COPYRIGHT NOTICE
This E-Text © 2000, 2006, 2013   Pass the WORD Services.
E-Text Copyright renews with each published update.

On-line at PTW: April 1, 2000
  Last update: July 22, 2013

 

MILLENNIAL   PRAISES

CONTAINING

A  COLLECTION  OF  GOSPEL  HYMNS

IN  FOUR  PARTS:

ADAPTED  TO  THE  DAY  OF

CHRIST'S   SECOND  APPEARING

 

 

 

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COMPOSED FOR THE USE OF HIS PEOPLE

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HANCOCK

PRINTED  BY  JOSEPH TALLCOTT, JUNIOR.

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1813


 

 

lightning.gif (1023 bytes) 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. 

 

 


PREFACE

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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.

 

 

 

Index to:
Excerpted Hymns from Parts I and II

Index to:
Excerpted Hymns from Parts III and IV

 

The Foundation Pillars Revealed
The Restoration
The Only Way
Ye Are God’s Building
The Latter Day
Old Adam Disturbed
Humility
The Union of the Spirit
Let Love Abound
The Fountain Of Love
The Everlasting Parents
Mother
The Gospel Sound
The Gospel Call
The Fall of Man
The Contrast
The Lamb's Revelation
The Tree of Life
The Gospel Child
Love

 

The Virgin Spouse
The Morning Star
How Can We Live Any Longer in Sin?
The Dragon's Rage
Natural and Spiritual Relation
The Faithful Few
The Hiding Place
Carnal Professors
There Are Eunuchs
The State of the World
Love Is The Fulfilling of the Law
Improve Each Moment
Rights of Conscience

 

 

Table of Contents for the Entire Original Book

 

Index of Other:   Shaker Manuscripts On-Line

 

Printing the Manuscripts:  For step by step instructions, how to possibly deal with printer problems, how to customize page headers/footers, suggestions for those with no computer/printer, and more information about the on-line documents at PasstheWORD.

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