What is Worship? by R. F. Cottrell

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 17, 1865

What is Worship?

By R. F. Cottrell

"God, who is the searcher of hearts, is my witness," says Luther, "that I am ready most earnestly to obey your majesty, in honor or in dishonor, in life or in death, and with no exception save the word of God, by which man lives. In all the affairs of this present life my fidelity shall be unshaken, for here to lose or to gain is of no consequence to salvation. But when eternal interests are concerned, God wills not that man should submit unto man. For such submission in spiritual matters is a real worship, and ought to be rendered solely to the Creator."

True loyalty to human government is every Christian's duty; but human dominion ends where conscience toward God begins. Where human enactments do not conflict with duty to God, obedience is a virtue; but when humanity undertakes to dictate in our religious duties, it is a sin to obey. It is in reality a worship of the creature in preference to the Creator. Hence the terrible threatening against those who worship the beast. The requirements of the beast are in direct opposition to the commandments of God; and to take God's law as modified and corrupted by the anti-Christian power of Rome, instead of receiving it as it issued from its fountain, the lips of Jehovah, is truly worshiping the beast.

R. F. COTTRELL.