SERMON XXII.

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THANKSGIVING.

[Preached on the annual Thanksgiving, in 1826.]

I CHRONICLES xvi. 8, 9.

Give thanks unto the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people. Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him, talk ye of all his wondrous works.

It is delightful for a devout mind to follow the royal psalmist through his numerous hymns, composed for common and special occasions. So deep is the feeling of piety, so glowing his sentiments of grateful affection, so fervent his sanctified imagination, so faithful his memory in recounting divine benefits, and so ardent is he in calling on men and angels, and even on inanimate nature, on fields and floods, on heaven and earth, to praise God, that that heart must be cold and dead to pious feeling, which is not warmed by his psalms into holy enthusiasm. The psalm, from which the text is

taken, was written as a psalm of thanksgivng for one of the most memorable occasions of David's reign, the occasion of bringing the ark to the city of David, where the king had made preparation for its reception. The twenty fourth of the psalms was performed during the procession, as I shall notice more particularly; and that from which the text is taken, recorded in the Chronicles, was sung as a closing act of devotion on that occasion. "It was a psalm," says the sacred historian, "to thank the Lord;" in which the grateful psalmist looks back on their remote history, and remembers the mercies conferred on their fathers and on themselves. This is done concisely, but with holy sublimity, and with the most affecting touches. Would God we might catch something of the spirit of David, on this devout and grateful occasion. Welcome this joyous anniversary, observed by the fathers and their children for two centuries past. May it be piously kept by our children so long as we shall remain a people.It was the peculiar custom in New England in the beginning; but it has gradually advanced southward and westward, and the time will come, I trust, when our whole nation, blessed of God as it is above all others, shall keep the annual festival, and, perhaps on the same appointed day, shall enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. In fulfilling the delightful duty of this day, I shall endeavor to afford my humble aid by several remarks, suggested by the example of David and Israel, and by a grateful recollection of the mercies of the closing year. Let me,

I. Remark, that the noble end for which man was made, is to glorify God, his Maker.

For this end he was made but a little lower than the angels; constituted with a spirit which goeth upward, while the spirit of the brute goeth downward; with reason, affection, speech; with a voice of sweetest melody, and an ear delighting in harmony; with noble capacities, by which he is distinguished from all other earthly creatures. He was thus made to be the organ,

through which the praise of this lower world was to sound forth, and to rise, I may say, and mingle with the concert of the skies. Of this duty of our nature, we are not unmindful, when in silent contemplation upon his perfections, works, and providence, we only meditate the praise of God. And when our devout sentiments are expressed in the emphatical language of cheerful obedience and submission to his will, we praise God. We praise him by the simple utterance, in words, of the conceptions we form of his infinite greatness and excellence, and this especially in that social homage, which we offer in the prayers of the sanctuary. In these various methods, with a devout and solemn mind, with an animated and grateful heart, it behoves us to praise him, who is the sum and the source of all that is great and good. I proceed to remark,

II. That there is a method more affecting and sublime, to praise God; more heavenly and angelic; a method which engages the best powers of the mind, and employs the noblest faculties of the body, and awakens

the liveliest affections of the soul; which combines a multitude in a grand sympathetic concert; a multitude feeling the same devout sentiment, and striving in the same breath to utter the praises of their Maker. And this was the particular method, to which the royal prophet exhorted in the text-" Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him."

It is pleasing to observe how early in the history of mankind this method of praising God was in use. And this not merely in the Christian, and Hebrew, and patriarchal churches; but also among the heathen. Plutarch tells us that singing and music among the ancient Greeks were wholly employed in divine worship; and he laments the profanation and abuse of the holy, and consecrated art in later times, when it was brought into the theatre. The stoick philosopher thought it the "business of men to sing praises to the Deity; and that it became the laborer in the field, at his table, to sing a hymn to God. Since I am a reasonable creature,' says he, "I will never cease to praise God, and to exhort others to do the same"-a pious sentiment not unworthy of inspired lips.

That sacred music was cultivated among the earliest heathen is not incredible, since from scripture history we find its origin beyond the flood. So early as the time of the Exodus, it had attained excellence and practical perfection, possibly not much surpassed in later ages.

The sublime and nervous hymn composed by Moses, after the passage of the Red Sea, was set to

music and sung upon its bank by that transported people, whom God had delivered.

The Israelites, after their establishment in Canaan, particularly in the times of David and Solomon, rendered a degree of attention to sacred music, unparalleled, I believe, among other nations. They employed it in the religious devotions of the tabernacle and temple, in their public and private rejoicings, at their feasts and in their mournings. Whole families devoted themselves to sacred music as their entire business. A great part of the tribe of Levi was included in the choir. So numerous were the singers and musicians in the time of David, that they were denominated a host, and were organized under three general officers, and twelve of subordinate rank. The twenty four sons of the three great masters of the temple music, were at the head of twenty four bands of the most skilful performers who officiated by turns, in the time of David, in the tabernacle, and in the time of Solomon, in the temple. The temple of Solomon, vast as it was, may have been too limited to admit the musical corps at once, or to sustain the blended power of their voices and instruments. On the great occasion of bringing the ark into the city of David, the hymn, from which the text is taken, was performed, and also, it is commonly believed, the twenty fourth psalm. On this occasion, it seems, the whole power of their host of singers was exerted in full chorus on the hill of Zion. We can scarcely imagine a scene more august and awful. A great part of the nation formed the procession which ascended the hill of Zion;