: that so no one might have any excuse for withholding it at its proper season. ” It is of the first of these that we are to speak at this time. Of the propitiatory sacrifices we have an account of no less than six different sorts (all of which are stated in the seven first chapters of Leviticus ) “the burnt-offering, the meat-offering, the sin-offering, the trespass-offering, the offering of consecrations, and the peace-offering.
Sacrifices are of two kinds, propitiatory, and eucharistical the one to make atonement for sins committed the other to render thanks for mercies received. 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 intended to prefigure. 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. 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. THE institution of sacrifices may be considered as nearly coeval with the world itself. 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. 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 congregation, before the Lord.
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