Selected From: Rev. James Sieveright, “The Freedom of Gospel Worship from Local Circumstances and National Peculiarities Asserted,” Free Church Pulpit, Vol. 1 (New York: Robert Carter, 1848), 1–12. Preached at the Opening of the Free Church, Markinch
“But the hour cometh and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him.”—John 4:24
The argument from antiquity or from ancestry is wonderfully convenient for minds that, averse from patient inquiry and discriminating thought, love to acquiesce in the traditionary belief of former generations without caring to ascertain if the convictions of the past ages were consonant to truth, or if there be anything in the present order of Providence that would justify or demand a departure from the creed and customs of those that went before. To this easy-minded class belonged the woman of Samaria, who, in the conference with our Lord here recorded, held up the usage of progenitors as a shield impenetrable—she thought, to every form of objection, “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain.” This was enough; here she took her stand, and on the same ground stood her countrymen and the Jewish nation generally, when Christianity was first proposed to them. On this ground too did the heathen of old, and the heathen that now are, allege their fathers’ belief as a reason for not listening to the claims of Divine revelation. Precisely similar was the position tenaciously maintained by the blinded opponents of reformation in Luther’s day, while among ourselves, numbers have no better reason or at least will give us no better reason for worshipping God in certain places than that advanced by the woman of Samaria—“Our fathers worshipped there.”
Such was her plea, and to this plea she would probably have adhered till her dying hour, had she argued with one less mighty to enlighten and convince than Christ; but it was in his heart to rescue a captive of error, and bring her to a saving knowledge of the truth; and that not by means of a long process of reasoning—not by detecting and exposing her inveterate prejudices singly and in detail, but by sweeping them away at once by the announcement of a new order of things, involving in its development the abolition of all that was local, peculiar, and ceremonial in the established worship, and substituting for it a ritual more simple, and ordinances not exclusive but accessible to all—ordinances characterized by spirituality, and having truth without a veil substantially enshrined in them. “The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him.”
A statement so profound and unexpected, stamped with authority and prophetic of mighty change, proceeding from the mouth of a teacher come from God, must have fallen with a weight of conviction on the hardest heart, though hers was hard no more, for doubtless from the very commencement of her colloquy with Christ, his Spirit had touched her heart and made it patent, as afterwards in the case of Lydia, to an honest reception of the truth. Today we too look up for heart-opening grace, without which, did we speak with the tongue of angels, we should scarcely convince any, and certainly not effectually persuade.
To evade questions touching personal character, the woman of Samaria tried to divert the discourse to the circumstantial of religion, and sought to engage our Lord in debate as to the place of worship most acceptable to God—a question vehemently agitated in those days between Samaritans and Jews. How often is a like device still resorted to by people who show themselves cold, distant, and inaccessible in matters of experimental religion, the nature of conversion, and the operations of grace, but will hold us in endless dispute as to the validity of ancient forms and the virtue of worshipping where their fathers did. Here their zeal, which on greater points was so latent, kindles into a flame and blazes intolerantly high. To render the fuel of prejudice less combustible, however, it were well to consider what is intended by the saying of Christ that the hour had come “when true worshippers were to worship the Father in spirit and in truth.”
To establish purity of worship in the earth was an undertaking worthy of the Son of God. In the opinion of some, we believe, it had been a nobler enterprise of philanthropy to deal directly with man’s social state, to have rectified its inequalities, and provided for the secular interests of humanity, putting aside meanwhile the question of religion as of inferior importance—a world without God, or a God without worship, well according with their views. We suppose they would regulate heaven itself on the same principles and haply find fault with its blest inhabitants for making so much ado about devotion.
But can the creature ever forget that it holds existence, at least happy existence, on the tenure of rendering to the great Creator the glory forever due to perfections so infinite, works so marvelous, and benefits so varied and immense? Towards such a Being is not worship a most reasonable service, a natural and necessary recognition of creature dependence, an authentic and significant expression of creature gratitude and admiration, of creature reverence and love? And to banish from the earth what constitutes man’s chief duty, and so illustrates the Creator’s glory, were a disparagement indeed to the majesty of God, and a degradation to ourselves, for the very act of worshipping exceedingly exalts our nature in bringing us nigh to God, the source and centre of all blessedness, and thereby raising in us sentiments perfective of our natures, and assimilating the adoring soul to the object it regards with supreme complacency and sacred awe. Nor can we think a supreme regard to the worship of God unfriendly to the constitution and continuance of the soundest social state, for if there is in futurity, as some anticipate, a social optimism, religion, we presume, will be its most pregnant element, and we are moreover convinced that nothing will remedy the growing distempers of man’s social state but the bringing back a godless world (which in its wisdom knows not God, and in its folly denies him) to a devout recognition of Him whose will is destiny, and his favour better than life.
Indeed, so much stress do we lay on the proper worship of God, that we conceive all other functions of sanctuary service derive their highest interest and importance from the tendency they have to train up souls for acceptable worship; for what nobler end can we propose to ourselves in preaching the Word with intense desires for men’s conversion than thereby to bring them to the knowledge of God, that they may eternally worship and adore him? Could we enquire of angels what they thought of worship, would they not assign to it the sublimest place among creature obligations? Doubtless the beatitude of heaven greatly consists in adoring celebrations; nor is there on earth anything that so elevates and ennobles the human soul as the holy and heart-expanding aspirations of true devotion.
If worship then holds so divine a place among creature duties—if it be, as it is, a final cause of creature existence for the glory of God—we repeat, that to establish purity of worship on earth was an undertaking worthy of the Son of God. He came into the world at a period when true worship had in a measure disappeared among men. The world had long presented the sad spectacle of creatures, made to glorify the infinite Creator, refusing to the King immortal the sacred tribute of adoration. Not only had the nations ceased to know and acknowledge God, but they had universally lapsed into idolatry of the most debasing kind, paying divine honours to mean and inanimate objects, as if in profane mockery of all that was divine, for so vain and wanton did they wax in the impiety of their minds, that not only was religious worship rendered to the mighty dead and to the more imposing objects of the visible creation, such as sun, moon, stars, but an imagery of senseless reptile forms was often added to personifications of vice in the hateful furniture of the grove or temple.
There was indeed one excepted spot, when all the world besides was enshrouded in gross and guilty darkness. In Judah did the light of revelation shine, and by its discoveries were the true Israel led to seek and serve the true God. But even there, until the Sun of Righteousness arose, the light was shadowy and indistinct, and the national worship, in its greater ordinances, was restricted to Jerusalem, the place the Lord had chosen to put his name there.
Now, however, it was clearly announced that the time of local worship was at an end—that neither in that mountain nor in Jerusalem should men worship God exclusively—that in all places, in fine, were henceforth to be alike sacred, considered in themselves, spirit and truth, the great essentials, being limited to no clime, nor class, nor situation. On this ground, we use the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and count it no offence to retire from an ancient and long-venerated place of worship, when it has lost what entitled it in our estimation to respect or veneration. We hold agreeable to the oracle before us, that no sanctity attaches to place, and none to the mere materials of a fabric of whatever form or wherever erected, whether in Judea or Japan, in Caledonia or Cabul. No! The God whom we worship is a Spirit of infinite being, universal presence, and unlimited manifestation, and where he designs to manifest himself, whether in stately edifice or moveable tent, or apart from the work of man’s hands, beneath the open firmament of heaven, it matters not—the Divine presence, and that only, gives sanctity to the scene. With these views, we ascribe no sanctity to the ground on which we stand, nor do we call in superstition today in opening this house for public worship to throw over its walls a mystery and spell of would-be consecration, as if that would operate as a charm for securing the Divine presence or for retaining it, should the worshippers degenerate and the worship cease to be pure. Instead of symbolizing with apostate Rome and its emulous affiliations in what they deem indispensable to a place of worship, we would follow the simpler, sublimer, and more rational example of Solomon at the dedication of the house which he had built for God. With as little of ceremony then (and, oh, that we could add, with a like tone and spirit of high devotion), would we pronounce his words as our form of dedication; and as we read, let every pious mind appropriate the strain:
But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven, and heaven of heavens, cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded? Yet have thou respect unto the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, O Lord my God, to hearken unto the cry and to the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee today: hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place; and when thou hearest, forgive. —1 Kings 8:27
We lay little stress on what men call consecration, as imparting sanctity to place; but we do lay stress on the promise of Christ, that where two or three meet together in his name, he will be in the midst of them—what need we more? The thought and feeling of that presence will give to this place, in the estimation of true worshippers, a hallowed air of unearthly fragrance, a perpetual sanctity that will impress and overawe far above the grandest spectacles of man’s decorative contrivance; and we cannot this day forego the hope that here, for many days, shall the grace and glory of the Divine presence be known and felt, while true worship, apart from impure mixture, shall, we trust, be offered unto God by a willing people. “The temple of God is holy,” says the Apostle. What temple had the Apostle in view? Was it the temple at Jerusalem, or any great edifice of Christian erection? To many a modern ear the expression would peradventure suggest a cathedral pile, or at least some consecrated place, as they call it; but mark the Apostle’s explanation when he adds, “which temple are ye.” The living temple then, the man who “sanctifies the Lord God in his heart,” is the only temple recognised in the New Testament, and into such temples will Jehovah come. Let none then be troubled in mind because our places of worship want the hoar of antiquity, and deviate from the wonted form and accompaniments of the long-regarded parish church. We claim antiquity for our principles and for our order of worship, and thus far we religiously shun innovation. But as to our places of worship, which are reviled by many as modern and mean, they have, we think, something more than age and error to attach us to them. Our spirits prize the liberty of Christ, and feel that a new impulse is given to devotion by its disengagement from limitations of time and place, to which multitudes are still in bondage, through ignorance that the hour is come when spirit and truth are the only indispensable requisites of acceptable worship.
Having, in the foregoing remarks, briefly handled the question of place, we shall in the sequel, with still greater conciseness, advert to certain other abuses of the religious principle in matters pertaining to the service of God. And first, we have to notice a class that place religion in forms and these only. By this sort of people, spirit and truth are clean lost sight of and never missed. Give them but a certain amount of formal acts and observances pertaining to the externals of religion, and they ask nothing more; and it must be confessed that, as to many of this class, wonderfully little, even of form, contents them, insomuch that to appear twice in church on a Sabbath day would be reckoned then being “righteous overmuch.” A single attendance is as much as some may endure, and that attendance characterized by bodily presence and bodily exercise merely, without exercise of mind or spirit of devotion. And were the weekly order of life inquired into, it would be found that deducting the incident of Sabbath worship, there would appear neither trace nor token of religious engagement in all the six-day scene of customary occupation. How little even of “the form of godliness” can be here detected?
The religion of form, however, assumes a very different aspect where lordly superstition bears sway. For instead of the few simple forms compatible with our mode of worship, in some religious communities, a complex and engrossing rubric is brought in, which exacts a world of time, care, and devotion—devotion we mean to its own formalities, and not to God, for were his majestic and awful Being regarded in the act of worship, the thought of his greatness would so possess the soul, as not to leave space for the exhibition of operose and fantastic ceremonies which Rome of old invented, and which an ascendant Prelacy now fondly copies and waxes bold to prescribe to an unprotestant generation.
And for what end bring back the exploded forms of a dark and superstitious age—an age credulous to error, and only hard to be persuaded when spirit and truth are concerned? Is it to act as a barrier against the tide of skepticism now setting in and threatening to inundate the whole field of revealed truth? But will it be staid by the bulwark they oppose to it, made up as it is of things so superficial and offensive? Surely not. Bent however they are upon a religion of attitude and show, a religion that deems itself perfect in proportion to the multitude and exact performance of its ritual prescriptions. But whether the men of form rest in our simpler mode of worship, or addict themselves to the picturesque and imposing observances of Italy or Oxford, it availeth not. They may light their tapers at noonday, as they do, but it will only serve to display the absence of what our Saviour taught the woman of Samaria to regard as the distinguishing characteristics of gospel worship, namely, spirit and truth.
Another class comprehends those who place religion not in forms but in feelings, with which they are captivated and in which they are so absorbed that forms are little regarded, and truth itself not carefully sought. This class is less numerous than the preceding, for the formalist party has always outnumbered the devotees of feeling. Yet as the latter exist as a class, and perhaps a growing on in some quarters, their errors require to be exposed, and so much the more, that they are specious and plausible, not only assuming to be piety, but piety in its most exalted stage of spirituality.
But on bringing their system to trial, do we find all necessary truth in combination with its transcendental pretensions? No, we even find doctrinal facts of high import and use to sinful man kept out of view, and, where not displaced, greatly overlaid with visionary moods of self-soothing quietism. We find mysticism, doubtless the fairest counterfeit of true piety, and only to be distinguished from it by the application of the strongest scriptural tests—a mysticism which, having attained to a certain class of religion-like sentiments, and in many cases, no doubt, to a certain measure of genuine grace, shuts itself up in passive contemplation of what is within. As if one, having opened a dark chamber and let in the light of day, should straightway reclose it in the belief that the light within would last without communication with the light of heaven without. By this similitude, may we not inaptly illustrate the mystic’s mistake, when he forgets that we live not by sentimental feeling but by simple faith, that we need perpetual supplies of grace from without for the obtaining of which we must, with a conscious and constant reliance, lean on the finished work of Jesus for peace, safety, and acceptance?
No doubt there is in the mystic’s system of sanctimonious religion much enjoyment and much of truth also—truths respecting the necessity of all possible self-annihilation before the everlasting God—the sufficiency and happiness of Divine love, together with the duty and advantage of religious abstraction, and a silent communing with an omnipresent Creator. When these views leave to relative duty, external objects, and instituted forms of worship, their proper estimation, let them receive the respect they are entitled to on the ground of truth. But though some great truths have a place in the system we review, in other points it is grievously deficient, for conceding, as we do, much truth to it, all essential verities are not there—nay, there is little of Christ in it, little recognition of the necessity of his blood and righteousness in order to our justification, little celebration of his glorious achievements in the work of redemption, and little direct application, it would seem, to God our Saviour for the grace of life and the exercise of his priestly intercession on the sinner’s behalf in the presence of the Majesty on high.
The mystic system, at first sight, and to a superficial observer, appears spiritual in the highest degree, and it is only on perceiving how little He who is “the way, the truth, and the life” is regarded in it, that we suspect its spirituality and begin to ask if that can be sound and acceptable to God which is not in alliance with all revealed truth, and especially with truths that concern the Saviour’s kingly offices and work. In the mystic’s world of feeling, Christ is not all in all, and what more need we to evince its disagreement with the requisites of true religion shewn us in the text? Were the sun in yonder firmament to be partially eclipsed, and much more, were the solar orb totally obscured, all nature would be appalled—a chilly horror would spread over the face of things, while every creature would feel a dread uncertainty amid the cold and cheerless gloom. Now, just as Nature mourns the hiding of its enlivening light, so feel we in every system of religion which veils the glory of Immanuel and teaches men to walk by other light and live by other life than that derived by faith from Christ as all in all.
The religion of feeling is to some minds fascinating and congenial, but if error lurks in it, let us beware. Satan is never more potent to deceive than when he comes as an angel of light, and we believe not a few have been carried away from Christ and salvation by visionary feelings and frames, whom the grosser lusts of the flesh had failed to seduce and undo, their delusion being the more pitiable that it is sincere and, in many aspects, holy.
Passing then from the religion of form and the religion of feeling, as in different respects inadequate and erroneous, we proceed to what we alone deem worthy to be enforced and honoured, and that is the religion of principle. Attention to form is seemly and necessary, if we would worship God with our bodies at all, as we are enjoined to do; nor is deep emotion foreign from the nature of true piety, for it has in its views of divine and eternal realities, brought to light through the gospel, whatever is fitted to stimulate feeling and raise our better affections to the highest pitch, through the moving power and manifestation of the Holy Ghost. Nevertheless, in the awful concerns of religion, we require something more definite and intelligible than feeling—something in its character fixed and endurable, something, in a word, which, not dependent on bodily sensation, shall remain unaltered and eternal, like a rock in the midst of the sea, which is not moved from its place, whether the surging waves around it ebb or flow. Such stability belongs to the power of principle, which, assigning to form and feeling their proper province, imparts unyielding strength to the whole frame and fabric of an intelligent and truth-built piety.
We know that to worship God in spirit requires a certain degree of religious sensibility, which, whether of a contrite or an exulting kind, will give rise to fervent emotion, which cannot be quenched but by quenching the Holy Spirit, whose influence is in it. He is the Spirit of Truth, however, and therefore spirituality and truth are inseparable—as closely related, we believe, as parent and child—and hence we reckon it but a spurious spirituality which dwells with error and winks at the loss or absence of truth and principle as not essential to true devotion.
Brethren, it is the religion of principle we this day press upon your notice and adoption. It will be our business to recommend and enforce it every time we appear among you, and, as a preliminary, we bid you this day look at the pulpit, look at the people, look at the place we for the first time assemble in, and see in each of these objects to what extent principle is able to subjugate feeling, trample worldly interests under foot, and subvert time-hallowed customs with a force of decision that sweeps all impediments away. Look, we say, at the pulpit—what led us to occupy the position we this moment hold? What but principle—principle that forbade us to prefer quiet and convenience to truth, forbade us to prove faithless to a Divine Master and to betray his cause, for fear of giving offence to the timid or provocation to the proud? Principle bade us not to heed the defamations of calumny, with its hundred heads and hundred tongues, all ready to invent or propagate any form of misrepresentation. In a word, when we heard the unambiguous voice of Truth saying to us, “Follow me,” we arose and left a dwelling we had little thought to quit till exchanged for the house appointed for all living. Nor was it among the lightest of our trials to bid farewell to yonder edifice, which however we now regard in the light of a sepulchral monument, sacred to the memory of the past. Urged by principle, we forsook all, but not as one forsaken and alone, as the aspect of this assembly shows, for look, we say, at the people, as well as the pulpit. To them too the call of principle came, nor did it find them unwilling to respond. They too have had their sacrifices to make, and to some of you, ye followers of truth, the sacrifice we know was not small—Small shall any dare to call it? No! Yonder churchyard bedewed with tears of weeping friends, because the graves of departed relatives would no more be their Sabbath resort, can attest the grief ye felt on leaving the wonted place of worship, hallowed to you by many a touching association connected with the living and the dead. Look then, we repeat, at the people. What, will an objector say, are they so numerous that you boast of them? No! We call them not numerous, compared with the general population; and taking into account the religious reputation of this parish in former times, we reckon the number small and disappointing to the expectations of those that know not the prevailing state of religion among us; and had the late memorable event occurred in some former generations, we suppose the people here would have emulated the fine spirit of certain other places, where old and young fled from the contact and oppression of error, as Israel’s holy nation did of old flee from Egypt for life and liberty. But though we have nothing to boast of in point of numbers, we have ample cause for thankful recognition of the grace that has been given to so many in everyone of whom a demonstration of the power of principle is held out to the consideration of friends and foes. Brethren, ye did well in following after truth, though it be at the expense of reproach and inconvenience. You have left the mountain where your fathers worshipped. What ye have spent and what ye shall hereafter expend for Christ’s sake, the Lord is able to repay; nor will he suffer himself to be outdone in the way of liberal donation. In the might of principle go forward, and seas of apparent depth and difficulty shall not obstruct your travel heavenward. Have ye been losers hitherto, we ask, by the part ye took? Have the consolations of Christ been sensibly diminished, or have you reason to say that the duties of religion have become more onerous to you and less productive of spiritual enjoyment since the day ye took up the position ye now maintain? Nay, brethren, we are bold to answer for you, as we do for ourselves, that never have we had greater freedom and delight in our public engagements in serving the Lord than have been experienced by us since that period. We are owned of God in this matter, and need not be careful because of man’s obloquy and reproach!
Again, if the pulpit and if the people be looked at as proofs of principle, we bid you next to look at the place we this day worship in for the first time for proof of what eternal principle will devise and do for God and his truth. See the proof of it in this goodly structure, so convenient, capacious, and becoming the uses to which we this day devote it. It might have been erected at less expense of coarser materials and in plainer style. But principle did not confer with worldly prudence, either in the first design or after execution: it was for God; and who will deal penuriously with him? It was an illustration of principle and nobly has it achieved its aim. We bless God for it, while in the name of a grateful congregation and, as we venture to say, in the name of the Great Head of the Church, we acknowledge the good deed done by the two members of the Church who have accomplished so great an object. As long as it stands, it will be said of it, What hath principle done!
Alas! that our afflicted congregations should have so few doings of this kind to witness and record! Instead of expressing sympathy for men of conscience, the great ones of the earth did first deprive the Church of its spiritual liberty and chartered freedom, and next proceeded to interdict every spot of ground within their confines on which a house of prayer might be built or a moveable tent erected, as if they might, in the exercise of irresponsible power, issue a decree that neither in mountain nor in desert wilderness should men be allowed to “worship the Father,” though they did it peaceably, “in spirit and in truth.” Is there principle here? Yes! Such principle as sundry ancient lords exhibited, and which, by the Holy Spirit, has been handed down for the condemnation of all ages—as seen in Daniel 3:6. What account posterity shall take of these modern measures, we know not; but who can doubt the verdict of the last day? Happily, all to whom God hath given great power have not so misapplied it, and far more pleasant we feel it to commend the deserving than to censure the wilfully wrong, though it may be they think in oppressing us, they are doing God a service. Hitherto we have had little to notice in the form of absolute persecution. The countenance of some that of old befriended us and have power to do us harm is indeed sorely changed; but liberty of conscience still survives. Menaces indeed are not wanting, and little faith ingloriously inclines to the blast, but men rooted and grounded in the Truth will stand upright and refuse to swerve. How pitiable is it when the fear of man casts out the fear of God! What an infinite error is thus committed in the estimate of things!
We have perhaps dwelt on collateral topics at greater length than may seem consistent with a strict exposition of the text, considered doctrinally. But the occasion and circumstances of the time will, we trust, account for and defend the method we have followed in the foregoing remarks. If we have said more about man than about God, let us in conclusion strive to correct the fault. Alas! what is man that the infinite Jehovah should invite his homage, accept his poor celebrations, or even tolerate expressions of love and adoration, which so seldom proceed from a heart purely and profoundly impressed with the genuine sentiments of devotion? In nothing stand we more in need of a kind and clement Mediator, than when we draw near, as we call it, to a heart-searching God, for it is an act of creature duty that requires the soul’s entire engagement, and failures in it affect the glory of God to an extent that undevout and careless worshippers are little aware of, just because they neither know themselves nor God—that great God whose manifestations overwhelmed ancient saints and prophets with speechless wonder and awe (Isaiah 6:1).
Having a place of public worship now prepared for us, let it not only be frequented, but loved. Be glad when the day of Sabbath rest dawns, glad when the hour of worship arrives, glad to swell the number of willing worshippers, flocking to the house of the Lord like “doves to their windows.” Breathe after Zion’s assemblies with intense aspirations of desire, crying, like the Psalmist, impatient of hindrance or delay, “When shall I come and appear before God.” Come, brethren, as if to meet God in his ordinances, realizing the great object of worship, and come with a direct intention of mind to render unto the Infinite One the glory we confess to be his due. Without intention to glorify God in our religious duties, they are vain and inefficient shows, which cannot fail to dishonour and be offensive to the Most High. But if we have it in view to offer ourselves and our services to God in the sanctuary, it becomes us to lay to heart what spirituality of frame, what praying in the spirit and for the spirit, is required. If we would be “temples of God,” not honouring him with our mouths while our hearts are far from him, we must engage our souls wholly in worshipping him who is a spirit in spirit and in truth. No doubt, in this imperfect state, we cannot always retain the frame we covet, but should a realizing sense of the Divine presence and favour be lost, brethren, ye who have known the Lord, acquiesce not—no, not for a single hour—in spiritual deadness or desertion. Seek to detect the cause of dereliction and cry for light and revival.
Finally, hold fast the principles of truth that brought you hither. Extenuate no man’s error, partake in no man’s sin. To judge others we are not called, but away with the perversion that justifies want of principle and palliates desertion from Christ, because the treacherous party are admitted to have some virtues, and are reputed wise in their generation. The question of the time is a question of principle—a question involving our allegiance to Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords, and to assume that we may worship the Father in spirit and in truth, while we deny supremacy to him whom the Father has truly anointed and set as king on his holy hill, is a fallacy preposterous as it is fatal to those who fall under its pernicious influence. What remains then but that we exhort you as fellow-citizens of the saints, and as good subjects of our regal Redeemer, to believe his truth, imbibe his spirit, and worship the Father in his name, rejoicing in the persuasion that Worship is not an incidental duty, but an eternal obligation—not a joyless, unmeaning act, but a service of delight, to be resumed in Heaven with nobler powers, and to constitute, we believe, no small portion of Heaven’s conceivable beatitude.
— Amen.
