PREFACE. 31 churches can have no music but the voice, and others will have none besides? Why then must all who will sing a psalm at church, use such words, as if they were to play upon harp and psaltery; when thousands never saw such instrument, and know nothing of the art? You will tell me, perhaps, that when you take these expressions upon your lips, you mean only, that you will worship God according to his ap- pointment now, even as David worshipped him in his day, according to God's appointment then. But why will you confine yourselves to speak one thing, and mean another? Why must we bound up to such words, as can never be addressed to God in their own sense ? And since the heart of a Christian cannot join herein with his lips, why may not Lis lips be led to speak his heart? Experience itself has often shewn, that it interrupts the holy melody, and spoils the devctinn of many a sincere good man or woman, when, in the midst of the song, some speeches of David have been almost imposed upon their tongues, where he relates his own troubles, his banishment, or peculiar deliverances ; where he speaks like a Jewish prince, a musician, or a pro- phet; or where the sense is so obscure, that it cannot be understood without a learned commentator. Here I may with courage address myself to the heart and conscience of many pious and observing Christians, and ask them, whether they have not found a most divine pleasure in singing, when the words of the psalm have happily expressed their frame of soul? Have you not felt a new joy spring within you, when you could speak your own desires and hopes, your own faith, love, and zeal in the language of the holy psalmist? Have not your spirits taken wing and mounted up near to God and glory, with the song of David on your tongue? But on a sudden the clerk has proposed the next line to your lips, with dark sayings and prophecies, with burnt-offerings or hyssop, with new - moons, and trumpets, and timbrels in it, with confession of sins which you never committed, with complaints and sorrow such as you never felt, cursing stick enemies as you never bad, giving thanks for such victories as you never obtained, or leading you to speak, in your own persons of things, places, and actions, that you never knew. And how have ail your souls been discomposed at once, and the strings of harmony all untuned! You could riot proceed in the song with your hearts, and your lips have sunk their joy, and faultered in the tune ; you have been balked and ashamed, and knew not whether it were better to be silent, or to follow on with the clerk and the multitude, and sing with cold devotion, and perhaps in darkness too, without thought or meaning. Let it be replied here, That to prevent this inconvenience, such psalms and sentences may be always omitted by him that leads the song, or may have a more useful turn given in the mind of those that sing. But I answer; Since such psalms and sentences are not to be sung, they may be as welt omitted by the translator, or may have a more useful turn given in the verse than it is possible for all the singers to give on a sudden in their minds. And this is all that I contend for. I come therefore to the third thing I proposed, and that is to explain my own design, which in short is this, namely, to accommodate the book of psalms to christian worship. And in order to this, it is necessary to divest David and Asap'', &c. of every other character but that of a psalmist and a saint, and to make them always speak the common sense of a christian. Attempting the work with this view, I have entirely omitted some whole psalms, and large pieces of many others : and have chosen out of all of them, such parts only, as might easily and naturally be accommodated to the various occasions of the christian life, or at least might afford us some beautiful allusion to christian affairs : These I have copied and explained in the general style of the gospel; nor have I confined my expressions to any particular p ty or opinion ; that is words, prepared for public worship, atol iM the lips of niui-
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