one his day;” and that on these occasions it was their custom to “send and call for their three sisters to eat and to drink with them;” a token, (as a well-known commentator has fairly enough conjectured,) both of their harmonious family affection and of the good order and conduct which prevailed in their feastings, or so holy a man as Job would not have permitted his daughters to join in their festivity.  But, nevertheless, we read that Job in his anxious care was mindful to intercede for them, even in case they might have erred or sinned in the fulness of their rejoicing, or in the exuberance of their mirth.  “And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt-offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, It may be that my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts.  Thus did Job continually.” [24]

Here, then, we have no doubtful witness, not merely to the usage of sacrifice, but to its acceptableness also in the sight of God, as a part of worship and intercession.  And this is all the more, not merely curious, but important, when we reflect upon the very early date almost universally assigned to the events related in the Book of Job.  Whether the record itself may have been composed at a somewhat later period, as some have thought, yet all authorities are, I believe, agreed that the time of Job’s life was contemporaneous with even the earliest part of the life of Moses, and, therefore, that he did not derive his knowledge of God from the institutions of the Jews, or live under the Mosaic dispensation.  The consenting witness, both of the Jews themselves and of the early Christian writers accepting their testimony, is that Job is the same as Jobab, mentioned in the first book of Chronicles, who is there named as the third in descent from Esau; so that he, as well as Moses, was the fifth in descent from Abraham,—the one in the line of Esau, and the other in the line of Jacob.  Moreover, it would appear that this Job or Jobab was, if not absolutely what may be termed a king, yet a ruler and a prince in the land called Uz, or Ausitis, a country on the confines, probably, of Idumæa and Arabia.  If this be so, he would seem, from the summary given in the first book of Chronicles, to have succeeded Balaam in the sovereignty or chiefdom of that country.  “For,” (says that narrative,) “these are the kings that reigned in the land of Edom, before any king reigned over the children of Israel; Bela the son of Beor,” (undoubtedly the same as Balaam); “and the name of his city was Dinhabah.  And when Bela was dead, Jobab the son of Zerah of Bozrah reigned in his stead.” [26a]  Now we find in the book of Numbers, that Balaam the son of Beor was killed in battle, fighting on the side of Midian in the last year of the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness, [26b] and supposing Job’s trial to have taken place (as some ancient writers assert) some few years after the Exodus, as he lived one hundred and forty years after those events, he may very well have succeeded to the chief place among the Idumæan or Uzzite people upon the death of Balaam.  The importance of this to our present purpose lies in the fact, that he is thus a witness to the antiquity and the use of sacrifice and burnt-offering, quite independently of the institutions and commands of the Mosaic law.  If Job were of man’s estate, and had sons and daughters of like estate also, (as the narrative unquestionably implies,) even before his sufferings, he must have been born not far in time from the birth of Moses, probably some little while before him; and what he “did continually” in his own country, and apart from Moses, is a witness to the practice and acceptableness of sacrifice, anterior to the enactments of the law from Sinai; and a witness, not merely, let us observe, to the use of sacrifice, but to sacrifice by burnt-offering, when the victim was killed and consumed upon the altar of God.

Now this leads us back to consider what is the probable origin of sacrifice, and sacrifice of this kind, altogether; for it is thus evident, that it was adopted into, and not originated by, the peculiar institutions of the Jewish nation and law.

Now, of course we see at once where we must turn for the first account of sacrifice.  The primal exercise of this mode of approach to God, is that recorded in the fourth chapter of the book of Genesis, which shews at once the need which the Fall had brought upon man of drawing nigh to God, not without a propitiation; and at the same time exhibits, in sad prominence, the first-fruits of that corruption of nature entailed by it, which provoked the eldest-born of the world, in malignant envy of heart, to slay his next born brother.

Let us turn, then, to a brief consideration of those events, as illustrative of the origin and nature of sacrifice.

Look first to St. John’s and St. Paul’s account of the cause of Cain’s quarrel against his brother Abel.  “And wherefore slew he him?” (says St. John), “Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.” [27a]  And St. Paul tells us wherein Abel’s righteousness and superiority consisted: “By faith he offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts.” [27b]  The narrative in the Book of Genesis tells us the same thing as to the fact that Cain’s offering was rejected and Abel’s accepted; but without the Apostle’s comment we should not have precisely traced the cause of this rejection and acceptance: but we know now that it was faith in the one and a want of faith in the other, in which the distinction lay; and also that somehow this difference was exhibited in the gifts which they brought: “God” (of Abel) “testifying of his gifts.”  By this, too, St. Paul tells us, “He being dead still speaketh;” a statement which brings the whole matter home to ourselves.  The narrative then is this: “And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.  And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.  And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof.  And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: but unto Cain and to his offering He had not respect.” [28]

This takes us back to the origin of sacrifice; and the first remark which occurs is, that it would seem highly probable that its institution was a matter of revelation from God to Adam; for though mere