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'The Character of the Christian Worship': a Samuel Clarke sermon for Epiphany

For these days after the Epiphany, an extract from Samuel Clarke's Epiphany sermon 'On the Meaning of the Name of God', on the text Malachi 1:11, oft associated with the feast. Clarke here addresses how the prophecy of Malachi, and the call to worship in the Old Covenant, is fulfilled in "the character ... of the Christian worship". And so the adoration of the Magi becomes the sign of the spiritual offering of the Church, that lively sacrifice which honours the God of Abraham amongst the nations:

In every place incense shall be offered unto my Name, and a pure Offering. Incense, (which is the Prayers of the Saints, Rev. v.8.) and this phrase, a pure Offering , are plainly intended to express That Spiritual Religion, That Worship of the Father in Spirit and Truth according to the Gospel of Christ, which is opposed to the carnal Ordinances and literal Sacrifices of the Jews, and of which those Sacrifices and external Purifications were but Types and Figures. Hence the Christian Worship, the Worship of God out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned; is elegantly styled a Spiritual Sacrifice, 1 Pet. ii.5; the Sacrifice of Praise to God continually, Heb. xiii.15; the presenting ourselves a living Sacrifice, holy, acceptable God, which is our reasonable Service, Rom. xii.1. The Metaphor is exactly of the same sort, as That whereby Christians are called The true circumcision, the circumcision made without hands; as being That in reality, in the true and spiritual Effect, of which the circumcision in the flesh made with hands was but a shadow or figurative Representation. For circumcision, says the Apostle, Rom. ii.28 is not That which is outward in the flesh; but circumcision is That of the Heart, in the Spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God. The character therefore of the Christian Worship, set forth in the Text under the prophetick figures of Incense and a Pure Offering, is, that it consists in what St Paul calls Lifting up Holy hands, 1 Tim. ii.8 without Wrath and Doubting; It consists in approaching God, not with the Sacrifices of Beasts, or Offerings of the Fruits of the Earth; but with the offering up of Ourselves to his Service, in all holiness and righteousness of Life; Approaching him with Minds duly sensible of the inexpressible Excellency of the Divine Majesty, with Hands clear from all iniquity and unjust Practices, with Hearts free from all Impurity and Moral Turpitude. This is the Pure Offering, truly acceptable unto God: And This, he foretells by the Prophet, shall in due time he offered unto his Name in every place, from the rising of the Sun, even unto the going down of the same; for my Name shall be great among the Heathen, saith the Lord of Hosts.

(The photograph is of St. James's Piccadilly. Clarke was rector of the church from 1709 until his death in 1729.)

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