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A43706 A sermon preached at St. Bride's Church, on St. Cæcilia's Day, Nov. 22, 1685 being the anniversary feast of the lovers of musick / by Charles Hickman ... Hickman, Charles, 1648-1713. 1696 (1696) Wing H1903; ESTC R18559 10,144 30

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A SERMON Preached at St. Bride's Church ON St. CAECILIA'S Day Nov. 22. 1695. Being the Anniversary Feast of the Lovers of Musick By CHARLES HICKMAN D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty Published at the Request of the Stewards LONDON Printed for Walther Kettelby at the Bishops Head in St. Paul's Church-yard 1696. TO THE STEWARDS OF St. Caecilia's Feast The Honourable Lord Drummond Sir Tho. Murray Baronet J. Crauford Esq James Harris Esq Phil. Howard Esq Archibald Hutchinson Esq Ant. Robert Gent. John Bowman Gen. My Lord and Gentlemen SINCE you have been so hard upon me as to make me Preach without allowing me time to Think and harder yet to make me Publish my undigested Thoughts I hope the World will pardon this imperfect Discourse and look upon it not as a Composition but a Voluntary But I know not how you can pardon me for exposing your Names before it nor yet how you can condemn me for taking this innocent Revenge All that I can say to pacify you is that I am sorry there are so many Faults in this Discourse for you to answer for and all that I can do to acquit you is to declare that as you importun'd me to Publish it so you were importun'd to it by others and if it does not answer their Expectations now upon second Thoughts they have the liberty to say that the Sermon is not Good but their saying so is an Argument that it is True That the excellent Musick which they heard work'd upon their Affections and raised their Good Nature above their Judgment and made them approve that in the Pulpit which they now dislike from the Press so that in truth it was not the Sermon that commended the Musick but the Musick set off the Sermon for want of which Charm to Guard it it now comes into the World Naked and Exposed like Orpheus without his Harp and like him must expect to be pull●d in pieces unless you please to Patronize it for the sake of its Subject and allow it some Favour too upon account of its Author who has run all this Danger only to show how much he is Your obedient humble Servant Charles Hickman A SERMON ON St. CAECILIA's Day PSAL. C. vers 1. O be joyful in the Lord all ye lands serve the Lord with gladness and come before his presence with a song JOY and Gladness and a Song those charming Ingredients that make up the Heavenly Banquet in my Text are such agreeable Entertainments that we are ready to follow them without the Formality of a Command and even without the Ceremony of an Invitation and such is the Entertainment which we all propose this Day But that there should be such joy in the Lord such Gladness in His Service and His Presence should afford us Such an occasion for a Song is a Truth which some perhaps will hardly confess and others as hardly understand That Religion which teaches us to stand always upon our Guard should here give such a loose to our Inclinations and bid us indulge our selves is very strange that Devotion which sends us to our own Closets and our own Breasts and there holds us in a solemn grave Reserve should call us out again and bid us expatiate and recreate our Souls in the Fields of Gladness and the flights of Joy is stranger still Nay that the Presence of God himself which strikes Mankind with an awful Veneration and dreadful Terrour should here be thought a proper Subject for Musick and a Song is the strangest thing of all These are such Paradoxes as a superficial Examiner can never reconcile such Mysteries as a sensual Man will never comprehend But how irreconcileable or mysterious soever they may seem I hope to convince you that there is no Mystery in the thing at all but that the Duty which is enjoyn'd us in my Text and which gave occasion for our Meeting together this day is not only a very pleasing but a very practicable thing and accordingly I shall show in my following Discourse I. What it is to be Joyful in the Lord. II. How necessary it is to serve the Lord with Gladness III. How decent and convenient it is to express this Joy and Gladness with a Song From the First of these I intend to give some Directions how we should behave our selves at a Religious Feast the Second will teach us with what Chearfulness we should come to Religious Worship and the Third will shew us the Religious Use that may be made of Musick in the Solemnities of both our Worship and our Feasts These are the three particular Occasions of our Meeting here and therefore they must all be handled particularly but in short And 1. Of the First O be joyful in the Lord. Some may admire perhaps why Joy should be made the Subject of a Religious Command and would hardly have expected to find such a word as O be joyful in all the Word of God 'T is a Passion which is so deeply rooted in the Flesh and grows so quick upon our Spirit that it should seem a more proper business for Religion to keep it down t is so giddy a Discomposure of Mind and puts our Souls in so loose a Habit so vain a Dress that to avoid this Vanity some think it worth their while to run into Vexation of Spirit and look upon a four austere supercilious Behaviour as the more religious Temper of the two But certainly 't is a great Mistake and that it is so we need only observe that God himself appointed the Jewish Sabbath to be a day of Rest and the Christian Sabbath to be a Festival that so he might train us up not always to the Fightings but sometimes to the Triumphs of Religion and shew us the fairest side of our Nature Indeed the true Religion was design'd on purpose to bring Man to his true Perfection and shew him to the best advantage and 't is a certain sign of the true Religion to do so not to stop up the ears nor put out the eyes of the People but to allow us the Use and to encourage the Improvement of all our Faculties and the Law-giver must always comply with the Methods of the Creator And accordingly our Religion which is the truest and the best does not go about to extirpate those Passions which were planted in us by Nature but only to graft upon them by Grace and make all our Passions and Affections spiritual It teaches us that God is the Author of all our Good and that nothing can be good for us but what we enjoy by his Direction That Heaven is the only Seat of Pleasure and no Pleasure is either genuine or lasting but what we derive from thence And therefore if we would be joyful indeed we must be joyful in the Lord we must make a prudent choice of such Pleasures as are equally Beneficial both to our Soul and Body and make our Religion and Enjoyment go hand in hand 'T is this