---

For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. We shall take "mercy" and "knowledge of God" here as including spiritual excellence, and "sacrifice" and "burnt offerings" as representing religious ritualism; and the idea is that Jehovah desires from man one rather than the other. The same idea is given in the following passages: "Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to cloy is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams" (1 Samuel 15:22; Matthew 12:7); "What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" (Micah 6:8); "Go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Matthew 9:13); "To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice" (Proverbs 21:3); "To love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices" (Mark 12:83), Why is moral righteousness preferable to religious ritualism?

I. BECAUSE RITUALISM AT ITS BEST, APART FROM RIGHTEOUSNESS, IS WORTHLESS. We are not of those who thunder unqualified denunciations at all rites and ceremonies in connection with religion. Principles to show themselves must always have forms, and we would have the forms ever the most graceful and appropriate. Science is the ritual of the philosophic, art is the ritual of the aesthetic, tuneful verse is the ritual of poetry. Nature is the ritual of God; through its countless forms of life and beauty his invisible things reveal themselves. But ritualism, in connection with the religion of man, must be the effect, the expression, and the medium of inner righteousness. Without "mercy" and the "knowledge of God" in the soul all ritual observances are as worthless and as revolting as the motions of a galvanized corpse. "Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear" (Isaiah 1:13-15).

II. BECAUSE RIGHTEOUSNESS, APART FROM THE BEST RITUALISM, IS ABSOLUTELY VALUABLE. Spiritual excellence, whether it shows itself or not, is essentially good; it is God-like, Like electricity in the material system, it is the subtle element which binds the moral universe into unity and tunes it into music. Ritualism, at its best, has only a circumstantial, local, and temporary worth; but the value of spiritual excellence is absolute, universal, and eternal.

CONCLUSION. Beware of mere formality in religious worship.

"A man may cry 'Church! Church!' at every word,
With no more piety than other people.
A day's not reckoned a religious bird
Because it keeps a-cawing from a steeple.
The temple is a good, a holy place,
But quacking only gives it an ill savor:
While saintly mountebanks the porch disgrace,
And bring religion itself into disfavor."

(Thomas Hood.) D.T.

---

---

KJV: For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

WEB: For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.