The true service of God is intelligent correspondence with the divine will--this is perfection; and to correspond with the divine will we must be able to know it: and this is what we can do if we are true to the principle of our new birth, and suffer it _radically and permanently to transform_ us and our point of view (for nothing less than this is carried by St. Paul's expression rendered 'transform'). Negatively, this means that we must maintain our separateness from the worldly world, to which we died at our baptism--the world of human society as it devotes itself to its business and its pleasures, {102} leaving God out of account[5]. For if the worldly world is suffered to _fashion us in accordance with its shallow and transitory show_ (this is the idea conveyed by the word rendered 'fashion'), we shall be blinded to what our regeneration ought to have made plain to us. [1] For the use of 'by,' cf. xv. 30; 1 Cor. i. 10 ('through' is the same word); 2 Cor. x. 1. [2] See further, _Ephes._ pp. 172 ff. [3] It is more likely, however, that the phrases 'rational worship' and 'bloodless sacrifice' had an earlier Jewish origin. They occur in _The Testament of the XII Patriarchs_, which is apparently a Jewish document christianized. There the _angels_ are said (_Levi._ 3) to 'offer to the Lord a rational odour of sweet savour and a bloodless offering.' Philo also, as Mr. Conybeare points out to me, in several passages describes the true sacrifices as 'bloodless': and by bloodless sacrifices he means either the meal offerings as opposed to the animal sacrifices (_De Anim. Sacrif._ ed. Mangey ii. 250), or truly spiritual acts as opposed to merely outward (_De Ebreitate_, i. p. 370, cf. ii. 254). These two ideas run easily into one another, and the earliest uses of the expression 'bloodless sacrifice' for the eucharist have a similar ambiguity. [4] See further, p. 179. I may be allowed to express the earnest desire that we might have liberty in our Church to read _both_ of the Post-Communion Prayers, which seem supplementary rather than alternative to one another. [5] See _Ephes._ p. 92. {103} DIVISION V. § 2. CHAPTER XII. 3-21. _The community spirit._