sisted of the firstlings of his flock. They were of the same class of animals, of which the levitical offerings afterwards consisted, and they were the first-born of that class. The respect paid to Abel and his offering as contradistinguished from that of Cain, seems to have been manifested in the same way in which it was often manifested under the Sinaitic dispensation; * at the dedication of the Tabernacle, and afterwards that of the Temple, fire "from before the Lord" consuming the sacrifices which were offered.

When I consider the marked distinction which Moses has made between the two kinds of offering brought by the two brothers, the rejection of the one and the acceptance of the other, I cannot doubt that the latter was an act of thankful compliance with a revealed plan of salvation, and the other a wilful refusal of submission to it. Abel offered in faith; and his faith must have been founded on some discovery of the Divine will. It must have had a reference to something further than an acknowledgement of a God, and of dependence on his providence, since this was as fully expressed by the offering of Cain as by that of his brother; and if this had been all that was required, the act of Cain was equally entitled to the praise of being an act of faith. But the narrative is an early comment on the declaration of

* Comp. Levit. ix. 24. Judges xiii. 19, 20. 2 Chron. vii. 1. 1 Kings xviii. 38.

i

St. Paul, that "without shedding of blood there is no remission" of sin.

There is a further intimation in the short history of Cain and Abel, which seems to mark the doctrine of atonement by sacrifice as of Divine origination, and to imply that the progenitors of our race were not left in ignorance of its necessity and import. When Jehovah is remonstrating with Cain on the temper of mind which the rejection of his bloodless offering had produced in him, He reasoned with him on the subject and said, Gen iv. 7, "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted; and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door:" the meaning of which seems to be this, "If thou wast not a a transgressor, thy acceptance would be insured by thine own innocence; and even as a sinner, a sin-offering, which will insure acceptance on another ground, croucheth at the door, that is may be at once found and offered on the altar. The Divine reasoning was intended, as I conceive, to point out to him the impossibility of acceptance with God without atonement for sin, and to convince him of his folly in refusing to comply with the prescribed method of obtaining reconciliation with Him, whose favour had been forfeited, and whose curse had been incurred, by the great transgression. The Hebrew word which is rendered sin,* very often signifies an offering for sin, * лon (See Levit. iv. 4, 15. and Comp. Levit. i. 4. xvi. 21)

or the animal victim to which its guilt was imputed; and the verb * generally imports the resting posture of an animal.

If then it be admitted that Jehovah, in this expostulation with Cain, refers him to animalsacrifice as the only acceptable way of access to Himself; and if He be supposed to account for the non-acceptance of Cain and his offering by its defect in regard to atonement for sin; it must, surely, follow that sacrifice was of Divine appointment, and that its object was not unknown to those on whom it was first enjoined.

That the interpretation which I have given of the address of Jehovah to Cain is the true interpretation, might be argued from the connexion in which it stands, the usual meaning of the words which are used, and the general intent of all intercourse of God with man. Indeed I know of no other interpretation that will comport with the evident design of the address. Its object was in unison with that of the Divine visit to our first parents in Paradise after their fall, and indeed with the whole volume of Scripture. It was to lead the sinner to his Saviour that he might be justified by faith in Him.

Exod. xxix. 14. xxx. 10. &c. &c. It is often rendered in the LXX. περι or υπερ αμαρτιας.

* Comp. Gen. 'xxix. 2. xlix. 9, &c. &c. And see Archbishop MAGEE's work on the ATONEMENT. Page 59, and note 21. First Edition.

If every thing of our own invention and ima gination be forbidden in the service of God,* and especially in that prefigurative service which was required previously to the coming of Christ, the accepted service of Abel must have been founded in a revelation from God! "What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: Thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it."Deut. xii. 32.

The distinction which we find to have been made before the flood, Gen. vii. 8, and consequently before the use of animal food had been granted to man, must, I conceive, have had an exclusive relation to typical sacrifices. And as that distinction was Divinely recognized, the rite in which it originated must also have been so recognized; though the brief record of Moses does not state the time or manner of either recognition. It was a subject on which no new direction was necessary, for the purpose of discriminating one class from the other, when Noah was commanded to collect the animals which were to be saved in the ark. The silence of the historian of Genesis on this distinction seems to me to confirm what I have several times observed to you in the course of my correspondence, that the hints given in the

* Odit Deus cultum voluntarium, hoc est, illa opera quæ pro immediato Dei cultu illi offeruntur, cum ab ipso non fuerint præscripta et mandata ad hunc finem. Hoc enim est fornicari in adinventionibus suis. Ps. cvi. 39. Davenant: in Coloss. ii. 23.

concise memoirs of the patriarchal dispensation were intended to be explained by the subsequent account of the Sinaitic revelation. The patriarchal promise and ritual exhibited the stem of the tree of life planted for man in paradise regained after the fall;-the Levitical institutions were the branches and foliage;-while the Gospel history discloses to view its flowers and ripe fruits, of which we may say in truth, what is said of the Tree of Knowledge, that they are "good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and much to be desired to make us wise" unto salvation.

The act of Noah in offering sacrifices immediately after his liberation from the ark, the victims being taken from the clean animals which had been preserved by the command of God in greater numbers than the unclean, as we may suppose, for the express purpose of furnishing the means of renewing the important prefigurative rite; sacrifices offered without any new revelation of the necessity or manner of making the typical atonement, and which are expressly called * burnt offerings;" sacrifices from which "the Lord smelled a sweet savour," and from which he derived appeasement to the displeasure which the sins of the antediluvians had excited; This act of Noah bespeaks, I think, the Divine origination of sacrifices, and also its connexion both with the subsequent levitical institute, and with its antitype in the great sacrifice made for sin on the cross.