The highest forms under which we can now think are art-forms: the proportions of statuary and architecture, the colour of painting and music. The former are limited, and address a mere sense of beauty; but music addresses the heart, and has its vocation amongst the feelings, and covers their whole range. Hence music has been chosen to hold and express our conception of moral perfection. Nor is it an arbitrary choice, but is made for the reasons that music is the utterance of the heart, it is an expression of morality, and it is an infinite language. Before the sneer at heaven as a place of endless song can prevail, it must undo all this stout logic of the human heart. We so represent it because when we frame our conception of heaven or moral perfection we find certain things, and when we look into the nature and operation of music we find the same things; namely, obedience, sympathy, emotion, and adoration.
I. Obedience. The idea that is fastest gaining ground in all departments of thought is that of the reign of law-law always and everywhere, and nothing without its range. But under what art-form shall we express this? for expression we must have. There is an exactness in the laws of harmony that makes obedience to them specially fine and so fit to be a type of it.
The pleasure we feel in music springs from the obedience which is in it, and it is full only as the obedience is entire.
II. Music is, beyond all other arts, the expression and vehicle of sympathy. No other art, no other mode of impression, equals music in its power to awaken a common feeling. The orator approaches it, but he deals chiefly with convictions; and conviction is a slow and hard path to feeling, while music makes a direct appeal. The united action of the full chorus and orchestra is a perfect transcript, down to the last and finest particular, of perfected human society.
III. Music as an expression of feeling is a prophecy of that grander exercise of our nature for which we hope. It is the nature of feeling to express itself. Thought may stay behind silent lips; but when it becomes feeling, it runs to expression. Music is an illustration of this law of our emotions, and is the natural expression of deep feeling. History all along culminates in song. The summits of Jewish history from Miriam to David are vocal with psalms. In some supernal sense, music will be the vocation of humanity when its full redemption is come. The summit of existence is feeling, the summit of character is sympathy, and music is the art-form that links them together.
IV. Music is the truest and most nearly adequate, expression of the religious emotions, and so becomes prophetic of the destiny of man as a religious being. Music is creatively designed for religion, and not for anything else. It lends itself to almost every human feeling, down to the vilest, but always with suppression of its power. It is not until it is used for the expression of that wide range of feeling which we call religious that it discloses its full powers. Music is the art-path to God, in whom we live, and move, and have our being.
T. T. Munger, The Appeal to Life, p. 309.
References: Psa 149:2 .-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xvi., No. 963; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 266. Psa 149:4 .-G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 98; Sermons for Boys and Girls, p. 115; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 120.
Psa 148:8 I. "Fulfilling His word." Somehow or other, then, His word is fulfilled in the devastation and disfigurement of that which His own hands have made; and the agent which inflicts it obeys some law as regular as that which governs the motion of a planet, although with more complex conditions. In the view of Him who sees all that has been, that is, that will be, there is beyond the immediate present the illimitable future; and in some way this present ruin most assuredly is preparing for that future. And, still more, behind the seen and the visible world there is the world invisible and moral; and, in ways which we do not suspect as yet, its high requirements may be, must be, thus provided for.
II. As we pass from the physical and inanimate world and enter the human, the spiritual, and the moral, the storm and wind become metaphorical expressions, having, however, real counterparts in the passions and the agency of man. Here, too, as elsewhere, we watch them fulfilling God's word. (1) The State is exposed to the storm of invasion and the storm of revolution. (2) The Church is exposed to the storm of persecution and of controversy. (3) The individual life is assailed by outward troubles and by inward storms of difficulty and doubt as to religious truth. Loyalty to known truth is the warrant of endurance among all the trials that may await us, that endurance which transforms the very fiercest blast into tender fulfilment of God's word of promise to those who are the special objects of His love.
H. P. Liddon, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxv., p. 25.
Reference: Psa 148:11-13 .-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 261.
Psa 148:12 I. Think what it is to praise the Lord. Praise is the heart singing. When the love of our hearts is set on Jesus, the gladness goes with us everywhere: at home or at school, at work or at play.
II. Notice some reasons why we should all thus praise the Lord. (1) Because He has loved us and given Himself for us. (2) We are the only creatures in the world that can praise Him. (3) Praise is the only thing we can give to the Lord. (4) Loving praise is the only thing that can satisfy our loving Lord. (5) Everybody ought to praise the Lord now, because it is the happy work that we shall do in heaven.
M. G. Pearse, Sermons for Children, p. 121.
References: Psa 148:12 .-H. Jones, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxviii., p. 70. Psa 148:12 , Psa 148:13 .-G. Dawson, Sermons on Daily Life and Duty, p. 64. Psa 148:14 .-G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 138; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 261.
The Psalmist exhorteth the celestial, the terrestrial, and the rational creatures to praise God.
THIS too is a psalm of praise; in which the author calls upon heaven and earth, with all that is in them, to praise God. The last verse seems to shew that it was occasioned by some victory granted to his people. Many expositors have thought that David composed this psalm when his kingdom was in a very flourishing condition, and when God had given him rest from all his enemies. See Psa 148:14 and 2Sa 7:1. Bishop Lowth, speaking of the origin of the ODE, observes, that it had its birth from the most pleasing affections of the human soul, joy, love, admiration. If we contemplate man in his state of innocence, newly created, such as the sacred scriptures exhibit him to us, endued with the perfect power of reason and speech; neither ignorant of himself, nor of God; conscious of the divine goodness, majesty, and power; no unworthy spectator of the beautiful fabric of the universe, the earth, and the heavens; can we suppose that at the sight of all these things his heart would not so burn within him, that his mind, carried away by the warmth of his affections, would of its own accord pour itself forth in the praise of its Creator, and glow into that impetuosity of speech, and that exultation of voice, which almost necessarily follows such emotions of mind. This seems to have been exactly the case, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, with the contemplative author of this beautiful psalm, wherein all created things are called upon to celebrate together the glory of God. Praise ye the Lord, &c. a hymn, which our Milton, by far the most divine of poets after the sacred ones, has most elegantly imitated, and very aptly given to Adam in Paradise. (See Paradise Lost, book 5: ver. 153, &c. and Bishop Newton's notes). Indeed we can scarcely conceive rightly of that primoeval and perfect state of man, unless we allow him some use of poetry, whereby he might worthily express in hymns and songs his piety and affection towards God. See the 25th Prelection.
Psa 148:3. Praise ye him, sun and moon- The Psalmist proceeds to call upon the inanimate part of the creation, as well as upon all living creatures, to praise the Lord; who hath set forth his most transcendent wisdom, power, and magnificence, in such a variety of stupendous works, that there is not the smallest of them but ministers such matter of praise and admiration to those who attentively consider them, that they cannot but wish, with the Psalmist here, that every one of them were able to tell us how much skill he hath shewn in their contrivance; or that we were able to find it out and fully comprehend it. Thus the Psalmist is to be understood, when he calls upon all creatures to praise the Lord. By the expression of heavens of heavens, in the next verse, is not meant, as usually, the highest heaven, the place of God's throne; but here, after the sun, moon, and stars of light, by which the whole body and sphere of the heavens are signified, follow next the heavens of heavens, and the waters above the heavens; where, as, in all reason, heavens of heavens, are but the highest of those heavens, above some part of which the waters are to be placed; so, in case the waters be no higher than that region of air where the clouds are, the uppermost regions of the body of air must be resolved to be what is here meant by the heavens of heavens.
Psa 148:6. He hath also established them- That is, the creatures before mentioned, are, by God's providence, constantly preserved and continued. He made a decree, &c. that is, prescribed rules to the heavens, the stars, and other creatures, as to their situation, motion and influence; which, though inanimate, they never transgress.
Psa 148:7. Praise the Lord from the earth- Praise the Lord, ye [or ye creatures] of the earth; ye sea-animals, or crocodiles, or whales, &c. And so the first verse should be rendered, praise the Lord, ye [or ye inhabitants] of the heavens; which are first enumerated, and then from this verse, the inhabitants of the earth. See Delaney's Life of David, book 1: chap. 17.
REFLECTIONS.-1st, The Psalmist calls on heaven to begin the hallelujah, and earth must echo back the sound.
1. The heavens, and angelic hosts who them inhabit, the first of God's creation, who in the heights of glory nearest approach his throne of light inaccessible, are addressed, as those who with the most exalted praises should lead the song. Not that these bright spirits are backward to the work, or silent, day or night, in the delightful service; but the Psalmist would express the fervency of his own desires, that God should be glorified by the highest and noblest of his creatures; and would stir up himself and others to the work, which is the happiness and employment of all these sons of God in glory. Note; We in nothing more resemble angels, than when we sing the high praises of our God.
2. Not only the intellectual beings of the upper world, but the creatures void of reason, must shew forth his praise. Those orbs of light, that shed on this earth their benign influences; the sun, the moon, and glittering stars, shine audibly, and in the ear of enlightened reason proclaim aloud the glory of their great Creator. Praise him, ye heaven of heavens; and, ye waters that be above the heavens, divided by the firmament from the waters beneath, all must praise the name of the Lord; for by his power they were made, by his providence they are upheld, and their duration is fixed by him.
2nd, From the celestial world and upper regions the Psalmist descends to this terrestrial globe, from which a tribute of praise should ascend from every creature, whether intelligent, irrational, or inanimate.
1. The sea and its inhabitants are called on to praise the Lord. The dragons, or whales, and all deeps; the shoals of fish that swim beneath the waters, from the least unto the greatest, declare their Maker's work.
2. The meteors of the sky, and exhalations, fire, hail, snow, vapours, stormy winds, all fulfil his word, go forth at his bidding, and are stayed at his command.
3. The earth, and all that dwell therein; mountains, hills, fruitful trees, and cedars; creatures though inanimate, rise up to praise him; while every beast of the forest, the lowing herds, the bleating flocks, and every reptile, and every flying fowl, join in their adoration, all admirably suited for the station they fill, and corresponding with their Maker's great design.
4. The rational creatures, endowed with speech, that as the tongue of this lower world they might present the tribute of all the creatures, are enjoined to raise the song. High and low, rich and poor, young and old, of either sex, must unite their praises. None so great as to be excused, none so low as to be despised, from lisping infancy to decrepit age. And reason good there is for so doing; for his name alone is excellent; none like him, none to compare with him: his glory is above the earth and heaven, exalted far above all blessing and praise which the creatures in both can render.
5. From his Israel he hath especial demands of gratitude. They are his people, exalted to the highest state of dignity, even to be called saints, and brought near unto him, in a covenant of grace through the Redeemer; admitted into a state of communion with him, and enjoying the distinguishing tokens of his favour; and therefore most justly doth he deserve to be their praise, the great and glorious object of it in time and in eternity. Amen. Hallelujah.
