291 A CAVEAT AGAINST INFIDELITY. first promise, as it has been abundantly explained and proved.by many writers*, wherein God foretold, that the seed of the?roman. shall bruise the head of the serpent, and that the serpent should bruise his heel; Gen. iii. 15. Upon this foot, sacrifices of beasts were instituted, to preserve these two notions in the memory of man, viz. that sin deserved death, and that God would provide a sufficient sacrifice in his own time, to expiate sin. It is very probable, that God did not leave our first parents without some clearer explication of this first promise, Some plainer noticesof his intended grace, and of this future Saviour. It is likely, that he acquainted them with the reason and nature, and design of bloody sacrifices, and taught them more particularly in what mannerto address him for mercy, andhow to please him in other necessary parts of worship and duty: For we cannot sup- pose that God left mankind for almost two thousand years, to live upon the mere words of Gen. iii. 15. nor can we reasonably be- lieve that Moses in so very short an;*bstract of the affairs of mankind before the flood, relates all the transactions that passed between God and man, nor all the revelations that God made to them of hisgrace, and the way of salvation by a Mediator. IV. All the persons ofthesuccessivegenerations, which arose between Adam and Noah, might have learned the necessary les- -sons of duty and grace, from Adam and Eve, and from those of theirposterity, who conversed with them ; and this is very easy to besupposed, by reason of the length of life; with which man- kind were favoured in that early'age of the world. V. As Noah had received by tradition from Adam, these divine lessons, so doubtles, he had them as it were confirmed and renewed to him by his frequent converses with God ; wherein he received some further assurancesof divine mercy, and further instructions in particular duties and privileges, viz. He was in- dulged to eat flesh, and to kill the beasts of the earth tit for food and sacrifice, by the clean beasts coming by sevens, and the un- clean beasts coming by pairs, to be saved from the flood, if he did not know this before. Yet further, he received a command to eat no blood, and an order that the murderer of man should be put to death: And besides all this, he had God's covenant -sealed to him, and his posterity by the rainbow. VI. Noah being the second great patriarch, or father of all mankind, it is evident that the covenantof grace, or God's dis- pensation of mercy to sinful man, was revealed to all mankind the second time in and by him : For Noah wás the progenitor of all men after the flood ; and as he was a preacher of righteous- ness, doubtlesshe diffused this useful and important knowledge to s See Doctor William Harris's "Sermons on the Messiah," and his explica Zion of this text; Gen. iii. 15. and Doctor Sherlock now bishop of London, in ,his discourses of the " Use and Intent of Prophecy," Discourse the third.
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