Page:Three Books of Occult Philosophy (De Occulta Philosophia) (1651).djvu/556

 is an oblation which is both holy by offering, and sanctifieth and maketh Holy the offerer, unless either Irreverence or some other sin be an impediment to him; therefore these sacrifices and oblations do yeld us much hope, and make us of the family of God, and do repel from us many evils hanging over our heads, which the doctors of the Hebrews do especially confirm, saying by this that we kill our living creatures, and dissipate our wealth by sacrifice, we turn away mischiefs which do hang over us: for as this mortall priest sacrificeth in this inferior world the soul of irrational creatures to God, by the separating of the body from the soul: so Michael the Archangel the priest of the higher world, sacrificeth the souls of men, and this by the separation of the soul from the body, and not of the body from the soul, unless perchance, as it happeneth in fury, Rapture, Extasie and sleep, and such like vacations of the soul, which the Hebrews call the death of the body. But sacrifices & oblations are first of all and principally to be offered up to the most high God; but when they are to be directed to the secondary divine powers, this ought to be done even as we have spoken concerning prayers and vows: but there are many kinds of sacrifices: one kind is called a burnt offering, when the thing sacrificed was consumed by fire; another, is an offering for the effusion of blood; moreover there are salutiferous sacrifices which are made for the obtaining of health, others pacifying for obtaining peace, others praising for the freeing from some evill, and for the bestowing of some good thing; others Gratulatory, for divine worship and thanksgiving; but some sacrifices are made neither for the honor of God, nor out of good will, of which sort was that amongst the Hebrews, called the sacrifice of Jealousie, which was made only for the detecting