feeling which went with it, were perpetually idolatrous, perpetually slack or niggardly in the service of Jehovah, perpetually violators of judgment and justice.
The prophets earnestly reminded their nation of the superiority of judgment and justice to any exterior ceremony like sacrifice. But judgment and justice themselves, as Israel in general conceived them, have something exterior in them; now, what was wanted was more inwardness, more feeling. This was given by adding mercy and humbleness to judgment and justice. Mercy and humbleness are something inward, they are affections of the heart. And even in the Proverbs these appear: 'The merciful man doeth good to his own soul;' 'He that hath mercy on the poor, happy is he;' 'Honour shall uphold the humble in spirit;' 'When pride cometh, shame cometh, but with the lowly is wisdom.'[1] And the prophet Micah asked his nation: 'What doth the Eternal require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?'—adding mercy and humility to the old judgment and justice.[2] But a farther development is given to humbleness, when the second Isaiah adds contrition to it: 'I' (the Eternal) 'dwell with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit;'[3] or when the Psalmist says, 'The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise!'[4]
This is personal religion; religion consisting in the inward feeling and disposition of the individual himself, rather than in the performance of outward acts towards religion or society. It is the essence of Christianity, it is what the Jews needed, it is the line in which their religion was ripe for development. And it appears in the Old Testament. Still, in the Old Testament it by no means comes out fully. The leaning, there, is to make religion social
