Charles H. Spurgeon
“For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” —Paul to the Philippians.
The worship of God in private and in public, as it is prescribed in the Scriptures, requires our active attention always to the two grand divisions into which the service has been divided: the visible or tangible instruments to be used, and the effective power which is to be appealed to in the use of these instruments. In considering the worship of God and the surest means of benefit from it, it is necessary to recognize the outward ordinances as the only authorized method of our approaching him, and the only means by which we may expect his favor in benefits to ourselves. This dictates due care to have the ordinances as exactly conformed to the requirements of the law as it is possible to secure them. It is also indispensable to apprehend clearly, and then to act practically, on this knowledge of the correlated Scripture doctrine of the only agent and efficacious power by which the divinely-appointed ordinances can be made effectual. There can be no acceptable worship except in the use of those ordinances and actions in employing them which God himself has appointed. No man, or organized body of men, has a right to invent any action for the worship of God, and to challenge his blessings on the use of it. He would lay himself open to the cutting question, “Who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts” therewith?
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