will-worshipn.
/ˈwɪlˌwəːʃɪp/, U.S. /ˈwɪlˌwərʃəp/ Christian Church (now historical).
Worship according to one's own will or inclination; worship regarded as imposed by human will without divine authority. Also: an act of such worship.Chiefly in the context of Protestant rejection of Roman Catholic ceremonies at and after the Reformation.
ΘΚΠ
society > faith > worship > kinds of worship > [noun] > according to one's will
will-worship1549
will-worshipping1569
wit-worshipa1629
1549 J. Cheke Hurt of Sedicion sig. G7v Seyng..true worship taught & wil worship refused.
1565 J. Calfhill Aunswere Treat. Crosse Pref. f. 6v A wilworship, a naughty seruice, hauing no ground of the worde of God.
1611 Bible (King James) Coloss. ii. 23 Which things haue in deed a shew of wisedome in will-worship [L. superstitione; Tindale chosen holynes, Coverdale chosen spiritualtie, Geneva volontarie worshipping] . View more context for this quotation
a1663 R. Sanderson Ad Clerum (1670) 12 Those Pharisees..,intending by those superstitious will-worships to honour God.
1730 G. Berkeley in Wks. (1871) IV. 641 Not lip-worship, nor will-worship, but inward and evangelical.
1828 G. S. Faber Sacred Cal. Prophecy II. iii. iii. 152 A declension from evangelical soundness to unwarrantable superstition and will-worship.
1990 C. Russell Causes Eng. Civil War iii. 79 The Irish Articles of 1615 upheld this rejection of will-worship, contradicting the English Articles in the process.
Derivatives
ˈwill-ˌworshipper n. a person who practises will-worship.
ΘΚΠ
society > faith > worship > kinds of worship > [noun] > according to one's will > practitioner of
will-worshipper1621
1621 R. Bernard Peace to Pure in Heart in 7 Golden Candlestickes sig. G7v Bee no Atheisticall Securitan, acknowledge God in all thy wayes; nor yet a Wil-worshipper; mans corrupt will is at oddes with God.
1660 Bp. J. Taylor Ductor Dubitantium I. ii. iii. Rule 13 §9 He that sayes God is rightly worshipped by an act or ceremony concerning which himself hath no way express'd his pleasure, is superstitious, or a will-worshipper.
1944 Mind 53 274 This forgetting..can either be..a wilful denial, on the one hand by the historical-relativists like Dilthey.., and on the other by the irrationalist will-worshippers like Kierkegaard and Nietzsche; or it can be, like that of the democracies, the slackness and complacency of ‘positivists’.
ˈwill-ˌworshipping n. will-worship.
ΘΚΠ
society > faith > worship > kinds of worship > [noun] > according to one's will
will-worship1549
will-worshipping1569
wit-worshipa1629
1569 A. Golding tr. N. Hemmingsen Postill f. 68 It is named one of the wickednesses for whiche the Lord threatneth euils vntoo his people, that they worshipped him with the commaundements of men, wherfore Paule Col. 2. dooth manifestly condemn all wilworshipping.
1571 A. Golding tr. J. Calvin Psalmes of Dauid with Comm. (ix. 12) i. f. 28 The wil woorshippinges which superstitious persones have forged too themselves of theyr owne heades.
2015 J. Wolfe Homer & Question of Strife iii. 183 Philotime's golden chain also breeds the kind of will-worshipping encouraged by a mistaken belief in unimpeded upward mobility across social and cosmic hierarchies.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2021; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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