_James._ If there be any thing convincing in it, I confess I do not perceive it. I admit with Mr. _Charnock_, “That Christ was ‘made sin’ _as if he had_ sinned all the sins of men; and we are ‘made righteousness,’ _as if we had_ not sinned at all.” What more is necessary to abide by the obvious meaning of the words? To go further must be to maintain that Christ’s being _made sin_ means that he was literally rendered wicked, and that his being _made a curse_ is the same thing as his being punished for it according to his deserts. Brother Peter, I am sure, does not believe this shocking position: but he seems to think there is a medium between his being treated _as if he were_ a sinner, and his _being one_. If such a medium there be, I should be glad to discover it: at present it appears to me to have no existence. Brother Peter will not suspect me, I hope, of wishing to depreciate his judgment, when I say, that he appears to me to be attached to certain terms without having sufficiently weighed their import. In most cases I should think it a privilege to learn of him: but in some things I cannot agree with him. In order to maintain the _real_ and _proper punishment_ of Christ, he talks of his being “guilty by imputation.” The term _guilty_, I am aware, is often used by theological writers for _an obligation to punishment_, and so applies to that voluntary obligation which Christ came under to sustain the punishment of our sins: but strictly speaking, guilt is the _desert_ of punishment; and this can never apply but to the offender. It is the opposite of innocence. A voluntary obligation to endure the punishment of another is not guilt, any more than a consequent exemption from obligation in the offender, is innocence. Both guilt and innocence are transferable in their effects, but in themselves they are untransferable. To say that Christ was _reckoned_ or _counted_ in the divine administration _as if he were_ the sinner, and came under an obligation to endure the curse or punishment due to our sins, is one thing: but to say he _deserved_ that curse, is another. Guilt, strictly speaking, is the inseparable attendant of transgression, and could never therefore for one moment occupy the conscience of Christ. If Christ by imputation became _deserving_ of punishment, we by non-imputation cease to deserve it; and if our demerits be literally transferred to him, his merits must of course be the same to us: and then, instead of approaching God as _guilty_ and _unworthy_, we might take consequence to ourselves before him, as not only guiltless, but meritorious beings.