Of course God’s prescription is liable to much modification when it comes to be applied, not to one people, but to all the nations of the earth; not to a tabernacle in the wilderness or a temple at Jerusalem, but to every place in which men ask him to record His name and come unto them and bless them; not to dim and imperfect types, but to the glorious and perfect anti-types; not to Judaism, which was local and temporary, but to Christianity, which is universal and eternal. Of course, too, the _details_ of men’s spontaneous worship will, necessarily, be different according to the truth which they have to express by outward signs, according to their natural characteristics in a warm or cold climate, according even to individual temperament. But this principle assuredly holds good for all time and for all men: that God having once pronounced Himself in favour of a certain kind of ritual, and His Church having consented to express its doctrines and its feelings by certain outward signs and rites of its own, the general rule and form of decent and orderly worship has been set and established, which should only be departed from by Divine sanction and appointment, unless, indeed, the doctrines and feelings which we have to express are so diverse from those of the elder Church that they cannot find an intelligent and real expression in the same ritual. You will hardly need, brethren, that I should prove to you that our religion is substantially that which God gave to the Jews; that under the old dispensation as under the new, salvation is offered to mankind only through Jesus Christ, and that the general ways of seeking and keeping hold of that salvation—humbling ourselves before God, initiation into His covenant, constant prayer, supplication and praise, constant pleadings of His sacrifice, constant feeding on His grace, are the same for us as for them, unless God Himself has changed them. Now this we know that He has done in some respects, taking away circumcision, the daily sacrifice of animals, and the Passover, and various rites and ceremonies which, from the nature of the case, could be only temporary; or, at least, had real use and significance only for the nation of the Jews, or for an _expectant_ Church. But then He has given us other ordinances _in the place of those withdrawn_, and these we _naturally_ observe in the same spirit, and, as far as suits them, with the same form as He appointed for the older ordinances. God is still the same: man is still the same. The expression of worship which He once required, is that which He must surely still require in all its essentials, all its characteristics.