14 ON TVE IMPROVEMENT OF PSALMODY. and they were taught to ;sing of salvation in all the degrees of its advancing glory. Secondly, In the translation of Jewish songs for gospel -wor- ship, if scripture affords us any example, we should be ready to follow it, and the management thereof should be a pattern for us. Now though the disciples and primitive christians had so many and so vast occasions for praise, yet t know but two pieces of songs they borrowed from the book of Psalms. One is mention- ed in Luke xix. 38. where the disciples assume a part of a verse from the cxviiith psalm, but sing it with alterations and additions to the words of David. The other is the beginning of the second Psalm, sung by Peter and John and their company ; Acts iv. 23, 24, &c. You find there an addition of praise in the beginning, " Lord, thou art God which hast made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is." Then there is a narration of what David spoke, " Who by the mouth of thy servant David, hast said, &c. Next follow the two first verses of that psalm, but not in the very words of the psalmist : Afterwards an explication of the hea- then, and the people, namely, the Gentiles and Israel : The kings and the rulers, namely, Herod and Pontius Pilate, and the holy child Jesus, is God's anointed. Then there is an enlargement of the matter of fact, by a consideration of the hand of God in it, and the song concludes with the, breathing of their desires towards God for mercies most precisely suited to their (lay and duty ; and you fiad when they had sung, they went to prayer in the assembly, and then they preached the word of God by the Holy Ghost, and with amazing success. O may I live to see psalmody performed in these evangelic beauties of holi. Hess ! May these ears of mine be entertained with such devo.. tien in publie, such prayer, such praise ? May these eyes behold such returning glory in the churches ! Then my soul shall be all admiration, my tongue shall humbly attempt to mingle in the worship, and assist the harmony and the joy. After we have found the true method of translating Jewish songs for the use of the christian church, let us enquire also how lawful and necessary itis to compose spiritual songs of a mere evan- gelic frame for the use of divine worship under the gospel. The first argument I shall borrow from all the foregoing dis- course concerning the translation of the Psalms of David : For by that time they are fitted for christian Psalmody, and have all the particularities of circumstance that related to David's person, and times altered and suited to our present case ; and the lan- guage of Judaism is changed into the style of the gospel ; the form and composure of the Psalm can hardly be called inspired or divine : only the materials or the sense contained therein may in a large sense be called the word of God; as it is borrowed from that word. Why then way it not be esteemed as lawful to take
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