{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>And who is so foolish as to suppose that the things offered\r\nto God are needed by Him for some uses of His own? Divine\r\nScripture in many places explodes this idea. Not to be wearisome,\r\nsuffice it to quote this brief saying from a psalm: \"I\r\nhave said to the Lord, Thou art my God: for Thou needest\r\nnot my goodness.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_377_377\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_377_377\">[377]</a> We must believe, then, that God has no\r\nneed, not only of cattle, or any other earthly and material\r\nthing, but even of man's righteousness, and that whatever\r\nright worship is paid to God profits not Him, but man. For\r\nno man would say he did a benefit to a fountain by drinking,\r\nor to the light by seeing. And the fact that the ancient\r\nchurch offered animal sacrifices, which the people of God\r\nnow-a-days reads of without imitating, proves nothing else\r\nthan this, that those sacrifices signified the things which we\r\ndo for the purpose of drawing near to God, and inducing our\r\nneighbour to do the same. A sacrifice, therefore, is the visible\r\nsacrament or sacred sign of an invisible sacrifice. Hence that\r\npenitent in the psalm, or it may be the Psalmist himself,\r\nentreating God to be merciful to his sins, says, \"If Thou\r\ndesiredst sacrifice, I would give it: Thou delightest not in\r\nwhole burnt-offerings. The sacrifice of God is a broken heart:\r\na heart contrite and humble God will not despise.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_378_378\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_378_378\">[378]</a> Observe\r\nhow, in the very words in which he is expressing God's refusal\r\nof sacrifice, he shows that God requires sacrifice. He does<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_389\">[Pg 389]</a></span>\r\nnot desire the sacrifice of a slaughtered beast, but He desires\r\nthe sacrifice of a contrite heart. Thus, that sacrifice which he\r\nsays God does not wish, is the symbol of the sacrifice which\r\nGod does wish. God does not wish sacrifices in the sense\r\nin which foolish people think He wishes them, viz. to gratify\r\nHis own pleasure. For if He had not wished that the sacrifices\r\nHe requires, as, <i>e.g.</i>, a heart contrite and humbled by\r\npenitent sorrow, should be symbolized by those sacrifices\r\nwhich He was thought to desire because pleasant to Himself,\r\nthe old law would never have enjoined their presentation;\r\nand they were destined to be merged when the fit opportunity\r\narrived, in order that men might not suppose that the sacrifices\r\nthemselves, rather than the things symbolized by them,\r\nwere pleasing to God or acceptable in us. Hence, in another\r\npassage from another psalm, he says, \"If I were hungry, I\r\nwould not tell thee; for the world is mine and the fulness\r\nthereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of\r\ngoats?\"<a id=\"FNanchor_379_379\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_379_379\">[379]</a> as if He should say, Supposing such things were\r\nnecessary to me, I would never ask thee for what I have in\r\nmy own hand. Then he goes on to mention what these\r\nsignify: \"Offer unto God the sacrifice of praise, and pay thy\r\nvows unto the Most High. And call upon me in the day of\r\ntrouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_380_380\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_380_380\">[380]</a> So\r\nin another prophet: \"Wherewith shall I come before the\r\nLord, and bow myself before the High God? Shall I come\r\nbefore Him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old?\r\nWill the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten\r\nthousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my\r\ntransgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?\r\nHath He showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth\r\nthe Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy,\r\nand to walk humbly with thy God?\"<a id=\"FNanchor_381_381\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_381_381\">[381]</a> In the words of this\r\nprophet, these two things are distinguished and set forth with\r\nsufficient explicitness, that God does not require these sacrifices\r\nfor their own sakes, and that He does require the sacrifices\r\nwhich they symbolize. In the epistle entitled \"To the\r\nHebrews\" it is said, \"To do good and to communicate, forget\r\nnot: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_382_382\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_382_382\">[382]</a> And so,<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_390\">[Pg 390]</a></span>\r\nwhen it is written, \"I desire mercy rather than sacrifice,\"<a id=\"FNanchor_383_383\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_383_383\">[383]</a>\r\nnothing else is meant than that one sacrifice is preferred to\r\nanother; for that which in common speech is called sacrifice\r\nis only the symbol of the true sacrifice. Now mercy is the\r\ntrue sacrifice, and therefore it is said, as I have just quoted,\r\n\"with such sacrifices God is well pleased.\" All the divine\r\nordinances, therefore, which we read concerning the sacrifices\r\nin the service of the tabernacle or the temple, we are to refer\r\nto the love of God and our neighbour. For \"on these two\r\ncommandments,\" as it is written, \"hang all the law and the\r\nprophets.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_384_384\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_384_384\">[384]</a></p>","headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK TENTH.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45304-paragraph-689"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"ef6cb7a49783224faf4053873db3e23dec5323589aeb7e1207a7da0dd7c7e325","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume I","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Book IV)","J. J. Smith (Books V-VIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[{"book":"PSA","chapter":16,"kind":"unreviewed","source_notation":"Ps. xvi. 2","verse":2,"verse_end":2}],"headings":[],"id":"pg45304-Footnote_377_377","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Original transcription title leaves state T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1871; printed translator allocation retained. Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":"Footnote_377_377","source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_377_377\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_377_377\"><span class=\"label\">[377]</span></a> Ps. xvi. 2.</p></div>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html#Footnote_377_377","text_sha256":"3a0afd5f8890822d6b1d6c6a7305d8264a63ffef5a2053ef18d20416d13b1920","verified":false,"work_id":null}