part of the 31st, and expired with a part of the 22d in his mouth.

On the day of his resurrection he expounded to Peter and John all things concerning himself out of the Scriptures in general, but from the Psalms in particular.

Deservedly, therefore, have all pious persons, in every age and country, considered the Book of Psalms as a most precious deposit. These divine hymns have always been, and still continue to be constituent parts of the service of every apostolic church, and subjects of joy and gladness in all the assemblies of the saints.

"Singing, (says Mr. Law,*) is as much the proper use of a psalm, as devout supplication is the proper use of a form of prayer. And a psalm only read, is very much like a prayer that is only looked over, or any other good thing not made use of. You ought, therefore, to consider the chanting of a psalm, as something that is to awaken all that is good and holy within you; that is to call your spirits to their proper duty; to set you in your best posture towards heaven; and to tune

the feast these were chanted together with the 136th, and called the Grand Hillel.

It is probable that our Lord, with the eleven apostles (Judas being gone to expedite his nefarious purpose,) chanted only the 136th Psalm, which served to characterize the whole selection with the title of Great or Grand Hille!; and undoubtedly it was performed according to the usage of the Jewish Church, our Lord singing the first strophe of each verse, and his apostles responding with the next, "For he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever,' as the chorus. * Serious Call, p. 188.

all the powers of your soul, to worship and ado

.ration.

"The difference between singing and reading a psalm will easily be understood, if you consider the difference between reading and singing a common song, that you like. Whilst you only read it, you only like it, and that is all; but as soon as you sing it, then you enjoy and feel the delight of it; it has got hold of you, your passions keep pace with it, and you feel the same spirit within you, that there seems to be in the words."

If the present rulers of the Church of England did not consider the psalmodic parts of public worship rendered more lovely in the ears of all unprejudiced persons, and also more promotive of piety and devotion, by chanting, than by reading them, surely they would not continue the usage of chanting in all the cathedral and collegiate churches of the realm. Nor would the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in this country continue in our Prayer Books those identical rubrics, which direct the choral performances of the Mother Church.

In whatever region of the world true devotion is found, it is one and the same thing; and whatever usage, founded on Scripture, the universal consent of the rulers of the Church has ascertained to be subservient to devotion in one age of the world, is equally so in another. If this had not been an acknowledged axiom, and a regulator

G

of ecclesiastical procedure, the public reading of the holy Scriptures had long since been discontinued, and set forms of prayer and praise had ceased to exist many centuries before the Reformation.

It is extremely difficult to conceive how the chanting of prosaic psalms and hymns could have been so promotive of piety and devotion, during the times of the apostles, the purest ages of the Church, and among all Christian nations, even down to the æra of the Reformation ;* and that it should, about that period, begin to change, and with a sudden start in the 16th century, so lay aside all its former capabilities, and assume contrary ones, as to be thenceforth injurious to the devotion of every subsequent generation of mankind! For my part, I can just as easily believe, that sometime in the 15th or 16th centuries, the holy Scriptures ceased to be "the law of the spirit of life," as I can believe that chanting then began, and has ever since continued, to be inimical to devotion. The very same arguments which are calculated to produce a belief or a disbelief of the one, are equally applicable to effect a belief or a disbelief of the other.

The fact is the change is not in the usage,

* In 1550 Archbishop Cranmer first adjusted the Litany in the English language to a chant, and wrote to King Henry in these words: "I trust it will excite and stir up the hearts of all men to devotion and godliness." Collier's Eccles. Hist. vol. ii. p. 216.

but in ourselves; and it has been infused into us, by numberless arts and contrivances. From Luther no spirit of opposition to chanting ever originated: That reformer was an advocate for it; and, at the present time, his genuine followers retain it in their psalmodic practice. Calvin was a bitter enemy to chanting, and a devotee to isochronous music and rhyme psalmody. He is the fountain from which every purling rill that has ever threatened to submerge chanting, originally flow

ed. But had that reformer been as careful to avoid the Scylla of paganism, as he was to keep. at an immense distance from the Charybdis of Rome, he would not have derived his notions concerning sacred music from the former in preference to the latter.*

Finally-whereas the practice of chanting prosaic Scriptures, and prosaic human compositions of a similar construction, hath been sanctioned by Jesus, and adopted by his followers in every of the world, may I not ask, Who can justly lay any thing to its charge? If God and good men have always been for it, who shall be against it? Is it not enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord? And

age

* Aristides Quintilianus, lib. ii. p 97, taught, that music, regulated by poetic feet of long syllables, is grave, serious, and fit for hymns which are sung in honour of the gods, at festivals, and during sacrifices." And Isaac Vossius (in his book De viribus Rhythmi, p. 86 et 128) advises the moderns" to dismiss all their barbarous variety of notes, and retain only minims and crotchets."-This would indeed be "inventis frugibus, glande vesci."

if the master chanted forth the praises of his heavenly Father in prosaic forms, what degree of credit can be due to the assertion of any one, who says that "chanting is inimical to devotion? For my own part, so powerfully am I persuaded that chanting is an effectual mean of exciting and perpetuating devotion both in the sanctuary and out of it, that, should one arise from the slead, and tell me that it is unfavourable to devotion, I would not believe him ;-because the prophets, and the apostles, and my adorable Saviour, in their practice, have taught me otherwise.

OBJECTION XI.

"Prosaic psalmody is not so edifying as metre psalmody."

REPLY.

If metrical psalmody is more edifying than› prosaic, why was the New Testament written in prose, and why have we prosaic prayers and prosaic sermons? If the assertion contained in the objection be well founded, the Scriptures, the prayers, and the sermons ought all to be in rhyme; for what is true of a part, is equally true of the whole.