1 F. W. Robertson. ' John G. Patan, i. 202.
ST. JOHN IV. 24 247
enthusiasm. He calls it Eational Eeligion. This also is ignor- ance. The spiritual man bows before Goodness, "The true worshippers worship the Father," " We know what we worship : for salvation is of the Jews," that is, God is intelligible in Christ as Love, Goodness, Purity.
^ God is a Spirit in nature ; but He is a Father in character. This was part of Christ's revelation of God to the woman of Samaria. "The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father," Jesus was the herald of the Golden Age, and of the common worship of the universal Father. On that very day the Golden Age was dawning, for He, rising above the limits of a national religion, was seeking one outside its fold. True, as He declared to this woman, salvation was of the Jews. Unto the Jews God had revealed Himself by prophet and priest, and by means of ritual. Unto them had been granted special revelation ; yet, notwithstanding all their privileges, the Jewish people had not yet learned the full glory of the Divine character. To them, God was Jehovah, the High and Mighty One inhabiting eternity ; He was infinite, all-powerful, the God of Israel ; but the coming of Jesus unveiled Deity, and revealed Him as the one Father of all humanity. Before His coming, men had dreaded Deity ; but He, leading the children of men into the presence of the Infinite, said, " When ye pray, say. Our Father." Thus He revealed the character of God to be that of infinite love.^
(4) A fourth error is a mistake about the nature of reverence. This Samaritan woman had what is often called reverence — venera- tion for antiquity, zeal for her Church, lingering recollections of the old mountain, respect for a prophet. But what was her life ? He with whom she then lived was not Ber husband. In other words, reverence, veneration, awe, are feelings which belong to the imagination and are neither good nor bad : they may go along with religion, but also they may not. A man may kneel to sublime things, yet never have bent his heart to goodness and purity. A man may be reverential and yet impure. Next examine a man who is called irreverent. Constitutionally so framed that he does not happen to thrill at painted windows, Gothic architecture, and solemn music, is he, therefore, without veneration ? Take him out into God's grand universe, or put before him Christ's character: is there no adoration, no deep
1 G. E. Walters, The Deserted Christ, 78.
248 TRUE WORSHIP
intense love? Tell him of a self-denying action: is there no moisture in his eye? Tempt him to meanness: is there no indignant scorn? The man has bowed his soul before Justice, Mercy, Truth, and therefore stands erect before everything else that this world calls sublime.
yi The enjoyment of noble architecture and music is not worship, and may be mistaken for it. The hush which falls on us, walking the aisles of a church of eight hundred years ; the thrill of nerves and heart as the glorious praise begins, whose echoes fail amid fretted vaults and clustered shafts ; all that feel- ing, solemn as it is, has no necessary connection with worshipping God in spirit and in truth. And we may delude ourselves with the belief that we are offering spiritual worship when it is all a mere matter of natural emotion, which the most godless man could share.^
(5) A fifth error is the failure to distinguish between interest in theology and interest in religion. Here was a woman living in sin, and yet deeply interested in a religious controversy. She found, doubtless, a kind of safeguard to rest on in the perception of this keen interest. Her religion was almost nothing, her theology most orthodox. Theological controversy sharpens our disputative faculties and wakens our speculative ones. Eeligion is love to God and man. We do not always distinguish between theology and religion. We make skill in controversy a test of spirituality. It is but a poor test. The way the woman ques- tioned Christ is a specimen of a common feeling. The moment Christ appeared she examined His views. She did not ask whether the Man before her was pure and spotless, or whether His life was spent in doing good ; but was He sound upon the vital question of the Temple ?
^ An elderly minister was asked to take the catechizing of the congregation in a parish in the pastoral uplands of the South of Scotland. He was warned against the danger of putting questions to a certain shepherd, who had made himself master of more divinity than some of his clerical contemporaries could boast, and who enjoyed nothing better than, out of the question put to him, to engage in an argument with the minister on some of the deepest problems of theology. The day of the ordeal at last came, the old doctor ascended the pulpit, and after the preUminary
* A. K. H. Boyd, Sunday Afternoons in a University City, 87.
ST. JOHN IV. 24 249
service put on his spectacles and unfolded the roll of the congre- gation. To the utter amazement of everybody, he began with the theological shepherd, John Scott. Up started the man, a tall, gaunt, sunburnt figure, with his maud over his shoulder, his broad blue bonnet on the board in front of him, and such a look of grim determination on his face as showed how sure he felt of the issue of the logical encounter to which he believed he had been challenged from the pulpit. The minister, who had clearly made up his mind as to the line of examination to be followed with this pugnacious theologian, looked at him calmly for a few moments, and then in a gentle voice asked, " Who made you, John ? " The shepherd, prepared for questions on some of the most difficult points of our faith, was taken aback by being asked what every child in the parish could answer. He replied in a loud and astonished tone, " Wha made me ? " " It was the Lord God that made you, John," quietly interposed the minister. " Who redeemed you, John ? " Anger now mingled with indignation as the man shouted, "Wha redeemed me ? " The old divine, still in the same mild way, reminded him " It was the Lord Jesus that redeemed you, John," and then asked further, " Who sanctified you, John ? " Scott, now thoroughly aroused, roared out, " Wha sanctified ME ? " The clergyman paused, looked at him calmly, and said, " It was the Holy Ghost that sanctified you, John Scott, if, indeed, ye be sanctified. Sit ye doon, my man, and learn your questions better the next time you come to the catechizing." The shepherd was never able to hold his head up in the parish thereafter.^