Whilst it is true that both of these purposes are accomplished here and
now, it is also true that their accomplishment is but partial, and that
therefore for their fulfilment we have to lift our eyes beyond this
world of imperfect faith, of incomplete blessedness, of interrupted
praise. Whether the Psalmist looked forward thus we do not know. But for
us, the very shortcomings of our joys and of our songs are prophetic of
the perfect and perpetual rapture of the one, and the perfect and
perpetual music of the other. We know that He who has given us so much
will not stay His hand until He has perfected that which concerns us. We
know that He who has taught our dumb hearts to magnify His name will not
cease till 'out of the lips of babes and sucklings, He has perfected
praise.' We know that the pilgrims in whose hearts are the ways are
blessed, and we are sure that a fuller blessedness must belong to those
who have reached the journey's end.
And so these words give us a twofold aspect of that future on which our
longing hopes may well fix.
It is the perfection of man's blessedness. Then the joyous exclamation
of our first text, which we have often had to strive hard not to
disbelieve, will be no more a truth of faith but a truth of experience.
Here we have had to trust that it was so, even when we could scarce
cleave to the confidence. There, memory will look back on our wanderings
through this great wilderness, and, enlightened by the issue of them
all, will speak only of Mercy and Goodness as our angel guides all our
lives. The end will crown the work. Pure unmingled consciousness of
bliss will fill all hearts, and break into the old exclamation, which we
had sometimes to stifle sobs ere we could speak on earth. When He says,
'Come in! ye blessed of My Father,' all our tears and fears, and pains
and sins, will be forgotten, and we shall but have to say, in wonder and
joy, 'Blessed are they that dwell in Thy house; they will be still
praising Thee.'
It is the perfection of God's praise. We may possibly venture to see in
these wonderful words of our text a dim and far-off hint of a
possibility that seems to be pointed at in many parts of Scripture--that
the blessings of Christ's mighty work shall, in some measure and manner,
pass through man to his dwelling-place and its creatures. Dark shadows
of evil--the mystery of pain and sorrow--lie over earth and all its
tribes. 'We look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth
righteousness.' And the statements of Scripture which represent creation
as suffering by man's sin, and participant in its degree in man's
redemption, seem too emphatic and precise, as well as too frequent, and
in too didactic connections, to be lightly brushed aside as poetic
imagery. May it not be that man's transgression
'Broke the fair music that all creatures made
To their great Lord, whose love their motion swayed,'
and that man's restoration may, indeed, bring back all that hath life
and breath to a harmonious blessedness--according to the deep and
enigmatical words, which declare that 'the creature itself also shall be
delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory
of the children of God'? Be that as it may, at all events our second
text opens to us the gates of the heavenly temple, and shows us there
the saintly ranks and angel companies gathered in the city whose walls
are salvation and its gates praise. They harmonise with that other later
vision of heaven which the Seer in Patmos beheld, not only in setting
before us worship as the glad work of all who are there, but in teaching
the connection between the praises of men, and the answering hymns of
angels. The harps of heaven are hushed to hear _their_ praise who can
sing, 'Thou hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood,' and, in answer to
that hymn of thanksgiving for unexampled deliverance and resorting
grace, the angels around the throne break forth into new songs to the
Lamb that was slain--while still wider spread the broadening circles of
harmonious praise, till at last 'every creature which is in heaven, and
on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all
that are in them,' join in the mighty hymn of 'Blessing, and honour, and
glory, and power, unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb
for ever and ever.' Then the rapturous exclamation from human souls
redeemed,--'Oh! the blessedness of the men whom Thou hast loved and
saved,' shall be answered by choral praise from everything that hath
breath.
And are you dumb, my friend, in these universal bursts of praise? Is
that because you have not chosen to take the universal blessing which
God gives? You have nothing to do but to receive the things that are
freely given to you of God--the forgiveness, the cleansing, the life,
that come from Christ by faith. Take them, and call upon the name of the
Lord, And can you refuse His gifts and withhold your praise? You can be
eloquent in thanks to those who do you kindnesses, and in praise of
those whom you admire and love, but your best Friend receives none of
your gratitude and none of your praise. Ignoble silence and dull
unthankfulness--with these you requite your Saviour! 'I tell you that,
if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out!'