It is indeed a very difficult thing to convince some persons, how Christ could be charged with sin, or have sin imputed to him, in consistency with the sinless purity of his nature, which some think to be no better than a contradiction, though it be agreeable to the scripture mode of speaking, _viz._ _He was made sin for us_, and yet _knew no sin_, 2 Cor. v. 21. However, when we speak of sin’s being imputed to him, we are far from insinuating, that he committed any acts of sin; or, that his human nature was, in the least, inclined to, or defiled thereby; we choose therefore to use the scripture phrase, in which he is said to have _borne our sins_, rather than to say, that he was a sinner; much less would I give countenance to that expression which some make use of, that he was the greatest sinner in the world; since I do not desire to apply a word to him, which is often taken in a sense not in the least applicable to the holy Jesus. We cannot be too cautious in our expressions, lest the most common sense in which we understand the greatest sinner, when applied to men, should give any one a wrong idea of him, as though he had committed, or were defiled with sin. All that we assert is, that he was charged with our sins, when he suffered for them, not with having committed them; but with the guilt of them, which, by his own consent, was imputed to him; otherwise his sufferings could not have been a punishment for sin; and if they had not been so, our sin could not have been expiated, nor would his sufferings have been the ground of our justification. This leads us to consider, 4. The reference that Christ’s suretyship-righteousness has to our justification. This is generally styled its being imputed; which is a word very much used by those who plead for the scripture-sense of the doctrine of justification, and as much opposed by them that deny it; and we are obliged to defend the use of it; otherwise Christ’s righteousness, how glorious soever it be in itself, would not avail for our justification. Here it is necessary for us to explain what we mean by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.