VI. Principles, in accordance with which Worship should be regulated.

German writers set forth, with no little minuteness, the principles by which the modes of worship should be regulated, so as to secure the happiest results. They say but little, however, on this topic, with which the minds of American readers are not already quite familiar; and there would be no occasion for detailing, at any length, the conclusions to which the writers in question have come, if it were not a matter of some interest to show the conformity of these conclusions with the sober views which have always prevailed in New England. These writers insist, for example, that in all religious services, everything arbitrary and capricious shall be excluded. No rite shall be introduced that is not in accordance with those convictions which form the religious consciousness, in the widest meaning of this phrase. The necessity of worship does not arise alone. under some one form of religion. It is not peculiar to any one stage of refinement and culture, which an individual or a community may have reached. It arises wherever there is any consciousness of God, any consciousness of relation to a divine Creator and Sovereign. This consciousness is permanent, strictly unchangeable and universal. All forms of worship, in order to be allowed to become current, must prove themselves to be fit expressions of this universal consciousness. Rites and modes, which originate in any merely human authority or which fail to represent the general religious consciousness, at length fail of any moral influence, and become objects of contempt. It is in a forgetfulness of this principle that we are to look for the most powerful cause of that utter decay of the religious life, and that loosening of the hold of the prevalent pagan religions on the general mind, everywhere so noticeable at the date of the Saviour's advent, and which made that date to be, emphatically, the fulness of times.

It is insisted on with the same pertinacity, that forms of

worship, in order to be allowed to become current, must do more than satisfy this general religiousness. They must meet the wants of the Christian consciousness. They must be conformed, not only to the condition of man, as a creature of God, but also as a sinner against God. Moreover, as Protestantism furnishes the purest and most complete exposition of the nature of Christianity, all religious rites and ceremonies should conform strictly to the Protestant idea. It is required still further, and as the great condition of the fulfilment of the demands already put forth, that there be a permanent canon, a fixed objective standard, to which every doctrine, and every religious rite, should be made to conform itself. Such a standard is found only in the Scriptures. The Christian consciousness does not carry, in itself, any guarantee of its own purity. It is not provided, in itself, with a shield against the causes of corruption by which it may be assailed. It has such a shield only in the Bible. Every rite that is introduced, therefore, must refer for its justification to the Word of God. By this means alone can that which is carnal and worldly be effectually excluded. Thus only can the wild forms of an unreasoning enthusiasm be suppressed. The Bible frowns upon every thing which even approximates to ultrasentimentalism. It resists, successfully, the inroad of any merely superstitious observances; discountenancing all attempts to make up, by costly and painful observances of this kind, for the absence of that spirituality and sincerity which God requires in his worshippers.

It will not have escaped the attention of the reader, that the principles on which German writers on worship insist so strenuously are, substantially, identical with those for which Puritanism has always contended. We may, perhaps, be permitted to doubt whether the German practice has been altogether in keeping with the German theory. With the theory, however, as thus far developed, Puritanism would seem to have little occasion to find fault; nor, as we proceed in this exposition of abstract principles, will much that merits blame be likely to be detected.

Another point, to which much prominence is given, refers to the proper relation of outward visible ceremonies to the covictions and emotions which they are designed to represent. The exalted character of these emotions requires that every thing light and frivolous should be banished from the forms of which they make use. Even in social intercourse, when religious truth becomes the topic of conversation, frivolity instantly ceases with all right-minded

This demand for deep seriousness becomes yet more urgent in the case of a congregation unitedly participating in religious rites. The United Brethren aim, it is said, to avoid every thing which gives the appearance of a want of free and intimate intercourse between the worshipper and God. Such an attempt might be comparatively innocent with a small community; but a worship thus characterized never could become universal.

Still there is a danger manifestly attendant on all formal observances and ceremonies. The Moravians have contended against a hurtful extreme. The tendency to attach to outward rites an intrinsic importance would, if unchecked, speedily usher in the burning of incense, and the tinkling of bells, and all the mummeries of Romanism. Religious services would degenerate into a senseless mechanism. This mischievous tendency must be corrected by a conviction of the superior worth of that which is spiritual. The incessant effort should be to make every rite and ceremony satisfy the demands of the reason, as well as please the senses, and delight the imagination, and minister to the cravings of our emotional nature. The dependence of all right emotions on thought for their distinctness, their purity, their permanence, should constantly be borne in mind. Where this principle is lost sight of, the congregation deprives itself of all the beneficial uses of united worship.

Another principle, a regard to which cannot be urged too strenuously, relates to the union of freedom with a fixed and definite order. If it is difficult to prevent freedom from degenerating into licentiousness, it is equally difficult to prevent a fixed and definite order from degenerating into

stiffness, from becoming a mere outward restraint, to which the congregation unintelligently submits. Where every thing, even to the minutest forms, is accurately defined and previously made known, we have the formalism and wearisome monotony of the Romish church. The antidote to this evil is the privilege, allowed to the particular congregation, of regulating its forms of worship according to its present need. Where this privilege is exercised under the guidance of good sense and a true charity, it is converted into a salutary principle of order. We cannot repress too carefully that overwhelming fondness for novelty which will give to our worship a perpetually wavering character, turning it into an endless series of experiments. Freedom, however, exercised under the restraints just spoken of, will not generate this evil. Changes in the forms of worship should follow that organic law of development, according to which, whatever is seemingly new is contained in that which is old. In all Protestant worship, and in reference to its fundamental elements, a substantial identity with the primitive forms should be preserved; those changes, however, being allowed, at any particular era, which the Christian sentiment of primitive times, could its verdict be ascer tained, would approve.

VII. Relations of Art to Worship.

The general aim of Christian worship is to give new vigor, and an enlarged dominion, to the religious sentiment. If, now, we were justified in conceiving the understanding to be the exclusive province of religion, we might be at a loss in discerning any proper connection between art and worship. All that it would be either needful or desirable to effect, in church services, would be an exhibition of religious truth in the plainest possible form. If on this supposition anything of the nature of true worship were conceivable, it must be imagined to proceed in an unadorned apartment, without singing, without music in any form; in short, without any art-accompaniment whatever.

The whole secret of worship, however, its whole power to take hold of the mind, lies in the union, prevailing in all its forms, of thought and emotion. But the practical error, in all ages, has been to give to the one or the other of these an undue predominance. The preponderance of mere thought, a conception of worship as little more than an intellectual exercise, was too much the fault of Puritanism. The preponderance of emotion will give birth to an utterly barren and mischievous sentimentalism. Religion is indeed, in a very momentous sense, a matter of feeling and emotion; and it is only in accordance with this principle, that a connection between worship and religion can be established. Religion thus contemplated creates an impulse to actual fellowship, the chief aim of which will be, not the enlargement of the knowledge of those who share in it, but rather a representation, and through the fitting media, of religious feeling and sentiment. In all these attempts at self-manifestation, religion must have recourse to some form of art; and art, not unwillingly, allows itself to be employed in this way.

VIII. Objections to this Theory.

It is not however to be forgotten that, to this whole theory of a necessary connection between art and religious worship, an opposition has always been manifested, and sometimes in the most energetic forms. In the very earliest periods of the history of the church, this opposition discovered itself. The worship of the primitive church was, in a great degree, without taste and unadorned. The singing was executed with scarcely any approach to artistic skill. The exhortations were uttered in the most simple manner. No use was suffered to be made of pictures and statues. The congregations met only in such places as convenience or necessity compelled them to use. But from the fourth century onward, this state of things underwent a change. Worship condescended to a union with art. Ornament was allowed to be introduced into ecclesiastical architec