To the office of a Redeemer, that is, of one that payeth the ransom of sin, which ransom is death, it appertaineth, that he was sacrificed, and thereby bare upon his own head and carried away from us our iniquities, in such sort as God had required. Not that the death of one man, though without sin, can satisfy for the offences of all men, in the rigour of justice, but in the mercy of God, that ordained such sacrifices for sin, as he was pleased in his mercy to accept. In the old law (as we may read, _Levit._ xvi.) the Lord required that there should, every year once, be made an atonement for the sins of all Israel, both priests and others; for the doing whereof, Aaron alone was to sacrifice for himself and the priests a young bullock; and for the rest of the people, he was to receive from them two young goats, of which he was to _sacrifice_ one; but as for the other, which was the _scape-goat_, he was to lay his hands on the head thereof, and by a confession of the iniquities of the people, to lay them all on that head, and then by some opportune man, to cause the goat to be led into the wilderness, and there to _escape_, and carry away with him the iniquities of the people. As the sacrifice of the one goat was a sufficient, because an acceptable, price for the ransom of all Israel; so the death of the Messiah, is a sufficient price for the sins of all mankind, because there was no more required. Our Saviour Christ’s sufferings seem to be here figured, as clearly as in the oblation of Isaac, or in any other type of him in the Old Testament. He was both the sacrificed goat, and the scapegoat; _he was oppressed, and he was afflicted_ (_Isaiah_ liii. 7); _he opened not his mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep is dumb before the shearer, so he opened not his mouth_: here he is the _sacrificed goat_. _He hath borne our griefs_ (verse 4), _and carried our sorrows_: and again, (verse 6), _the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquities of us all_: and so he is the _scape-goat_. _He was cut off from the land of the living_ (ver. 8) _for the transgression of my people_: there again he is the _sacrificed goat_. And again, (verse 11) _he shall bear their sins_: he is the _scape goat_. Thus is the lamb of God equivalent to both those goats; sacrificed, in that he died; and escaping, in his resurrection; being raised opportunely by his Father, and removed from the habitation of men in his ascension. [Sidenote: Christ’s kingdom not of this world.]