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As to those who think that these visible sacrifices are suitably
offered to other gods, but that invisible sacrifices, the graces of
purity of mind and holiness of will, should be offered, as greater and
better, to the invisible God, Himself greater and better than alI
others, they must be oblivious that these visible sacrifices are signs
of the invisible, as the words we utter are the signs of things. And
therefore, as in prayer or praise we direct intelligible words to Him
to whom in our heart we offer the very feelings we are expressing, so
we are to understand that in sacrifice we offer visible sacrifice only
to Him to whom in our heart we ought to present ourselves an invisible
sacrifice. It is then that the angels, and all those superior powers
who are mighty by their goodness and piety, regard us with pleasure,
and rejoice with us and assist us to the utmost of their power. But if
we offer such worship to them, they decline it; and when on any
mission to men they become visible to the senses, they positively
forbid it. Examples of this occur in holy writ. Some fancied they
should, by adoration or sacrifice, pay the same honor to angels as is
due to God, and were prevented from doing so by the angels
themselves, and ordered to render it to Him to whom alone they know it
to be due. And the holy angels have in this been imitated by holy men
of God. For Paul and Barnabas, when they had wrought a miracle of
healing in Lycaonia, were thought to be gods, and the Lycaonians
desired to sacrifice to them, and they humbly and piously declined this
honor, and announced to them the God in whom they should believe.
And those deceitful and proud spirits, who exact worship, do so
simply because they know it to be due to the true God. For that which
they take pleasure in is not, as Porphyry says and some fancy, the
smell of the victims, but divine honors. They have, in fact, plenty
odors on all hands, and if they wished more, they could provide them
for themselves. But the spirits who arrogate to themselves divinity
are delighted not with the smoke of carcasses but with the suppliant
spirit which they deceive and hold in subjection, and hinder from
drawing near to God, preventing him from offering himself in sacrifice
to God by inducing him to sacrifice to others.
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