Spiritual worship a lay discourse Author:Robert Mackenzie Beverley Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 74 POSTSCRIPT. Having thus considered some of the most obvious as- spects of the subject, in its higher phase, we may now add a few words of criticism on t... more »hose arguments and practices by which the truth of Christian worship is ordinarily opposed. The arguments may be many, but there is one principle on which they are all based, and it is this, the gratification of the senses, to which an ornamental religious service ministers in many ways. The spiritual view of worship absolutely excludes the gratification of the senses, and appeals to the reason of man instructed and elevated by spiritual information. There can be no concord between such views,—their opposition is irreconcilable. The spiritual worship looks down on the sensuous as debased and infantile, suitable to the vulgar appetite of man, and whatever there is of the animal within him, but utterly unworthy of the proficient in Christian elements. " When for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of Ood, and become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat." (Heb. v. 12.) The sensuous worshippers, on the other hand, hate the spiritual system, as denying all that they value, robbing them of their choicest gratification, and virtually condemning their notions of holiness. If it be right to worship God in Christ, according to the principles which we have been advocating; if it be right or allowable for two or three to meet together in an upper chamber, or anywhere that convenience may dictate, and without parade, ceremony, scenic robes, clerical caste, or ritual, to pour out the heart in prayer to God, and to break bread according to the practice of the primitive Christians,—then those who worship with external adjuncts ind...« less