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As we have seen (p. 2), we live in two worlds,
the spiritual world and the material world,
closely connected with each other and influencing each other at every point.
Both are in themselves good because God created them, but the spiritual world
possesses a higher kind of goodness than the material world.
Just because it possesses a higher kind of goodness, it can be more deeply
perverted by being used to hinder God's purpose.
A man and a lump of iron can be used for evil as well as for good, but the
perversion of the man is the perversion of an immortal spirit made in the
likeness of God.
The perversion of the iron, which cannot take place except by means of some
perverted will, does not affect its nature but merely uses it for an evil
purpose.
The material world is not illusion as some mystics and idealist philosophers
say,
nor is it evil as the Gnostics and Manicheans held.
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Since God creates material things, they ought to be used for His glory.
And since man is partly material, he must approach God by material means.
His worship cannot be purely spiritual.
He must worship with the body as well as with the spirit.
The simplest way in which man approaches God is by prayer in which body,
soul, and spirit are brought into contact with the Divine will.
Christian prayer must always be "through Jesus Christ"
unless directly addressed to Him.
The discussion of prayer belongs to Ascetic rather than to Dogmatic Theology.
The use of material things for the worship of God, such as stone and glass,
fire and incense, bread and wine, water and oil, is supported both by revelation
and by reason.
The Puritans who held that worship must be as bare and plain as possible
were unconsciously tending towards the idea that all that was material was
evil.
Some inconsistently use music but reject the use of lights and incense as
if the ears were more spiritual than the eyes and the nose!
It agrees with the nature of man that God should approach us by means of
sacraments by water, bread, wine, and the laying on of hands, and that we
should approach Him with every kind of material beauty both visible and audible
with lights, incense, vestments, and music.
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But this kind of worship has its dangers.
What is best is always liable to greater dangers than what is not so good.
The more beautiful and more elaborate our worship becomes,
the greater is the danger of formalism.
No worship indeed is free from this danger.
The Puritan may be as superstitious in his use of the Bible as any ceremonialist
in his use of ornaments;
but if our worship is elaborate and requires a great
deal of time and attention to be given to its performance, the spirit, without
which all ceremonies are useless, may be neglected.
Therefore there must be in all Christian worship an element of puritanism.
The true puritan does not despise or reject the use of material beauty in
worship,
but he uses it with restraint.
The Cistercians were the great puritans in the medieval Church.
[There is for some people a psychological connection between
elaborate religious ceremonial and sensual passion against which the ceremonialist
must be on his guard.]
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The supreme sacrament,
the supreme way in which God has approached man by means of matter,
is the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He is both God and man as we are both spiritual and material.
The Athanasian Creed says,
As the reasonable soul and flesh is one man,
so God and man is one Christ.
All sacraments are like the Incarnation in this:
the outward sign conceals and yet reveals the inward grace,
as our Lord's Manhood, when He was on earth,
both concealed and revealed His Godhead.
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There is in nature a foreshadowing of the sacramental system of the Church.
Nature is in a sense sacramental,
and the invisible spiritual world
is concealed and revealed in the visible material world
to those who are able to see it (Rom.1.20).
[See Keble's poem for Septuagesima in The Christian
Year: "There is a book, who runs may read". (Hymns A. and
M., 168; English Hymnal, 497.)]
There is a kind of sacramentalism in human association.
The shaking of hands, the kiss, the common meal,
are symbols of friendship and of love, and also promote them.
They are outward visible signs of an inward spiritual grace.
But there are also sacraments that belong to Divine revelation,
outward signs by means of which
God has promised that He will bestow His favour and His power.
Their basis is the promise of God.
For this reason they differ from sacraments whose basis is only human experience
such as the shaking of hands.
God's promise is revealed.
For every sacrament we must have evidence from Holy Scripture.
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The sacraments are sometimes confused with magical rites,
but there are two fundamental differences.
The effect of the sacraments is due entirely to the gift of God.
But those who believe in magic believe that it is independent of the Divine
will.
Some even think that by using certain formulas and certain ceremonies they
can make the gods obey them.
The effectiveness of the sacraments depends on the moral condition of those
who receive them.
Without repentance and faith they effect no inward change.
But magical rites are believed to act like laws of nature.
A man who falls into the fire will burn whether he is good or bad, so it
is believed that to stick pins into a wax image of a person will cause him
pain whether he deserves it or not.
But to receive a sacrament has no effect upon the soul
(though it may have an effect on the outward status of the person)
unless he is made fit to receive it by repentance and faith.
It is possible to treat the sacraments as if they were magical, and this
danger is always present.
But if they are properly understood, they
are entirely different in their nature from magical rites.
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