575. That man hath perfect blessedness
Psalm I
Scottish Psalter, 1650
Psalm 1. The Tree and the Chaff.
The psalm embodies a fundamental teaching of the Old Testament, namely, that true happiness is to be found only in knowing and serving God.
MUSIC. DUNFERMLINE is a Scottish tune of unknown origin. The name is that of a town in Scotland. It appeared as one of the twelve “Common Tunes” (tunes not attached to any particular psalms) in The CL Psalms of David, &c., Edinburgh, 1615. In England the tune was included in Ravencroft’s Whole Book of Psalms, 1621.
Note on the Scottish Psalter, 1650
The origin of the Scottish Psalter, 1650, which is the source of nearly all the metrical psalms in Book Five of the Hymnary, may be briefly summarized as follows:
The church in Scotland, at the time of the Reformation, modeled its service after Calvin’s in Geneva. No hymns were permitted to be sung; only the Words of inspired Scripture were allowed for use in worship. For two hundred years after Luther had inspired a rich treasury of “man-made” poems for use in congregational singing, the Calvinistic churches were still using only psalms and paraphrases of Scripture.
In compiling a Psalter, the Scottish reformers adopted the entire Anglo-Genevan Psalter used by John Knox, to which they added selections from the English Old Version by Sternhold and Hopkins, and 21 more by Scottish writers. Tunes, over 100 in all, were adopted from the Anglo-Genevan, French, and English Psalters, in each case the melody only being printed. In 1635 an edition was published with the tunes in harmony, the work of Edmund Millar.