REMNANTS OP TIME. 491 streams where eternal pleasures run. O may our souls wait with joyful hope for that day, and our praises shall not be silent. Yet it is not with the church as it is with the world when praise is silent in both. It is ever silent among the wicked, be- cause they are forgetful of God their Maker ; it is only silent among the saints for a season, when their God seems to frown and hide himself, and as it were to forget his people. Besides, Let us consider that all praise is not silent there. Daily incense arises before God in his temple, though particular thank - offerings wait till particular mercies are received. Praise for love, for the sanctifying Spirit, is never silent in Sion. Pb. lxxxiv. 4. " Blessed are they that dwell in thine house, they will be still praising thee." Rut praise for some special favours may be silent for a season, as well as that large revenue of praise that shalt grow due at the accomplishment of all the promises and the con- summation of blessedness. Again, The praises ofGod are silent in the world without any design of breaking forth, but the silence of the church longs to be lost in joyful songs of thanksgiving. It is like an engine charged with praise that wants only the warm touch of mercy to make it thine with the glories of heavenly worship, and sound aloud the name of the God of Zion. Sometimes God is as well pleased that praise should wait with humble silence, as that it should speak. It shews a well - disposed frame and temper of soul that longs to honour God. The hearts of his saints are instruments of music to the Lord ; he has formed their souls for their glory, and tuned their heart- strings to his own praise. Now he loves to see them kept still in tune, thoughhe does not always play his own praises upon them ; he neither wants our services nor our songs, for his own per- fections are an everlasting harmony to himself, without the slender notes that we can sound. We may make this sweet remark at last, That Zion on earth shall be joined to,Jerusalem above ; the family below shall be joined to the upper house, for they have learnt the work of hea- ven, their hearts are tuned to praise ; they want only such harps as angels have, to bring glory down and make a heaven on this earth. In the 1 Chron. xi. 4. we are told that David took Zion from the Jebusites, and built it round about, and added it to Je- rusalem. So shall Jesus the true David, the King of saints, take this earthly Zion from the powers of this wicked world, and shall build and adorn it around with glory and strength, with perfect beauty and complete grace, and add it to the Jerusalem which is above. Look upwards, O souls who are full of praises, and are even impatient to speak the glories of your God, look to Ii2
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