nature of the emotions and of the being towards whom they are uttered. And in Christian worship the feelings must be such as the gospel requires, and the expression in forms which harmonize therewith.1

III. DUTY OF WORSHIP.

1. A just conception of God and of our relations to him, of itself determines the propriety of worship. He is worthy of it; and it is not derogatory to his perfections to believe that he desires and is pleased with the homage of men.

There is a feeling that while it benefits us, adoration and praise are really of no account with God. He is supremely happy in himself, our homage does not increase his honor, he does not need our praise. The lamb which was sacrificed as a thank-offering, and the loaves of bread which were laid on the altar, were of no use to him. And our hymns and bowing in prayer, our sacraments and solemn ordinances are really of no greater value. The heart is what he regards. And the best proof of a right heart is an upright life.

True, the best proof to men of a right heart is an upright life. But he who searches the heart does not need even this token. And yet he is pleased with it. And he is pleased with services which have special regard to his honor.

It is an utterly unworthy conception of God to suppose that because of his greatness our worship contributes nothing to his happiness. Has God no heart? Is there nothing in his universe that can give him joy? Why, the very amplitude of his being, instead of removing, brings him into the closest sympathy with the lowliest of his creatures. He has avenues by which everything he has made can

1 Vinet defines worship as "the interior or exterior act of adoration — adoration in act; and adoration is nothing less than the direct and solemn recognition of the being and presence of God, and of our obligations towards him."-Pastoral Theology, Part III. § 1. In the German Theory of Worship, as given in this Review, Vol. XIV. p. 791, it is defined as "the representation, by means of forms correspondent to the nature of the soul, of the inward faith of the believer."

approach him. Creatures do not affect each other so easily as every creature affects the Creator. The violet does not appreciate the fragrance of its sister lily of the valley. The rose does not enjoy the beauty of the violet. Man, a higher being, whose nature takes them into his own, watches over them and delights in the incense with which they repay his care. The flowers are far beneath us. Can we therefore have no enjoyment in the tributes they offer? And does the frag rance of a little flower give pleasure to the noble creature man; and cannot the infinite God perceive and enjoy the tributes which loving human hearts present to him?

There is no being so sensitive to whatever may give pain. or pleasure as God. God is all heart. No one can so appreciate love; to no being is it so blessed. No creature has such feelings to be wounded by disobedience or grieved by neglect. He is alive to everything intended for his honor. He is sensitive to the slight which the most grovelling creature may show to its Creator. He recognizes the blind movements of matter in his praise, the dancing leaves, the flashes of auroral light, fire and hail, stormy wind fulfilling his word, mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars. The modest floweret gives more pleasure to the Creator than to all bis creatures. And so far from being above noticing how men treat him, made in his image, designed to hold fellowship with him, lingering here a little while in order to be fitted for his society in heaven; what God has done to win us to love and honor him is the best proof how he values our homage. In literal truth, and not in any accommodated sense, "the Lord taketh pleasure in his people"; he loves to be honored by the worship of his creatures; he delights in the service of loving hearts.

Rites of worship are simply the language with which we express our thoughts and feelings to our heavenly Father. And that he is touched by them, so far from being derogatory to him, enhances his glory. The more sensitive we are to pleasure and pain from the most insignificant things, the more capacious does our nature prove itself to be. And

God would not be God if he did not desire and enjoy the worship of his creatures.

2. That it is necessary for our good is admitted by those who see no other propriety in it. They who lay the whole stress of religion on the office it holds in human culture, do not exaggerate the value of divine ordinances. There can be no spiritual life without worship. The soul is dwarfed, man is shrunk back into a lower type of being, when he is cut off from sensible communion with Heaven. The laws of human development seem to be, that a germ must be introduced into the lower from the higher. The civilization of nations has been by colonization, by the impor tation of a higher life from without, to leaven and elevate. And in worship the human race is brought into contact with him whose inspiration giveth understanding. There is, moreover, a philosophical basis for divine worship in the fact that there is a religious faculty in man which needs to find suitable expression in order to come to self-consciousness and to attain its power and fill its sphere.

3. The importance which the Bible attributes to this duty is seen in the very structure and contents of the revelation. The object of the holy scriptures is to give such a knowledge of God, and excite such emotions as shall flow out in worship, and to make known by what rites and in what methods service must be rendered. The commonwealth of Moses was little more than a grand ritual of wor ship. And while the Jewish economy has passed away, and its burdensome ceremonials are no longer in force, the fact that God so carefully instituted that complicated system has instructive lessons for Christians. It shows the necessity of great attention to the service we render, and the just ordering of it. It teaches modesty and diffidence in pronouncing that rites to which we are not accustomed are absurd or puerile, and that ceremonies which we do not see the reason of are superstitious. God set forth the system of Judaism. He knew the danger of superstition and formalism, and how liable forms are to be abused. And he was the same spir

itual being to the Jew he is to the Christian.

An attention

to outward forms and to ritualistic ceremonies entered into the very warp and woof of the pure worship of David and of Isaiah, and of Peter and John and Paul, to an extent which would shock the notions of many good men now. Humility and modesty in judging those who differ from us in these things would be no serious injury.

Not only did our Saviour and his apostles scrupulously observe rites which many would be likely to judge, if they saw such things, frivolous, if not perilous; it is to be noted that after the resurrection and ascension of our Lord, and after the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, the disciples continued to go to the temple to worship. They were observ ing the feast of Pentecost when they received the great baptism of the Spirit. Paul, the most free from the trammels of the old dispensation, paid his vows at the altar. He discarded circumcision, but he shaved his head and performed lustral purifications.

All this took place after, and in complete harmony with, that conversation of Christ with the Samaritan woman, in which we have the pregnant sentence which sets forth spirituality as the sign and seal of true and Christian worship.

IV. SPIRITUALITY OF WORSHIP.

The gospel edition of Leviticus is comprised in a single verse which the Lord Jesus uttered as he sat on the mouth of Jacob's well. He was returning with his apostles from the temple worship of Jerusalem. The Samaritan woman claimed a higher sanctity for mount Gerizim than for mount Zion. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither at this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

The very conciseness and brevity of a law sometimes renders it liable to be misinterpreted and calls for copious explanation. Many have drawn the inference from this declaration of our Master, that in proportion as we dispense

with the forms we realize the spirit of worship; and that for the highest spirituality the formal elements must be wholly eliminated.

Now there is no better way of ascertaining what spiritual worship is, than by considering the worship of Christ and of the apostles and of holy men of old. The worship which our Lord rendered was spiritual. The worship of Paul, of Peter, and James was spiritual. The worship of Isaiah, of David and Moses and Abraham, was spiritual. Looking at the illustrations which the holy scriptures give, it is evident that modes, times, places, are purely circumstantial, and vary under varying conditions of society; and that the essential thing is, that there be real life, the spirit of living faith, in the service. Spiritual worship is the spirit worshipping. The error to guard against is, on the one hand, that of smothering the life by forms which God does not authorize, and attributing virtue to divinely authorized forms after the spirit has departed; or, on the other hand, of neglecting, as needless, forms which are scriptural.

1. Spirituality of worship does not imply that there is no sanctity to be recognized in special places and seasons. The true conception of Christian worship demands both sanctuaries and sabbaths.

Some have misapprehended the words of our Lord to the Samaritan woman, and have thought he intended to teach that it was wrong to make so much of Jerusalem and of the rites of the temple, and that one place was no more to be regarded than another.

Why then did Jesus himself go at regular intervals to Jerusalem? What aroused his indignation in seeing his Father's house made a house of merchandise; and why did he scourge the buyers and sellers out of it? Who established Jerusa lem, who ordered the arrangements of the tabernacle and the temple? Did not God himself? And does the Son of God mean that this was all wrong, that it was a mistake?

So far from it, our Lord added new sanctity to the temple. He worshipped there. And he simply declares in his