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Delivered in Grove Chapel, Camberwell, Sunday Morning, July 15, 1849, BY THE REV. JOSEPH IRONS.

"Praise ye the Lord. I will praise the Lord with my whole heart in the assembly of the upright, and in the congregation."-Ps. cxi. 1.

Take down your harps, ye trembling, mourning souls;
Strike up your strongest, loudest chords; begin,

If ye have not begun, your sacred foretastes

Of eternal joys.

FOR the language with which my text opens, is the language which is now sung in heavenly places. You who are accustomed to look at the margins of your Bibles will be aware that, in most instances, where the expression comes in the form of exhortation, "Praise ye the Lord," the original word is "Hallelujah!" It is Hallelujah that they are now singing around the throne on high; and after many, many ages of its repetition, there stands the record, "Again they say Hallelujah to Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God." And shall the very tones of heaven be taken upon human lips on earth, without the deepest emotions of joy and love? Shall the high praises of God, which are commanded to be in our mouths, and his two-edged sword in our hands, be sung with mere regard to human sounds, as at a theatre or an opera, or, what is worse than both, an oratorio, just to tickle the ears of devotees of sounds? God forbid!

Our grand business is to imitate heavenly employments; our grand business is to get a taste of heaven on earth; and while I thus point you to the language of my text, and remind you of its almost overwhelming character, let me lift up my heart to God, and entreat you

VOL. II.

Published in Weekly Nos., Id., and Monthly Parts, 5d.

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to lift up your's, that we may sing praises to Him, "making melody in our hearts to the Lord." I would a thousand times sooner do this, than with all the ideas of music that I could be taught in the places to which I have referred, "Praise ye the Lord"-not the singers; "Praise ye the Lord"-not man, not self, not free-will. "Praise ye the Lord." Just as though the Psalmist would say, "Whether you will or no, I will; I have come to the point; I will praise Him, whether you join me or not; I will praise Him, if I am alone in doing so; I will praise Him with my whole heart-with all the fervour, spirituality, and sincerity, with which I am endowed; I will praise the Lord with all my heart; and, in order that I may not be alone in praising Him, I will get into 'the assembly of the upright,' and probably some of my rustic notes will induce them to praise Him also and Jehovah shall have the entire revenue of praise and glory that can be sounded forth from all the ransomed souls on earth, and all the ransomed souls in heaven."

"Praise ye the Lord; " there is an exhortation. "I will praise the Lord;" there is a vow. It shall be "with my whole heart; " there is experimental godliness. It shall be "in the assembly of the upright;" there is a relative position occupied along with the family of God. These are the four particulars to which I would invite your prayerful attention this morning. You know it is usual with us, and it has been so for years, to have more than one anniversary day. We mean, then, to make a week's anniversary of it; and beginning with this subject, Í hope, if my strength be spared, to go through the week with it.

I.-First of all, let me invite your attention to the exhortation, "Praise ye the Lord." Who is it addressed to? Look a little further on, and you will find it said, "Praise Him, O yé servants of God." I know there is a sense in which inanimate creation is exhorted to praise the Lord, but that is in an inanimate manner. Fire and hail, snow and vapour, and so forth, are mentioned as praising the Lord; proving that He is a God of omnipotent grace, mercy, and providential care over His people. But in this high sense in which I wish to treat the subject this morning, it must be addressed to those who possess a capacity to praise God. Now I read, in express terms, that the dead cannot praise Him; and though the dead may, in one sense, in common with the inanimate and the mere animal creation, be monuments whereby Jehovah is praised in the acts of His vengeance, yet they cannot sensibly praise Him-they cannot spiritually praise Him-they cannot experimentally praise Him. "The dead cannot praise Thee, O Lord; the living, the living, he shall praise Thee, as I do this day.'

Then it must be observed, that the exhortation is addressed to those who possess a capacity to praise God-a heaven-born life-a quickened nature. It must be the praise of the soul, called into exercise under the immediate operation of the graces of the Holy Spirit. I well know that some persons pretend to sing the high praises of God scientifically. But what of that? It may be harmonious-it may be beautiful melody, and that which shall charm the ears of many; but it has got a treacherous bottom. It is the worst of Popish vanity. It is

"Mocking Him with solemn sounds,

Upon a thoughtless tongue."

I cannot exhort such to praise the Lord; but I can exhort those who

possess life Divine-those who have really received the forgiveness of sins-those who have really put on the righteousness of Christ-those who have really been brought by the Holy Spirit into close communion with God. And wher I have exhorted others, as may be seen in the 103`ǜ Psaim, I have to wind up the exhortation with “ Bless the Lord, O my soul."

But be it observed, that those persons who have a spiritual capacity -who have been born from above-who have been made partakers of life Divine, have many reasons for praising Him. Verily I should be ready to join, and I trust we all should be able to join, in with the Psalmist, when he says, "I will bless the Lord at all times; and His praise shall continually be in my mouth." I have read that declaration of the Psalmist, until I have been so ashamed, that I have scarcely dared to lift up my eyes to heaven. What! have His praise continually in my mouth? Why then I should not have five minutes to spare for any murmurings, or repinings, or complaints, or fretfulness, or rebellion, or carnality, or any useless waste of my time in toys and vanities. I should want my mouth to be continually full of the praises of God. "His praise shall be continually in my mouth." Well, then, there must be abundant reasons for this. I will just mention a few of them, as I gather them from the context. The Psalmist would give his reason for thus exhorting others; he would give his reason for desiring to attain the sacred exercise himself; "for," says he, "the works of the Lord are great "-there is the reason; "the works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein." There is abundant reason for praising the Lord. Now if we confine ourselves, for a few moments, to His works in nature, and then to His works in grace, we shall find abundant reason for praising the Lord. And I shall follow up these statements with the exhortation for you to do so. If we look at His works in nature-at the formation of our bodies and minds why were we not made idiots? Why were we not made cripples? Why were we not made objects of pity on the face of the earth? What has He done for us in His providence? How often have threatening circumstances produced a harvest of good? How have all the events in our lives been overruled, so that the very things we have kicked at, and murmured against, have turned out to be most for our benefit! "The works of the Lord are great, and sought out.' I think to myself sometimes, "Where have I been these sixty-four years? What have I been doing? How have I been preserved? How have I been supplied? What events have taken place in this short life of mine? If I had had my own way, I should have gone to destruction long ago. What prevented this? The goodness of God-the greatness of the works of God; and some of those things which seemed the most likely to lead me to destruction, have been made the very means of deliverance; and His name shall have all the praise."

Let me just mention one illustration here, which I have often had occasion to use. If the armies of Israel, when they left Egypt, had not been guided and taken care of by God, they would probably have been lost in the wilderness, one way or another; and when the horsemen and chariots came after them, I dare say they thought that a worse thing could not have happened to them, and gave themselves up for lost. "There is no hope now; there is nothing but destruction before us; we cannot fight the Egyptians, and we cannot run away from them; we are hemmed in on every side: would to God we had died in

Egypt." Ah! if their mouths had been full of praise, there would not have been room for any of these complaints. It turned out, after all, that they had a supernatural passage-supernatural supplies—a supernatural deliverance-a supernatural light-a supernatural guide-the pillar of cloud and of fire; and while they are thus to be supernaterally delivered and sustained, in a way which they could not have dreamt of, their enemies are all left dead at the bottom of the Red Sea. My hearers, I am thoroughly ashamed-would to God you were all soI am thoroughly ashamed when I find fault with God's way of dealing with me. Oh, for grace to trust Him under all circumstances! The goodness of God demands our praise in these particulars.

Moreover, when I consider the works of the Lord in the way of grace, am not I called upon to praise Him? "Praise ye the Lord" for that grace which has made you to differ from the world. I should like here to draw a line of distinction between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not; I should like to draw a distinction between the Church of God and the world, regardless of circumstances in life, rich or poor, young or old, male or female-I am not going to notice them in this distinction; but I refer to the distinction that has been made by the powerful operation of grace upon the poor sinner's heart; and if this will not call forth your praise it is a vain thing to exhort you to it. Has this mighty God, this glorious Jehovah, to whom we sound our hosannahs, put forth His operations of grace, touched your proud, dead, rebellious heart, nay, given a new heart and a right spirit, carried you into a new world, created a spiritual capacity in you, implanted all His own graces, opened your eyes to your own uin and the law's terrors, and then opened them to see the light of the glorious gospel? If so, can you cease to praise the Lord? If you were to hold your peace, the very stones in the street would cry out against you. Ye, therefore, for whom all this has been done, praise the Lord, shout out your hosannahs to His dear name, for the mighty operations of His grace. "For the works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein."

Let me just touch upon the expression, "sought out." Discover that the Lord has done all this for you, and then say "By the grace of God I am what I am." If that is the case, who can you envy? What being is there on earth, whatever his circumstances, whom you could envy? I would that it were so with me. Most of you pretty well know that I have had some roughish steps in the wilderness. Well, be it so, they are all right steps; I do not care about their being rough steps, so long as grace marks them out for me; and I am certain that, having led me thus far, Jehovah will never leave me. Blessed be His name, there is grace enough laid up in store to last me to the end of my journey. Surely I have cause to praise Him.

Nay, further, when I come to look a little at the fact, that He has acted in every instance as an absolute sovereign, and added to the sovereignty of His operations infallible security, oh! how am I led to praise Him! "Praise ye the Lord" for His full salvation, perfect and complete, without a single contingency or peradventure connected with it. I do not think I could have praised Him, if I had set before myself anything in the shape of salvation, with something left in it for me to do. I know so much of my own helplessness, that if the Lord had not presented to my view and put into my heart a salvation perfect, inviolable, complete, secure, eternal, all His own giving and

doing, I should have been the most miserable of wretches. Only put one single contingency into God's great work of salvation, and I am undone for ever; I have nothing whatever to praise Him for. But when I find a salvation every way worthy of Himself and suited to me, and the exhortation comes, "Praise ye the Lord," shall not my notes be the loudest, shall not I attempt, at least, to outsing all others, for the abundance of His love, and the marvellous adaptation of His salvation to my case, and the mighty act of grace that led me to partake of it?

II.-Now I pass on to the Psalmist's vow. I do not know whether you are prepared with your note-book, mine is right before me. I do not know whether you are prepared with your gamut, mine is written in my heart. I do not know whether you are prepared with your harp, I have a golden one just within reach, and I shall soon strike that. "I will praise Him.' It appears to me as though the Psalmist panted to acknowledge his gratitude to Jehovah; as if he had found out and begun to feel that he was the most ungrateful wretch in the world; that so much of the goodness of God was loaded upon him, and so little return made by him for it; and therefore, says he, "I will praise Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; I will not praise the idol gods, I will not set up golden calves and say, These be thy gods, O Israel, that brought thee out of Egypt.' I will praise thee.' When

I view my interest in God the Father's eternal love, in God the Son's substitution, and God the Spirit's operations within me, carrying on His own work, with "I will work, and who shall hinder me?" shall I cease to praise Him? "I will praise the Lord." Why, beloved, I verily believe that we have not paid attention enough to the act of praise, as going forth from the inmost soul. We may have paid more attention to the act of prayer, we may have paid more attention to the act of believing, though these are very important; we may have paid more attention to the act of humiliation before God in deep repentance; all these are very important; but shall we forget to praise Him? shall we forget to acknowledge the infinite debt of gratitude we owe to Him? What should we think of creatures who did this towards each other? If some signal favour, some token of affection, however trifling in value, were presented by you to any dear friend, and you should pass and repass them without their saying a word of acknowledgment to you, why you would say, "He has never taken any notice of my present, perhaps he has not received it; if he has he is very unkind." Now after many promises have been fulfilled in your experience, and you have not given one tribute of praise in return, ought not your soul to be deeply abased before God? How many thousands of providences, of a most momentous description, has He overruled for us, and not received any return of praise? How many thousands of prayers has He answered, and we not given a single tribute of praise? I fear we are too much like the nine lepers out of the ten, whom our Lord healed. It is said that He healed ten lepers, and only one, a poor Samaritan, the most despised of them all, when he found that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God. Jesus marked that action; and, let it be remembered, that He marks ours too. He said to His disciples, "Were there not ten lepers cleansed, but where are the nine? There are not found any that return and give glory to God, save this stranger." He was quite

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