Longing for God's Presence

John Wells, The Practical Sabbatarian, p. 386:

Let us long for God's presence. God loves affectionate proselytes. A longing David shall see a loving God, Psal. 63.1,2. The Spouse is restless after her Beloved, and thus she meets him, Cant. 3.1-4. The thirsting soul shall be fed with milk and wine, Isa. 55.1. Grace and Righteousness shall satisfy the hungry, Matt. 5.6. The Psalmist follows hard after God, Psalm 63.8. God meets with our pursuits, we shall then satisfy ourselves in God, when nothing but God can satisfy us. Cold suitors shall not meet with Christ in his espousals. When the wife longs, the husband endeavors after the thing longed for. Mary Magdalen bemoaned the taking away of her Lord, John 20.2. We may expect to meet with God, when his absence is our greatest moan, and his presence is our sweetest music. [edited for style]

The Sum is Greater Than the Parts

John Wells, The Practical Sabbatarian, pp. 97-98 (spelling edited):

Thirdly, We must converse with the Saints of God on his holy day; then God's people must gather together, and pursue a joint interest. Public assemblies adorn the Sabbath. Grapes are best in clusters. There are many strings to the Lute, which is the sweetest Instrument. Flocks are most pleasant when gathered together in one company; and Armies most puissant [powerful], when kept in a body, their dissipation is both their route and ruin. Christ's sheep must flock together on Christ's holy day: [David] Pareus gives us four solid Reasons for it, which I shall mention for their substantial worth.

First, The Congregating of God's people (especially on the Lord's day) is the soder of unity; like many stones so artificially laid, that they appear all but one stone. Every Congregation is a little body, whereof Christ is the head: Unity is the strength and beauty of the Saints; nothing so preserves it, as frequent and holy Assemblings.

Secondly, It is the preservative of love. Many sticks put together kindle a flame, and make a blaze. Frequent visits multiply friendships. In Heaven, where all the glorified Saints meet together, how ardent is their love! Absence, and seldom associations beget strangeness, as between God and us, so between one another. To meet to worship the same God, is the best way to attain to the same heart; like the Primitive Saints, who were all of one company, and all of one mind, Acts 2.46.

Thirdly, God hath made his promises to the Assemblies of his Saints, Matt. 18.20; 2 Cor. 6.16. He will not neglect a weeping Hannah, who prays and sobs alone, 1 Sam. 1.13, but will give her not only a Child, but a Samuel: But yet God will create upon the Assemblies of his people a cloud, which was the sign of his presence, Isa. 4.5. And

Fourthly, The prayers of the faithful Congregation receive strength from their union. When all Nineveh entreated the Lord, and put on sack-cloth, God repents himself of that intended and threatened evil, and puts his Sword into the scabbard, though drawn by an open denunciation of Judgment, Jon. 2.7-10. Prayer is the souls battery of Heaven; and when these petitions are the common breathings of the whole Assembly, the force must needs be the stronger, and the answer must needs be the surer. Though a file of Soldiers cannot take the City, an Army may.

All Creation Sings

John Wells, "How We May Make Melody In Our Hearts to God in Singing of Psalms" in The Morning Exercises at Cripplegate, Vol. 2, pp. 76-77:

1. Singing is the music of nature. The Scriptures tell us, the mountains sing (Isai. xliv.23;) the valleys sing; (Psalm lxv.13;) the trees of the wood sing (1 Chron. xvi.33.) Nay, the air is the birds' music room, where they chant their musical notes.

2. Singing is the music of ordinances. Augustine reports of himself, that when he came to Milan and heard the people sing, he wept for joy in the church to hear that pleasing melody. And Beza confesses, that at his first entrance into the congregation, and hearing them sing Psalm xci., he felt himself exceedingly comforted, and did retain the sound of it afterwards upon his heart. The Rabbis tell us, that the Jews, after the feast of the Passover was celebrated, sang Psalm xci., and the five following psalms; and our Saviour and his apostles "sang an hymn" immediately after the blessed supper, (Matt. xxvi.30.)

3. Singing is the music of saints. (1) They have performed this duty in their greatest numbers, (Psalm cxlix.2.) (2) In their greatest straits, (Isai. xxvi.19.) (3) In their greatest flight, (Isai. xlii.10, 11.) (4) In their greatest deliverances, (Isai. lxv.14.). (5) In their greatest plenties. In all these changes singing hath been their stated duty and delight. And indeed it is meet that the saints and servants of God should sing forth their joys and praises to the Lord Almighty; every attribute of him can set both their song and their tune.

4. Singing is the music of angels. Job tells us, "The morning stars sang together", (Job xxxviii.7.) Now these morning stars, as Pineda tells us, are the angels; to which the Chaldee paraphrase accords, naming these morning stars, aciem angelorum, "a host of angels." Nay, when this heavenly host was sent to proclaim the birth of our dearest Jesus, they delivered their message in this raised way of duty, (Luke ii.13.) They were [Grk.], delivering their messages in a "laudatory singing", the whole company of angels making a musical choir. Nay, in heaven, there is the angels' joyous music, they there sing hallelujahs to the Most High, and to the Lamb who sits upon the throne, (Rev. v.11, 12.)

5. Singing is the music of heaven. The glorious saints and angels accent their praises this way, and make one harmony in their state of blessedness; and this is the music of the bride chamber, (Rev. xv.13.) The saints who were tuning here their psalms, are now singing hallelujahs in a louder strain, and articulating their joys, which here they could not express to their perfect satisfaction. Here they laboured with drowsy hearts, and faltering tongues; but in glory these impediments are removed, and nothing is left to jar their joyous celebrations.

Sing David's Psalms With David's Spirit

Isaac Watts complained that it was needful for himself to "teach my Author [David] to speak like a Christian," and therefore in his hymnbook aimed to

have rather exprest myself as I may suppose David would have done, had he lived in the Days of Christianity. And by this means perhaps I have sometimes hit upon the true Intent of the Spirit of God in those Verses, farther and clearer than David himself could ever discover, as St. Peter encourages me to hope. I Pet.i.11,12.

Puritans, however, often spoke of the need to, as Richard Rogers put it, "sing David's psalms with David's spirit; sing with spirit and sing with understanding; regard that more than the tune."

Lewis Bayly's "Rules to be observed in Singing of Psalms" from The Practice of Piety, p. 154, include:

2. Remember to sing David’s psalms with David’s spirit (Matt. xxii.43.)

3. Practise St. Paul’s rule—“I will sing with the spirit, but I will sing with the understanding also.” (1 Cor. xiv.15.)

George Swinnock wrote in The Christian Man's Calling (Works, Vol. 1, p. 342):

Only, reader, be careful to sing David's psalms with David's spirit, and not like a nightingale to sing by rote: 'I will sing with my spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.' Making melody with grace in the heart, is the best tune to set all David's psalms with.

Thomas Ford, Singing of Psalms the Duty of Christians Under the New Testament, pp. 38-39:

Only God's own people have an inward experimental knowledge of the glorious excellencies and attributes of God, (viz.) his power, wisdom, goodness, &c. They only have tasted how sweet the Lord is in his promises and providences. They know, and none but they, what the offices of Christ are, in the power, fruit, and benefit of them. They know what it is to be redeemed from the earth, and from death, and from the nethermost hell. They only have experience of the mercy and loving kindness of the Lord, supporting, supplying them, and ordering all for good to them. And they alone have a lively feeling of their infirmities, sigh and groan under the burden of their corruptions, are troubled for the indisposition and untowardness of their hearts. These and such as these, who are so inspired and affected, can sing David's psalms with David's spirit. Others may sing more pleasingly to the ear, but these alone make melody in the ears of the Lord, who looks at the heart.

Question. That is it we desire to be satisfied in: how we may sing David's Psalms with David's spirit.

Answer 1. It is commonly, truly, and piously said, we must sing David's Psalms with David's spirit, though there is no text in the Bible, to my remembrance that hath those very words; but some speak somewhat to this effect, as Col. 3:16, we must sing with grace in our hearts, that is as much as if he should have said, sing David's Psalms with David's spirit.

2. We grant it is impossible for any to sing psalms so, but one that is a new creature, renewed in the spirit of his mind, as David was.

3. We say in the general, to sing David's Psalms with David's spirit, or to sing with grace in our hearts unto the Lord, there must be not only an habitual, but an actual disposedness; as when a man sets upon any duty, he must stir up the grace that is in him; so it is not enough in singing psalms to have an habit of grace, but we must stir up, and act the gifts and graces of God within us.

Here then this will be the great question: how our spirits ought to be disposed when we are to sing, that we may so do it as to give God the glory, and gain benefit to our own souls? Or, (which is all one) how we may sing David's Psalms with David's spirit? Or how we may sing with grace in our hearts unto the Lord? which is the doctrine in the text.

John Wells resolves the matter for us in his Cripplegate morning exercise ("How We May Make Melody in Our Hearts to God in Singing of Psalms," in Puritan Sermons, 1659-1689, Vol. 2, p. 74):

Singing of psalms must only be the joyous breathing of a raised soul; and here the cleanness of the heart is more considerable than the clearness of the voice. In this service we must study more to act the Christian than the musician. Many in singing of psalms are like the organs, whose pipes are filled only with wind. The apostle tells us, we must "sing with our hearts." (Col. iii. 16.) We must sing David's psalms with David's spirit. One tells us, "God is a spirit; and he will be worshipped in spirit even in this duty."