AN ESSAY. 17 and very few ; nor do they contain a hundredth part of those glorious revelations that are made to us by Christ Jesus and his apostles ; nor can we suppose God excludes all other parts of the gospel from verse and singing. Most express words of scripture furnish me with a third ar- gument ; Eph. v. 19, 20. and Col. iii. 16, 17 which are the two chief commands of the New Testament for singing ; both bid us " make melody, and give thanks to God the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." This is one of the glories of gos- pel-worship, that all must be offered to the Father in his naine. So very particular is our Lord Jesus in this command, that his last sermon to his disciples mentions it four times ; John xiv. 13, 14. and xvi. 23, 24. Now why should we make conscience of praying in the name of Christ always, and offer up our praises in his name when we speak in prose? And yet when we give thanks in verse, we almost bind ourselves to take no more notice of the name of Christ than David or Moses did. Why should every part of divine worship under the gospel be expressed in language suited to that gospel, namely, praying, preaching, baptism and the Lord's supper; and yet when we perform that part of worship which brings us nearest to the heavenly state, we must run back again to the law to borrow materials for this-ser- vice : And when we are employed in the work of angels, we talk the language of the infant-church, and speak in types and shadows ? while we bind ourselves, to the words of David, " when he inclines his ear to a parable, and opens his dark say - ing upon th W e harp Psal. xlix. 4. e have given too great countenance to those who still continue the use of the harp while they open the dark saying. The fourth argument may be thus drawn up. There is almost an infinite number of different occasions for praise and thanksgivings, as well as for prayer, in the life of a christian ; and there is not a set of Psalms already prepared that can an- swer all the varieties of the providence and the grace of God,. Now if God will be praised for all his mercies, and singing be one method of praise, we have some reason to believe that God doth not utterly confine us even to the forms of his own compos- ing. This is thought a very sufficient reason to resist the _impo- sition of any book of prayers ; and I grant -that no number of prayers of human composure can express every new difficulty or future want of a christian ; scarce can we suppose a divine volume should do it, except it be equal to many folios. How- ever I can see nothing in the inspired book of praises that should persuade me that the Spirit of God designed it as an universal Psalm-book ; nor that he intended these to include or provide for all the occasions of thanksgiving that ever should befall Jews or Christians in a single or social capacity. We find in the history of scripture, that new favours received from God were con_ VoL. ix. I3
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