It appears, then, from all that hath been said, that our iniquities that were laid on Christ were the punishment due to our iniquity.
Farther to clear this, I shall a little consider what act of God this was whereby he laid our iniquities on Christ ; and these two things
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are considerable therein : 1. How it was typically prefigured ; 2. How it was done, or in what act of God the doing of it doth consist.
1. This was eminently represented in the great anniversary sacri- fice, of which I have spoken formerly, especially in that part which concerns the goat, a'xo'rroiiiraTog, on which the lot fell to be sent away. That that goat was a sacrifice is evident from Lev. xvi. 5, where both the kids of the goats (afterward said to be two goats) are said to be " a sin-offering." How this was dealt withal, see verse 21 : "Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat." Now, in what sense could the sins of the people be put upon the head of the goat?
(1.) This was not merely a representation, as it were a show or pageant, to set forth the taking away of iniquity, but sins were really, as to that typical institution, laid on the head of the goat; whence he became a "piaculum," an avaki^a, and he that touched him was defiled : so verse 26, the man that carried out the goat was unclean until he was legally purified ; and that because the sin of the people was on the head of the goat which he so carried awaj^
(2.) The proper pravity, malice, and filth of sin could not be laid on the goat. Neither the nature of the thing nor the subject will bear it: for neither is sin, which is a privation, an irregularity, an obliquity, such a thing as that it can be translated from one to another, although it hath an infectious and a contagious quality to diffuse itself, — that is, to beget something of the like nature in others ; nor was the goat a subject wherein any such pernicious or depraved habit might reside, which belongs only to intelligent creatures, which have a moral rule to walk by.
(3.) It must be the punishment of sin that is here intended, which was, in the type, laid on the head of the goat ; and therefore it was sent away into a land not inhabited, a land of separation, a wilder- ness, there to perish, as all the Jewish doctors agree, — that is, to undergo the punishment that was inflicted on it. That in such sacrifices for sin there was a real imputation of sin unto punishment shall afterward be farther cleared.
Unto this transaction doth the prophet allude in this expression, " He laid on," or " put on him." As the high priest confessed all the sins, iniquities, and transgressions of the people, and laid them on the head of the scape-goat, which he bare, undergoing the utmost punishment he was capable of, and that punishment which, in the general kind and nature, is the punishment due to sin, — an evil and violent death; so did God lay all the sins, all the punishment due to them, really upon one that was fit, able, and appointed to bear it, which he suffered under to the utmost that the justice of God re- quired on that account. He then took a view of all our sins and
448 VINDICI^ EVANGELICiE.
iniquities. He knew what was past and what was to come, knowing all our thoughts afar off. Not the least error of our minds, darkness of our understandings, perverseness of our wills, carnality of our affections, sin of our nature or lives, escajaed him. All were yu/Ai/a xal Tirpa-^rfkisiMha, before him. This is set out by the variety of ex- pressions used in this matter in the type : " All the iniquities, all the transgressions, and all the sins." And so by every word whereby we express sin in this 5Sd of Isaiah, — " going astray, turning aside, ini- quity, transgression, sin," and the like. God, I say, made them all to meet on Christ, in the punishment due to them.
2. What is the act of God whereby he casts our sins on Christ.
I have elsewhere considered how God in this business is to be looked on.^ I said now in the entrance of this discourse, that punish- ment is an effect of justice in him who had power to dispose of the offender as such. To this two things are required: —
(1.) That he have in his hand power to dispose of all the concern- ments of the offence [offender] and sinners, as the governor of him and them all. This is in God. He is by nature the king and governor of all the world, our lawgiver, James iv. 12. Having made rational creatures and required obedience at their hands, it is essentially belonging to him to be their governor,^ and not only to have the sovereign disposal of them, as he hath the supreme domi- nion over them, with the legal dispose of them, in answer to the moral subjection to him and the obedience he requires of them.