the new year ! How sweet must have been the retrospect to all who had been engaged in the work, when they saw that they had not spent the preceding year in vain ! Each could call to mind some sacrifices which he had made for God, or some exer- tions used in his service : and they would enter on the new year with a determined purpose to serve and honour God more than they had ever yet done. Beloved Brethren, is it so with you ? Have you in your consciences an evidence that you have lived for God, and made it a principal object of your life to serve
and honour him ? But, however the past year may have
been spent, bethink yourselves now what work you have to do for him, and how you may perfect it with expedition and care. And O that we may speedily have such a day amongst us as the Israelites enjoyed ; all of us presenting to him our souls and bodies for his habitation, and receiving from him undoubted tokens of his favourable regard !]
Lev. i. 3, 4. If his offering be a burnt-sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish : he shall offer it of his own voluntary will, at the door of the tabernacle of the congrega- tion, before the Lord. And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt-offering ; and it shall be accepted for him, to make atonement for him.
THE institution of sacrifices may be considered as nearly coeval with the world itself. As soon as man had fallen, he needed an atonement ; and an atonement was provided for him by God himself; who promised, that " the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head:" nor can we reasonably doubt, but that God himself, who, we are told, "clothed our first parents with skins," appointed the beasts, whose skins were used for that purpose, to be offered up first in sacrifice to him. Whence, if God had not originally sanctioned it, should Abel think of offering up "the firstlings of his flock?" and why should that very sacrifice receive such a signal testimony of the divine approbation ? Even the distinction between clean and unclean animals was known before the flood ; and an additional number of the clean were taken into the ark, that there might be wherewith to offer sacrifice unto the Lord, when the deluge should be abated. Abraham also, and Melchizedec, and Job, all offered sacrifices, before the Mosaic ritual was known : so that Moses did not so much introduce new institutions, as regulate those which had existed before; and give such directions respecting them, as should suit the dispensation which his ritual was in- tended to prefigure.