The reasons of the Christian religion the first part, of godliness, proving by natural…

and why was the oblation to God contained in the Sacrifice? If you say, that the life of brutes is not so regardable, but that we take it away for our daily food; I answer, Its true, that it is allowed us for the maintenance of our lives; but yet it is not to be cast away in vain, nor is God to be represented as one that doth delight in blood: And the common sense of all the world in their sacrificing hath been, that besides the confession of their own desert, there is somewhat in it to appease God's displeasure; and none that I ever read of did take it for a mere confessing sign or action. If it be said, that they did it to signify their ⟨p. 265⟩homage to God; I answer, Why then did they not offer him only the living creature rather than the dead? all took it to be a propitiatory action. And if there had been an aptitude in this sign to betoken our penitent confession only, yet when God knoweth our confessions as well without it, and when the tongue is made the natural instrument to express the mind, and there are variety of other signs, it is incredible that all the world should ever (even so early) hit upon this one strange way of expression, without some special revelation or command of God.

and why was the oblation to God contained in the Sacrifice? If you say, that the life of bruits is not so regardable, but that we take it away for our daily food; I answer, Its true, that it is allowed us for the maintenance of our lives; but yet it is not to be cast away in vain, nor is God to be represented as one that doth delight in bloud: And the common sense of all the world in their sacrificing hath been, that besides the confession of their own desert, there is somewhat in it to appease God's displeasure; and none that I ever read of did take it for a meer confessing sign or action. If it be said, that they did it to signifie their ⟨p. 265⟩homage to God; I answer, Why then did they not offer him only the living creature rather than the dead? all took it to be a propitiatory action. And if there had been an aptitude in this sign to betoken our penitent confession only, yet when God knoweth our confessions as well without it, and when the tongue is made the natural instrument to express the mind, and there are variety of other signs, it is incredible that all the world should ever (even so early) hit upon this one strange way of expression, without some special revelation or command of God.