to
be irreverent towards Him. To believe in God, is to believe the being
and presence of One who is All-holy, and All-powerful, and
All-gracious; how can a man really believe thus of Him, and yet make
free with Him? it is almost a contradiction in terms. Hence even
heathen religions have ever considered faith and reverence identical.
To believe, and not to revere, to worship familiarly, and at one's
ease, is an anomaly and a prodigy unknown even to false religions, to
say nothing of the true one. Not only the Jewish and Christian
religions, which are directly from God, inculcate the spirit of
"reverence and godly fear," but those other religions which have
existed, or exist, whether in the East or the South, inculcate the
same. Worship, forms of worship--such as bowing the knee, taking off
the shoes, keeping silence, a prescribed dress, and the like--are
considered as necessary for a due approach to God. The whole world,
differing about so many things differing in creed and rule of life, yet
agree in this--that God being our Creator, a certain self-abasement of
the whole man is the duty of the creature; that He is in heaven, we
upon earth; that He is All-glorious, and we worms of the earth and
insects of a day.

But those who have separated from the Church of Christ have in this
respect fallen into greater than pagan error. They may be said to form
an exception to the concordant voice of a whole world, always and every
where; they break in upon the unanimous suffrage of mankind, and
determine, at least by their conduct, that reverence and awe are not
primary religious duties. They have considered that in some way or
other, either by God's favour or by their own illumination, they are
brought so near to God that they have no need to fear at all, or to put
any restraint upon their words or thoughts when addressing Him. They
have considered awe to be superstition, and reverence to be slavery.
They have learnt to be familiar and free with sacred things, as it
were, on principle. I think this is really borne out by facts, and
will approve itself to inquirers as true in substance, however one man
will differ from another in the words in which he would express the
fact itself.

Samuel was a little child who had never fallen away from God, but by
His grace had ever served Him. Let us take a very different instance,
the instance of a penitent sinner as set before us in the parable of
the Publican and Pharisee. I n