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to receive glory, and honour, and power; for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created."

&c.

If we look over the Psalms, we shall find many such instances of David's thus praising God, by reckoning up the wonderful works which He hath done, and particularly those which he hath done for mankind, "O come hither," Ps. 66. 4. saith he, "and behold the works of God, how wonderful He is in His doing toward the children of men;" and, "O that Ps. 107. 8, men would praise the Lord for His goodness, and declare the wonders that He doth for the children of men." Above all, he delighteth in the recognition of God's mercy and truth unto His people. In one whole Psalm he doth nothing but declare the great things which God did for Israel, and acknowledge His mercy in them, by repeating after every one of them severally, "For His mercy endureth for ever." Ps. 136. In another psalm he speaks of nothing but God's mercy, or Ps. 117. His loving-kindness and truth. And elsewhere saith, "My Ps. 89. 1, 2. song shall be always of the loving-kindness of the Lord, with my mouth will I ever be shewing Thy truth from one generation to another: for I have said, mercy shall be set up for ever; Thy truth shalt thou establish in the Heavens." And accordingly we find him often celebrating these two Divine perfections together, Psalm lvii. 11; c. 4; xxv. 9; xxvi. 3; xl. 14; lxxxv. 10; lxxxvi. 15; lxxxix. 25, 48; cxv. 1; xcii. 2. Where, by God's mercy we are to understand pardon and grace, and all things necessary to our Salvation that He hath promised; and by truth, His faithful performance of all such promises in Jesus Christ: "For John 1. 17. as the Law was given by Moses, grace," or mercy, "and truth, came by Jesus Christ." And therefore in all places where David speaks of God's mercy and truth, he thereby celebrates the great work of our Salvation by Christ. Hence it is, that he having said, "He hath remembered His mercy Ps. 98. 4. and truth towards the house of Israel," he immediately adds, "And all the ends of the world have seen the Salvation of our God." And the blessed Virgin, when her soul magnified the Lord for the Salvation of mankind by Him, who was now to be born of her, she saith, "He remembering His [Luke 1. 54.] mercy, hath holpen His servant Israel, as He promised to

SERM.
LIX.

70, 72.

our forefathers, Abraham and his seed for ever;" where she plainly ascribes our Salvation to God's mercy in promising it, and to His truth in performing the said promise. And Luke 1. 68- so doth Zacharias in his divine hymn, saying, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for He hath visited and redeemed His people, and hath raised up an horn of Salvation for us in the house of His servant David; as He spake by the mouth of His holy Prophets to perform the mercy promised to our forefathers, and to remember His holy covenant." And so the Saints in Heaven praise God, by attributing their Rev. 7. 10. Salvation wholly unto Him, saying, "Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb." And ch. 19. 1. again, "Alleluja, Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God."

And as we ought thus to praise God for all His wonderful works, especially for His redemption of mankind by Jesus Christ in general; so we ought to do it for every particular instance of His mercy and truth that He is pleased to shew us in Him: for our health, and strength, and life, and liberty; for our meat, and drink, and clothing; for our safety, and preservation from danger; for our deliverance from our enemies; for the love of our friends; for our parts, and gifts, and estates, and all the accommodations of this life; for the means of grace, and the hope of glory. Thus Moses (Exod. xv. 1), and Israel (Numb. xxi. 17), and Deborah (Judg. v. 1), and Hannah (1 Sam. ii. 1), and Jehoshaphat (2 Chron. xx. 21), praised God upon particular occasions, and David upon all. How doth he stir up himself to bless Ps. 103. 1, God for all the benefits he had received from Him? Praise the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His Holy Name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: who forgiveth all thy sin, and healeth all thine infirmities; who saveth thy life from destruction, and crowneth thee with mercy and loving-kindness; who satisfieth thy mouth with good things, making thee young and lusty as an eagle." Yea, whatsoever happens to us, though it be never so contrary to our present expectations and desires, yet as it comes from God, we ought to praise Him for it, as Job did, for His taking all he had from him, as well as for His bestowing it upon him, "The Lord gave and

2, 5.

Job 1. 21.

the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the Name of the Lord."

I shall observe only one thing more concerning the nature of this duty, as it was practised by the Saints of old; which is, that none of them thought they could ever praise God enough themselves, and therefore called upon others to do it, as David doth upon the kingdoms of the earth (Psalm lxviii. 32); upon all people (Psalm xlvii. 1; lxvii. 3, 5); upon all His Saints (Psalm xxii. 23; xxx. 4); upon all Angels (Psalm ciii. 20, 21); upon all His works (ver. 22), upon the sun, the moon, and stars; upon the Heavens, and the waters that are above the Heavens; upon all things that are upon the earth, upon dragons and all deeps; upon fire and hail, snow and vapours, wind and storms; upon mountains, and all hills, fruitful trees, and all cedars, beasts and cattle, worms, and feathered fowls; upon kings of the earth, and all people, princes, and all judges of the world, young men and maids, old men and children, he calls upon them all to praise the Lord, saying, "Praise ye the Name of the Ps. 148. Lord, for His Name only is excellent, and His praise above Heaven and earth." And so do the three children in the Benedicite, or hymn appointed to be sometimes sung instead of the Te Deum, beginning, "O all ye works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord, praise Him, and magnify Him for ever." And accordingly we read in the Revelations of St. John, "Every creature which is in Heaven, and on the earth, and Rev. 5. 13. under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever." As David saith, "The Ps. 19. 1. Heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth His handy work." So every creature that is, affords abundant matter for praising God, and if it had a tongue should do it; which St. John was so sensible of, that he heard them in a manner doing it. And the true Saints of God have always had such a mighty zeal for His honour and glory, and so deep a sense of their own insufficiency to praise Him as He deserves, that their most usual way of doing it, is by calling upon others, and upon all the creatures in the world to praise Him, crying out indefinitely,

3, 6.

LIX.

ver. 4.

SERM. Praise ye the Lord.' Which occurs so often in the Psalms, especially at the beginning of them, that some have thought it to be the title of the Psalm, and therefore in some translations it is left out; but it certainly belongs to the body of such Psalms to which it is prefixed in the Hebrew, or rather it is the very soul and life of them, influencing and directing them to the end for which they are designed, even the glory of God: yea it is a Psalm of itself, such a Psalm, that the choir of Heaven sometimes sing it alone, as at other times they begin or end their seraphic anthems with it. Rev. 19. 1, "I heard," saith St. John, "a great voice of much people in Heaven, saying, Allelujah, Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power unto the Lord our God." And again," they said Allelujah; and I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluja, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." "And the four-and-twenty elders, and the four beasts, fell down and worshipped God that sat on the throne, saying, Amen, Alleluja." This is the way that they praise God in the Church Triumphant in Heaven, and which we should therefore imitate in the Church Militant here on earth, by calling upon one another, and upon all the creatures in the world, saying, “Alleluja, praise ye the Lord." To which the ancient church kept so close, that they retained the very Hebrew word in their several languages; especially the Arabians; for in the Arabic translation of the Psalms, the Hebrew word is usually put at the end of the Psalms in Arabic characters; so that after they had read any psalm, they said or sung, "Alleluja,” as we do, "Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;" which is the same thing in other words; for as all the Three Persons are the Lord,' so when we say, "Glory be to the Lord," we do not only ascribe glory to Him ourselves, but declare it to be due unto Him from all His creatures, and accordingly call upon all to do it; only with this difference, that we particularly name all the Three John 5. 23. Divine Persons to which all glory is equally due, "that all men should honour the Son (and the Holy Ghost) even as they honour the Father."

This will give us some light also into that which I promised

14.

11, 13;

to shew in the next place, even that praising God is a duty that ought to be performed in all our religious assemblies; for seeing it consists in recognising the glory, the power, and the wonderful works of God, and in calling upon others to do it, we ought certainly to take all occasions we can get for it, and never meet together, at least upon a religious account, without doing it as well as we can. And therefore where we read of any great company of the Heavenly Hosts met together, we shall find them praising God: as at our Saviour's birth; when one Angel had delivered the joyful message to the Shepherds, there were suddenly with Him a multitude of them, "praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the Luke 2. 13, highest, on earth peace, good-will toward men." And in Rev. 5. 8, the Revelations of St. John, we meet with innumerable com- 7. 9, 11; panies of them met together about it. The same hath been 19. 1. the practice of the Saints on earth in all ages: they have been always wont to meet together in God's Own house to praise Him there in the public congregations," My praise is Ps. 22. 25. of Thee," saith David, "in the great congregation." "Thou, Ps. 65. 1. O God, art praised in Sion, and unto Thee shall the vow be performed in Jerusalem." "Blessed are they that dwell in Ps. 84. 4. Thy house, they will be alway praising Thee." "O go your Ps. 100. 3; way into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts 135. 2. with praise." It was there, as the Prophet Isaiah saith, "that they praised God." And David appointed officers on Isa. 64. 11. purpose to stand there every morning to thank and praise the Lord, and likewise at even. And in the New Testament we find Christ Himself there singing an hymn together with His Apostles, when they were met together to eat the Pass- Matt.26.30. over. Which is supposed to have been bin, the great hymn which the Jews used to sing upon such occasions, consisting of the 113th Psalm, and the five following. And after His Ascension it is said that the Apostles "returned to Luke 24.52, Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the 53. Temple praising and blessing God," that is, they went to the Temple every day, continually, at the hours of prayer, to praise God there which shews that this is the great end of all religious assemblies; as our Church also informs us in the exhortation at the beginning of her daily service, saying,

104. 1-3;

1 Chron. 23.

30.

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