The Pulpit Commentary — Amos — Section 68

and the tithes at their appointed times. In addition to the annual tithe they also gave .a second tithe every three years (Deut. xiv. 28; xx:vi. 12). This was keeping up to the very letter of the Law. A Pharillee in later times could not have given more cir- ,cumstantial obedience to it than they did. When the opus operatum is mads-the whole -of a religious ordinance, it is sure to be circumstantially observed; and the rule is that the more completely the spirit is lost sight of, the more elaborately is the letter observed. To the exhaustive observance of ordinances by Israel, according to our text, there was ,one significant exception. This was the omission of the sin offering and the trespass ,offering. They had no consciousness of sin. They deported themselves as men who had praise to offer and gifts to bestow, but no sin to be atoned or to confess. To the formalist an adequate idea of sin is impossible, and in his worship the question is not raised. 2, They weni beyond the letter of Divine requirenunt. In addition to the morning sacrifice required by the Law, they offered Blain sacrifices (so the Hebrew) every day. Then, not content with burning unleavened cokes on the altar as a praise -0ffering, they burned also the leavened cakes which were to be eaten at the sacrificial meal (see Keil, in Zoe.). As to the free offerings, they carried the provision for having them made beyond the command by having them cried. Thus, so far as forms went, the idol-loving, corrupt, rebellious people were almost exemplary worshippers-went further, indeed, than true worshippers had always felt called upon to i;o. "It ie a characteristic of idolatry and schism to profess extraordinary zeal for God's worship, and go beyond the letter and spirit of his Law by arbitrary will-worship and self- idolizing fanaticism" (Lange). To compensate for the utter absence of the spirit, the letter is made to do double and vicarious duty. III. Too MUOH ATTENTION TO THE EXTERNAL FORM OF AN ORDINANCE TENDS TO THE 'VIOLATION OF THE SPIBIT OF IT. On the one hand, the spirit gets lost sight of through inattention, and on the other hand, the inventive faculty introduces practices incon- sistent with it. 1. In their anxiety to offer m,ore than was required Israel offered a thing that was forbidden. To" kindle praise offerings of that which is leavened" was contrary to Levitical law. The leavened bread of the praise offering, which they burned along with the unleavened cakes and oil, was not to be burned, but eaten (Lev. ii. 11 ; vii. 12-14). The human mind cannot add to a Divine ordinance anything in character. The addendum will either obscure or traverse the religious rite to which it is attached. God's ordinances, like his oracles, can only be added to under a heavy penalty-the ,penalty of mistaken action arising out of erroneous thought. 2. They destroyed, the essentially spontaneous character of the free-will offerings by endeavouring to make them practically compulsory. These offerings must be made of the offerer's free will (Lev. xxii. 19). Made under compulsion, moral or otherwise, they lost their spon- taneous character, and might as well not have been made at all. And what but compulsion was it to" proclaim and publish," or literally to "call out" for them? God's ordinance con be safely and rightly observed only in God's way. In such a matter human invention, if it interferes, is sure to err. Hence the so emphatic and frequent warnings in Scripture against "the commandments and ordinances of men. n 3. This amateur tinkering of Divine institutions is wry agreeable to human nature. "For so ye love it." Unspiritual men love the forms of religion if they serve as a ,means of escape from its realities. They love them more still if, by observing them, they can seem to accomplish a salvt1tion by works. They love them most of all when they are partially of their own invention. Almost all human ordinances in religion are ,the expression of man's love of his own intellectual progeny. IV. THE MULTIPLICATION OF ACTS OF WILL-WORSHIP IS ONLY THE lllULTIPLICATION OP SIN. The close association of the words" transgression" and "sacrifice" would indicate that the sacrifice itself was sinful. 1. It was not meant to please God, being an act of pure self-will. That which will please God must be meant to please him. A formal religious act, if done for our own pleasure, and not as an act of service to God, is valueless (Col. ii. 20-23). Will-worship is self-worship. It is only an insidious way of " satisfying the flesh." It ls a thing by which God is not honoured, but dethroned and by which man is prejudiced with God and not commended (Isa. ii. 11). 2. It was ~ot fitted to please him, being obser11ed in a manner contrary to his will. God's ordiuances had been altered. The alteration of form in every case had been a violation -of the spirit. '!'be ordinances were no longet God's, but something di1ferent from and 68 THE BOOK OF A.MOS. [OR. IV, 1-lll.