of the sin of corrupt Churches, and of God's hatred of them. Throughout the Scriptures, the image of the true Church is a chaste, loving, and faithful wife; and besides innumerable separate passages, the entire Book of the Song of Solomon-and that not one of the shortest-is devoted to the complete illustration of this similitude. On the other hand, a faithless, corrupt, and shameless wife, is everywhere the image of an apostate Church; and besides multitudes of separate passages, a large part of the last Book of the inspired oracles, is employed in exposing and denouncing the greatest, bloodiest, and most polluted of all apostacies, under the frightful appellation of a harlot. Nor is there any command delivered to such of God's children, as may chance to be found in such Synagogues of Satan, more distinct than that they should come out of them; nor any threat more precise, than that they will, otherwise, be partakers of their sins, and receive of their plagues.1 It is not, therefore, only against error, delusion, and sin, abstractly considered, that God calls his children to testify; but, also, against the corruptors and oppressors of the earth -and that all the more earnestly when their sins are perpetrated in his holy name. Heaven itself is called on to rejoice, with holy apostles and prophets, when God avenges his slaughtered saints upon great Babylon, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth and the voice of much people in heaven is heard glorifying the Lord God, and saying, Alleluia-when the smoke of her torment rises up, forever and ever !2

1 Rev., xviii. 4; Isaiah, xlviii. 20; lii. 11; 2 Cor., vi. 17, 18.

2 Rev., xviii. 5, 20; xix. 1–3.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE WORSHIP OF GOD IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH: THE SECOND INFALLIBLE MARK OF THE TRUE CHURCH.

I. 1. Divine Statement of the Three Infallible Marks of the True Christian, and the True Church; The Second One now to be explained.-2. The Unity and Spirituality of God the sole Object of all Religious Worship: The Truth and Spirituality of all Worship, acceptable to Him.-3. True Conception of this Worship— and of its Nature and Grounds.-4. Relation of the Word of God, and of the Life of God in our Souls, to each other, and to God's Worship.-5. God-Religion -Worship-Salvation-Human Nature.-II. 1. The Kingdom of Royal Priests: Their Life, a Life of Worship.-2. The Obligation, the Rule, the Blessedness, and the Perpetuity of this Ordination.-3. The Plan of Salvation-the Work of Christ -the Divine Idea and Organism of the Church, relative to Worship.—4. That Organism in its Fundamental Nature as hitherto disclosed-and as yet to be traced in Connection with the Gifts of God to his Church.-5. Relation of the Sacrifice and Priesthood of Christ, and of his Ascension Gifts, to the Idea of True Spiritual Worship by the Church.-6. The Relation of Worship to Religion, and to God— through every conception thereof-from the widest to the narrowest.-7. Worship, as divinely disclosed in each Christian Congregation.-8. Abstract Demonstration, of the unavoidable Conclusion.

I.—1. WE are the circumcision, says the Apostle Paul, which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.1 These are the marks in the elect individually, of reigning grace; the marks also, in their collective body when organized into Christ's visible Church, by which that body is to be infallibly distinguished as his body. According to the point of view from which the subject is contemplated, the particulars of this divine and all pervading definition, fall into one or another order; but in whatever order of these particulars, unitedly they absolutely distinguish the child of God-and the Church of God. In the order of absolute reality, they stand as the Apostle has placed them; for all is from God, all is through Christ, and all is unto our complete deliverance from all subjection to the flesh, and from all trust in it. In the order of actual 1 Phil., iii. 3.

development to our weak understandings, and to a certain extent, also, in the mode of their inworking with our souls; their manifestation to us is, perhaps, more clear from the lowest to the highest, to wit, man, Christ, God. And considered as accomplished in us, and viewed as marks of our estate before God, the first thing is our relation to Christ, and then our relation to God through him, and then our real condition produced in that manner. I have, therefore, treated first and with reference to Christ and our glorying in him, purity of Faith as the first infallible mark of the true Church. And I am now to treat of the true spiritual worship of God, which is indissolubly connected with our union and communion with Christ, as the second mark. And in the next chapter I will endeavour to disclose, as the third mark, that holiness of life-that total abnegation of the flesh-which is the product, through Christ, of all divine operation in the human soul.

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2. There can be but one God. I have proved that with any true notion of the living God, we are incapable of conceiving of a second God and the Scriptures, as we might expect, assert continually, and imply throughout, that God is one.' The reality and the unity of his existence-are the primitive truths upon which the possibility of all spiritual religion rests. Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one God: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might: this is the revealed foundation of whatever acceptable worship-in whatever sense of that term-man has ever rendered to God. He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him: for without faith it is impossible to please him. Ye worship ye know not what; said Jesus to the woman of Samaria—we know what we worship; for salvation is of the Jews. 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. For God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and in truth. And then he told her plainly, that he was Messias-the Christ :-I that speak unto thee am he." In like manner, the other part of true religion-all duty as well as

1

4

1 Gal., iii. 20; Rom., iii. 30; 1 Tim., ii. 5; 1 Cor., viii. 4.

2 Deut., vi. 4, 5.

4 Heb. x. 6.

3 Deut., vi. 13; x. 20; 1 Cor., viii. 6.

5 John, iv. 21-26.

all faith, is involved directly in these immense truths; and all morality-all holiness-that is acceptable to God, as a part of true and spiritual worship-depends upon the recognition of them. Thou shalt have no other gods before me; is the foundation of the moral law written with the finger of God in the nature of man-revealed anew at Sinai-and wrought by the Holy Ghost in the inward parts of every saved sinner.' And the true and spiritual worship of God, responsive to the whole duty required of man towards God-is declared by Christ himself; Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment." But the Triune God-the God revealed to us in the sacred Scriptures-is the only, the living, and the true God; God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost—is the sole object of all true and spiritual worship: and what is to be illustrated now is, that the worship of this glorious God, in spirit and in truth, is the second infallible mark, of the true Church, visible, universal, of the Lord Jesus Christ."

3. I have proved, abundantly, that as the creatures of God, we are obliged to make his will the rule of our conduct, in all things; and that as his sinful creatures, we are obliged to make the will of the divine Saviour whom he has provided for us, the rule of our conduct in all things. But God our Creator, and God our Saviour-is the same, and the only God; so that both as creatures merely, and as sinful creatures also, we are bound to him in our souls, and in our bodies, in all that we have and are. To render back to him, in the way pointed out by himself, the love, the service, the praise, and the adoration which are due to him; to do this truly, out of penitent and believing hearts-to do it spiritually, as unto the infinite Spirit who fills immensity and eternity-to do it, in all things: this is the posture of God's children towards him, revealed in the Scriptures as their glory and blessedness. In this posture, taught by the word of God, and led by the Spirit of God-their lives are, in the widest and truest sense, a true, spiritual, and perpetual recognition-service --worship of God. What God is, of himself, entitles him to all this, on our part: and what he has done for us, entitles him to it all, in a manner still more precise. The heartfelt recognition

1 Exod., xx. 3; Jer., xxxi. 33.

2 Matt., xxii. 37, 38; Luke, x. 27, 28.

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3 Phil., iii. 3; 1 John, ii, 22, 23; Matt., iv. 10.

of this-the willing and joyful endeavour to manifest that we do thus recognize it-and, by consequence, the habitual surrender of our will to his will: this is true and spiritual worship of God, and he who strives to render it, is the child of God-and the Church that inculcates and practices it, is the true Church of the Lord Jesus. The ordinary and restricted sense of the worship of God is true, and is a part of this wide and comprehensive sense of it; but to make that the whole, is to come far short of what God requires-nay even of what his feeble but loving children habitually render to him.

4. The revelation which God has given to us of his will con-cerning our salvation, makes known to us the only way in which we can accomplish the chief end of our existence, in glorifying him and enjoying him forever; and it does this by teaching us infallibly, what we ought to believe concerning God, and what duty he requires of us. It follows, that the infallible rule of our faith and obedience, is, of necessity, the infallible rule of our worship of him in whom we believe, and whom we serve-no matter in what sense we use the term. And the sacred Scriptures disclose to us, in the clearest manner, the nature of that true and spiritual worship, in its widest sense, as well as the method of that which is more special, in its narrowest sense. The habitual state of heart which they everywhere inculcate, is one which finds its truest manifestation in a life of habitual recognition-service-worship of God, our Creator and Redeemer: and all mercy, through endless generations, is covenanted to them, who, in such a spirit, love God and keep his commandments.1 Moreover, Jesus Christ, who is the specific object of our faith, and both its author and its finisher; is, also, the head and means of all acceptable worship of God. Through him alone, is there any mercy from God to sinners; by him alone, is there any access for sinners to God. It is unto him, that the elect of God are predestinated to be conformed; and the Church composed of them is his Body. The revelation of him, is that which gives unity to the sacred Scriptures; and to justify him, is the peculiar work and office of the Holy Spirit. And that heartfelt worship of God, manifest in all things, is the fruit in us, of the word and Spirit of God, through the merits of the Lord Christ; and they who 1 Deut., vi. passim; Exod., xx. 6.

2

' John, xiv. 6; Rom., viii. 29; Col., i. 24.