III. THAT WE MAY GO TO GOD IN UNSELFISH INVOCATION. "When David had made an end… he blessed the people in the Name of the Lord" (1 Chronicles 16:2), i.e. he invoked the Divine blessing upon them. He doubtless used such words as these: "The Lord bless you, and keep you: the Lord make his face shine upon you," etc. (Numbers 6:24-26). We have no power to impart blessedness by any direct volition of our own, but we can express our earnest desire that men may be blessed; and we can do one thing more and better than that—we can solemnly and earnestly invoke the blessing of God to rest on those whom we love and with whom we desire to share our own prosperity and joy.
IV. WE CAN GO OUT TO OUR NEIGHBOURS IN GENEROUS KINDNESS. David's good feeling took the form of hospitality (1 Chronicles 16:3). He gave to every one then present, bread, flesh, and wine, wherewith to find nourishment and pleasure. When God, in his providence, sends us prosperity, we should distribute freely to our poorer fellows. We may distribute, as David did, of those things which furnish the table. We may let our generosity take other, possibly better, forms than this; we may spend our strength in securing education for the ignorant, position for the unemployed, privilege for the spiritually destitute, opportunity for the aspiring. If thus, in dedication, in thanks-giving, in invocation, in generosity, we escape from ourselves and go forth unto God and man, we shall pass scathless through the perilous hour of elation, and be not only unharmed by it but blessed in it.—C.
1 Chronicles 16:4-7, 1 Chronicles 16:36-43.-Regular Divine service.
These verses may suggest to us wholesome truths respecting the constant worship of God as distinguished from acts of exceptional devotion.
I. THAT DEVOTION MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO EVAPORATE IN TEMPORARY EXCITEMENT, David was wise in not sending the people home (1 Chronicles 16:43) until he had designed a plan or arrangement in virtue of which the thankful spirit of the people should express itself in ordinary and regular exercises (1 Chronicles 16:4-37). The time of revival, of exceptional religious excitement, of spiritual ecstasy, may be very pleasant and promising, but it will end in nothing or in positive evil, if those who prompt and lead it do not devise measures by which it shall find due utterance in permanent institutions.
II. THAT SACRED THINGS MUST BE ENTRUSTED TO THE CHARGE OF CAPABLE AND RESPONSIBLE PERSONS. However admirable the institution, it will not take care of itself. Good things will soon wane and die if they be not taken charge of by living earnest souls. David sought and found the best men to be engaged in the service of praise (1 Chronicles 16:5, 1 Chronicles 16:6). In every part of Divine service, success can only be attained and maintained by competent and responsible men taking the matter in hand. If we trust to the intrinsic excellency of the exercise, and allow negligence or favouritism to enter, we may expect speedy, or, at any rate, certain decline and ultimate extinction. In God's service let each post be assigned to that man whom he has made fittest for it, and who will feel that he is personally accountable for the way in which it is kept.
III. THAT INFERIOR POSTS ARE NOT WITHOUT A REAL IMPORTANCE IN THE SERVICE OF GOD. Much mention is made here (as elsewhere) of doorkeepers (1 Chronicles 16:38-43; see Psalms 84:10). The doorkeepers of our sanctuaries are men of humble position; nevertheless, they may contribute much by conscientious carefulness and Christian courtesy to the comfort, peace of mind, and devoutness of spirit of the worshippers; and thus to the cause of God. Any position in the service of the Supreme, of a gracious and almighty Redeemer, is one which we do well to "magnify" in our esteem, that we may do our duty therein faithfully, as unto the Lord as well as unto men.
IV. THAT PRAYER AS WELL AS PRAISE MUST BE INCLUDED IN DIVINE SERVICE. Though there was to be daily service at Jerusalem for the future, there must also be daily sacrifice at Gibeon (1 Chronicles 16:39, 1 Chronicles 16:40). The choir-master could not do the work of the priest; there must be sacrifice as well as praise. We should multiply our service of song and can hardly go too far in sacred psalmody; yet we must never make light of the prayer of confession, of the entreaty for Divine mercy, of our need to seek again the pardoning love of God.
V. THAT ONE MAN MAY LEAD, BUT ALL MUST PARTICIPATE IN, THE SERVICE OF GOD. David alone prepared and delivered the psalm. Asaph alone received it at the king's hand, and made the musical arrangements (1 Chronicles 16:5-7); but "all the people said Amen and praised the Lord (1 Chronicles 16:36). It is well sometimes that one man should speak for others, they following and participating in thought, and saying "Amen" at the end, in token and utterance of their hearty assent. It is also well—perhaps better—that "all the people" should utter together the words of prayer and praise. Most men can best follow the sense when they utter the sound of sacred words. This is a question fur individual and congregational aptitudes and preferences; the matter of importance is that, whatever method be adopted, the service of God shall be one in which all hearts unite in supplication, in adoration, in thanksgiving, in consecration.—C.
1 Chronicles 16:8-14 -The constituents of piety.
In our psalms and in our prayers we often indicate the real elements of religion as fully, and perhaps as clearly, as in our exhortations. In this psalm of David we have the essential principles of piety.
I. MINDFULNESS OF GOD'S POWER AND GOODNESS. (1 Chronicles 16:8, 1 Chronicles 16:9, 1 Chronicles 16:12.) We cannot feel toward him as we should except we consider "his deeds among the people," except we "talk of all his wondrous works," except we "remember his marvellous works." Calling these to mind, we shall be powerfully and rightly affected by a realization of his Divine power and goodness. We shall naturally dwell on his works in nature, his power as displayed in the creation and sustenance of our own spirit and our own human life, his handiwork in the providential ordering of the world.
II. A SENSE OF HIS INTIMATE DIVINE RELATION TO US AND TO THE WHOLE WORLD. (1 Chronicles 16:13, 1 Chronicles 16:14.) As the children of Israel felt that they were chosen of God, having received direct and special communication and consideration; as they could speak of themselves as his "chosen ones," and could say, "He is the Lord our God;" so we may and must feel that we all are the objects of his Divine regard, that he looks with benignant eye on us and stretches out the hand of Divine friendship toward us, that he is the Lord our God who has chosen us and whom we have chosen. And as they were taught to feel that "his judgments are in all the earth," so we also are to think of him as the supreme almighty Power reigning and ruling everywhere, "speaking and it is done, commanding and it stands fast" (Psalms 33:9).
III. THANKSGIVING IN MEMORY OF HIS GOODNESS AND MERCY. (1 Chronicles 16:8, 1 Chronicles 16:9.) A large part of the sacred service of the Jews consisted in praise. In heathendom there was much of deprecation, something of supplication, little or nothing of praise. God's own people had such a sense of his absolute excellence that they "gave thanks at the remembrance of his holiness," and such a remembrance of his distinguishing goodness to them that they sang psalms of praise because they were such large recipients at his hand. The piety of the Hebrew was vocal with constantly recurring praise; the psalms of the "sweet singer of Israel," and of Jewish worship altogether, were so largely hymns of thanksgiving, that we always associate the thought of praise with the name of them. And from us, for whom as for them God has done such great things, for whom, indeed, God has done greater things than for them, it may well be that praise is found to be the prevailing note of our worship, the chief strain in our piety.
IV. JOY IN GOD. (1 Chronicles 16:10.) The people were encouraged to "glory in God's holy Name," to triumph in the thought that they were worshipping him who was the "Holy One of Israel," in every way worthy of their profoundest adoration; also to "rejoice" in him as in One the knowledge and service of whom was the spring of truest and abiding satisfaction. We may well do the same; and having "such an High Priest" as we have, such a Saviour and Divine Friend, such a Refuge of our soul, we may glory and rejoice with intenser joy than they.
V. COMMUNION WITH GOD. (1 Chronicles 16:11.) We do not enter into the full heritage of the people of God until we "seek the face of the Lord continually." Both in his house and in our own home, we are to seek him, to "seek his strength," to come consciously into his presence, to draw nigh with our spirit to his Spirit, to walk with him, to hold converse with him, to pour out our heart before him, to dwell in the house of the Lord for ever, beholding his beauty as well as inquiring in his temple (Psalms 27:4).—C.
1 Chronicles 16:15-22.-Human mindfulness of Divine promises.
I. THAT GOD HAS MADE DISTINCT PROMISES TO MANKIND. David speaks here of the "covenant which God made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac" (1 Chronicles 16:15, 1 Chronicles 16:16; see 1 Chronicles 16:18 and Genesis 17:2, Genesis 26:3, etc.). We know that he also promised David that he should sit on the throne, and his children after him (1 Chronicles 17:17). We think also of the primeval promise, looking far forward and embracing such large results (Genesis 3:15). God has made "exceeding great and precious promises" to us in Christ; he promises to those who are in him pardon, peace, joy, the indwelling Spirit, sanctity, eternal life,
II. THAT OF THESE HIS PROMISES HE HAS GIVEN US ASSURING CONFIRMATION. He "confirmed the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant" (1 Chronicles 16:17); he did this in word (1 Chronicles 16:18) and in deed (1 Chronicles 16:19-22). All the promises which are made to us in Christ are confirmed both in word and deed.
1. In Divine Word. By repeated assurances not only from the lips of the Lord himself, but also from the utterances of his inspired apostles. In Scripture we have the most abundant assurances that those who believe in Christ shall enjoy the favour of the eternal Father and possess everlasting life.
2. And also in Divine action; for we have the testimony of all succeeding generations of Christian men, who bear unvarying witness that "God is faithful, who hath called us to the fellowship of his Son" (lCo 1 Chronicles 1:9). This is surely a confirmation of God's working; for are not all these witnesses his workmanship? are they not his husbandry, his building (Ephesians 2:10; 1 Corinthians 3:9)?
III. THAT IT BEHOVES US TO KEEP THEM IN CONTINUED AND LIVELY REMEMBRANCE. "Be ye mindful always of his covenant" (1 Chronicles 16:15). In the day of spiritual awakening, in the midst of earnest Christian work, in the time of trouble, in the hour of spiritual struggle and misgiving, in the valley of the shadow of death, we have especial need to be mindful of the promises of God. But they should never be far from us, they should be always within reach, like a sword at our side, like bread beneath the roof, that we may draw them at the approaching danger, that we may resort to them when our heart is a-hungered. We may add, though it is not in the text —
IV. THAT WE MUST NOT FAIL TO COMPLY WITH THE CONDITIONS ATTENDING THEM. God's promises are never unconditional: there is always an "if" implied if not expressed (2 Samuel 7:12; 1 Kings 2:4; Psalms 132:11, Psalms 132:12). His promises to us of eternal life are conditional on
1 Chronicles 16:23-36.-The broader aspect of Hebrew piety.
It cannot be denied that there was an aspect of exclusiveness in the religion of Jewry, as seen in the days of our Lord. But it is a question how far this was a lawful and how far an unlawful development of the teaching which had come from above. To some extent it was necessary that the people of God should be separated, in intercourse as well as in thought and sympathy, from the nations around them. We may, however, be assured that the narrow and bigoted ideas which were so firmly embedded in the Jewish mind were the product of their own misconstructions of the Divine Word. Our text, indeed, shows:
1. That the Jewish nation was taught to feel that God was their God in a peculiar sense. He was continually spoken of, in worship, as "the Lord God of Israel" (1 Chronicles 16:36). He had not dealt with any nation as with Israel: he had not made known his judgments to any people as he had to them (Psalms 147:20). He was their God, inasmuch as he had shown peculiar and distinguishing favour to them.
2. That they looked to God for deliverance and separation from other nations. "Save us… and gather us together, and deliver us from the heathen" (1 Chronicles 16:35). They were led to regard surrounding peoples, with their idolatries and immoralities, as foes over whom they might religiously triumph, and from contact with whom they would wisely shrink. Yet, on the other hand, in distinction from this element of exclusiveness and this narrowness of view and ambition, we have certain elements of breadth. They were taught to regard —
I. THE ENTIRE EARTH AS GOD'S CREATION, AND THE WHOLE WORLD AS UNDER HIS RULE. They sang "of his marvellous works among all nations" (1 Chronicles 16:24). So far were they from imagining that the gods of other nations made those lands, while Jehovah brought themselves and their own land into being, that they sang continually, "All the gods of the people are idols, but the Lord made the heavens" (1 Chronicles 16:26); "The world also shall be stable, that it be not moved" (1 Chronicles 16:30). They undoubtedly believed that the God whom they worshipped had unbounded sovereignty over all lands and nations.
II. THE HEATHEN AS THOSE WHO OUGHT TO WORSHIP GOD. They were invited, in their public worship, to express the sentiment that it was only "due to the Name of the Lord" that "all the earth" "should sing to him, and show forth his salvation from day to day;" that all "kindreds of the people" should ascribe "glory and strength" unto him (1 Chronicles 16:23, 1 Chronicles 16:28, 1 Chronicles 16:29). They expressed, before God, their desire that his glory might be declared among the heathen (1 Chronicles 16:24), that all the earth should fear him (1 Chronicles 16:30). They evidently felt that it was right and due that anthems of praise should be sung to Jehovah by every lip, that before him every knee should bow.
III. THE HEATHEN AS THE FUTURE INHERITANCE OF GOD. In their higher moods and more exalted hours, they looked forward to the time when all the world should be subject to the Divine sway. How far this grand hope took possession of the popular mind we cannot tell, but it was not beyond the reach of those who thought the most and saw the furthest (1 Chronicles 16:31-35). All inanimate creation was invoked to rejoice, because the Lord was coming to judge the earth, because the good and merciful One (1 Chronicles 16:34) was to reign over all the nations (1 Chronicles 16:31). It is for us:
1. To rejoice that what was only dimly foreshadowed to them is clearly revealed to us. We have a clear vision of the blessed and glorious time when "Jesus shall reign where'er the sun," etc.
2. To rejoice that God's gracious purpose is being fulfilled before our eyes. All nations are coming and worshipping, etc. (Psalms 86:9).
3. To do our part in our generation towards the blissful consummation. God has committed unto us the word of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:19).—C.
1 Chronicles 16:29.-The right, the acceptable, and the beautiful thing.
Why should we worship God? "Wherewithal shall we come before the Lord?" How shall we honour and please him? These are three questions to which our text will suggest replies. We are reminded —
I. THAT TO REVERENCE GOD IS THE ONE RIGHT THING FOR US TO DO. There are many things which it is well, proper, right, for us to do; things which make for the well-being of others; things which contribute to our own ennoblement and self-respect. But the thing which, above all others, it is right for us to do is to revere and honour God, to "give unto the Lord the glory due to his Name." That which is due to our kindred and friends, that which is due to ourselves,—this is as nothing compared with the reverence, obedience, and submission which are due to him from whom we come, without whose creative energy we had not been, without whose sustaining power we should cease to be, "in whom we live, and move, and have our being," to whom we owe everything we are and have. To serve God is to secure ourselves against the worst evils; it is to avail ourselves of our highest privilege; it is also, and foremost of all, to discharge our deepest obligation; it is to render that which is due indeed.
II. THAT TO BRING TO GOD OUR CONTRIBUTION MAY BE AN ACCEPTABLE THING TO Do. "Bring an offering, and come before him." It is true that he "needeth nothing' at our hand; that "if he were hungry he would not tell us;" that "every beast of the forest is his, and the cattle upon a thousand hills" (Psalms 1:1-6.). It is also true that there were conditions under which God was "pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering" (Psalms 51:19). And it is also true that the Divine Lord who sits over against the treasury is pleased with the two mites which the widow gives of her poverty. We may "bring an offering" now that may be very large and "munificent" in the sight of men, which shall be very lightly esteemed, or even weigh nothing or less than nothing, in the sight of the holy and the pure One. But then we may "bring an offering" that may be very small in man's reckoning, which, laid by the hand of love on the altar, shall weigh much in the balances of heaven.
III. THAT TO WORSHIP GOD MAY BE A BEAUTIFUL THING TO DO. "Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness." That which is called Divine worship may be an altogether unbeautiful thing in his sight. That which is rendered carelessly, slovenly, thoughtlessly, stiffly, heartlessly, or hypocritically, is utterly unbeautiful before him. But there is worship of another kind. We render our service in the beauty of holiness when:
1. From a pure desire to give to God our best, we worship him most tastefully. When, thus prompted and with this aim in view, we erect for his worship the costly and beautiful building, we sing his praise with perfected harmony, we read his word and preach his truth with cultured carefulness.
2. We bring to his worship the most excellent and requisite graces—humility, faith, docility, gratitude, adoration, generosity, consecration of spirit. Then, when clothed upon with these beautiful garments of the soul, do we most truly "worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness."—C.
HOMILIES BY R. GLOVER
1 Chronicles 16:1.-The ark and the tabernacle.
"So they brought the ark of God, and set it in the midst of the tent that David had pitched for it: and they offered burnt sacrifices and peace offerings before God." The incident of Uzza has distracted the attention due to the return of the ark. The preacher has laboured to justify the ways of God to men; has expounded the sanctity attaching to the ark as the immediate throne of God, the strict injunctions as to its removal, its covering, its Levitical bearers, and the strictness with which access to it was limited to the high priest alone once a year, and shown that during its sojourn in Abinadab's house, familiarity had permitted a lighter and less reverent regard to possess those about it. So that when it was brought back it was in a right spirit, but in a wrong way. This irreverence found its penalty in the death of Uzza; but finding God's blessing rested on the house of Obed-edom, David resumes the purpose he had framed of bringing the ark to Jerusalem. This event is not sufficiently considered. We are apt to imagine that from Moses to Solomon there was a continuous identity of service and of sanctuary; that the expressions which we read in the psalms of devotion to the tabernacles of God had been the habitual expressions of God's people for centuries; whereas it is far otherwise. It is probable that never, till the reign of Hezekiah, was the sacrificial service of God confined to one sacred spot. Samuel sacrificed at Ramah; David, on the threshing-floor of Araunah; Solomon, at Gibeon; others at Carmel, Beersheba, Bethel. The true worship of the true God finding many centres when the Law of Moses contemplated it should have but one, the later historian, imbued with stricter sentiments of a later day, brings it as a fault against almost all the good kings of Judah, that, though they abolished all idolatry, "nevertheless the high places were not taken away;" but our text brings us face to face with something more striking than this multiplication of centres of sacrifice. It reminds us that, for a space of about a hundred years, the ark of God and the tabernacle of God, which God had joined together, had been put asunder. Never since the ark was taken by the Philistines in Samuel's boyhood, had it returned to the tabernacle. It rests in Beth-shemesh for a few months, then for nearly a hundred years in Kirjath-jearim, in the house of Abinadab. During all the time of Samuel we hear very little of the tabernacle at Shiloh, and, I think, nothing of the ark. In Saul's reign the tabernacle is at Nob, and still the ark is separated. The ark, God's earthly throne, the holiest centre of all Mosaic worship, had no tabernacle, with its altars and its regular service. The tabernacle had its altars of burnt and of peace offerings, but no presence within the veil. It was a first court without a second; a staircase which seemed to lead nowhere. So that for a hundred years the tabernacle worship was cut in two—here altars; there ark. Perhaps one may almost say, cut in three during part of this period; for the high priest came with his ephod, and lived with David. So that the priesthood with its service stood thus: Abiathar, with his ephod, "inquiring of God," kept company with David; some of the priestly families repaired to Nob after the massacre of the three hundred priests by Saul, and there offered the appointed sacrifices; while at Kirjath-jearim was the ark, in charge of a Levities! family, "neglected in the days of Saul," but doubtless sought by individual worshippers. To make the confusion more complete, Samuel, David, Solomon, all sacrifice where is neither ark nor tabernacle, and when David brings the ark to Jerusalem, he builds a new tabernacle to receive it, with its proper arrangement of altars, while still leaving the old one at Nob, to continue for some time longer (until the reign of Solomon), on its own lines, its series of sacrifices and worship. I do not bring this state of confusion forward to justify it, or suggest that all the ordering of God's house, concerning which so many minutest precepts had been given, were unimportant and superfluous. It was undoubtedly a vast gain to all subsequent generations when, in Zion, the tabernacle of God rose supreme above all other places honoured by his worship. It was a still grandee service when all the high places where sacrifice had been offered were destroyed. It was fitting that the one God should have one earthly throne, everywhere accessible, but in one place revealed. The one temple rendered something of the same sort of service that the one Bible did in later times; it kept "the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." But while, as we shall see, the centering of all sacrificial worship in one spot rendered grand service, yet it is well to contemplate the state of external confusion registered in the facts thus brought before us, and endeavour to learn their lessons. What are these?
I. First of all obviously, there is this: THAT THE EXTERNAL ORDERING OF GOD'S HOUSE NEVER REALIZES ITS IDEAL. As elsewhere, so here. The ideal and the real go not hand-in-hand. The most that reality can say is, "I follow after, if that I may attain." The letter of the holiest and wisest law never gets complete accomplishment. The very generation to which the Law of Sinai was given neglected one of most important sacraments, circumcision, through all the wilderness journey between Egypt and Canaan. Somehow the very eminence of judges and prophets made, for centuries, God's tabernacle at Shiloh play an inconspicuous part in the history of the nation. In the instance of our text the tabernacle is really cut in two, and the holy place is at Nob, while the holy of holies is miles away at Kirjath-jearim. Solomon's temple was hardly consecrated before it was desecrated by the neighbourhood of idolatrous temples in Jerusalem itself. The secession of the ten tribes deprived them of any temple services, save the irregular ones instituted by Jeroboam. There is always something missing, or something crooked, in the external institutions of religion. The Lord's Supper at Corinth is desecrated by selfish conviviality, even in Paul's lifetime; and some disciples had been baptized who did not so much as know there was a Holy Ghost. When the Church went in for more order, the lack of the power and the charity of earlier times became more conspicuous. Churches that have retained more of external unity have lacked vitality; and Christian communities which have been marked by great vitality have lacked unity of charity and action. In Tertullian's days the Church almost entirely lost the use of the sacrament of baptism by men postponing the observance of it to life's end, fearing there was no further or other washing away of sins after it had taken place. To-day she has almost entirely lost the use of the same sacrament by applying it at life's beginning to those absolutely unconscious of its meaning. God is arrays amongst us, but not always the ark, the sacraments, the proper order. Reality is rough—never more than a mere approximation to what we desire. And if so, there should be charity for differences, and we should address ourselves rather to the maintenance of" the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."
II. The second lesson to be learned is: GOD MAKES THE MOST OF ALL THAT IS IMPERFECT, AND MAKES THE BEST OF WHAT IS WRONG, In what utter hopelessness would the religious state of Israel have appeared to any ancient High Churchman! The altars without the ark; the ark without the altars; no high priest with the ark. All the suggestion of Divine mercy on the one hand and Divine lordship on the other, which the ark suggested, lost. Both in places undistinguished. It was, for the time, an utter collapse of the entire system of sacrificial worship as instituted by Moses. And in these circumstances what do we witness? The utter disappearance of faith and godliness? Far from it. True, there was a general coldness, or such a state of things would not have been permitted to endure. But God did not abandon his people because ark and altar were separate. The same love which ordained all these arrangements for high, united, solemn fellowship with himself, bent its energies to supply the void caused by their neglect in some other way. Is the ark taken and the priesthood degenerate? God raises up Samuel the prophet. Are altars and tabernacles neglected because weak through separateness? God comes near, and, through Abiathar, Gad, Nathan, and other prophets, makes up for the lack of priestly service. Has he virtually no outward dwelling? He comes nearer to individual souls, and woos them with the mystic voice which the sheep hear and gladly follow; so that faith, service, goodness, are all found. There are probably about seventy psalms written by David, most of them in the first half of the psalter. Many of these, written after the ark had found a new dwelling in Jerusalem, breathe a profoundly spiritual attachment to "the house of God." But the greater part of them, written prior to that event, are altogether void of allusion to either tabernacle or altar; but, like the rest, rich in devoutest recognition of the nearness, preciousness, and help of God. An old Catholic theologian supposed that, just as in the absence of rain, the usual means of fertility, there was a "mist that came up and watered Eden," similarly, in the absence of all usual means of grace, God invents fresh methods by which he reaches and refreshes the hearts of men; even so, amidst the cold and unspiritual half-century that intervened between the death of Samuel and the establishment of the ark in Jerusalem, there were still all the Divine activities going on; and the devout found in "the Law" what they missed in "the service." And God waked many, many hearts to seek after him. In this lesson also there is vast importance. We are too apt to say a blessing is impossible unless such and such arrangements are made. Some said in olden times, "Where the Church is the Spirit is; and outside the Church is no salvation." Some in modern times hold sacraments essential to salvation. Some with more reason, but still going beyond Scripture, think Jesus can only save those who know his history. God works the more to bless us, the more through our ignorance we frustrate his means of grace. If through presumptuousness we neglect any duty, it is a sin which he will. sternly correct; but if through ignorance we neglect any duty, God will try and make up our loss. The evangelical Churches of to-day have mostly, I think, lost a sacrament. God makes the other sacrament do double duty, and loads it with double blessings.
III. THE EXTERNAL ORDERING OF GOD'S HOUSE IN GOD'S WAY CARRIES WITH IT A GREAT BLESSING. David was Israel's second Moses. He rehabilitated the whole tabernacle service with its solemn united access to God; helped the people to unite in approaching God, by bringing priests, ark, and altar under one tabernacle. He did more; arranging for the services of the sanctuary, he gave a liturgy for the closet. While in the sacrifices men found the proper form for approaching God, in the psalter they caught the proper spirit. In my judgment the stronger grip that Judah took of the Law of God than Israel; her greater wealth in saintly kings and prophets; her unity; her power to learn the sweet uses of adversity; her recurrence after the Captivity to a purer and more ardent service of God than she had ever reached before; her grander service to mankind; her endurance in national existence till the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus; the strange persistence that has marked the children of Judah from that day to this; all were due in a great degree to the tabernacle of David, the temple of Solomon, the temple of Ezra. From the hour when the ark rested in Zion, Zion was the sacred centre of the land, the source of holy influences binding men to God and to one another. Was it only external arrangements that David made? And is it only an external arrangement that he makes who builds a chapel, or erects a school, or helps men to come together unitedly to observe God's sacraments and learn his ways? David, who knew more of private communion with God than any of us, said, "One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple." Let there be no latitudinarianism, the poor substitute for true charity. If we can help to give back to the Church of Christ a lost sacrament, a neglected truth, a means of freer fellowship with one another and with God, we do something on which the blessing of God will rest, and from which the good of man will flow.—G.
HOMILIES BY F. WHITFIELD
1 Chronicles 16:1-43.-David's thanksgiving psalm.
After having brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom and set it in the tent that David had made for it, there was a general offering of sacrifices by David and the congregation as thank offerings to the Lord, and David blessed the people. Of these thank offerings he ordered that certain portions should be given to every man and woman in Israel—"a loaf of bread, a good piece of flesh, and a flagon of wine." Having done this, he set in order the service of the Levites in the holy tent on Zion. "Then on that day David delivered first this psalm to thank the Lord into the hand of Asaph and his brethren? The meaning of this passage is that David committed to Asaph the carrying out of the service of song; that liturgical singing was then to be introduced. This beautiful psalm was doubtless composed by David himself for liturgical song in the public worship. The first half of the psalm (1 Chronicles 16:8-22) recurs in Psalms 105:1-15; the second half (Psalms 105:23-33) in Psalms 96:1-13.; and the conclusion (verse 34-36) in Psalms 106:1, Psalms 106:47, Psalms 106:48. There is a swelling ascription throughout the psalm, commencing with Psalms 106:8. From that verse down to the end of Psalms 106:22 the call is to Israel to praise the Lord. From Psalms 106:23 to Psalms 106:29 the call is to the heathen or Gentile nations to praise the Lord. From Psalms 106:30 to Psalms 106:34 the call is to the whole earth and to inanimate nature to praise him. Psalms 106:35 seems a prophetical anticipation which David commands to take the form of a prayer that the time may soon come when God's ancient people shall be gathered to their own land, and when the Church of God redeemed from among men shall assemble round his throne throughout eternity to praise his holy Name. Then the earthly people of God, having accepted the Lord Jesus as their Messiah, and the Church of Christ gathered to him at his coaling, shall sing their hallelujahs of praise, and the glory of the Lord fill heaven and earth.—W.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK
1 Chronicles 16:1-3.-Signs of entire consecration.