Playthings and Toys

"God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." - John 4:24

    If God were merely a material deity, I might bring Him fruits, and flowers, and music, and so on.

    If He were a God of ritual, I might deck myself with crosses, burn candles to Him, and waft incense in His honor.

    But our God is a Spirit who rejoices more in the falling tear, the upheaved sigh, the heart prayer and the heart praise rendered unto Him, than in all the decorations and symphonies and temples of a man made ritual.

    What does the Spirit care for your painted windows, your snow white altars, and your glittering brasses, and I know not what else besides?

    To Him they must be playthings and toys. If He takes any notice of them at all, it must be to laugh at them, and to hold them in derision.

    Man's traditions and inventions must pale before the appointment Christ has made; in every place true worshipers may offer up their praises and prayers without the gestures and genuflexions, the rituals and paraphernalia of Romanism and Ritualism.

    Every 'rite' is a wrong, unless it has a "Thus says the Lord" to back it up. Gladly would I commit all these inventions of man to the flames.

    There are multitudes of worshipers up and down this world of ours. But only a small proportion, alas! alas! of that great host, are true worshipers.

    "The Father seeks such" whose worship is not encumbered with ceremonial; whose minds are not fastened upon ritual and fettered by ceremony, but who truly worship the Father through the Son.