LECT.

IV.

The frame of mind in which we are to celebrate the Chriftian paffover, is defcribed to us in terms borrowed from the Jewish: this feast we are to keep with the unleavened bread of fincerity and truth; free i from all impure mixtures of worldly af fections, pharifaical pride, hypocrisy, and falfe doctrine. To which those other defcriptive ceremonies may be added, of having our loins girded, our shoes on our feet, and our faves in our hands; in the garb and posture of pilgrims, foon to depart from the Egypt of this world.

Some other forms with which facrifices were offered are of great account, and will explain to us the sense of many paffages not otherwise to be understood. Christ as our fubftitute, is faid to have borne our griefs and carried our forrows; and the Lord is faid to have laid on him the iniquities of us all. According to the form prescribed in the law, when a facrifice was brought to the priest, it was the custom for

* Ifaiah liii. 4. 6,

the

IV.

the finner, or the congregation at large*, as LECT. the occafion might require, to lay their hands upon the head of the victim, and confess their fins upon it, which the innocent animal about to die was to bear for them; and the fins fo transferred from the finner to the offering were to be done away. This fhews us what was meant by the prophet, when he faid, the Lord hath laid on him the iniquities of us all; that is, he hath laid upon the head of Christ, as upon a devoted facrifice, the fins of all mankind.

In the case of what was called the Scape goat, the animal, with this burden of fin upon his head, was turned loose into a wilderness, into a land not inhabited, no more to be seen of men: with allufion to which it is said in the Pfalms, as far as the eaft is from the west, fo far hath he fet our fins from us §, no more to be remembered

* The elders of the congregation (fee Lev. iv. 15.) or the high pricft in the name of the congregation. (see Lev. xvi. 24.)

† Lev. xvi. 22.

§ Pfalm ciii. 12.

or

LECT. or heard of to our condemnation.

IV.

There feems to be another reference to the fame in those words of Jer. 1. 20. " the iniquity "of Ifrael shall be fought for, and there "shall be none; and the fins of Judah, "and they fhall not be found."

On one particular occafion, the congregation were commanded to lay their hands upon the head of the guilty perfon, before he was carried out to execution: which ceremony explains what is faid of those for whom no atonement was to be accepted, that they should bear their iniquity; they fhould fuffer for it themselves and be their own facrifice. So again, where it is faid, his blood fhall be upon his head, it means, that the person in this cafe fhould be anfwerable for the guilt of his own death. And when the Jews blafphemously cried out, his blood be on us, and on our children, they meant, that whatever fin there might be in putting Jefus to death, they would venture to have the guilt of it laid upon. the heads of themselves and their posterity,

IV.

and atone for it in their own perfons; LECT which they have accordingly, by the just judgment of God, been doing ever fince.

This laying of fin upon the head of a facrifice, gives us a farther understanding of what happened to Chrift in his paffion, when the curfe of our fins was crushed with heavy and mercilefs hands upon his head, in the form of a crown of thorns; under which afflicting burden he was duly prepared as an offering for fin. Hence also we see the meaning of a like form which has a contrary intention; for as the curfe of guilt was laid on the head of a facrifice; fo bleffings of every kind are conveyed by the laying of hands on the heads. of the perfons who are appointed to receive them. Thus our Saviour took the little children into his arms, and when he bleffed them he laid his hands upon them: thus alfo the fick were reftored to the bleffings of health; and thus the minifters of God receive their commiffion, with the gifts neceffary to the exercise of it: stir up the gift

of

IV.

LECT. of God, faith Paul to Timothy, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands*.

;

When Chrift is faid to be a priest, we muft understand the word in a new fenfe for certainly he was not a priest in a literal fense, neither could he officiate according to the forms of the law, because he was not of that tribe to which the priesthood pertained. He is therefore called a priest after the order of Melchizedec, whose priesthood was prior and fuperior to that of the Levitical order, and carried with it the administration of bread and wine, after the

form of the gospel itself. Yet ftill we must go to the Levitical law, for the nature of the office, and the proper character of our high priest. Such an high priest became us, faith the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, Separate from finners, and made higher than the heavens‡. Such an high priest as the law had in all refpects, according to the letter; fuch ought we to have in the spirit; one in whom all the outward figns

*2 Tim. i, 6.

Gen. xiv. 18, † Gen. xiv. 18. Heb, vii. 26.

of