ject, we are at no loss for information, and can hardly err, as to the divine intention, in the institution of those sacrifices in which the shedding of blood, and the extinction of life, was the main and the remarkable part. For surely we must see clearly by the light of innumerable portions of God's word, as well as by the whole context of scripture, that in the institution of these bloody rites, God designed to exhibit still more explicitly and distinctly to His fallen children, the promise already vouchsafed to them, that the seed of the woman should bruise that serpent's head, by whom at the same time his own heel would also be bruised; and we must therefore believe, that Adam, instructed by God, would discern in the death and sufferings of the animals he was from henceforth to offer in sacrifice, the great Antitype whom they were all designed to prefigure. In the beasts slain by our first father at the command of God, Adam would see the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world in Jehovah's purpose; the incarnate God, who according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God the Father, should in the fulness of time, be crucified and slain by the hands of wicked men. Rev. xiii. 8. Acts ii. 23. But in the sufferings and extinguished life of the sacrificial victims-a life extinguished by his own hand-Adam would also be admonished of his own sin, and would be reminded, that not only had his violation of the Law brought death upon the whole world which he inhabited, and upon all orders of its creatures, but more than this, that it had extended its baneful power into the highest heavens, attacking there the august person of the eternal Son, who in the ages to come should stand upon the

earth in the likeness of the sinner, and bear his
doom.
And upon what a different footing was
Adam's worship of God now to stand! No fresh
law was enjoined him to keep, in recognition of the
claim of the Creator upon the obedience of His
creature, but on the contrary, he was to be con-
tinually proclaiming his conviction that he was a
sinner, who through his breach of the law had in-
curred the penalty of death, which death however
he believed would be ultimately remitted by the
grace and mercy of his God, through the future gift
of the promised Seed. God could only be approached
now through the medium of confession of sin, and
any attempt to render Him the original worship of
simple legal obedience, would be only a new attack
upon his already insulted majesty. Not that Adam
was released by the commission of sin from his first
obligation to fulfil the whole law of God, whatever
that law engraven on the heart might be, for the
creature can never by any possibility be released
from his obligation to obey God; but it would evince
a daring ignorance and impiety on the part of the
sinful creature, should he now presume to worship
God or to stand before him, in any supposed righte-
ousness of his own. Whilst therefore the Law of
universal obedience to every command of God re-
mained in full force, and as binding as ever on
guilty man, he was not from henceforth to ground
his confidence of the divine acceptance upon any
consciousness of his own renewed obedience to the
Law, but rather, humbly confessing himself a trans-
gressor, he was to feel himself consoled by the
knowledge that, sinner as he had made himself, the
grace of God could yet reach his miserable case,

and that God would yet magnify His Law and make it honorable, without pouring out all the deserved vials of His wrath upon the guilty sinner's head. And wherefore doubt that some such revelations as these were made to Adam by his Maker, when God for the first time ordained the use of sacrifices? It cannot be that our first father was ignorant of the import of the sacrificial types, but rather it is probable that his knowledge was far more accurate on this important matter than is usually supposed, and that to the revelations first made to him in connexion with these mystic rites, that knowledge which his descendants afterwards possessed, ought properly to be traced up. That Adam discerned the transfer of sin from his own person to the person of the future Saviour, as clearly as we now discern it since the advent of Jesus, we may indeed not only fairly question, but disprove from scripture; but we must still admit that this precious truth must have been made known to him, and apprehended by his faith, at least in a degree. Nor can we reasonably doubt, that when the Creator clothed the polluted forms of His guilty creatures, with the skins of the beasts that had been previously slain and offered to Himself in sacrifice, that in that clothing, given them of God, our first parents would be directed by His Spirit, to discern the righteousness which God would put upon the sinner, in virtue of the death of the heavenly Lamb. And what is the righteousness which is imputed by God to the believing sinner? Is it not the righteousness of the God-man, Jesus? Is it not the obedience of the second Adam, which is transferred and reckoned to the first Adam and his seed, even as their sin is transferred and reckoned

upon the person of the Lord Jesus? We know that it is so and how then shall we fail to perceive in that mystic clothing, which we are told was fashioned by the very hand of God Himself, the true emblem of that sacred robe which Jesus wrought for the covering of His elect bride, that the shame of her nakedness might no more be seen; or how question the fact, that to Adam and his wife it was revealed by the Comforter, that as the garments which they now received from their benign Creator, would effectually clothe their mortal bodies, so He would also provide for them, in connexion with the advent of the promised Seed, a vesture for their immortal souls, in which arrayed, they should hereafter, without fear, lift up their heads before the assembled universe of God, yea, stand unabashed before the judgment-seat of the God of the assembled multitudes of heaven! That the glorious doctrine of the imputation of Christ's righteousness to His believing people was not altogether concealed from Adam, we may well believe, although, as we also know, that precious truth could not be so fully apprehended by the faith of the ancient church, as by ours; for it must be admitted that they only discerned afar off, that glory of the only-begotten of the Father, which has been brought within the immediate view of the church of the last days.

THE HEALING TOUCH.

"COULD I but touch his garment's hem,"
The woe-worn mourner said;
"The act my secret plague would stem,
And yield me instant aid!"

She touched, and in her inmost soul
She felt herself at once made whole.

Long had she sought for help in vain
From earthly care and skill;
No ease, no respite could she gain,
But grew in weakness still:

And now she has but touched the Lord,
And lo! her health's at once restor'd.

O woman! matchless was thy faith,
And wondrous was its pow'r ;
It saved thy sinking frame from death,
And healed thee in an hour:

And more, far more, a hope it gave
Of endless youth beyond the grave !

Thy case was mine. A fell disease,

Which seized me from the womb, Consumed my strength by marked degrees, And wrapt my soul in gloom;

A deadly plague, which gnawed within,
The foul, corroding plague of sin.