Isaac Watts, The Preface, or, An Enquiry into the right Way of fitting the Book of Psalms for Christian Worship, in The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, and Applied to the Christian State and Worship:
THOUGH the Psalms of David are a Work of admirable and divine Composure, though they contain the noblest Sentiments of Piety, and breathe a most exalted Spirit of Devotion, yet when the best of Christians attempt to sing many of them in our common Translations, that Spirit of Devotion vanishes and is lost, the Psalm dies upon their lips, and they feel scarce any thing of the holy Pleasure.
IF I were to render the Reason of it, I would give this for one of the Chief, (viz.) that the Royal Psalmist here expresses his own Concerns in Words exactly suited to his own Thoughts, agreeable to his own personal Character, and in the Language of his own Religion: This keeps all the Springs of Pious Passion awake, when every Line and Syllable so nearly affects himself: This naturally raises in a devout Mind a more transporting and sublime Worship. But when we sing the same Lines, we express nothing but the Character, the Concerns, and the Religion of the Jewish King, while our own circumstances and our own Religion (which are so widely different from his) have little to do in the sacred Song; and our Affections want something of Property and Interest in the Words, to awaken them at first, and to keep them lively.
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I might here also remark to what a hard Shift the Minister is put to find proper Hymns at the Celebration of the Lord's Supper, where the People will sing nothing but out of David's Psalm-Book: How perpetually do they repeat some part of the xxiiid or the cxviiith Psalm? And confine all the glorious Joy and Melody of that Ordinance to a few obscure Lines, because the Translators have not indulged an Evangelical Turn to the Words of David: No not in those very Places where the Jewish Psalmist seems to mean the Gospel; but he was not able to speak it plain by Reason of the Infancy of that Dispensation, and longs for the Aid of a Christian Poet. Though to speak my own Sense freely, I do not think David ever wrote a Psalm of sufficient Glory and Sweetness to represent the Blessings of this holy Institution of Christ, even though it were explained by a copious Commentator; therefore 'tis my Opinion, that other Spiritual Songs should sometimes be used to render Christian Psalmody compleat.
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THERE are several Songs of this Royal Author that seem improper for any Person besides himself; so that I cannot believe that the Whole Book of Psalms (even in the Original) was appointed by God for the ordinary and constant Worship of the Jewish Sanctuary or the Synagogues, though several of them might often be sung; much less are they all proper for a Christian Church: Yet the Way of a close Translation of this whole Book of Hebrew Psalms for English Psalmody has generally obtained among us.
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Moses, Deborah and the Princes of Israel, David, Asaph and Habakkuk, and all the Saints under the Jewish State, sing their own Joys and Victories, their own Hopes and Fears and Deliverances, as I have hinted before; and why must we under the Gospel sing nothing else but the Joys, Hopes and Fears of Asaph and David? Why must Christians be forbid all other Melody, but what arises from the Victories and Deliverances of the Jews? David would have thought it very hard to be confined to the Words of Moses, and sung nothing else on all his Rejoycing-days, but the Drowning of Pharaoh in the fifteenth of Exodus. He might have supposed it a little unreasonable when he had peculiar Occasions of mournfull Musick, if he had been forced to keep close to Moses's Prayer in the Ninetieth Psalm, and always sung over the Shortness of human Life, especially if he were not permitted the Liberty of a Paraphrase; and yet the special concerns of David and Moses were much more akin to each other than ours are to either of them, and they were both of the same Religion, but ours is very different.
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NOW since it appears so plain that the Hebrew Psalter is very improper to be the precise Matter and Style of our Songs in a Christian Church; and since there is very good Reason to believe that it is left to us not only as a most valuable Part of the Word of God for our Faith and Practice, but as an admirable and divine Pattern of spiritual Songs and Hymns under the Gospel, I have chosen rather to imitate than to translate; and thus to compose a Psalm-book for Christian after the Manner of the Jewish Psalter.
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BUT since I believe that any Divine Sentence or Christian Verse agreeable to Scripture may be sung, though it be composed by Men uninspired, I have not been so curious and exact in striving every where to express the antient Sense and Meaning of David, but have rather exprest myself as I may suppose David would have done, had he lived in the Days of Christianity. And by this means perhaps I have sometimes hit upon the true Intent of the Spirit of God in those Verses, farther and clearer than David himself could ever discover, as St. Peter encourages me to hope. I Pet.i.11,12. In several other Places I hope my Reader will find a natural Exposition of many a dark and doubtfull Text, and some new Beauties and Connexions of Thought discovered in the Jewish Poet, though not in the Language of a Jew. In all places I have kept my grand Design in View, and that is to teach my Author to speak like a Christian. For why should I now address God my Saviour in a Song with burnt sacrifices of Fatlings and with the Incense of Rams? Why should I pray to be sprinkled with Hyssop, or recur to the Blood of Bullocks and Goats? Why should I bind my Sacrifice with Cords to the Horns of an Altar, or sing the Praises of God to high sounding Cymbals, when the Gospel has shewn me a nobler Atonement for Sin, and appointed a purer and more spiritual Worship? Why must I joyn with David in his legal or Prophetic Language to curse my Enemies, when my Saviour in his Sermons has taught me to love and bless them? Why may not a Christian omit all those Passages of the Jewish Psalmist that tend to fill the Mind with overwhelming Sorrows, despairing Thoughts, or bitter personal Resentments, none of which are well suited to the Spirit of Christianity, which is a Dispensation of Hope and Joy and Love? What need is there that I should wrap up the shining Honours of my Redeemer in the dark and shadowy Language of a Religion that is now for ever abolished, especially when Christians are so vehemently warned in the Epistles of St. Paul against a Judaising Spirit in their Worship as well as Doctrine? And what Fault can there be in enlarging a little on the more usefull Subjects in the Style of the Gospel, where the Psalm gives any Occasion, since the Whole Religion of the Jews is censured often in the New Testament as a defective and imperfect Thing?
Martin Luther, Preface to the 1531 German Psalter:
The Psalter has been lauded and loved by many holy fathers above the other books of the Scripture; and, indeed, the work itself doth sufficiently praise its Author. Nevertheless, we also must utter our praise and thanks for it … Yea, the Psalter ought to be precious and dear, were it for nothing else but the clear promise it holds forth respecting Christ’s death and resurrection, and its prefiguration of His kingdom and of the whole estate and system of Christianity, insomuch that it might well be entitled a Little Bible, wherein everything contained in the entire Bible is beautifully and briefly comprehended, and compacted into an enchiridion or Manual. It seems to me as if the Holy Ghost had been please to take on himself the trouble of putting together a short Bible, or book of exemplars, touching the whole of Christianity or all the saints, in order that they who are unable to read the whole Bible may nevertheless find almost the whole sum comprehended in one little book … the Psalter is the very paragon of books … Moreover, it is not the poor every-day words of the saints that the Psalter expresses, but their very best words, spoken by them, in deepest earnestness, to God Himself, in matters of utmost moment. Thus it lays open to us not only what they say about their works, but their very heart and the inmost treasure of their souls; so that we can spy the bottom and spring of their words and works—that is to say, their heart—in what manner of thoughts they had, how their heart did bear itself, in every sort of business, peril, and extremity … What is the Psalter, for the most part, but such earnest discourse in all manner of such winds? Where are finer words of gladness than in the Psalms of Praise and Thanksgiving? There thou lookest into the hearts of all the saints as into fair and pleasant gardens, yea, as into the heavens, and seest what fine, hearty, pleasant flowers spring up therein, in all manner of fair gladsome thoughts of God and His benefits. And again, where wilt thou find deeper, more plaintive, more sorrowful words of grief than in the Psalms of complaint? There thou lookest again into the hearts of all the saints, as into death, yea, as into hell. How they are filled with darkness and gloom by reason of the wrath of God! So also, when they discourse of fear and hope, they use such words, that no painter could so portray, nor any Cicero or orator could so express, the fear or hope. And (as I said) the best of all is, that these words of theirs are spoken before God and unto God, which puts double earnestness and life into the words. For words that are spoken only before men in such matters do not come so mightily form the heart, are not such burning, living, piercing words. Hence also it comes to pass that the Psalter is the Book of all the Saints; and every one, whatsoever his case may be, find therein Psalms and words which suit his case so perfectly, that they might seem to have been set down solely for his sake, in such sort that anything better he can neither make for himself, nor discover, nor desire. One good effect of which, moreover, is that if a man take pleasure in the words here set forth and find them suit his case, he is assured he is in the communion of the saints, and that all the saints fared just as he fares, for they and he sing all one song together, particularly if he can utter them before God even as they did, which must be done in faith, for an ungodly man relishes them not … To sum up; wouldest thou see the Holy Catholic Church portrayed to the life in form and colour, as it were in miniature? Open the Psalter. Thus thou shalt therein find thine own self, and the right [knowledge of self], God Himself also and all the creatures.
Martin Luther, Preface to the 1545 German Psalter:
Every Christian who would abound in prayer and piety ought, in all reason, to make the Psalter his manual; and, moreover, it were well if every Christian so used it and were so expert in it as to have it word for word by heart, and could have it even in his heart as often as he chanced to be called to speak or act, that he might be able to draw forth or employ some sentence out of it, by way of a proverb. For indeed the truth is, that everything that a pious heart can desire to ask in prayer, it here finds Psalms and words to match, so aptly and sweetly, that no man—no, nor all the men in the world—shall be able to devise forms of words so good and devout. Moreover, the Psalter doth minister such instruction and comfort in the act of supplication; and the Lord’s Prayer doth so run through it, and it through the Lord’s Prayer, that the one helpeth us finely to understand the other, and the two together make a pleasant harmony … In my opinion, any man who will but make a trial in earnest of the Psalter and the Lord’s Prayer will very soon bid the other pious prayers adieu, and say, Ah, they have not the sap, the strength, the heart, the fire, that I find in the Psalter; they are too cold, too hard, for my taste!
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