1. Stephen Charnock
“Human prudence is too low to parallel divine wisdom: what work will human wisdom make with divine worship, when it will presume to be the director of it; whence will it take its measures, but from sense, humour and fancy? Do not such tell the world, that they were of God’s Cabinet Council, since they will take upon them to judge, as well as God, what is well pleasing to Him? Where will it have the humility to stop, if it hath the presumption to add any one thing to revealed modes of worship? How did God tax the Israelites with making idols according to their own understanding (Hosea xiii. 2)? —imagining their own understandings to be of a finer make and a perfecter mould than their Creator, and that they had fetched more light from the chaos of the brains than God had from eternity in His own nature? How slight will the exercise be — ‘God hath not forbidden this or that.’ — when God shall silence men with the question, ‘Where or when did I command this or that?’ There was no addition to be made under the law to the meanest instrument God hath appointed in His service. The sacred perfume was not to have one ingredient more put into it than what God had prescribed in the composition; nor was any man, upon pain of death, to imitate it: nor would God endure that sacrifices should be consumed with any other fire than that which came down from heaven. So tender is God of any invasions of His wisdom and authority.* The praise of God is the choicest sacrifice and worship, under a dispensation of redeeming grace. This is the prime and eternal part of worship under the Gospel. The Psalmist, speaking of the Gospel times, spurs on to this kind of worship: ‘Sing to the Lord a new song; let the children of Zion be joyful in their King; let the saints be joyful in glory, and sing aloud upon their beds; let the high praises of God be in their mouths.’ (Psalms cxlix. and cl.) He begins and ends both Psalms with ‘Praise ye the Lord.’ That cannot be a spiritual and evangelical worship that hath nothing of the praises of God in the heart. The consideration of God’s adorable perfections discovered in the Gospel, will make us come to Him with more seriousness; beg blessings of Him with more confidence; fly to Him with a winged faith and love, and more spiritually glorify Him in our attendance upon Him.
2. Matthew Henry
“We have before us one of the choicest and most excellent parts of all the Old Testament; nay, so much is there in it of Christ and His Gospel, as well as of God and His Law, that it has been called the abstract or summary of both Testaments. They are spiritual songs, words which the Holy Ghost teacheth: the penman of most of them was David the son of Jesse, who is therefore called the Sweet Psalmist of Israel. — (2 Sam. xxiii. 1.) The far greater part of them were penned by David himself, whose genius lay towards poetry and music, and who was raised up, qualified, and Spirited for the establishing of the ordinance of singing psalms in the Church of God, as Moses and Aaron were in their day for the settling of the ordinances of sacrifice: theirs is superseded, but his remain, and will to the end of time, when it shall be swallowed up in the songs of eternity. Herein David was a type of Christ, who descended from Him, not from Moses, because He came to take away sacrifice (the family of Moses was soon lost and extinct), but to establish and perpetuate joy and praise; for of the family of David in Christ there shall be no end. All Scripture being given by inspiration of God, is profitable to convey divine light into our understandings; but this is of singular use with that to convey divine life and power, and a holy heat into our affections. There is no one book of Scripture that is more helpful to the saints than this; and it has been so in all ages of the Church ever since it was written, and the several parts of it delivered to the Chief Musician for the service of the Church. There is, indeed, little or nothing in all the Book of Psalms of the ceremonial law. Though sacrifice and offering were yet to continue many ages, yet they are here represented as things which God did not desire (Psalm xl. 6), things comparatively little, and which in time were to vanish away. But the Word and Law of God, those parts of it which are moral and of perpetual obligation, are here all along magnified and made honourable nowhere more; and Christ, the crown and centre of revealed religion, the foundation, corner and top stone of that blessed building, is here clearly spoken of in type and prophecy; both His sufferings and the glory that should follow, and the kingdom He should set up in the world, which God’s covenant with David concerning His kingdom was to have its accomplishment in. What a high value doth this book put upon the Word of God; His statutes and judgments, His covenant, and the great and precious promises of it; and it doth recommend them to us as our guide and stay, and our heritage for ever!” — Mr Henry’s ‘Preface to the Psalms.’
3. Bishop Horne
“The Psalms have advantages which no fresh compositions, however finely executed, can possibly have; since, besides their incomparable fitness to express our sentiments, they are, at the same time, memorials of, and appeals to, former mercies and deliverances; they are acknowledgements of prophecies accomplished; they point out the connection between the old and new dispensations, thereby teaching us to admire and adore the wisdom of God displayed in both, and furnishing, while we read or sing them, an inexhaustible variety of the noblest matter that can engage the contemplation of man. The offence taken at the supposed uncharitable and vindictive spirit of the imprecations which occur in some of the Psalms ceases immediately, if we change the imperative for the future, and read, not let them be confounded, etc., of which the Hebrew is equally capable. Such passages will then have no more difficulty in them than the other frequent predictions of divine vengeance in the writings of the Prophets, or denunciations of it in the Gospels, intended to warn, to alarm, and to lead sinners to repentance, that they may fly from the wrath to come. If the imprecatory form be still contended for, all that can be meant by it, whether uttered by the Prophets, by Messiah, or by ourselves, must be a solemn ratification of the just judgments of the Almighty against His impenitent enemies, like what we find ascribed to the blessed spirits in heaven, when such judgments were executed.—(Rev. xi. 17, 18.)
“The Psalms of David convey those comforts to others which they afforded to himself; composed upon particular occasions, yet designed for general use; delivered out as services for Israelites under the Law, yet no less adapted to the circumstances of the Christians under the Gospel; they present religion to us in the most engaging dress, communicating truths which philosophy could never investigate, in a style which poetry can never equal. Calculated alike to profit and to please, they inform the understanding, elevate the affections, and entertain the imaginations. Indited under the influence of Him to whom all hearts are known, and all events foreknown, they suit mankind in all situations, grateful as the manna which descended from above, and conformed itself to every palate. The fairest productions of human wit, after a few perusals, like gathered flowers, wither in our hands, and lose their fragrance; but those unfading plants of Paradise become, as we are accustomed to them, still more beautiful; their blossom appears to be daily heightened, fresh odours are emitted and new sweets extracted from them. He who hath once tasted their excellencies will desire to taste them again; and he who tastes them oftenest will relish them best.”—Bishop Horne’s ‘Preface to the Psalms.’
4. William Romaine
“There is another thing relating to the Psalms, I cannot call it an abuse, for it is total neglect of them; they are quite rejected in many congregations, as if there were no such hymns given by the inspiration of God, and as if they were not left for the use of the Church, and to be sung in the congregation. Human compositions are preferred to divine. Man’s poetry is exalted above the poetry of the Holy Ghost. Is this right? The hymns which He revealed for the use of the Church, that we might have words suitable to the praises of Immanuel, are quite set aside. By which means the word of man has got the preference in the Church above the Word of God; yea so far as to exclude it entirely from public worship. It is not difficult to account for this strange practice. Our people had lost sight of the meaning of the Psalms: they did not see their relation to Jesus Christ. This happened when vital religion began to decay among us. In this situation the hymn-makers find the Church, and they are suffered to throw out the Psalms, to make way for their own compositions; of which they have supplied us with a vast variety, collection upon collection and in use too, new hymns starting up daily — appendix added to appendix — sung in many congregations, yea, admired by very high professors to such a degree, that the Psalms are become quite obsolete, and the singing of them is now almost as despicable among the modern religions as it was some time ago among the profane. I know this is a sore place, and I would touch it as gently as I can with any hope of doing good. The value of poems above Psalms is become so great, and the singing of men’s words, so as quite to cast out the Word of God, is become so universal (except in the Church of England), that one scarce dare speak upon the subject; neither would I, having already met with contempt enough for preferring God’s hymns to man’s hymns, if a high regard for God’s most blessed Word did not require me to bear testimony; and if I did not verily believe that many real Christians have taken up this practice without thinking of the tendency of it, and come to consider the matter carefully, they will rather thank me than censure me for freedom of speech. Let me observe, then, that I blame nobody for singing human compositions. My complaint is against preferring men’s poems to the good Word of God, and preferring them to it in Church. I have no quarrel with Dr. Watts, or any living or dead versifier; I would not wish all their poems burnt; my concern is to see Christian congregations shut out divinely inspired Psalms, and take in Dr. Watt’s flights of fancy; as if the words of a poet were better than the words of a prophet, or as if the wit of a man was to be preferred to the wisdom of God. When the Church is met together in one place, the Lord God has made a provision for their songs of praise — a large collection, and great variety, and should not these be used in the Church according to God’s express appointment? Why should the provision which God has made be so far despised as to become quite out of use? Why should Dr. Watts, or any hymn-maker, not only take the precedence of the Holy Ghost, but also entirely to thrust Him out of the Church? inasmuch that the rhymes of a man are now magnified above the Word of God, even to the annihilating of it in many congregations. If this be right men and brethren judge: examine with candour the evidence which has determined by judgment, so far as it is conclusive may it determine yours.
“The Psalms are the Word of God, with which no work of man’s genius can be compared. His attributes are manifest in every page, and prove the author to be divine. His infinite wisdom shines throughout. His goodness appears to be matchless. His power almighty, to bless the hearing and singing His Word. In this view of the Psalms, what is there to be put in competition with them? What is like their author? What poetry is to be compared with the Psalms of God? Who can make the singing of any human verses an ordinance, or give a blessing to them, such as is promised, and is given to the singing of Psalms? For what reason, then, are they set aside in Church? Why are the words of man’s genius preferred to the words of inspiration? Singing of Psalms is commanded by divine authority, and commanded as part of worship; not left to man’s wisdom how to provide for it, but it is expressly provided for in the good Word of God. And is not great contempt put upon this infinitely wise provision when it is quite disused in the Church, and man’s word is preferred to it? What would you think of them who should throw aside all the Scriptures and never read it at all in the congregation? And is it not an offence of the like nature totally to neglect a part, a chief part of it, which was recorded for the use of the Church, and in which its members were to sing the high praises of their God? It is hereby treated as useless and good for nothing. A very gross affront is put upon the love and wisdom which revealed this divine collection of hymns, and the Church is deprived of the blessings promised to the singing of them, whereby it is robbed of one of its choicest treasures. If anything be sacrilege, this is. The Psalms are stolen out of the Church, and thereby the members are deprived of the blessings promised to the singing of them; for God will not give you the end if you neglect the means. Frequent are His commands in the Old Testament to sing Psalms, and we have several in the New: for instance, ‘Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs? These are not different things, but different names for the same collection of Psalms, as they treat of different subjects. How poorly must it dwell in them who slight and despise the command, yea, so far as never to sing any at all.’ — Mr Romaine’s ‘Essay on Psalmody,’ p. 110.