FREE CHURCH PULPIT.

SERMON I.

THE FREEDOM OF GOSPEL WORSHIP FROM LOCAL CIRCUMSTANCES AND
NATIONAL PECULIARITIES ASSERTED.

BY THE REV. JAMES SIEVERIGHT. A.M., MARKINCH.

(Preached at the Opening of the Free Church, Markinch.)

"But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him."-Joux iv. 24.

THE argument from antiquity, or from ancestry, is wonderfully convenient for minds that, averse from patient inquiry and discriminating thought, love to acquiesce in the traditionary belief of former generations, without caring to ascertain if the convictions of past ages were consonant to truth, or if there be anything in the present order of Providence that would justify or demand a departure from the creed and customs of those that went before. To this easy-minded class belonged the woman of Samaria, who, in the conference with our Lord here recorded, held up the usage of progenitors as a shield impenetrable-she thought, to every form of objection, "Our fathers worshipped in this mountain." This was enough; here she took her stand, and on the same ground stood her countrymen and the Jewish nation generally, when Christianity was first proposed to them. On this ground, too, did the heathen of old, and the heathen that now are, allege their fathers' belief as a reason for not listening to the claims of Divine revelation. Precisely similar was the position tenaciously maintained by the blinded opponents of reformation in Luther's day; while among ourselves, numbers have no better reason, or, at least, will give us no better reason, for worshipping God in certain places, than that advanced by the woman of Samaria"Our fathers worshipped there."

No. 1.-SER. 1.

Such was her plea, and to this plea she would probably have adhered till her dying hour, had she argued with one less mighty to enlighten and convince than Christ; but it was in his heart to rescue a captive of error, and bring her to a saving knowledge of the truth; and that not by means of a long process of reasoning-not by detecting and exposing her inveterate prejudices singly and in detail, but by sweeping them away at once by the announcement of a new order of things, involving in its development the abolition of all that was local, peculiar, and ceremonial in the established worship, and substituting for it a ritual more simple, and ordinances not exclusive, but accessible to all-ordinances characterized by spirituality, and having truth without a veil substantially enshrined in them. "The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him."

A statement so profound and unexpected, stamped with authority, and prophetic of mighty change-proceeding from the mouth of a teacher come from God-must have fallen with a weight of conviction on the hardest heart-though hers was hard no more; for, doubtless, from the very commencement of her colloquy with Christ, his spirit had touched her heart, and made it patent, as afterwards in the case of Lydia, to an honest reception of the truth. To-day, we too look up for heart-opening grace, without which, did we speak with the tongue of angels, we should scarcely convince any, and certainly not effectually persuade.

To evade questions touching personal character, the woman of Samaria tried to divert the discourse to the circumstantials of religion, and sought to engage our Lord in debate as to the place of worship most acceptable to God—a question vehemently agitated in those days betwixt Samaritans and Jews. How often is a like device still resorted to by people who show themselves cold, distant, and inaccessible in matters of experimental religion, the nature of conversion, and the operations of grace, but will hold us in endless dispute as to the validity of ancient forms, and the virtue of worshipping where their fathers did. Here their zeal, which on greater points was so latent, kindles into flame, and blazes intolerantly high. To render the fuel of prejudice less combustible, however, it were well to consider what is intended by the saying of Christ, that the hour had come "when the true worshippers were to worship the Father in spirit and in truth."

To establish purity of worship in the earth, was an undertaking worthy of the Son of God. In the opinion of some, we believe, it had been a nobler enterprise of philanthropy to deal directly with man's social state, to have rectified its inequalities, and provided for the secular interests of humanity, putting aside meanwhile the question of religion as

of inferior importance-a world without God, or a God without worship, well according with their views. We suppose they would regulate heaven itself on the same principles, and haply find fault with its blest inhabitants for making so much ado about devotion.

But can the creature ever forget that it holds existence-at least happy existence on the tenure of rendering to the great Creator the glory for ever due to perfections so infinite, works so marvellous, and benefits so varied and immense? Towards such a Being is not worship a most reasonable service-a natural and necessary recognition of creature dependence an authentic and significant expression of creature gratitude and admiration, of creature reverence and love? and to banish from the earth what constitutes man's chief duty, and so illustrates the Creator's glory, were a disparagement indeed to the majesty of God, and a degradation to ourselves; for the very act of worshipping, exceedingly exalts our nature, in bringing us nigh to God, the source and centre of all blessedness, and thereby raising in us sentiments perfective of our natures, and assimilating the adoring soul to the object it regards with supreme complacency and sacred awe. Nor can we think a supreme regard to the worship of God unfriendly to the constitution and continuance of the soundest social state; for if there be in futurity, as some anticipate, a social optimism, religion, we presume, will be its most pregnant element; and we are moreover convinced, that nothing will remedy the growing distempers of man's social state, but the bringing back a godless world (which in its wisdom knows not God, and in its folly denies him) to a devout recognition of Him whose will is destiny, and hisfavour better than life.

Indeed, so much stress do we lay on the proper worship of God, that we conceive all other functions of sanctuary service, derive their highest interest and importance from the tendency they have to train up souls for acceptable worship; for what nobler end can we propose to ourselves in preaching the Word with intense desires for men's conversion, than thereby to bring them to the knowledge of God, that they may eternally worship and adore him? Could we enquire of angels what they thought of worship, would they not assign to it the sublimest place among creature obligations? Doubtless the beatitude of heaven greatly consists in adoring celebrations; nor is there on earth anything that so elevates and ennobles the human soul as the holy and heart-expanding aspirations of true devotion.

If worship, then, hold so divine a place among creature duties—if it be, as it is, a final cause of creature existence for the glory of God-we repeat, that to establish purity of worship on earth was an undertaking worthy of the Son of God. He came into the world at a period when

true worship had in a measure disappeared among men. The world had long presented the sad spectacle of creatures made to glorify the infinite Creator, refusing to the King immortal the sacred tribute of adoration. Not only had the nations ceased to know and acknowledge God, but they had universally lapsed into idolatry of the most debasing kind, paying divine honours to mean and inanimate objects, as if in profane mockery of all that was divine; for so vain and wanton did they wax in the impiety of their minds, that not only was religious worship rendered to the mighty dead, and to the more imposing objects of the visible creation, such as sun, moon, and stars, but an imagery of senseless reptile forms was often added to personifications of vice, in the hateful furniture of the grove or temple.

There was, indeed, one excepted spot, when all the world besides was enshrouded in gross and guilty darkness. In Judah did the light of revelation shine, and by its discoveries were the true Israel led to seek and serve the true God. But even there, until the Sun of Righteousness arose, the light was shadowy and indistinct; and the national worship, in its greater ordinances, was restricted to Jerusalem, the place the Lord had chosen to put his name there.

Now, however, it was clearly announced that the time of local worship was at an end-that neither in that mountain nor in Jerusalem should men worship God exclusively-that all places, in fine, were henceforth to be alike sacred, considered in themselves-spirit and truth, the great essentials, being limited to no clime, nor class, nor situation. On this ground, we use the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and count it no offence to retire from an ancient and long-venerated place of worship, when it has lost what entitled it in our estimation to respect or veneration. We hold, agreeably to the oracle before us, that no sanctity attaches to place, and none to the mere materials of a fabric, of whatever form, or wherever erected-whether in Judea or Japan, in Caledonia or Cabul. No! the God whom we worship is a Spirit, of infinite being, universal presence, and unlimited manifestation; and where he deigns to manifest himself, whether in stately edifice or moveable tent, or, apart from the work of man's hands, beneath the open firmament of heavenit matters not-the Divine presence, and that only, gives sanctity to the scene. With these views, we ascribe no sanctity to the ground on which we stand; nor do we call in superstition to-day, in opening this house for public worship, to throw over its walls a mystery and spell of would-be consecration, as if that would operate as a charm for securing the Divine presence, or for retaining it, should the worshippers degenerate, and the worship cease to be pure. Instead of symbolizing with apostate Rome and its emulous affiliations in what they deem indispen

sable to a place of worship, we would follow the simpler, sublimer, and more rational example of Solomon at the dedication of the house which he had built for God. With as little of ceremony, then, (and O that we could add, with a like tone and spirit of high devotion), would we pronounce his words as our form of dedication; and as we read, let every pious mind appropriate the strain-"But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heaven, and heaven of heavens, cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded? Yet have thou respect unto the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, O Lord my God, to hearken unto the cry and to the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee to-day: hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place; and when thou hearest, forgive." 1 Kings viii. 27.

We lay little stress on what men call consecration, as imparting sanctity to place; but we do lay stress on the promise of Christ, "that where two or three meet together in his name, he will be in the midst of them." What need we more? The thought and feeling of that presence will give to this place, in the estimation of true worshippers, a hallowed air of unearthly fragrance-a perpetual sanctity that will impress and overawe, far above the grandest spectacles of man's decorative contrivance; and we cannot this day forego the hope that here, for many days, shall the grace and glory of the Divine presence be known and felt, while true worship, apart from impure mixture, shall, we trust, be offered unto God by a willing people. "The temple of God is holy," says the Apostle. What temple had the Apostle in view? Was it the temple at Jerusalem, or any great edifice of Christian erection? To many a modern ear, the expression would, peradventure, suggest a cathedral pile, or, at least, some consecrated place, as they call it; but mark the Apostle's explanation, when he adds, "which temple are ye." The living temple, then, the man who "sanctifies the Lord God in his heart," is the only temple recognised in the New Testament, and into such temples will Jehovah come. Let none, then, be troubled in mind because our places of worship want the hoar of antiquity, and deviate from the wonted form and accompaniments of the long-regarded parish church. We claim antiquity for our principles, and for our order of worship, and thus far we religiously shun innovation, But as to our places of worship, which are reviled by many as modern and mean-they have, we think, something more than age and error to attach us to them. Our spirits prize the liberty of Christ, and feel that a new impulse is given to devotion by its disengagement from limitations of time and place, to which multitudes are still in bondage, through ignorance that the hour is come when spirit and truth are the only indispensable requisites of acceptable worship.