Bunyan, John, 1628-1688 -- Criticism and interpretation
4. There was music also all the while at the table, and the musicians
were not those of the country of Mansoul, but they were the masters of
song come down from the court of the King. 'I love the Lord,' they sang
in the supper room over the paschal lamb--'I love the Lord because He
hath heard my voice and my supplication. Because He hath inclined His
ear unto me, therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live. What
shall I render to the Lord,' they challenged one another, 'for all His
benefits towards me? I will take the cup of salvation, and will call
upon the name of the Lord.' 'Sometimes imagine,' says a great devotional
writer with a great imagination--'Sometimes imagine that you had been one
of those that joined with our blessed Saviour as He sang an hymn. Strive
to imagine to yourself with what majesty He looked. Fancy that you had
stood by Him surrounded with His glory. Think how your heart would have
been inflamed, and what ecstasies of joy you would have then felt when
singing with the Son of God! Think again and again with what joy and
devotion you would have then sung had this really been your happy state;
and what a punishment you would have thought it to have then been silent.
And let that teach you how to be affected with psalms and hymns of
thanksgiving.' Yes; and it is no imagination; it was our own experience
only this morning and afternoon to join in a music that was never made in
this world, but which was as outlandish as was the meat which we ate
while the music was being made.
'Bless, O my soul, the Lord thy God,
And not forgetful be
Of all His gracious benefits
He hath bestow'd on thee.
Who with abundance of good things
Doth satisfy thy mouth;
So that, ev'n as the eagle's age,
Renewed is thy youth.'
The 103rd Psalm was never made in this world. Musicians far other than
those native to Mansoul made for us our Lord's-Table Psalm.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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