3. We may next consider the office of the Hebrew prophets as _expounders of the Mosaic law_--the Mosaic law in its substance, as distinguished from its outward form. They never undervalued the letter of the law, since that too was of divine appointment; but they taught men that true obedience must rise above the letter to its spirit. When Saul excused himself to Samuel for disobeying God's command on the ground that the people had spared the best of the sheep and oxen to sacrifice to the Lord, the prophet indignantly answered: "Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." 1 Sam. 15:22. "Bring no more vain oblations," says God to the Jews whose hands were full of oppression and blood; "incense is an abomination unto me: the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them." And his direction is: "Wash you, make you clean: put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." Isaiah 1:13-17. "I hate," says God to the covenant people through Amos, "I despise your feast-days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer me burnt-offerings and your meat-offerings, I will not accept them; neither will I regard the peace-offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream." Amos 5:21-24. "Wherewith," says Micah, "shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" Micah 6:6-8. Under the Old Testament, outward forms of divine service were required, and they are necessary, to a certain extent, under the New also. But if any man puts his trust for salvation in these, to the neglect of inward faith, love, and obedience, he stands condemned at the bar of Moses and the prophets, not less than at the bar of Christ and his apostles, Under the Mosaic economy, both the rites of divine service and the succession of the priesthood were definitively prescribed by God himself, and therefore to all of binding authority. But the man who placed his religion in these outward observances, to the neglect of his heart and life, was to God an