PREFACE, 20 mentator ; therefore it is my opinion, that other spiritual songs should some- times be used to render Christian psalmody complete. But this is not my present business, and I have written on this subject elsewhere. To proceed to the second part of my preface, which is to spew, how in- sufficient a strict translation of the psalms is to attain the designed end. There are several songs of this royal author, that seem improper for any person besides himself; so that 1 cannot believe that the whole book of psalms, even in the original, was appointed. by God for the ordinary and con- stant worship of the Jewish sanctuary or the synagogues, though several of them might be often sung ; much less are they all proper for a Christian church : Yet the way of a close translation of this whole book of Hebrew psalms, for English and Christian psalmody, has generally obtained among us. Some pretend it is but a just respect for theholy scripture ; for they have imbibed a fond opinion from their very childhood, that nothing is to be sung at church but the inspired writings, how different soever the sense is from our present state. But this opinion has been taken upon trust, by the most part of its advocates, and borrowed chiefly from education, custom, and the authority of others which, if duly examined, will appear to have been built upon too slight and feeble foundations; the weakness of it I shall show more at large in another place : But it appears of itself more emi- nently inconsistent in those persons that scruple to address God in prose in any pre- composed forms whatsoever; and they give this reason, because they cannot be fitted to all our present occasions; and yet ki verse they confine their addresses to such forms as were fitted chiefly for Jewish worshippers, and for the special occasions of David the King. Others maintain that a strict and scrupulous confinement to the sense of the original, is necessary to do justice to the royal author; but, in my judg- ment, the royal author is most honoured when he is made most intelligible; stud when his admirable composures are copied in such language, as gives light and joy to the saints that live two thousand years after him: Whereas such a mere translation of all his verse into English, to be sung in our wor- ship, seems to darken our religion, by running back again to judaism, it damps our delight, and almost forbids the Christian worshipper to pursue the song. How can we assume to ourselves all his words in our personal or pub- lic addresses to God, when our conditionof life, our time, place, and religion, are so vastly different from those of David ? 1 grant it is necessary and proper, that in translating every part of scrip- ture for our reading or hearing, the sense of the original should be exactly and faithfully represented ; for there we learn what God says to us in his word. But in singing, for the most part, the case is altered : For as the greatest number of the psalms are devotional, and there the psalmists express their own personal or national concerns ; so we are taught, by their example, what is the chief design of psalmody, namely, that we should represent our own sense of things in singing, and address ourselves to God, expressing our own case ; therefore the words should be so far adapted to the general state of the worshippers, as that we might seldom sing those expressions in which we have no concern : Or at least our translators of the psalms should observe this rule, that when the peculiar circumstances of ancient saints are formed into a song, for our present and public use, they should be related, rather in an historical manner ; and not retain the personal pronouns 1 and We, where the transactions cannot belong to any of us, nor be applied to our persons, churches, or nation. Moses, Deborah, and the Princes of Israel ; David, Asaph, and Ha- bakkuk, and all the saints under the Jewish state, sung their own joys and victories, their own hopes, and fears, and deliverances, as I hinted before; and why must we, under the gospel, sing nothing else but the joys, hopes,
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