Thus the establishment of David upon his throne, notwithstanding the opposition made to it by his enemies, is the subject of the second Psalm. David sustains in it a twofold character, literal and allegorical. If we read over the Psalm first with an eye to the literal David, the meaning is obvious, and put out of all dispute by the sacred history. There is indeed an uncommon glow in the expression, and sublimity in the figures; and the diction is now and then exaggerated, as it were, on purpose to intimate and lead us to the contemplation of higher and more important matters concealed within. In compliance with this admonition, if we take another survey of the Psalm, as relative to the person and concerns of the spiritual David, a nobler series of events instantly rises to view, and the meaning becomes more evident, as well as exalted. The colouring, which may perhaps seem too bold and glaring for the king of Israel, will no longer appear so, when laid upon his great antitype. After we have thus attentively considered the subject apart, let us look at them together, and we shall behold the full beauty and majesty of this most charming poem. We shall perceive the two senses very distinct from each other, yet conspiring in perfect harmony, and bearing a wonderful resemblance in every feature and lineament, while the analogy between them is so exactly preserved, that either may pass for the original, from whence the other was copied. New light is continually cast upon the phraseology, fresh weight and dignity are added to the sentiment, till gradually ascending from things below to things above, from human affairs to those which are divine, they bear the great important theme upward with them, and at length place it in the height and brightness of heaven. What has been observed with regard to this Psalm, may also be applied to the seventy-second; the subject of which is of the same kind, and treated in the same manner. Its title might be, “The Inauguration of Solomon.” The scheme of the allegory is alike in both; but a diversity of matter occasions an alteration in the diction. For whereas one is employed in celebrating the magnificent triumphs of victory, it is the design of the other to draw a pleasing picture of peace, and of that felicity which is her inseparable attendant. The style is therefore of a more even and temperate sort, and more richly ornamented. It abounds not with those sudden changes of the person speaking which dazzle and astonish; but the imagery is borrowed from the delightful scenes with which creation cheers the sight, and the pencil of the divine artist is dipped in the softer colours of nature. And here we may take notice how peculiarly adapted to the genius of this kind of allegory the parabolical style is, on account of that great variety of natural images to be found in it. For as these images are capable of being employed in the illustration of things divine and human, between which there is a certain analogy maintained, so they easily afford that ambiguity which is necessary in this species of composition, where the language is applicable to each sense, and obscure in neither; it comprehends both parts of the allegory, and may be clearly and distinctly referred to one or the other.
On this book Bishop Horsley remarks:--These Psalms go, in general, under the name of the Psalms of David. King David gave a regular and noble form to the musical part of the Jewish service. He was himself a great composer, both in poetry and music, and a munificent patron, no doubt, of arts in which he himself so much delighted and excelled. The Psalms, however, appear to be compositions of various authors, in various ages; some much more ancient than the times of King David, some of a much later age. Of many, David himself was undoubtedly the author; and that those of his composition were prophetic, we have David’s own authority, which may be allowed to overpower a host of modern expositors. For thus King David, at the close of his life, describes himself and his sacred songs: “David, the son of Jesse, said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, The[The] Spirit of Jehovah spake by me, and his word was in my tongue.’ It was the word, therefore, of Jehovah’s Spirit which was uttered by David’s tongue. But it should seem, the Spirit of Jehovah would not be wanting to enable a mere man to make complaint of his own enemies, to describe his own sufferings just as he felt them, and his own escapes just as they happened. But the Spirit of Jehovah described by David’s utterance what was known to that Spirit only, and that Spirit only could describe. So that, if David be allowed to have had any knowledge of the true subject of his own compositions, it was nothing in his own life, but something put into his mind by the Holy Spirit of God; and the misapplication of the Psalms to the literal David has done more mischief than the misapplication of any other parts of the Scriptures among those who profess the belief of the Christian religion.
The Psalms are all poems of the lyric kind, that is, adapted to music, but with great variety in the style of composition. Some are simply odes. An ode is a dignified sort of song, narrative of the facts, either of public history or private life, in a highly adorned and figured style. But the figure in the Psalms is that which is peculiar to the Hebrew language, in which the figure gives its meaning with as much perspicuity as the plainest speech. Some are of the sort called elegiac, which are pathetic compositions upon mournful subjects. Some are ethic, delivering grave maxims of life, or the precepts of religion, in solemn, but for the most part simple, strains. Some are enigmatic, delivering the doctrines of religion in enigmata, contrived to strike the imagination forcibly, and yet easy to be understood. In all these the author delivers the whole matter in his own person. But a very great, I believe the far greater, part are a sort of dramatic ode, consisting of dialogues between persons sustaining certain characters. In these dialogue Psalms the persons are frequently the psalmist himself, or the chorus of priests and Levites, or the leader of the Levitical band, opening the ode with a proem declarative of the subject, and very often closing the whole with a solemn admonition drawn from what the other persons say. The other persons are Jehovah, sometimes as one, sometimes as another, of the three Persons; Christ in his incarnate state, sometimes before, sometimes after, his resurrection; the human soul of Christ as distinguished from the divine essence. Christ, in his incarnate state, is personated sometimes as a priest, sometimes as a king, sometimes as a conqueror; and in those Psalms in which he is introduced as a conqueror, the resemblance is very remarkable between this conqueror in the book of Psalms and the warrior on the white horse in the book of Revelation, who goes forth with a crown on his head, and a bow in his hand, conquering and to conquer. And the conquest in the Psalms is followed, like the conquest in the Revelation, by the marriage of the conqueror. These are circumstances of similitude which, to any one versed in the prophetic style, prove beyond a doubt that the mystical conqueror is the same personage in both.
PSALMODY. The service of the ancient Christian church usually began with reading or with the singing of psalms. We are not to understand this as if their psalmody was performed in one course of many psalms together, without intermission, but rather, with some respite, and a mixture of other parts of divine service, to make the whole more agreeable and delightful. As to the persons concerned in singing the Psalms publicly in the church, they may be considered in four different respects, according to the different ways of psalmody; for sometimes the Psalms were sung by one person alone; and sometimes the whole assembly joined together, men, women, and children: this was the most ancient and general practice. At other times the Psalms were sung alternately; the congregation dividing themselves into two parts, and singing verse for verse. Beside all these, there was yet a fourth way of singing, pretty common in the fourth century, which was, when a single person began the verse, and the people joined with him in the close.
Psalmody was always esteemed a considerable part of devotion, and upon that account was usually performed in the standing posture. As to the voice or pronunciation, used in singing, it was of two sorts, the plain song, and the more artificial; the plain song was only a gentle inflexion, or turn of the voice, not very different from the chanting in our cathedrals; the artificial song seems to have been a regular musical composition, like our anthems. It was no objection against the psalmody of the church, that she sometimes made use of psalms and hymns of human composition, beside those of the inspired writers. St. Augustine himself made a psalm of many parts, in imitation of the hundred and nineteenth, to preserve his people from the errors of the Donatists. St. Hilary and St. Ambrose likewise made many hymns, which were sung in their respective churches. But two corruptions crept into the psalmody, which the fathers declaim against with great zeal. The first was, the introducing secular music, or an imitation of the light airs of the theatre, in the devotions of the church. The other was, the regarding more the sweetness of the composition than the sense and meaning; thereby pleasing the ear, without raising the affections of the soul.
The use of musical instruments in singing of psalms, seems to be as ancient as psalmody itself. The first psalm we read of was sung to a timbrel, namely, that which Moses and Miriam sung after the deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt; and afterward, at Jerusalem, when the temple was built, musical instruments were constantly used at their public services. And this has been the common practice in all ages of the church. When the use of organs was first introduced, is not certainly known; but we find, that about A. D. 660, Constantine Copronymus, emperor of Constantinople, sent a present of an organ to King Pepin of France.
Clement Marot, groom of the bed chamber to Francis I., king of France, was the first who engaged in translating the Psalms into metre. He versified the first fifty at the instigation of Vatablus, Hebrew professor at Paris; and afterward, upon his return to Geneva, he made an acquaintance with Beza, who versified the rest, and had tunes set to them; and thus they began to be sung in private houses, and afterward were brought into the churches of the French and other countries. In imitation of this version, Sternhold, one of the grooms of the privy chamber to our King Edward VI., undertook a translation of the Psalms into metre. He went through but thirty-seven of them, the rest being soon after finished by Hopkins and others. This translation was at first discountenanced by many of the clergy, who looked upon it as done in opposition to the practice of chanting the Psalms in the cathedrals.
Early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, metrical psalmody was introduced into this country. The new morning prayer began at St. Antholin’s, London, when a psalm was sung in the Geneva fashion, all the congregation, men, women, and boys singing together. Bishop Jewel says, that “the singing of psalms, begun in one church in London, did quickly spread itself, not only through the city, but in the neighbouring places; sometimes at Paul’s Cross six thousand people singing together.”
A curious controversy on this subject arose among the Dissenters in the end of the seventeenth century. Whether singing in public worship had been partially discontinued during the times of persecution to avoid informers, or whether the miserable manner in which it was performed gave persons a distaste to it, so it appears, that in 1691, Mr. Benjamin Keach published a tract entitled, “The Breach Repaired in God’s Worship: or, Psalms, Hymns, &c, proved to be a Holy Ordinance of Jesus Christ.” To us it may appear strange that such a point should be disputed; but Mr. Keach was obliged to labour earnestly, and with a great deal of prudence and caution, to obtain the consent of his people to sing a hymn at the conclusion of the Lord’s Supper. After six years more, they agreed to sing on the thanksgiving days; but it required still fourteen years more before he could persuade them to sing every Lord’s day; and then it was only after the last prayer, that those who chose it might withdraw without joining in it! Nor did even this satisfy these scrupulous consciences; for, after all, a separation took place, and the inharmonious seceders formed a new church in May’s Pond, where it was above twenty years longer before singing the praises of God could be endured. It is difficult at this period to believe it; but Mr. Ivimey quotes Mr. Crosby, as saying, that Mr. Keach’s was the first church in which psalm singing was introduced. This remark, however, must probably be confined to the Baptist churches. The Presbyterians, it seems, were not quite so unmusical; for the Directory of the Westminster divines distinctly stated, that “it is the duty of Christians to praise God publicly by singing of Psalms together in the congregation.” And beside the old Scotch Psalms, Dr. John Patrick, of the Charter house, made a version which was in very general use among Dissenters, Presbyterians, and Independents, before it was superseded by the far superior compositions of Dr. Watts. These Psalms, however, like those of the English and Scotch establishment, were drawled out in notes of equal length, without accent or variety. Even the introduction of the triple-time tunes, probably about the time of Dr. Watts’s psalms, gave also great offence to some people, because it marked the accent of the measure. Old Mr. Thomas Bradbury used to call this time “a long leg and a short one.” The beautiful compositions of Dr. Watts, Mr. C. Wesley, and others, have produced a considerable revolution in modern psalmody. Better versions of the Psalms, and many excellent collections of hymns, are now in use, and may be considered as highly important gifts bestowed upon the modern church of God.
PSALTERY. See [Music].