Christian Theology - Media Sabda Org

Were it not for public, private worship would soon be at an end. To
this, under God, the church of Christ owes its being and its continuance.
Where there is no public worship there is no religion. It is by this that
God is acknowledged, and he is the universal Being; and by his bounty
and providence all live; consequently it is the duty of every intelligent
creature publicly to acknowledge Him, and offer him that worship which
himself has prescribed in his word.
The wisest and best of men have always felt it their duty and their
interest to worship God in public. As there is nothing more necessary, so
there is nothing more reasonable: he who acknowledges God in all his
ways may expect all his steps to be directed. The public worship of God
is one grand line of distinction between the atheist and the believer. He
who uses not public worship has either no God or has no right notion of
his being; and such a person, according to the rabbins, is a bad neighbour;
it is dangerous to live near him; for neither he nor his can be under the
protection of God. No man should be forced to attend a particular place
of worship, but every man should be obliged to attend some place; and he
who has any fear of God will not find it difficult to get a place to his
mind.
We see the vast importance of worshipping God according to his own
mind. No sincerity, no uprightness of intention, can atone for the neglect
of positive commands, delivered in divine revelation, when the revelation
is known. He who will bring a eucharistic offering instead of a sacrifice,
while a sin-offering lieth at the door, as he copies Cain's conduct, may
expect to be defeated in the same manner. Reader, remember that thou
hast an entrance into the holiest through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;
and those who come in this way God will in nowise cast out.
Were the religion of Christ stripped of all that state policy, fleshly
interest, and gross superstition have added to it, how plain and simple,
(and may we not add?) how amiable and glorious, would it appear! Well
may we say of human inventions in divine worship, what one said of the
paintings on old cathedral windows, "Their principal tendency is to