure against him. I am aware of what has been said on this subject, that there was a more intimate _union_ between Christ and those for whom he died, than could ever exist between creatures. But be it so, it is enough for me that the union was not such as THAT THE ACTIONS OF THE ONE BECAME THOSE OF THE OTHER. Christ, even in the act of offering himself a sacrifice, when, to speak in the language of the Jewish law, the sins of the people were put or laid upon him, gave himself nevertheless THE JUST FOR THE UNJUST. _Peter._ And thus it is that you understand the words of Isaiah, _The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all_? _James._ Yes, he bore the punishment due to our sins, or that which, considering the dignity of his person, was equivalent to it. The phrase “He shall bear his iniquity,” which so frequently occurs in the Old Testament, means, he shall bear the punishment due to his iniquity. _Peter._ And yet you deny that Christ’s sufferings were properly _penal_. _James._ You would not deny eternal life which is promised to believers to be properly _a reward_; but you would deny its being _a real and proper reward_ TO THEM. _Peter._ And what then? _James._ If eternal life, though it be a reward, and we partake of it, yet is really and properly the reward of Christ’s obedience, and not our’s; then the sufferings of Christ, though they were a punishment, and he sustained it, yet were really and properly the punishment of our sins, and not his. What he bore _was_ punishment: that is, it was the expression of divine displeasure against transgressors. So what we enjoy is reward: that is, it is the expression of God’s well-pleasedness in the obedience and death of his Son. But neither is the one a punishment _to him_, nor the other, properly speaking, a reward _to us_.