is because God is so
perfectly and gloriously good in Himself, and not merely because He has
done US kindnesses, yea, heaped us with undeserved benefits, that we are
to worship Him. For His kindnesses we owe Him gratitude, and gratitude
without end. But for His excellent and glorious goodness, we owe Him
worship, and worship without end.

There are some hearts, surely, among you here who know what I mean: some
here who have felt reverence and admiration for some great and good human
being, and who have felt, too, that that reverence and admiration is one
of the most elevating and unselfish of all feelings, and quite distinct
from any gratitude, however just, for favours done; who can say, in their
hearts, of some noble human being: "If he never did me a kindness, never
spoke to me, never knew of my existence, I should honour him and love him
just the same, for the noble and good personage that he is, irrespective
of little me, and my paltry wants." Then, even such ought to be our
feeling toward God, our worship of God. Even so should we adore Him who
alone is worthy of glory, and honour, and praise, and thanksgiving,
because He is good, and beautiful, and wise Himself, and the cause and
source of all goodness, and beauty, and wisdom, in all created beings,
and in the whole universe, past, present, and to come. Consider, I
beseech you, those glimpses of the Eternal Worship in heaven which St
John gives us in the Book of Revelation--How he saw the elders fall down
before Him who sat upon the throne, and worship Him that liveth for ever,
and cast their crowns before the throne, saying: "Thou art worthy, O
Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power; for Thou hast created all
things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created."

Consider that--Those blessed spirits of just men made perfect, confessing
that they are nothing, but that Christ is all; that they have nothing,
but that they owe all to Christ; and declaring Him worthy--not merely for
any special mercies and kindnesses to themselves, not even for that
crowning mercy of His incarnation, His death, His redemption; even that
seems to have vanished from their minds at the sight of Him as He is.
They glorify Him and worship Him simply for what He is in Himself, for
what He would have been even if--which God forbid--He had never stooped
from heaven to live and die on earth--for what He is and was and will be
through eterni