Page:Ante-Nicene Christian Library Vol 5.djvu/454

428 did not cut them off from good counsel. For after He had said by Jeremiah, "To what purpose bring ye me incense from Saba, and cinnamon from a far country? Your whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices are not acceptable to me;" He proceeds: "Hear the word of the Lord, all Judah. These things saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Make straight your ways and your doings, and I will establish you in this place. Put not your trust in lying words, for they will not at all profit you, saying. The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, it is [here]."

3. And again, when He points out that it was not for this that He led them out of Egypt, that they might offer sacrifice to Him, but that, forgetting the idolatry of the Egyptians, they should be able to hear the voice of the Lord, which was to them salvation and glory. He declares by this same Jeremiah: "Thus saith the Lord; Collect together your burnt-offerings with your sacrifices, and eat flesh. For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices: but this word I commanded them, saying, Hear my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people; and walk in all my ways whatsoever I have commanded you, that it may be well with you. But they obeyed not, nor hearkened; but walked in the imaginations of their own evil heart, and went backwards, and not forwards." And again, when He declares by the same man, "But let him that glorieth, glory in this, to understand and know that I am the Lord, who doth exercise loving-kindness, and righteousness, and judgment in the earth;" He adds, "For in these things I delight, says the Lord," but not in sacrifices, nor in holocausts, nor in oblations. For the people did not receive these precepts as of primary importance (principaliter), but as secondary, and for the reason already alleged, as Isaiah again says: "Thou hast not [brought to] me the sheep of thy holocaust, nor in thy sacrifices hast thou glorified me: thou hast not served me in sacrifices, nor in [the matter of] frankincense hast thou done anything labo-