human sacrifices, and also in order to cany out those forms of representative worship, which characterized the Jewish Dispensation.
To show that this view of the case is the correct one, and that the Divine Being did not at all desire sacrifices, but that they were only tolerated in accommodation to the state of the Israelitish people, we may adduce the following pointed passages: "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations: incense is an abomination unto me.—Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil: learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow."[1] And again: "For thou desirest not sacrifice: else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt-offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise."[2] And again: "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before Him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shown thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of
