Psalm 50:23 Whoever offers praise glorifies me: and to him that orders his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God. A subject, the importance of which it is not possible to overestimate, is here presented for our consideration — the offering of praise, connected more especially with the public service of the Church. Self-seeking in religion is far from being uncommon. It is chargeable upon numbers who may not be selfish in the grosser and more glaring forms of the commission of that sin. The almost exclusive consideration with such as are self-seekers in religion, is personal spiritual comfort. An essayist who wrote years ago, upon various forms of selfishness manifested in the conduct of professors of religion, has left on record this forcible description of those who make personal comfort in their religion not a means but an end. "Epicures in religious comfort, they grow impatient if the cup of consolation be, for a moment, removed from their own lips." "The amplitude of the Divine love seeks to comprehend the universe in its large and life-giving embrace and calls on our affections to arise and follow it in its vast diffusion, but this selfishness stays at home, builds itself in, and sees no glory in that love, but as it embraces a single point, and that point itself." To protect the spiritual system from so deleterious an influence, to prevent devotional exercises, whether public or private, from contracting the taint of selfishness, and to impart to them a healthy tone, it is expedient that there should be blended with them not only intercessory prayer but the homage of praise. As a faithful remembrancer, the Church ever puts us in mind of the fact that we are bound to praise Him for what He is in Himself, for the glory of His perfections, independent of what He is to us. Without the "right ordering of the conversation" — without practical evidence of sincere endeavour to "walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing," no praise whatever can be offered to Him. The ever-living Intercessor, who has been exalted to the "right hand of the Majesty in the heavens," imparts to praise as well as to supplication and giving of thanks and all other offerings the requisite value. "By Him let us offer the sacrifice of praise continually," etc. Consolatory as sublime is the contemplation of the power and willingness of the ascended Christ to constitute our imperfect offerings worthy of presentation because of the infinite merit of His precious death and passion. There never rises within the breast of the sincere worshipper an aspiration of which He is unmindful, never is there formed a purpose of amendment of life, never is there heaved a sigh of the "sorrow that worketh repentance," which is not observed by Him amidst the glories of that exalted estate in which He reigns as "Head over all things to the Church." it is through Him that the adoration of the militant Church is united with that of those "powers and principalities in heavenly places "upon the purity of whose nature there never did, never shall pass a shadow of blemish. (C. E. Tisdall, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God. |
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