SERMON V.

ON THE PSALMS.

PSALMS XCV. 2.

Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving and shew ourselves glad in him with Psalms.

WE

We are now arrived at a second part of our Church Service, "setting forth the most worthy praise of God." And this we do by reciting in alternate verses a certain portion of those sacred Hymns, called in your Prayer books the Psalms of David, of most of which he was indeed the inspired author. From his chief Penitential Psalm, are taken the words that make the transition to this service, for which, unworthy as we must deem ourselves to give God the honor due unto his name, we entreat assistance from himself to direct our devotions. "O Lord, open thou our lips,"* were words of David when with grief and fear and shame he had looked upon his offences:

Psalm li. 15.

grief had struck him dumb-his tongue could not sing of righteousness, nor could his mouth utter those sounds of praise in which formerly it had delight. But in humiliation and accepted penitence his heart is turned to Heaven, and he supplicates of divine grace that his lips may be opened and his mouth speak the praises of his God. Sinners, (as he had been a sinner) let us follow the Psalmist in his penitent devotion; and aware of our continual danger of falling under the power of sin, aware that with many of us "the night is far spent," let us entreat the Lord to "make speed to save us and to make haste to give us help." Thus by his purifying grace we may hope that we may be enabled to offer him that service of praise which may be acceptable in his sight; still bearing in mind that only the righteous is called on to rejoice and praise the Lord, for praise in the mouth of a sinner can be but hypocrisy in the heart and a mockery in the lips.

And now with our pardon as we hope granted and our hearts elate, we stand up, like the Priests and Levites among the Israelites, to praise the Lord. But first we register that summary of Christian praise, to which at the end of very Psalm and at many other periods in our service we especially return, that Glory be ascribed to the eternal Trinity: that "Glory be to the Fa

ther and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning" of the world, when "the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy :' as it "is now" in celebration by all the Saints on Earth, and by all the Host of the Lord in Heaven; and as hereafter through the succession of pious worshippers it "ever shall be" solemnized, in this world and in the next through endless existence "by the Spirits of just men made perfect"† and the angels who rejoice to do God's pleasure. Making this the groundwork of their adoration, the Minister exhorts his people to begin their work. His words "praise ye the Lord" are the literal meaning of the word Hallelujah so often used in Scripture; and after the peo`ple have expressed their ready assent to the devout office, by answering "the Lord's name be praised," they proceed to recite, Minister and people alternately, first the ninety fifth Psalm, and then the regular-or on some occasions the specially appointed Psalms of the day.

The rubrick particularly orders that rising from the posture of supplicants all stand to perform those offices of pious praise in which all are equally engaged. If the Psalms were originally intended to be sung entirely by the Congregation, there can be no reasonable objection to the people taking a part in an alter*Job xxxviii. 7. + Hebrews xii. 23.

nate recitation. They have a deep concern in all the offices, and, wherever it can be done without confusion, they should be allowed to express with their lips what it is to be hoped their hearts feel with devout affection. The Jewish Church practised the alternate mode of reciting their public Hymns of prayer and praise, and we know that in the early ages of Christianity the example was followed in the Assemblies of Christians. It is a remarkable fact that in the Syrian Church, discovered by a late pious and laborious Divine, whose researches in the East were blessed in many useful consequences to the faith in Christ, the people were in the Sermon called on by the Preacher in questions at times from the Pulpit, and they gave aloud in answer the quotation which was apposite and which he expected from them. In the alternate recitation the office of the Minister is kept sufficiently distinct by his presiding and leading; and the people's part being left on them without him is a mode well calculated to prevent the wandering of their thoughtsthe sole danger which in any degree lies against pre-composed forms of worship, but to which, if men's minds are not duly prepared, in our depraved state the service of God, whether set down in printed words or otherwise, is perhaps equally subject.

*The Rev. Dr. Buchannan.

The ninety-fifth Psalm of David, “O come let us sing unto the Lord," is used by us, as it was by the early Church of Christ, for a daily invitation to join in this part of the service. It has been called the invitatory Psalm and is a general introduction to the subsequent services. In the first five verses it invites us to praise God, in the next two to worship him, giving the reasons for each of those offices, and some intimation of the mode of performing them. In the latter part it exhorts us to hear his word without delaying the service or hardening our hearts against the impression: and it sets before us the example of the Jews in the Wilderness, whose obstinate mistrust of God's word drew down on them the severity of his punishment. Every where the Psalm is filled with topics of divine praise, and incitements to holy worshipof praise suited to the magnificence of the Deity of worship befitting the dependant state of man. With our bodies and with our minds we are to worship him: we are " to bow down"-" to kneel before the Lord our Maker," and "to rejoice with our hearts in the strength of our salvation." With fervour and with love we are to perform the glad office, exhorting one another to come before hist presence with thanksgiving for his unnumbered blessings, and with praises of his excellent greatness. "For the Lord our God is a great