The saints everlasting rest

7. Another singular help is this: be much in that angelical work of praise. As the most heavenly spirits will have the most heavenly employment, so the more heavenly the employment, the more will it make the spirit heavenly: though the heart be the fountain of all our actions, yet do those actions, by a kind of reflection, work much on the heart from whence they spring: the like also may be said of our speeches. So ⟨p. 316⟩that the work of praising GOD, being the most heavenly work, is likely to raise us to the most heavenly temper. This is the work of those saints and angels, and this will be our own everlasting work: if we were more taken up in this employment now, we should be liker to what we shall be then. When Aristotle was asked what he thought of music, he answers Jovem neque canere, neque citharam pulsare; that Jupiter did neither sing, nor play on the harp; thinking it an unprofitable art to men, which was no more delightful to GOD. But christians may better argue from the like ground, that singing of praise is a most profitable duty, because it is as it were so delightful to GOD himself, that he hath made it his people's eternal work; […] they shall sing the song of Moses, and the song of the Lamb. As desire, and faith, and hope, are of shorter continuance than love and joy; so also pro•ching, and prayer, and sacraments, and all means for confirmation, and expression of faith and hope, shall cease, when our thanks and praise, and triumphant expressions of love and joy shall abide for-ever. The liveliest emblem of heaven that I know upon earth is, when the people of GOD in the deep sense of his excellency and bounty, from hearts abounding with love and joy, join together both in heart and voice, in the cheerful and melodious singing of his praises. Those that deny the use of singing, disclose their unheavenly unexperienced hearts, as well as their ignorant understandings. Had they felt the heavenly delights that many of their brethren in such duties have felt, they would have been of another mind! And whereas they are wont to question, whether such delights be genuine, or any better than carnal or delusive?

7. Another singular help is this: be much in that angelical work of praise. As the most heavenly spirits will have the most heavenly employment, so the more heavenly the employment, the more will it make the spirit heavenly: though the heart be the fountain of all our actions, yet do those actions, by a kind of reflection, work much on the heart from whence they spring: the like also may be said of our speeches. So