ON THE MODES AND FORMS OF WORSHIP AMONG (Continued from page 279.) THESE questions (see the closing paragraph of the former part of this article, page 279) by some are soon answered. We are referred to the church, and told that we must take the Fathers, especially the early Fathers, for our guide. But we demur, for many grave reasons, to their authority. We have no wish to disparage these men, or to reject any light that comes from the post-apostolic churches. They were men of sincere piety, and their testimony to facts, whether incidental or direct, we are quite ready to receive; but they were neither inspired nor infallible. The judgment of some of them seems to us singularly imbecile and weak; while we can trace in their doctrines and practices several departures from the spirit and principles of the New Testament. Moreover, they had to do for themselves, to a large extent, what we are now inquiring about, viz. to fill up the details of that organisation, which Christ and his apostles had left; and as they had no revelation to guide them, they were liable to err. The problem they had to work out required that they should understand the true principles of biblical interpretation, and possess an accurate knowledge of human nature. They were deficient in both; and the false calculations they made, at various stages of the process, vitiated the result: as we see their errors, therefore, we cannot follow them as guides. For ourselves, we have to verify by the Scriptures all they did, and to ask if they were right. Like the facts of the chronicler to the philosophic historian or statesman, their writings have great value; but we must conduct the reasonings, and make the deductions; our position is, in a few points only less, in many respects more favourable than theirs, to the formation of a just judgment; whilst we have their mistakes as beacons to warn us from error, and their experiments as guides, to suggest to us the truth. Since, then, the Fathers fail us, and we have no precise information in the Scriptures, no inspired rubrics, no true apostolic constitutions or canons, how are we to proceed? We reply: it is one of those matters in which common sense must be exercised, and a sound mind called in. God has laid down great principles in his word, and furnished us with some examples; from several other quarters also has he permitted light to flow in upon us to guide us. For eighteen centuries the church has been divided and disturbed about forms and modes. Heresies in doctrine have occasioned less trouble than they. And surely now we have all the data necessary to our reasonings; but we must use our eyes, employ our understandings, and exercise our powers of discrimination, but with an honest and unprejudiced heart; and we shall then approximate to the truth. Nor is this the only matter in which Divine Wisdom has so left us, and required the vigorous exercise of our own mind, to determine what is right. No man can find in the word of God particular directions how to act, e. g. in the world. Great principles are laid down, broad and comprehensive rules given, and solemn cautions afforded; but every one is left to apply or misapply them, to special cases. Yet there is no great difficulty. In every Christian of robust and healthy mind, there is a sort of holy sagacity, an indescribable power, as if intuitive, of discerning the mind of the Spirit, which supersedes all minuter precepts; so that without them good men are actually found in every age and country, substantially to agree as to what is of the world. We believe it might be just so here. If, observant of the facts of history, and mindful of the ascertained principles of human nature, we would only lay aside our narrow, sectarian prejudices, and inquire what modes and forms of worship, that have been or are adopted by any branch of the church of Christ, are accordant with the spirit and genius of the New Testament, and are found to cherish a pure devotion, we should not long be at fault ; that same sagacity, that same Divine intuition, would enable us to say of any practice, it is, or it is not, agreeable to the mind of Christ; and lead us, if not to uniformity, at least to a harmony, which would admit of the freest and sublimest exercises of fellowship and brotherly love. 1. We should be greatly aided in our inquiries, by marking the principles acted upon, and the course pursued by our Lord, at the introduction of Christianity. The wisdom He displayed as a religious teacher, is sufficient to prove him a Divine person; and he dealt with human nature as it is. All his methods of instruction were adapted to impress, not less than to enlighten; whilst his sublimest discoveries, which angels desire to look into, were so conveyed, as powerfully to affect the senses and the imagination, that they might find a readier entrance to the mind, and be graven there for ever. His birth was announced amid the silence and solitude of the plains of Bethlehem, by a heavenly host. The wise men were directed by a star to the place where he lay. At his baptism the Spirit descended upon him, in a visible form, as a dove; and the assembled multitudes heard a voice from the celestial glory. In retiring so frequently alone,-in giving his nights to meditation and prayer,-in repairing to Bethany, to Olivet, to Gethsemane, he seems to have sought to have his own heart affected, his spirit made tender, and the depths of his soul stirred to pious and devout emotion. He often met assembled multitudes, among whom excitement soon spreads; and he was seldom long in their presence, but by some miracle of mercy and of power, some simple, but wondrous parable, he addressed the eye, the ear, the imagination, the heart. No matters respecting him are more carefully recorded than his temptation and his destitution, the insults and reproaches he received, his heaviness of heart, his trouble of soul, his agony and bloody sweat; not to awaken a morbid and sentimental sympathy, but obviously to arouse and engage the earnest attention of man; whilst the public crucifixion of the Son of God stands out to the end of time, as the most affecting and impressive spectacle the universe has ever witnessed. It does not admit of doubt that both the initiatory and the commemorative rite of Christianity proceeds on the principle, that sensible and external things are not only lawful, but necessary as aids to devotion; and that though they admit of being perverted to purposes of superstition, their right use is calculated to subserve the interests of real piety. How comes it to pass that the Gospel itself, instead of consisting of a series of propositions, expressed as they might have been, with all the precision which infinite wisdom could give them, is made to rest on facts, and facts too of the most stirring and marvellous character, appealing to all the strongest, as well as tenderest passions of our nature? Yet so it is; and if our space allowed us to pursue the inquiry, we should find the apostles, in all their conduct, recognising the same principle, and acting in conformity with it; all teaching us the necessity of transferring the same spirit and character to the modes and forms of evangelic worship. 2. If it shall be said, that nevertheless there is a marked difference between Judaism and Christianity; and that in the latter there is so much less that is intended to excite and impress than in the former, as to amount to a total change in the character of the two dispensations; we reply, that different as they are, the difference, as far as this feature of them is concerned, is not radical. They were constructed for the human family, as we have already said, in two different mental conditions: the one in the morning of its existence, when man was in a state of rude simplicity; when he was characterised by the susceptibility of strong affections rather than by the power of abstract thought, and when it was absolutely necessary he should be addressed, “anthropopathicis locutionibus," in order to convey to him any true ideas of God; the other in his noon-day state, and when he was permitted to look on God, "in the face of Jesus Christ." By this advanced revelation, however, the relation of body and mind was modified only, not essentially changed; and if the same necessity no longer existed for a form of worship where the ritual and external prevailed, the senses and imagination still continued elements of our nature, and avenues to the understanding and heart; and the principle which pervaded Judaism was transferred to the Gospel, only adapted to man's modified, improved, and more refined condition. 3. Nor is the history of paganism or of popery, whether Roman or Greek, without its lessons of instruction. It is common to speak of these systems as adapted to a corrupt human nature; and the assertion may be correct; but it is their adaptation to it, not as corrupt, but as human nature,—it is their adaptation to it as it really is, that has given to any of them whatever power for good they possessed. That adaptation we know was imperfect; they almost omitted from their theorem the term rational, and made sentient prominent; they cared little to enlighten, their chief anxiety was to awaken feeling; and the result, to a large extent, was a painful and degrading superstition; yet in that superstition, it cannot be denied, that there was often much deep, devout emotion; that the religious nature was sometimes powerfully acted on, and that the pilgrim and the devotee often presented a spectacle affectingly sublime. With all their evil, then, they produced good-in some instances great good; and we doubt not there was often genuine, though adulterated, piety. But what was the source of that good? we speak not now of the Divine efficient, but of the instrumental cause. If they had adopted the opposite principle; if their forms and rites had been cold and unexciting, would it have followed? Would a Stoic have constructed a system which would have produced it? Would not superstition itself have long since vanished from the earth, and left the nations a prey to the still more terrible evils of an ungenerous, unfeeling, and dreary atheism? Whilst warned, therefore, by the history of these false or corrupt systems, of the peril of forgetting that man has a reasonable soul, we are as plainly admonished, that if we would have a religion that is warm, and generous, and noble, as well as enlightened, those passions and affections which God has implanted within us, must have due respect. 4. But, perhaps, the examples from which we shall be most willing to learn, are those supplied, on the one hand by the English church, on the other by Methodism, in our own country. Diverse as are these systems, there are points in which they strangely agree. Let us look at each; and first, at the full cathedral service of the English church, conducted in all its splendour, by a competent evangelical clergyman. The venerable Gothic edifice, with "its high embowered roof," and "antique pillars," its high altars and "storied windows, casting their dim religious light," cannot fail to be impressive; its liturgy, which, notwithstanding its defects and faults, possesses many high excellences, and which is intended to be relieved and aided throughout by the chanting or singing of the "full-voiced quire," to "the pealing organ,”—indeed the whole service is constructed with the same view. Even Milton could speak of it as "dissolving him into ecstacies." An intelligent friend, and withal a Puritan, says, in a letter to the writer of this paper, "On Christmas-day I went to the parish church at The service was very imposing. The effect upon me of chanting the eighty-fifth Psalm was very powerful....... I leaned my head against a pillar, and wept under its influence. In the hands of a wise, devout, and competent clergyman, the devotional service of the church is a most powerful instrument." It does produce an effect; it touches what, when rightly directed, are the sources and springs of all true religious emotion. It is worse than absurd to deny it. Now let us look at Methodism, whether English or Welsh, not as its services are now conducted, by a few of its preachers of classic taste and refined sensibility, but by its ordinary ministers. In opposition to the solemn stateliness of the church service, it is hurried and rapid; its music is boisterous and thrilling. The prayer is usually presented in short, pointed, pithy sentences, in tones of voice intended to pierce the soul, and with pauses to invite and encourage the audible response: so that as the people indicate their earnestness, the minister praying, in his turn is warmed; the pitch of his voice is raised, till the building rings with the sound and the groans of the people, and a strange enthusiasm pervades the whole assembly, by which, not unfrequently, even the stranger, who was at first most painfully affected, is himself carried away. The sermons of the Methodists, too, are usually made to bear in the same direction, while the love-feasts and class-meetings are important parts of the system. Here also, as in the former case, the effects are obvious and mighty. Masses of men are moved, strangely moved; in the one case, however, it is to deep, chastened, reverential feeling; in the other to stronger and more boisterous, but still sacred excitement. Now it will be said, this is not religion; the emotion, though intense, is often fictitious and transient, whilst it is experienced, in many cases, by persons who are totally destitute of piety. We admit it; we admit it fully. But what we contend for is, that it is also frequently associated with true devotion; that, though some of the excitement produced is spurious, much is genuine; that it leaves behind it good and permanent effects, and that the piety of many a heart, both Churchman and Methodist, is to be traced to their respective forms of worship, as the instrument. Now these forms, in each case, are constructed on the principle of reaching man's religious nature, not by the presentation of naked truth to the intellect, through the ear only, but by the aid of all the senses and the imagination. So far they are right. But we believe that in both cases there is serious error; and it lies in carrying the principle to excess. The truth may be exhibited fully and clearly, but the service tends to the undue excitement of feeling and emotion, which prevents calm reflective thought; and because awakened in the sanctuary, is easily mistaken for heartfelt piety. The worshipper comes to delight and revel in such sensations. Good may result, but there is great attendant evil. Devotion may be fed both in the mind of the Churchman and Methodist; but much of the solemn awe of the one, as well as of the rude enthusiasm of the other, is counterfeit, and might well be spared, as inadequate, being alone. But there is a right result; the formation of a pure and elevated religious spirit, and of an enlightened and manly religious character: and there is a right way to reach it; not by repudiating a true principle, |