Your ShelfYour Projects

PROPRIETY IN WORSHIP

25%

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 26, 1868

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 31, No. 23.

Read the full edition

PROPRIETY IN WORSHIP.

By John Willisson

WANDERING of the heart greatly mars the performance of Sabbath duties, especially hearing, praying, and praising.
Jewish rabbis say, “That though on the Sabbath there was much flesh used for sacrifice in the temple, yet not so much as a fly was seen stirring there.” So neither should there be a wandering thought or eye allowed when we are about God’s solemn worship this day in his house. What encouragement hath a husbandman to sow upon the highway where every man and beast has free passage? No better is the heart of a wandering hearer. We may as well cast seed upon the waves of the sea, as preach unto such; for the good seed of the word is lost upon them. Think what an affront it would be to a king to turn your back upon him, or discourse with others while he is speaking to you. The motions and postures of your soul are as visible to God as the motions and postures of your bodies are to one another. Or, if a criminal were allowed to petition his prince for his life, would break off at every sentence and chase flies through the room, you would say, a remission were illy bestowed on such a creature?
Oh! beware of such a ridiculous behavior before the King of Heaven when you are addressing him for the life of your condemned souls. Would you have God to hear you, when you do not hear yourself? Can you think he will be mindful of you when you are not mindful of yourself? Think if your prayers were written down, and all your vain thoughts interlined, what incoherent nonsense would they be? Would you not be ashamed to have all read over? Would not the world cry, Shame upon you! for mocking your dread Sovereign with such an impertinent address? Oh! but thoughts are the same as words with God; may speak louder in his ears than words do in our. Amos iv, 13. “He declares unto man what are his thoughts,” and David says, “He tells my wanderings.”—Rev. John Willisson.