We never heard Dr. Knox announce a song to be sung in public, while we
were with him in Prince Edward Island, when he did not say, distinctly
and very audibly, “We will praise God by singing,” etc. This opens out
with the right idea. How grand and sublime to _praise God_ in song! We
ought to sing in worship, not for music, or even fine singing, but to
_praise God_, to _worship_ the Lord our God as an act of _devotion_
to God. We ought not to enter into it with the heart set on _music_,
either instrumental or any other sort, but on God and our gracious and
merciful Lord Jesus the Christ. The words ought to be read frequently
and a few words of comment on them, calling attention to the _sense_,
the praises, thanksgiving and supplications. Then people who know not
God will see, as many christians appear to fail to see, the propriety
of the word in one of our hymns: “Let those refuse to sing who never
knew our God.” It is a contradiction of all common sense of the very
meaning of the worship in song, for those who never knew God, or who
never even professed to be christians or tried to turn to God, to say
nothing of vile characters, to attempt to enter in the worship in song.
We care not how well people sing if they praise God, give thanks and
pour out their souls to him. Enter into the song with heart and soul,
and sing out with full voices, enraptured with the _theme_ of the song,
Him whose praises they sing, the salvation he graciously gives and the
immortality he proposes to bestow. The theme of the song is the great
matter. To sing with the spirit and the understanding is commanded,
and to teach and admonish in singing is also commanded. The main body
of the singing now done is not with the spirit nor the understanding,
nor is anything _taught_ or any one _admonished_. This is _no worship_.
Singing merely to make music is no more worship than performing on a
piano or violin.