in the Holy Bible and prefer them to the same as they find them without any such Metamorphose in the Canon But in stretch of time which must not be forgotten providence permitted these Singularists to be payed home in their own kind as Doctor Heylyn historizeth more at large than I shall take liberty to transcribe for their brethren of the Second Separation became so licentious as in their three kinds of spiritual Worship Praying Prophesying and Singing of Psalms they would be under no kind of restraint but as to the third we are treating of proposed these Queries 1. Whether in a Psalm a man must be tyed to Meeter Rhime and Tune and Whether Voluntary be not as necessary in Tune and Words as well as Matter and 2. Whether Meeter Rhimes and Tune be not quenching the Spirit According to which Resolution of the New separation every man when the Congregation shall be met together may first conceive his own Matter in the Act of Praising deliver it in Prose or Meeter as he lists himself and in the same instant chant out in what Tune soever that which comes first into his own head Which would be such a horrible confusion of Tongues and Voices that hardly any howling or gnashing of Teeth can be like unto it they are the Doctors very words under which deserved censure I leave the Songsters or Separatists of both sorts to agree among themselves there being no likelihood upon the principles and practice by either party of their agreement with us and consormity to the order of our Church But Sir before I altogether quit the Subject undertaken by me upon occasion of the Deans Letter it is fit I give you some satisfaction without demand why I rested not on the authority of his Reverence's opinion as summarily and concisely written but extended my search so much further after matter of contradiction to so inveterate a custom that is radicated with the essentials of our Religion and seems to have condemned the Canon or Rubrick to eternal silence wherein to deal ingenuously and frankly with you the true reason beside what you may collect from my antecedent discourse is the ungrateful and yet irksome remembrances I am ever and anon molested with of the manifold vexation I have had in my time both at home and abroad upon account of my aversion from that rude Paraphrase so accounted by me ever since I was capable to judge of it and argue rationally against it For my first prejudice arising from what I observed in the University of Cambridge that many persons of a Pious conversation and devout assistants at the ordinances and offices of our Church whilest the Psalm was Sung by the great Assembly at St. Maryis sate there as mutes even in the Masters Quadrangle or Square the most publick in all the Church Besides frequently otherwhere when mention was made at any time of the several Paraphrasts especially the three small Poets Sternhold Hopkins and Wisdome the same worthy persons were wont to censure the work as it deserved and much to undervalue their parts and prudence in the attempt To understand better why they took liberty to condemn what every day gained ground upon the good opinion of others and pass'd so currantly in the use of our Churches so well Cathedrals as other for our Reverend Vindicator or Assertor of our practice must be understood in a very favourable sense and at least with restriction to the Quire it being manifestly otherwise I wish it were not in the Nave Area or body of the most when he writes Cap. 27. Psalmi Ryhthmici ab Ecclesiis Cathedralibus c. plane exultant nec nisi prosa oratione Cantuque simplicissimo ac ideo facillimo in iis cantantur Psalmi veteris versionis I remember as I was saying in my young days I took some pains to compare their trivial meeter with both the Translations of our Psalms in Prose by which I was convinced how much the Poems derogated from the Style and Gravity of the other and when I laid to them as I did the elegant Latin Paraphrase of the learned Buchanan and the alike terse English of Mr. Sands when I further applied my ear with good attention to the solemn Tunes used in our Colledge-Chapels especially with the Organ and to the confused noise or sound harshly render'd by Parochial Congregations so differently was I affected as I would never after permit my self any compliance in Singing with the generality of our common people where-ere I went Which with some other strictness I thought my self obliged to and could not satisfactorily dispence with made me seem so heterogeneous in many places and companies that much of my converse abroad was under a sort of Inquisition and no less accountable was I made to every Peevish Puritan I met with than if I had lost an article of my Creed and declined communion with my Christian brethren one or two instances among many more that occurr I shall here Sir obtrude upon you and then draw toward a conclusion that I may not tire you quite When the War ended in the West I had with other my Lord Hoptons Servants the benefit of his Lordships Articles and liberty to leave England The first opportunity I had to exercise my function was in the Isle of Jerzey where even after his Highness the Prince of Wales was gone for France three or four of the Loyal Clergy kept up an English Congregation in St. Hilliars Church beside those in the Castle In my turn of Preaching it happened once my Text led me into a discourse of Church-musick instrumental and vocal the latter giving me occasion to mention our Psalms in Meeter not without some complaint of the unskilful Paraphrasts that undertake the task But more against the abuse I had observed wrought by some Seditious Parish-Clerks or other malicious people that suggested such or such a Psalm to be set in a juncture of time or business that the like affected in the Congregation understood very well what interest they served or party therein they gratified nor was this practice inconsiderable in the very ferment of the grand Rebellion for what I speak in that sort if I might expect no thanks I knew no reason why I should apprehend a censure from any intelligent and indifferent person then present having used such caution as might guard me from all just exception But my self-opinion was soon frustrate by a call I had to attend a person of Honour of which eminent quality divers were then there at his Chamber whither being come he immediately gave the meaning of his summons the scandal he had taken at my Sermon the Sunday before particularizing some invective words I used against the composure or style and the authors too of the Paraphrase often mentioned He was pleased to dilate more upon it than so small an errour deserved if an errour it had been I attentively hearkned to all he said as in good manners so in
his performance By fits his confidence was such as where advantageous to croud himself into the number of the most exact Conformists yet he had the justice done him never to be taken for one through-pac'd or principled His Sermon is not yet forgot which in a critical time he preached at St. Mary's Cambr. upon 1 Kings 18. 21. And Elijah came unto all the people and said How long halt ye between two opinions if the Lord be God follow him but if Baal then follow him And this he did with so warm a Zeal though not so pure a Spirit as that of Elijah nor so upright a mind He halted not indeed as was plain enough through his whole discourse but his bent or biass leaned altogether toward the wrong side h He could not have made his story credible without using the Dean's name or some others of like good note i The authority of their private Ordinances signifie little toward the publick practice of the Church k If any such order be why appears it not so far to justifie what authority can be pretended for ' em l Nor ever shall have I hope until their sense and language be better rectified and refined m Permitted rather than allowed says the Reverend Dr. Heylyn For though it be expressed in the Title of those Singing Psalms that they were Set forth and allowed to be Sung in all Churches before and after Morning and Evening Prayer and also before and after Sermons yet this allowance seems rather to have been a Connivance than an Approbation no such Allowance being any where found by such as have been most industrious and concerned in the search thereof in some tract of time as the Puritan Faction grew in strength and confidence they prevailed so far in most places as to thrust the Te Deum the Benedictus the Magnificat and the Nunc dimittis quite out of the Church See Hist. of Ed. 6. Further yet They came to be esteemed the most Divine part of Gods publick Service the Reading Psalms together with the first and second Lessons being heard in many places with a covered Head but all men sitting bare-headed when the Psalm was Sung And to that end the Parish Clerk must be taught to call upon the people to sing it to the Praise and Glory of God no such preparatory Exhortation being used at the naming of the Chapters or the daily Psalms See Hist. of the Presbyterians The Deduction SIR THE Original of this Device was not in England but first taken up by one Clement Marot a Groom of the Bed-Chamber to the French King Francis the first a witty man that had a natural Vein of facile Poesie in that Language wherewith he diverted that King often who was much delighted with him until by conversing with the Lutherans he had got a tincture of their good Fellowship and Religion too an intimation whereof being made to the King he was fain to fly the Court and betake himself to the protection of Q Margaret de Valois the Kings Sister vetus reorum asylum says F. Strada until the Kings indignation should be appeased as after a while it was which encouraged him to return to Paris where he was prevailed with by Fr. Vetablus Professor of the Hebrew Tongue to relinquish his trifling Doggrel and betake himself to a more serious and solemn task of turning David's Psalms into French Metre as he did the first fifty but so unskilfully and perversly as being a person utterly illiterate setting his Rhiming vein aside disciplinarum homo omnium apprime rudis Strada that though the King sung them as he had done his former Ballads now and then upon just complaints made to his Majesty by the Doctors of the Sorbone an Edict was made That nothing of Marots composure should be published ever after Yet so fond were the common people of this novelty and the more perhaps because forbid that new Tunes being set to em sing 'em they would and so well was he pleased with their applause that by his folly and licentious language he betrayed the safety he had recovered and took his flight to Geneva where well acquainted he became with Beza yet not so as to be protected by him against Publick Justice which for some Crimes he had there committed whipt him out of the Town and sent him away to seek sanctuary somewhere else But in tract of time so much kindness had Theodore Beza for the repute of his old acquaintance as he finished the imperfect work by Translating into better Rhime and Sense the other hundred Psalms and honouring his deceased Friend with an Elegy in French metre I am to add that with such allectation they were Tuned by the Musick-masters whom Beza selected for that employment as they bewitcht the multitude and won the good liking of others that had more refined Ears and nicer Fancies so as they became the Sirens and Tarantalus of Sea and Land all people that were not wise enough to foresee the mischief they were to produce and honest enough to have no hand in it being invited to join in consort and measure which way soe're they turned themselves or with whom soever they conversed in coctibus in triviis in officinis in Temples in the Tradesmens Shops in the Travellers Roads and Walks in all the crooked and by ways of the French-Reformed Now had all this been done in a devout zeal though with a mixture of some superstition it would not have been so blame-worthy but when afterward it proved a prime incentive to Rebellion and the New Psalter so they called it lifted up as an Ensign for all the Prophane Sacrilegious wretches to assemble at and march after the true intent was then discovered and by frequent instances was manifested in all parts of Europe where it got entrance that this soft Musick wrought worse effects than the Warlike Drum or loudest Trumpet of Sedition One or two instances of which mischievous and profane abuse I could here insert but because I find Monsieur Maimbourgh somewhat more particular than Fam Strada as to what concerns Cl. Marot and not accordant in all circumstances that I may not seem to espouse the cause as by one related to some prejudice of the other I will select a few passages I have observed in the latter Writer of the two and be more impartial unto both than perhaps either of them have been to the Poetaster Marot That he was born in Aquitain I think both agree in Diveana Cadurcorum says the one Natif de Cahors the others That having lived too much a Libertine and thereby become obnoxious to the censure c. of those in the Roman Church he betook himself to the Reformed party against whom the King his Master having published very severe Edicts and declared his resolution not to spare any person that should desert the Religion himself professed Marot fearing an arrest retired and lived at Bearne and after some time went farther off beyond the Alpes
Beza's Psalms to cherish and encourage one another in their Rebellious attacks and Sacrilegious spoils The Dutch and Germans have employed theirs to a like good purpose but what their Poets name was I have not hitherto been informed Our Puritans have done the like in our late Civil Wars with Sternhold and Hopkins when they have gone about to charge their more Loyal Countrey-men then in Arms for the King as may be made good from their forces in Lincolnshire and other Countries Nay I fear we have outdone the Foreigners in one very profane practice I have observed that I mean is libelling parties yea and single persons in the choice of a Psalm the sense whereof shall be forced to reproach a Sentence judicially pronounced at the end of some suit at Law and sometimes to ridicule conformity to the order of our Church That our Rebels guilt made them jealous of the like project in those whom they suspected for more Legal principles than their own is not amiss noted from that act of folly if not more criminal I have read perpetrated by Isaac Penington London's Lord Chief Justice in his time who sent a fellow to Newgate perhaps a Clerk of some Church there only for setting a Malignant Psalm as he did another for Reading a Malignant Chapter possibly the 13th to the Romans such a one as he would have had encerped among many others toward constituting a new Apocrypha to secure a Scriptural Canon if he and other such misereants could have compiled it to countenance their Rebellion as they did in misapplied Texts too often by Holy Writ Some other improper uses they made of 'em as at their City Feasts in the place of more artificial Musick that commonly attend such entertainments And as an hypocritical property to gain the reputation of Piety in the strict observance of family-duties as they call them whereof some of their own Children have taken notice as did that Boy who being reproached by his Play-fellow That they Sung no Psalms upon Sabbath days in the Evening as his Father and the rest did at their House received this in answer with too much truth as the young Gamester ingenuously meant it That the reason why at his Fathers house no Psalms were wont to be Sung was because they had no Window toward the street Many odd passages in reference to those Psalms have affected the minds of most judicious persons whose ears they have arrived but none upon that account have in their merriment made more reflections in contempt and scorn of our Religion which they will needs suppose either allows or tolerates 'em than some in the Roman Communion who to my knowledge mimically sing their Tunes and act such Farces with ridiculous circumstances as have been credibly reported to 'em observing also the rusticity of their language and inconsonancy of their Rhime as no man in his right mind can better temper an excuse of what he must not disown than by a smile and silence To what end they were first ordained may be shrewdly guessed by the critical season of their composition which we read was about the same time when by the formality of a Commission accompanied with the irregularity of Riotous and Sacrilegious people not only the Plate and rich Ornaments of the Altars were seized on in the Kings name E. 6. for their own commodity but most furniture of all sorts belonging to the several Quires throughout the Realm were rifled and the very structures in a great part demolished or defaced that in St. Paul's Cathedral it self not escaping as if so well the daily Sacrifice of praising God in Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs whatsoever the new Liturgy order'd otherwise were thence to be exterminated as that of the Mass. They that had such apprehension or other conceit in fancy for innovation might easily be induced to entertain this new device at least in their private Houses and as formerly they had been gratified with the priviledge of reading the Scripture in our vulgar language so now be yet more pleased with the liberty they might enjoy at will of singing their Psalter thus Poetically improved in the same Howsoever this may be not invidiously nor partially observed from the first publication of 'em that they were by none more regarded nor more eagerly contended for than by those that were most seditiously inclined and disaffected to the established order of the Church which in this particular among others was carefully provided for especially after the coming of the precise Brethren from Geneva where they had not only learned from their great Master Calvin a new Institution or System of Religion but acquainted themselves well with his subtile methods of Sacriledge or Sequestation of any Church Revenue which they could pretend to have been superstitiously employed that is in more truth applied to the external decency or solemnity of Divine Service and Religious Worship of God in his Holy Temple for little less than a suspicion of Rapine in some such sort seemeth to be implied in the 49 Injunction of Queen Elizabeth whereunto it occurs thus Because in divers Collegiate and also some Parish Churches heretofore there have been livings appointed for the maintenance of Men and Children to use singing in the Church by means whereof the laudable service of Musick hath been had in estimation and preserved in knowledge the Queens Majesty neither meaning in any wise the decay of any thing that might conveniently tend to the use and continuance of the said Science neither to have the same in any part so abused in the Church that thereby the Common Prayer should be the worse understanded of the hearers willeth and commandeth that first no alterations be made of such assignments of living as heretofore hath been appointed to the use of Singing or Musick in the Church but that the same so remain And that there be a modest and distinct Song so used in all parts of the Common Prayers in the Church that the same may be as plainly understanded as if it were read without singing and yet nevertheless for the comforting of such that delight in Musick it may be permitted that in the beginning or in the end of Common Prayers either at Morning or Evening there may be sung an Hymn or such like Song to the praise of Almighty God in the best sort of Melody and Musick that may be conveniently devised having respect that the Sentence of the Hymn may be understanded and perceived My Remarks upon which Injunction are these 1. That not only in Cathedrals but in some Parochial Churches also means had been setled upon Singing-men and younger Choristers to begin and carry on the Solemn Tunes of the Psalms in Prose as they are Verse after Verse prickt out by a middle distinction to that purpose 2. That the said settlement advanced the estimation of Musick accounted a laudable Service when diligently attended and performed according to the true intent and first institution thereof 3. That