Psalms 149:9

REFLECTIONS

READER, do you feel your heart warmed to join the host of the redeemed, here called upon to sing aloud redemption? Do you know it, and can you sing it? The Psalmist calls it, a new song. And so it is indeed; and it can only be sung by a new heart. If the Lord hath taught it you, there will be indeed rejoicing in him, that hath not only made you, but new made you: not only created and given you a being, but hath newly created you in Christ Jesus, and given you both a being and a well-being in the Lord, and in his great salvation. When John saw the Lamb on Mount Zion, encircled with his royal redeemed army, and heard them sing this same new song; he tells us, that no man could learn that song, but the hundred and forty and four thousand which were redeemed from the earth. Pause, Reader! and while we read this blessed Psalm, and hear the saints of God called upon to such sacred melody, I pray you see to it, that you and I, if we have not learned it, may ask the Chief Musician, even Jesus, to teach it us. Jesus, I would say, help us to praise thee, and to sing to thy glory? Shall the redeemed around thy throne sing to thy glory, shall they chant aloud the sweet song of redemption, and wilt thou not teach me to warble the notes of it below? Lord, help me now to praise thee; and while the saints sing upon their beds, and the high praises of God in Christ are in their mouths, tune my heart to the same, and let the name of Jesus be upon my heart and on my tongue. Oh! for grace to say, My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise, even with my glory. Awake, psaltery and harp, I myself will awake early: I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people; and I will sing praises unto thee among the nations.