18 ON THE IMPROVEMENT OP PSALMODY. tinually the subject of new songs, and the very minute circum- stances of the present providence are described in the verse. The destruction of Pharaoh in the Red-sea; the victory of Barak over Sisera; the various deliverances, escapes and successes of the son of Jesse are described in the songs of Moses, Deborah and David. The Jews in a land of captivity sat by the rivers of Babylon, and remembered Sion ; they could find none of the ancient songs of Sion fit to express their present sorrow and devo- t ion, though some of them are mournful enough ; then was that ad- mirable and artful ode written, the cxxxviith Psalm, which even in the judgment of the greatest human critics, is not inferior to the finest heathen poems. It is a more dull and obscure, and unaffecting method of worship to preach or pray, or praise always in generals : It Both not reach the heart, nor touch the passions ; God did not think any of his own inspired hymns clear and full and special enough to express the praise that was his due for new blessings of grace and providence; and there- fore he put a new song into the mouths of Mary, Zecharias and Simeon ; and it is but according to his own requirement, that the British islands should make their present mercies under the gos- pel the subject of fresh praises ; Is. xlii. 9, 10. " Behold the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them ; sing unto the Lord a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth ; ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein ; the isles and the in. habitants thereof." As for the new songs in the Revelation, the occasions of some of them are very particular, and relate to the fall of Anti - Christ ; it can never be imagined that these are a complete collection of psalms to suit all the cases of a christian church ; they are 'rather given to us as small originals, by imita- tion whereof the churches should be furnished with matter for psalmody, by those who are capable of composing spiritual songs according to the various or special occasion of saints or churches. Now shall we suppose the duty of singing to be so constantly provided for-when there was any fresh occasion under the Old Testament, and just in the very beginning of the New, and yet that there is no manner of provision made ever since by ordinary or extraordinary gifts for the expression of our particular joys and thanksgivings ? This would be to sink the gospel, which is a dispensation of the Spirit, of liberty, of joy, and of glory, beneath the level of Judaism when the saints were kept in hard bondage, and had not half so much occasion for praise. The fifth argument maybe borrowed from the extraordinary gift of the Spirit to compose or sing spiritual songs in the primi -. live church, expressed in 1 Cor. xiv. 15, 26. The several parts of divine worship, praying, preaching and singing, were per- formed by immediate inspirations of the holy Spirit in that day, fur these two reasons. 1. That there might be a discovery of
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