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Christians are ready enough to speak of the privilege of being joyful. They regard joy (and with perfect truth, for it is so reckoned by St. Paul) as one of the fruits of the Spirit; and they are too apt to consider as fruits what they may be permitted to taste, rather than what they may be bidden to do. But throughout Scripture joyfulness is just as much a commanded thing as a promised, even as temperance is a commanded thing, and justice and charitableness, though all the while these may be elsewhere exhibited as fruits of the Spirit, forasmuch as it is only through the operations of the Spirit that these qualities can be produced in such form or maintained in such strength, as a righteous God will approve. But being a commanded thing, and not merely a promised, the being joyful is as actually a duty — a duty to be attempted and laboured at by the Christian, as the being temperate or just or faithful or charitable. Yet how little is this thought of, even by those who are in the main jealous and zealous for the commandments of the Lord! God designed and God constructed religion for a cheerful, happy-making thing; and, as though He knew that had He made joyfulness matter only of privilege, numbers would have wanted it, and would have excused the want under the plea of unworthiness, He made it matter of precept, that all might be ready to strive for its attainment. We wish you, then, to consider whether, when rejoicing is thus presented to you under the aspect of a duty, you may not find ground for accusing yourselves of having neglected a duty. Have you not been far too well contented with a state of compunction and. contrition and doubt, in place of striving to advance into the glorious liberty of the children of God, and the full and felt appropriation of those rich provisions of the Gospel, with which it is hard to see how any believer can be sad, and without which it is hard to see how any one who knows himself immortal can be cheerful? And has not this very much sprung from your overlooking joyfulness as a duty to be attempted, and fixing your thoughts on it as a privilege to be bestowed? You may have often said to yourselves, "Oh! that we had a greater measure of joy and peace in believing;" but have you laboured for this greater measure? Have you wrestled with sadness as with a sin? Have you argued with yourselves on the wrongness of being depressed? Have you made memory do its part in telling up God's gracious acts? Have you made hope do its part in arraying God's glorious promises? If you have not thus endeavoured to "rejoice in the Lord," you are chargeable with having neglected a positive duty, just as much as if you had omitted to use the known means of grace, or to strive after conformity of life to God's holy law; and the continued spiritual gloom which you find so distressing, may not be more an evidence of disobedience to a command, than the punishment with which God ordains that the disobedience should be followed. And do not for a moment think that you yourselves alone are the sufferers, if rejoicing be a duty and the duty be neglected. The believer has to give an exhibition — a representation of religion; it rests with him to furnish practical evidence of what religion is, and of what religion does. If he fall into sin, then he brings disgrace upon religion, and strengthens many in their persuasion of its having no reality, no worth, as a restraining, sanctifying system. If he be always dispirited and downcast, then he equally brings disgrace upon religion, and strengthens many in their persuasion of its having no reality and no worth as an elevating, happy-making system. Yet there may be a lingering suspicion that the "rejoicing in the Lord," so distinctly commanded, is not always possible; that, like some other precepts, it rather marks out what we are bound to aim at than what we may hope to attain. And we may perhaps safely admit that, compassed with infirmities, exposed to trials, and harassed by enemies, the Christian must alternate, in a measure, between gladness and gloom; nay, that since it is more than we can hope, that he may never commit sin, it is more than we can wish that he should never feel sad. Yet is it to be strenuously held that there is such provision in the Gospel for the continued joyfulness of the believer in Christ, that if his joy be ever interrupted, it ought only to be as the sun's brightness may be dimmed by the passing cloud, which quickly leaves the firmament as radiant as before? When betrayed into sin, but only then, has the real cause for sorrow; and if he have no heart for sin, and is a true Christian (sin being that which he abhors, although he may be betrayed into its commission), he will indeed grieve at the having failed in obedience, but quickly remembering the power of the Mediator's intercession, his "heaviness may endure for a night, but joy should return to him in the morning." And it would seem as if the latter clause in our text were intended to meet the objection that there are causes of sorrow which must prevent continued rejoicing. Not content with bidding the righteous "rejoice in the Lord," he singles out one of the attributes, one of the distinguishing properties of God, and requires that it be made a subject of special thanksgiving — "Give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness." We suppose that by adding to the general call for rejoicing, a call for thanksgiving at the remembrance of God's holiness — that property at which the timid might feel as though it almost stood in their way — the psalmist wished to show that there was no sufficient reason in the circumstances of the true believer why he should not habitually exult in the Lord. There is nothing, it appears, in the attributes of God to prevent, nay, there is nothing but what must encourage, rejoicing. And is it not too self-evident a proposition, to require the being supported by argument, that if there be nothing in God in which we may not rejoice, there can be nothing in the universe at which we ought to be sad? We may conclude, therefore, that it is not asking too much from the believer, — a redeemed man, a baptized man, a justified man, a man for whose good "all things work together," a man who may say that all things are his, "whether life or death, things present or things to come," — it is not asking too much from him, to ask that his habitual mood be that of gladness, and that he present religion to the world as a peaceful, cheerful, happy-making thing.

(H. Melvill, B.D.)

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KJV: Rejoice in the LORD, ye righteous; and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness.

WEB: Be glad in Yahweh, you righteous people! Give thanks to his holy Name. A Psalm.