203 / 652
DISC.
V.]
THE ATONEMENT
OF
CHRIST MANIFESTED.
193
ners
:
Did you
never
give
yourselves leave to
think haw
great your guilt and destruction
is,
and
how
terrible your
misery
and danger
:
and
do you
never consider
that
it
was in and
by
Jesus
Christ,
as
the
appointed
sacrifice
for
our
sins,
that God
made
his
first steps toward you in
a
way
of
restoration
and recovery
?
This should
not
be
utterly neglected and
forgotten
by
sinners.
See
how
early
was
the love
of God
to fallen man.
3.
It
was in
this
view
ofJesus
Christ,
as a
propitiatory
sacrifice,
that
God instituted
sacrifices to be offered
up
by
Adam, immediately
after
his fall, as
it
is
recorded
by
Moses.
God
forbid
that
ever
we
should
imagine,
that
the
great
God
left
this
important
affair
of
offering
sacri-
fices
to
reconcile and
appease
an
angry God,
to
the mere
invention
of
vain
and
foolish
man
:
And
how
can
we
suppose
that it
should
enter
into the
heart of man,'
that
God should
be
pleased with
such sacrifices
as
the
cutting
and burning of
his
living
creatures
in
the
fire,
in
order
to
please
him
after their
first
sin
?
It
is
very
evident
that God
appointed
the
skins
of
beasts
to
be
their
first covering,
but
these very beasts
were
not
then
appointed
by
God the
Creator
to
be
slain
for
the food
of
man, till
the
days.
of Noah
:
and
there-
fore,
it
must
be
out of
the
beasts
slain for
sacrifice,
that
the
Lord
God made coats
of
skins,
and cloathed Adam,
and
his
wife
Eve.
Arid
it
is
highly
probable
that
their
clothing
was
made
out of
the skins
of
the beasts
that
were
sacrificed,
to
guard
them from the
cold
winds,
and storms,
and_
from any
of the
inconveniences
of
the
air and
sky
that
might befal them, for
want
of
sucli
covering
;
Gen.
iii.
21.
And unto
Adam
and
his wife did
the
Lord
God
make
coats
of
skin,
and
clothed
them.
.
It
is
further
evident,
that
these sacrifices were not."
merely sacrifices
of
thanksgiving and acknowledgment
tó.:
Gad
for
his
mercies, as men
are
too often ready to
sup-
pose.
When
Cain
brought
to
God the
first
fruits
of
the
ground
;
Gen.
iv.
3.
if it
was
done merely as
an
offering
of
thankfulness, it
is
manifest
that
Abel also
;
Gen..
iv.
4.
brought
of
the
firstling
s
of
his flock,
and'the
fat
thereof;
and
it
is
very plain
that
Abel found
acceptance
with
Gad,
but
Cain
did
not;
ver.
.5.
And
as
it
is
repeated Heb.
xi.
4.
By
faith
Abel offered
unto
God a more
excellent
sacrifice
than
Cain.
And
probably
this
was
the differ-
VOL.
III.
p