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| Of the True and Perfect Sacrifice.
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Chapter 6.—Of the True and
Perfect Sacrifice.
Thus a true sacrifice is every work
which is done that we may be united to God in holy fellowship, and
which has a reference to that supreme good and end in which alone
we can be truly blessed.390
| 390 On the service rendered to the
Church by this definition, see Waterland’s Works, v.
124. | And therefore even the
mercy
we show to men, if it is not shown for God’s sake, is
not a sacrifice. For, though made or offered by man, sacrifice is
a divine thing, as those who called it sacrifice391
| 391 Literally, a sacred
action. | meant to
indicate. Thus man himself, consecrated in the name of God, and
vowed to God, is a sacrifice in so far as he dies to the world that
he may live to God. For this is a part of that mercy which each
man shows to himself; as it is written, “Have mercy on thy soul
by pleasing God.”392
Our body, too, as a sacrifice
when we chasten it by temperance, if we do so as we ought, for
God’s sake, that we may not yield our members instruments of
unrighteousness unto sin, but instruments of righteousness unto
God.393
Exhorting
to this sacrifice, the apostle says, “I beseech you, therefore,
brethren, by the mercy of God, that ye present your bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable
service.”394
If, then,
the body, which, being inferior, the soul uses as a servant or
instrument, is a sacrifice when it is used rightly, and with
reference to God, how much more does the soul itself become a
sacrifice when it offers itself to God, in order that, being
inflamed by the fire of His love, it may receive of His beauty and
become pleasing to Him, losing the shape of earthly desire, and
being remoulded in the image of permanent loveliness? And this,
indeed, the apostle subjoins, saying, “And be not conformed to
this world; but be ye transformed in the renewing of your mind,
that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect
will of God.”395
Since,
therefore, true sacrifices are works of mercy to ourselves or
others, done with a reference to God, and since works of mercy have
no other object than the relief of distress or the conferring of
happiness, and since there is no happiness apart from that good of
which it is said, “It is good for me to be very near to God,”396
it follows
that the whole redeemed city, that is to say, the congregation or
community of the saints, is offered to God as our sacrifice through
the great High Priest, who offered Himself to God in His passion
for us, that we might be members of this glorious head, according
to the form of a servant. For it was this form He offered, in
this He was offered, because it is according to it He is Mediator,
in this He is our Priest, in this the Sacrifice. Accordingly,
when the apostle had exhorted us to present our bodies a living
sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, our reasonable service, and not
to be conformed to the world, but to be transformed in the renewing
of our mind, that we might prove what is that good, and acceptable,
and perfect will of God, that is to say, the true sacrifice of
ourselves, he says, “For I say, through the grace of God which is
given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of
himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly,
according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
For, as we have many members in one body, and all members have not
the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and
every one members one of another, having gifts differing according
to the grace that is given to us.”397
This is the sacrifice of
Christians: we, being many, are one body in Christ. And this
also is the sacrifice which the Church continually celebrates in
the sacrament of the altar, known to the faithful, in which she
teaches that she herself is offered in the offering she makes to
God.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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