3. Now see how great this truth is. That God is a Spirit comes nearer to the business and the bosoms of men, to our real interests, to our belief in progress, to our feeling of God's Father- hood, to our sense of man's brotherhood, than any other truth. Is there a Church laying down dogmatic terms of salvation ? This rebukes it : God is a Spirit, and the spirits that desire Him He makes His own. Is there a merely conventional worship, a merely authoritative religion, a merely ceremonial, ecclesiastical way of approaching God ? This disowns it : only those who are in personal communion with Him know Him at all, and they may know Him to their full content. Is there an upright man, a devout heart, misunderstood or forsaken by the world? This sustains him: God is a Spirit, and brings all things to light. Is there a conscience that would hide itself from the light ? This disables
^ Sir Archibald Geikie, Scottish EeminisceTiccs, 72.
250 TRUE WORSHIP
it : " Whither shall I go from thy spirit ? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?" "The darkness and the light are both alike to thee."
^ Is there a troubled mind, a spirit that cannot find peace ? What will quiet it ? Nothing but some sense of the Infinite as very near to us; it may be from a glance at the unfathomable depths of Nature, with awe and shame at the contrast between our fretful selfishness and the silent realities of God in which we feel we have a part. To gaze upon the face of Nature is sometimes to be brought under the power of a calm and cleansing spirit then present to us ; and what is religion but a quickening of the soul under the sense that a Spirit of Purity and Love is acting and looking upon us ? And if ever the solemnity and beauty which man's workmanship can produce does in its highest examples, in a cathedral, or in the Angel of the Kesurrection from the great sculptor's hand, contribute something to religious emotion, how much more may the sense of the Infinite come upon us from the spiritual aspects of the Temple not made with hands ; still more if with understanding hearts we could gaze into the majestic face of Christ ; still more if, led by Christ up to the Throne, into the real Presence, we could bring ourselves to look intently, with a full trust, into the fatherly face of God ! ^
^ He who worships the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, must, in all the qualities of his soul, in all the relations of his life, be a better man than the atheist, than the man who denies the existence of God. The man who worships a stone is a better man than he who worships nothing. The man who falls down before carven wood, or worships the beasts of the field, is a grander nature than he who never bows his head in prayer, and never lifts up his heart in aspiration and religious desire. The tendency of worship is to elevate our natm^e. He who worships sincerely, however ignorantly, is the better for his worship ; he is enlarged in his nature, his outlook upon things is widened, he is led away from self-trust, and is taught to depend upon a power, not lower, but higher, and in his estimation better, than his own.*
XL
Its Nature.
To worship is man's highest glory. He was created for fellowship with God : of that fellowship worship is the sublimest » J. H. Thorn, A Spiritual Faith, 12. ' J. Parker.
ST. JOHN IV. 24 251
expression. All the exercises of the religious life — meditation and prayer, love and faith, surrender and obedience, all culminate in worship. Eecognizing what God is in His holiness, His glory, and His love, realizing what we are as sinful creatures, and aa the Father's redeemed children, in worship we gather up our whole being and present ourselves to our God to offer Him the adoration and the glory which are His due. The truest and fullest and nearest approach to God is worship. Every sentiment and every service of the religious life is included in it : to worship is man's highest destiny, because in it God is all.
1. " God is a Spirit : and they that worship him must worship inspirit and truth.'* It is not a question of ^;/acc. " Neither in this mountain nor yet in Jerusalem is the place." It is no question of cathedral, or church, or chapel, or hall. Wherever a heart yearns for God and pours itself forth, there is God's House, there is God's blessing. Every sick-room can be a House of God ; every hospital ward a House of God ; every lonely heart away in the deepest solitude in seeking Him can find His House. It is not a question of time. If this true idea of worship be once grasped, that it is not an outward form, not outward ceremony, not at set times, but ever, always, the going out of hearts towards and after Him, it will mean that our worship will find expression in our home life, in our factory life, in our shop life, in our dock life, in our so-called secular life, and everywhere, always, all things, sacred and secular, will be blended in one lifelong act of worship, our heart going out to God in spirit and in truth.