OF PAROCHIAL PSALMODY; COMPRISING Select Partions FROM THE OLD AND NEW VERSIONS OF THE PSALMS TOGETHER WITH HYMNS FOR THE PRINCIPAL FESTIVALS, ETC., OF CHURCH OF ENGLAND REVISED, AND ADAPTED TO THE SERVICE OF THE BY THE REV. THOMAS HARTWELL HORNE, b.d. RECTOR OF THE UNITED PARISHES OF SAINT EDMUND THE KING AUTHOR OF THE "INTRODUCTION TO THE CRITICAL STUDY AND NEW EDITION. LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. M DCCC LIL.. 147.0.225. SING ye praises with understanding. PSALM xlvi. 7. Teaching and admonishing one another in PSALMS and HYMNS, and spiritual songs. LONDON: COL. iii. 16. ΤΟ HIS GRACE WILLIAM, LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. PRIMATE OF ALL ENGLAND, AND THIS Manual of Parochial Psalmody IS, MOST RESPECTFULLY AND GRATEFULLY, INSCRIBED, BY HIS MOST FAITHFUL AND OBLIGED SERVANT, THOMAS HARTWELL HORNE. JAN. I. M DCCC XXIX. PREFACE. THE singing of Psalms and Hymns has ever constituted a delightful part of Divine Worship. In the lowest state of the Church, when the sufferings of our blessed Saviour were at hand, Himself and the company of His disciples followed the custom of adding praise to their devotions (Matt. xxvi. 30.); and from the practice of Paul and Silas (Acts, xvi. 25.), as well as from the very explicit instructions recorded in the New Testament; (Eph. v. 19. Col. iii. 16. James, v. 13.), and from the testimony of the younger Pliny*, it appears, that the first Christians were wont to edify themselves in "Psalms, and Hymns, and Spiritual Songs." At the æra of the Reformation, the singing of Psalms and Hymns, in the vernacular tongue, was revived in Germany, France, and England, among the means of grace of which Christendom had been deprived.† In this country, the first attempt to naturalise the book of Psalms in rhyme was made by THOMAS STERNHOLD, who published an English metrical version of thirty-seven Psalms Pliny, who was governor of the provinces of Pontus and Bithyuia in Asia, writing to his sovereign, the Emperor Trajan, A.D. 107, concerning the first Christians, says, that they were accustomed to sing among themselves, alternately, a HYMN to Christ, as to GOD:" "Carmenque Christo, quasi DEO. dicere secum invicem." Epist. lib. x. Ep. 97. † Montgomery's Christian Psalm st, p. vi. in 1549: the remaining hundred and thirteen were translated at different times, by John Hopkins, William Whittingham, afterwards Dean of Durham, and other coadjutors. In 1562 appeared the first complete edition of this version of the Psalms, now commonly designated "THE OLD VERSION;" which in 156263, was authoritatively introduced into the service of the Reformed Church of England, being sanctioned both by the Crown and by the Convocation.* The accuracy and dignified simplicity of this version were vindicated by Bishop HorsLEY: and, although it has now fallen into almost utter oblivion and disuse from the concurrence of various circumstances, but principally from its general style becoming so obsolete that the people cannot be reconciled to the entire use of it; yet every one who candidly examines it will allow that its "diction has not unfrequently a liquid sweetness, and generally a force and grandeur, the effect of which is much increased by its simplicity." In 1696, the Rev. Dr. BRADY and Mr. NAHUM TATE published "A NEW VERSION of the Psalms of David in English Metre," which, having been introduced into general use, in consequence of the order in council issued by King William III. Dec. 3. 1696, has at length superseded the Old Version, to many parts of * Rev. H. J. Todd's Observations on the Metrical Version of the Psalms, by Sternhold, Hopkins, and others, pp. 39-42. + Book of Psalms, translated from the Hebrew, with notes, Vol. I. Pref. pp. xi.—xiii. Rev. R. Kennedy's Thoughts on the Music and Words of Psalmody, p. 65. |