The Puritans on Worship in Spirit and Truth

Wayne from Windsor Writes:
http://www.blogger.com/profile/8850913

Here is an article by J. I. Packer on The Puritan Approach to Worship.

With respect to Jesus declaration that we must worship in spirit and truth (John 4:24), this is how the Puritans understood that:

The Puritans understood this as meaning that, on the one hand, worship must be inward, a matter of "heart-work," and, on the other, worship must be a response to the revealed reality of God's will and work, applied to the heart by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, they insisted that worship must be simple and Scriptural. Simplicity was to them the safeguard of inwardness, just as Scripture was the fountain-head of truth.

Packer goes on to quote from Stephen Charnock's sermon on "Spiritual Worship":

Worship is an act of the understanding, applying itself to the knowledge of the excellency of God, and actual thoughts of his majesty....It is also an act of the will, whereby the soul adores and reverenceth his majesty, is ravished with his amiableness, embraceth his goodness, enters itself into an intimate communion with this most lovely object, and pitcheth all his affections upon him.

Only the regenerate can worship God acceptably, says Charnock, for only they have hearts that truly go out to him in adoration and self-subjection. Therefore "we must find healing in Christ's wings, before God can find spirituality in our services. All worship issuing from a dead nature, is but a dead service."

Charnock goes on to show that spiritual worship is performed only by the Spirit's active help, since it requires sincerity and singleness of heart ("unitedness," Charnock calls it; "concentration" would express his meaning). It involves acts of faith, love, humbling, and self-distrust, and must be an expression of the heart's desire for God. "A spiritual worshipper actually aspires in every duty to know God.... To desire worship as an end, is carnal; to desire it as a means, and act desires in it for communion with God in it, is spiritual, and the fruit of a spiritual life...." Also, spiritual worship will be joyful:

The evangelical worship is a spiritual worship, and praise, joy, and delight are prophesied of as great ingredients in attendance on gospel ordinances, Is. xii.3-5.... The approach is to God as gracious, not to God as unpacified, as a son to a father, not as a criminal to a judge.... Delight in God is a gospel frame, therefore the more joyful, the more spiritual....

In worship we must seek to reflect back to God by our response the knowledge that we have received of him through his revelation.

God is a Spirit infinitely happy, therefore we must approach him with cheerfulness; he is a Spirit of infinite majesty, therefore we must come before him with reverence; he is a Spirit infinitely high, therefore we must offer up our sacrifices with deepest humility; he is a Spirit infinitely holy, therefore we must address him with purity; he is a Spirit glorious, we therefore must acknowledge his excellency... he is a Spirit infinitely provoked by us, therefore we must offer up our worship in the name of a pacifying mediator and intercessor