gels' service prescribed to us; the praises of God, communion with God in spirit through his Son Jesus Christ, and stronger foundations for spiritual affections. It is called a reasonable service, Rom. xii. 1. It is suited to a rational nature, though it finds no friendship from the corruption of reason. It prescribes a service fit for the reasonable faculties of the soul, and advances them while it employs them. The word reasonable may be translated word-service, as well as reasonable service; an evangelical service in opposition to a law service. All evangelical service is reasonable, and all truly reasonable service is evangelical. The matter of the worship is spiritual: it consists in love of God, faith in God, recourse to his goodness, meditation on him, and communion with him. It lays aside the ceremonial, spiritualizes the moral: the commands that concerned our duty to God, as well as those that concerned our duty to our neighbour, were reduced by Christ to the spiritual intention. The motives are spiritual; it is a state of more grace as well as of more truth, John i. 17; supported by spiritual promises, beaming out in spiritual privileges; heaven comes down in it to earth, to spiritualize earth for heaven. The manner of worship is more spiritual; higher flights of the soul, stronger ardour of affection, sincerer aims at his glory: mists are removed from our minds, clogs from the soul, there is more of love than fear; faith in Christ kindles the affections and works by them. The assistances to spiritual worship are greater. The Spirit does not drop, but is plentifully poured out. It does not light sometimes upon, but dwells in the heart. Christ suited the gos pel to a spiritual heart, and the Spirit changes a carnal heart to make it fit for a spiritual gospel. He blows upon the garden, and causes the spices to flow forth; and often makes the soul in worship like the chariots of Ammi-nadib, in a quick and nimble motion. Our blessed Lord and Saviour by his death discovered to us the nature of God; and after his ascension sent his Spirit to fit us for the worship of God and converse with him. One spiritual, evangelical, believing breath, is more delightful to God than millions of altars made up of the richest pearls, and smoking with the costliest oblations, because it is spiritual; and a mite of spirit is of more worth than the greatest weight of flesh. One holy angel is more excellent than a whole world of mere bodies. Prop. (7.) Yet the worship of God with our bodies is not to be rejected upon the account that God requires a spiritual worship. Though we must perform the weightier duties of the law, yet we are not to omit and leave undone the lighter pre Vide Hammond in loc. cepts; since both the magnalia and minutula legis, the greater and the lesser duties of the law, have the stamp of Divine authority upon them. As God under the ceremonial law did not command the worship of the body, and the observation of outward rites without the engagement of the spirit; so neither does he command that of the spirit, without the peculiar attendance of the body. The Schwelkfendians denied bodily worship. And the indecent postures of many in public attendance, intimate no great care either of composing their bodies or spirits. A morally discomposed body intimates a tainted heart. Our bodies as well as our spirits are to be presented to God, Rom. xii. 1. Our bodies in lieu of the sacrifices of beasts, as in the Judaical institutions; body for the whole man; a living sacrifice, not to be slain, as the beasts were, but living a new life, in a holy posture, with crucified affections. This is the inference the apostle makes of the privileges of justification, adoption, coheirship with Christ, which he had before discoursed of; privileges conferred upon the person, and not upon a part of man. [1.] Bodily worship is due to God. He has a right to an adoration by our bodies as they are his by creation; his right is not diminished but increased by the blessing of redemption: "For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's," 1 Cor. vi. 20. The body as well as the spirit is redeemed, since our Saviour suffered crucifixion in his body as well as agonies in his soul. Body is not taken here for the whole man, as it may be in Rom. xii; but for the material part of our nature, it being distinguished from the spirit. If we are to render to God an obedience with our bodies, we are to render him such acts of worship with our bodies as they are capable of. As God is the Father of spirits, so he is the God of all flesh: therefore the flesh he has framed, of the earth, as well as the noble portion he has breathed into us, cannot be denied him without a palpable injustice. The service of the body we must not deny to God, unless we will deny him to be the Author of it, and the exercise of his providential care about it. The mercies of God are renewed every day upon our bodies as well as our souls, and therefore they ought to express a fealty to God for his bounty every day.1 "Both are from God, both should be for God. Man consists of body and soul; the service of man is the service of both. The body is to be sanctified as well as the soul, and therefore to be offered to God as well as the soul. Both are to be glorified, both are to glorify: as our Saviour's Divinity was manifested in his body, so should our spirituality in ours. To give God the service of the body and not of the soul is hypocrisy; to give God the service of the spirit and not of the body is sacrilege; to give him neither, atheism." If the only part of man that is visible were exempted from the service of God, there could be no visible testimonies of piety given upon any occasion: since not a moiety of man, but the whole is God's creature, he ought to pay a homage with the whole, and not only with a moiety of himself. 1 Sherman's Greek in the Temple, p. 61, 62. [2.] Worship in societies is due to God, but this cannot be without some bodily expressions. The law of nature does as much direct men to combine together in public societies for the acknowledgment of God, as in civil communities for self-preservation and order. And the notice of a society for religion is more ancient than the mention of civil associations for political government: "Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord," Gen. iv. 26; namely, in the time of Seth. No quesof Setl tion but Adam had worshipped God before as well as Abel, and a family religion had been preserved; but as mankind increased in distinct families, they knit together in companies to solemnize the worship of God. Hence, as some think, those that incorporated together for such ends, were called the sons of God:1 sons by profession, though not sons by adoption; as those of Corinth were saints by profession, though in such a corrupted church they could not be all so by regeneration; yet saints, as being of a Christian society, and calling upon the name of Christ, that is, worshipping God in Christ, though they might not be all saints in spirit and practice. So Cain and Abel met together to worship, at the end of the days, at a set time, Gen. iv. 3. God settled a public worship among the Jews, instituted synagogues for their convening together, whence called the synagogues of God, Psal. lxxiv. 8. The Sabbath was instituted to acknowledge God a common Benefactor. Public worship keeps up the memorials of God in a world prone to atheism, and a sense of God in a heart prone to forgetfulness. The angels sang in company, not singly, at the birth of Christ, Luke ii. 13; and praised God not only with a simple elevation of their spiritual nature, but audibly by forming a voice in the air. Affections are more lively, spirits more raised in public than private; God will credit his own ordinance. Fire increases by laying together many coals on one place; so is devotion inflamed by the union of many hearts, and by a joint presence: nor can the approach of the last day of judgment, or particular judgments upon a nation, give a writ of ease from such assemblies: "Not forsaking the assembling ourselves together; and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching," Heb. x. 25. Whether it be understood of the day of judgment, or the day of the Jewish destruction and the Christian persecution, the apostle uses it as an argument to quicken them to the observance, not to encourage them to a neglect. Since therefore natural light informs us, and Divine institution commands us publicly to acknowledge ourselves the servants of God, it implies a service of the body; such acknowledgments cannot be without visible testimonies, and outward exercises of devotion, as well as inward affections. This promotes God's honour, checks others' profaneness, allures men to the same expressions of duty. And though there may be hypocrisy, and an outward garb without an inward frame; yet better a moiety of worship, than none at all: better acknowledge God's right in one, than disown it in both. VOL. I.-31 1 Stillingfleet's Irenicum, cap. 1. § 1. p. 23. [3.] Jesus Christ, the most spiritual worshipper, worshipped God with his body. He prayed orally, and kneeled-Father, if it be thy will, &c. Luke xxii. 41, 42. He blessed with his mouth-Father, I thank thee, Matt. xi. 25. He lifted up his eyes as well as elevated his spirit, when he praised his Father for mercy received, or begged for the blessings his disciples wanted, John xi. 41; John xvii. 1. The strength of the spirit must have vent at the outward members. The holy men of God have employed the body in significant expressions of worship: Abraham in falling on his face, Paul in kneeling, employing their tongues, lifting up their hands. Though Jacob was bed-ridden, yet he would not worship God without some devout expression of reverence; it is in one place, "leaning upon the top of his staff," Heb. xi. 21; in another, "bowed himself upon the bed's head," Gen. xlvii. 31. The reason of the diversity is in the Hebrew word, which without vowels may be read mittah, a bed, or matteh, a staff; howsoever, both signify a testimony of adoration by a reverent gesture of the body. Indeed in angels and separated souls a worship is performed purely by the spirit; but while the soul is in conjunction with the body, it can hardly perform a serious act of worship without some tincture upon the outward man, and reverential composure of the body. Fire cannot be in the clothes, but it will be felt by the members; nor flames be pent up in the soul without bursting out in the body: the heart can no more restrain itself from breaking out, than Joseph could enclose his affections without expressing them in tears to his brethren, Gen. xlv. 1, 2. "We also believe, and therefore speak," 2 Cor. iv. 13. To conclude; God has appointed some parts of worship which cannot be performed without the body, as sacraments; we have need of them because we are not wholly spiritual and incorporeal creatures. The religion which consists in externals only, is not for an intellectual nature: a worship purely intellectual is too sublime for a nature allied to sense and depending much upon it. The Christian mode of worship is proportioned to both; it makes the sense to assist the mind, and elevates the spirit above the sense. Bodily worship helps the spiritual: the members of the body reflect back upon the heart, the voice bars distractions, the tongue sets the heart on fire in good as well as in evil. It is as much against the light of nature to serve God without external significations, as to serve him only with them without the intention of the mind. As the invisible God declares himself to men by visible works and signs, so should we declare our invisible frames by visible expressions. God has given us a soul and body in conjunction, and we are to serve him in the same manner in which he has framed us. 2. The second thing I am to show, is, what spiritual worship is. In general, the whole spirit is to be employed. The name of God is not sanctified but by the engagement of our souls. Worship is an act of the understanding, applying itself to the knowledge of the excellency of God, and actual thoughts of his majesty, recognizing him as the supreme Lord and Governor of the world, which is natural knowledge; beholding the glory of his attributes in the Redeemer, which is evangelical knowledge. This is the sole act of the spirit of man. The same reason is for all our worship as for our thanksgiving: this must be done with understanding, "Sing ye praises with understanding," Psal. xlvii. 7, with a knowledge and sense of his greatness, goodness, and wisdom. It is also an act of the will, whereby the soul adores and reverences his majesty, is ravished with his amiableness, embraces his goodness, enters itself into an intimate communion with this most lovely object, and pitches all its affections upon him. We must worship God understandingly; it is not else a reasonable service. The nature of God and the law of God abhor a blind offering; we must worship him heartily, else we offer him a dead sacrifice. A reasonable service is that wherein the mind does truly act something with God. All spiritual acts must be acts of reason, otherwise they are not human acts, because they want that principle which is constitutive of man, and makes him differ from other creatures. Acts done only by sense are the acts of a brute; acts done by reason are the acts of a man: that which is only an act of sense, cannot be an act of religion. The sense without the conduct of reason is not the subject of religious acts, for then beasts were capable of religion as well as men. There cannot be religion where there is not reason; and there cannot be the exercise of religion where there is not an exercise of the rational faculties. Nothing can be a Christian act that is not a human act. Be |