ARTICLE IV.

THEORY OF PUBLIC WORSHIP.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF PROFESSOR SCHÜBERLEIN IN THE STUDIEN UND KRITIKEN.

[WE published in No. XXI of the Review an Article by Professor Schöberlein on the History of Public Worship. The object of that history, the author states, was especially to educe therefrom the Theory of Public Worship. This is accordingly given in the present Article. We have translated these Articles because the subject is awakening much interest, and a philosophical view of it would, we supposed, be acceptable to our readers.]

THE meaning of the phrase Divine Service is variously understood. Some take it in a literal sense; they see in public service a transaction in which man renders a service to God, either such as God has required or such as is freely rendered. They see in it a work which, as such, is acceptable to God, and which has the value of a spiritual merit. In this view, it makes little difference whether we regard it as a mere homage addressed to the Deity, to honor him by our praise,—a view which is not unfrequently avowed by the adherents of rationalism,—or whether, contemplating the estrangement caused by sin between God and man, we design by this means to offer a satisfaction for our own sins and to procure a reconciliation,an idea which is found associated with the Catholic conception of worship.

These views are both false, and both contrary to the evangelical principles. For by our work,-this is a radical idea in the Evangelical Church,-we cannot gain the Divine favor nor appease his anger. God needs no service from us, as says the Apostle, Acts xvii, 25: "Neither is worshipped with men's hands as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all things." Nor does He need our homage in order to his glory. For He is the Lord of glory; and heaven and earth are full of his glory. Nor does He need our offerings in order to be made gracious towards us; for He is

the Father of mercy, who himself gave up his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. Consequently, Divine service is not a service by which God is served by us.

On the other hand, it might seem as if in the performance of worship we rather do ourselves a service, whether the profit consists in enlightenment and improvement in morals, or in the stirring up of our religious feelings, or in the promotion of our growth in grace, or in all at once, in our edification. And without doubt this view, regarded from one point, is entirely correct. It is essential to public worship that it serve for our edification, for the upbuilding of the Church upon the one foundation that is laid. And our Lord appointed Word and Sacrament to be the foundations of public worship, to the end that we, by these means, should be more deeply grounded and more vitally united with himself. Regarded, therefore, from the point of view of the Divine consciousness, public worship has for its aim the edification of the Church. And starting from this ground, we have the degree of edification as a standard for pronouncing upon the truth and soundness of a system of worship.

But the matter assumes a different aspect if we proceed to examine it from a human point of view, i. e. from the consciousness of the Church. The Church, in establishing and frequenting these services, is not led by such aims, although for attaining them she chooses public worship as the most suitable means. Even the object of edification, itself the purest and most comprehensive that could have been contemplated, did not originate public worship. Or is not prayer an essential part of worship? Do I pray, praise God, and give thanks, in order to edify myself? Such express design throws the soul into a position and state injurious to the simple, childlike feeling of worship, and so hinders real edification. Even the sermon, in which the character of design is specially prominent, has primarily the significance of a witnessing for Christ, which a cordial faith constrains us to deliver (Acts iv, 20; 2 Cor. iv, 13); although here, from the nature of the case, the element of design appears in intimate connection. Design and effect should

not be confounded in this matter. An effect of worship is indeed the good of the soul, just as the Divine pleasure is also. But, exactly when we do not seek these as objects, are they the most certain to follow. If, in treating of the essence of worship, we take the aim as our starting-point, we are in danger of making it a matter of form, because the mere connection of means and end, without interposing that which is the effective cause, may easily become very formal, and relatively a matter of accident. And secondly,-which is connected with the last, by this course we reach nothing but subjective results, one person being edified by this, and another by that part of worship, one only by the sermon, the other more especially by the liturgy. And considering the prevalence of this view of worship, we need not be so much surprised that many, even among believers, withdraw themselves from public service, and that, too, when error is not preached. For if the mere object of edification constitute the essence of worship, what is more natural than that I should stay away from it, if, at home, in solitude, I can, in my own opinion, better promote my spiritual interests?

If, however, I here emphatically deny that worship, viewed from the position of the Church, depends upon the element of design, I am yet far from seeing in it a mere spiritual play,— a play consisting in the objectless movements of holy sentiments, and ending in empty show. No, in the worship of God there reigns a holy earnestness, and it is divine life which reveals itself therein as the moving and forming influence. Just as little is worship a creature of the imagination, framed upon the same principle as a work of art. Much rather has that which is performed by the Church in worship a personal reality, yea, it is the deepest, profoundest proper experience of the Church, and is performed as such. Divine service has only this in common with art, that it has in the first instance no design, but simply represents,-represents what the Church, as a spiritual existence, carries in itself. And this is the reason why art in general can come, and does come, into the immediate employ of worship, which is not in this immediate manner the case with science.

But it is not enough to say of worship that it is an artistic representation. Indeed, the distinct moment of representation has not such a prime significance in worship as in art. The business of art is chiefly to represent, and it is of no consequence with her whether the object is drawn from the artist's actual experience or not. It may be a mere product of fancy, -only let the representation correspond to the idea. The ground-principle of art is beauty; truth, however, which we allow must not be absent from a work of art, has in this connection only an ideal character. The case is widely different in worship. There our great concern is the truth of reality, reality itself. In divine service the Church completes something, brings over into outward reality that which has inner reality in herself. This is the essential meaning of worship. It is not primarily representation, but consummation. But, just because this consummation takes place without an ulterior aim, simply because that inner reality exists, seeking expression, it takes the form of representation; hence, for this reason, beauty is unquestionably an accompanying element of perfect worship. But sheer representation, in which the carrying out of an inner reality has no place, were a desecration of sacred things (the introduction of the theatre, the concert, &c., into the Church).

Here it is not to be objected, that in the worship of God, these two views, that of the object and that of the simple ground, are so united that worship is designed half for edification, and is half of the nature of an expression, the one attained through the pulpit, the other by means of the liturgy. We should thus find an inward disunion in worship, which lies neither in the idea nor in the consciousness of the community. That which brings the people to church is one ground-feeling, as each one may perceive in himself. Either that feature of design in worship must so characterize it that everything else stands in a relation secondary and subordinate to it,-a position just now refuted,—or it must stand itself in the relation of mere consequence,—as secondary to the element of expression already explained. And such is really the case. The result

is here as in everything which, like worship, flows by an inward necessity from a clear mind-inseparable from the thing itself. Ground and object are so far from excluding each other that the same worship, which is a truly adequate exhibition of the deepest piety, can furnish the profoundest edification also. Originally worship flowed forth with a certain free necessity from the pious feeling of the Church, and was in order to give an outward expression to her inward life; while the point of view of the design is correct only in subordination to that of the cause. It is very much the same question as that of the nature of the Church. The Church also is both the witness of an inward principle, and a means to an end. Here, however, it is a question of the highest importance, and one which points. at the opposition of the Confessions, which of the two is to be reckoned as the primary element, to which the other must take a secondary relation.*

The general idea of worship is consequently that which we have already recognized as correct, viz.: a consummation, the conversion of an inward into the outward reality, which as such, takes the form of representation.

If now we inquire in what that inward reality consists, what is the inward impulse leading to this consummation, the answer is plain. It is that by which the Church exists as a church, as the body of the Lord-her faith. The Church is the body, of which the Lord is the head, by virtue of the spiritual union in which she stands with him, by virtue of the life of grace which she leads in him. It is this gracious union with her Lord, form

* This view of ours concerning the essence of worship is also the fundamental view of the Scriptures, since by them the true worship of the Christian is made to consist in presenting their bodies as a living, holy offering to God (Rom. xii, 1), and proving their faith by the pure walk of love (Jas. i, 27); since the Christians themselves are termed a spiritual house and a priesthood bringing spiritual offerings (1 Pet. ii, 5; Heb. ix, 14); since praise and confession as such are called offerings (Heb. xiii, 15), &c. Nor does the exhortation in Col. iii, 16, ὁ λόγος τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐνοικείτω ἐν 'υμῖν lovoíos prove the contrary, as appears in the exposition, where ǎdovres is joined with didárkovтes and vouderouVTES. Here, and in other places, worship is viewed as revealing and giving external form to the inward life of faith alike in the individual and in the Church.

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