"As he did cursing love, it shall
betide unto him so,
And as he did not blessing love
it shall be farre him fro,
As he with cursing clad himselfe
so it like water shall
Into his bowels and like oyl
Into his bones befall.
As garments let it be to him
to cover him for aye
And as a girdle wherewith he
may girded be alway."
Another authority gives the "cursing psalm" as the nineteenth of King James's version; but there is nothing in "The heavens declare the glory of God," &c. to justify the nickname of "cursing."
It is said when the tyrannical ruler Andros visited New Haven and attended church there that (Sternhold and Hopkins' Version being used) the fearless minister very inhospitably gave out the fifty-second psalm to be sung. The angry governor, who took it as a direct insult, had to listen to the lining and singing of these words, and I have no doubt they were roared out with a lusty will:--
1. Why dost thou tyrant boast thyself
thy wicked deeds to praise
Dost thou not know there is a God
whose mercies last alwaies?
2. Why doth thy mind yet still deuise
such wisked wiles to warp?
Thy tongue untrue, in forging lies
is like a razer sharp.
4. Thou dost delight in fraude & guilt
in mischief bloude and wrong:
Thy lips have learned the flattering stile
O false deceitful tongue.
5. Therefore shall God for eye confounde
and pluck thee from thy place.
Thy seed and root from out the grounde
and so shall thee deface;
6. The just when they behold thy fall
with feare will praise the Lord:
And in reproach of thee withall
cry out with one accord.
When the unhappy King Charles fled from Oxford to a camp of troops he also was insulted by having the same psalm given out in his presence by the boorish chaplain of the troops. After the cruel words were ended the heartsick king rose and asked the soldiers to sing the fifty-sixth psalm. Whenever I read the beautiful and pathetic words, as peculiarly appropriate as if they had been written for that occasion only, I can see it all before me,--the great camp, the angry minister, the wretched but truly royal king; and I can hear the simple and noble song as it pours from the lips of hundreds of rude soldiers: