Speculum theologiæ in Christo, or, A view of some divine truths which are either…

The one is this, there is somewhat in Christ which answers to the Expiatory Sacrifices. The sacrifice was to be perfect and without blemish, that it might be accepted; the blind, or broken, or maimed, or corrupted thing, was not to be offered up to God: answerably, the human nature of Christ, which was the great Sacrifice, was without spot or guile; it was formed by the Holy Spirit, and breathed out nothing but ⟨p. 145⟩sanctity, that it might be a pure offering unto God. Had there been any blemish in it, it could not have been united to the Person of the Word, nor offered up as a sacrifice to God for us. The Sacrifice, pure in it self, was substituted in the room of sinful defective men; there was [Greek or Hebrew], the life of a Beast instead of that of a Man. Suitably, Christ the meek, patient, immaculate Lamb of God, stood in our room; he died for us, he gave his life a ransom [Greek or Hebrew], instead of many, Mat. 20.28. His Person was put in the room of ours, and his sufferings too in the room of ours. Had he not stood in our stead, he could not have been capable either to bear the stroke of penal sufferings, or to free us from the same; not to bear penal sufferings, he being nothing but mere innocency in himself; nor to free us from them, he being in no conjunction with us. The sacrifice being put in the sinners room, had sin imputed to it; they were to lay their hands upon the head of it, Lev. 1.4: a confession of sins was made over the Scape-goat, Lev. 16.21; their sins were in a sort transferred upon the sacrifice, that it might bear them away. Thus it was with Christ, he was made sin for us, 2 Cor. 5.21. The Lord laid on him the iniquities of us all, Isa. 53.6. Our guilt, as it was fundamentum poenae, was imputed to him so far, as to render his sufferings penal; and, as an Ancient hath it, he was delictorum susceptor, non commissor; having no guilt of his own, he stood under ours, in order to a glorious expiation and abolition of it in his death and satisfaction. Sin being charged upon the sacrifice, there was destructio rei oblatae, a destroying of the thing offered: so it was with Christ, when our sins were