Homiletical Breviaries.

No. CCLXXIII.

Formal Worship an Immense Curse.

"AND UNTO CAIN AND TO HIS OFFERING HE HAD NOT RESPECT. AND CAIN WAS VERY WROTH, AND HIS COUNTENANCE FELL. AND CAIN TALKED WITH ABEL HIS BROTHER."-Gen. iv. 5, 8.

FROM this fact in the remotest history of the race we are taught two things in relation to formal worship:-I. It INVOLVES OFFENCE TO GOD. Why was Abel's worship accepted and Cain's repudiated? Not because the form of the one was better than the other, but because the spirit of the one was better than the other. Cain's offering was not the effect and expression of a loving, loyal spirit. It was a mere mechanical performance. Formal worship, however ornate, costly, gorgeous, or attractive, must ever be repugnant to Him who is Omniscient and who hates falsehood. "He abhors the sacrifice where not the heart is found." Alas, the curse of Christendom is the attaching undue importance to forms and ceremonies in worship, substituting rites for righteousness, bodily exercise for spiritual devotions, the appearance for the reality. II. It INVOLVES CRUELTY TO MAN. 66 He was very wroth, and his countenance fell. slew him." Here is man passing from the very act of worship to the act of murder. From real worship,- that is, spiritual worship, --it would be impossible for a man to pass to persecution and murder; for genuine piety is the root of philanthropy. But the distance between formal worship and murderous passions is not great. Formal worship (1) Implies bad passions, (2) Strengthens bad passions. It strengthens the selfishness, the superstition, the pride, and the bigotry of the soul. Just in proportion as a man attaches importance to formalities in worship, will be his dislike to those who fall not in with, but oppose, his ritualities. Men never persecute their fellows for the sake of the real truth, but for the sake of their own opinions, ceremonies, and sects, their creeds and polities. No genuine Christian, that is, the man who has the spirit of Christ in him, can ever be a persecutor, can ever be intolerant. All the bloody persecution of the past, all the intolerance of little sects and denominations, arise from an undue attachment to formal worship.

He rose up against Abel his brother, and

No. CCLXXIV.

The Highest Strength Derived from the Highest

Service.

"BUT THEY THAT WAIT UPON THE LORD SHALL RENEW THEIR STRENGTH; THEY SHALL MOUNT UP WITH WINGS AS EAGLES; THEY SHALL RUN, AND NOT BE WEARY; AND THEY SHALL WALK, AND NOT FAINT."-Isa. xl. 31.

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THERE is a plan of a sermon on this text in Homilist, Series II., vol. iv., page 653. It lays out three great blessings accruing to man from waiting upon the Lord :—(1) Renewed vigour. "Renew their strength." (2) Soul elevation. "Mount up with wings as eagles." (3) Life progress. Run and not be weary." We now use the text in order to bring out prominently the two great truths it contains, viz.:-I. That the highest strength is DERIVED from the highest SERVICE. Three questions are sug gested. First: What is the highest strength? The highest strength is not physical, not intellectual, but MORAL. Strength to resist the wrong, to pursue the right, to honour God, and to bless humanity. Secondly: What is the highest service? Waiting upon the Lord. "They that wait upon the Lord." To wait upon Him implies a practical recognition of His existence, personal superintendence, and absolute authority. This service must be (1) Spiritual. In the service of man bodily actions are estimated, not so with the service of God. (2) Supreme. It must be the one service of life, directing and comprehending all our activities-mercantile, political, domestic, constant. It is not a service to be broken off and taken up, it must run through the whole life. Now the text teaches that from this service moral strength comes. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." Man out of this service is morally weak, is the mere creature of impulses, expedients, circumstances. In this exercise alone the moral muscles of the soul become vigorous. The other truth contained in the text is, II. That the highest strength is DEVELOPED in the highest ACTIVITY. What is the activity? First: It is the activity of soul elevation. "Mount up with wings as eagles." The soul possessing the highest moral strength mounts up on the wings of holy gratitude, love, hope, and contemplation. The affections are set upon things above. Secondly: It is the activity of soul progress. "Run and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint." There is a running and a walking in Christian experience. No soul can, in this body of changing moods, varying climates and circumstances, move along the path

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of moral goodness with unvarying steps. Sometimes it runs, sometimes it only walks. At times it can make more true progress in a day than in others in a week. "I will run in the way of Thy commandments when Thou dost enlarge my heart." Now, in all this soaring and running and walking there is no exhaustion of strength. "They shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." Whilst in physical and intellectual actions there is exhaustion, in every right moral act there is re-invigoration " as the outer man decayeth."

No. CCLXXV.

The True Mode of Morally Approaching God.

"LET US DRAW NEAR WITH A TRUE HEART IN FULL ASSURANCE OF FAITH, HAVING OUR HEARTS SPRINKLED FROM AN EVIL CONSCIENCE, AND OUR BODIES WASHED WITH PURE WATER."-Heb. x. 22.

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THESE words indicate the true mode of morally approaching God. Not in a natural or a local sense can men draw nigh to their Maker, for they are always in contact with Him; but morally they are at a distance; and to approach Him is at once their most urgent duty and their supreme good. But how? There must be, I. REALITY. Draw near with a true heart." There is a false heart, its conceptions and sympathies are out of agreement with eternal fact, it is "deceitful above all things." Such a heart can never approach God. A true heart is a heart free from all hypocrisies, sincere, and profoundly earnest. They that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. There must be, II. TRUSTFULNESS, "In full assurance of faith." That is, with unwavering confidence. There must not only be faith, but unbounded faith. He that cometh unto God must believe that He is, and a "Rewarder of all those who diligently seek Him." First: The faith should be, not traditional, but living. The millions of Christendom profess to approach God with a traditional faith; but they never come near Him. The faith must be a living conviction. Secondly: The faith should be, not weak, but strong. "Full assurance." A man may have a living conviction, but it may be too weak to take him into the presence of his Maker. "Full assurance is wanted, the full assurance of His being, personality, approachability, love. There must be, III. PURITY. "Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." The idea is, the whole man must be morally cleansed. What is the

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morally cleansing element which is sometimes spoken of as the blood of Christ, and sometimes, as here, as water? It is this, the self-sacrificing spirit of Christ. The material blood which Christ shed was but the effect and symbol of this self-sacrificing love; and this spirit taken into us can alone cleanse the conscience and thus cleanse the entire man.

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No. CCLXXVI.

Right Human Activity.

"AND WHATSOEVER YE DO, DO IT HEARTILY, AS TO THE LORD, AND NOT UNTO MEN."-Col. iii. 23.

THE words direct our attention to right human activity. Man is an active being. He only lives as he acts. He lives in action and he lives by action. The sphere of his activity is varied and indefinite. The words lead us to consider two things: I. The END of all right human activity. "Unto the Lord." First: Not unto self. The man who directs all his activities to himself, injures his nature, wrongs the universe, sins against God. “No man should live unto himself." Secondly: Not unto society. The man who acts chiefly for others, either as relations, friends, or citizens, acts beneath his nature. A universe of men is an object too small to be made the grand end of human activity. It must be "unto the Lord." Unto Him as the Great Moral Master. Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed," etc. Christ should be the moral Monarch of every soul. Whether we live, we should live unto the Lord, or whether we die, we should die unto the Lord. The words lead us to consider: II. The SPIRIT of all right human activity. "Do it heartily." "Whatsoever ye do, work at it heartily." -Davidson. There is nothing that a man should do that he cannot do with all his heart: and whatever is worth doing at all, should be done heartily. In truth, unless a man does a thing heartily, he never really does it. A perfunctory, no-hearted or half-hearted service is no service at all. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." It is said, that when Hezekiah began the house of the Lord, he did it with all his heart, and prospered. First: It is only in hearty service that there is any virtue. Secondly: It is only in hearty service that there is any happiness.

My Ministry at Stockwell, and Public Life.

(Continued from page 155.)

OON after the re-opening of my church at Stockwell, my mind became specially interested in the question of public worship as conducted in Congregational Churches. I had always felt that the devotional services in the House of God were of far greater importance than the ministry of the pulpit. My conviction has always been, that unless the religious sentiments of the inner heart of the congregation are thoroughly and rightly excited, the teaching of the pulpit, however scriptural in its cast, Christian in its tone, fresh and vigorous in its order of thought, will have but little practical influence. The excitation of the devotional elements of our nature is the breaking up of the fallow ground and preparing it for the seed of Divine truth. Devotion is the solar beam of the soul, at once luminous and life-giving; in it "spiritual things" are alone clearly seen, and spiritual truths are alone quickened to life and brought to perfection.

Spiritual truth cannot grow either in the cold atmosphere of intellectual ideas or in the animal heat of sensationalism. Religious affections are the only soil in which sermons can run into fruit. I became exceedingly dissatisfied with my own extemporaneous prayers, and with the miserable hymns that made up the "Congregational Hymn-Book," which was in use amongst us at that time. I felt these were but ill-adapted to quicken, direct, and develop the religious sympathies of the congregation. In speaking of this amongst my brother ministers, I found the dissatisfaction wide-spread and deep. Congregations were everywhere yawning under the long prayer, and disgusted with the miserable hymns, to which I shall refer in another article. The question which pressed upon me was, how best to effect an improvement. In pondering this question, I found that we are exhorted to teach and admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. This implied an intercommunal and responsory use of God's words in God's house, and I considered this an admirable means by which