eyes,

or that the sinful things in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the and the pride of life, should be inticing and insnaring, and which, by promising liberty, make men the servants of corruption. There are temptations to good men from the men of the world; by whom they are inticed to join them in things sinful, and whose conversation and evil communications corrupt good manners. Joseph, by being among Pharaoh's courtiers, learnt to swear by the life of Pharaoh. And the reproaches, men ces, and persecutions of the world, are temptations to men, either to make no profession of religion, or when made, to drop it; such a time is called, the time of temptation, Luke viii. 13. Rev. iii, 10.4. There are temptations from the flesh, from indwelling sin, from the corruption of nature, which of all are the worst and most powerful; Every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed, James i. 14. there is a deceitfulness in sin, in internal lust, which sadly entangles, insnares, and captivates; the flesh lusteth against the spirit.

Now in this petition, Lead us not into temptation, we pray to be kept from every occasion of sinning, and inclination to it, and appearance of it, and from every object which may allure to it; and that we might be kept from the sin which most easliy besets us, or we are most inclined to; and that God would not leave us to Satan and our own corruptions, but hold us up by his power, when only we shall be safe; and that he would not suffer us neither to enter into, nor to fall by a temptation; and especially that we may not sink under it, and be overcome by it; but that we may be able to resist every temptation, and be victorious over all.

11. The other branch of the petition is, but deliver us from evil; either from the evil of afflictions, called evil things, because the effects of sin, and disagreeable to men, Luke xvi. 25, from these God has promised to deliver, and does deliver, and therefore may be prayed for in faith; or from the evil of sin, from committing it; this was the prayer of Jabez, 1 Chron. iv. 10, and from the guilt of it on the conscience, by the blood of Christ, the same with the forgiveness of it; and from the dominion of it, that it might not reign in us; and from the being of it, and the sad effects of it; or from evil men, unreasonable and cruel; from falling into their hands, and being ill-used by them, 2 Thess. iii. 2. and especially from the evil one, Satan, and from his temptations; and agrees with the former part of the petition.

III. This prayer is concluded with a doxology, or ascription of glory to God; For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever; and these may be considered as so many reasons, pleas, and arguments for obtaining the things requested, and to encourage faith therein; For thine is the kingdom, of nature, providence, grace, and glory; and so all things appertaining thereunto, are at the dispose of God: and the power; to give daily bread, to forgive sin, to preserve from temptation, to support under it, and deliver out of it; and the

glory; arising from all this, to whom alone it is due; and to be for ever given: Amen, a note of asseveration of the truth herein contained; and used as an assent to the petitions made, and as a wish for the fulfilment of them; and as expressive of faith and confidence, that they would be answered.

OF SINGING PSALMS,

AS A PART OF PUBLIC WORSHIP.

NEXT to prayer may be considered, singing the praises of God, as a religious duty: this may be done in a private manner, by a person singly and alone, James v. 13. and between two or more; so Paul and Silas sang aloud praises to God in the prison, Acts xvi. 25. and in the family, between a man and his wife, with his children and servants: of this private singing of psalms in the family Tertullian speaks, and makes use of this as an argument with christians 'to marry among themselves, that this duty may be the better and more harmo niously performed; but I shall treat of it as an ordinance of divine and public 'service; and endeavour,

sense.

I. To shew what singing is, according to the common idea we have of it, as a natural act of the voice; and as a religious duty distinct from other acts of religion. Singing may be considered either in a proper or in an improper When used improperly, it is ascribed to inanimate creatures; the heavens, earth, mountains, hills, forests, trees of the wood, the pastures clothed with flocks, and the vallies covered with corn, are said to sing and 'shout for jov, or are exhorted to it. Singing, taken in a strict and proper sense, and as a natural act, is an act of the tongue or voice; though not every action of the 'tongue, or sound of the voice, is to be called singing. Speech is an action of the tongue; but all kind of speaking is not singing; singing is speaking melodiously, musically, or with the modulation of the voice. These two sounds, speaking or saying, and singing, have not the same idea annexed to them; should we be told that such a man, as commonly expressed, said grace before and after meat, we should at once understand what is meant, that he asked of God a blessing upon his food, before eating, and returned thanks after it, ac cording to the common use of speech, in prayer to God, and in conversation with men: but if it should be said, he sung grace before and after meat, we should not be able to form any other idea of it, but that he did it in a tonical, 'musical way, with a modulation of the voice. It is not any clamour of the tongue, or sound of the voice, that can be called singing; otherwise why should the tuneful voice and warbling notes of birds be called singing, Cant. ii. 12. ↳ Ad uxorèm, 1. 2. c. 6. p. 190. c 8. p. 191.

any more than the sound of the voice of other animals; as the roaring of the lion, the bellowing of the ox, the bleating of the sheep, the neighing of the horse, the braying of the ass, the barking of the dog, or the grunting of the hog? The clamorous noisy shouts of conquerors, and the querulous notes, shrieks and cries of the conquered, are very different from the voice of singing: when Moses and Joshua came down from the mount, says Joshua, There is a noise of war in the camp; and he (Moses) said, It is not the voice of them that shout for mastery; neither is it the voice of them that cry for being overcome; but the noise of them that sing do I hear; that sung and danced about the calf. And singing musically with the voice, as a religious action, is distinct from all other religious acts and exercises.

1. From prayer: James speaks of them as two distinct things in the place before quoted; and so the apostle Paul, when he says, I will pray with the Spirit, and I will sing with the Spirit also; or if he means the same, he must be guilty of a very great tautology, 1 Cor. xiv. 15. Paul and Silas in prison, both prayed and sung praises, which are evidently two distinct exercises, Acts xvi. 25. — 2. It is distinct from giving thanks; Christ, in the institution of the supper, gave thanks, this he did as his own act and deed, singly and alone; but after supper he and his disciples sung an 'hymn or psalm together; and the apostle having directed the church at Ephesus to sing psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, makes mention afterwards of giving thanks to God in the name of Christ, as a distinct duty incumbent on them, Matt. xxvi. 26-30. Eph. v. 19, 20. 3. It is distinct from praising God; for though we do praise him in singing, yet all praising is not singing. Singing is only one way of praising God; there are others; as when we celebrate the adorable perfections of God, oi speak well of them in preaching, or in common discourse; when we ruturn thanks to him for temporal and spiritual mercies in prayer; when we shew forth his praise, and glorify him by our lives and conversations; in neither of which senses can we be said to sing if praising is singing, what then is singing of praise! 4. It is different from inward spiritual joy, which is wrought in the soul by the Spirit of God, and arises from views of interest in the love of God, in the covenant of grace, in the person, blood, righteousness, and sacrifice of Christ; and this indeed fits a person for singing the praises of God, but is distinct from it, ds any merry? sudupe Tis, is any of a good mind, or in a good frame of soul: ·let him 'sing psalms; but then the frame and the duty are different things; spiritual joy is not singing; but the cause and reason of it, and makes a man capable of performing it in the best manner. 3. Though there is such a thing as mental prayer, there is no such thing as mental singing, or singing in the heart, without the voice. Speaking or preaching without the tongue dr voice, are not greater contradictions, or rather impossibilities, than singing without a voice or tongue is. Such an hypothesis is suited for no scheme but quakerism; and we may as well have our silent meetings, dumb preaching, and mute prayer, as silent singing; singing and making melolly in the heart,

ευθύμει τις,

1

is no cther than singing with or from the heart or heartily; or, as elsewher expressed, with grace in the heart, that is, in the exercise of it; it does no exclude the voice in singing, but hypocrisy in the heart, and requires sincerit in it. I go on,

II. To prove, that singing the praises of God has always been a brand of natural or revealed religion, in all ages and periods of time, and eve will be.

1. It was a part of the worship of God with the heathens; as prayer is natural and moral duty, so is singing the praises of God: as men by the lig of nature are directed to pray to God, when in distress, or for mercies the want, Jonah i. 6. so they are directed by the same to sing the praises of Go for mercies received. A modern learned writer observes, that "though r ligions the most different have obtained in various nations and ages, yet this they all agree, that they should be solemnized in hymns and songs:" a cording to Plato the most ancient kind of poetry lay in those devotions to G which were called hymns; the credit and applause which Homer got, w owing to the hymns he composed for the deities; and among his works is st ́extant an hymn to Apollo; as Orpheus before him composed hymns to several deities, which are yet in being under his naine. The whole science music was employed by the ancient Greeks in the worship of their gods, Plutarch attests. One part of the religious worship of the Egyptians, consi ed of hymns to their deities, suitable to the honour of them, and which th sung morning and evening, at noon, and sun-setting, as Clemens of Alexand and Porphyry relate; and the Indians also spent the greatest part of the and Light in prayers and hymns to the gods, as the last of these writers affir Remarkable is the saying of Arrianus the Stoic philosopher'; "If, says we are intelligent creatures, what else should we do, both in public and priva than to sing an hymn to the deity? — If I was a nightingale, I would do a nightingale, and if a swan, as a swan; but since I am a rational creatur ought to praise God, and I exhort you to the self-same song: this is work whilst I live, to sing an hymn to God, both by myself and before one many." From these, and other instances which might be produced, we n conclude, that the Gentiles were by the light of nature directed, and by the 1 of nature obliged, to this part of worship; and consequently that it is a par natural religion. - 2. It was practised by the people of God before the giv of the law by Moses; the lxxxviiith and lxxxixth psalms are thought by son to be the oldest pieces of writing in the world; being long before the birth Moses, composed by Heman and Ethan, two sons of Zerah, the son of Jud the one in a mournful elegy deplores the iniserable state of Israel in Egypt; other joyfully sings prophetically their deliverance out of it. The xcth ps was written by Moses himself, at what time it is not said; however, certai i Lowth. de Sacr. Poesi Heb. Prælect. 1. p. 21. De Legibus, 1. 3. F. 819. Ed. Ficin. vian. Epictetus, l. 1. c. 16. & l. 3. c. 26. Lightfoot, vol. 1. p. 699, 700.

m

s, that Moses and the children of Israel, sung a song at the Red sea, after heir passage through it, and the destruction of the Egyptians in it; which is till on record, and it seems will be sung again when the antichristian Pharoah, nd the antichristian powers, are destroyed by the christian conquerors, standing n a sea of glass, with the harps of God in their hands, Exod. xv. 1. Rev. xv. 3. Now this being before the law of Moses, when first sung, it was not one by virtue of that law; nor was it of ceremonious institution, nor a part of vorship peculiar to the Levitical dispensation; nor was it by any positive law if God to the sons of men, that we know of; but was sung by the Israelites ccording to the dictates of their consciences, and the examples of others before em, by which they were influenced, as to cry to the Lord when in distress, so sing his praises when they were deliverd. 3. It was not a part of divine rvice peculiar to Israel under the law; but when psalmody was in the most ourishing condition, under the direction and influence of David their king, he many of his psalms, called upon and exhorted the nations of the earth, to sing e praises of God; Make a joyful noise unto God, all ye lands, or all the earth; it the people, even all the people, praise thee; let the nations be glad and sing før y, sing unto the Lord all the earth! &c. Psalm. Ixvi. 1, 2. Now if singing vas not a part of moral worship, but of a ceremonious kind, the nations of the arth would have had no concern in it, nor would it have been obligatory upon tem.-4. When the ceremonial law was in its greatest glory, and legal sacriices in highest esteem, singing of psalms and spiritual songs was preferred unto hem, as more acceptable to God than the offering of an ox or bullock, Psalm xix. 30, 31. Now no other reason of this preference can be given, but that he sacrifice of an ox was of ceremonial institution, whereas singing the praises if God was a part of moral worship, which might be performed in a spiritual nd evangelic manner. 5. When the ceremonial law, with all its rites, was abolished, this duty of singing the praises of God remained in full force; at he same time the apostle tells the churches, that the law of commandments was abolished, and they were no more to be judged with respect to meats, and drinks and holy days, these shadows being gone; he exhorts them most strongly to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, Eph. ii. 14, 15. &c. Now it is not reasonable to suppose that the apostle, in the same epistles, written to the same persons, should declare them disengaged from the one, and under obligation to regar 1 the other, if they equally belonged to the same ceremonial law. 6. That the churches of Christ under the gospel dispensation were to sing, have sung, and ught to sing the praises of God vocally, appears, - From the prophesies of The Old Testament concerning it. In many of the psalms respecting the times of the Messiah, the churches of God in them are invited to sing the praises of God; as in Psalm xlvii, lxviii, and xcv, and in many of the prophesies of Isaiah It is declared, that not only the watchmen, the ministers of the word, should lift up the voice, and with the voice together sing; but that churches should break forth into joy, and sing together, Isai. lii. 7-9. blessed be God these predictions