The trumpet is the contemplative mind or the mind by which the teaching of the spirit is embraced. The harp is the busy mind that is quickened by the commands of Christ. The timbrel represents the death of fleshly desire because of honesty itself. Dancing is the agreement of reasonable spirits all saying the same thing and in which there are no divisions. The stringed instruments suggest the unison of the voices of moral excellence and the unity of the organ which is the church of God resting on reflective and active minds. The melodious cymbal reflects the active mind affixed on its desire for Christ; the joyous cymbal the purified mind inspired by the salvation of Christ.

Let us praise him on the psaltery and on the harp, supposing that on the harp we may embrace the wood of the cross and on the psaltery we may maintain the universal confession. The sound is harsh because the confession is not held in unity. Let us praise on timbrel and with dance, when we, firmly set upon a restored way of life, adorn the timbrel of our body with the models of best behavior. Let us praise him on stringed instruments and on the organ as we play the fresh strings that are on our harp, let us also, as with the narrow needs of modesty make melodious sounds to God, cleansing ourselves from all the blight of sin.

But someone will say: if the divine nature is incomprehensible, then why do you discourse about these things? Well then, because I cannot drink up the whole stream, am I not even to take in proportion to my need? Or because I cannot take in all the sunlight owing to the constitution of my eyes, am I not even to gaze on what is sufficient for my wants? On entering a vast orchard, because I cannot eat all the fruit therein, would you have me go away completely hungry? I praise and glorify him who made us; for it is a divine command that says, Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! I am endeavoring now to glorify the Lord, not to describe him, though I know that I shall fall short of glorifying him worthily; still I consider it a godly work to try all the same. For the Lord Jesus encourages my weakness when he says, No one has at any time seen God.^[1]