The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1905-10-04
THE RITUAL OF THE BIBLE
Contributed by Rev. Arthur Pratt.

All public worship must be carried on
by means of ritual of some sort, form of
words. of prayer, of verse. accompanied
by attitudes, gestures and ceremonies, all
these seem to US naturally at once as APP
propriate for use in public worship.
But what particular forms aud ceremon-
les there are to be we cannot determine
for ourselves nor indeed, are we at liberty
to choose. 1t is our plail duty to look for
this end, first into the Bible, the inspired
wore of God, and secondly into the trad
itions of the Catholic church, subject only
to such rules and limitations as our own
branch of The Church may have laid
down. happily. there is abundant testi-
mony in the Bible as to what the ceremon-
icalof worship ought to be, and the trad
itions of the Church, are also very clear
upon the subject, even as far back as the
very times when the Apostles were here
upon earth. carrying out the personal in
structions of their Divine Lord and Mas
ter. The Bible is full of ritualism from
first to last. the sacrifices of Cain and
Abel, with their attendant rites and cere-
monies. were undoubtedly ordered by
God, those of Cain were, indeed rejected,
but not because of any excess in ritual
The ceremonial of the Mosaic period was
appointed again by God, and described to
Moses with the utmost attention to detail
1t would be impossible to conceive any
stronger evidence of the Importance of
Ritual in the sight of God than the solem
nifty and importance which surrounded
These minute and elaborate instructions
to Moses afford, for we must remember
gether the inspired revelation of but one
religion, They are the records of two dis.
pensations it is true but not of two re-
ligions.
1t is great and very common delusion
to suppose that the necessity for memoir
ial worship, and the virtue of it, departed
with the Jewish dispensation, that all this
Mosaic ritual passed away without leav-
ing behind any awful LESSONS to those
who came after. That the most holy will
and intentions of God changed completely
with regard to this subject at the advent
of our Lord. Such a notion cannot be
made to agree with our knowledge of God
who is the same yesterday, to-day and
forever, in whose sight a thousand years
are as one day. In the great eternity of
His existence, the whole period Of this
worlds life is but as it we're moment of
time. So it is then inconsistent with all
that the Bible teaches US of the unchange-
able nature of God. that it should be
thought that what He pronounced right
in essence and principle in one age He
should esteem to be wrong in essence
and principle in another.
In short, that to this extent He should
have altered the terms upon which accep-
lance as a worshipper might be secured
by man, we say, it is not everything un-
der the Mosaic law had counter part un-
der Christ. The sacrifices, the victim,
the priests, the temple, the altar, the vest
ments, the incense, the ointments, the
rites and ceremonies, all these we're pur.
fusely ordained by God as types of cor
responding things which the new dispen-
sation should bring both patterns to be
copied in our Christian Worship.
In the Epistle 10 the Hebrews, we read
that the temple and rites of the old cove