is denominated, right in the court: he was viewed in the same light, as if he never had offended." This ceremony gives us a clear idea of what the prophet meant in the expression, which I have recently cited. He declares of the Messiah, that the Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all. Here we have a manifest allusion to the identical ceremony, which I have been describing. As the sins of the Israelites were laid upon the head of each devoted victim, so that the victim should bear them in their stead in a similar manner, Jehovah has laid the sins of all mankind upon the head of Christ, as upon a piacular sacrifice, that so by an act of transfer he might bear thein on our behalf. : The iniquity of the sinner being thus transferred to his substitute, his person is freely justified by the blood of his Saviour. God not only remits his punishment; but also restores him to the full enjoyment of his favour, and to the same degree of forensic though not of inherent righteousness, which Levit. i. 2-9. Exod. xxix. 10, 15. Numb. viii. 12. Levit. iv. 13-21, 22—26, 27-35. Such was the opinion of the Jews themselves. His adde tertiam deprecandi formulam, quam manibus victima capiti impositis reus ipse suo ore edidit. Obsecro, Domine, peccavi, deliqui, rebellavi, hoc et illud feci nunc autem pœnitentiam ago, sitque hostia hæc expiatio mea. Quæ verba formulam claudunt, sitque hæc expiatio mea, hostiam ipsam designabant offerentis manibus jam subjectam; ac quidem, ut Judæi docent, hujusmodi significationem habent, Sit hostia hæc meum in locum substituta, ut, quod ipse malum merui, id in hostiæ meæ caput recidat. Maimon. in Maase Korban. cap. 3. Outram. de sacrif. lib. i. c. 15. § X. he would have possessed had he never offended. Accordingly we are informed by the great Apostle of the Gentiles, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them ;-for he made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.' 4. This doctrine of a transfer is eminently set forth in the ceremonial of what is usually denomi nated the scape-goat; a ceremonial, which, if not absolutely itself a sacrifice, yet constitutes a prominent part of an ordinance that, taken altogether, is expressly declared to be a sin-offering. The whole rite is of so extraordinary a nature, that it may well deserve a somewhat more extended consideration. Aaron, and each high-priest after him, was forbidden to approach the mercy-seat at all times: but, when he annually entered the holy place on the great day of atonement, he was commanded to observe the following ceremonies. 2 Corinth. v. 19, 21. See Hooker's Disc. of Justif. § 6. Bp. Andrews's Serm. p. 74. Bp. Latimer's Serm. p. 224. Bp. Beveridge's Priv. Thoughts. art. viii. Bp. Reynolds's Life of Christ. p. 240. See also particularly Outram, de sacrif. lib. i. c. 21, 22: where will be found a luminous account of the doctrine of piacular sacrifice, and an ample statement of the concurring sentiments entertained on this subject both by Jews and by Pagans and by Christians. It was in conse quence of the doctrine, that the typical sacrifice was made sin for the Jews, and that the antitype Christ was in a similar manner made sin for us; that a single Hebrew word N is used to express either the offering for sin or sin itself, Arrayed in his pontifical habit, after having first carefully bathed himself in water, he was to draw near with a young bullock for a sin-offering and with a ram for a burnt-offering. These were the customary victims: but, on the present occasion, he was additionally to take, of the congregation of the children of Israel, two kids of the goats for a sin-offering, and to present them before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle. After the presentation, he was to cast lots upon them: one lot being for Jehovah, and the other lot for what in the original Hebrew is expressed Azazel. The goat, on which the lot of Jehovah fell, was to be brought and offered up for a sin-offering: but the goat, on which fell the lot of Azazel, was to be presented alive before Jehovah; to make an atonement with him, by letting it go for Azazel into the wilderness. Of the former, the blood, was to be carried within' the vail and to be sprinkled upon the mercy-seat and before the mercy-seat, in order that atonement might be made for the holy place because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel: but, when the live goat was brought, the high-priest was to lay both his hands upon its head and to confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel, putting them upon the head of the goat; after which he was to send it away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness, that it might bear upon it all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited.' On the general acknowledged principle of each ? Levit. xvi. : sacrificial victim being a type of Christ, to whom by imputation the sins of all his people are transferred, we may safely lay it down, that each of the two goats shadowed out our mediatorial substitute, who laid down his life for our sake, and who bare in his own body our sins upon the tree. Thus far matters are sufficiently easy and clear: but the question is, what we are to understand by the different treatment of the two goats, and what is meant by the term Azazel so conspicuously introduced into the account of the ceremonial. a (1.) An answer to the second part of the question may throw some light upon its first part. Our English translators, following Aquila, Symmachus, and the Greek fathers, suppose the term Azazel to mean the goat itself; and thence, from its imagined derivation, render it the scape-goat. This conjecture however is attended with considerable difficulties. Each goat, as the Hebrew word used throughout the whole passage imports, was to be a male: but Az, which in the sense of a goat is supposed to be compounded with Azel, invariably signifies not a male but a female goat. Hence, if the inspired writer had meant to describe one of the two consecrated goats, it is hard to say, why he should employ the needlessly inaccurate term Azazel, when he might just as easily have employed the strictly accurate term Seirazel. Nor is this all to say nothing of the awkward repetition produced by translating the term a scapegoat, the grammatical arrangement of the original will scarcely tolerate such a version. Aaron, we read, shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for Jehovah, and the other lot for Azazel. Now, since Jehovah is a person, the evident construction of the sentence requires that Azazel should be deemed a person likewise. Its concinnity therefore is quite destroyed by our common English version: Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scape-goat. According to this rendering, we see, the Lord is a person, but the scape-goat is not a person and, in consequence of such a departure from the natural turn of the sentence, the same preposition for, in the two successive clauses, is made to bear two entirely different significations; in the former it denotes to in the sense of possession or acquisition, but in the latter it denotes for in the sense of designation to a particular purpose. One lot for Jehovah here the meaning is, that one lot would devote the victim, upon which it fell, to Jehovah. The other lot for Azazel: here, according to our English version, the meaning is not, that the other lot would devote the victim, upon which it fell, to the scape-goat; but that it would cause the victim, upon which it fell, to be designated to the purpose of being a scape-goat. On the whole then, if we interpret Azazel to signify one of the two goats, we shall have bad grammar leading to still worse incongruity of expression. Others again imagine, that Azazel is the name of a mountain; and, by taking the liberty to alter -the spelling of the word, they would make it |