The Benefits of Public Worship – David Welsh
‘I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord’ (Psalm 122:1) In these words, we have the expression of a condition of feeling, along with a statement of the occasion by which it was induced. The feeling was one of holy joy; and the occasion of it was an invitation to enter into the courts of the Lord. The Jews were directed to hold their three great yearly feasts in the city of the Lord; and from all quarters of Judea upon these solemn seasons, the inhabitants went up in companies, or, in the words of the Psalm before us, ‘the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord,’ that is, according to the injunctions of the testimony – or in compliance with the precepts of their law. And the Psalmist, in the words of the text, expresses his joy upon being called upon by his brethren to join in their sacred bands. There are many differences between the outward worship under the Jewish and under the Chr...