IV. PURER NOTIONS ON SACRIFICES.

In a higher degree, perhaps, than other ceremonial observances, the rites of sacrifice were liable to be severed from motives of true morality, and thus to lose their beneficient influenco. The elements of edification were encumbered and almost oppressed by outward acts and even coarse manipulations. Prayer or spontaneous confession, even if it accompanied the imposition of the hand, could obtain neither prominence nor weight. Sacrifices, therefore, easily became ineffectual for religious clevation; they deteriorated into a lifeless form; they were apt to engonder that hollow and pharasaical hypocrisy which, under tho studied appearance of righteousness, concoals iniquity and corruption. The Israelites were pro-eminently subject to such debasement. Irresistibly attracted by the numerous forms of superstition which surrounded them, and but rarely induced by some powerful mind to adopt the worship of Jehovah, soon again to rolapse into their usual and more congenial croods, they showed little readiness to understand the deeper import of the sacrificos: they failed to employ them either as manifestations of pious submission and gratitude, or as aids for recovering the peace and purity of their hearts. The danger of an unintelligent and mechanical service was naturally greatest in the earlier periods when the authority of public-spirited advisers was the principal and the precarious source of national instruction, because no writton Law oxisted or was diffused to guide and to enlighten. Yet the admonitions and warnings of such noble teachers were equally incessant and impressive; and they contained the germs of a universal religion. "I desire mercy", says Hosea, "and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt-offorings." Amos, indignantly denouncing a falso servico devoid of rectitude, writes, "I hato says God I despise your feast-days, and I take no dolight in your solemn assemblies: for if you offer Me burnt-offerings, and your bloodless offorings, I will not accept them; nor will I regard the thank-offerings of your fat beasts... but let justice flow like water, and righteousness like a never-failing streain."2 More emphatically still Isaiah inveighs against the profitloss' and sinful worship ungraced by piety. He prodicts the most awful calamities "because the people honour God with their lips while their hearts are far from Him, and their fear of the Lord is a precopt taught by men."3 He proclaims with rising vehemence, "Of what avail is the multitude of your sacrificos? says the Lord: I am satiated with burnt-offerings

1 VI. 6; comp. VIII.13; IX. 3, 4; XIV. 3. 2 V. 21-24; comp. IV. 4, 5.

3 Isai. XXIX. 13, 14; comp. Eccl. V. 1; Matth. XV. 7-9.

of rams, and the fat of fattoned beasts; and for the blood of bullocks, and of lambs, and of ho-goats I have no desire... Bring Me no more oblations of falsehood; inconse is an abomination to Mo, the newmoons, and sabbaths, and convocation of fostivo mootings; I cannot bear iniquity and solemn assembly ... And when you spread forth your hands, I hide My eyes from you: even when you multiply prayer, I do not listen: your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, remove your wicked deeds from My eyes, coaso to do evil, learn to do good, seek justico, rostrain the insolent, procuro justice to the orphan, pload for the widow." It is a maxim in Proverbs, "The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination; how much more when he offers it with a deceitful mind !" 5

But these and similar exhortations, however powerful, remained long unavailing; they required renewed injunction even during the latest periods of the commonwealth. In the prophecies of Jeromiah, God asks with stern reproof, "To what purpose does incense come for Me from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a distant land? your burntofferings are not acceptable, and your sacrifices are not pleasing to Mo"; and ho adds the reason, "Because you have not hearkened to My words, and have rejected My Law." And considerably more than a century lator, Malachi finds cause for bitter complaint: the sacrifices were not presented in the true spirit; avaricious priests polluted the altars by offoring maimod and sick, yea oven stolen animals; and God, offendod and revolted, proclaims, "Who among you would close tho doors, that you might not kindlo fire on My altar in vain? I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord of hosts, and I will accept no offering at your hand."

In the mean time, however, the notions of the deity and the true requirements of religion advanced in depth and refinement. Thoughtful men bogan to look upon sacrificos, as upon other ceremonials, as less and less essential; while, in the same proportion, they attached greater significance to inward piety and to a life of truth and duty. In a Psalm attributed to Asaph, God declares, "I do not reprove thee on account of thy sacrifices, for thy burnt-offerings are continually before Me; I will take no bullock out of thy houso, nor he-goats out of thy folds; for overy beast of the forest is Mino, and the cattle on a thousand hills . . . If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is Mine and the fulness thoroof. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or

4 I. 11-17.

5 Prov. XXI. 27; comp. XV. 8; XXVIII. 9; Eccl. IV. 17.

6 Jer. VI. 19, 20; comp. XXXI. 31-33.

7 1. 10; comp. similar reproaches in vers. 7, 8, 13, 14.

drink the blood of goats? Offer to God thanksgiving, and pay thy vows to the most High: and call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me." Another Psalm expresses more briefly the same sentiment, "I will praise the name of God with song, and will extol Him with thanksgiving: this will please the Lord better than ox or bullock with horns and hoofs;"2 and similarly, "To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice;" or "Has the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to oboy is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." In the account of the sacrificos of Cain and Abel, the chiof stress is evidently laid on the frame of mind of the offerers, not on the nature of their gifts."

3

Some passages go even beyond this point. "Sacrifice and offering", says a Psalmist, "Thou dost not desire, this didst Thou reveal to me; burntoffering and sin-offering Thou dost not require. Then said I, Bohold, I como with the scroll of the Book written in my heart; to do Thy will, my God, is my delight, and Thy Law is within my mind." And again, "O Lord, open Thou my lips, and let my mouth rolate Thy praise. For Thou desirest not sacrifico, else would I give it; Thou delightest not in burnt-offering: the sacrifices of God are a humble spirit; a humble and contrite heart, o God, Thou dost not despise." Or, "Whorewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God the exaltod? shall I come before Him with burnt-offerings, with yourling calves? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ton thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has declared to thee, o man, what is good: and what does the Lord require of theo, but to do justico, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God?" 8 Terms like these seem almost to imply an absoluto rejection of the sacrificial service, and to insist upon an internal approach to God's holiness alone. But such conclusion would be wholly unwarranted. The beautiful penitential Psalm from which we have quoted, concludes with a prayer for the restoration of Jerusalem and the Temple, "then shalt Thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt-offering and entire holocausts; then will they offor bullocks upon Thy altar." Joel, interpreting a torrible locust plague as the Divine retribution for wickedness, indeed beautifully oxhorted the people, "Rend your hoart, and not your garments"; but he

exhorted them also to turn to God "with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning." 10 Jeremiah, wrath at the intolerable callousness. engendered by a false formalism, exclaimed, "Thus says the Lord. of hosts, the God of Israel, Put your burnt-offerings to your sacrifices, and eat flesh; for I spoke not to your fathers, nor commanded them at the time when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burntofferings and sacrifices. But this I commanded them, saying, Obey My voico, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people; and walk you in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well to you." But doos this provo that Jeremiah entirely repudiated tho sacrificial service? Nothing would be more erroneous. He elsewhere declared, "Thus says the Lord, David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel; neither shall the priests, the Levites, want a man before Me to offer burnt-offerings, and to kindlo bloodless offerings, and to perform sacrifice continually." 12 Or does that passage at least, as has been contended, testify to the merely optional character of the offerings set forth in the Lovitical law? This is antecedently impossible from the simple fact that Jeremiah could not have referred to the contents of Leviticus at all, as has above boen proved. 13 But it is also overthrown by the slightest comparison with the Levitical legislation. Optional were indeed the sacrifices and oblations voluntary from their nature, as the private holocausts, and tho private thank-offerings; and herewith of course corresponds the wording of the toxt: but the law of the public holocausts to bo offorod daily and on festivals, is plainly categorical; the expiatory sacrifices are distinctly and positively commanded as indispensable instruments for restoring purity of mind or body. 16 The case is similar with respect to Deutero-Isaiah, the gifted and noble-minded author of the last portion of the Book of Isaiah. 17 In one passage, he seems to rise to the highest and most spiritual form of worship. He first addresses the pious, "Thus says the Lord, the heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool: where is the house which you could build to Me? and where is the place for My rest? For all these things has My hand made, and all those things were called into existence, speaks the Lord: but upon him will I look who is humble and lowly in mind, and who trembles at My word." Thon abruptly turning to the wicked, and describing their sacrifices as abominations, because performod in iniquity, he adds,

10 Joel II. 12, 13.

11 VII. 21-23; comp. vers. 3-10; III. 16.

12 Jer. XXXIII. 17, 18; comp. XVII. 26; XXXI. 14; XXXIII. 11. 13 Sec p. 37.

14 Lev. I. 2, 3, 14; II. 1; III. 1; cle. 18 Lev. VI. 1-6; XXIII. 12, 13, 18, 19, etc. 16 Lev. IV.2,3, 13, 14, clc.; V. 1 sqq., 14 sqq., 17 sqq., 20 sqq.; clc. 17 Chapt. XL. to LXVI.

2

"He who kills an ox, slays a man; he who sacrifices a lamb, strangles. a dog; he who offers an oblation, offers swine's blood; he that burns incense, worships an idol." He declares, therefore, even the lawful sacrifices prosented to Jehovah really like deeds of murder and idolatry, unless proceeding from an honest and unstained mind. Yet he is far from disparaging sacrifices in general. Drawing an enthusiastic picture of the happy time when justice, and uprightness, and charity, will reign triumphant, he promises that then God will bring oven strangers to His holy mountain; for, says He, "I will make them rejoice in My house of prayer; their burnt-offerings and their sacrificos shall be accepted on My altar; for My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations." The compulsory suspension of sacrifices, whether occasioned by drought and famine, or hostile invasion and oppression, was always lamented as a national disaster. In fact, sacrifices were novor omitted in descriptions of the Messianic age, when distant nations are expected to accumulate offerings to Jehovah, and when kings will prosont their choicest treasures and the fatlings of their herds. In this respect, legislators, priests, and prophets, shared the views of the bulk of the people; offerings satisfied the religious aspirations of all alike.

Yet the Levitical sacrifices have frequently been classed among the institutions permitted merely on account of the peoplo's "hardness of heart." They wore so regarded by most of the Fathers of the Church, and by several Jewish writors, and many catholic theologians. This opinion was advocated chiefly on dogmatic grounds; it was deemed inappropriate that the people enlightened by revelation should have forms of public worship in common with heathens; many, therefore, depreciated the value and origin of the sacrifices, which others, looking chiefly to the Pentateuch, were inclined to represent as Divine.

But the view in question is utterly untenable. The sacrifices form undeniably an indispensable part, may a main pillar of the Mosaic theology. They may indood, in a certain sense, not incorrectly be described as a means both of religious discipline and of religious education; but the compilers of the Pentateuch thus employed them because they were convinced of their intrinsic value as instruments of grace; they would not have used them for the highest ends, had they

That is, acts as if he slew a man. 2 LXVI. 1-3; comp. XLIII. 23, 24.

Isai. L.VI. 7; comp. LVIII. 2 --10. 4 Hos. III. 4; Joel I. 9, 13 sqq.; ele. comp. also Dan. VIII. 11, 12; IX. 27; XI. 31; XII. 11.

5 Isai. XIX. 21.

Isai. LX. 7; comp. Ezek. XIXLVIII; espec. XL. 39; XLII. 13; XLIV. 29; XLV. 18-25; XLVI. 20; Zeph. III. 10; Zech. XIV. 20, 21; Mal. I. 11; III. 3, 4.