Psalms 51:16

Psa 51:16 For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give [it]: thou delightest not in burnt offering.

Ver. 16. For thou desirest not sacrifice ] This is the reason why David restipulateth praise, if God will pardon his great sin, Psalms 51:15 , viz. because he well understood that God preferred praise before all sacrifices whatsoever, provided that it came from a broken spirit, Psalms 51:17 , rightly humbled for sin, and thankfully accepting of pardon. See Psalms 50:14-15 ; Psalms 50:23 .

Thou delightest not in burnt offering ] viz. Comparatively, and indeed not at all without a contrite heart.

Una Dei est, purum, gratissima victima, pectus (Nazianzen).

Much less, then, doth God respect the sacrifice of the mass, that hath no footing or warrant in the word. A certain Sorbonist finding it written at the end of St Paul’s Epistles Missa est, &c., bragged he had found the mass in his Bible. And another reading John 1:44 , Invenimus Messiam, made the same conclusion (Beehive, cap. 3). Some of them, as Bellarmine for one, would fain ground it upon Malachi 1:11 . Others fetch the name Missa from the Hebrew mass for tribute (Buxtorf); which comes from Masas, to melt (because it many times melteth away men’s estates), Recte quidem, saith Rivet; per missam scilicet pietas omnis liquefacta est et dissoluta.