be thought the portions allotted to each are these viz. To T. S. Psal. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. and 23. as posted after W. W. who has the preference of the two Paraphrasts 25. 26. 28. 29. 32. 33. 34. 41. 43. 44. 53. 63. 66. 68 73. 103. 120. 123. 128. To J. H. Psal. 24. 27. 30. 31. 35. 36. 38. 39. 40. 42. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. Set after one entitled to W. W. as in like manner is Psal. 51. 52. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 64. 65. 67. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97. 98. 99. 100. with another on the same to shew the variety of his fancy 108. 146. 148. To T. N. are attributed Psal. 101. 102. 105. 106. 109. 110. 111. 115. 116. 117. 118. 129. 135. 136. 138. 139. 140. 141. 142. 143 144. 145. 147. 149. 150. To W. W. Psal. 23. 27. 50. 51. 114. 119. 121. 124. 126. 127. 130. 133. 134. 137. To W. K. Psal. 104. 107. 112. 113. 122. 125. To M. Psal. 131. 132. To R. W. Psal. 125. as a second to W. K. To T. C. Psal. 136. as a second to N. Before their Book of Psalms are placed other pieces of their Poetry or paraphrastical excellency viz. 1. Veni Creator beginning in English thus Come holy Ghost eternal God 2. The humble suit of a Sinner begin O Lord of whom I do depend 3. Venite exultemus Psal. 95. begin O come and let us now rejoyce 4. The Song of S. Ambrose called Te Deum begin We praise thee God we knowledge thee 5. The Song of the three Children begin O all the works of God the Lord. 6. The Song of Zecharias called Benedictus begin The only Lord of Israel 7. The Song of the Blessed Mary called Magnificat begin My Soul doth magnifie the Lord. 8. The Song of Simeon called Nunc Dimittis begin O Lord because my hearts desire 9. The Symbole or Creed of Athanasius begin What man soever he be 10. The Lamentation of a Sinner begin O Lord turn not away thy face The Lords Prayer or Pater-Noster begin Our Father which in Heaven art 12. The ten Commandments Audi Israel Exod 20. begin Heark Israel and what I say 13. The Complaint of a Sinner begin Where righteousness doth say None of these have any Authors name or Capital Letters for it prefixed except the second alone which has M. the same person in likelihood that translated two of the Psalms After their Book of Psalms Sir we find another Set of their Apocryphal Poetry which hath 1. A Song to be Sung before Morning Prayer T. B. beginning Praise ye the Lord ye Gentiles all 2. A Song to be Sung before Evening Prayer begin Behold now give heed such as be 3. The ten Commandments of God Exod. 20. begin Attend my people and give ear by W. W. 4. The Lords Prayer D. Cox begin Our Father which in Heaven art 5. The twelve Articles of the Christian Faith begin All my belief and confidence 6. A Prayer to the Holy Ghost to be sung before the Sermon begin Come holy Spirit the God of might 7. Da pacem Domine begin Give peace in these our days O Lord. 8. The Lamentation begin O Lord in thee is all my trust 9. A Thanksgiving after the receiving of the Lords Supper begin The Lord be thanked for his gifts 10. A Conclusive Song entitled to R. W. begin Preserve us Lord by thy dear word Perhaps some of the foresaid Letters beside R. S. and J. H. might be deciphered into names if an exact List were made of those Divines c. that upon the change of Religion after K. Edward's death either went directly hence or in the troubles at Strasburgh and Frankfort departed thence for Geneva I intend not to search so narrowly into the reports we have from either place nor will engage my self in a bare conjecture at what the Reverend Dr. Heylyn and other alike sagacious Writers have either not discovered or thought not worth communicating but my opinion in general I declare is this That the whole Bundle or Body of these their Psalms Songs c. by whomsoever composed or paraphrased had the approbation of the whole Classis of our English there assembled in conjunction with some Scotch and French whom they called in or consulted and for ought we can be assured of by no other than the same Classis or Colloquy were they allowed to the publick purposes pretended by the Printer in his Title-page which being no less authentick than that which had their Translation of the Bible or the Genevian Notes upon it passes currantly enough with the hereditary Tribe of our Sectaries That Translation which King James judged to be the worst that he had ever seen in the English Tongue Those Notes upon the same which his Majesty told us in the Conference at Hampton-Court are partial untrue seditious and savouring too much of dangerous and trayterous conceits Those notes which yet I heard boldly pleaded for at the Tryal of the Most Reverend Archbishop Laud who so well as I remember guarded himself by the Sentence of that Learned King though no Deference at all was made or owned due unto it by their Lawyers but that I have nothing to do with here otherwise than as the authority of those Notes and these Psalms whether by allowance or connivance seems to be much alike and either thereby justified so much as comes to nothing but both alike to be condemned for the abuse The acephalike Songs that have not any single Letter at all to entitle them being taken in with those that have as supplemental to 'em and brought over with 'em from Geneva For I cannot suppose any one individual person would be so bold without countenance of a packt Society or Assembly to impose upon a National Church what Metrical Psalms shall be Sung and when to the discharging those Sacred and Canonical Hymns in Prose before appointed by express publick order to be Said or Sung being set to more solemn Tunes as practis'd in our Cathedrals such as will carry up any truly devout Soul in holy raptures or fix it in holy ecstasies much sooner than the esseminate notes as Strada calls 'em of Marot or the flatter Symphony made of Sternhold Hopkins and the rest by our Fanatick people To which purpose I mean to infringing the rule of our Church set in her Rubricks was not only our Introit or 95 Psalm slightly Paraphrased but as before-mentioned the Song of S. Ambrose called Te Deum which in Prose should be Said or Sung after the first Lesson at Morning Prayer or at choice then the Song of the three Children The Song of Zacharias called Benedictus after the Morning-Second Lesson The Song of Blessed Mary called Magnificat after the First and the Song
of Simeon called Nunc dimittis after the Second at Evening Prayer The other two then alike permitted to choice Cantate Domino and Deus misereatur being the 98 and 67 Psalms they had translated among the rest A Prayer to the Holy Ghost to be sung they tell us before the Sermon beginning Come holy Spirit the God of might what intimates it less than that the descent of the H. Ghost may be no less confidently expected or asked upon the Minister at the delivery of his whether premeditated or extemporary Sermon than as by the Bishop Said or Sung the whole Assembly kneeling by far the more humble posture at his Ordination Their Song to be Sung before Morning and another before Evening Prayer supposeth the Congregation fully or but in part assembled If fully then it seems the Church Service must be arrested until the people have solaced themselves with a Song If not fully then most likely it is intended to find them some imployment rather than they should sit idle as if a silent and serious meditation were of no use or as if the people knowing what they are to do first after their Ministers Exhortation declared to 'em viz. to say a general Confession after him might not better be employed in a particular recollection or mental recapitulation each one of his personal transgressions omissions c. and to prepare himself to bear a sad but salutaries part in that general Confession of the whole Congregation That the Creeds the Decalogue and Pater-noster are likewise versified and left at large to be sung at pleasure does still but aggravate or aggrandize the mischief of their intention for though neither of the two latter can well be too far extended or branched into more particulars than God prescribeth us duties or is gracious to admit as Petitions put up to him which may allow some latitude to their invention we see it taken in large Paraphrases on the Lords Prayer and yet larger Expositions on the Ten Commandments The object of Faith is under as much restraint so as a little slip in comprehension of the Sense or in Poetick Licence creates somewhat as it were of a new Creed and when accurately examined either affixeth a fundamental errour or gives the lie to him that utters matter of his own invention instead of divine infusion not understanding or not believing what he in prick-song affirms he does I enter not into strict Scrutiny of what therein they have done but desire any intelligent and indifferent person to take into due consideration the Prose and Metre of St. Athanasius's Symbol if theirs in Verse we may call his and then seriously resolve me Whether he can with half that vigour and assurance declare his assent to the one as to the other so much abatement being by the inartificial Version in the grandeur of style so much distance in the elevation of affections from the language of the Saint himself though translated and that of the Poet though slickt in Rhime enough to vilifie a mans Faith in his own conceit and damp his confidence to sing or say what is the conclusion of it for considerate men will not easily advance so far as to exclude altogether from Salvation all such as have not faith enough in the fancy of a pitiful and pievish Poet we know what scruple or difficulty has been made by many sober persons at the conclusive Sentence of that Creed in Prose who doing it in no contentious but a conscientious motive a dread to denounce Damnation against such as otherwise they esteemed their good Christian Brethren I shall only blame their diffidence in the tradition of the Church which ever held it as a most Orthodox and Pious Paraphrase of the Apostles Creed And I remember very well with circumstance of time and place when a learned person consulted this Reverend Dean Whether a man might not safely remit somewhat of that rigour and yet not deviate culpably from the common path others trod in or at least omit joining with the Minister in that so determinate conclusive Sentence His Reverence's Answer in good earnest was to this purpose He could be no good Christian nor true Son of the Church of England that did not animitus and entirely assent unto that Creed say it or say it not You see Sir how many essential parts of our Church-Service they have thus entrench'd upon whereof if they would have made a continued sequence and but inserted as they use to do while they take breath a Chapter or two of their own chusing to be read by a Lay-Elder as in the Calvinian Churches their Minister would have found little or nothing for him to do but to usher in his Sermon with a long-winded Prayer and so our Liturgy as they would have it had been defeated by a meer Chant as in foreign parts they have said our Religion become nothing else but a bare Preach If hereunto I should add any Observations or Animadversions on the matter of those Geneva-ditties yea and the Psalms as they have order'd it a great deal of ignorance and folly and somewhat worse would be discovered In vain therefore do they pretend them in the Title-page that they the Psalms I mean have been conserred with the Hebrew which accord no better with those in our Psalter nor with the other in the Bishops Bible and most impudently do they obtrude upon us a publick allowance of them by the Queen or Government as must needs be meant when no such thing could be found though an argument was held about it in the High Commission Now Sir if you please we will parallel their designs which look so like one another that of the Huguenots in France together with the Calvinists in other Countreys and that of our Separatists or Puritans here in England which will appear alike the Setting up of a new Religion and in the issue a new modelling of the State too Theirs was to confound the Mass and ours the Mattins with the Vespers daily sung on both sides the water Theirs to make their Populacy no less than their Clergy concerned in Divine Offices ours to extrude or out the conforming Ministry from practising their Canon and Rubrick comfortably when they observed most of what they were appointed to do anticipated by their Psalms and Songs in Metre and so little or nothing left them of their Liturgy duty and wheresoe're they might have a Nonconforming Ministry of their own having a better esteem of the open Fields and Barns to meet in both for Singing and Preaching too than of our Churches or Steeple-houses as they rather call 'em experience hereof we have had all along among Scotch and English nor would the Dutch have done otherwise if they fought not out better conditions for themselves than could the French and so chang'd the publick face of Religion and therewith the ancient Government of their Countrey The Foreign Protestants as I have shewed you made use of Marot's and
evident enough it is the Queen either had been moved or apprehended she should be to divert the Revenues of such Livings to other uses else why was her Majesty sollicitous to open her mind in an unnecessary caution against what no body thought on but her self 4. That if any did as such Harpies may have been about her Her Majesty very piously and generously discouraged the attempt by disclaiming all thought or meaning to authorize or countenance it 5. That her Majesty secured the popular convenience and complacence by ordering Plain-Song and continuing the Common Prayer intelligible by such as would be attentive to it accordingly Sung 6. That for the more Musical Ears and distinctive Judgements in that Science her Majesty provided pecular Hymns in some better Melody not intending thereby to cherish or gratifie the Curious but administer Comfort to Pious Souls predisposed so to apply it From all which I conclude That Thomas Sternhold and his Mates or Followers were unknown to the Queen set upon their Poetical task by some that had in design not only to chace the more solemn Musick out of the Church but to divert or appropriate to themselves the Livings and maintenance of it if it could be obtained or extorted from the Superiour Power for why else should the Queen start the scruple Or why might they not hope to be altogether so successful in Sacriledge here as their elder Brethren had been in foreign parts Howsoever the industrious prosecution of this new invention cannot by indifferent and rational persons be judged to conduce so much as the former Parochial and present Cathedral practice either to the solemnity of our Service or one principal end of our Reformation viz. the intelligibility of what is Said or Sung in the Church unless Art and Science be postponed to Ignorance or our Rhimical Singers have a singular sagacity of Sense or facility of the Ear which no body must pretend to but themselves For let any person indifferently disposed though otherwise but meanly qualified to be judge in the case sincerely and ingenuously answer me Whether makes the more solemn and devoutly affecting Musick our Cathedral harmony regulated by a skilful Quire according to their Science or the flat asymphony the jarring dissonancy discordia discors in good earnest of an ignorant confused multitude met in a Parochial Church where is of course but one pitiful Proecento if the Clerk be any And Secondly Whether the like attentionhad to both the Psalms in Prose as chanted in the former be not by sar more distinctly intelligible than the rude Rhimes screamed and snuffled out in the latter But you will tell me Although not Order Custome more naturally prevalent has provided against that defect in many Churches and may be brought into the rest at the peoples pleasure viz. by the Clerks distinct reading every line before the Congregation sings it This I confess gives us a copy of some little countenance in answer to the objection but not enough to bear it self up against other inconveniences and indecencies observed in that practice by Wiser Men than they that offer to promote it Else certainly the Right Reverend and most judicious Bishop Wren would not have made a like enquiry after it as after other enormities in his Diocess of Norwich the 49th Article at his Visitation being this If any Psalms be used to be sung in your Church before or after the Morning and Evening Prayer or before or after the Sermons upon which occasions only they are allowed to be sung in Churches is it done according to that grave manner which first was in use that such do Sing as can Read the Psalms or have learned them by heart and not after that uncouth and undecent custome of late taken up to have every line first read by one alone and then sung by the people Those words by one alone were inserted afterward when his Lordship urged the same Article in his Diocess of Eley whither he was translated and complaint made of the Article to the Long Parliament by the factious William Prynne Compiler of a Book entituled Canterburies Doom pag. 372. And to the exclusion of those Rhiming Psalms out of the Service where they are too frequently intruded by popular consent his Lordship had caused to be inserted a peculiar clause in another distinct Article which was this After the Lessons doth he your Curate use no other Psalm or Hymn but those which the Book of Common Prayer hath appointed For his Lordship among other excellencies so exact a Critick in our language and observer of sense with its coherence neither of which but tript too frequently in the Geneva-Paraphrase since he could not suddenly repair all breaches nor restrain all extravagances which the Foreigners of several Nations had occasioned in his Diocess of Norwich was resolved by degrees to turn the stream into its proper Channel and keep it clear from mixing with the muddy waters of the Lake whereof Nature having given a precedent his Lordship understood a like possibility by due care in the current order of the Church As to which Foreigners above-mentioned I ask your leave Sir here to say If they had prudently and modestly used the Royal Grant of Indulgence to em from time to time of all they at first made known themselves then hoped or wished sc. That here they might enjoy the Liberty of Conscience and Safety for their Goods and Persons which their own Countrey had denied them as in King Edward the Sixth's Patent to 'em is thus expressed Proesidiis ad vitam degendam necessariis in Regno nostro egere non dignum esse duximus Granting them a place where they might exercise the Religion they had been bred up in after the rite and manner of their own Country among themselves Ubi inter suoe gentis moderni idiomatis homines Religionis negotia res Ecclesiasticas pro patrio ritu more intelligenter obire tractare possint Wherein the Gospel should be interpreted without corruption and the Sacraments administred according to the Word of God and Apostolical observation notwithstanding that they differed from the Government and Forms of Worship established in the Church of England If John a Lasco the Polonian instituted first Superintendant of that Society or Corporation could have been content with the free and quiet fruition enjoyment use and exercise of all they had asked according to the words in their Patent Libere quiete frui gaudere uti exercere for assurance of all which priviledge to be made good unto them the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs for the time being with the Court of Aldermen and Bishop of London were to be Curators and Protectors If John a Lasco like a false Lown a fly Serpent lying close under the leaves of the foresaid Patent had not watched and when he espied an unhappy rupture upon a slight occasion beginning to be made in our Church glided out of his covert on purpose to foment
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
the Schism and encrease it so far wretchedly abusing the Kings goodness as to appear in favour of the Zuinglian and Calvinian faction so early got over hither If he had not urged on that over-scrupulous Lord Elect of Glocester the Pious and Learned Hooper to persist irreconcileable to the Cap and Surplice If he had not yet more pragmatically writ an earnest Letter to that greater Divine and far meeker Christian M. Bucer inviting or importuning him to patronize that fond and frivolous conceit from whom he received deservedly a severe rebuke for his pains If he had not too openly and so far scandalously manifested his desires to say nothing of endeavours that Semi-Arrianism opin'd in Poland and the practice of it in one particular by Session at the holy Sacrament should have been introduced to the English Church in justifying which not only did he affect discourse but publish his frantick arguments in a Book entituled Forma ratio totius Ecclesiastici Ministerii as if on purpose to confront the better order established here If after their trooping off at Queen Mary's coming to the Crown and the quinquennium of Persecution passed over when Queen Elizabeth re-assumed the improvement of Reformation had not come over hither to the obstructing or retarding of that good work a greater number of such ungrateful men a medly of French Dutch and Walloons who were licensed to plant themselves in several parts of this Kingdom beside London most opportune for their trade being approximate unto or at no great distance from the Sea If by the fore-mentioned precedent they had not claimed a title to the like indulgence and with no great difficulty obtain'd their Patent If when obtained their Church in London had stretcht their priviledge no further than the length and latitude of the Letters from the Privy Council to them 1573. touching Rites and Ceremonies particularly their choice of posture in publick Prayer standing kneeling prostrating adoring whereof several Churches abroad had taken their Christian liberty dum hi stantes illi in genua procidentes alii proni procumbentes adorant precantur wherein by the way no mention at all is made of Session If the Order of K. James under his Signet June 13. 1616. which implied a parallel of their having so much allowed 'em here as our Natives had abroad with them might have moved them now and then to retrospection and careful enquiry whether the ballance of mutual courtesie were kept even and steady If the like concession renewed by K. Charles the First had been so gratefully accepted as graciously it was yeilded without a sinister reflection upon his marriage with the Royal Daughter of France 1625. or drawing by subtile insinuation an express promise from his Majesty that the said Marriage should not be any dammage to them but rather as himself hoped an occasion of much good to their Countreymen If the said Kings pleasure signified by his Privy Council Anno 1630. to the Dutch at Norwich and the same notified otherwhere had been humbly complied with which at no time grated more on the foreigners than the preservation of unity in his own Church required If no exemption had been insisted on from Archiepiscopal power their Metropotitan so well as ours when the King Secundum beneplacitum being no otherwise restrained than was his Royal Father appointed they should be visited upon great reason of State rendered for it so well as all Corporate Members and Parochial Churches in both Provinces to the sole intent that Right and Justice might be done and Unity preserved without any restriction laid on the manner of worship they had exercised before or retrenchment of the wonted jurisdiction among themselves If the two Congregations of strangers in the City of Norwich had not troubled their Diocesan with Remonstrance and Petition and afterward in like manner the Archbishop June 26. 1635. If the Generality of them had not published a Summary Relation of the Archbishops proceedings herein notwithstanding his Grace had before acquainted them that he proceeded according to Injunctions he had received from the King who preserved to himself the same liberty his Royal Father had who promised them protection no further than any other good King would do viz. with the convenience and security of his own Dominions Je vous protegeray ainsi que convient a unbon Prince c. If the querulous Confederates of the three foreign Churches in Kent had not afterwards Printed a Book entituled A Relation of their troubles caused by the Injunctions of William Laud Arch-bishop of Canterbury 1634. set sorth by John Bulteel one of their Walloon Ministers as I remember in Canterbury it self which in point of common civility might have spared their pains or if they would needs be importunate might have been further resolved to take notice whose order his Grace had for what he did and not render'd him odious for his good endeavours to keep our Churches and their Congregations too in peace and union the principal end and scope of that his Metropolitical Visitation If in summe all of them would have been regular as modest Strangers ought to have been by the direction of superiours both to them and us glving us no jealousie of their abetting or encouraging such our people as were disaffected to the government they lived under there might have needed no scrutiny by Visitation nor enquiry after them their priviledges by Patent being secured to 'em and our peaceable communication unmolested But you will ask Sir what pertinence have these hypotheses these Ifs to their or our singing Psalms the subject I had in hand Truly none otherwise than as I was prompted to bring 'em in upon that occasion having shewed before that from them was borrowed the uncouth custome and at length incorporated by their precedent with the practice of our Puritans among the Symbolic Characters of Protestant Reformation yet before I part with it I shall take the freedome to acquaint you with one affected instance of my personal observation acted by 'em in the presence of his Majesty at the Royal Chapel of St. James's few years since where one Sunday in the afternoon his Majesty being pleased to hear an eloquent and much samed Preacher in the French language I as ordered and of course read Common Prayer in English saying the Hymns Magnificat c. as appointed in our Rubrick when on a sudden unexpectedly some of the Foreigners there assembled began one of Marot's Psalms immediately followed by many more until inhibited by the hand as if they had not known where and before whom they were perswaded doubtless that our Office had been imperfect if not unsanctified in Dr. Heylins expression without such a Psalm And the very same licence with less guilt though not without fault and faction too have our own people of the like zealous sort taken in Parochial Congregations where they knew their Minister disaffected to Sternhold's and Hopkins's with the others metre must needs be
great hopes to be instructed that those Psalms had some better authority from above than a bare allowance which hath proved to be none but as the Stationer you find falsly pretends in the Title-page I made no scruple at owning the summ of what he alledged and gave such reasons in my own behalf as I had ready which could be answered with nothing but a popular Custom and insuperable prepossession which cast forth somewhat to this purpose If I had Preached the same in England when times were more Sedate and the Bishop had not censured me he had deserved to have been censured and that rather than the cause should have wanted prosecution himself would have been the Actor to pursue it I was somewhat troubled to see him so far transported as not to take notice that though this practice of Singing the Psalms in Rhime together with some other of Calvin and Beza's forming or countenancing had run many years on in our Church like wild-fire when the train is laid yet no prudent Bishop would urge his Clergy upon pretercanonical usages more than to preter-articulate Doctrines without the publick authority or private permission of the Supreme power that even in Ecclesiasticks is above him But his Honours naming of a Bishop called into my remembrance that the very same words for seldom in such Auditories do I dare at any time to vary from what my Pen prepares I had some years before delivered the same words I say in S. Maries the Right Reverend Doctor Brownrigg then not only Bishop but Vice-Chancellour beside other of the Consistorian Heads being present from none of whom received I any check nor so much as a srown observed when I came out of the Pulpit And a very learned Gentleman now a worthy Prelate of our Church coming a day or two after to my Chamber on a friendly visit moved me to let him read the whole Sermon over which I yeilded the rather because I attributed much to his judgement and was sure of his integrity not to conceal from me what he observed in it liable to censure or capable of construction into an offensive sense whereof nothing at all being spoken I had no reason to forbear the same Language elsewhere upon like occasion what I uttered being only this I am not at leisure now to discuss that opinion of Sanctius for which he citeth Theodoret that Elisha's Minstrel was no other than a Levite who Sung some of Davids Psalms unto him which it may be in their pure natural were by far diviner and chaster Musick than since after the ill handling of some uncouth Poets they became prostitute in the mouths of licentious Zelots and blind Enthusiasts whose sensual appetites too often hire their mercenary tongues to prophane this Musick while their impure thoughts are courting of their Mistress These lines as they lay I read unto his Honour whereby it appeared that I then named not the Paraphrasts as he being over-earnest alledged I did Hopkins at least wherein yet I had not been so bold with his name as the famed Court-Mercury had in the year 43. with that of a greater man in the same case when he writ thus on the Rebels of that time But let them be confident they that are unborn and cannot speak now will declare their admirable Rebellion to posterity so as they will be read upon every Post and Gate in as honourable Rhimes as Mr. Rouse bestowed upon the Singing Psalms a theme one would think which deserves better usage And better usage it had from a better Head and neater Hand of the more elegant Mr. George Sands whose name I then used wishing if a Paraphrase we must have that or some such might be in it wherein I would not refuse to join with the Congregation when authorized to sing it so far was I from declaiming against all Singing of Psalms though I thought it very just and not imprudent at all to incline the people to a dislike of that Paraphrase which had so many absurdities to say no worse in it that I trembled to sing them in the House of God adding that my close invective was meant against them I named not principally the London-Lecturers and other of those times who ordinarily went into the Pulpit with a Singing Psalm neglecting the Liturgy to gain time for their own longer Prayer Against the common practice of Parish Clerks as before-mentioned who upon a Puritannical suggestion or see given by some male-content or ill-principled person would select such a Psalm as the words whereof might be perverted to the encouragement of Sedition or Schism to which said his Honour The more Fools the Ministers that would suffer their Clerks to have the liberty of chusing the Psalms not observing what Ministers I aimed at no whit better not wiser than their Clerks But here he inserted an Interrogative of some terrour What if Mr. Gatford the next Sunday should preach against standing up at Gloria Patri being a thing brought in only by custome not command accordingly as I had newly instanced against the Singing Psalms To which although I could have made a sharp reply knowing what Mr. Gatford had formerly said and done in Sacris not only by the favour of Custome but against Canon Yet I moderated my self to this saying If there were the like reason for the one as the other and the like abuse let him do it for though he might I would not put a pillow under any ones elbow to give him ease with the peril of drawing the Vae in vengeance upon my self for the menace in Ezekiel by consent of many Interpreters extendeth beyond the women of his time though they alone be named and passeth from the Old-Testament Prophets to the Preachers of the New that slay souls by flattery for gain I am ashamed to let Posterity know how little my fair Apology prevailed where none at all ought to have been required for after two or three hours discourse on the Psalms and somewhat else I had preached about the Monastic life of the ancient Prophets who we may be sure were no Papists nor St. Basil and St. Hierome Fathers of the Greek and Latin Church separately taken other than good Catholick Christians although I kept distance enough from what may be controversial in the point yet this person of Honour was pleased to tell me in plain terms That he would have none of these new doctrines imposed upon him in publick as if the whole Assembly were contracted to his single person and if I would not forbear he would refrain coming to Church I presume he meant when he should know I was to preach wherein I left him to his liberty and preserved my own with no intendment to abuse it in any affront to him or others Sir This severe not to say rough dealing I could not well digest with the submission somewhat unreasonably expected but knowing no better remedy at hand than the Catholicon of Patience I made use of it