anger, we cannot doubt but that he would have answered the presumptuous offerer, as he did the Jews, " Who hath required this at your hands a ? " But we know that when a bleeding sacrifice was offered to him by Abel, he testified liis acceptance of it in a visible manner, probably by sending fire from heaven to consume it. We cannot doubt, therefore, but that the institution of sacrifices was of divine appointment.
In the next place, if sacrifices were not now instituted, we can scarcely account for the slaughtering of the animals, and much less for God's direction respecting it. It is thought indeed by some, that the flesh was given to our first parents for food : but this seems very improbable, because God told Adam at this very time, that he should henceforth subsist, not upon the fruits of the garden as before, but on " the herb of the field," which should be produced only by constant and laborious cultivation13. Nor was it till after the flood that God gave to man the liberty of eating the flesh of animals0. Hence, if the animals were not offered to God in sacrifice, they were killed merely for their skins, which seems to be by no means an adequate reason for God's inter- position. On the contrary, if they were by God's command- ment offered in sacrifice, we see, what we are in no other place informed of, the origin of the institution ; and at the same time we behold abundant reason for God's special interference. We see what instruction and consolation our first parents must derive from such an ordinance : for while they beheld their own desert in the agonies and death of an unoffending creature, they must be encouraged to look forward to that Seed of the Woman, who was in due time to offer himself a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.
We cannot doubt therefore but that this was the time when sacrifices were instituted ; and that, as they were appointed of God to prefigure the great sacrifice, they were enjoined at this time for the express purpose of directing the views of fallen man to that atonement which Christ should afterwards offer to God upon the cross. In this sense, as well as in the divine purpose, may Christ be called, " The Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world*1."]
2. The righteousness of Him who made that atonement —
[When we are told that " the Lord God made them coats of skins, and clothed them," can we suppose that nothing was intended by him but to provide more conve- niently for their decency and comfort ? Impossible ! There
a Isai. i. 12. * Gen. iii. 18, 19.
c Gen. ix. 3. d Rev. xiii. 8.