“When to Thy beloved on Patmos. { 13} Through the open door in heaven, Visions of the perfect worship, Saviour! by Thy love were given, Surely _there_ was truth and spirit, Surely there a pattern shown, How Thy Church should do her service When she came before the Throne.
O the censer-bearing Elders, Crowned with gold and robed in white! O the living creatures’ anthem, Never resting day or night! And the thousand choirs of Angels, With their voices like the sea, Singing praise to God the Father And, O victim Lamb, to Thee!
Lord, bring home the glorious lesson To their hearts, who strangely deem That an unmajestic worship Doth Thy Majesty beseem; Show them more of Thy dear Presence, Let them, let them come to know, That our King is throned among us, And His Church is Heaven below.
Then shall faith read off the meaning Of each stately ordered rite, Dull surprise and hard resistance Turn to awe and full delight; Men shall learn how sacred splendour Shadows forth the pomps above How the glory of our altars Is the homage of our love.
’Tis for Thee we bid the frontal Its embroidered wealth unfold, ’Tis for Thee we deck the reredos With the colours and the gold; Thine the floral glow and fragrance, Thine the vestures’ fair array, Thine the starry lights that glitter Where Thou dost Thy light display.
’Tis to Thee the chant is lifted, ’Tis to Thee the heads are bowed; Far less deep was Israel’s rapture When the glory filled the cloud. O our own true God incarnate, What should Christians’ Ritual be But a voice to utter somewhat Of their pride and joy in Thee.
What but this? yet since corruption Mars too oft our holiest things, In the form preserve the spirit; Give the worship angel’s wings, Till we gain Thine own high temple, Where no tainting breath may come, And whate’er is good and beauteous Finds with Thee a perfect home.”
“Let all things be done decently and in order.”
I ENDEAVOURED last Sunday to exhibit the principle and rationale of Christian ritualistic service. I reminded you that God had Himself prescribed for Israel an elaborate and splendid ritual, and that, moreover, He had shown in vision to the eagle-eyed Apostle, either what should actually be His worship in heaven, or what would, in figure, most fitly represent it to us, and stimulate us to an interest in it, and a desire and aim to prepare ourselves for a share in it. I further urged, that man’s natural feeling, rightly enlightened as to its relationship with God, would spontaneously have prompted him—has, in fact, prompted him—to make such a manifestation of inward devotion, such an external homage and worship, such an use in God’s honour of the things which the senses approve as costly, excellent, beautiful, edifying, joy-inspiring, joy-proclaiming, glorifying. Hence I deduced the rule, that—God being always quite the same, and man being always much the same—in the absence of any Divine reversal or modification; or, on man’s part, of any realised unsuitableness to altered times and circumstances; the same kind of ritual and service of body and offering of substance, must, to speak generally, be upheld and used by us as was actually imposed upon the Jews by God or by themselves, and has been foreshadowed, whether in figure or letter, of the Church triumphant in heaven. It had to be conceded that God has made a charge in the details by the absolute repeal of some service, and by modifications and substitutions affecting Christians generally; and, moreover, that the service of different nations by reason of their various temperaments, and their peculiar ways of estimating and using some of the things of which sense takes cognizance, _must_, to be natural, differ in particulars from somewhat of that which Eastern people actually did and offered. Making these concessions, I endeavoured to maintain that such ritual as is prescribed in the Jewish law and pictured in the Apocalypse is to be regarded as appointed or approved by God for Christians; that its observance is necessary to the due expression and offering of intelligent hearty and acceptable common worship, and that it is very serviceable to the worshippers in kindling, guiding and sustaining the spirit of true devotion.