Bible Commentaries

1 Chronicles 16:29

Beauty consists in delicacy of proportion, a harmony of parts conveying to the mind sweet associations of thought. Holiness is the subdued reflection of the bright things of heaven, the image of God traceable in His creatures, a spirit of love, and peace, and order, gathering all things gracefully into a unity of being and a singleness of purpose. Then is not holiness true beauty?

I. Our services on earth are done best when they copy most the worship of heaven. There the beauty of saints and angels is their awe. The nearest to God will always be the most reverential. To a well-ordered mind it is a very solemn thing to draw near to the immediate presence of the Most High.

II. There should always be a certain preparedness of mind in coming before God, remembering what we are: poor sinners coming into the presence of infinite purity to exercise the highest function and privilege of human existence.

III. It is part of the constitution of a Church, without which it cannot be "beautiful," that every member should be exercising in some way his own proper gift for the service of God and the extension of His kingdom. For a Church is to be a centre—a centre of expansion, always extending itself, light and love always radiating from it.

IV. The acme of holiness itself is love. Let your sympathies go out and give expression to the thought you feel. Let the Church be more what it ought to be, "one family," and so "grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ."

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 9th series, p. 87.