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RITUAL
13. "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit ; a broken
and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise" (P.
li. 71). 14. "Where with shall I come before the Lord and bow
myself before the high God ? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calvos of a year old ? Will the Lord be pleaged with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil ? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the frait of my body for the siu of my soul? He hath showed theo, Oman, what is good ; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do jastly, and to love mercy, and to walk hambly with thy
God."-(Micab, vi 6-8). These are the quotations from the Old Testament itself, and they leave 110 doubt in the mind that the grossest error has been made in the matter of sacrificial ritual by reading the text in the literal sense, which was never intended to be so read by any one. Jesus saw the fatal error and abolished sacrifice. "I will have mercy and not sacrifice” (Matt. ix.13)—was his message of love.
According to Zoroastrianism, also, meat offerings are condemned. It is said in Shayast La-Shayast (xi.5):“There bave been those who may have spoken about protection, and there have been those who may have done so about meat-offerings; whoever has spoken about protection is such as has spoken well, and whoever bas spoken about meat-offerings has not spoken everything which is noteworthy” (SBE. vol. V. pp.337-338).
wo ways, and their soul
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