CHRISTIAN PRAISE FOR THE DISCIPLES OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. "Sing ye praises with the understanding." AN ENTIRELY NEW EDITION, LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & Co., PATERNOSTER ROW, AND ALL BOOKSELLERS. 1848. PRAISE. 1. Christian praise is a peculiar privilege of the pardoned, -a sweet communing with the Father of our mercies, and the Redeemer of our souls. In sorrow we are sweetly solaced by recounting past mercies, and tracing out promised blessedness. In joy the spiritual song regulates and directs every affection and feeling. "Is any merry, let him sing psalms." 2. Christian praise may be defined an ascription of honor, glory, and blessing, to the Author and Giver of all our mercies. It is the overflowing of love, in return for love,—the warm emotion of gratitude, for atoning mercy,-the free offering of a full heart, for favors enjoyed,-the calves of lips expressing the soul's thanksgiving for redemption in Christ Jesus: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance which is incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away." 3. The ground of praise is a sense of the forgiving love of God through Jesus Christ. All other grounds of thanksgiving, however great in themselves, disappear before that more glorious theme, "the grace of God that brings salvation," as the stars disappear before the rising sun. That Jesus has so loved as to give himself for us, and that God for Jesus' sake has not only forgiven, but also adopted, as his own children, all who have believed in and put on his Christ, are love-constraining, soul-moving grounds for our "showing forth the praises (the virtues or excellencies) of Him who hath called us out of darkness into his marvellous light." 4. The pleasure of Christian praise is an exstacy far above all delights. Shall it be contrasted with sensual gratifications, with earthly honors, fame, wealth, or with such intellectual gratifications as history, fiction, or science? How flat the latter appear, being, at best, only gilded pain or momentary joy, compared with the pure delight that arises from overflowing gratefulness to God and the Lumb. This never cloys, leaves no sting behind, but begins here, to expand and A increase till perfected in heaven. This excels, not only the highest and best emotions otherwise enkindled in the human breast, but it rises also above the purest aspirations of angelic intelligences, who, unconscious of guilt, have never tasted, and never can taste, redeeming love. It is the bliss of disciples of Jesus alone to pour forth intelligently the new song, "Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us unto God by thy blood, and hast made us to our God kings and priests." 5. The uses of Christian praise are various. 1st. To relieve the mind loaded with benefits, by a starting of the grateful tear, and a payment of the poor tribute of thanksgiving to "Him who hath loved us." 2nd. To express the desire of a deeply affected heart that all may taste how gracious the Lord is: "Come near," it entreatingly says, "and I will tell you what God hath done for my soul." 3rd. To instruct and gently correct one another. Direct reproof often fails from supposed harshness, and instruction is frequently unavailing through our supposed previous knowledge; but in Christian praise we are pleasingly self-taught, and mutually reproved. It at once recalls what we have been, suggests what we should be, and supplies the sweet resolve to live and die to the Lord, who lived and died for us. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, and with all wisdom teach and admonish each other by Psalms, and Hymns, and Spiritual songs, singing with gratitude in your hearts to the Lord." Lastly, Christian praise, like the Lord's Supper, is commemorative, not of one or a few, but of all mercies. It is a recounting and calling over the long list of favors granted and already enjoyed; a reminding that we have a Mediator now pleading for us, and by exhibiting the promises it leads our longing souls forward to the Lord's coming, and to the throne and crown he has prepared. "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercy. 6. The best examples encourage us to engage in praise. The songs of the Old Testament are sublime beyond all example; those of the New, blissful above all comparison. David says, "Seven times a day I praise thee." Paul and Silas their backs raw with scourging, and feet fast in the stocks-sang praises to God at midnight. Angels ever bow and praise. But above all we have the example of the Lord Jesus himself at the last supper, "after the Hymn they wen out into the mount of Olives." 7. The Divine approbation is a farther encouragement. That the Father of all our mercies lends an ear, and is pleased with our poor praises, is a most gladdening inducement. Atthe dedication of the temple, "as the trumpeters and singers were as one to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord-for he is good for his mercy endureth for ever, -THEN the House was filled with a cloud." At Philippi, when the prisoners sangpraises, there was a great earthquake, the prison thrown open, the shackles loosed, and the praising servants of the Lord delivered. Let Jesus' disciples then, in all circumstances, delightedly sing and make melody in heart to the Lord, "who inhabits the praises of Israel." 8. The hope of joining the general choir in heaven is a powerful motive. To prepare for perfect bliss by learning to lisp Jesus' praise on earth, is one of the most rational employments of the intellectual powers God has given us. To the man who has preferred the "song of fools" to the " song of Moses and the Lamb," heaven could have no charms. The polluted tongue, unused to "do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him," might mar the harmony of heaven by blasphemies! But to the pardoned soul, the praises of redeeming grace is indeed a delight-a foretaste of that future blessedness when the count less company clothed in white robes, and palms in their hands, shall cry with loud voice, "Salvation to our God who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb." 9. In deep distress, and in the prospect of dissolution, well known Hymns generally, if not always, afford sweetest comfo. t; for when the languid powers are. from any distressing cause, scarcely able to think at all, memory supplies the oft repeated song of praise in all its freshness and delight; giv ing us the oil of joy for mourning, and garments of praise for the spirit of heaviness." Thus we may, like Job, rise above ea.thly troubles, saying, "the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord;" and like St. Paul, in the approach of death, exclaim, "Henceforth there is lail up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day." 10. Each should resolve to learn the themes of heaven |