THE SCIENCE OF CORRESPONDENCES
ELUCIDATED

Edward Madeley

<< CHAPTER XIX >>

SACRIFICIAL WORSHIP.

NO other worship but what was internal, such as prevails in heaven, existed in the earliest ages among those of the most ancient church, signified by Adam ; but when that church declined from its pristine integrity, purity, and spirituality, men had no longer an intuitive perception of correspondences, as heretofore, and then they began to collect and cultivate them as a science. Then, also, external worship, representative and significative of internal, was first instituted, and stated forms were established.

According to correspondences, the firstlings of the flock signify worship from inmost spiritual affection. Thus, the offering of " Abel, a keeper of sheep," which signifies worship from love, was said to be more acceptable to Jehovah than the offering of " Cain, a tiller of the ground," which signifies worship from faith without inward love. Abel s offering was first-fruits; not so that of Cain (Gen. iv.). The worship of the ancient church, signified by Noah, was purely representative. With the members of that dispensation, all external objects and operations whatever symbolized the glorious realities of heaven, representing truths with their perceptions, and affections with their delights, together with all the activities of the mind into which they flowed. Their external worship, therefore, was a precise type of their internal character, and was represented by Noah's sacrifice, of which we read that " He builded an altar unto the Lord ; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet savor " (Gen.viii. 19, 20). Here the clean beasts denote the different degrees of charity, and the various affections of goodness in the heart, both with angels and men : and the clean fowls signify the true principles of faith in the understanding; each particular kind of animal corresponding to some specific heavenly virtue or grace in the mind.

In succeeding ages, sacrificial worship became established, and to slay and offer the sacrifice signified wholly to consecrate to the Lord the thing denoted thereby ; thus indicating the change effected in man by regeneration, when his natural mind or unregenerate life is, as it were, slain, that he may receive the Lord s life, and be wholly devoted to his service. Fire, we have seen, signifies, in a good sense, heavenly love. To offer animals by fire was a representative act, signifying worship grounded in charity and obedience, from a sincere and thankful heart, which the Lord is said " to smell as a sweet savor ;" signifying that such worship is accepted, and causes a sensible perception of his sacred presence to be experienced, which diffuses angelic joy over the whole mind. "

Sacrifices were the chief representatives of worship in the Hebrew church, and afterwards in the Jewish. Their sacrifices were made either from the herd or from the flock, consequently they consisted of animals of various kinds, which were clean, as of oxen, cows, he-goats, sheep, rams, she-goats, kids, and lambs, and moreover of turtles and young pigeons. All these signified internal things of worship, that is, things celestial and spiritual, the animals taken from the herd denoting celestial-natural things, and those from the flock denoting celestial-rational things ; and as both things natural and things rational are of various kinds, being more or less interior, therefore so many genera and species of those animals were made use of in the sacrifices ; which may appear, also, from this consideration, that it was prescribed in the burnt-offerings, and also in the sacrifices of divers kinds, as in the daily sacrifices, in those of the Sabbaths and feasts, in the voluntary, eucharistic, and votive sacrifices, in those that were expiatory of guilt and of sin, and also in those that were purificatory and cleansing, and likewise in the sacrifices of inauguration, what animals should be offered. The animals, also, were expressly named, and also their number, in every kind of sacrifice, which would never have been done unless each had had some peculiar signification, as manifestly appears from those passages where sacrifices are treated of, as Ex. xxix. ; Lev. i., iii., iv., ix., xvi., xxiii. ; Num. vii., viii., xv., xxix. ... As to what concerns sacrifices in general, they were commanded indeed by Moses to the children of Israel ; but the most ancient church, which was before the flood, were altogether unacquainted with sacrifices, nor did it ever enter into their minds to worship the Lord by the slaying of animals.

The ancient church, which was after the flood, was likewise unacquainted with sacrifices ; it was, indeed, principled in representatives, but sacrifices were first instituted in the succeeding church, which was called the Hebrew church, and thence this mode of worship was propagated among the Gentiles, and descended to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their posterity." A. C., n. 2180.

No portions of the Old Testament have been less understood or more misapprehended, for want of the science of correspondences, than the rituals and sacrifices of the Mosaic economy. A general impression has indeed prevailed throughout the Christian church, that the sacrifices had some indistinct reference to the Lord Jesus Christ, and the great work of redemption which He accomplished ; but the views held have been so external, so inconsistent, so limited in their application, and so unsatisfactory, as to have left this important subject involved in the most perplexing difficulties. The Jewish dispensation was only the representative of a true spiritual church. Hence the laws and ordinances, rites and ceremonials, of the Israelites were denominated, in the apostolic age," figures of the time then present" (Heb. ix. 9) ; " the example and shadow of heavenly things" (viii.5); also, "patterns of things in the heavens" (ix. 23); and "shadows of good things to come" (Col. ii. 17 ; Heb. x. 1). This view is a key to their history, as recorded in the volume of inspiration.

The Jews were chosen, agreeably to their own earnest desire (for it could not have been otherwise), to represent in outward form a spiritual church, or the inward life of true religion. They were of so external, so obdurate a character, as to be incapable of being led except by the hope of earthly rewards and the fear of temporal punishments. The prophet declares that they " perverted the words of the living God," and looked upon their representative service as burdensome and grievous (Jer. xxiii. 33-40) ;" Wherefore," says the Lord, " I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live " (Ezek. xx. 25). This was eminently the case with the burnt-offerings and sacrifices, which they regarded, not as means of attaining purity and holiness, but as piacular substitutes for obedience. The sacrifices of the Jews were permitted, not commanded, by the Lord, because of the hardness of their hearts, and their proneness to the most cruel rites ; such as divorce for trivial offences against a husband s will, and the law of retaliation (Matt. v. 38, 39). "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel; put your burnt-offerings to your sacrifices, and eat flesh. For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices : but this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people " (Jer. vii. 21-23).

But the permission of sacrifices was so overruled by an inspired series of restrictive laws as to make them exactly representative, in every particular, of the voluntary sacrifices of the heart, the mind, and the life. Other most important reasons may be adduced for their permission. The worship of the Jews was to be directed to one supreme and only God, free from idolatrous rites, because it was figurative of the angelic worship which exists in heaven, and hence, as we have seen, it is called " the patterns of things in the heavens," "figures of the true " (Heb. ix. 23, 24).

During its continuance they were required to fulfil every iota of the divine law, and therefore to render their representations complete ; and, that the Word might be written, they had to offer burnt-offer ings and sacrifices, and sin- and trespass-offerings. It is never once intimated in the law that even sin- and trespass- offerings were designed and accepted as expiations of moral turpitude, for such presumptuous or wilful sinfulness was chiefly punished with death (Num. xv. 30), but as propitiatory sacrifices, in humble acknowledgment of sins of ignorance and ceremonial uncleanness and neglect ; and without which, so degenerate had the human race become, the Lord could not, previous to his incarnation, have had a dwelling-place with his creatures.

" The church which was instituted among the posterity of Jacob was not essentially a church, but only the representative of a church. In representations, the person is not reflected upon, but only the thing which is represented ; wherefore divine, celestial, and spiritual things were represented, not only by persons, but by things inanimate, as by Aaron s garments, by the ark, the altar, the oxen and sheep which were sacrificed, by the candlestick with the lights, by the bread of arrangement on the golden table, by the anointing oil, the frankincense, and other similar things. Hence it was that kings, both bad and good alike, represented the Lord s regal principle ; and the highpriests, both bad and good alike, when they discharged their office in an external form according to the statutes and commandments, represented the things appertaining to the Lord s Divine priesthood. To the intent, therefore, that the representative of a church might exist among them, such statutes and laws were given them by manifest revelation as were altogether representative ; wherefore, so long as they were principled therein, and observed them strictly, so long were they capable of representing ; but when they turned aside from them to the statutes and laws of other nations, and especially to the worship of another god, they deprived themselves of the faculty of representing ; in consequence whereof they were driven by external means, which were captivities, overthrows, threats, and miracles, to laws and statutes truly representative, but not by internal means, like those who have internal worship in the external." A. C. 4281.

When the Jews fell into the destructive notion that their sacrifices and offerings were vicarious equivalents for wilful iniquity, and that by their means moral guilt, equally with ceremonial impurity, and transgression, and sins of ignorance, was pardoned in the divine sight, the Lord thus tenderly expostulates with them, and exhorts them to worship Him from the heart, to hearken to his voice, and to keep his commandments : " Hear, O my people, and I will speak : O Israel, and I will testify against thee : I am God, even thy God. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt-offerings, to have been continually before me. I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he-goats out of thy folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains : and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee : for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats ? Offer unto God thanksgiving ; and pay thy vows unto the Most High " (Psalm 1. 7-14). And, again, " To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me ? saith the Lord : I am full of the burnt-offeriiigs 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 appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts ? 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. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord : though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land : but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword : for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it " (Isa. i. 11, 12, 16-20). Moreover, the Lord further declares, " I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them, in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices : but this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people : and walk ye in all the wavs that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you " (Jer. vii. 22, 23). That obedience was what the Lord commanded and desired, of which sacrifices were in reality representative emblems, is con stantly affirmed. In the Proverbs it is written, "To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifices" (xxi. 3). The prophet Samuel reproved Saul for his disobedience in these memorable words : " Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord ? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry " (1 Sam. xv. 22, 23). Hence the important question of the prophet, "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 ? He hath showed thee, O man, what is good ; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God" (Micah vi. 6-8).

The Psalmist, also, in his prayer to God for the remission of sin, says, " O Lord, open thou my lips ; and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. 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" (li. 15-17). When one of the scribes asked the Lord, "Which was the first commandment of all?" He answered him, " The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel ; the Lord our God is one Lord : and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength : this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. And the scribe said unto Him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth : for there is one God ; and there is none other but He : and to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, is more than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, He said unto him, Thou art not far from the kingdom of God " (Mark xii. 28-34). In an exhortation to repentance, the prophet Hosea says, " For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice ; and the knowledge of God more than burntofferings " ( vi. 6) ; and the Lord, in his rebuke of the Pharisees, said, " Go ye, and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice" (Matt. ix. 13) ; and, again, " Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith : these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone " (Matt, xxiii. 23). Thus sacrifices were never required, nor ever accepted as substitutes for the sinner's disobedience. This David acknowledged, and therefore said to the Lord, " Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire ; mine ears hast thou opened : burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come : in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God : yea, thy law is within my heart " (Psalm xl. 6-8). This inspired prayer is applied by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews to the Lord Himself, and to the works of the glorification of his Humanity and the redemption of the human race, which He mercifully came to accomplish.

" For the law," says he, " having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when He cometh into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and ofil-ring thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me : in burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God. Above when He said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt-ofierings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein ; which are offered by the law ; then said He, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that He may establish the second" (x. 1,4-9).

While the doctrine of obedience to the divine commandments, as essential to salvation, like all other doctrines of genuine religion, is thus drawn from the literal sense of the Scriptures, and confirmed thereby, it must not be forgotten that every passage cited from the Word of God has besides, and within the literal sense, a spiritual signification. Sacrifices and offerings are here chiefly mentioned in their opposite, or bad sense, as denoting external profession of worship without internal life, the impious and vain-glorious offerings of selfrighteousness, intelligence, and merit ; the corrupt sacrifices of selfwill and self-prudence, instead of the humble, teachable, meek, trust ful, and sanctified affections of the regenerate mind.

The animals belonging to the flock and herd, and the various viands, which were thus voluntarily offered to the Lord in the Jewish sacrifices and oblations, were not arbitrarily selected, but were exact representative types and figures of such things as are good and true, and of the various thoughts and desires of the mind, which, in the regeneration, become receptive of goodness and truth. Each offering, and every circumstance connected with the offering, had its distinct spiritual signification.

The sacrifices and offerings as a whole represented the entire process of the Lord's glorification from first to last, and, consequently, of man's regeneration. Now, man is regenerated by "ceasing to do evil, and learning to do well " (Isa. i. 16, 17) ; and to do these great works, he must freely receive of the wisdom and love, the strength and life of the Lord, and thus be conjoined to Him. Holy worship is the grand preparative for this conjunction. With intense, yea, infinite desire, the Lord desires spiritually to eat the passover with us (Luke xxii. 15). He knocks and calls that we may open the inner door of our minds, when, by the influence of his Spirit the spirit of his love and wisdom He " will come in to us, and will sup with us " (Rev. iii. 20). He hungers that we may receive and love his goodness. He thirsts that we may accept and believe his truth. He, from the most ardent desire for the salvation and happiness of his creatures, deigns to impart the divine principles of his own life to every prepared and willing soul, that men may be eternally conjoined with Him in heart, and mind, and life. Hence, the sacrifices and offerings of the Jews are denominated " a covenant " (Psalm 1. 5), and even called the meat and bread of God (Lev. xxi. 6) ; and the altar is designated his table (Ezek. xli. 22). Nothing can be presented as grateful to the Lord but what is derived from Him, thus what is pure and perfect, what is clean and sound. The inward gifts and outward graces of the regenerate mind are the only offerings truly acceptable in the divine sight. In their sacrifices and burnt-offerings, their meat-offerings and drink-offerings, the Jews were on this account forbidden to present what was imperfect or polluted (Deut. xv. 21), for worship defiled by self-righteousness and self-derived intelligence is profane and condemnatory ; therefore, when the prophet is describing such a corrupt state of the church, in general and in particular, he says, " Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee ? In that ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible. And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil ? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil ?" (Mai. i. 7, 8.)

Various degrees of goodness, innocence, and charity natural, spiritual, and celestial and the purified affections in which they actively dwell, and the states which they induce upon the mind, are signified, in a good sense, by domesticated animals and their young, the flock and the herd, the lamb, the calf, and the kid, the ram, the ox, and the he-goat. Different kinds of truth, wisdom, and intelligence, received in affection, together with the holy thoughts and sentiments to which they give birth, were signified by the clean birds, as the young pigeon and the turtle-dove. Thus all kinds of spiritual nourishment for the support of the will and the understanding, the affections and the thoughts, were signified by the meat-offerings and drink-offerings, the cakes, the corn, the flour, the oil, the wine, the choicest viands, both liquid and solid, which were presented to the Lord ; for the inward gifts which sustain the soul, and which were thus represented, appertain to the Lord Himself, from whom they flow into his kingdom in heaven and on earth, as the food of angels, the support of all spiritual life.

In the same sense, burnt-offerings and sacrifices signified in general adoration from a grateful heart, free-will " sacrifices of righteousness and thanksgiving " (Psalm iv. 5 ; cvii. 22), rendering to Him " the calves of our lips" (Hos. xiv. 2), the inward acknowledgment that all our blessings of love and wisdom, charity and faith, are derived from Him alone, the consecration of all our faculties, spiritual and natural, intellectual and voluntary, our affections and thoughts, our words and deeds, to his service. Worship from love and charity was represented, in a good sense, by burnt-offerings and meat-offerings ; worship from wisdom and faith was signified by sacrifices and drinkofferings. In reference to this spiritual signification and application of the sacrificial worship of the Jews, the apostle Paul thus writes to the Komans, " I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service" (Rom. xii. 1). And in the Epistle to the Hebrews we read, " To do good and communicate, forget not: for with such sacrifices God is well pleased" (xiii. 16). Nor without much self-denial, the mortification of the natural mind, the subjugation of the fleshly lusts, is that state of mind attained, in which such living, holy, and acceptable worship can be performed,or those precious gifts received which can be suitably presented.

" I will not," said David, " offer burnt-offerings unto the Lord my God of that which doth cost me nothing" (2 Bam. xxiv. 24). We have said that the Jews fell into the fatal delusion that their sacrifices were piacular. Nor has this great error been confined to Judaism. It has been interwoven, in all its deformity, into the Christian religion, and the sacrifice of the Lord, or the glorification of his Humanity, which consisted in the hallowing and consecrating to infinite purposes the entire Humanity which He assumed in the world, with all its faculties and powers, has been extensively and most mistakenly regarded as a vicarious sacrifice for even the wilful transgressions of the human race, and represented as offered by the second person in the Trinity to the first person, as a distinct Being, or God, to appease his wrath, and propitiate his favor ; and, moreover, that his suffering and death on the cross being a vicarious substitute for the punishment of sinners, the infinite merits of his spotless righteousness are imputed to all that believe in Him. How full of mystery, perplexity and inconsistency is this fatal notion ! It substitutes the innocent for the guilty, although guilt and innocence cannot be transferred without the violation of all justice. Unless there be more than one God, it represents the Lord Jesus Christ as the pacifier and the pacified, the priest and the victim, the identical God, whose vengeance was appeased and whose justice was satisfied, by his own sufferings, while it confounds all rational and Scriptural difference between the infinite and the finite by imputing the incommunicable merits of the Creator to the finite creature. How broadly does this system contrast with the simple, glorious, and obvious doctrines of the New Testament ! The atonement or at-one-ment is there described as a work of reconciliation, as effecting an important and essential spiritual change in man, his motives, his thoughts, and his words and works thence proceeding, but without implying any change whatever in the immutable Godhead. The apostle Paul, therefore, in writing to the Romans, says, " We joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we [not God, WE] have now received the atonement " (v. 11 )

The Greek word [Katallaghn] translated here atonement, means reconciliation, and with its modifications is so translated wherever else it occurs in the New Testament. The Lord " bore our sins and carried our sorrows " (Isa. liii. 3) by taking upon Himself our depraved nature, with all its hereditary defilements, and, by removing these evils from his Humanity, He " consecrated it for evermore " (Heb. vii. 28), and thereby received power from the indwelling Divinity to remove, likewise, the evils of all those who look unto Him and put their trust in Him. For now " He is able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God [the indwelling Divinity] by Him [the glorified Humanity] " (Heb. vii. 25)." For in that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted " (Heb. ii. 18). Hence we further read, that "When the even was come, they brought unto Him many that were possessed with devils : and He cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick : that it might be ful filled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bore our sicknesses" (Matt. viii. 16, 17). " To bear our sins," then, was to sustain temptation ; and to put them away, signifies not only that He conquered all evil tendencies, and removed them from his Humanity, but also, that in the hour of severest spiritual trial and conflict He is both able and willing to stretch forth his gracious hand to save all from the inherent corruptions of their nature, as well as their actual sins, thus to deliver from the bondage of sin, the fears of eternal death, and from the miseries of hell, all who acknowledge their transgressions, believe in Him, and keep his commandments. By the power and efficacy of divine truth, as "the Word made flesh," which is so often called " the blood of Christ," and " the blood of the New Covenant [or Testament], shed for the remission of sins" (Matt. xxvi. 28), man is cleansed from the impurities of his life and heart just in proportion as, by obedience thereto, he puts his evil away, and, by divine assistance, manfully endures the temptations and trials by which the work is accomplished ; and of this process the grievous temptations which the Lord endured in the glorification of his Humanity were representative. Thus the apostle Paul writes to the Romans, " Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism unto death : that like as Christ [the Lord's Humanity] was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father [or the indwelling Divinity], even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection : knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. . . . For in that He died, He died unto sin once : but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord " (Rom. vi. 4-11).

The Lord Jesus Christ, then, offered a perfect sacrifice of obedience to his own divine law ; " He consecrated a new and living way for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh " (Heb. x. 20) ; He became our example (1 Pet. ii. 21). We are exhorted continually to approach Him without fear, to follow Him, to be like Him, who was made " perfect through sufferings" (Heb. ii. 10), and " learned obedience by the things which He suffered ; and being made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him " (Heb. v. 8, 9). Like as the Lord gained a complete victory over hell, and accomplished his work of glorification by laying down his life and taking it again (John x. 18), so man, in humble and full dependence upon Him, must work out his own salvation (Phil. ii. 12) ; and the lifegiving blood of the New Covenant will supply every obedient believer with the means of victory over death and hell (Rev. xii. 11). We are, consequently, " to follow the Lord in the regeneration" (Matt. xix. 28), not by the observance of Jewish sacrifices, nor yet by looking upon the Lord as a piacular victim, who suffered death in our stead, but by obedience to the Divine will and wisdom, thus by shunning the evil which that wisdom condemns, and doing the good which that will approves ; by a life of heavenly " charity or love out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned" (1 Tim. i. 5).

Such is the true, spiritual, and only acceptable worship of which the sacrifices of Abraham and the patriarchs, the ceremonial worship of the Israelites, and the life and ministry of our divine Redeemer were eminently representative.