But in thinking of the pattern in the Mount as a pattern of life, it is important for us to see that, in the first instance, this thought was presented to us in connection with that side of life which we call worship; for there was to be a sanctuary made, etc., nor must we omit to get, with regard to our worship, a glimpse into the thought of God beforehand, consulting the oracle in advance as did men in the old days. We may not take voyage without the very best map that can be had, lest we make shipwreck; nor, because we have not taken pains to obtain the map, may we content ourselves with creeping round shores that we know we ought to leave.
We must not separate the life from the worship; in fact they are one: we learn that from the description of the ceaseless adoration of those nearest the throne; they rest not day nor night saying, "Holy, holy, holy." Are we to suppose from this that their existence is occupied in the mere repetition of an everlasting Trisagion; or that, as Beecher once said, "they stand like wax candles round the throne, uttering an occasional Hallelujah"? Is it not rather God's way of showing us how He is unceasingly glorified in those who live nearest Him, whose lives worship Him?
The worship must be continuous with the life. I have a thermometer which has become perfectly useless because the air has broken up the continuity of the alcohol; it is worth next to nothing as an index of temperature. And little can we learn from any soul in which the continuity of the religious life is broken, and which has become life streaked with worship.
Now let us learn one or two of the characteristics of a pure life-worship.
Out of the worship according to the pattern in the Mount all respectability has been differentiated: the Christian religion will not hold caste in solution; it precipitates it to the bottom; its founder died the death of a slave; how could they give the slave a back seat after that? On the contrary, they gloried in the name; Paul, a slave and an apostle; a slave, and so eligible for the honour of crucifixion; an apostle, and so sent with the good news of life. Respect of persons holds not in heaven; none there will criticise the clay out of which the first raiment of your soul was made. What need is there, then, that we should leave off holding the faith of our Lord Jesus, with respect of persons (there are few churches where the ministers dare to preach on such a text as that). Let us have done with such classifications. In Jesus Christ there is neither barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free, town nor university, but Christ is all, and in all.
We know, too, that the life-worship to which God calls us consists in abandonment and surrender to an animating, impelling spirit. "The Spirit of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy, and thou shalt be turned into another man. And it shall be, when these signs are come upon thee, that thou shalt do as occasion serve thee, for the Lord is with thee." "Whither the Spirit was to go, thither was their spirit to go." The highest life is one in which we realise not merely surrender to the Divine Will, but harmony with it, so that the rails on which the life moves, the human and Divine wills, become strictly parallel.
A surrendered life implies surrendered lips: this is the key of true worship; every one having a psalm, an interpretation; ye may all of you prophesy. The ideal worship becomes the actual when heaven touches earth, as on the day of Pentecost—they were all filled, and, by consequence, they all ran over. Who would venture to tell the woman who had been a sinner, that it was not seemly that her life should proclaim the magnolia Dei, the wonders of God; my lips, she says, have touched His feet, and are consecrated for evermore. Who shall tell these prophesying handmaidens of the Lord that their place is in a different spiritual order: "Are there two inner courts, they will reply, to the New Jerusalem?"
Whoso hath felt the Spirit of the Highest
Cannot confound nor doubt Him, nor deny;
Yea, with one voice, O world, though thou deniest,
Stand thou on that side, for on this am I.