That the Christian Church accepted at once this rule of worship is evident from the fact, that the apostles and first disciples continued to take part in the temple and synagogue services as long as the Jews would let them; yea, and that they even still observed those ordinances which, in their necessary observance, God had abrogated; instead of which He had appointed other things. This, my brethren, is most worthy of note, because it shows that these men, full of the Spirit, discerned that they had still the same God to worship, and that, as far as circumstances would let them, the natural way—the right way—of worshipping was that which their fathers had followed; so much so that they might even still retain—as long as it could be done without injury, with edification—those very ordinances which, in their binding, their sacramental character, by God’s declaration, belonged not to Christianity! But God left it not to this pious, conservative feeling to maintain the dignity and splendour of His worship. As in the Mount He had given Moses a pattern and a law of all things that men should make and do for His worship in the Church on earth; so in Patmos to the beloved disciple, to him who had drunk in most deeply the spirit of Christ, to him who was to teach men more than any other prophet of the real, the abiding, the spiritual, the heavenly—to him, I say, God opened a door in heaven, and showed the things that must be hereafter, the worship that is to be celebrated and perpetuated in His fullest Presence; and lo! it was full of visible glories and ceremonial observances. “Yes,” men say: “but surely that must be allowed to be figurative—to be a mere pictorial way of describing inward and invisible truths and feelings.” We are not so sure of that, brethren. Heaven must be a substantial and tangible place; because those who are to inhabit it will have bodies to rest in it, and eyes, and ears and other senses to find gratification in it. And if it is such a place, and is full of objects which affect the body, and which the body may employ, then I see not why much of what the Apostle saw in vision may not be a literal representation of what shall actually be. But concede that it is only an image, a pictorial representation, nevertheless it is God who has chosen these things to symbolize His perpetual worship; and are we best preparing ourselves for that worship—best rehearsing it, best professing it, best honouring Him, doing all things decently and in order, if we set aside in His worship all that He once enjoined in letter upon His early Church, all that He has used—figuratively, if you will—as fittest to represent to us His perfect worship in the Church triumphant, and, I suppose, to enlist our present interest, and to kindle a hearty intelligent desire for a full share in it hereafter?