2 Samuel 6:5

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"And David and all (he house of Israel played before the Lord on all manner of instruments." 2 Samuel 6:5 .

Variety of worship is an idea suggested by this circumstance. All the instruments differed one from the other, but the subject of the holy song was the same: all the music spoke the same eloquence and adored the same Lord. The instruments were made of fir wood; they were harps, psalteries, timbrels, cornets and cymbals; and all these various instruments concurred in one lofty and thrilling tribute of praise. What applies to instruments applies to faculties and to attributes of every kind offered upon the altar of religion to the glory and honour of God. One man has a harp, another has a timbrel, another a cornet, and another clashes the cymbals to express his religious emotion and aspiration: one man is eloquent, another liberal, another sympathetic, another wise in counsel, another tender in prayer, another powerful in argument; all these are required to make up the great ministry of the cross. The ministry is not fully represented in any one man; it is only represented in the sum total of its members. The harp must not be silent because the psaltery is not played, or the cornet, or the cymbals. If the harp cannot have company, it must offer its own tribute; even if the cymbals have to be heard alone they must not be ashamed of their offering. Better indeed that all the instruments should concur in one sacred offering of praise, but if any instrument persist in keeping silence, the silent instrument must not deter others from doing what they can to extend the kingdom and multiply the praise of God. The greatest mistake which the Church can make is to turn monotony into an idol. This is a practical danger. How much like one another are ministers of the Gospel! Who can tell one clergyman from another? What a disposition there is to formulate all worship, to give it iron shape and inflexible direction. Where is individuality? where is spontaneity? Where is enthusiasm? Because the harp is not a cymbal, is it therefore not an instrument of music? Because the timbrel differs from the cornet, is it therefore unworthy to express the praise of Almighty God? Some men are learned, dry, tedious, and to popular criticism they present the aspect of nuisances; but they are really doing a very necessary and effective work in the Church, in guarding many approaches to the citadel against the attacks of men who are cultivated, subtle, and desperate in their hostility. Other men are popular because they are eloquent, effective, almost ostentatious in service, and they are apt to be sneered at by those who are labouring in secret, toiling over difficult passages of history, and searching into the meaning of recondite terms and usages. All this is worse than useless; it is most mischievous, it is divisive, it is enfeebling, it is disheartening. The complete idea of praise is that which brings within its range all manner of men, all manner of instruments, and all manner of methods. As the Church grows in wisdom and in love it will grow in inclusiveness of recognition and sympathy.