Worship, Spiritual—The Divine requirement – Charles Spurgeon

IF the Eternal were such an one as you are, O man, he might be pleased with your painted windows. But what a child’s toy must colored glass be to God! I can sit and gaze upon a cathedral, with all its magnificence of architecture, and think what a wonderful exhibition of human skill; but what must that be to God, who piles the heavens, who digs the foundation of the deep, who leads Arcturus with his sons? Why, it must be to him the truest trifle, a mere heap of stones. I delight to hear the swell of organs, the harmony of sweet voices, the Gregorian chant, but what is this artistic sound to him more than sounding brass of a tinkling cymbal? As a sight, I admire the choristers and priests, and the whole show of a grand ceremonial; but do you believe that God is imposed upon by those frocks and gowns of white, and blue, and scarlet, and fine linen? It seems to me as if such a notion brings down God to the level of a silly woman who is fond of finery. The infinite God, who spreads out the heavens and scatters stars with both his hands, whom Heaven and earth cannot contain, to whom space is but a speck, and time is as nothing, do you think that he dwells in temples made with hands—that is to say, of man’s building? And is he to be worshiped with your organs, and your rood-screens, and your gaudy millinery? He laughs at them, he treads on them as being less than nothing and vanity. Spiritual worship is what he regards, because he is a Spirit. My brethren, if you could get together a procession of worlds, if you could make the stars walk along the streets of some great new Jerusalem, dressed in their brightest array; if, instead of the songs of a few boys or men, you could catch the sonnets of eternal ages; if, instead of a few men to officiate as priests, you could enlist time, eternity, Heaven and earth to be the priesthood, yet all this would be to him but as a company of grasshoppers, and he would take up the whole as a very little thing.