PASTORAL DISPOSITIONS.

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prosperity in the ministry we may apply these words: "A little more sleep, a little more slumber, a little more folding of the hands to sleep; so shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth, and thy want as an armed man."-Prov., vi., 10,

11.

The minister should be constantly absorbed in his ministry. "Think on these things" (the duties of the ministry), says Paul to Timothy, "and give thyself wholly to them."-1 Tim., iv., 15. It would be deplorable to have a predominant taste apart from the ministry, so that this should occupy only the second place. That minister is in a sad position whose ministry is not his life. If one gives himself entirely to a ministry only when he loves it, he will love it only when he gives himself entirely to it. Nothing so attaches a minister to his flock, and vice versa, as the sacrifices which he makes for it.

In order to give himself entirely to the ministry, he must simplify his life, avoid whatever would draw him from duty, whatever will not contribute to the success of his work, all the cares of the world,* even the cares which may consist with the ministry, but which are not an essential part of it, and which we may with propriety transfer to others.—Acts, vi., 2.

"Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat, what shall we drink," etc.-Matt., vi., 31, 32. "Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be overcharged with cares of this life."—Luke, xxi., 34.

H 2

SECTION FIRST.

WORSHIP.

In a practical and local point of view, we here have little to say; but we should not restrict ourselves to this point of view. Wherever duty and the form of duty are traced, it is useful to ascend to principle, and thus to become penetrated with the true spirit of duty, the spirit which is to be found. in principle, and not lower.

Worship is the more immediate expression, the purely religious form of religion. It is the internal or external act of adoration-adoration in act. Now adoration is nothing else than the direct and solemn acknowledgment of the divinity of God, and of our obligations toward him.

Public worship, otherwise called service, or divine office, comprehends, according to the ordinary idea, whatever is performed during the time in which an assembly remains together in the name of God and for the cause of God.

According to this idea, then, worship includes also exhortation, or instruction, or exposition of the word of God. This, however, is framed into worship, rather than an integrant part of it. It is only when we generalize the idea of worship, and make it to include whatever has God for its object, whatever our intention refers to God, that we may call *preaching, or instruction in religious truths, worship. It is so neither more nor less than any other good work. "Adoration," according to Klopstock, as cited by Harms, "is the essence of public worship. Instruction and exhortation* by the * Die unterrichtende Ermahnung.

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.

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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 relations. The word

* "Ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake."-2 Cor., iv., 5. "Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall 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.

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 rem

edy 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.