yet comprehensive revelation of the Gospel; not indeed made to Adam or Eve directly, but contained in what God said to the serpent.

Here was a certain intimation of a merciful design by "the seed of the woman," which was like the first glimmerings of the light in the east when the day first dawns. This intimation of mercy was given even before sentence was pronounced on either Adam or Eve, from tenderness to them, lest they should be overborne with a sentence of condemnation, without having any thing held forth whence they could gather any hope.

One of those great things intended to be done by the work of redemption, is more plainly intimated: God's subduing his enemies under the feet of his Son. God's design of this was now first declared. Satan probably triumphed greatly in the fall of man, as though he had defeated the designs of God in his creation. But in these words God gives him a plain intimation that he should not finally triumph, but that a complete victory and triumph should be obtained over him by the seed of the woman.

This revelation of the Gospel was the first thing that Christ did in his prophetical office. From the fall of man to the incarnation of Christ, God was doing those things that were preparatory to Christ's coming to effect redemption, and were forerunners and earnests of it. And one of those things was to foretell and promise it, as he did from age to age, till Christ came. This was the first promise given, the first prediction made of it.

III. Soon after this, the custom of sacrificing was appointed, to be a standing type of the sacrifice of Christ till he should come and offer up himself

a sacrifice to God. Sacrificing was not a custom first established by the Levitical law, for it had been a part of God's instituted worship from the beginning. We read of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, offering sacrifice, and before them Noah and Abel. And this was by divine appointment; for it was part of God's worship in his church, which was offered up in faith, and which he accepted. This proves that it was by his institution; for sacrificing is no part of natural worship. The light of nature does not teach men to offer up beasts in sacrifice to God; and seeing it was not enjoined by the law of nature, it must, to be acceptable to God, be by some positive command or institution; for God has declared his abhorrence of such worship as is taught by the precept of men without his will. Isa. 29: 13. And such worship as has not a warrant from divine institution, cannot be offered up in faith, because faith has no foundation where there is no divine appointment. Men have no warrant to hope for God's acceptance, in that which is not of his appointment, and to which he has not promised his acceptance: and therefore it follows, that the custom of offering sacrifices to God was instituted soon after the fall; for the Scripture teaches us, that Abel offered "the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof," Gen. 4: 4; and that he was accepted of God in this offering, Heb. 11: 4. And there is nothing in the story intimating that the institution was first given when Abel offered up that sacrifice to God; but it appears that he only therein complied with a custom already established.

It is very probable that sacrifice was instituted

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immediately after God had revealed the covenant of grace, Gen. 3: 15, as the foundation on which the custom of sacrificing was built. That promise was the first stone laid towards this glorious building, the work of redemption; and the next stone was the institution of sacrifices, to be a type of the great Sacrifice.

The next thing of which we have an account, after God had pronounced sentence on the serpent, on the woman, and on the man, was, that God made them coats of skins, and clothed them; which are generally thought to be the skins of beasts slain in sacrifice. For we have no account of any thing else that should be the occasion of man's slaying beasts, except to offer them in sacrifice, till after the flood. Men were not wont to eat the flesh of beasts as their common food till after the flood. The food of man before the fall, was the fruit of the trees of paradise; and after the fall, his food was the produce of the field. Gen. 3: 18. "And thou shalt eat the herb of the field." The first grant that he had to eat flesh as his common food, was after the flood. Gen. 9:3. "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things." So that it is likely these skins with which Adam and Eve were clothed, were the skins of their sacrifices. God's clothing them with these was a lively figure of their being clothed with the righteousness of Christ. This clothing was not of their own obtaining; but God gave it them. It is said, "God made them coats of skins, and clothed them," as the righteousness with which we are clothed is of God. It is he only clothes the naked soul.

Our first parents, who were naked, were clothed at the expense of life. Beasts were slain, to afford them clothing. So was Christ, to afford clothing to our naked souls. The tabernacle in the wilderness, which signified the church, was covered with rams' skins dyed red, as though they were dipped in blood, to signify that Christ's righteousness was wrought out through the pains of death, under which he shed his precious blood.

We observed before, that the light which the church enjoyed from the fall of man till Christ came, was like the light which we enjoy in the night; not the light of the sun directly, but as reflected from the moon and stars; which light prefigured Christ, the Sun of righteousness afterwards to arise. This light they had chiefly two ways; one by predictions of Christ to come; the other by types and shadows, wherein his coming and redemption were prefigured. The first thing done to prepare the way for Christ in the former method, was in the promise above considered; and the first thing of the latter kind, was the institution of sacrifices. As that promise in Gen. 3: 15, was the first dawn of gospel light after the fall in prophecy; so the institution of sacrifices was the first hint of it in types. The former was done in pursuance of Christ's prophetical office; in the latter, Christ exhibited himself in his priestly office.

The institution of sacrifices was a great thiag done towards preparing the way for Christ's coming, and working out redemption. For the sacrifices of the Old Testament were the principal of all the Old Testament types of Christ and his redemption; and it tended to establish in the minds of

God's visible church the necessity of a propitiatory sacrifice, in order to the Deity's being satisfied for sin; and so prepared the way for the reception of the glorious Gospel, that reveals the great sacrifice not only in the visible church, but through the world of mankind. For from this institution of sacrifices, all nations derived the custom of sacrificing to the gods, to atone for their sins. No nation, however barbarous, was found without it.

This is a great evidence of the truth of revealed religion; for no nation, except the Jews, could tell how they came by this custom, or to what purpose it was to offer sacrifices to their deities. The light of nature did not teach them any such thing. That did not teach them that the gods were hungry, and fed upon the flesh which they burnt in sacrifice; and yet they all had, this custom: of which no other account can be given, but that they derived it from Noah, who had it from his ancestors, on whom God had enjoined it as a type of the great sacrifice of Christ. However, by this means all nations of the world had their minds possessed with this notion, that an atonement or sacrifice for sin was necessary; and a way was made for their more readily receiving the great doctrine of the Gospel, the atonement and sacrifice of Christ.

IV. God soon after the fall began actually to save the souls of men through Christ's redemption. In this, Christ, who had lately taken upon him the work of Mediator between God and man, did first begin that work, wherein he appeared in the exercise of his kingly office; as in the sacrifices he was represented in his priestly office, and as in the first prediction of redemption by Christ, he had appeared in