DISCOU12SE q: 227 bid that ever we should imagine, that the great God left this important affair of offering sacrifices to reconcile and appease an angry God, to the mere invention ofvain 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, tillthe days of Noah : and there- fore, it mustbe. out of the beasts slain for sacrifice, that the Lord Godmade coats of skins, and clothed Adam, and his wife Eve. And it is highly probable that their clothing was made out of the skinsof the beasts that were sacrificed, to guard them from the cold winds, and storm, and from any of the inconveniencesof the air and sky that might befal them, for want of such covering; Gen. iii. 31. And unto Adam and his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them. It is further evident, that these sacrifices were not merely sacrifices of thanksgiving and acknowledgment to God for his mercies, as men are too often ready to suppose. When Cain brought to God the first fruits of theground ; Gen. iv. 3. if it was done merely as an offering of thankfulness, it is manifest that Abel also, Gen. v. 4. brought the firstlings of his flock, and the fat thereof; and it is very plain that Abel found acceptance with God, but Cain did not ; ver. 5. And as it is repeated ; lieb. xi. 4. By faith Abel offeredunto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. And probably this was thedifference, because, by the sacrifice and death of the living creatures, there was an acknow- ledgment made of sin, and of sinful man's desert of death, by some intimation from heaven : and this was accepted of God as an atonement or substitute, in the room of the sinner, or a typi- cal propitiation for sin. This seems to be implied in that question. ofBalaie to Balaam ; Micah vi. 6, 7. Wherewith shall I come be- fore the Lord, and bow myself before the High God ? Shall I come before himwith burnt-oferings, with calves of ayear old ? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, Etc. Or shall I give my first born for my transgression, thefruit of my body for the sin of my soul? It is very natural for man, under a sense of the guilt of sin, to enquire, how he shall appear before aholy God with acceptance ? And God, as it were in answer to such a supposed enquiry, directs Adam 'M the sacrifice of beasts, as an atonement for sin ; i. e. as a sort of ransom for the forfeited life of man. And this is the most natural and most easy sense of things, and the best account of the original of sacrifices, and of the prevalence andcontinuance of that custom almost all over the world: And this is the fairest account of the original tradition r 2
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