29b' A PRACTICAL EXPOSITION UPON [IsA. LIII. G.
Velle ffuum cuique est, nee voto vivitur nno : several desires breed diflerence.
2. The remedy provided against tliis misery : a7id the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquities of us all. The burden of sin, that would otherwise have ruined us, is cast u})on Christ. The slieep wander and the shepherd is shiin. He is tlie <!;ood shepherd that hiyeth down his life for the shee|). David saith, 2 Sam. xxiv. 17, ' These shee]), what have they done ?' David was more tender of his people than of liim- self, yet David was guilty. But here it is otherwise, for our iniquities were laid upon Christ. Here we may observe : —
[1.] The author of this benefit, or who it was that provided this remedy for us : ilie Lord.
[2.] The nature of the benefit : he laid our iniquities on him ; that is, on Christ.
[3.] Tiie persons concerned: the iniquities of w.s all ; all those that are at length gained to believe in him, and return to him, as the bishop and shepherd of their souhs.
Fiist, 1 begin with the misery or the woeful case wherein all those for whom Christ died were in before conversion.
1. They wandered in their ignorance and sinful ways to their own destruction, set forth by the going astray of sheep : ' All we, like sheep, are gone astray.' It is a usual similitude, which is not put here by way of extenuation, as in some scriptures, as ' I send you forth as sheep among wolves ; ' but in a way of aggravation, not to extenuate the sin, but to set it out the more. It is to show the folly of man. 8hee}), of all creatures, are most apt to stray without a she])herd. They are apt either to be driven out of the fold as a dog or wolf scatterelh the sheep, or to wander of their own accord, a fit emblem of our folly, who love to depart from God, and go astiay from the way of life : Rom. iii. 12, ' They are all gone out of the way;' that is, the way to true happiness.
2. They were unable to bring themselves into the right way : Luke XV. 18, ' I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him. Father, I have sinned against heaven, and befoie thee.' St Au.stin saith, Domine, errare per vie potui, redire non potiii—liovd, I could go astray of my own accord, Ijut could not return by myself.
3. In hazard to be ])reyed ui)on by the roaring lion, and the dogs and wolves that are abroad : 1 Peter v. 8, ' Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a loaring lion, walketli about seek- ing whom he may devour.' Our misery is mentioned to show the necessity of a Saviour ; and this miseiy is made to consist in sin or stray- ing from God ; the sense of which is our first motive to make us louk after Chiist, that we by him niay return again to our own happiness, even to God, who is the refuge of our souls, and the centre of our rest. But let us more nearly observe how our miseiy is described. And fiist of the universal })article, all ice; and then of the distributive particle, every one.
First, From the universal particle all, we raay observe : — Doct. 1. That no son of Adam can exempt himself from the nnm- ber of tliose that are gone astray from (iod and the way of true hap- l)iness. 1 shall explain the point in these considerations : —
ISA. LIII. 6.] THE FIFTY -THIRD CHAPTER OF ISAIAH. 297
First, All are sinners by nature. There are three branches of original sin : —
1. The communication of Adam's guilt.
2. The want of original righteousness.
3. The corruption or pollution of nature. These are derived from Adam to all his children, and in respect of these they are all out of the ^vay.
1. Because the guilt of Adam's sin is imputed to us ; his guilt we receive as children do the brand of their ancestors, that are tainted in blood and forfeited in law. Look, as Reuben's act in defiling his father's bed was a stain to all his posterity, and they lost the sover- eignty by it, Gen. xlix. 4, so all mankind, being in Adam, as they descended from him, and were in him as in a common person, they sinned in liim, so that what Adam did we did. Thus it is said, Heb. vii. 9, ^Levi, who received tithes, [)aid tithes in Abraham.' There is ground you see in nature for the imputation of the father's deed to those that descend of him: and God may as justly impute to us Adani's sin as to Levi Abraham's j»aying of tithes. When Abraham did it, it was as if Levi did it ; and when Adam sinned, it was as if you sinned. We were all in his loins at that time ; and, if it had been our personal case, we should have done so. Now this answer may satisfy as to the angels, that do not beget one another, and, thereft»ie, sustain not the person of one another ; — their sins do not take hold of one another ; they, being all immediately begotten by God, are not guilty of each otiiers' sins, unless it be by consent and mutual agreement ; therefore, those only fell that combined to follow one as the ringleader of the faction. Hence it is said. Mat. xxv. 41, ' The devil and his angels ;' not as it begotten by him, but ad- hering to him. But to return, in pursuance of the former matter, note, the scripture looketh upon parents as sustaining a common ])er- son, and, therefore, what injury is done to the father, is spoken of as done to his seed ; and many families suffer for the miscarriages of their progenitors: Gen. iv. 10, ' Thy brother's blood crieth unto me :' thou hast shed the blood of his offspring in spilling his, and, therefore, it is bloods, in the plural number. And so for Jacob and Esau, God elected them as sustaining the common persons of their posterity, and so likewise in many places. Now this holdeth good in man's justice, for treason in the father taints the blood of the son.