The PuritanBoard - View Single Post - Rules to be Observed in Singing of Psalms

VirginiaHuguenot · #16 (**permalink**) 01-22-2007, 04:14 PM

Thomas Ford, Singing of Psalms the Duty of Christians Under the New Testament:

Quote:

In these words here [Eph. 5.19] are two main things considerable viz. the lawfulness and the usefulness of singing psalms. We have done with the former, and now come to the latter viz. the usefulness of singing. This I call the directive part, or Directory, and in it we shall inquire into these two particulars viz. how we must sing, and why we must sing. The apostle shews both. We must sing with the heart, or with grace in the heart; and we must sing to the Lord. Singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord; that is (say some) to the Lord Jesus Christ, or to the Lord Jehovah, i. e. to his praise and glory; as it is said of the Israelites, Psa. 106:12, "They sang his praises." Now this the apostle calls for here, if we would sing a psalm as we ought, to the praise of the Lord, to the glory of his great name, we must do it in or with the heart. God is a Spirit, and will be worshipped in spirit, John 4:24. He calls for the heart, "My son, give me thy heart." So Chrysostom upon this text, "attending with understanding." The meaning of the apostle is clear and unquestionable, that our singing of psalms must not be a lip-labour, an outward bodily exercise, it must not be the pleasing ourselves or others with the tune of a psalm; that is not it which God looks for at our hands, but we must sing as Mary did, Luke 1:46,47, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, my spirit rejoiceth in God my Saviour." And as David in the 103rd psalm, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name." This is that which the apostle here calls for, and it implies these two particulars:

1. A sense and understanding of that which is sung, "I will sing with the understanding," saith the apostle, that is, so as I would be understood by others, therefore by himself much more, "Sing ye praises with understanding;" a blind sacrifice was an abomination to the Lord.

2. 1t must be with an inward feeling and affection of the heart and spirit. So David in Psalm 57:7 "My heart is fixed, my heart is fixed," or, my heart is prepared, or my heart is disposed. When a man's heart is filled with the Spirit, as the apostle speaks, when a man's heart is full of holy and heavenly thoughts, affections, and meditations, and so "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks; when the frame of a man's heart is suitable to the holy and spiritual matter that is sung, this is singing in the heart, or with grace in the heart to the Lord, who looks at the heart, and how a man is affected within. Certainly (as one says) grace in the heart is the best tune to any psalm; and without this, sweetest best tuned voice is but howling and bawling, in the ears of the Almighty. Yet do we not exclude the voice in singing. David used it, "I will sing and give praise even with my glory; Awake psaltery and harp, I myself will awake early." "Awake up my glory," says David; that was his tongue, called his glory, because his tongue in singing was an excellent instrument of glorifying God. Nor do we exclude all modulation or tuning of the voice according to the laws of music, provided there be no affectation of it so as our hearts be wholly taken up with it. Provided also there be no empty tautologies or chanting over and over the same things, tossing of the word of God like a tennis-ball from one to the other, like that cathedral music intended only to please the ear, and no way ordered to the use of edifying in grace and knowledge. But for the voice in singing we plead, and also for singing with tunes. All the psalms were penned in Hebrew metre, with the exactest art that might be. They were penned (saith one) with, "exactness and variety of metre." 1. In such verses as are suitable to the poetry of the Hebrew language, and not in the style of such other books of the Old Testament as are not poetical. 2. Many verses together in several of the psalms do also run in rhymes, as those know that understand the Hebrew; and as Buxtorf shews, Thesaur. 629. But, though we plead for singing with the voice, yet our chiefest respect in that singing must be unto the heart and spirit, to the understanding and to the affection and inward feeling of what is sung, for this is to sing with grace in the heart.

Hence it follows that none can sing a psalm as he ought, but he that hath grace in his heart and is renewed in the spirit of his mind. None could learn that song, Rev. 14:3, but the hundred forty and four thousand which were redeemed from the earth; which was only the people of God who stood in opposition to Antichrist; and by their singing there is meant all spiritual worship performed by God's people to him. It is said there, "No man could learn that song, but those that were redeemed from the earth;" the Antichristian earthly generations had no skill on the spiritual worship and service offered to God in the true Christian church. Therefore the psalmist saith (speaking of this duty) "Rejoice in the Lord, O ye righteous, for praise is comely for the upright;" it is impossible for others to rejoice in the Lord. Only God's own people have an inward experimental knowledge of the glorious excellencies and attributes of God, viz. his power, wisdom, goodness, &c. They only have tasted how sweet the Lord is in his promises and providences. They know, and none but they, what the offices of Christ are, in the power, fruit, and benefit of them. They know what it is to be redeemed from the earth, and from death, and from the nethermost hell. They only have experience of the mercy and loving kindness of the Lord, supporting, supplying them, and ordering all for good to them. And they alone have a lively feeling of their infirmities, sigh and groan under the burden of their corruptions, are troubled for the indisposition and untowardness of their hearts. These and such as these, who are so inspired and affected, can sing David's psalms with David's spirit. Others may sing more pleasingly to the ear, but these alone make melody in the ears of the Lord, who looks at the heart.

That's it we desire to be satisfied in: how we may sing David's psalms with David's heart.

1. It is commonly, truly, and piously said, we must sing David's psalms with David's spirit, though there is no text in the Bible, to my remembrance that hath those very words; but some speak somewhat to this effect, as Col. 3:16, we must sing "with grace in our hearts," that is as much as if he should have said, Sing David's psalms with David's spirit.

2. We grant it is impossible for any to sing psalms so, but one that is a new creature, renewed in the spirit of his mind, as David was.

3. We say in the general, to sing David's psalms with David's spirit, or to sing with grace in our hearts to the Lord, there must be not only an habitual, but an actual disposedness, as when a man sets upon any duty, he must stir up the grace that is in him; so it is not enough in singing psalms to have an habit of grace, but we must stir up, and act the gifts and graces of God within us. Here then this will be the great question: how our spirits ought to be disposed when we are to sing, that we may so do it as to give God the glory, and gain benefit to our own souls? Or, (which is all one) how we may sing David's psalms with David's spirit? Or how we may sing with grace in our hearts unto the Lord? which is the doctrine in the text.

Now here I meet with that which is a very great scruple, and I believe hath taken and kept off many from singing of psalms. They know not how to accommodate passages in them; either those passages are no way suitable to their conditions, or their affections many times are not suitable to those passages; and hence they conclude they cannot sing them so as to praise or please God in them, and therefore resolve not to sing at all.

Further, when they say we must sing David's psalms with David's spirit (if I mistake not) their meaning is, we must be in every respect like David, and in the very same case that it was when he sang these psalms to the Lord. As for instance, the sixth psalm was penned by David when he was or had been sick, therefore we cannot sing this psalm when we are well and in good health. So we cannot sing the 51st psalm, because (as we hope) many of us have not committed such foul sins as David had, viz. adultery and murder. So many of us have not had occasion to fly out of our country as David had, upon which occasion he penned some of his psalms, as Psalm 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 120, &c. So many of us have not a house to dedicate or purify, as David had when he penned the thirtieth psalm, and therefore we may not sing that psalm. To conclude, we must be in the same condition in every respect, as David was when he penned those psalms, or else it is impossible to sing them as David did; that is, to sing David's psalms with David's spirit.