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Sacred praise: an earnest appeal to Christian worshipers
Sacred praise an earnest appeal to Christian worshipers Author:Thomas Hastings Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Personation. importance, which must be decided by the same unerring authority. SECTION III. Personated devotion—Generally prevalent—Opposed to Apostolic... more » teaching— Should not he tolerated—Reasons. Does the Bible sanction a personated devotion in exercises of praise ? One would suppose it to do so, who should judge by the living examples which surround him. This, indeed, would seem to be the prevailing idea. Few, perhaps, are prepared to say that heartless worship in song can be accepted. But the language of customary arrangements, and practices, and negligences, certainly argues great looseness of apprehension in this matter. The question, therefore, demands a careful examination. Let us turn once more to the infallible guide. The examples of praise, recorded in the Bible, are full of instruction, and quite to the purpose in hand. Surely such persons as David, and Asaph, and Ileman, and Je- duthan, and Jehoshaphat, and Simeon, and Paul, and Silas were not mere sentimentalists, mere Is not Worship. personators of devotion.. The angels at the nativity were not giving a serenade for the amusement of the shepherds. Their song was the full outpouring of holy joy. The same inference may be drawn from an examination of many of the inspired themes of song. Though these embrace a great variety of topics, they include some of the most spiritual, the most elevated, and most sublime portions of the Bible. Ought these to be sung in public worship as the mere exercises of the concert-room! Or should not the utterance proceed from hearts enlivened by a spiritual apprehension of Divine things? Paul answers this question. In his epistles to the primitive churches, he is very explicit. See Ephesians v. 18, 19; and Colossians, iii. 16. Here we have in the first place what might b...« less