p. 4 | CHRISTIAN WORSHIP by Francis L. Patton, D. D.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 20, 1887

CHRISTIAN WORSHIP.

By Francis L. Patton, D. D.

RELIGION implies a creed, a code, and a cult. There can be no religion that does not involve some belief,—some philosophy, however crude; some theology, however false; some theory of the universe, however naive. He that comes to God must believe that he is. But belief alone does not involve religion. It does not follow, because a man believes in God, that he worships him, or governs his life by God's law. Religion means conduct. It prescribes conduct, gives motives to conduct, and invests conduct with grave sanctions. It is more than morality,—more even than morality touched with emotion; but it is morality. An irreligious morality or an immoral religion is conceivable; but the religion and the morality would be false and defective that could be characterized in this way. There is, however, another element in religion: religion means worship, and worship must take on some form of outward manifestation. Hence every religion has a cult.

These three elements of religion, which are so easily separated in thought, are not so easily separated in experience. They do not lie side by side in actual life like three strands of a rope. It would be very hard for any man to subject his religious experience to an analysis that would exhibit belief, morals, and worship as separate quantities; though we know that these elements enter into all religious experience, and, moreover, that they are present in different proportions in different subjects,—some emphasizing faith, others practice, and still others a devotional frame of mind.—Francis L. Patton, D. D.