My readers may pause, here, and read prayerfully the following scriptures, namely, Psalm i.; Isaiah i. 11-18; and Acts xvii. 22-34, in all of which he will find distinctly laid down the truth as to man's true position before God, as also the proper ground of worship. Let us now consider Abel's sacrifice. "And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof." In other words, he entered, by faith, into the glorious truth, that God could be approached by sacrifice; that there was such a thing as a sinner's placing the death of another between himself and the consequence of his sin, that the claims of God's nature and the attributes of his character could be met by the blood of a spotless victim,--a victim offered to meet God's demands, and the sinner's deep necessities. This is, in short, the doctrine of the cross, in which alone the conscience of a sinner can find repose, because, therein, God is fully glorified. Every divinely-convicted sinner must feel that death and judgment are before him, as "the due reward of his deeds;" nor can he, by aught that he can accomplish, alter that destiny. He may toil and labor; he may, by the sweat of his brow, produce an offering; he may make vows and resolutions; he may alter his way of life; he may reform his outward character; he may be temperate, moral, upright, and, in the human acceptation of the word, religious; he may, though entirely destitute of faith, read, pray, and hear sermons. In short, he may do any thing, or every thing which lies within the range of human competency; but, notwithstanding all, "death and judgment" are before him. He has not been able to disperse those two heavy clouds which have gathered upon the horizon. There they stand; and, so far from being able to remove them, by all his doings, he can only live in the gloomy anticipation of the moment when they shall burst upon his guilty head. It is impossible for a sinner, by his own works, to place himself in life and triumph, at the other side of "death and judgment,"--yea, his very works are only performed for the purpose of preparing him, if possible, for those dreaded realities.