# Does your church sing Psalms as a Gospel Command? Cuthbert Sydenham on Singing...



## C. Matthew McMahon (Dec 10, 2012)

Many churches today sing and worship God according to their own traditions. Most churches don't sing Psalms at all even though it is commanded we do so. This work will be a great help in aiding the church to understand God's prescription for worship.

Cuthbert Sydenham (or Sidenham) (1622–1654) received Presbyterian ordination, and was a Reformed Calvinistic Preacher during the era of the Westminster Assembly. He died at an early age, though he was used mightily by God as a preacher of the Gospel and theologian.


This work on psalm singing is one of the few complete puritan treatments of the subject. Since singing psalms is a Gospel command, Cuthbert teaches this topic very seriously, and covers important objections that are often raised against psalmody – something the Westminster Puritans taught without exception. In seven chapters Cuthbert explains both Ephesians and Colossians concerning “psalms, hymns and spiritual songs,” as well as topics such as the lawfulness of Psalm Singing as an ordinance, the translation of the Psalms to be sung, the abuses of the Roman and Episcopal Church on psalm singing, how we teach and admonish one another with psalms, and important notes about how we are to sing with a mixed multitude in corporate worship. This is a valuable treatment of the subject and is well worth time and consideration on a doctrine almost completely forgotten in our day.

ePub package at the Puritan Shop
A Gospel-Ordinance Concerning the Singing of Scripture Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs - by Cuthbert Sydenham: The Puritan Shop

Kindle Version
A Gospel-Ordinance Concerning the Singing of Scripture Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs: Cuthbert Sydenham: Amazon.com: Kindle Store

Paperback version
A Gospel-Ordinance Concerning the Singing of Scripture Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs by Cuthbert Sydenham (Paperback)


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## Christusregnat (Dec 10, 2012)

Looks excellent, brother! Thanks for making all of these resources available to the church!


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## J. Dean (Dec 10, 2012)

A great many hymns that have been sung in churches I have attended are based on (and inspired by) the psalms.


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## C. Matthew McMahon (Dec 10, 2012)

Christusregnat said:


> Looks excellent, brother! Thanks for making all of these resources available to the church!



You are welcome!

We are working on 4 puritan manuscripts for Psalmody right now. One is this one, the next is due out tomorrow, and then one by a Westminster divine, and then the last by Cotton in New England. Valuable resources.


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## C. Matthew McMahon (Dec 10, 2012)

J. Dean said:


> A great many hymns that have been sung in churches I have attended are based on (and inspired by) the psalms.



I would be very excited for Christ's church if churches would at least take step #1. Sing Psalms. most churches don't sing them at all, though it is a command to do so. Imagine, people find them boring, "old testamente", unapplicable, etc.


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## Somerset (Dec 10, 2012)

This looks very useful.


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## jwithnell (Dec 10, 2012)

Looks like an excellent read. If you use the Trinity hymnal, you'll find many selections based in the Psalms. We read a Psalm each week, and I''ve wondered why we don't just sing it once in a while.


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## Afterthought (Dec 10, 2012)

jwithnell said:


> Looks like an excellent read. If you use the Trinity hymnal, you'll find many selections based in the Psalms. We read a Psalm each week, and I've wondered why we don't just sing it once in a while.


Being one to hang around OPC congregations that are near where I live, I've often wondered the same thing, and also have wondered the same thing whenever a song based on a psalm is sung, yet no psalms themselves are sung in the service.

Edit: I read through it. This is a pretty good work. Some of the terminology may be confusing because they are not the terms in which we discuss the subject now, but the substance of it is rather nice.


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## Tim (Dec 10, 2012)

J. Dean said:


> A great many hymns that have been sung in churches I have attended are based on (and inspired by) the psalms.





jwithnell said:


> If you use the Trinity hymnal, you'll find many selections based in the Psalms.



It is important to recognize that singing something that is "based on" a Psalm is not the same as singing a Psalm. It would not be proper to consider those selections from the Trinity hymnal to be Psalms _per se_ and thus satisfying the command of God to sing Psalms, as per the OP. I am not sure whether you two were implying this or not, but I think it is important to make the point. Perhaps the Trinity Hymnal has Psalm 23 and Psalm 100? But I am not sure what else. 

Anyone would be welcome to prove me wrong by showing a selection from the Trinity Hymnal alongside Psalm verses from the Bible translation of your choice.


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## Poimen (Dec 10, 2012)

Tim said:


> J. Dean said:
> 
> 
> > A great many hymns that have been sung in churches I have attended are based on (and inspired by) the psalms.
> ...



As per the bolded portion above, not only is it _not_ the same thing as singing a psalm, but historically they _replaced_ the psalmody of the early, American churches. Terry Johnson notes (The History of Psalm Singing in the Christian Church):



> The Reformed and Presbyterian Churches in America were exclusively Psalm singing for nearly 200 years, from the Pilgrim Fathers to the Jacksonian Era, as were the Congregationalists and Baptists. The first book published in North America was a Psalter. The enormously popular Bay Psalm Book (1640) was the hymnal of American Puritanism, undergoing 70 printings through 1773. When the Bay Psalm Book and the favorite among Scots-Irish immigrants, the Scottish Psalter (1650), were eventually superseded, it was by a book that purported to be yet another Psalter, Isaac Watts’ The Psalms of David Imitated (1719). _Ironically Watts’ hymns and Psalm__paraphrases were the primary vehicle through which hymns finally were accepted into the public worship of Protestants_, yet not without considerable controversy in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.



Later he argues that:



> The supplanting of the metrical psalms by hymns was gradual in American Protestantism. From 1620 to 1800, metrical psalmody dominated the American church scene... By 1800 the battles over the inclusion of hymns in public worship had largely been fought, and won or lost according to one’s perspective.


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## Zach (Dec 10, 2012)

C. Matthew McMahon said:


> J. Dean said:
> 
> 
> > A great many hymns that have been sung in churches I have attended are based on (and inspired by) the psalms.
> ...



I agree. One does not have to be in favor of exclusive Psalmody to be disappointed at the lack of Psalm singing in the Church today. I'm very thankful that my church includes a Psalm during every service. As others have pointed out, singing hymns based upon a Psalm are not the same as singing the Psalm. I am really looking forward to the new OPC/URCNA Psalter-Hymnal and I hope it will lead to more Psalms being sung in the worship of God.


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## JOwen (Dec 10, 2012)

My congregation is EP.


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## Scottish Lass (Dec 10, 2012)

Tim said:


> It is important to recognize that singing something that is "based on" a Psalm is not the same as singing a Psalm. It would not be proper to consider those selections from the Trinity hymnal to be Psalms _per se_ and thus satisfying the command of God to sing Psalms, as per the OP.



True. But hopefully it's a first step. We sing at least one psalm every worship service, but we often add a psalm-based hymn since regularly singing the psalms at all is new for many in our congregation.


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## jwithnell (Dec 10, 2012)

Zach, I too look forward to this new edition and hope it will facilitate singing Psalms in worship. Setting aside the EP arguments for a moment, it seems that much is lost in translation. If someone could start with the original Hebrew, then make the translation with a knowledge of English poetical meter, we might have a wonderful offering to God in our worship.


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## Tim (Dec 10, 2012)

jwithnell said:


> If someone could start with the original Hebrew, then make the translation with a knowledge of English poetical meter, we might have a wonderful offering to God in our worship.



I am not in any way trying to be snarky here, but, hasn't this already been done?


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## Tim (Dec 10, 2012)

For example, speaking of the Scottish Metrical Psalter,



> The text of the 1650 Psalter was originally the work of Francis Rous, who completed his text around 1644. But before the text was finally approved for use in the Scottish church it was subjected to six years of scrutiny and revision by two different groups of highly learned and devout leaders of the church. Literally every word and phrase was carefully weighed for faithfulness to the original Hebrew texts.



Source for this quote:

The Scottish Metrical Psalter


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## Zach (Dec 10, 2012)

jwithnell said:


> Zach, I too look forward to this new edition and hope it will facilitate singing Psalms in worship. Setting aside the EP arguments for a moment, it seems that much is lost in translation. If someone could start with the original Hebrew, then make the translation with a knowledge of English poetical meter, we might have a wonderful offering to God in our worship.



Ms. Withnell, Dr. Strange is the chair of the Psalter-Hymnal committee and I'm sure he could tell you more about the process, but two members of our congregation are heavily involved on the musical side of the work and I know that they regularly consult with a Hebrew scholar as to whether the work is faithful to the Hebrew text.


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## Tyrese (Dec 10, 2012)

Tim said:


> For example, speaking of the Scottish Metrical Psalter,
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Hi Tim, I just got one of these two weeks ago. Where can I find some tunes to this Psalter?


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## reformedminister (Dec 10, 2012)

We sing psalms during our evening worship service. We usually begin and end our worship from a selection from the Trinity Psalter.


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## irresistible_grace (Dec 10, 2012)

Tyrese said:


> Tim said:
> 
> 
> > For example, speaking of the Scottish Metrical Psalter,
> ...




Common Metre Psalm and hymn tunes


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## JoannaV (Dec 11, 2012)

We have the blue (Baptist) Trinity hymnal and it has some psalms in the back plus some throughout the main body of the hymnal. It can be confusing though because you can't always tell which have been edited. There are quite a few from the 1912 Psalter.


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## jwithnell (Dec 11, 2012)

> two members of our congregation are heavily involved on the musical side of the work and I know that they regularly consult with a Hebrew scholar as to whether the work is faithful to the Hebrew text.


 It's not just a matter of being faithful to the original text but somehow bringing that into western meter. So often, the English in the Psalters is so contrived. Think about it. The Psalms were written in another language and sung with tunes from another era and culture. I might be flirting with dynamic equivalence here, but if you could start with the original text then make the translation specifically so it can retain the poetical cadences -- in English -- that was the original intention of sung Psalms. We'd also need either new tunes, or the translations made with a specific type of meter in mind -- the practice of somewhat arbitrarily trying to choose a tune (in New England, a cantor would select the tune and the congregation could use it or any that came to mind when singing. Jonathan Edwards embraced a "new" style of singing that abandoned the practice) creates clunking patterns. This is part of why the reformed church abandoned Psalm singing -- Isaac Watts among others figured there had to be something better and started to write hymns.


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## Jake (Dec 11, 2012)

Tim said:


> It is important to recognize that singing something that is "based on" a Psalm is not the same as singing a Psalm. It would not be proper to consider those selections from the Trinity hymnal to be Psalms _per se_ and thus satisfying the command of God to sing Psalms, as per the OP. I am not sure whether you two were implying this or not, but I think it is important to make the point. Perhaps the Trinity Hymnal has Psalm 23 and Psalm 100? But I am not sure what else.
> 
> Anyone would be welcome to prove me wrong by showing a selection from the Trinity Hymnal alongside Psalm verses from the Bible translation of your choice.



The Trinity Hymnal has a decent number of Psalms. I have not counted, but whenever we sing a selection I always look down to see where it is taken from. A common one is the Psalter of 1912. The church I'm attending tends to do a lot of psalm selections from the Trinity and we also psalters that we use (more often on Lord's day evening services).


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## reformedminister (Dec 11, 2012)

jwithnell said:


> > two members of our congregation are heavily involved on the musical side of the work and I know that they regularly consult with a Hebrew scholar as to whether the work is faithful to the Hebrew text.
> 
> 
> It's not just a matter of being faithful to the original text but somehow bringing that into western meter. So often, the English in the Psalters is so contrived. Think about it. The Psalms were written in another language and sung with tunes from another era and culture. I might be flirting with dynamic equivalence here, but if you could start with the original text then make the translation specifically so it can retain the poetical cadences -- in English -- that was the original intention of sung Psalms. We'd also need either new tunes, or the translations made with a specific type of meter in mind -- the practice of somewhat arbitrarily trying to choose a tune (in New England, a cantor would select the tune and the congregation could use it or any that came to mind when singing. Jonathan Edwards embraced a "new" style of singing that abandoned the practice) creates clunking patterns. This is part of why the reformed church abandoned Psalm singing -- Isaac Watts among others figured there had to be something better and started to write hymns.



The Book of Psalms for Singing, as well as the Trinity Psalter are good Psalters. We use the trinity Psalter at church and the Book of Psalms for Singing at home. For churches not EP I would recommend the Trinity Psalter. They fit easily in the pew racks behind the hymnals.


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## Backwoods Presbyterian (Dec 11, 2012)

The new ARP Psalter was designed specifically to fit in pews. I recommend it.

ARP Psalter


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## Scottish Lass (Dec 11, 2012)

Backwoods Presbyterian said:


> The new ARP Psalter was designed specifically to fit in pews. I recommend it.
> 
> ARP Psalter


Yes, they're slim enough to be double-stacked in our racks or to fit behind other hymnals in many racks.


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## Peairtach (Dec 13, 2012)

Scottish Lass said:


> Tim said:
> 
> 
> > It is important to recognize that singing something that is "based on" a Psalm is not the same as singing a Psalm. It would not be proper to consider those selections from the Trinity hymnal to be Psalms _per se_ and thus satisfying the command of God to sing Psalms, as per the OP.
> ...



Does anyone know if there are churches where they only sin one hymn at the service while all the rest are psalms?


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## Backwoods Presbyterian (Dec 13, 2012)

That is the practice at our church. We only sing one hymn and the rest are Psalms, and often that "hymn" is a Psalm or Psalm paraphrase out of the red Trinity Hymnal. It may come to a point down the road to where we only sing Psalms, but that is a ways down the pike.


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## Poimen (Dec 13, 2012)

Peairtach said:


> Scottish Lass said:
> 
> 
> > Tim said:
> ...



We mostly sing psalms and most Sundays we only sing one hymn and often none.


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## Scottish Lass (Dec 13, 2012)

Peairtach said:


> Does anyone know if there are churches where they only sin one hymn at the service while all the rest are psalms?


Ours are sometimes like that, but not always.


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## Marrow Man (Dec 13, 2012)

Scottish Lass said:


> Tim said:
> 
> 
> > It is important to recognize that singing something that is "based on" a Psalm is not the same as singing a Psalm. It would not be proper to consider those selections from the Trinity hymnal to be Psalms _per se_ and thus satisfying the command of God to sing Psalms, as per the OP.
> ...



Let me add that when I got here 5+ years ago, we sang ZERO psalms and had no psalter. It takes times to implement changes. The Lord has been good to us, and the new ARP Psalter (the one Benjamin recommends), which is mostly an abridged version of the RPCNA psalter, has been very helpful.


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## Marrow Man (Dec 13, 2012)

Peairtach said:


> Does anyone know if there are churches where they only *sin* one hymn at the service while all the rest are psalms?



Brother, are you trying to make a strong statement against hymn-singing here?


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## irresistible_grace (Dec 13, 2012)

Marrow Man said:


> Peairtach said:
> 
> 
> > Does anyone know if there are churches where they only *sin* one hymn at the service while all the rest are psalms?
> ...


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## PuritanCovenanter (Dec 14, 2012)

[video=vimeo;45120184]http://vimeo.com/45120184#[/video]

For your edification.....

Also Dr. Frank Smith has written a little booklet on reintroducing the Psalms back into worship. 
The Joy of Rediscovering God's Hymnbook: How to Introduce the Psalter into Congregational Worship


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## Jake (Dec 15, 2012)

Peairtach said:


> Scottish Lass said:
> 
> 
> > Tim said:
> ...



While researching churches in the Chattanooga area, I saw one church (PCA) who appeared to do a hymn as the call to worship, and then after that all psalms.


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## Romans922 (Dec 16, 2012)

Peairtach said:


> Does anyone know if there are churches where they only sin one hymn at the service while all the rest are psalms?



We sing about 45-65% Psalms from 1961 Trinity Hymnal and Book of Psalms for Singing. That is with 3 times of singing a worship service with 2 worship services each Lord's Day (morning and evening).


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## Tim (Dec 16, 2012)

Jake said:


> While researching churches in the Chattanooga area, I saw one church (PCA) who appeared to do a hymn as the call to worship, and then after that all psalms.



We have a PB member who attends that congregation. I am sure he would be willing to tell you more about the practice of his church.

tylerray


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## reformedminister (Dec 16, 2012)

PuritanCovenanter said:


> [video=vimeo;45120184]http://vimeo.com/45120184#[/video]
> 
> For your edification.....
> 
> ...



Excellent!


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## JP Wallace (Dec 17, 2012)

3/4 morning and 2-3/4 evening. RPCI Psalter.


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## Backwoods Presbyterian (Dec 17, 2012)

PuritanCovenanter said:


> [video=vimeo;45120184]http://vimeo.com/45120184#[/video]
> 
> For your edification.....
> 
> ...



That was beautiful Randy. Mind if I use this in a Bible Study class?


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