were any that did understand and seek God. But, behold! they are _all_ gone aside, there is none that doeth good, no _not one_.” Psal. xiv. 2, 3. A passage of scripture this, which the Apostle Paul quotes in Rom. iii. “to prove that both Jews and Gentiles are _all under sin_.” Rom. iii. 9. 2. The appointment of sacrifices, as typifying the way of salvation through Christ, appears to have been one of Jehovah’s earliest institutions after the fall. For the flesh of those animals, with the skins of which the Lord God clothed our first parents, was probably offered up as a sacrifice; the one, prefigurative of the expiatory death of Christ, and the other, of the imputation of his righteousness, that best robe, with which the nakedness of guilty sinners is covered from the eye of God’s justice. This supposition respecting the appointment of sacrifices immediately after the fall, appears to be confirmed by the conduct of Abel. The great characteristic of his piety consisted in the presenting to the Lord “of the firstlings of the flock.” Gen. iv. 4. This act, which implied a consciousness of his guilt, and a dependence on the great propitiation of the Messiah, was done in faith; and, therefore, “Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.” Heb. xi. 4. The same institution, which Jehovah appointed to Adam and his household, and was continued through the patriarchal æra, became at last one of the principal ceremonies in the law of Moses. The necessity of an atonement for sin was promulgated in every beast that was slain; and the great truth was not only kept up by the solemnity of an annual festival, but also by a daily sacrifice. The blood poured forth upon these occasions was called the blood of atonement. The constant repetition of sacrifices was intended to preach that unalterable maxim, common both to the law and the gospel, that “without shedding of blood is no remission.” And what the economy of Moses exhibited in shadowy types, was at last illustrated substantially in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, who “hath offered one sacrifice for sin, and hath put it away by the offering of himself once for all.” Heb. x. 12. So that both law and gospel unite in proclaiming to the inhabitants of the earth, that “there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved;” but the all-meritorious name of the Lamb of God. Acts, iv. 12.