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Among
all the abundant treasures of the gospel, with which the people of God are blessed in this
day of Christ’s second appearing, the gift of songs claims a distinguished
place. It is a gift in which Believers can best unite their feelings of joy and
thanksgiving for the gospel — in which they can lift up their voices together in
praise to God, while they express their faith and their feelings in all the manifestations
of Christ to his people, and their sense of the inestimable privileges which they
enjoy. Agreeable to ancient prophesy, they can sing in the height of Zion, and
flow together to the goodness of the Lord. Herein true Believers can feel their
spirits assimilated to saints and angels in the world of spirits, where the highest praise
and thanksgiving is poured forth in the blessed gifts of songs.
The object of this
publication is to furnish Believers with a collection of hymns, which have been composed
by the Believers of different places, and which have met the approbation of the Ministry
and Elders of the Church. The occasion may require, in their seasons of worship at
the present day: for, although it can not be expected that every hymn will be suitable to
be sung in every order, and on every occasion, yet there may be hymns selected from among
them, which are adapted to every order of Believers; and it is expected that every family
will select, for their own use, such as are best calculated for their own order, and
adapted to the various circumstances and changes which they may meet with in their travel,
of which they must be their own judges.
The general sentiments
conveyed in the hymns, are conformable to the present faith and testimony of Believers;
they are the effusions of the feelings of those who have occasionally turned their
attention to the labor in this line; and though no systematic order of sentiments is to be
expected into a collection of this kind, yet the faith and testimony of the gospel appears
obvious through the whole collection. Some of the hymns contain lively expressions
of faith, in the present manifestation of God, in the different operations of his
work. In others may be seen the sense of Believers, in their thankfulness and
gratitude for the gospel, and their love and union to the work of God. Others
contain their present sense and ideas of the works of Antichrist — the present state
of the world — the loss of man — the folly and blindness of the present
adherents of the various systems of the antichristian religion etc. In short, the
work of God, and the works of the wicked one, are clearly characterized and contrasted, in
a greater or less degree, throughout this collection; and the faith and sense of Believers
may easily be discovered in these compositions.
It is
not expected that the people of God will ever be confined, in their mode of worship, to
any particular set of hymns, or any other regular system of words — for words are but
the signs of our ideas, and of course, must vary as the ideas increase with the increasing
work of God. Therefore, these compositions, though they may evince to future
Believers, the work and worship of God at this day; yet they can be no rule to direct them
in that work of God which may be hereafter required of his people. As the work of
regeneration is an increasing work, and as there can be no end of the increase of
Christ’s government and Kingdom; so all that his people have to do is, to keep in the
increasing work of God, and unite with whatever changes that increase may lead to, which,
to the truly faithful, will be a continual travel from grace to grace, and from glory to
glory: so that the spiritual songs of Believers, as well as every other part of their
worship, must be according to that degree of grace and glory in which they are
given. Therefore, these hymns, wherever they may be sung by Believers, must be
limited to the period of their usefulness: for no gift or order of God can be binding on
Believers for a longer term of time than it can be profitable to their travel in the
gospel.
This was the first hard- bound book to be published by the Early Shakers. It was used within their own communties — “adapted to the day of Christ's Second Appearing” and “composed for the use of his people”. Here presented are the Preface and an Index of excerpted Hymns from the Original as well as the entire Table of Contents.