The public worship of God

Front matter

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ALBRIGHT COLLEGE LIBRARY

Preface

When the invitation came to me to deliver the Lyman Beecher lectures, a familiar quotation came into my mind and remained there,—sutor, ne supra crepidam: and I determined that this cobbler, at any rate, would endeavour to stick to his last. After all, the purpose of the lectureship can well be served, when a working minister frankly speaks out of his own experience and explains, as best he can, the methods which he has found effective in practice. The work of the ministry has mostly to be done by the rank and file: and it is, perhaps, not unseemly that one of their own number should have an opportunity of discoursing upon the problems he has met and has tried to solve.

These particular lectures (except the last one) were delivered extempore, with only rare references to notes; and I have not found it possible entirely to recapture them in book form. Consequently, certain passages have been omitted altogether, especially in the chapters on prayer and

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Vill PREFACE preaching. In the lectures, I ventured to give practical examples of the disastrous results of haphazard and careless methods of preparation and delivery—examples which lose their force unless illustrated alike by voice and gesture. For the rest, however, the book follows closely the content, if not the manner, of the spoken addresses.

While, in work of this kind, a man draws for the most part from his own experience, it is inevitable that he should be indebted also to previous writers. An article by Dr. Stalker on preaching suggested the passage dealing historically with the art; and three of the quotations in the last chapter were drawn from Dr. Moffat’s “Literary Illustrations of the Bible.” But one apparent source of inspiration was not, in point of fact, known to me, until the lectures were complete. Readers of Dr. Sperry’s “Reality in Worship” will notice an extraordinary similarity between some of the ideas in chapter one of this book, and those that are to be found in a corresponding chapter of Dr. Sperry’s work. He, I notice, remarks a further correspondence in Dr. Vogt’s “Art and Religion.” I can only say that these lectures were finished before I had read

PREFACE ix either of these books—though I have studied _ them both since with delight and profit. . Any indebtedness that I owe, in this region, _is to a teacher of the previous generation. In the chapter on prayer, I have paid a tribute to _ the influence and example of the late Principal Oswald Dykes of Westminster College, Cambridge. It is to that fine student of all things worshipful that I, and many others also, owe any sensitiveness to devotional seemliness that we possess. In particular, the scheme of the meanings of the Sacrament in chapter six is based on a scheme which Dr. Dykes used for instructing catechumens. I have altered it somewhat; and, for the form of its explanation, I am entirely responsible. Nevertheless, the original suggestion came from him. I had his permission to make what use of it I would; and, during all my ministry, I have founded upon it when teaching the meaning of the Holy Communion.

Chapters three, four and five contain work that was done some years ago, when I had the privilege of holding the Warrack Lectureship on Preaching, in Scotland. And that leads me to record the real debt which any working minister, who lectures on worship, must owe, but can never x PREFACE pay. His true teachers are his people. They endure his mistakes; they encourage him to do his best; and by their friendship and loyalty help him to grow. I have been minister of four churches. First in Derby, then in Edinburgh, then in Parkdale, Toronto, and now in my present charge. I found kindliness in them all. Indeed, young ministers may take heart. Their work will bring them in touch with the best that is in people; and they will be able to thank God upon every remembrance of them. Most of my working life, however, has been spent in the second of these—in the New North Church of Edinburgh, with all its memories of students and of friendship rich and rare. The members of that church, and especially those who worked intimately in it, will allow me here to remember with unfading affection “the friends I lo’ed sae weel sae lang ago.”

To my present congregation (which I like to link with the New North) I am equally indebted. They, also, are friends indeed. In particular, thanks are due to my secretary, Miss Elsie Watt, for indefatigable and very competent assistance, and to my colleague, Dr. J. E. Munro, and Miss Agnes Swinarton for reading the final proofs.

¥ | PREFACE xi .

One thing about the ministry is that there are

_ always willing folk about, ready to lend a helping hand. There is a great deal of sheer kindness _ in this world; and we ministers get our fair share. _ At any rate, one “poor brother” has found that _ true in Scotland, and finds it true now in Canada; and endeavours to give God the praise.

Old St. Andrew’s Church, Toronto, Canada.

May 30th, 1927.

CONTENTS e _ Tue Orper or Worsuip . .

EEC PIPAY ETI t ce vs le a 'e Tue Spoken Word. .. .

Tue PREPARATION OF A SERMON

| Tue Sacrament . . .. q ‘ Tue CELEBRATION. . . .

Tuer GUIDANCE OF THE WISE .

Tue Treacuine Metruops or Our Lorp

THE PUBLIC WORSHIP OF GOD

Chapter I. The Order Of Worship

‘HE public worship of God is the concern of

every man. Both those who share in it and _ those who do not, are enriched by its reality and reverence, or impoverished by its lack of them. For it is the chief of all the ordinary means for keeping alive the sense of the Unseen in the community. ‘The weekly services of the Church, on a day traditionally set apart for them, have an effect on society beyond that which they exercise upon the actual worshippers. The church bell, and the sight of families wending their way to the sanctuary, are not without influence upon those whom Sunday calls only to somnolence or golf. Cases are not unknown of men, who normally acknowledge God by proxy, waxing vigourous in defence of weekly worship, and even 17 joining in it, if they feel that the practice is in danger. For they know full well that, at least, it keeps a window open to Jerusalem in their children’s hearts—and even, it may be, in their own.

If public worship is to render all the service it can to society, its component parts need to be discerned, that none may be omitted. The object of this great act is, of course, God Himself; but the worshipper is man—whose sole endeavour, at such a moment, should be to present himself as he really is, before his Maker. Consequently, times of worship are occasions when man is brought face to face with himself, and reminded of the large, pathetic facts of his own life. They afford almost the only ordinary opportunities for him to take a steady look at the mystery, which is himself. In business he has no time to remember: in pleasure, his anxiety is to forget. Few men, apart from the hours of worship, ever stand at gaze before the facts of birth and death, before their own pitifulness and splendour, their transience and their permanence. Yet all men know that it is only those who take thought upon - these things, who grow in wisdom. And it is no small service that the Church renders, in a world le. of shadows and the pursuit of shadows, when it — affords opportunity to behold the tears of things _ and to touch the trappings of mortality, and thus to move upwards to the place where the Eternal _ dwells. _ Hence, no apology, surely, is needed for beginning with a consideration of the best means of arranging services which have so deep a significance. Indeed, it is a comfort to observe the interest that-is being shown in all our Reformed Churches, in the matter of a proper Order of Service. The ancient fears, that due arrange- ‘ment and preparation of worship savour of the Pope or of Black Prelacy, have been largely assuaged: and all our branches of the Church are engaged in the production of service books, which purport to be guides to ministers and congregations. Some of us have observed with delight what attention our people are willing to give to discussions of the ascending scale of meanings, which a rightly ordered act of worship ought to possess. Moreover, the unlovely has had its day and tawdriness is following it into banishment. Squat ugliness is no longer regarded as a mark of spirituality; nor is it thought necessary to be formless in order not to be formal. These are happier days for all who care for beauty of expression. Perhaps it is a reaction from the war: but more men care for loveliness than was the case a quarter of a century ago.

But a situation of that sort is full of danger. In the rebound from the bare, it is easy to fall into the meaningless. In practice, the “beautifying” of our services often means the introduction of responses or of music, which have no relation to a concerted act of worship; just as the “decorations” which are splashed about our walls have no relation to the fact that they are the walls of a church. Indeed, some modern “beautiful” services are more distressing than the stern worship that had a loveliness of its own, because it sought none. For these old services possessed a unity peculiar to themselves. They proposed worship through the mind, with no appeal to the senses at all; while their modern successors, by ranging aimlessly up and down the gamut of religious expression, lose unity, and thus the first condition of beauty.

Consequently, all ministers need to give time and thought to the structure of their services. In making the suggestions that follow, I have particularly in mind those, who, being of the Puritan

THE ORDER OF WORSHIP 21 and Covenanting lineage, find themselves in con- ‘ gregations, which have not much of this world’s _ gear, and cannot command the services of first- } rate musicians or erect churches of architectural _ distinction. Some books that have recently ap- _ peared contain admirable guidance for parishes inhabited by millionaires. But most men work _ amongst poor folk and inherit buildings in which ornate worship is as out of place as etchings in a kitchen. What is needed is an appreciation of the principles of reformed worship, together with a simple outline of the ascending movements involved, which may either be left simple or be adorned with all that art can supply. It is to the discovery of such principles, and to the de- -vising of such a scheme, that we must now set ourselves.

I

But we must first clear the ground. We all know that in the matter of order we have come into hopeless confusion. In many of our churches, even now, nobody (with the possible exception of the minister, and he is a doubtful exception) knows what is going to happen next. It is true that most city churches have printed orders; but whether the next hymn is to express praise, or penitence, or the missionary spirit, is a secret hidden until the hymn-book be opened; and when it comes to prayer, the congregation — wanders, as on uncharted seas, moving from thanksgiving to intercession, from adoration to confession, and back again and round about and up and down. The result is that we sing with the spirit, but not with the understanding; and that the “long prayer” has become a clear invitation to inattention.

And yet there be some that say, why have an order at all? For, say they, an order becomes a routine, and a routine is the parent of a rut. It is familiarity, they maintain, that breeds inattention; whereas the unexpected and the diversified are the sources of sustained interest. In their support, they cite the example of such men as Dr. Joseph Parker and Mr. Spurgeon. The former often followed his own,fancy in the matter of order, while the latter, in his advice to his students, explicitly told them to change the order at their will. Their modern pupils lend ready ears to such counsel. It is reported that a minister, not long ago, was perturbed by the routine of Holy Communion, and so, to give variety, he a THE ORDER OF WORSHIP 23 sometimes administered the bread first and some- _ times the wine. Anything for a change! An in- _ stance such as that puts a fool’s-cap on the whole tendency, but rather undeservedly; for there are _ certain types of service in which the unexpected plays an important part; and, in suggesting _ guiding principles, it is necessary to distinguish services of that sort.

Now, there are two classes of services: as minis- _ters have for long acknowledged by attempting a different type of sermon in the evening. My

plea is that the distinction should be marked also in the tone and order of worship. The two sorts may be called (1) Services of Worship and (2) Services of Mission. The former of these are a supreme task of the Church and are ends in themselves. The latter are means to an end—namely, the extension of the kingdom. In Services of Mission, we may aim at diversity as much as we please, within the bounds of decency. As to that I have nothing to say; each man must work out his own methods, with due regard to his own personality and the type of community in which he is working. But in the case of Services of Worship, the situation is altogether different. In them the congregation is engaged, as a unity, in an act which requires a common understanding of every movement. The purpose cannot be fulfilled unless every member knows what he is doing and why he is doing it: and all this is impossible without an order.

Moreover, an order is demanded by two complimentary facts: namely, the Diversity and Unity of every congregation. Each body of worshippers is diverse, because it contains individuals in every kind of religious mood. One man will chiefly desire to confess his sins, while the next man’s heart will be a tumult of thanksgiving. All of these moods have to be met; and an order is essential to secure that they shall be met. Otherwise, the leader will impose his own mood on the people, a thing that happens every Sabbath Day. But no less important is the unity of a congregation. The Object of Worship is ‘One; and there is a “man in men,” that responds uniformly, in normal circumstances, to His presence. Moreover, in the movement of “the man in men” towards God, all the diverse needs of the congregation are met. Our task, then, is to discover that normal response, and then to express it in the sequence of our worship.

II,

Two principles immediately make themselves _ manifest, without which no worship can be ade- _ quate. We may call them the principles of Alternation and of Ascension. Each deserves a _ little separate study.

1. The Principle of Alternation.

When a man approaches God, he will remember on the one hand, that it is God that he is approaching, and, on the other, that it is he that is approaching God. Inevitably, he will tend to swing from the thought of the holiness of the Worshipped, to the unworthiness of the worshipper: from God’s law, to his own need of help: from the knowledge of God’s everlasting mercy, to the answering thankfulness of his own heart. He will move rhythmically between Vision and Response. His worship will become an exchange between perception and his reaction thereto. Receiving from God and giving to God will follow, wave-like, one upon the other.

At this point, I find myself in some disagreement with those who see in worship only a series of developing attitudes on the part of the worshipper. They begin with Vision, indeed, but then proceed through Humility to Vitality and thence to Illumination and Dedication. That is good and helpful, as far as it goes; but it seems to miss the point that each response of the soul is conditioned by a new perception of God. True worship begins and ends with Vision, just as Dante’s upward flight of the soul began with the sight of the Hill of Cleansing and ended with the flash of the unveiling of the Divine Reality. And as it thus begins and ends, so worship develops with new unfoldings of the Divine character, which call forth new answers from men, who, all the while, are drawing nearer to God, and, thus, discovering more clearly the Heavenly Father’s face. Each Vision and Response is connected both with that which goes before and that which comes after; but they have a special relation to each other. A rightly ordered service thus consists in a sequence of pairs, consisting of a thought of God and the answer thereto, until we reach the final unveiling of the God of Grace and love and communion, in remembrance of whom we leave His house, to take up confidently our daily tasks.

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2. The principle of Ascension.

In any considered approach to God, various emotions, it is clear, are developed in a normal mind, But it is not so generally recognized that, ordinarily, these are developed in an ascending scale. If we take the religious movement of the race as a whole, as it is displayed in the Bible, we can perceive an ascension from fear to awe, from awe to joy, and from joy to love. Our own experience corroborates this. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the end of the story is to know and to rest in the love that passeth knowledge. And, midway, fear blends with awe: and awe at God’s majesty moves into awe at His redeeming passion, whence springs joy that to ourselves is given new power and new life. From this we discover our key to the problem as to how worship must psychologically proceed. Beginning with an attempt to see the Vision of God high and lifted up, we progress along an inevitable movement of consequent fear blending into awe, and thence to a new unveiling of the Divine nature, whence spring joy and love. Once a minister has this sequence of mood clearly in his mind, the ordered ascent of his prayers will be secure; and there will be no more of the uncharted seas. He has discovered a guiding principle that will not fail him; for it is implanted in human nature, and, therefore, in his own.

But the ascent is not steady. As each new vision of God is perceived, there are often backwashes of feeling. This is especially true in the initial stages of worship, where we are thinking of God’s holiness and of our inability to meet His demands. This backward swing must, I think, find expression in our order, as will hereafter be indicated. But the main movement is upwards, until we are lost in wonder, love and praise.

I daresay you have seen those clever gymnasts, who, beginning on a low-set trapeze, by a swing forward and backward gain momentum to catch a trapeze higher up, and so gradually ascend from bar to bar, until they reach the highest set before them. It is a crude image; but it may serve. In the main, our progress is simply upward in worship: but we require the backward movement to pass from fear and awe to joy. The depth of our need, and the depth of the waters crossed to satisfy it, must be realized before we can worthily praise the Deliverer. And all this a leader in worship will have in his mind as he sets himself to his task.

III. Now that we have cleared the ground, and laid

- down these general principles, it is possible to - deal with those practical problems, which are our chief concern. Let me ask you to imagine a body of normal people met together on a Sunday morning in an average church for the main act of weekly worship. Conceive them dropping in by twos and threes until eleven o’clock strikes,

_ and the duty of the day has to be begun. What has to be done first? The answer is easy: we must draw near to God. We are not ready to worship yet. We have to “go unto the altars of the Lord.” Our bodies may be in church, but our minds have to be brought and kept there, too. Wherefore, we set down first this highly important matter of

The Approach.

This consists of three steps: first, the call to attention; second, the attempt, in common, to realize the presence of God; and, third, the request for Divine aid in the enterprise on which we are about to engage.

Now, all this is of real importance. “Well begun is half-done.” It is the first step that goes far to determine all the rest; and a minister should put forth a good deal of effort to create stillness and a sense of the Unseen at the beginning. Before the service opens, the average worshipper is anything but concentrated on the matter in hand. We are all human, and thoughts naturally wander about the church, noting latecomers, suspecting absentees and appraising new attire. God forgives it all, no doubt, for it is He that hath made us, and He remembers that we are dust. But it makes it the more important that certain preliminary steps should be taken to unify the congregation upon the duty before them. So first there comes—

(a) The Call. to Worship, which takes the place of the “bell” in the Roman services. It may take the simplest of forms: indeed, the words “Let us worship God,” said by a man who is listening to them himself, are all that is needed. But we must give them their full value as we say them. Let them (or whatever other words we use) be preceded by a slight pause, after we

P ‘THE ORDER OF WORSHIP 31 ye

} Jj stand up. Our object is to still our people; and silence on our part is often the most effective way to do it. And as we utter the call, let us make an honest effort to hear it ourselves. We shall, thereby, communicate the stillness which our own hearts feel.

And what follows, inevitably, upon the call to attend? Why, clearly, a concerted attempt to secure, in common—

(b) The Realization of the Presence of God. Silence again is helpful, followed by such words as these, said or sung together—“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.” It is difficult to find words more suitable than those of the Sanctus in Isaiah VI to express the united sense of God’s majesty, which a congregation ought to endeavour to feel as they approach Him. Unfortunately, this sometimes is used in historic liturgy at quite a different part of the service; and we ought to follow historic usage, when we can. But the authority of Isaiah for the use of these words, as the expression of our first Vision of God, may justify us in departing from the later, though venerable, practice. However, we must find words of some kind, which can be used in common by the people, to express a thought of Him to whom they are approaching, which will stir in them that sense of right fear and awe, which is the beginning of wisdom in worship as in everything else.

Assuming, then, that the people’s attention is rightly directed and that they are, severally, reminding themselves of the separateness of the object of their worship, what happens next? The answer suggests itself. They must ask God, without whose help no man can even approach Him, to aid them in their service. This they do in—

(c) The Prayer of Invocation, which is a call to God for aid in a particular enterprise—namely, the enterprise of that morning’s worship. Too much care cannot be given to that prayer. A minister who does not know exactly how he is going to phrase it, before he goes into the pulpit, is seriously amiss. It should be short, cast in the collect-form, and should concern itself solely with the matter in hand. A perfect example is the opening collect of the Anglican Communion Office—“O, Thou before whom all hearts are open”: and a man, who finds the composition of prayers especially difficult, might do worse j ]

than use this so expressive and so apt invocation of God’s help every Sunday. Its delivery should never be hurried; each phrase should be quietly emphasized; so that all the worshippers may be touched with a sense of the magnitude of their request, as they appeal to God to cleanse the thoughts of their hearts that they may worthily magnify His holy Name.

With these three steps taken, the Approach is ended. We have gone unto the Altars of the

Lord. We are ready now to enter on the morning’s noble task, which henceforth must proceed upon the natural ascending alternations of Vision and Response. You observe that the alternation has already displayed itself. The thought of God has sent us asking help to worship. We shall find that a similar interchange will compel itself into our service to the end.

Iv.

The Act of Worship.

A good image of our attitude as we enter on our enterprise is that suggested in the most familiar of the songs of Ascent. We lift up our eyes unto the hills in—

(a) The Opening Adoration, This is rightly and properly sung by the congregation together. We have to discover some hymn, which will connect itself with the Approach and will conclude with a statement of some aspect of the majesty of God, in which we can worthily adore Him. There is none better than that “grand old Puritan anthem,” the 100th Psalm, set to Léon Bourgeois’ noble tune. It carries on from what has gone before, with its call to the whole earth to “sing to the Lord with cheerful voice’; and it ends with the Vision splendid of Him whose “truth at all times firmly stood and shall from age to age endure.” 'Those who are in perplexity to find hymns which precisely fit into the various parts of the service—and it is a sore business to light on exactly what we want—might do a deal worse than take a look at the Scottish Metrical Psalms. ‘They will find them peculiarly rich in the noblest and simplest forms of opening Adoration.

This done, there can be no question what we must do next. The effect of the first unveiling of God has been the same on humanity from the beginning: and it will be the same until that end comes, when sin shall be no more. The knowledge, that the Lord our God is righteous altogether, forces into our minds that related painful knowledge, that our thoughts are not His thoughts nor our ways His ways. Wherefore, our own nature compels us immediately to— (b) The Prayer of Confession, and for Pardon and Peace, about which we need say little, except that it should be brief and as intimate, definite and sincere as we can make it—never forgetting, of course, that we are praying in public and on behalf of a congregation. Parts of the 51st Psalm will give us a model.

There may, however, be some difference of opinion as to what should follow. Many of our teachers send us at once to the regions of God’s loving-kindness, whence He sends His healing and His strength. But I cannot think that the matter is quite as simple as all that. God does not let us off just because we say we are sorry; and He never, in any circumstances, ceases to demand obedience to His moral law. That surely ought to be expressed in every service. The weakness of some modern worship lies precisely here—that we have failed to make manifest austerity and sternness, as if the godly life were roses, roses all the way. Calvin knew better, when he began every service with the recitation of the ten commandments. Somewhere in the order there ought to be given a glimpse of the high and lofty places of that Law, which Christ came not to destroy but to fulfil. And, if it comes in naturally anywhere, it comes in at the point we have now reached. It is true to experience, that the first response of the Divine to the penitent isa renewed demand for obedience. A sense that we must never desert from the paths of righteousness comes over the mind, when earliest we turn to God; and we realize that, whatever God may be going to do as a result of our cry for mercy, He is not going to change His mind about godliness. This we may term—

(c) The First Divine Response, which will consist in a short reading (or singing) of some passage of Scripture, which sets forth the moral responsibilities which God insists we shall shoulder. The usual plan would, of course, be to recite the ten commandments: but these basal statutes of the embryo Hebrew state do not “strike to within,” on the modern mind. I think it better to vary the passages here, using Deut. VI:1-9 as the norm. But, whatever we may do in the selection of passages, we must not fail to bring in some clear expression of the moral law. Otherwise, we shall be true neither to the human nature we are expressing, nor to the God whom we are worshipping.