Christian Theology - Media Sabda Org

CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY.
Adam Clarke
XIV.—PUBLIC WORSHIP.
BY adoration we are to understand that reverence that is due to the
highest and best of beings. The word "adoration" signifies that act of
religious worship which was expressed by lifting the hand to the mouth,
and kissing it, in token of the highest esteem and the most profound
reverence and subjection. It implies a proper contemplation of His
excellences, so as to excite wonder and admiration; and of His goodness
and bounty, so as to impress us with the liveliest sense of his ineffable
goodness to us, and our deep unworthiness. It implies the deepest awe of
his divine Majesty while even approaching him with the strongest
sensations of filial piety; a trembling before him while rejoicing in him;
the greatest circumspection in every act of religious worship; the mind
wholly engrossed with the object while the heart is found in the deepest
prostration at his feet; the soul abstracted from every outward thing; no
thought indulged but what relates to the act of worship in which we are
engaged, nor a word uttered in prayer or praise the meaning of which is
not felt by the heart; no unworthy conceptions of such a Majesty
permitted to arise in the mind; the same worshipping in spirit and in truth;
no carelessness of manner, no boldness of expression, permitted to
appear; the body prostrated while the soul, in all its powers and faculties,
adores; no lip service, no animal labour, allowed to take place; nothing
felt, nothing seen, but the supreme God, and the soul made by his hand
and redeemed by his blood.
Worship, or worthship, implies that proper conception we should have
of God, as the great governor of heaven and earth, of angels and men.
How worthy He is in his nature, and in the administration of his
government, of the highest praises we can offer, and of the best services
we can render! Every act we perform should bear testimony to the sense
we have of the excellence of his Majesty, and of the worthiness of his
acts. "Speak, Lord, thy servant heareth," is the language of the true