(14) And David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod. (15) So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpeter
I hope the Reader will have grace to distinguish the holy joy and fervor of David's mind which gave birth to this action of his body in dancing before the Lord; from modern dancing, which is frivolous, sinful, and has a tendency to provoke lustful affections. It is impossible, I should conceive, that anyone who beholds David engaged in so sacred a solemnity as this; and, especially, after the awful event of Uzzah's death, can for a moment be led to suppose that the dancing of David before the Lord hath the smallest affinity to the Stage, or Assembly-dancing of poor, sinful, unawakened, vain, and frivolous creatures, that consume their precious time, and dance away their immortal souls, too frequently, from the card-room, and the midnight assembly, to the awful silence of the grave. The dancing of David in this place formed a part of sacred worship. It was the gesture of the body, and the manifestation of rapture which filled the whole soul, by way of testifying praise and thankfulness to God. Reader! should it be your case to meet with any idle or disorderly person, that from this account of David's dancing before the Lord presumes to bring it forward as an apology for dancing: state this circumstance, I beseech you, in its proper light, give them to see the mighty difference here shown. And let them learn that nothing upon earth differs more than what is here mentioned of the holy joy of a devout soul, which, like the heavenly bodies, move round in their several orbits with harmony to the praise of the Great Maker; from that sensual folly of a corrupt mind, which moves only to the sound of unmeaning music, dissipating everything that is serious in themselves or others, at once reproachful to man and sinful before God.