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External adoration may be considered as —

I. A PART OF THAT NATURAL HOMAGE WHICH THE WHOLE MAN, SOUL AND BODY, OWES TO GOD, UPON THE ACCOUNT OF HIS CREATION AND PRESERVATION OF US, AND HIS SOVEREIGN DOMINION OVER US. We all look for the glorification, not only of our souls, but bodies, in the life to come. Now, a reward supposeth a work; it is meet and right, therefore, that we should worship and glorify God in this life with the body as well as the soul, if so be we expect that God should glorify "both our bodies and souls in another."

II. A HELP AND ASSISTANCE TOWARDS PROMOTING THE SPIRITUAL WORSHIP OF OUR SOULS. There is so close a connection between the mind and its organs, that they act, as it were, by consent; and the motions of the one do commonly, and in some degree, pass into the other. And this natural sympathy shows itself nowhere more remarkably than in acts of devotion. We usually blame the body to a high degree, as the great clog and hindrance of the soul. And so it often is. But here it may be made to draw equally in the yoke of duty; nay, even to give wings to the mind, which it presseth down, and overwhelms on many other occasions. Nor is the body more beholden to the soul, for the beginning of its motions, than the soul afterwards is to the body, for the increase of hers.

III. A SIGN BY WHICH WE EXPRESS TO OTHERS THE RELIGIOUS ESTEEM AND VENERATION THAT DWELLS IN US. Great are the advantages which the people of God, when they are met together, do mutually receive from it. The cold and remiss worshipper is, at the sight of an exemplary, kindled into some degrees of holy warmth; the fervent and devout in the presence of it becomes yet more inflamed. A religious emulation rises then in the breast of the faithful, a holy strife and desire of excelling. But believers are not the only persons that receive benefit by it; unbelievers, too, though unwillingly, have their share. The profane scoffer, who dares encounter a single Christian without shame or fear of reproof has here an answer to his bold scoffs, in that still and powerful argument, which arises from the behaviour of a devout multitude, worshipping God in the beauty of holiness: such an argument as will destroy all its unreasonable suspicions, and convince him of the sincerity of men's hearts towards God, by the natural unaffected signs of it, which are shown in his service: such as will put him in mind of the numbers of devout and good men against which he engages; lead him on from the thought of the present congregation to those of the same kind that are spread over the face of the earth; and make him sit down and consider whether with such a small strength (his own, and that of a few more) he can encounter so many thousands, even the united wisdom and practice of mankind (1 Corinthians 14:24, 25).

(Bp. Atterbury.)

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KJV: O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.

WEB: Oh come, let's worship and bow down. Let's kneel before Yahweh, our Maker,