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1. Forms are necessary to religion as the means of its manifestation. As the invisible God manifests His nature — His power, wisdom, and goodness, in visible material forms, in the bright orbs of heaven, in the everlasting hills, in the broad earth with its fruits and flowers, and in all the living things which He has made, — so the invisible soul of man reveals its convictions and feelings in the outward acts which it performs. A form is the flag, the banner, the symbol of an inward life; it is to a religious belief what the body is to the soul; as the soul would be utterly unknown without the body, so religion would be unknown without its forms, a light hidden under a bushel, and not set up in a candlestick that it may give light to all that are in the house.

2. Forms are necessary not only to the manifestation of religion, but to its nourishment and continued existence, h religion which expressed itself in no outward word or act would soon die out of the soul altogether. The attempt to embody truth and feeling, to express it in words and actions, is necessary to give it the character of living principle in the soul: in this respect forms are like the healthy exercise which at once expresses and increases the vigorous life of the body, or they may be compared to the leaves of a tree, which not only proceed from its inward life, but catch the vitalising influences of the light, the rain, and the atmosphere, and convey them down to the root.

3. What, then, is that formalism which is everywhere in the Scripture, and especially in the discourses of our Lord, described as an offence and an abomination in the sight of God? It is the substitution of the outward rite in the place of the inner spirit and life of the soul; it is the green leaf which still hangs upon the dead branch which has been lopped off.

(Christian Age.)

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KJV: Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

WEB: holding a form of godliness, but having denied its power. Turn away from these, also.