488 THE ATONEMENT OP CHRIST. ordered to put a beast to death which had not sinned, in order to worship or honour God by it, and when he found that he him- self who had sinned, was not put to death, it was not hard for him to understand that the beast was put to deathin his roomand stead : And it is not unlikely that God told him so. Let us consider further, that it is exceeding probable, when the Lord Godmade coats of , skins for Adam andhis wife ; Gen. iii. 21. these were the skins of the beasts that had been put to death in sacrifice : And thus God made it appear to them, that . their nakednesswas covered, and the shame of their guilt remo- ved, by a blessing derived from the beasts that were slain. The shins of the sacrifices being put upon their bodies, might abate something of their former fear, and encourage them to appear before God, who were terrified a little before, at the thoughts of their guilt and nakedness. Their deserved death was trans- ferred to the sacrificed animal; and the skin of the animal sacrificed, was transferred to them as a covering for their guilt and shame. These are no obscure intimations of benefit and safety to be derived to sinners? from some atonement to be made fqr sm. If we will hearken to St. Paul, he explains the first pro- mise, when he says, Heb. ii. 14. that Christ tookflesh andblood upon him, that he might, by his own death destroy the devil, who hail the power ofdeath, or had introducedit into the world. Here the Saviour's heel wasbruised, and the head of the serpent bro- ken ; nor can it be well supposed,how the death ofChrist should destroy the works of the devil, but by making an atonement for the sins of men ; for which sins divine justice had put them under his power or tyranny. I will not presume to say, that Adam himself could reád so' much gospel as this in those first words of promise ; or that he knew in so explicit and distinct a manner, the designs and ends of a sacrifice, when God taught him the practice : Yet it is very probable, that the great God condescended to give a much farther explication both of the first words of comfort concerning the seed of the woman, and of his own appoint- ment of ,sacrifices, and of the reason of them, than Moses has written, or than we who live at this distance of time can ever certainlyknow. III. Suppose what I have yet offered, he too obscure a. foundationfor this doctrine,.yetletus consider that the following train of ceremonies, which were appointed by God in the Jewish church, when he separated a peculiar people to himself, are plain significations of such an atonement for sin as our Lord Jesushas made, and they confirm the meaning of the first institution of sacrifices.
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