preacher, notwithstanding their great utility, are not equally essential elements." We add to this, that in a religious system where there is no longer a priest, where one man is not a symbolic mediator between God and mankind, the minister* is rather the director of worship than exclusively the agent of it: The people, regarding worship in our point of view, may be active in it, and in a certain degree, perhaps, ought to be. It is remarkable that in our worship passivity | predominates, while activity distinguishes the Catholic!

Worship consists in words, or in silent rites; more frequently, however, in their combination.

We can not well represent to ourselves a silent worship. Again, we can hardly conceive of a worship entirely inward without rites, without symbols. It is important to give a body to the fundamental sentiments and ideas of religion. Life can not dispense with symbols any more than language with metaphors. Rite is a metaphor in action. Worship is an action, so the Germans call it. Action is nearer to life, more resembles life, than word. Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem," etc.‡ Worship, certainly, may be an action without a rite, and even without words; but when we would move others, and be moved ourselves, we need sometimes more than this internal silence.

Comparing the word with the rite, how is the former to be characterized?

The word is successive: The act of worship presents simultaneously many ideas or many relation. The word

* "Ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake."-2 Co. . iv., 5. "Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how s all he that occupieth the room of the unlearned, say Amen at thy giving of thanks? seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest."-1 Cor., xiv., 16.

"What is addressed to the ear affects less readily the soul."— HORACE: Art of Poetry, v. 180.-Edit.

1 analyzes, it divides; the silent rite concentrates. The whole Gospel has been concentrated in the memorial of the Lord's Supper, as in a focus. A rite expresses only what is essential, but it does this with a force which the word has not.

Worship consisting of rites and words is more distinct than contemplation, less than discourse. Contemplation is a synthesis, discourse an analysis; worship which partakes of contemplation and the word, unites synthesis and analysis, and can not, without mutilation, exclude either of these. As a whole, it aspires to elevate harmoniously all the faculties of our being to the sphere of truth (which truth is not a formula, but the substance of one). There is something of music in it; it has the character of song, which also is essential to it; for adoration is a state of the soul which only song can express. Worship is the assemblage of all the elements of our being in an act of pure religion. I do not exclude words from worship; but I would have them symbolic, sacramental, like the rest of it. Words at the same time human and stereotyped do not seem to me to realize the ideal of a Liturgy. If human words must intermingle with it, I would rather have them free and individual. In some Reformed Churches, the prayer which immediately precedes the discourse is made by the pastor, and remains his own, whether he uses always the same one, or varies it with circumstances.

The Romish worship has erred in giving too much to rite, and, through rite, too much to traditions; but its Liturgy, at least, does not dogmatize; it has the spirit of song, and therein it is good; and then the form of worship, with all the rest, is with them an affair of faith and of dogma.

As for us, our worship is too much a confession of faith—a discourse; every thing is articulate, every thing is precise, every thing explains itself. The effect of this tendency has gone so far as to determine the idea we have formed of temples. We regard temples as places for hearing. We go to them to hear some one speak. But is it only because of the

doctrine of the real presence that the Catholic temples should be regarded as true temples ?* Would the character of the Catholic worship be destroyed if the theurgic element should be separated from it? Can not worship have its proper effect unless it be regarded as a miracle? What is the remedy of our defect? As an excess can hardly be corrected except by another excess, we say that our Liturgy is wanting in what would be a fault except in a Liturgy; that is, more of vagueness, a flowing of religious ideas into one another; which might take place without, on that account, making the ideas less fit to express Christian faith and life. Preaching is an addition to worship, but is not worship. Harms,t with reason, recommends houses of worship without preaching. This would not tend to lower preaching, but to elevate worship.

As far as I can judge of the worship of the primitive Church, it must have held a medium between these two extremes. We see in it nothing of the anxious precision of a confession of faith, nothing of the profusion of rites of the Romish Church.

Jesus Christ and his apostles seem to have been less concerned in establishing a new worship than in abolishing the old, or, at least, in destroying the error relating to the intrinsic value of that "bodily exercise which profiteth little."1 Tim., iv., 8. They directly abolished-they only indirectly and silently instituted. Things were rather born than established. Doctrine only was established; and that, also, after the same manner: it is born in the soul.

See John, iv., 23, 24 (worship in spirit and in truth), and the whole epistle to the Hebrews, which seems to identify religion and worship; and Col., ii., 16: "Let no man judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath day;" and Rom., xiv., 17: "The * Temples, from to contemplate.

+ Tome ii., page 123.

1

kingdom of God is not in meat and drink, but in righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."

Preaching has its place under the Gospel, but it does not suffocate worship. Our word is a prism which decomposes the light; but this decomposition should only be a transition. Here, moreover, are all the ritual elements of the New Testament:

The Lord's Day.-The primitive Church had a sacred day, that of the Savior's resurrection. The Sabbath is abolished, but Sunday is sacred. It was not added to Christianity, it was born of it. God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it That was to bless his work, to crown it. Sunday is a summary of Christianity, gives it a moment in time, as a temple gives it a place in space. Internal necessity is the true law, the best authority for Sunday; it speaks more strongly within us than a written ordinance. This necessity determines the mode of observing Sunday. Nothing binds as much as Christian liberty and conscience: this has consecrated a day, it ought then to be holy.

Assemblies.-Hebrews, x., 25: "Neglect not the assem. bling of yourselves together, as the manner of some is."

1 Cor., xiv., 26: "What is it then, my brethren? when ye come together, every one hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation. Let all things be done to edification."

Verse 40 "Let all things be done decently and in order." James, ii., 1-3 (Poor and rich).

1 Cor., xi., 4, 5: "Every man who prays or prophesies, having his head covered, dishonors his head; but every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered, dishonors her head; for that is the same as if she were shorn."

1 Cor., xi., passim (on the way of employing time in these assemblies).

* Has the Sabbath been abolished? See Appendix, note H, by the Translator.

PASSOVER-SINGING-BAPTISM-UNCTION.

Passover.-Matt., xxvi.; Luke, xxii.

1 Cor., v., 7, 8:

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"Christ our passover is sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven of malice and of wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth."

1 Cor., xi., 23–29 (rules for the celebration of the Lord's Supper).

Singing. - Mark, xiv., 26: "When they had sung an hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives."

Eph., v., 19: "Speaking to one another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord."

Rites which do not appear to have made a part of ordinary Worship.

Baptism.-John, iii., 22: "Jesus went then with his disciples into the land of Judea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized."

Acts, viii., 36-38 (Eunuch of Queen Candace).

Acts, ii., 44: "Those who received the word joyfully were baptized."

Acts, x., 47, 48: Peter said, "Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, who have received the Holy Ghost as well as we ? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord."

Acts, xvi., 33: "The (jailor) washed their stripes (of Paul and Silas) and was baptized, he and his household."

Unction.-James, v., 14: "Is any sick among you? let him call for the pastors of the Church, and let them pray for him, anointing them with oil, in the name of the Lord." Compare Mark, vi., 13.

Imposition of Hands.-Acts, xiv., 23: "And when they had ordained them elders in every Church (by imposition of hands), and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord."