DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3689#0148
146
zA Serious Call to
Chapter XV.
Of chanting, or singing of Psalms in our
private devotions. Of the excellency and
benefit of this kind of devotion. Of the
great effects it hath upon our hearts. Of
the means of performing it in the best
manner.
YOU have seen in the foregoing Chapter, what means and
methods you are to use, to raise and improve your
devotion. How early you are to begin your prayers,
and what is to be the subject of your first devotions in
the morning.
There is one thing still remaining, that you must be required
to observe, not only as fit and proper to be done, but as such as
cannot be neglected, without great prejudice to your devotions.
And that is, to begin all your Prayers with a Psalm.
This is so right, is so beneficial to devotion, has so much
effect upon our hearts, that it may be insisted upon as a common
rule for all persons.
I do not mean, that you should read over a Psalm, but that
you should chant or sing one of those Psalms, which we
commonly call the reading Psalms. For singing is as much the
proper use of a Psalm, as devout supplication is the proper use of
zform of Prayer. And a Psalm only read, is very much like a
Prayer that is only looked over.
. Now the method of chanting a Psalm, such as is used in the
Colleges in the Universities, and in some Churches, is such as all
Persons are capable of. The change of the voice in thus chanting
of a Psalm is so small and natural, that everybody is able to do
it, and yet sufficient to raise and keep up the gladness of our
hearts.
You are therefore to consider this chanting of a Psalm, as a
necessary beginning of your devotions, 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 tune all the powers of your soul to worship
and adoration.
For there is nothing that so clears a way for your prayers,
zA Serious Call to
Chapter XV.
Of chanting, or singing of Psalms in our
private devotions. Of the excellency and
benefit of this kind of devotion. Of the
great effects it hath upon our hearts. Of
the means of performing it in the best
manner.
YOU have seen in the foregoing Chapter, what means and
methods you are to use, to raise and improve your
devotion. How early you are to begin your prayers,
and what is to be the subject of your first devotions in
the morning.
There is one thing still remaining, that you must be required
to observe, not only as fit and proper to be done, but as such as
cannot be neglected, without great prejudice to your devotions.
And that is, to begin all your Prayers with a Psalm.
This is so right, is so beneficial to devotion, has so much
effect upon our hearts, that it may be insisted upon as a common
rule for all persons.
I do not mean, that you should read over a Psalm, but that
you should chant or sing one of those Psalms, which we
commonly call the reading Psalms. For singing is as much the
proper use of a Psalm, as devout supplication is the proper use of
zform of Prayer. And a Psalm only read, is very much like a
Prayer that is only looked over.
. Now the method of chanting a Psalm, such as is used in the
Colleges in the Universities, and in some Churches, is such as all
Persons are capable of. The change of the voice in thus chanting
of a Psalm is so small and natural, that everybody is able to do
it, and yet sufficient to raise and keep up the gladness of our
hearts.
You are therefore to consider this chanting of a Psalm, as a
necessary beginning of your devotions, 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 tune all the powers of your soul to worship
and adoration.
For there is nothing that so clears a way for your prayers,