9.  And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof:  for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;

10 And hast made us unto our God kings and priests, and we shall reign on the earth.

Vs. 9, 10.—­“They sung a new song.”  They all agreed in the matter, as well as in the divine object of worship.  “Now will I sing to my well beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard.” (Isa. v. 1.) Agreed as to the object and matter of the song none is silent in Immanuel’s praise,—­no select choir, not one who worships by proxy.  Such belong to a different fellowship.  This is the “song of the Lamb,” which joined to the “song of Moses,” constitutes the whole of the “high praises of the Lord,” leaving no place for the vapid, empty, bombastic, amorous and heretical effusions, of uninspired men, whether of sound or “corrupt minds.”—­The burden of the song is the same as the “Song of Songs” and the forty-fifth Psalm,—­“Christ crucified,”—­Christ glorified, “the praises of him who hath called them from darkness into his marvellous light.”  The key-note among them all is the work of redemption.  “Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood,”—­us, and not others in the same condition.  Others may talk of a ransom that does not redeem:  but these dwell with emphasis upon the price and power that brought them “out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.”  This happy and joyful company never conceived the idea that, in order at once to vindicate Jehovah’s moral government and give the most impressive demonstration of his opposition to sin, he subjected his beloved Son to untold sufferings, which should be equally available by all his enemies, but specially intended for none in particular!  They never imagined that their adorable Creator was under a natural necessity of “seeking the greatest good of the greatest number,” that he might thereby escape the just imputation of partiality.  Such impious conceptions imply distributive injustice on the part of God, when he “spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell.” (2 Pet. ii. 4.) Neither man’s chief end nor God’s is the happiness of creatures,—­no, neither in creation nor redemption, as is clear to unsophisticated reason, and plainly determined by the Spirit of God. (See ch. iv. 11; Isa. xliii. 7, 21; Eph. i. 12.) The manifestation of his own perfections,—­his own glory, is the highest and ultimate end of Jehovah in all his purposes and works.  “The Lord hath made all things for himself.” (Prov. xvi. 4; Rom. xi. 36.) Now, if the Lamb has redeemed the whole human family, as some affirm; then it will follow that all must be saved, or Christ died in vain, in reference to them that are lost:  and besides, the “Judge of all the earth” would be chargeable with exercising distributive injustice, in exacting double payment, first from the Surety,