Psalmody

“ Men filled with wine seek their enjoyment in singing bacchanalian odes and songs; but the men of the Spirit find a higher and more satisfying joy in chanting psalms and hymns of praise to God. The holiest excitement seeks expression in music and song. In the praise meetings of the Ephesians we have the beginnings of Christian psalmody. The psalms of the Old Testament were sung, accompanied by musical instruments. “Singing and making melody” means singing and playing, voice and instrument blending in joyous strains of praise. Then would follow hymns expressing the great ideas of the Gospel. ”

“ What one age considers perfect, or looks upon with complacency, another may view in a very different light. This fact is exemplified in all our experience, and perhaps in nothing more strikingly than in music and metrical psalmody. Stern-hold and Hopkins's version of the Psalms, in England, was satisfactory for a long time ”

“ To him also, even 'to the Lamb that was slain and now lives,' I have addressed many a song; for thus doth the holy Scripture instruct and teach us to worship in the various patterns of Christian psalmody described in the Revelation.
"I have aimed at ease of numbers, and smoothness of sound, and endeavoured to make the sense plain and obvious. If the verse appears so gentle and flowing as to incur the censure of feebleness, I may honestly affirm, that sometimes it cost me labour to make it so. ”

“ Psalmody, or the singing of sacred music, conducted by such a gracious and animated sense of the revealed word of God, must naturally be performed, as it must be ardently felt, in a different spirit—and this truth we perceive daily verified; but while a considerable portion of our clergy not only are strict in confining the singing to the last version, or to parts of Sternhold, and even prescribe the very dull old tunes to be made use of, improvement in church music is not to be expected. ”

“ But history supports a much stronger claim for a musician by the name of William Franc as its author. Yet it may have been one of those very "secular tunes, such as were easy to learn and play on the viol and other instruments ; " or one of the "most favorite songs of the times ; " 5 or one of those "ballad airs as would best suit its metre ; " or an "opera song ; " [?] all which were sung to the psalms early in the reformation, not only by Lutherans and Calvinists, but Roman Catholics : the latter, however, soon became alarmed, and pronounced psalm singing heretical, and forbade its practice. ”

“ I will sing with the Spirit, and I will sing with the Understanding also. Ver. 26. Every one of you hath a Psalm. Eph._ 5. 19, 20. Speaking to your selves in Psalms and Hymns, and Spiritual Songs; singing and making Melody in your Hearts to the Lord, giving Thanks always for all things to God and the Father, in the Name of {235} our Lord Jesus Christ. Col 3. 16, 17. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all Wisdom teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and Hymns, and Spiritual Songs ”

“ In their deeper sense, His words declare that the ears of God and of His Son, the Lord of the temple, are more gladly filled with the praises of the 'little ones,' who know their weakness, and hymn His goodness with simple tongue, than with heartless eloquence of words or pomp of worship. The psalm from which the words are taken declares man's superiority over the highest works of God's hands, and the perfecting of the divine praise from his lips. We are but as the little children of creation, but because we know sin and redemption, we lead the chorus of heaven. ”

“ These psalms climb higher and higher in their rapturous call to all creatures, animate and inanimate, on earth and in heaven, to praise Him. The golden waves of music and song pour out ever faster and fuller. At last we hear this invocation to every instrument of music to praise Him, responded to, as we may suppose, by each, in turn as summoned, adding its tributary notes to the broadening river of harmony—until all, with gathered might of glad sound blended with the crash of many voices, unite in the final words, 'Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. ”

“ The church, quite a cathedral in size, was crowded, boys' schools, girls' schools, men, women, of all sorts and ranks were there. Then I heard such a service as did the heart good to hear. It was only vespers—just five psalms, a hymn, and the Magnificat; nothing more. But the psalms were sung in alternate verses between the choir and the congregation, who knew every word and every note, and sang lustily from their hearts' depths, the plain old Gregorian tones with which many of us are so familiar at home. ”

“ Unto the end, a canticle of a psalm of the resurrection. Shout with joy to God, all the earth,
65:2. Sing ye a psalm to his name; give glory to his praise.
65:3. Say unto God, How terrible are thy works, O Lord! in the multitude of thy strength thy enemies shall lie to thee.
65:4. Let all the earth adore thee, and sing to thee: let it sing a psalm to thy name.
65:5. Come and see the works of God; who is terrible in his counsels over the sons of men. ”

“ The minister mounted his pulpit and I sat down a little below it. In a voice which rang melodiously through the silence he said: "Let us worship God by singing to His praise the 121st psalm." He read the psalm from beginning to end and then the congregation, still sitting, took up the refrain and sang slowly the confident words. It was a psalm which to these hill-folk must have been charged with many memories.
There was more of earnestness than of melody in the singing, but suddenly I was aware of one voice that sounded clear and bell-like among the jumble of raucous notes. ”

“ It is the duty of Christians to praise God publicly by singing of psalms together in the congregation, and also privately in the family. In singing of psalms the voice is to be audible and gravely ordered; but the chief care must be to sing with understanding and with grace in the heart, making melody unto the Lord. That the whole congregation may join therein, every one that can read is to have a psalm-book, and all others not disabled by age or otherwise are to be exhorted to learn to read. ”

“ Yet the psalm is of value as a revelation of a soul's agony relieved by prayer; and there are occasions when its very words can be repeated by men and women who are indeed overwhelmed by trouble. If we do not spoil the occasional by attempting to make it habitual it is wonderful to see how rich the Bible is in utterances to suit all cases and all conditions. Such an outpouring of a distressed heart as the elegist hints at and the psalmist illustrates, is itself full of profound significance. The stirring of a soul to its depths is a revelation of its depths. ”

“ I have made psalms of praise in the holy assembly the chief delightful exercise of my religion and my life, and have helped to bear down all the objections which I have heard against church music and against the 149th and 150th Psalms. It was not the least comfort I had in the converse with my late dear wife, that our first in the morning and last at night was a psalm of praise, till the hearing of others interrupted it. Let those that savour not melody leave others to their different appetites, and be content to be so far strangers to their delights. ”

“ Then, too, besides this captivating music of the Catholic church, we should think of the plain church, the voices of the united multitude, in simple, solemn, sublime strains, presenting themselves as one before the Lord. Even our modern psalm, as monotonous and artificial as it often is, satisfying scarcely more than the grammatical conditions of a musical proposition, has oftentimes an unsurpassable grandeur. ”

“ They have opened the day with the psalm of Thy praise, with the anthem of Thy glory, with the hymn of Thy mercy, with the hosanna of Thy holiness. May they enjoy the day, as they have begun it, in adoring and worshipping Thee ! ”

“ If the community is a large one, let the Psalms be sung with antiphons; but if small, let them be sung straight through.
Let the Psalms of the Vesper Office be limited to four, with antiphons. After these Psalms the lesson is to be recited, then the responsory, the Ambrosian hymn, the verse, the canticle from the Gospel book, the litany, the Lord’s Prayer and the concluding prayers. ”

“ And the sacred poet points all round to the illimitable, beyond the boundaries of time out into eternity, shows the relation of all things, created and uncreated, to the symbol of grace, and how all nations look up to Him in worship.
“The universe in its thousand-fold phenomena, with the chorus of all its myriad voices, becomes one sublime psalm to the praise of the Most Holy; heaven and earth lay their gifts at his feet ”

“ Though it is the shortest psalm in the collection, it is most comprehensive. It is a psalm for Israel, yet it is universal and cosmopolitan, embracing in its scope " all nations and peoples," so that in the Epistle to the Romans it forms part of the Apostle's argument that Gentiles too are called upon to glorify God for His mercy. It is a thoroughly evangelical psalm, for it sings of grace and truth ; it is a beautiful psalm of praise, for it begins with a Hallelujah and ends with a Hallelujah, and there is a third fervent call to praise in between. ”

“ And the Psalms are not all of equal excellence. Some contain terrible outpourings of hatred and vengeance. Many contain fierce and resentful expressions. And though these things were excusable in early times, and were, in fact, not wicked, but only a lower form of virtue, we cannot but feel their great inferiority to the teachings and spirit of Jesus. But taken as a whole, the Psalms are miracles of beauty and sublimity, of tenderness and majesty, of purity and piety, of wisdom and righteousness. They are a heaven of bright constellations; a world of glory and blessedness. ”

“ This psalm is a sermon, and an excellent useful sermon it is, calculated not (as most of the psalms) for our devotion, but for our conversation; there is nothing in it of prayer or praise, but it is all instruction; it is "Maschil—a teaching psalm;" it is an exposition of some of the hardest chapters in the book of Providence, the advancement of the wicked and the disgrace of the righteous, a solution of the difficulties that arise thereupon, and an exhortation to conduct ourselves as becomes us under such dark dispensations. ”

“ Bede understood the “canticum” as properly requiring metre; though he thought that what in its original language was a true hymn might retain that character in an unmetrical translation. Modern use has enlarged the definition; Roman Catholic writers extend it to the praises of saints; and the word now comprehends rhythmical prose as well as verse, and prayer and spiritual meditation as well as praise.
The modern distinction between psalms and hymns is arbitrary (see Psalms) . ”

“ Willard, and then [Pg 127] given out by the ruling elder, line by line, to the congregation. The selection for the morning was the fifty-first psalm, and its penitential character was strikingly adapted to the time and circumstances of their worship. Many a charming voice united in the simple melody, and many a contrite heart mingled its confessions and prayers, in the true spirit of devotion, with those of the pious psalmist. ”

“ But against this hope there set themselves those last words which had come from the mouth of Jesus on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Now these words are the first words, and as it were the prelude, of one of our psalms. So I began to repeat to myself the words of the psalm; which beginneth with sadness, yea even from the depths of sorrow, but these words follow afterwards: "I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted ”

“ Psalm 104.
The glory of God in creation and providence.
1 My soul, thy great Creator praise;
When cloth'd in his celestial rays
He in full Majesty appears,
And, like a robe, his glory wears.
Note, This psalm may be sung to the tune of the old 112th or 127th
Psalm, by adding the two following lines to every stanza, viz.
Great is the Lord; what tongue can frame
An equal honour to his Name?
Otherwise it must be sung as the 100th psalm.
2 The heavens are for his curtains spread,
Th' unfathom'd deep he makes his bed;
Clouds are his chariot, when he flies
On winged storms across the skies. ”

“ The structure of the psalm can scarcely be called strophical. There are three well-marked turns in the flow of thought,—first, the hymn to the Divine attributes (vv. 1-18) ; second, the expansion of the promise, which is the basis of the monarchy (vv. 19-37) ; and, finally, the lament and prayer, in view of present afflictions, that God would be true to His attributes and promises (vv. 38-51) . For the most part the verses are grouped in pairs, which are occasionally lengthened into triplets.
The psalmist begins with announcing the theme of his song—the Loving-kindness and Faithfulness of God. ”

“ By this instance it appears that the singing of psalms, as an act of religious worship, was used in the church of Christ before the giving of the ceremonial law, and therefore was no part of it, nor abolished with it. Singing is as much the language of holy joy as praying is of holy desire. ”