together with the manner in which these several acts are to be performed,—and its being placed here therefore is an additional proof of the pious and prudent care of our Church in the selection of her devotional offices.

It may be well to explain the following phrases in it :-(God the strength of our salvation.) By his power alone we can be preserved from present and future evils. (A great King above all gods.) Above all that have ever had that name ascribed to them; the false deities of the heathen; Satan, "the god of this world," 2 Cor. iv. 4. (In his hands are all the corners of the earth.) His presence and influence extend to the remotest and most inaccessible places, and there is none where He cannot deliver or punish. (People of his pasture, &c.) He feeds our souls by his word and his grace, as well as our bodies with daily bread, and guides us mercifully through this world to a better. (Harden not your hearts, as when your fathers tempted me, &c.) If ever we design to become his servants in earnest, we should hearken immediately to his continual calls; else through a habit of disobedience, our minds become callous and past feeling," Eph. iv. 19; and, like those who have gone before us in the profession of religion, doubt and put to unreasonable trials God's omnipotence, goodness, and truth; and, as the unbelieving Jews were excluded from the land of Canaan, we be excluded. from what that prefigured, the eternal "rest which remaineth for the people of God" in heaven.

66

The Latin sentences prefixed to each psalm or hymn, are the first words of the several psalms in that language, and were retained as names or titles when the service was changed into the vernacular tongue, which the people could understand. There are also dots resembling a colon, which usually occur about the

middle of each verse of a psalm; these denote merely a rest in the music, when the service is chanted, and are to be altogether disregarded in the reading*.

THE PSALMS are appointed by our Church to be read more frequently than any other book in the Bible, because the choice and flower of all things profitable in other books the Psalms do both more briefly contain, and also more movingly express. This book above the rest doth set forth and celebrate all the considerations and operations which belong to God: it magnifieth the holy meditations and actions of divine men: it is of things heavenly, an universal declaration. What is there necessary for man to know which the Psalms are not able to teach? They are to beginners an easy and familiar introduction; a mighty augmentation of all virtue and knowledge in such as have entered before; a strong confirmation to the most perfect among others. Heroical magnanimity, exquisite justice, grave moderation, exact wisdom, repentance unfeigned, unwearied patience, the mysteries of God, the sufferings of Christ, the terrors of wrath, the comforts of grace, the works of Providence over this world, and the promised joys of that world which is to come,-all good necessarily to be either known or done or had, this one celestial fountain yieldeth. Let there be any grief or disease incident to the soul of any man, any wound or sickness named, for which there is not in this treasure-house a present comfortable remedy at all times ready to be found. Hereof it is that we covet to make the Psalms especially familiar to all. This is the very cause why we iterate the Psalms oftener than any other part of Scripture besides; the cause whereof we inure the people, together with the minister, and not the minister alone, to read them, as other parts of Scripture he doth.

* HOWLETT's Directions for reading the Liturgy.

:

In the reading of the Psalms, it should be observed carefully, in whose person the several sentences are spoken. In some Psalms or portions of psalms, it is God or Christ; in others, it is wicked men that speak. These we must repeat as their sayings, and none as our own but what were intended for us. Even the words of the Psalmist, if we were to adopt them, may frequently seem inapplicable to the outward condition or inward frame of many in the congregation. But most of them all good people may say, even of themselves singly, with much truth; for they have constantly enemies, temporal or spiritual, afflictions more or less heavy, valuable mercies, and at times warm feelings of pious dispositions, which, if not present, may be so recalled and made their own again, as to be very sincerely expressed to God. And what they cannot say in their own name separately, they may truly say in the name of Christ's Church of which they are members; and they ought and surely do bear some share of the mercies and sufferings, the fears and desires, of every part of it, in every state; and as David, in some of the Psalms, takes on him the person of Christ, in others he seems to take that of his disciples, and to speak not in any one particular character, but as representing the whole body of believers,-or if there be any passages which neither of these methods will suit, still we may rehearse them as expressing the case of some eminent worthy of old times, and be affected by it accordingly; for we are often strongly affected by the circumstances well described, not only of distant, but of imaginary persons. We may consider, as we go on, the likeness or the difference between his situation, his temper, and our own, and raise from it many reflections of sympathy and caution, of humiliation, encouragement, and thankfulness. Thus, at least, we may bring everything we say home to our

selves, and by so doing, furnish our minds with a most valuable store of devout thoughts and language, perhaps for many future occasions of our own and others.

Objections have been made to the Psalms, one of which is, that in several of them David utters most bitter imprecations against his enemies. These, however, are not spoken of private and personal enemies, but of the opposers of God and his Anointed, nor any among these but the irreclaimable and finally impenitent; and this by way of prediction rather than imprecation, which would appear, if the original verbs were translated uniformly in the present tense, as they might be, and indeed should be translated, The words when rendered in this form contain a prophecy of the infatuation, rejection, and destruction of such as should obstinately persevere in their opposition to the councils of heaven, whether relative to David, or to Christ, or the Church. Or we may use them as expressions of abhorrence against sin, the evil of our own hearts, and the malice of our spiritual adversary.

It has been objected, in the second place, that the Psalms are unfit for our use, because they are full of Jewish notions and phrases. To this it may be replied, that they were composed by the aid of the Holy Spirit with a view to Christian times: our Saviour appeals particularly to those things which are written in the Psalms concerning him, Luke xxiv. 44. Nor is the difficulty great in applying the peculiarities of one dispensation to what answers them in the other; of understanding by the law, the doctrine of Him who came to fulfil it; by Jerusalem and Zion, the Christian Church; by the several sacrifices, that of our blessed Lord, or of our own prayers and praises offered up in his name; by the altar, the holy table; by temporal enemies and deliverances, spiritual ones;

and so of the rest, thanking God at the same time that we have light afforded us to see so much deeper into this and every book of the Old Testament than they who wrote it.

The manner also in which we use the Psalms has been considered objectionable; for that we read on just as the Psalms lie, and thus blend together those of joyful and those of sorrowful import, without distinction and without method, though we cannot be supposed to vary our affections so quick as this requires ; but it should be remembered, that on the principal fasts and festivals, and on all occasional ones, Psalms proper to them are appointed out of the daily course. The present arrangement is older than our Saviour's days; the public offices of the whole Christian Churches have followed it from the very first account of them that we have; and why should we make alterations only to raise perplexities? The Psalms are indeed miscellaneous, but so are many other parts of Scripture. The book of Proverbs is vastly more so. Yet no one objects against reading those as they lie. In truth, scarce a chapter in the Bible can be read but what calls for variety of dispositions and affections to be exercised within a very small compass. Even in a short prayer, is there not great variety if it be well considered? In poetry and music these transitions are often extremely abrupt and sudden from one thing to its contrary in the highest degree, yet the mind goes along with them very easily.

Much more, then, may it do so when prepared, as in the present case, by a previous knowledge of what is to come next, and long practice in the change.