I. Every attentive reader of Scripture must be aware what stress is there laid upon the duty of costliness and magnificence in the public service of God. Even in the first rudiments of the Church, Jacob, an outcast and wanderer, after the vision of the ladder of angels, thought it not enough to bow down before the unseen presence, but parted with or, as the world would say, wasted a portion of the provisions he had with him for the way in an act of worship. The Book of Exodus shows what cost was lavished upon the tabernacle even in the wilderness; the Books of Kings and Chronicles set before us the devotion of heart, the sedulous zeal, the carelessness of expense or toil, with which the first temple was reared upon Mount Zion. The glories of the Christian sanctuary were not to be less outward and visible, though they were to be more spiritual also.
II. It may be objected that such outward splendour in the worship of God is spoken of in terms of censure or jealousy by our Lord and Saviour. Thus, He says, while enumerating the offences of the Pharisees: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess." And when His disciples pointed out to our Lord the great size of the stones of which the temple was built a temple, let it be noted, thus ornamented by the impious Herod He answered abruptly: "There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." The answer surely is easy. Our Saviour condemned the show of great attention to outward things, while inward things which were more important were neglected. Thus He says Himself in His denunciation of the Pharisees: "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other " the inward "undone." What Scripture reproves is the inconsistency, or what is more solemnly called the "hypocrisy of being fair without and foul within," of being religious in appearance and not in truth. If it is an inconsistency to pretend to religion outwardly while we neglect it inwardly, it is also an inconsistency, surely, to neglect it outwardly while we pretend to it inwardly. St. Paul says expressly: "If thou shalt confess with thy mouththe Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Now, to adorn the worship of God our Saviour, to make the beauty of holiness visible, to bring offerings to the sanctuary, to be curious in architecture and reverent in ceremonies, all this external religion is a sort of profession and confession; it is nothing but what is natural, nothing but what is consistent, in those who are cultivating the life of religion within. It is most unbecoming; most offensive, in those who are not religious; but most becoming, most necessary, in those who are so.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. vi., p. 295.
References: Isaiah 60:13. W. Walters, Christian World Pulpit,vol. vii., p. 253.Isaiah 60:17. J. Keble, Sermons for Christmas and Epiphany,p. 327.