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CARMINA EVANGELICA;

OR,

HYMNS,

CHIEFLY COLLECTED

FROM

VARIOUS AUTHORS.

By WILLIAM MAURICE.

And they fing the fong of Mofes, and the fong of the Lamb..

Rev. xv. 3.

Eternal years my theme shall be
That Jefus liv'd and dy'd for me.

BOLTON,

PRINTED BY J. GARDNER.

M.DCC,XCIL.

147. g 172.

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TO THE

CHURCH AND CONGREGATION

OF

Independent Protestant Diffenters,

ASSEMBLING IN

DUKE'S ALĻEY, BOLTON.

Dear Brethren and Friends,

THE God whom we ferve and adore, is worthy to have

the honours of his name held in eternal remembrance and reverence, and to be praised from the rifing of the fun to the going down thereof. He is great and condefcending; juft and merciful; tremendous and lovely; righteous and good; glorious in holiness; fearful in his praises; and wonderful in all his works and ways. Every display of his glorious nature to his creatures, lays them under an obligation to praise and adore him who liveth for ever and ever, and in whom they live, move, and have their being: it muft therefore follow, that our duty to praise him, with all the powers of foul and body, is coeval with the very first dawnings of the knowledge of his greatness and worthiness; and, if there was no other reason why we should do it, that alone confideration

would fufficiently warrant our lifting up our hearts with our voices, and praifing our God as long as our exiftence con

tinues.

But befides that, in order fully to fatisfy us as to the duty of finging the high praises of God, he has intimated it to be his sovereign pleasure; and likewise left upon record, for our inftruction and imitation, many perfons, who, at his com mand, and confidering it as their great privilege, actually engaged in this delightful employment.

When he gave his flatutes to Jacob and his judgments to Ifrael, it was one part of his enjoined worship to "praise "the name of God with a fong." Accordingly we find this duty urged, by the writers of the old Teflament, from the confideration of its being a command of God, and therefore acceptable as worship to him. The fame is inculcated in the new Teftament, which correfponds with the old in fhewing that "praife is comely;" that it is proper to come unto "Sion with fongs" fill; and that, both in public and private, we ought to admonish and edify each other by pfalms, and hymns, and fpiritual fongs; " finging and making melody" with grace in our hearts to the Lord. Eph. v. 19. Col. iii. 16.

High and low, rich and poor, not only fhould praife God, but have, where their hearts have been right with him, praised his name together in a fong. When Ifrael faw their enemies funk as lead into the depths of the fea, then fang "Mofes and the children of Ifrael this fong unto the Lord" together, "the Lord has triumphed gloriously," &c. De

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borah, that mother in Ifrael, joined her voice with that of Barak the fon of Abinoam to praise the Lord. The fon of Jeffe, that royal and fweet Pfalmift of Ifrael, did not difdain to lay afide his fceptre for his lyre, and, mingling with the thoufands of his fubjects and fellow-worshippers, accompany it and them with his voice-difdain, did I fay ? fo far from that, it was his glory: and the subjects of his songs, are the themes that angels glory to fing. He yet fings, both in his writings and in heaven, how the right hand of the Lord was exalted in the overthrow of Egypt, and the deliverance of Ifrael; but he fings likewife of "the fufferings of Christ, “and the glory that should follow." His tongue is as "the 66 pen of a ready writer" to speak the praises of King Meffiah the "Lord of Glory." His oppofitions, his conquefts, his triumphs, his liberality, his falvation, and his glory were the grandeft fubjects that ever fwelled the most folemn, fublime, and affecting of the inimitable Jeffæan lays. May the fame fubjects be often in our mouths, and always in our hearts.

Nor less were these fubjects dwelt upon, and this practice attended unto, under the new Testament difpenfation, and from the earliest ages of it. Jefus, the King of kings, and great legiflator of his church, when he tabernacled upon earth, fung with his chofen followers previous to his meritorious fufferings. His difciples followed the bleffed practice of their great and adored Master, after he was afcended to hea ven from whence he came, Paul and Silas did the fame,

even in a prison, at midnight; and Paul was careful to perpetuate this noble part of divine worfhip, by enjoining it upon the churches to whom he writes, and through them to all others.

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