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It is a man's duty to worship God; therefore —

I. MAN CAN ATTAIN A TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. Not, indeed, if left unaided. The instinct which prompts the heart to bow down before an invisible Power is one of the last to disappear in the ruin of our nature. In the absence of everything else which gives dignity to human life it still survives. The first idea of God is awakened by the words and acts of our fellow-men, but when the idea is once ours, we can verify and ennoble it for ourselves. It has been maintained that man cannot have any real knowledge of what God is; that there are impregnable barriers to every attempt of the human soul to attain the real truth about the Divine attributes. But if "I am informed that the world is ruled by a Being whose attributes are infinite, but what they are we cannot learn, nor what are the principles of His government, except that 'the highest human morality we are capable of conceiving ' does not sanction them; convince me of it, and I will bear my fate as I may. But when I am told that I must believe this, and at the same time call the Being by the names which express and affirm the highest human morality, I say in plain terms that I will not. Whatever power such a Being may have over me, He shall not compel me to worship Him." As a Christian, as a Christian minister, I take my stand with those strong words of the philosopher against the theologian. Language has no meaning save the ordinary ones for the words, just, merciful, good; and if they do not mean this when applied to God, why do we use the words? Worship becomes impossible on such a theory. If the soul is to worship God, it must know what God is.

II. GOD FINDS SATISFACTION AND DELIGHT IN HUMAN WORSHIP. If I speak to Him, it is because I believe He listens. His heart is moved in response to ours. As I sat a Sunday or two ago on the sea-shore, and thought of the thirty millions of people around whom the waters on which I looked were softly and gently rolling, I had present to my mind the twenty or thirty thousand assemblies which were met that morning in the depths of manufacturing towns, to which the Sunday had brought a brighter, clearer sky, and a welcome interruption of toil; in ancient cities, which have been famous through all the stormy years of our country's history; in scattered villages, where the life becomes more animated rather than more still on the weekly day of rest. I thought of venerable cathedrals, where vast and solemn spaces were filled with the music of ancient chants and exulting anthems, and the mighty harmonies of majestic organs, and of rude, unshapely buildings on the edge of lovely commons, and amongst the poorest and most wretched courts and streets of our populous districts, where, with loud cries and noisy hymns, poor labouring men whose hearts God had touched, were violently and passionately imploring His pardon, or thanking Him for deliverance from sin. I felt that at that moment the gates of heaven were thrown wide open as for some high festival, that before the day was over thousands of my countrymen would be regenerated by the Spirit of God, and receive from God's own lips absolution from all sin; and that tens of thousands would be baptized afresh with the Holy Ghost and with fire, and be gentler in their words, kinder in their deeds, purer in their thoughts all the week through as the result of that day's worship. I thought of all these, and I was thankful and glad.

(R. W. Dale, D. D.)

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KJV: All the earth shall worship thee, and shall sing unto thee; they shall sing to thy name. Selah.

WEB: All the earth will worship you, and will sing to you; they will sing to your name." Selah.