commended his sacrifice, and the Divine testimony was not to the specific form of his oblations; but to his actual righteousness."(8)

λetova dvolav, used by the apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews, when speaking of the sacrifice of Abel. Our translators have rendered it " a more excellent sacrifice." Wickliffe translates it, as Archbishop Magee The objections to this view of the matter are many. observes, uncouthly, but in the full sense of the origi- 1. It leaves out entirely all consideration of the difnal," a much more sacrifice;" and the controversy ference between the sacrifice of Abel and that of Cain, which has been had on this point is, whether this epi- and places the reason of the acceptance of one and the thet of" much more," or " fuller" refers to quantity or rejection of the other wholly in the moral character of quality; whether it is to be understood in the sense of a the offerers; whereas St. Paul most unequivocally more abundant, or of a better, a more excellent, sacrifice. places the acceptance of Abel's offering upon its naDr. Kennicott takes it in the sense of measure and quan- ture and the principle of faith which originated it. tity as well as quality, and supposes that Abel brought For, whether we translate the phrase above referred a double offering of the firstlings of his flock and of the to "a more excellent sacrifice," or "a more abundant fruit of the ground also. His criticism has been very sacrifice," it is put in contrast with the offering of satisfactorily refuted by Archbishop Magee ;(6) and Mr. Cain, and its peculiar nature cannot be left out of the Davison, who has written an acute work in reply to account. By Mr. Davison's interpretation, the desigthose parts of that learned prelate's work on the atone-nation given to Abel's offering by the apostle is entirely ment, which relate to the Divine origin of the primi- overlooked. tive sacrifices, has attempted no answer to this criticism, and only observes that "the more abundant sacrifice is the more probable signification of the passage, because it is the more natural force of the term TAELOVA when applied to a subject, as votav, capable of measure and quantity." This is but assumption; and we read the term in other passages of Scripture,(7) where the idea of quantity is necessarily excluded, and that of superiority and excellence of quality is as necessarily intended. But why is this stress laid on quantity? Are we to admit the strange principle that an offering is acceptable to God, because of its quantity alone, and that the quantity of sacrifice, when even no measure has been prescribed by any law of Gon, has an absolute connexion with the state of the heart of an offerer? Frequency or non-frequency of offering might have some claim to be considered as this indication; but, certainly, the quantity of gifts, where, according to the opinion of those generally who adopt this view, sacrifices had not yet been subjected to express regulation, would be a very imperfect indication. If the quantity of a sacrifice could at all indicate, under such circumstances, any moral quality, that quality would be gratitude; but then we must suppose Abei's offering to have been eucharistic. Here, however, the sacrifice of Abel was that of animal victims, and it was indicative of faith, a quality not to be made manifest by the quantity of an offering made, for the one has no relation to the other; and the sacrifice itself was, as we shall see, of a strictly expiatory character.

This will more fully appear, if we look at the import of the words of the apostle in some views which have not always been brought fully out in what has been more recently written on the subject. "By FAITH Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained WITNESS, that he was RIGHTEOUS, GOD testifying of his gifts; and by it, he being dead yet speaketh."

What is the meaning of the apostle, when he says that it was witnessed or testified to Abel that he was righteous? His doctrine is, that men are sinners, that all, consequently, need pardon; and to be declared, witnessed, or accounted righteous are, according to his style of writing, the same as to be justified, pardoned, and dealt with as righteous. Thus, he argues that "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness"-"that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness"-" that he received the sign of circumcision, a seal," a visible, confirmatory, declaratory, and witnessing mark" of the righteousness which he had by faith." In these cases we have a similarity so striking, that they can scarcely fail to explain each other. In both, sinful men are placed in the condition of righteous men-the instrument, in both cases, is faith; and the transaction is, in both cases also, publicly and sensibly witnessed; as to Abraham, by the sign of circumcision; as to Abel, by a visible acceptance of his sacrifice, and the rejection of that of Cain.

But it is said "St. Paul affirms that Abel, by the acceptance of the sacrifice, gained the testimony of Gor, that he was a righteous man. He affirms, therefore, that it was his personal habit of righteousness to which God vouchsafed the testimony of his approbation, by that acceptance of his offering. The antecedent faith in GoD, which produced that habit of a religious life,

(6) Discourses on Atonement.

(7) As in Matt. vi. 25, "Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment."

2. The "faith" of Abel, in this transaction, is also passed over as a consideration in the acceptance of his sacrifice. It is, indeed, brought in as "an antecedent faith, which produced the habit of a religious life," and thus mediately" commended the sacrifice;" but, in fact, on this ground any other influential grace or principle might be said to have commended his sacrifice, as well as faith; any thing which tended to produce "the habit of a religious life;" his fear of God, his love of God, as effectually as his faith in GOD. There is, then, this manifest difference between this representation of the case and that which is given by St. Paul, that the one makes "the habit of a religious life" the immediate, and faith but the remote reason of the acceptableness of Abel's gifts; while the other assigns a direct efficacy to the faith of Abel, and the kind of sacrifice by which that faith was expressed, and of which it was the immediate result.

3. In this chapter the apostle is not speaking of faith under the view of its tendency to induce a holy life; but of faith as producing certain acts of very various kinds, which, being followed by manifest tokens of the Divine favour, showed how acceptable faith is to Gon, or how it "pleases him," according to his own position laid down in the commencement of the chapter-" without faith it is impossible to please GoD." Abel had faith, and he expressed that faith by the kind of sacrifice he offered; it was in this way that his faith "pleased God;" it pleased him as a principle, and by the act to which it led, and that act was the offering of a sacrifice to God different from that of Cain. Cain had not this faith, whatever might be its object; and Cain accordingly did not bring an offering to which God had "respect." That which vitiated the offering of Cain was the want of this faith, for his offering was not significant of faith; that which "pleased God," in the case of Abel, was his faith, and he had "respect" to his offering, because it was the expression of that faith, and upon his faith so expressing itself, God witnessed to him "that he was righteous."

So, certainly, do the words of St. Paul, when commenting upon this transaction, establish it against the author above quoted, that Abel's sacrifice was accepted, because of its immediate connexion with his faith, for, by faith, he is said to have offered it; and all that, whatever it might be, which made Abel's offering differ from that of Cain, whether abundance, or kind, or both, was the result of this faith. So clearly, also, is it laid down by the apostle that Abel was witnessed to be "righteous," not with reference to any previous "habit of a religious life," but with reference to his faith; and not to his faith as leading to personal righteousness, but to his faith as expressing itself by his offering "a more excellent sacrifice."

Mr. Davison, in support of his opinion, adopts the argument of many before him, that "the rest of Scripture speaks to Abel's personal righteousness. Thus, in St. John's distinction between Cain and Abel, 'wherefore slew he him? because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous.' Thus, in the remonstrance of GoD with Cain, that remonstrance with Cain's envy for the acceptance of Abel's offering is directed, not to the mode of their sacrifice, but to the good and evil doings of their respective lives-'If thou do well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door." "(9)

(8) DAVISON'S Inquiry into the Origin and Intent of Primitive Sacrifice, (9) Inquiry, &c.

itself, showed that he had received the promise of a
"better country," which made him willing to be a
66 stranger and wanderer on earth;" for "they that say
such things," says the apostle, namely, that they are
strangers and pilgrims, " confessing" it by these signifi-
cant acts, "declare plainly that they seek a country,'
,"
"that is, a heavenly."
." Thus, also, when Moses's faith
expressed itself in his refusing to be called the son of
Pharaoh's daughter, this also clearly indicated that he
had received the promise of something higher and
more excellent than "the riches of Egypt," which he
renounced, even "the recompense of the reward," to
which, we are told, "he had respect." When his faith
manifested itself by his forsaking Egypt at the head of
his people, "not fearing the wrath of the king," this
indicated that he had received a promise of protection
and success, and he therefore "endured as seeing him
who is invisible."

If, then, all these instances show, that when the faith which the apostle commends exhibits itself in some particular act, that act has a correspondence to the previous promise or revelation, which faith must have for its ground and reason, then are we constrained to interpret the acts of Abel's faith so as to make them also correspond with some antecedent revelation; or rather, we must suppose, that the antecedent revelation, though not expressly stated (which is also the case in several other of the instances which are given in the chapter), must have corresponded with them. His faith had respect to some previous revelation, and the nature of the revelation is to be collected from the significant manner in which he declared his faith in it.

offering of any kind. The offering of Abel expressed
a faith which Cain had not; and the doctrinal princi-
ples, which Abel's faith respected, were such as his
sacrifice visibly imbodied. If it was not, then, an eu-
charistic sacrifice, it was an expiatory one; and, in
fact, it is only in a sacrifice of this kind, that it is pos-
sible to see that faith exhibited, which Abel had and
Cain had not. By subsequent sacrifices of expiation,
then, is this early expiatory offering to be explained,
and from these it will be obvious to what doctrines and
principles of an antecedent revelation the faith of Abel
had respect, and which his sacrifice, the exhibition
his faith, proclaimed. Confession of the fact of being
a sinner-acknowledgment of the demerit and penalty
of sin and death-submission to an appointed mode of
expiation-animal sacrifice offered vicariously, but in
itself a mere type of a better sacrifice, "the seed of
the woman," appointed to be offered at some future
period-the efficacy of this appointed method of expia-
tion to obtain forgiveness, and to admit the guilty into
the Divine favour.

For these reasons, we think that the conclusion of many of our ancient divines, so admirably imbodied in the following words of Archbishop Magee, is not too strong, but is fully supported by the argument of the case, as founded upon the brief but very explicit declarations of the history of the transaction in Genesis, and by the comment upon it in the Epistle to the Hebrews.

"Abel, in firm reliance on the promise of God, and in obedience to his command, offered that sacrifice which had been enjoined as the religious expression of his faith; while Cain, disregarding the gracious assurances that had been vouchsafed, or at least disdaining to adopt the prescribed mode of manifesting his belief, possibly as not appearing to his reason to possess any efficacy or natural fitness, thought he had sufficiently acquitted himself of his duty in acknowledging the general superintendence of God, and expressing his gratitude to the Supreme Benefactor, by presenting some of those good things, which he thereby confessed to have been derived from his bounty. In short, Cain, the first-born of the fall, exhibits the first fruits of his parents' disobedience, in the arrogance and self-sufficiency of reason rejecting the aids of revelation, because they fell not within its apprehension of rightHe takes the first place in the annals of Deism, and displays, in his proud rejection of the ordinance of sacrifice, the same spirit which in latter days has actuated his enlightened followers, in rejecting the sacrifice of Christ."

Now that which Abel did "by faith" was, if considered generally, to perform an act of solemn worship, in the confidence that it would be acceptable to God. This supposes a revelation, immediate or by tradition, that such acts of worship were acceptable to God, or his faith could have had no warrant, and would not have been faith, but fancy. But the case must be considered more particularly. His faith led him to offer "a more excellent sacrifice" than that of Cain; but this as necessarily implies that there was some antecedent revelation to which his faith, as thus expressed, had respect, and on which that peculiarity of his offering, which distinguished it from the offering of Cain, was founded; a revelation which indicated that the way in which God would be approached acceptably, in solemn worship, was by animal sacrifices. Without this, too, the faith to which his offering (which was an offering of the firstlings of his flock) had a special fitness and adaptation, could have had no warrant in Divine authority. But this revelation must have in- If it should be asked what evidence we have from cluded, in order to its being the ground of faith, as "the Scripture, that such an antecedent revelation as that to substance of things hoped for," a promise of a benefit which we have said Abel's faith must have had respect to be conferred, in which promise Abel might confide. was made,-the reply is, that if this rested only upon But if so, then this promise must have been connected, the necessary inferences, which, in all fairness and not with the worship of God in general, or performed consistency of interpretation, we must draw from the in any way whatever indifferently, but with his wor- circumstances of the transaction, when combined with ship by animal oblations; for it was in this way that the apostle's interpretation of it, the ground would be the faith of Abel indicated itself, specially and distinct- strong enough to enable us to defend it against both ively. The antecedent revelation was, therefore, a the attacks of Socinians and of those orthodox divines, promise of a benefit to be conferred, by means of animal who, like Mr. Davison, would wrest it from us, as an sacrifice; and we are taught what this benefit was, by unnecessary post to be taken in the combat with the that which was actually received by the offerer" he impugners of the Christian doctrine of atonement, or obtained witness that he was righteous;" which, if one which is rather injurious than otherwise to the the notion of his antecedent righteousness has been efficiency of the more direct argument. "Such exporefuted, must be interpreted in the sense of a declara-sitions," says Mr. Davison, "do evil and disservice to tion of his personal justification, and acceptance as truth; they bring in a wrong principle; they enforce righteous, upon forgiveness of his sins. The reason a comment without a text. Such a principle is unof Abel's acceptance and of Cain's rejection is hereby doubtedly wrong, and has been the source of much remade manifest; the one, in seeking the Divine favour, ligious speculation." This we grant, and feel how imconformed to his established and appointed method of portant the caution is. But it does not here apply. It being approached by guilty men, and the other not only is not enough to say that "the text" is not in the neglected this, but profanely and presumptuously sub- "Mosaic history," we must prove that it is not in the stituted his own inventions. New Testament, or necessarily implied in its comments upon and inferences from the Old Testament facts and relations. The "text" itself, supposed to be wanting, may be there, and even "the comment" of an inspired writer often supplies the text, and his reasoning the premises wanting, in so many words, in the brief and veiled narrative of Moses. An uninspired comment, we grant, has not this prerogative; but an inspired one has, which is an important consideration, not to be overlooked. When we say that the MANNA, which fell in the wilderness, represented the supply of the spiritual Israel with the true bread which comes down from heaven, Mr. Davison might reply, This is "the

It is impossible, then, to allow the act of Abel, in this instance, to have been an act of faith, without allowing that it had respect to a previous and appropriate revelation; a revelation which agreed to all the parts of that sacrificial action, by which he expressed his faith in it. Had Abel's sacrifice been eucharistic merely, it would have expressed gratitude, but not faith; or if faith in the general sense of confidence in God that he would receive an act of grateful worship, and reward the worshipper, it did not more express faith than the offering of Cain, who surely believed these two points, or he would not have brought an

is agreeable to the allusions of St. Paul in other parts of the epistle; or else it was matter of separate and unrecorded revelation. In either view, the history of Moses is silent, and yet we are compelled, by the comment of the apostle, and in opposition to the argument which Mr. Davison and others found upon that silence, to allow either a collateral revelation separate from the promise of Canaan, or that that promise itself had a mystic sense which became the object of their faith; and thus the inspired comment of the apostle supplies a text wanting in the history, or an enlarged interpretation of that which is found in it.

comment;" but where is "the text?" We acknowledge that the text upon which this comment is hung is not in the history of Moses; but the authority of this comment, and, if we may so speak, an implied "text" itself, is to be found in the words of our Lord, who calls himself "that bread;" and in the words of St. Paul, who terms the manna the "spiritual" or typical bread. If we allege that the "ROCK," which when smitten poured forth its stream to refresh the fainting Israelites, was a figure of Christ, it might in like manner be urged, that the "text" is wanting, and certainly, we should not gather that view from the history of Moses; yet "the comment" is not ours, but that of the apostle, who says, "that rock was Christ," which can only be understood as asserting that it was an instituted and appointed type of Christ. Where we have no intimations of such adumbrations in the persons and transactions of the Old Testament, we are not at liberty to invent them, nor can we justly carry them beyond what is expressed by our inspired authority, or naturally and fairly inferred to be from it. On the other hand, we are bound not to interpret the Old Testament without reference to the New; and not to disregard that light which the perfect revelation affords, not only by its direct effulgence, but by its reflections upon the history of our redemption, up to the earliest ages. If it be argued, from the silence of the Mosaic history, that such types and allusions were not understood as such by the persons among whom they were first instituted, the answer is, 1. That though they should not be supposed capable of understanding them as clearly as we do, yet it must be supposed, that the spiritual among them had their knowledge and faith greatly assisted by them, and that they were among those "wondrous things of the law," which were, in some measure, revealed to those who prayed with David, that their eyes might be opened "to behold them," or otherwise they were totally without religious use during all the ages previous to Christianity, and we must come to the conclusion that the whole system of types was without edification to the Jews, and are instructive only to us. If we conclude thus as to types, we may come to the same conclusion as to the prophecies of Messiah, to the spiritual meaning and real application of many of which there appears to be as little indication of a key as to the types. But this cannot be affirmed, for St. Peter tells us, that of this "salvation the prophets searched diligently who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you; searching what or what man-pressive action (an action, probably, intended to be ner of time the spirit which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow." The prophecies could, probably, be but dimly interpreted; but something was known of their general meaning, something important was obtained by "searching" to reward the search into their import. The same discovery of the general import and bearing of the types must also have rewarded a search equally eager and pious. If this is not allowed, then they were not types to the ancient church, a position which is contradicted by St. Paul, who declares as to one instance, which may serve for the rest, namely, the entering of "the priest alone once every year into the inner tabernacle," that by this "the Holy Ghost SIGNIFIED that the way to the holiest was not yer made manifest," and that the tabernacle itself, including, of course, its services, "was a figure FOR THE TIME THEN PRESENT, in or during which gifts and sacrifices were offered."

But, 2. We have, in one of the instances before adverted to in Hebrews xi., a direct proof of a distinct revelation, which is nowhere recorded in the Mosaic history separate from the temporal promise in which it appears to have been involved. By faith Abraham, having received the promise of Canaan as "a place which he should afterward receive for an inheritance," went to sojourn there; but by faith also he sojourned in this land of promise as a stranger, dwelling in tents, "for he looked for a city which had foundations," for the "heavenly state," and by that act he, and Isaac, and Jacob, "the heirs with him of the same PROMISE," declared plainly that they "desired a better country, even a heavenly." Of this better country they then received a PROMISE, which promise is not distinctly recorded in the history of Moses; and it must, therefore, have been either included in the promise of Canaan, which was made to them and their descendants, as a type, an understood type, of the eternal and heavenly rest, which

With this case of Abraham, Mr. Davison is evidently perplexed, and feels how forcibly it bears against his own rules of interpreting the Mosaic history of the religion of those earlier ages. He justly contends, against Grotius and Le Clerc, that the object of the faith recorded in Hebrews xi. was not always a temporal one. But, then, he proposes to show "how God, without having granted to those patriarchs the explicit revelation of an eternal heavenly state, a revelation which is no where exhibited in the Pentateuch, trained them to the aim and implicit persuasion of that eternal state by large and indefinite promises of being their God' and 'their great reward,' promises to which the present life, as to them, furnished no adequate completion." Thus, then, we are to conclude, that the heavenly state to which these patriarchs looked, was a matter of entire inference from the promise that God would be "their God and their reward," and from the consideration that nothing had occurred to them, in this present life, to be adequate to these promises. To the latter we may reply that, if this were the only ground of their faith, they could not have made the inference till the close of life; for how could they know that something adequate to these promises, if not previously explained to refer chiefly to the future state, might not yet, though after much delay, occur to them? But they had this faith from the very giving of the promises, and, therefore, it was not left to future inference from circumstances. With respect to the former, that they inferred that there was a heavenly state, from the promise to Abraham, "I will be thy God," when no previous "explicit revelation" of a future state was made; it not only supposes that the patriarchs had no revelation at all of a future life, no knowledge of the soul's immortality, or of a general judgment; of which, indeed, "Enoch prophesied;" but it is inconsistent with the public and ex instructive as a symbolical one to all with whom Abra ham was connected in Canaan), that he "dwelt in tents," in order "to declare plainly that he sought a better country." This, surely, was not an action to be founded upon a probable, but still uncertain, inference from the unexplained general promise, "I will be thy GoD;" but one which was suited only to express a firm faith in an explicit revelation and a particular promise.

But the whole of this theory is swept away entirely by the declaration of the apostle, "These all died in faith, not having received THE PROMISES," that is, the things promised; "but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth;" strangers, not at home, pilgrims journeying to it. Now this home, this better country which they sought, the apostle here expressly says was not to them matter of inference, but the subject of "PROMISES," in the faith of which they both lived and died.

In the case of Abel's offering, as in those just given, the inspired comment of the apostle supplies "the text" to the history; or, in other words, it so illustrates and enlarges our knowledge of the transaction, in its principles and antecedent circumstances, that we are bound to understand it not as persons who have not this additional information, or those who choose to disregard it, but as it is explained upon authority not to be questioned. Abel, says the apostle, offered his more excellent sacrifice" by faith," and faith must have respect to a preceding revelation.

We have just seen what doctrinal principles were implied in the practice of expiatory sacrifices, and if Abel's sacrifice was of this kind, which is the only satisfactory account which can be given of it, we have no reason to suppose that it included any thing less or lower than those appointed under the law, and which are expressly stated to be types and figures, and sha

Abel. That man was under law is certain; that death was the penalty of sin is equally certain. That the first pair sinned, and that they did not die, notwithstanding the law, were obvious facts. That the terms of their probation were changed, and that they were not shut out for ever from the Divine regard were circumstances equally clear; and also that they had means of apof sanctification, means of obtaining eternal life, must also be necessarily inferred. Claims of justice and yearnings of mercy in GoD were seen at natural and legal variance and opposition; and if these were harmonized, and harmonized they were, or "the Lamb" could not be said to have been slain "from the foundation of the world," then must we suppose that there was some indication of this "wisdom of God" revealed for a practical end, the necessity of which must always have existed, to prevent despair on the one hand, and a presumptuous disregard of the Divine laws on the other. Though in figurative language, or symbolical action, the manifestation of this truth might be made, yet it must have been substantially made, or it could not have been practical and influential. A veiled truth is yet a truth, though veiled. A shadow indicates the outline of the substance, though a shadow; and the sun, though shrouded with clouds, fills the hemisphere with light, though not with brightness, for day, however clouded, is far different from night. We cannot conceive of a theology at all suited, in any practical degree, to man's fallen state, unless it comprehend the particulars we have given, as well as the knowledge of the existence and perfections of God; and if we find an express indication of the evangelical method of saving man by the interposition of the incarnate Son of God, we may be sure that, at least, all that this indication, when fairly interpreted, contains, was known to Abel before he offered his sacrifice; and, both from the brevity of the narrative and the office of Adam as the teacher of religion to his children, we might also infer that this indication was matter of converse and explanation, though this latter consideration we shall not insist upon.

dows of the evangelical expiation of sin. An antecedent revelation to this effect must be supposed as the ground of his faith; but we are not left wholly to this: we have an account, though brief, of such a revelation. That the account is brief is no objection. What is written is not, for that reason, to be disregarded. There were, doubtless, reasons sufficiently wise why the history of the patriarchal ages was not more largely given.proach to God, means of obtaining his favour, means If it were only to exercise our diligence, and to lead us to resort to what has been called "the analogy of faith," and to interpret Scripture by Scripture, the reason would be important. In arguing from this brevity or silence, however, both against the Divine institution of primitive sacrifice, and the evangelical interpretation of the sacrifice of Abel, some writers are apt to overlook the fact, that the Book of Genesis is but a sketch of this period of ancient history; that it is so throughout, and that it nowhere professes to be more. Arguments of this kind, as that of Bishop Warburton, who thinks it strange that if sacrifice were of Divine institution, not more is said on so important a subject, seem, insensibly, to proceed upon the supposition that the Book of Genesis was the ritual and directory of the patriarchal church, as that of Leviticus was the ritual of the Jewish. The absence of any account of the institution and prescribed mode of sacrifice might, in that case, have been thought strange; but it is a brief history, evidently intended only to be introductory to that of God's chosen people, the Jews, whose proper historiographer Moses, by Divine suggestion, became. Moses grounds no argument upon any part of it in favour of his own institutions, except it may be an implied one in favour of the peculiar relation of the Jews to God, as the seed of Abraham, to whom the land of Canaan was promised, and with whom a special covenant was made. The history of Abraham he was, therefore, bound to relate more at length, and he has done so; but where no immediate application of former events was to be made in this way, and the object was merely that of brief general instruction, we can see no particular rules binding upon him to omit or to insert any thing, to dilate, or to contract his narrative. If we are to argue from the brevity or the omissions of the narrative of the Book of Genesis, we may often fall into great absurdities, as many have done; and it might, indeed, be almost as fairly argued from the silence of this rapid history of the antediluvian world, that no code of morals was Divinely enjoined before the giving of the ten commandments, as that sacrifices were not Divinely instituted before the mandates issued from Sinai; for the silence of the Book of Genesis equally respects both. We rather choose to argue, that as moral obedience must respect a law, and authoritative law must be a revelation from God; so as faith respects doctrine and promise, that doctrine and those promises, if faith be obligatory, must also be a revelation from God; and, again, as we collect from God's displeasure against, or favour to, certain kinds and courses of moral conduct, that man was under a law which respected morals; so also, from his acceptance of one kind of sacrifice, and his rejection of another, in the case of Cain and Abel, it will, for the same reason, follow, that man was under a law of sacrifice, and more especially since the sacrifices to which God, in after ages, had uniform and special respect, were of the same kind as that of Abel, animal, vicarious, and expiatory. In morals, we must suppose either traditional or personal revelation, or else give to them a human origin or invention, and in worship we have only the same alternative; but to give to primitive morality one origin and to primitive worship another; to ascribe one to God and another to man, is to form a very incongruous system, and to involve ourselves in great difficulties. We must suppose Adam to have been an inspired teacher of morals, but to have left worship indifferent; or, if we exclude traditional revelation, and assume that every man was taught personally by God in those times, that God made revelations of his law, but none of his grace; that he revealed the standard by which every man might discover his sin and danger, but that he made no discovery of the means by which a man, painfully sensible of his guilt and liableness to the punishment, might approach him so as to obtain his forgiveness and blessing.

But besides this, it is easy to collect, from the sacred record in the early part of Genesis, brief as it is, no unimportant information of the theology which existed in the first family even prior to the sacrifice of

It is in the first promise that this indication is to be found, and here we shall join issue with Mr. Davison as to its import, and the extent in which its meaning must have been understood in the first family.

In another part of this work it has been established, that this prophetic promise must be understood symbolically, and that it contained the first manifestation of Messiah. This, indeed, Mr. Davison acknowledges, but denies that his Divine nature, incarnation, the vicarious nature of his sufferings, and their atoning efficacy could be inferred from it. As his remarks contain all that can be said against the commonly received opinion that it contained an intimation of all these, we may quote them. They contain some truth and much error. "One object of faith has been always the same; that object the Redeemer. The original promise in Paradise created this prospect of faith to be the light and hope of the world for ever. But that original promise could not be interpreted by itself into the several parts of its appointed completion. The general prediction of the redeeming seed, it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel,' though adequate in the mind of God, to the determinate form of the Christian redemption, could not be so deduced into its final sense by the mind of man. And since there is no other promise or prediction extant, applicable to the faith of the first ages, and explanatory of the mode of the Christian redemption, we can justly ascribe no other knowledge of that redemption to those ages than such as is comprehended in the proper and apparent sense of the first evangelical promise, in which the particular notion of a sacrifice of expiation or atonement, or, indeed, of any sacrifice, was then impossible to be discovered. It was the office of later revelation to fill up the design of this promise, and revelation, alone, could do it. For the deductions of supernatural truth are not within the sphere of human intellect. They are not to be inferred as discoverable conclusions from one primary principle. A Redeemer being foretold, his Divine nature, his incar nation, the vicarious nature of his sufferings, his death, and the atoning efficacy of it, all these, though real connexions of truth, comprehended with the original promise, in the scheme of the Divine economy, came down to man, like new streams of light, by these separate channels, and when they are communicated in